Session II: Lecture on biblical interpretation with specific attention to the nuances of Anglican history and theology as distinct from both the principles used by Roman Catholics and Continental Europeans during the sixteenth century. Enunciation of and explanation of the principles of textural hermeneutics.  Outline of Roger Alling’s lecture may be found below. (See Appendix B)

Session III:  Application of biblical interpretation to biblical texts distributed at the end of Session I (see above). Some of the texts were covered in this session. We found that one hour was insufficient to cover all of the texts but felt that what we did established the principles and a method that participants could follow on their own if they wished to do so.

Session IV:  With Allen and Mary Ivey leading, we shared the findings of the American Psychological Association on Sexual Orientation. This paper and many other links to related material may be found at http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/answers.html.  This document raised and provided current psychological questions and the current thinking of this profession on the matters before us. Consideration of this paper prompted a lively and informative discussion.

Session V:  Allen and Mary Ivey shared a presentation explaining how we as individual Christians and as a Church can avoid "heterosexism", the preferred term for prejudicial thinking and acting against homosexual, bisexual and transgender persons in our society.  At this meeting several gay members of the church shared some of their stories about experiencing discrimination. This added a depth of reality to our Forum discussions.  For more information about the role of religion and sexuality today we recommend the website for Religioustolerance.org.  Their website is http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_sex.htm.

Session VI:  This meeting was a recap and review of the series which allowed for more response from Forum participants. We also had two dozen extra people who had not attended the previous sessions, so we needed to be general. This gave us more exposure for what we were doing and went fine. We had copies of all of our handouts available for our two dozen "one timers".

Leaders Evaluation of the Forum Series

We felt that the series was useful.  It was seen as informative by all of the laity and extremely supportive for the gay and lesbian members of the congregation.

One vocal member of the parish reported to us that he thought our presentations were "one sided". Without question, all three presenters are accepting of homosexual persons and are supportive of the actions taken by our recent General convention.

We did, however, note repeatedly that we knew that others in the Church did not share our views and we tried to indicate as best we could how others who might differ from us would justify their views. On the matter of the unity of the Church we supported "unity in diversity" saying that we had no desire whatever to separate from other church folk who differed from us. We were also, however, unwilling to consider being "unchurched" by others either.  We believe this is the Via Media stance.

The Rt. Rev. Neil Alexander’s recent book, This Far by Grace, published by Cowley Publications. The book is available in paperback, the price is $10.95 and the book may be ordered at Cowley Publications, 907 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139. Phone 800.225.1534 or ordered on the Web at WWW.cowley.org In this book, Bishop Alexander recounts his personal journey and changed positions on homosexuality over the years. He also discusses in some detail the relevant Scriptural texts about sexuality and also looks ahead to the issues now facing the church and society and suggests ways in which these matters may be dealt with in the future.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:  This church is now engaged in a multiyear study entitled Journey Together Faithfully which deals with many of the same issues that are now before the Episcopal Church. The portion of that study that we used was a background study of the relevant Biblical texts prepared by two Lutheran scholars, one liberal and one conservative. They were helpful.

We should note however, that we found there to be a slightly different take on some of the OT texts than we might expect from Anglican treatment. (Richard Hooker’s discriminating treatment of OT law must not have made it to Germany in time to have had much influence. For more on that examine Article VII of the Articles of Religion in the Prayer Book for evidence of the impact of Hooker’s analysis.) The website for this Biblical study is http://www.elca.org/faithfuljourney/background.html

Genesis 19:1-11  The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground.  He said, ‘Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.’ They said, ‘No; we will spend the night in the square.’  But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.  But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.’ Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, ‘I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.  Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.’  But they replied, ‘Stand back!’ And they said, ‘This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.’ Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near the door to break it down. But the men inside reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.  And they struck with blindness the men who were at the door of the house, both small and great, so that they were unable to find the door.

Judges 19:16-30  Then at evening there was an old man coming from his work in the field. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was residing in Gibeah. (The people of the place were Benjaminites.) When the old man looked up and saw the wayfarer in the open square of the city, he said, ‘Where are you going and where do you come from?’ He answered him, ‘We are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, from which I come. I went to Bethlehem in Judah; and I am going to my home.  Nobody has offered to take me in.  We your servants have straw and fodder for our donkeys, with bread and wine for me and the woman and the young man along with us. We need nothing more.’  The old man said, ‘Peace be to you. I will care for all your wants; only do not spend the night in the square.’  So he brought him into his house, and fed the donkeys; they washed their feet, and ate and drank.

While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the city, a depraved lot, surrounded the house, and started pounding on the door. They said to the old man, the master of the house, ‘Bring out the man who came into your house, so that we may have intercourse with him.’  And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, ‘No, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Since this man is my guest, do not do this vile thing.  Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing.’  But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them. They wantonly raped her, and abused her all through the night until the morning. And as the dawn began to break, they let her go.  As morning appeared, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her master was, until it was light.

In the morning her master got up, opened the doors of the house, and when he went out to go on his way, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.  ‘Get up,’ he said to her, ‘we are going.’ But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey; and the man set out for his home.  When he had entered his house, he took a knife, and grasping his concubine he cut her into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.  Then he commanded the men whom he sent, saying, ‘Thus shall you say to all the Israelites, "Has such a thing ever happed since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until this day? Consider it, take counsel, and speak out." ’

Leviticus 18:22  You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Leviticus 20:13  If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Romans 1:26-27  For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

1 Corinthians 6: 9-11  Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.  And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

1Timothy 1:9-10  This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave-traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching

Why getting a clear idea about these passages is important for us today: Issues in the Episcopal Church, civil unions in Canada and Mass., proposed constitutional ban in US, schismatic rumblings in ECUSA, and global Anglicanism.

Quote from Friday’s NY Times, letter from the State Director of the American Family Association of New York. "considering the clear biblical admonitions against homosexual behavior . . . their editorial about this makes no sense. We need to look at these biblical admonitions and see just exactly how clear they really are.

We are talking about six Biblical texts: Genesis 19:1-11; Judges 19:16-30; Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. (Note that there are no relevant texts in any of the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, or in Revelation.)

How are we able to establish the clear meaning of any text, either ancient or modern? Only by interpreting the material is this possible.

Is there only one way to interpret texts? No, there are many ways and means of interpretation. Let me list but a few: Comment on Jewish Midrash, etc.

The Literalist: This would seem to be the assumption of the writer of the NY Times letter. "There is a clear meaning to the Biblical writing." It is what it seems to be on its surface or face. However what gives the lie to this is the great selectivity of what is taken as literally authoritative, i.e. the appropriate penalty for the law breakers of Leviticus is death.

Allegorical interpretation: items in the Scripture are to be read like Aesop’s Fables. Particular items mentioned in scripture stand for other realities. This is not fashionable today but some of the early Church fathers treated scripture allegorically in their preaching.

Official Roman Catholic interpretation of Scripture: Interpretation of the Scriptures is the responsibility of the Church through its Magistarium, or teaching office. Scripture means what the church says it means. This is much more nuanced today than it was in the sixteenth century, although the rules remain the same even though they are underplayed and infrequently spoken of. Irony of this is that some of the most sophisticated modern Biblical studies are done by Roman Catholic scholars, operating under the radar, so to speak.

European Reformers in the Sixteenth Century: Lutherans, Calvinists, Puritans. The basic idea was that Scripture itself was to be the vehicle for interpretation. Sola Scriptura, Only Scripture, was the catchword. We are to interpret scriptural passages in the light of other scriptural passages. Frequently interpreting OT passages by using passages from the NT. In its crudest form this made the Bible into a Paper Pope. Furthermore there were significant differences in the way that Lutherans, Calvinists and Puritans interpreted the Bible; Lutheran core teaching re law and grace, Calvinists development of predestination, and Puritan legalisms.

English Reformation and Anglicanism: significantly different from both the Roman and the European developments. Anglican reformers had two primary purposes in their efforts. One was to keep as much of the ancient structure of the church as possible, and the other was to develop a means for retaining the unity of the church that was open to diverse interpretations of the scripture and other doctrinal matters. The genius of Anglicanism was to center the unity of the church in its worship. It is the Book of Common Prayer that has bound Anglicans together. Orthodoxy (right worship) rather than dogma (right doctrine) is what binds us together. Anglicanism also developed first a threefold and then, later a fourfold "stool" to be used to determine religious truth, or right doctrine.

Scripture   Tradition   Reason   Experience (Under John Wesley's influence)

Scripture:  Contains all that is necessary for salvation

Tradition:  How scripture and doctrine have developed over the centuries

Reason:  Especially relevant as the centuries of the Reformation merged into the time of the Renaissance

Experience: How all of the above impacted the religious, moral and spiritual lives of the faithful

An Important Anglican Reformer:

Richard Hooker: 16^th century theologian, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, established the Anglican limits and boundaries on the use and authority of Scripture. Hooker claimed that the Roman Church gave Scripture too little authority in determining religious truth, and that the Continental Reformers gave the Scripture too much. Other factors, reason, civil law, claims of justice, impact of the new science, etc. were made null if sola scriptura was pervasively used. Specifically where OT laws were concerned Hooker said that they only the moral laws retained authority over Christians, and ceremonial and judicial laws in their OT expression were changeable, or in his word, mutable by reasonable persons living in other ages. Moral laws for Hooker and the other sixteenth century Anglicans were confined to the Ten Commandments. The reasoned judgment of time and circumstances were to determine whether or not ancient laws applied.

Hooker’s insight about the way to deal with certain OT texts is retained in VII Article of Religion, found in the prayer book on pp 869. (Found in the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 869)

Some general matters not known to ancient authors, either Jewish or Gentile:

Sexual orientation (not labeled as such until the late nineteenth century.

Believed that there was a single purpose for sexual congress and that was procreation. In ancient Israel this was a social need for a beleaguered small nation surrounded by hostile neighbors.

The pleasure associated with sex was equated with lust and devalued by the church as it moved west into the world of the Roman Empire.

The uniting purpose of sex between partners was not recognized or honored in the ancient world.

How can we read and appreciate ancient texts?

By using the hermeneutic principle. (the word means interpretative principle.)

Hermeneutics is a two step process:

1. "What must the truth have been and be for men and women in their time and place to have expressed it in the way that they did, and . . . 2. What must the truth be now for men and women in our time and our place, and how can we most adequately bring that truth to expression and apply it appropriately to our lives and our times today?