미국 뉴욕 맨하튼의 리디머장로교회(Redeemer Presbyterian Church) 티모시 켈러(Timothy Keller) 목사는 최근 리디머 교회의 싸이트인 리디머 리포트( Redeemer Report)에 동성애 문제에 대한 자신의 의견을 표명했다. 기독교계의 탁월한 변증가이자, 하나님의 말씀은 교회의 벽을 뛰어넘어 사회 속으로 들어가야 한다는 신념을 지닌 목회자인 그는, 대도시에 살며 지성과 문화의 영역에서 크리스챤으로 영향을 미칠 많은 젊은이들을 키워내고 있는 영향력있는 목회자다. 켄 윌슨( Ken Wilson)과 크리스챤 동성애자인 매튜 바인스( Matthew Vines)가 저술한 책의 리뷰를 게재했던 티모시 켈러 목사는 그들의 책에 대해 다시 반박하며 성경적으로, 역사적으로 동성애가 용납될 수 없음을 6가지로 기술했다.

 

다음은 팀켈러의 글을 요약한 내용이다.  

1. 동성애자들과의 관계로 인해, 동성애 대한 성경적 신념이 흔들려서는 안된다.

켈러 목사는 “바인스와 윌슨은 동성애가 죄라는 확신을 가지고 있다가 동성애자들이 지식인일 뿐만 아니라 인간적인 매력이 많음에 감동받은 사람들이 그들을 용납하는 경우을 예를 들었다” 라고 설명하면서 “그러나 이러한 심경의 변화는 성경이 말하는 진리에 대한 이해에서 온 변화가 아닌 것” 이며 “성경 본문을 살펴본 후 변화에 대한 결정을 내려야 함”을 말했다.

 

 2. 역사학자들의 자문들을 살펴보아도 성경에서 동성애는 죄이다.

켈러 목사는 “바인스와 윌슨은 성경의 저자들이 금지하고 있는 것은 남색이나 매춘, 강간 같은 착취적인 성행위라 주장한다. 바울의 시대에는 선천적 동성애에 대한 이해가 없었기 때문에 상호간의 애정을 바탕으로 하는 동성애는 금지할 필요가 없다고 주장하지만 이는 사실이 아니다” 라며 아리스토파네스가 플라톤의 ‘향연’ 에서 제우스가 인간을 이성애자와 동성애자로 나누는 이야기가 있음을 예로 들었다. “이는 고대에도 동성에게 끌리는 자들이 있음을 보여준다” 며 “성경의 저자들이 동성애에 대해 금했던 시대에도 선천적 동성애자들이 있었고 바울은 착취적인 동성 성관계 뿐만 아니라 모든 동성간의 성관계를 정죄하고 있다” 고 설명했다.

 

 3. 동성간의 관계에 대한 새로운 시대적 정의는 필요하지 않다.

성경에서 노예제도나 인종차별에 대해 이전에는 용납되던 것이 지금은 잘못임을 알았던 거처럼 동성애에 대한 입장도 바꿀 필요가 있다고 주장한 바인스의 대해 “노예제도와 인종차별에 대해 교회는 단 한번도 동의도 한 적이 없다"라고 하며 "성경에 노예와 노예제도에 대한 언급은 있지만 그것을 지지하는 곳은 없다. 창세기 1장부터 모든 인간은 하나님의 형상을 따라 지음을 받았으며 예수는 한 목숨이 천하보다 귀하다 말씀하셨고 자신의 목숨을 버리셨다” 라고 했다.

또한 이혼과 재혼, 크리스챤으로서 전쟁에 참여 하는 것, 시험관 아기, 사회와 사역안의 여성의 역활, 세례에 대한 관점, 카리스마적 은사 등과 같이 동성애도 같은 범주에서 봐야 하는 것이 아니냐는 윌슨의 주장에 “동성애는 모든 세기, 모든 문화, 모든 기독교 종파에서 인정한 적이 없는 완전히 다른 문제”라고 설명했다.

 

4. 구약 성경 권위에 대해 개정을 촉구 할 수 없다.

켈러 목사는 바인과 윌슨이 성경의 권위에 대해 그것이 온전한 진리인 것을 인정하면서도 성경이 모든 동성애를 잘못된 것으로 말하지 않는다는 그들의 주장에 대해 “그들은 구약에서 동성애를 금지한다는 레위가 18:22절의 말씀과 조개류를 먹지 말라는 레위기 11:9-12 말씀을 비교하며 왜 조개류는 먹으면서 동성애는 인정하지 않냐고 한다. 바인스는 예수 그리스도로 의해 더이상 모세의 제사의식과 정결의식이 의무가 아니라고 하는 신약성경에 대한 이해가 없다” 며 “성경이 말하고 있는 것 중 우리가 더 이상 따르지 않아도 되는 것이 있지만 성경본문이 우리의 최종적인 귄위라면 오직 성경만이 우리에게 그것을 따를지 말지 말해주는 것이다. 신약에는 명백하게 로마서 1장, 고린도전서 6장, 디모데전서 1장에서 다시 언급하기를 정결법과 정결의식은 더 이상 의무성이 없다”고 설명했다.

 

5. 역사의 변화에 따라 달라질 것은 없다.

동성간의 성관계를 마치 노예제도와 같이 시대적 변화에 따라 받아드리고 철회하는 것이라고 주장한 윌슨의 글에 대해 켈러 목사는 “만일 우리가 성경의 권위을 믿는다면 역사가 개인의 자유와 평등에 있어 더 많이 누리는 사회로 변화하고 있다는 말에 대해 흔들릴 필요가 없다”며 기독교인의 믿음은 모든 문화의 한 단면에서 늘 공격적일 것이다”라고 말했다.

 

6. 성경은 성에 대해 높고 영광스러운 것이라 말한다. 

켈리목사는 성경은 단지 동성애에 대해서 금지하는 말씀만 아니라 성에 대해 놀라운 것들을 말하고 있다며 “창세기 1장에 하늘과 대지, 바다와 땅, 그리고 심지어 하나님과 인간으로 각각의 쌍을 이루어 창조하셨다” 라며 “이것이 의미하는 것은 남성과 여성이 각각 독특성을 가지고 대체될 수 없는 영광으로 서로를 보고 상대방이 할 수 없는 일들을 행한다. 성은 결혼이 삶으로 연속되고 능력과 영광이 서로 화합하도록하는 하나님이 창조된 방법이다”라면서 또한 결혼에 대해” 결혼은 가장 강렬한 관계로 남성과 여성으로 인간 삶에 이루어지는 것이다. 남성과 여성은 서로 다듬어 주고 그것으로 부터 배우며 함께 이루어간다. 이러한 시각없이 성경에서 성적인 것들을 금한다고 하는 것을 온전히 이해할 수 없다” 라며 동성애 뿐만 아니라 성경에서 말하는 남녀간의 결혼의 의미와 능력에 대해 설명했다.

 

아래는 Redeemer Report에 실린 기사의 원문입니다.

Tim Keller

Vines, Matthew, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same Sex Relationships, Convergent Books, 2014

 

Wilson, Ken, A Letter to My Congregation, David Crum Media, 2014.

 

The relationship of homosexuality to Christianity is one of the main topics of discussion in our culture today. In the fall of last year I wrote a review of books by Wesley Hill and Sam Allberry that take the historic Christian view, in Hill’s words: “that homosexuality was not God’s original creative intention for humanity ... and therefore that homosexual practice goes against God’s express will for all human beings, especially those who trust in Christ.” 

There are a number of other books that take the opposite view, namely that the Bible either allows for or supports same sex relationships. Over the last year or so I (and other pastors at Redeemer) have been regularly asked for responses to their arguments. The two most read volumes taking this position seem to be those by Matthew Vines and Ken Wilson. The review of these two books will be longer than usual because the topic is so contested today and, while I disagree with the authors’ theses, a too-brief review can’t avoid appearing cursory and dismissive. Hence the length. 

I see six basic arguments that these books and others like them make. 

 

Knowing gay people personally. 

Vines and Wilson relate stories of people who were sure that the Bible condemned homosexuality. However, they were brought to a change of mind through getting to know gay people personally. It is certainly important for Christians who are not gay to hear the hearts and stories of people who are attracted to the same sex. 

And when I see people discarding their older beliefs that homosexuality is sinful after engaging with loving, wise, gay people, I’m inclined to agree that those earlier views were likely defective. In fact, they must have been essentially a form of bigotry. They could not have been based on theological or ethical principles, or on an understanding of historical biblical teaching. They must have been grounded instead on a stereotype of gay people as worse sinners than others (which is itself a shallow theology of sin.) So I say good riddance to bigotry. However, the reality of bigotry cannot itself prove that the Bible never forbids homosexuality. We have to look to the text to determine that.

 

Consulting historical scholarship. 

Vines and Wilson claim that scholarly research into the historical background show that biblical authors were not forbidding all same sex relationships, but only exploitative ones — pederasty, prostitution, and rape. Their argument is that Paul and other biblical writers had no concept of an innate homosexual orientation, that they only knew of exploitative homosexual practices, and therefore they had no concept of mutual, loving, same-sex relationships. 

These arguments were first asserted in the 1980s by John Boswell and Robin Scroggs. Vines, Wilson and others are essentially repopularizing them. However, they do not seem to be aware that the great preponderance of the best historical scholarship since the 1980s — by the full spectrum of secular, liberal and conservative researchers — has rejected that assertion. Here are two examples. 

Bernadette Brooten and William Loader have presented strong evidence that homosexual orientation was known in antiquity. Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, for example, tells a story about how Zeus split the original human beings in half, creating both heterosexual and homosexual humans, each of which were seeking to be reunited to their “lost halves” — heterosexuals seeking the opposite sex and homosexuals the same sex. Whether Aristophanes believed this myth literally is not the point. It was an explanation of a phenomenon the ancients could definitely see — that some people are inherently attracted to the same sex rather than the opposite sex. 

Contra Vines, et al, the ancients also knew about mutual, non-exploitative same sex relationships. In Romans 1, Paul describes homosexuality as men burning with passion “for one another” (verse 27). That is mutuality. Such a term could not represent rape, nor prostitution, nor pederasty (man/boy relationships). Paul could have used terms in Romans 1 that specifically designated those practices, but he did not. He categorically condemns all sexual relations between people of the same sex, both men and women. Paul knew about mutual same-sex relationships, and the ancients knew of homosexual orientation. Nonetheless “Nothing indicates that Paul is exempting some same-sex intercourse as acceptable.” (Loader, Making Sense of Sex, p.137).  

I urge readers to familiarize themselves with this research. A good place to start is the Kindle book by William Loader Sexuality in the New Testament (2010) or his much largerThe New Testament on Sexuality (2012). Loader is the most prominent expert on ancient and biblical views of sexuality, having written five large and two small volumes in his lifetime. It is worth noting that Loader himself does not personally see anything wrong with homosexual relationships; he just — rightly and definitively — proves that you can’t get the Bible itself to give them any support. 

 

Re-categorizing same sex relations.  

A third line of reasoning in these volumes and others like them involves recategorization. In the past, homosexuality was categorized by all Christian churches and theology as sin. However, many argue that homosexuality should be put in the same category as slavery and segregation. Vines writes, for example, that the Bible supported slavery and that most Christians used to believe that some form of slavery was condoned by the Bible, but we have now come to see that all slavery is wrong. Therefore, just as Christians interpreted the Bible to support segregation and slavery until times changed, so Christians should change their interpretations about homosexuality as history moves forward.  

But historians such as Mark Noll (America’s God, 2005 and The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, 2006) have shown the 19th century position some people took that the Bible condoned race-based chattel slavery was highly controversial and never a consensus. Most Protestants in Canada and Britain (and many in the northern U.S. states) condemned it as being wholly against the Scripture. Rodney Stark (For the Glory of God, 2003) points out that the Catholic church also came out early against the African slave trade. David L. Chappell in his history of the Civil Rights Movement (A Stone of Hope, 2003) went further. He proves that even before the Supreme Court decisions of the mid-50s, almost no one was promoting the slender and forced biblical justifications for racial superiority and segregation. Even otherwise racist theologians and ministers could not find a basis for white supremacy in the Bible.  

So we see the analogy between the church’s view of slavery and its view of homosexuality breaks down. Up until very recently, all Christian churches and theologians unanimously read the Bible as condemning homosexuality. By contrast, there was never any consensus or even a majority of churches that thought slavery and segregation were supported by the Bible. David Chappell shows that even within the segregationist South, efforts to support racial separation from the Bible collapsed within a few years. Does anyone really think that within a few years from now there will be no one willing to defend the traditional view of sexuality from biblical texts? The answer is surely no. This negates the claim that the number, strength, and clarity of those biblical texts supposedly supporting slavery and those texts condemning homosexuality are equal, and equally open to changed interpretations.  

Wilson puts forward a different form of the recategorization argument when he says the issue of same-sex relations in the church is like issues of divorce and remarriage, Christian participation in war, or the use of in vitro fertilization. We can extend that list to include matters such as women’s roles in ministry and society, as well as views of baptism, charismatic gifts, and so on. These are “issues where good Christians differ.” We may believe that another Christian with a different view of divorce is seriously wrong, but we don’t say this means his or her view undermines orthodox Christian faith. Wilson, Vines, and many others argue that same-sex relations must now be put into this category. Since we see that there are sincere Christians who disagree over this, it is said, we should “agree to disagree” on this. 

However history shows that same-sex relations do not belong in this category, either. Around each of the other items on Wilson’s list there are long-standing and historical divisions within the church. There have always been substantial parts of the church that came to different positions on these issues. But until very, very recently, there had been complete unanimity about homosexuality in the church across all centuries, cultures, and even across major divisions of the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant traditions. So homosexuality is categorically different. One has to ask, then, why is it the case that literally no church, theologian, or Christian thinker or movement ever thought that any kind of same sex relationships was allowable until now?  

One answer to the question is an ironic one. During the Civil War, British Presbyterian biblical scholars told their southern American colleagues who supported slavery that they were reading the Scriptural texts through cultural blinders. They wanted to find evidence for their views in the Bible and voila — they found it. If no Christian reading the Bible — across diverse cultures and times — ever previously discovered support for same-sex relationships in the Bible until today, it is hard not to wonder if many now have new cultural spectacles on, having a strong predisposition to find in these texts evidence for the views they already hold.  

What are those cultural spectacles? The reason that homosexual relationships make so much more sense to people today than in previous times is because they have absorbed late modern western culture’s narratives about the human life. Our society presses its members to believe “you have to be yourself,” that sexual desires are crucial to personal identity, that any curbing of strong sexual desires leads to psychological damage, and that individuals should be free to live as they alone see fit. 

These narratives have been well analyzed by scholars such as Robert Bellah and Charles Taylor. They are beliefs about the nature of reality that are not self-evident to most societies and they carry no more empirical proof than any other religious beliefs. They are also filled with inconsistencies and problems. Both Vines and Wilson largely assume these cultural narratives. It is these faith assumptions about identity and freedom that make the straightforward reading of the biblical texts seem so wrong to them. They are the underlying reason for their views, but they are never identified or discussed. 

 

Revising biblical authority. 

Vines and Wilson claim that they continue to hold to a high view of biblical authority, and that they believe the Bible is completely true, but that they don’t think it teaches all same-sex relations are wrong. Vines argues that while the Levitical code forbids homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22) it also forbids eating shellfish (Leviticus 11:9-12). Yet, he says, Christians no longer regard eating shellfish as wrong — so why can’t we change our minds on homosexuality? Here Vines is rejecting the New Testament understanding that the ceremonial laws of Moses around the sacrificial system and ritual purity were fulfilled in Christ and no longer binding, but that the moral law of the Old Testament is still in force. Hebrews 10:16, for example, tells us that the Holy Spirit writes “God’s laws” on Christians’ hearts (so they are obviously still in force), even though that same book of the Bible tells us that some of those Mosaic laws — the ceremonial — are no longer in binding on us. This view has been accepted by all branches of the church since New Testament times. 

When Vines refuses to accept this ancient distinction between the ceremonial and moral law, he is doing much more than simply giving us an alternative interpretation of the Old Testament — he is radically revising what biblical authority means. When he says “Christians no longer regard eating shellfish as wrong,” and then applies this to homosexuality (though assuming that Leviticus 19:18 — the Golden Rule — is still in force), he is assuming that it is Christians themselves, not the Bible, who have the right to decide which parts of the Bible are essentially now out of date. That decisively shifts the ultimate authority to define right and wrong onto the individual Christian and away from the biblical text. 

The traditional view is this: Yes, there are things in the Bible that Christians no longer have to follow but, if the Scripture is our final authority, it is only the Bible itself that can tell us what those things are. The prohibitions against homosexuality are re-stated in the New Testament (Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1) but Jesus himself (Mark 7), as well as the rest of the New Testament, tells us that the clean laws and ceremonial code is no longer in force. 

Vines asserts that he maintains a belief in biblical authority, but with arguments like this one he is actually undermining it. This represents a massive shift in historic Christian theology and life.

 

Being on the wrong side of history. 

More explicit in Wilson’s volume than Vines' is the common argument that history is moving toward greater freedom and equality for individuals, and so refusing to accept same-sex relationships is a futile attempt to stop inevitable historical development. Wilson says that the “complex forces” of history showed Christians that they were wrong about slavery and something like that is happening now with homosexuality.  

Charles Taylor, however, explains how this idea of inevitable historical progress developed out of the Enlightenment optimism about human nature and reason. It is another place where these writers seem to uncritically adopt background understandings that are foreign to the Bible. If we believe in the Bible’s authority, then shifts in public opinion should not matter. The Christian faith will always be offensive to every culture at some points. 

And besides, if you read Eric Kaufmann’s Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? (2010) and follow the latest demographic research, you will know that the world is not inevitably becoming more secular. The percentage of the world’s population that are non-religious, and that put emphasis on individuals determining their own moral values, is shrinking. The more conservative religious faiths are growing very fast. No one studying these trends believes that history is moving in the direction of more secular societies. 

 

Missing the biblical vision. 

The saddest thing for me as a reader was how, in books on the Bible and sex, Vines and Wilson concentrated almost wholly on the biblical negatives, the prohibitions against homosexual practice, instead of giving sustained attention to the high, (yes) glorious Scriptural vision of sexuality. Both authors rightly say that the Bible calls for mutual loving relationships in marriage, but it points to far more than that. 

In Genesis 1 you see pairs of different but complementary things made to work together: heaven and earth, sea and land, even God and humanity. It is part of the brilliance of God’s creation that diverse, unlike things are made to unite and create dynamic wholes which generate more and more life and beauty through their relationships. As N.T. Wright points out, the creation and uniting of male and female at the end of Genesis 2 is the climax of all this. 

That means that male and female have unique, non-interchangeable glories — they each see and do things that the other cannot. Sex was created by God to be a way to mingle these strengths and glories within a life-long covenant of marriage. Marriage is the most intense (though not the only) place where this reunion of male and female takes place in human life. Male and female reshape, learn from, and work together. 

Therefore, in one of the great ironies of late modern times, when we celebrate diversity in so many other cultural sectors, we have truncated the ultimate unity-in-diversity: inter-gendered marriage. 

Without understanding this vision, the sexual prohibitions in the Bible make no sense. Homosexuality does not honor the need for this rich diversity of perspective and gendered humanity in sexual relationships. Same-sex relationships not only cannot provide this for each spouse, they can’t provide children with a deep connection to each half of humanity through a parent of each gender. 

This review has been too brief to give these authors the credit they are due for maintaining a respectful and gracious tone throughout. We live in a time in which civility and love in these discussions is fast going away, and I am thankful the authors are not part of the angry, caustic flow. In this regard they are being good examples, but because I think their main points are wrong, I have had to concentrate on them as I have in this review. I hope I have done so with equal civility.