Commentary: The Scandal of Sexual Restraint

Anything or anyone in The Episcopal Church who dares to stand up and say homosexual behavior is wrong is automatically branded homophobic, narrow-minded, and uninclusive.

NEW YORK, N.Y. (Virtue on Line) - Nothing scandalizes liberals more than the idea of sexual restraint. Anything or anyone in The Episcopal Church who dares to stand up and say homosexual behavior is wrong is automatically branded homophobic, narrow-minded, and uninclusive causing immediate pain to New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson.

So it should come as no surprise then that in his one and only conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Williams berated Robinson for bypassing the process and not doing his theological homework when making the case for homogenital sex.

Robinson reported recently that the ABC lectured him on how he should have studied, written, theologized, made canons, and rules, and so forth before The Episcopal Church ever took this action which has been so disruptive to the Communion.

Now it is interesting to note that nowhere did Robinson report Dr. Williams saying that homosexual behavior was abhorrent and wrong or that it might preclude Robinson from the Kingdom of God (I Cor. 6:9) along with adulterers and fornicators, as well as drunkards, revilers and swindlers. (There is no reason not to exclude Bernie Madoff, a secular Jew, from the company of the damned along with Gene Robinson).

Williams, however, was more interested in the failure of TEC not doing the hard theological work necessary to reach the point that he, presumably, had already reached, based on his understanding of the Bronze Age texts of Holy Scripture and his friendship of many years with Dean Jeffrey John. Williams concluded that sodomy is good and right in the eyes of God (see the Body's Grace lecture), and he expected Episcopal Church leaders to believe the same -- after they had done their homework. They hadn't and Robinson got scolded.

Ironically, Robinson got the last word with the ABC when he likened the radical response to his consecration to the irregular ordination of eleven women in 1974 in Philadelphia - women who were not following the rules, but breaking them.

Robinson told Williams that it turned out to be the right thing to do. Two years later PECUSA began regularly ordaining women to the church. Quoth Robinson, "Had they not done that, how long do you think it would have taken this church to get around to it? Would we still have an all-male priesthood?' It seems to me that, by God's grace, we sometimes do the right thing and then think our way to it."

There is no record if Williams responded to this. Robinson does not tell us. If the ABC did not answer, then Robinson won the argument. Perverse and profane sexual behavior is equal in ecclesiology to irregular ordinations. QED

The reason Robinson won the argument is because Williams was not prepared to say that homosexual behavior was unbiblical, dangerous, unhealthy, perverse, and a communion breaking act. Had he done so, he might then have had the upper hand to suggest that women's ordination was wrong and that The Episcopal Church had failed to do its homework on that issue as well.

Robinson is winning the culture wars in the church because deep down Williams actually believes that Robinson is right, but he doesn't like what it is doing to his leadership of the communion. Human sexuality for Robinson is a first tier issue trumping the gospel while for Williams it is a second tier issue to the primary issue of having an Anglican "communion" - without caring what it stands for or what it preaches.

The problem with that argument, at an empirical and theological level, is that it goes against the entire corpus of Christian teaching throughout the ages. It is soundly rejected by almost the entire Global South along with orthodox Episcopalians and numerous North American Anglicans, thousands of whom have broken from The Episcopal Church. For them, it IS a salvation issue. They are clear about that, drawn from the seven Scriptural prohibitions against homosexuality. Why then should they risk their souls and the millions who follow them by changing the received teaching of the church after 2,000 years (closer to 6,000 years) because a handful of 21st Century pansexualists like Louie Crew, Gene Robinson, Susan Russell and Otis Charles demand it? Who do they think they are that they believe they can change God's mind for Him and risk their own souls and ours into the bargain? That's playing Russian roulette with a bullet in every chamber.

It should come as no surprise that Pope Benedict XVI got into hot water recently, and mainstream media lost it, when he dared to suggest that behavioral changes could have greater success in slowing down the spread of AIDS in Africa than throwing condoms at the problem. His critics said he was an intolerant bigot who is out of step with the times - and represents the last great bastion of institutionalized anti-homosexual hatred.

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The primary communicator of AIDS in the West is homosexual men indulging in anal sex. In Africa and other countries, it is heterosexually transmitted through promiscuous sexual behavior. And the Pope condemned it. Is it any wonder then that TEC passed Resolution D039 to allow fornication (the first sexual foot in the door) and sodomy naturally followed? Subsequent resolutions have only confirmed that sex outside of marriage is a given for the majority of Episcopalians, certainly its movers and shakers.

But the Pope would have none of it. He went on to say homosexual acts are a sin, a violation of the natural moral order. He stressed that behavior beyond heterosexual monogamy is a "destruction of God's work."

He saw the deeper issue of promiscuity, that is any kind of sexual indulgence outside of heterosexual marriage, and got vilified for it as a denier of human rights.

Sexual behavior has nothing to do with human rights. Sex is a gift, not a right. We have no right (or Rite) to sex. There have been countless saints throughout history who have contributed mightily to missions and the church, who never married, (many of them we later learn in their biographies) wrestled with same-sex attractions.

Are they lesser in their humanity because they did not fulfill themselves sexually? Who would deny the saintly Mother Teresa her magnificent work, or the decades-long Biblical ministry of the Rev. Dr. John R.W. Stott or St. Paul, even Jesus himself.

On finding gay stories in the Bible, Robinson had the effrontery, in an interview, to say that the Exodus story "was the greatest coming out story in the history of the world." Really. "We know what it is like to be in slavery. We know what it is like to be in bondage. We know what it's like not to be free." This is exegetical nonsense. This is to turn both the nature of slavery and freedom completely on its head.

The truth is Robinson is in bondage to sexual sin and he wants us to join him for a freedom that is no freedom at all. Christ has set us free from sin. Robinson wants us to wallow in it. God's love does not embrace sexual sin. It demands that we repent of it.

If that is not the case, when St. Paul writes "that neither fornicators, adulterers and homosexuals will enter the kingdom...", then, according to Robinson, homosexuals will now be given a pass. What about the other two behaviors? Inclusion should not stop at the door of sodomy. Love all. Embrace all. If that is the case, The Episcopal Church should not have inhibited Cy Jones, the former Bishop of Montana. TEC is exercising a double standard here. Paul Moore, the late Bishop of New York, should be elevated to sainthood for his sexual promiscuity.

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For this reason, we cannot keep silent. Columnist Rod Dreher rightly observes you can do as much harm by failing to effectively proclaim the truth as you can by proclaiming a lie. Emphasis on "effectively," because clearly, different arguments are necessary for our postmodern cultural environment, in which the autonomous individual is widely considered to be the source of authority.

That is precisely what is happening in The Episcopal Church. It is the triumph of one individual, of Gene Robinson declaring homogenital behavior is right, because he says so. Scriptural prohibitions be damned. The Windsor Report be damned as well. Any Covenant that is written that restricts sexual behavior to heterosexual marriage be damned as well.

The other lie constantly being trotted out is violence against gays. It is so minimal that it barely registers on police blotters, whereas gay on gay violence is huge, according to the Center for Disease Control. The passage of Lambeth 1:10 in 1998 was another example of excited outrage by homosexuals who said its passage would result in their persecution. It never happened. VOL recorded, at that time, that an orthodox Nigerian bishop was attacked by a gang of thugs in London because of the passage of Lambeth 1:10. The liberal media never touched it.

It also never happened at Robinson's consecration. I was there. Security was tighter than most airports in America. Robinson has continually exploited his flak jacket "they are going to shoot me" nonsense to gain sympathy for him and his cause. Despite the fact that Robinson and Frank Griswold both wore flak jackets, there was absolutely never any danger of either man being shot.

As The Episcopal Church slowly disintegrates, its leaders, in an effort to keep everyone at the table, say they want to honor everybody's journey, but that is a dangerous course to follow. John Bunyan discovered that in "Pilgrim's Progress". There was a broad road (journey) that led to destruction and there was a narrow way that led to the cross and ultimately glory. We all know which road he took. Following Gene Robinson and the vast majority now in The Episcopal Church will lead to eternal destruction. That is a journey you do not want to be on.

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Virtue Online, edited by David W. Virtue, is the Voice for global orthodox Anglicanism.