By Gary Thorne

The title of Michael Valpy’s article on the front page of the Globe and Mail, Thursday, 8 March 2007, was ‘Bishop demands ‘better theology’ of sex.’ ‘The Bishop’ is The Rt Rev’d Michael Ingham, of the Greater Vancouver Diocese of New Westminster. ‘Sex’ in the article refers not just to ‘genital intercourse,’ but to ‘a full, loving interpersonal sexual relationship.’ So far so good. But what does the Bishop mean by ‘theology’? This is not so obvious.

The word ‘theology’, of course, has many meanings, and in this article Bishop Ingham seems to be using it in its broadest sense, as ‘thinking about God and his/her/its relation to the universe, and the difference that a God (or God-talk) makes in our understanding of ourselves, our relation to one another and our environment, and our understanding of the universe.’ Bishop Ingham is definitely a theist.  But it is difficult to see how the ‘better theology’ that he calls for will be specifically Christian. That is not a criticism in itself – the ‘better theology’ he is interested in might not necessarily be better Christian theology. In fact he claims the Christian Church to have ‘a deeply flawed understanding of sex.’ The Bishop advocates for the Church to adopt ‘a new understanding of sexuality’ and dismisses the traditional sources of Christian theology (the Bible and church doctrines) because ‘the Bible and church doctrines have been shaped through the lens of male experience.’

The Bishop does refer to the Bible in this article, but only to make the point that the Bible really has nothing to say about adult homo-eroticism. Here the Bishop is simply wrong in his suggestion that the ancient world did not know about homosexual love. He writes, “St. Paul understood same-sex relationships only in terms of the older-man and younger-boy relationship of the Greeks, which we call pederasty, or in other words child abuse.” Any one who has read Plato’s Symposium knows that it is nonsense to say that the ancients knew nothing of adult homosexual life-long love or that homosexuality was not seen as a ‘natural’ state. Aristophanes’ speech is a beautiful and touching evocation of homosexual love, as a union of two souls that would be one forever.

But regardless of the disagreement over whether the ancient and New Testament world knew about such love, in the end what does the Bishop’s ‘better theology’ consist of? Does the Bishop suggest that we attempt to discern Biblical principles relevant to the discussion, or to locate homo-eroticism in relation to the Christian theological understanding of creation, being made in the image of the Triune God, a growth in holiness, or Christian relationship and community? No, none of this. The ‘better theology’ will come about simply by accepting developments in the social sciences since the 19th century that describe homosexuality as ‘a basic and natural orientation experienced by some members of the human community.’ This fact in itself (thought by the Bishop to be something ‘new’ and discovered only in the nineteenth century) is the Bishop’s sole reason for the Christian Church to accept ‘adult homo-eroticism’ as ‘God-given and good.’

Surely this is not ‘better theology,’ but only a valuable piece of modern empirical and social scientific interpretation, in light of which the Christian Church should without doubt re-think its Biblical interpretation, historic doctrinal statements, and traditional Christian theological understandings. It is only in such an ongoing activity of prayerful and careful re-thinking in the light of current scientific study that we can hope for an emergence of a better Christian theology of sexuality. By a ‘better Christian theology’ I mean a theology that articulates more fully a view of the human condition and universe that is faithful to the Biblical revelation of the Triune God in the ‘Word made flesh,’ and that takes into account all that we know of God’s world through reason, natural theology, and scientific study. That is the path to a ‘better theology.’  Unfortunately, in spite of what he promises, Bishop Ingham wants no Christian theology or thinking at all, but only a culture-bound and thoughtless secularity.

Michael Valpy's article is available on the Globe and Mail website, but for a fee. 

Gary Thorne is the University Chaplain for the Anglican Diocese of NS & PEI. He also serves on the Primate’s Theological Commission and was one of the authors of the St Michael Report.