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Why do we have to keep talking about these things?

By Marvin M. Ellison

June 13, 2001

Dr. Marvin M Ellison is Willard S. Bass Professor of Christian Ethics at Bangor Theological Seminary, Maine, and director of the Seminary's Portland campus. He co-chairs Maine's Religious Coalition against Discrimination and is the author of  Erotic Justice:A Liberating Ethic of Sexuality (ISBN 0664256465, $17.00). Westminster John Knox/Press, 1996.

Why do we have to keep talking about these things? As a gay man and Presbyterian theologian, my short answer is: We must keep talking because harm is being done, and this harm must be stopped. The harm is caused by injustice, and as Walter Brueggemann writes, "In biblical faith the doing of justice is the primary expectation of God" [1].

Justice, of course, is multidimensional. One of the most neglected, feared, and trivialized dimensions of justice is sexual justice [2] or what I prefer to call erotic justice [3]. But a passion for erotic justice doesn't sound very Presbyterian, does it? And that's the crux of the problem.

It is an understatement to say that our church has difficulties dealing with sex. Not just with homosexuality, but with sex, period. Declining denominational influence and internal conflict have not eased matters. Our gaining fresh moral insight about these matters depends on our doing at least two things: first, we must refuse to evade moral conflict, but rather face conflict and work through it directly and gracefully; and second, we must be willing to listen to and learn from people who have been hurt, silenced, or rendered invisible by church teaching and practice. Survivors of sexual and domestic violence, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people, sexually active divorced and single people, the differently abled, older as well as younger people, people living with AIDS, and so many others have stories of faith and struggle which can correct and revitalize the church's inherited wisdom about sexuality. However, we will not move forward on these matters until our congregations and presbyteries become demilitarized or "free zones" where all people can be guaranteed safety and respect and where they can experience genuine hospitality.

Novelist May Sarton in her book At Seventy wrote, "This is the best time of my life. I love being old." If I may paraphrase her, I would say to you, "This is the best time of my life. I love being a gay man." Someone asked Sarton, "Why is it good being old?" She replied, "Because I am more myself than I have ever been. There is less conflict. I am happier, more balanced, and . . . more powerful.  I felt it was rather an odd word, 'powerful,'" Sarton said, "but I think it's true. I am surer of what my life is all about, have less self-doubt to conquer" [4].

I agree with Sarton. Claiming my self-respect as a gay man, I am happier, more balanced, and yes, more powerful. Whenever people honor the goodness of their sexualities, whenever they touch that place within them where their passion and their spiritual hunger meet, they often discover new sources of personal integrity and power. They find courage to say "no" to apathy, abuse, and injustice and strength to say an equally resounding "yes" to joy, creativity, and compassion. That's the good news.

The bad news is that so few religious people live comfortably with their bodies or at ease with sexual difference. Fear of sexuality and deep suspicion of the erotic are pervasive in the church. No wonder we are lifeless and devoid of passion! When people are repressive about sexuality, when they fear sensuous touch, they become controlling, rigid, and unfeeling. They easily lose touch, quite literally, with what brings joy and sorrow to themselves or others.

A fearful people will also likely project their fear onto others. In our time, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people have become the cultural repositories—the moral dumping ground—for other people's dis-ease about sex and the body. Unless and until people get more honest and take responsibility for their own confusions and struggles, sexual minorities will continue to be targeted as scapegoats and disenfranchised as "inferior outsiders" [5]. This is a moral scandal of the highest order.

To correct this injustice, a first step is to stop the trashing of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered people. As Virginia Mollenkott reminds us, biblical faith enjoins us not to bear false witness, so we must end the stereotypes, character assassination, and falsehoods against gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people whether those falsehoods take the form of pity or ridicule.

A second, related step is to stop asking the wrong questions. The moral problem has never been homosexuality, same- sex love, or sexual difference. The moral problem is sexual injustice and the eroticizing of power inequalities. Many, many people only "turn on" to having power over a partner they can possess and control or to being placed under another's control and direction. The sexualized oppression of women and the oppression of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people go together. Heterosexism, the institutionalizing of anti-gay oppression, claims that heterosexuality alone is good. Further, "real" men must dominate and “take pleasure in” dominating women, and "normal" women should be sexually submissive and socially compliant. Anyone visibly deviating from sexism risks being labeled "queer" and punished for their non-conformity to patriarchal norms.

Why must we speak about these matters?  In order to redress a great wrong, the devaluing of women and of  gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people of all colors.

As followers of Christ, we face a turning point -- a “kairos” time. God's Spirit is moving in the midst of the Presbyterian Church, calling for repentance and for the renewal of our corporate vision and mission. Yes, there is a crisis of sexuality, but the crisis of sexuality is not brought about by a few visible gay and lesbian people. We may spook some people, but we're simply not that powerful! Rather, the crisis of sexuality is fundamentally a crisis “within heterosexuality.”  At long last, the patriarchal ordering of gender relations requiring male dominance and female submission is being challenged across this globe, from Beijing to Louisville, Kentucky. But as long as the crisis of sexuality is misnamed the "problem" of homosexuality, people will stay captive to patriarchal norms and values. They will fail to see the bigger picture and not make connections between their life- struggles for personal well-being and the movements to end racial, class, gender, and sexual injustices. In their pain and confusion, they will continue to castigate gay men and lesbians because, after all, aren't we the ones who most visibly appear "out of control" because we don't fit with patriarchal expectations?

Why must we talk about these matters? When someone is hurting, and when they tell us that we are complicit in their suffering, then as people of faith, we must stop what we are doing, make amends, and adopt a new course. About these matters, our integrity depends on reordering our lives toward justice. Seeking justice means seeking genuine respect and mutuality between men and women, men and men, women and women of all colors and classes. Seeking justice means mounting resistance to sexual and all other forms of oppression. In mounting resistance, what do we discover? To our great surprise and delight, we find that our lives are gifted—graced—with renewed energy, insight, and purpose. In the face of injustice, Alice Walker writes, mounting resistance is the "secret of joy" [6].

Speaking about sexual injustice also has theological urgency because self-appointed keepers of the Reformed tradition are waffling about what "reformed and reforming" means if and when reforming requires taking seriously the witness of unimportant, marginalized people, including feminists and gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people of all colors. Here you may detect some frustration and rather deep disappointment on my part that so many progressive Christians, whom we would ordinarily expect to be our allies, simply don't make the connection between sexuality and justice.

The Reformed tradition taught me that justice-making is central to the life of faith. Being faithful means searching ceaselessly for more secure institutional forms of love and justice. Because this liberal Reformed tradition is currently under attack by the Radical Right, I share my own criticisms here with some reluctance because I have no desire to give comfort to forces of reactionary politics or theology. However, the Reformed tradition has real limits that must be faced and corrected, especially when it comes to self-respecting women and gay/lesbian people. Without these corrections, this tradition will become even more easily seduced and manipulated by the Radical Right.

The primary problem is that the Reformed theological tradition has split off the personal and relational aspects of life from the social and structural, or split the personal from the political. Justice is narrowly reserved for public matters relating to political and economic power. Love is reserved for "private" concerns among intimates. This split renders sexuality, reproduction, the care of children, and women's lives less important than the supposedly "really" serious issues of politics and empire building among powerful men. Liberalism fails to recognize family and sexuality as matters of love and justice. It has left unquestioned the power hierarchies of husbands over wives and parents over children. It has not adequately addressed the abuse of power among intimates. Theological liberalism minimizes or simply ignores oppression in the so-called private sphere. It doesn't "get it" that power, conflict, and injustice exist in the bedroom. The Reformed tradition must be re-envisioned so that justice is seen to begin at home and then extend to all our social relations, near and far.

The Reformed tradition is being challenged to enlarge its theological vision and move matters of justice—for women, for people of color, and for gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people—from the margin to the center. This re-centering, as far as I can tell, will not come about quickly or without great price. In the meantime, gay/lesbian people struggle as "strangers in a strange church" with few resources. We have few resources to protect our reputations. We have few resources for defending our ministries against defamation. We have few resources to ward off mean-spirited hate campaigns. But by the grace of God, we have been blessed by a tender, life-saving power—our passion for love and justice. This passion sustains our spirits. Loving, gentle, sensuous touch convinces us—in spite of present ills and an uncertain future—that life is good. In our sacred sensuality, we find moral strength to resist injustice and hold onto our self-respect.

Our critics may be right about us, however, at least in one regard. For us, sexuality and spirituality are so intertwined that one cannot be cut off from the other without rendering both lifeless [7]. The reason we are feared is not because our sexuality is "deviant," but rather because of our deviant spirituality. We no longer grant moral authority either to patriarchal sexuality or to patriarchal spirituality. That makes us dangerous.

Frankly, our agenda is subversive: we are utterly serious, though not humorless, about toppling the patriarchal family, the patriarchal church, the patriarchal school, and the patriarchal workplace. Our desire for justice runs deep, and it is neither polite nor modest. Rather it is outrageous, outspoken, and up close and personal—much like the prophets and the Jesus movement. We refuse to settle for anything less than full respect and full mutuality, in our bedrooms and throughout our institutions, including the church.

Our passion for justice has sparked among us a renewed and unsettling spiritual vitality. Body-to-body loving, when grounded in mutual respect, releases moral energy to resist evil and sustain hope for a new heaven and a new earth. But because gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people have, like others, also internalized the anti-sex, anti-body messages of a patriarchal culture, we, too, must live by making a faith wager: that spiritual renewal begins with embracing the body, all bodies, as sacred space.

Why must we keep talking about these things?  In order to keep faith and to tell the old, old story of grace and salvation. God's passion for justice takes on flesh in our lives as passion in and through our bodies. This we believe (God help our unbelief): whatever we are blessed to know about love, we will come to know only by doing justice together—passionately—the large and small places of our lives.

Notes

1. Walter Brueggemann, "Voices of the Night -- Against Justice," in Walter Brueggemann, Sharon Parks, and Thomas H. Groome, To Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Humbly: An Agenda for Ministers (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 5.

2. Carter Heyward, Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God (San Francisco: Harper, 1989).

3. Marvin M. Ellison, Erotic Justice: A Liberating Social Ethic of Sexuality (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1998).

4. May Sarton, At Seventy (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1984), 10.

5. John Boswell, "Homosexuality and Religious Life: A Historical Approach," in Sexuality and the Sacred: Sources for Theological Reflection, ed. James B. Nelson and Sandra P. Longfellow (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), esp. 361-362.

6. Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1992).

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