From acts to identity. . .

I have written before of the relative modern idea of defining oneself by gender or by sexual attraction.  There is more.  In nearly all of history, homosexual acts were forbidden but homosexuality was seldom treated.  The legal codes of most societies had classes of forbidden acts which included "sodomy" or homosexual acts, but these said little about the object of them or even the perpetrator of those acts.  All of this changed when homosexual acts no longer were the focus but the desire itself, now framed as a distinct and authentic form of sexuality.  In other words, the focus of the previous legal codes and moral judgements were on the actions themselves while today we have transcended the acts to speak of being gay as an identity.

When homosexuality ceased being about acts and began to be a psychological identity, then heterosexuality also became one of several identities.  In this way sexual orientation has not only taken up roots but become the defining feature of a person's identity.  In response, the Christian has struggled to know how to respond to this changing terminology and the distinctive way that sexuality has overshadowed every other aspect of personality.  Some have swept away the Biblical and historical condemnations of homosexual acts that were accepted without question until only the most recent of times.  In this vein, the ELCA has determined that no matter what Scripture and tradition might have said, the "gospel" requires that all people be free to fulfill their sexual desires and to do so within the framework of cultural and religious acceptance -- even encouragement. In this way they have given tacit approval to the idea that sexual orientation is the defining feature of any human personality.  On the other hand, some churches have found themselves in the difficult position (though not unBiblical) of suggesting that in order to be true to faith homosexual Christians must deny their basic psychological and personal identifier -- namely their attraction to the same sex.

The problem here is not simply in choosing which sexual orientation as the correct human identity.  No, I would suggest, the problem lies in rejecting this modern myth that sexual desire defines who I am and returning to the other more Biblical and Christian sources of personal identity, morality, and virtue.  Gayness or straightness is not that which underlies and shapes who anyone is as a person.  Desire is one area in which we all share a common path to virtue through self-denial.  Free to be me is not license to practice whatever I choose or whatever seems right in my eyes.  The freedom accorded to me in the Gospel is first and foremost the freedom to deny myself, to practice self-control of even the most basic of human desires, and to take up the cross and follow Jesus.

Our inordinate and unnatural fascination with sexual desire does not ennoble us but it does have the power to strip from us those things that make us distinctively human, bearing -- though distorted by sin -- the image of God in our flesh.  Sex is not ugly nor the basest of our human desires but neither is it the most beautiful or the noblest of human desires.  Nothing could be more burdensome upon us than to be forced to spend our lives finding out who we are, agonizing over the nature of our desires, and living either in fear or or in bondage to those desires.  There is no freedom at all when the fullness of human identity is reduced to a choice between or a stopping point on the spectrum of heterosexuality and homosexuality.  When the church is forced to give permission to all or to choose one point on this polarity and say "this is what it means to be human" we are in a pretty sorry state.  An identity distinguished essentially by our genital sexual desires is but a sign of the depth to which we have fallen because of sin and how little is left to us of the promise of our creation in the Garden of Eden.

There abide these three -- faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.  Love, not desire.  Love shaped by sacrifice, not indulgence.  Love marked by suffering willingly borne, not perfect pleasure.  Love which looks like a cross, even when, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we wear it by baptism and faith.