A discussion starter from Dr Peter Toon, December 4, 2005
I wish to suggest – with some trepidation and hesitation – that because traditional and orthodox Christian groups have adopted the terms of reference and language of innovators in Christian anthropology and sexual morality, they have effectively lost not only the debate but also the war of ideas. This is clearly so within the Episcopal Church of the USA, and may well even be so in popular Evangelicalism. Let us focus on the vocabulary and expressions used in the advancement of the cause of innovatory doctrine and practice in this important area.
ECUSA as example
In June 2005, the Episcopal Church sent representatives to the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in the UK to explain its commitment to the innovation of the blessing of partnerships of two men or two women and to the ordaining of persons in such partnerships. They carried with them a book, To Set our Hope on Christ, to explain in detail their message. In this book, one meets often the expression “same-sex affection.”
I suspect that for the older person – and maybe for the younger one – hearing or reading the expression “same-sex affection” presents the image to the mind of two men holding hands or embracing, or two women doing something similar. The image could be more dramatic; but, essentially, the general or usual understanding is of two persons who possess the same biological features showing affection one to another in explicit ways.
However, this way of understanding the expression “same-sex affection” is not exactly what the team of writers of To Set our Hope on Christ has in mind. The Presiding Bishop’s team moves in a specific sphere of understanding (which is relatively new in the history of ideas but now generally accepted in the officialdom of government, education and big business). In this world an important distinction is made between “gender” and “sex”.
The word “gender” was previously used – as we recall from our Latin or Spanish classes – primarily if not only in the study of language to indicate the specific character of nouns in order to determine the form of the adjective to go with them [whether masculine, feminine or neuter] ). Now, it also refers in the new ideology to the biological make-up of the person when viewed in the nude, male if with male reproductive organs and female if with female reproductive organs. So when filling in forms today one is asked for one’s gender.
The word “sex” was previously used to indicate the biological nature of a human being in terms of reproduction and so there was the male and the female sex. Now in the new ideology it refers to the “internal wiring,” the “orientation,” and “the inbuilt preference” of a person sexually. And this may be towards the male “gender”, the female “gender”, or both. That is, the reproductive organs of a person are no sure indication of his or her “orientation” which is said to be located in the psyche not in the genital organs.
So “same-sex affection” for the new morality of the Presiding Bishop and his team is not only the showing of tender feelings between two persons of the same “gender,” it is also between two persons of the same “sex”, that is of the same “wiring,” “orientation” and “preference,” showing tender feelings. Thus in this ideology such affection is judged to be natural, normal and moral for those who are “wired” in this particular way. In fact, it is even argued that it would be immoral for such a person to engage in intimate sexual acts with a person of the opposite “gender”, that is, opposite biological make-up merely because such a relation is regarded as the historical and general norm.
Traditionalists and the use of these words
Thus, when the “traditionalist” and “orthodox” and “Evangelical” use these words – and let us be clear just how widespread now is the use of “gender” and “orientation” – they need to consider how much they are conceding to the innovators. In fact, they need to ponder whether or not they have lost any control of the debate in that they have accepted the premises of the other side by both using the words and doing so in their way.
If we go back a little – not too far – in the use of the English language (e.g. when I was at secondary school and university) the word “sex” was used in line with its Latin origins from the root sexus or secus with the meaning of to “divide” or to “halve” So “sex” is the division of the human race into two kinds, the male and the female, each with a specific body shape designed to fit with and into the other for the purpose of procreation.
Only in the twentieth century did “sex” come to be used of “sexual intercourse”, of an activity rather than on objective, fixed state of being (apparently D.H. Lawrence helped to pioneer this usage of referring to carnal intercourse as “having sex”). As “sex” became an activity rather than as a fixed being, so the word “gender” was called out of the field of grammar in the 1960s into a new use -- to refer to the objective biological fact of the identity of a human being as either male or female. This use of words was taken up by the powerful feminist movement from the 1960s and by its influence it has been generally accepted – along with inclusive language – by academia, business, media, government, and churches.
Once this distinction is in place, then developments from it came quickly and easily. “Sex” is not only activity, it is also the internal wiring or passion of the soul / body that produces the desires for such activity. Further, this disposition or wiring (said the Lesbians in the Feminist Movement) is not always towards the opposite “gender”! It is often amongst activist women towards their own kind. Thus “orientation” as describing this inclination, disposition and wiring of the sexual drive was used increasingly to make and support the distinction between attraction towards the opposite and towards the same gender. And, as the decades went by, and the “Gay” lobby developed, the reality of such orientation was supposedly confirm by psychologists and psychiatrists. Now, to question the permanent character of orientation is to be seen as hopelessly out of touch.
It may be suggested that for the “traditionalist” and “orthodox” to adopt the doctrine, or even the probability of “orientation” towards the same “gender,” is virtually to lose the debate. It may be asked: Has it not become common place to state that we must distinguish between specific sexual acts (which is in sin) and orientation towards them (which is only a sin if it is cherished and developed)? To accept the presence of not merely inclinations and dispositions but an actual, permanent ordering or wiring towards people of the same gender and sexual drive is to concede much, very much. It is also for all practical purposes also to concede not only the ideological distinction between “sex” and “gender,” but also to underline it with the recognition that “sex” to be “normal” may be with the same “gender” and be so according to nature – according to natural sexual wiring! (Official R. C. teaching appears not to have followed Protestant churches and groups into the adopting or accepting this new language, especially the language of orientation.)
Oddity of the word Homosexual!
Here, in terms of etymology, we may now note the oddity of the words “homosexual” and “heterosexual” if the word ”sex” is used in its older and traditional meaning. “Homosexual” links a Greek word with a Latin word (homos, same, with sexus, half of a divided whole) to create a word that is without any sense, for it has internal contradiction. Sexus makes a man and women complementary as creatures while homos says they are the same. And “heterosexual” is tautological since sexus requires two different halves, male and female, and heteros means “other” and opposite..
So it is not surprising to find that the word “homosexual” is a relatively modern word and that it first appeared in English, along with “heterosexual”, in a translation of Psychopathologia Sexualis (1886) by Richard Kraft-Ebing. Then it was used by Havelock Ellis in his Studies in the Psychology of Sex in 1891. It came into use when the medical profession was beginning to discuss sexual deviancy in medical not moral terms. In ancient Greek there were no nouns corresponding to the modern “ a homosexual” and “a heterosexual” even though Latin and Greek are both rich in words to describe sexual relations between men and men, men and boys and so on – see J.N.Adam’s The Latin Sexual Vocabulary.
To concede the use of this word as legitimately describing a class of people, is a major concession in the debate over the proper relations between human beings. For it allows that there is a class of persons who are permanently by nature attracted towards, wired towards, orientated towards the same “gender” for “sex” purposes. And, further, it carries with it the implication (which is being gradually accepted in the West by governments, law, education, business etc.) that both their desires and their fulfillment are according to nature and thus are morally sound and therefore ought to be recognized as normal and not punished as abnormal.
Conclusion
It would seem that the opposition to the “Gay” lobby in the churches has been on the basis of biblical doctrine and Christian ethical tradition. However, this has had limited effect because of the major concessions made in terms of language and vocabulary.
So it would appear that there is a major task for Christian scholars to devise ways of speech and forms of description that allow the churches to speak courteously of those who claim to be “gay” and yet not in such speech concede to them the rightness and morality of their cause, claims and commitments. Right now the debate between received, biblical and traditional sexual morality and innovatory doctrine and practice is being conducted very much in the terms and with the words that actually gives one side more than a head start!
[For further reading I heartily commend “The Gay Invention: Homosexuality is a linguistic as well as a moral error” by Professor R.V. Young in Touchstone, Dec. 2005. This essay has been an inspiration to me as were previous ones by this author. www.touchstonemag.com]
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