new church life: september/october 2015
teachings about marriage with those we love, even the harder ones? And
if there are harmful effects for people we love from engaging in same-sex
behaviors that the Lord says we shouldn’t engage in, what would love lead us
to do?
These are tough questions, no doubt. Each of us can determine for
ourselves the best thing to do in the individual situations before us, and with
the people with whom we interact. Sometimes that may lead us to focus on
connecting with people instead of forcing disagreements around the truth.
Other times we may strive to create the space for gentle appeals and offers of
help. And sometimes we may feel it necessary to create some boundaries for
the sake of our own well-being. Each of us can humbly pray for the wisdom to
interact in helpful ways.
That’s some of the love rope – beautiful attitudes and teachings which are
not always easy to apply.
Seeking wisdom from the Word.
Then there is the wisdom rope. We note that these two ropes are intended to
work together. As marriage itself is an interplay of love and wisdom, so our
compassion for our fellow human beings can be informed by the many truths
that the Lord has now revealed. In that vein, let me share four categories of
teaching that bear on the issue at hand.
The first is relatively easy to absorb. The Lord describes three forms of
connection that we can experience with other human beings, depending on
their, or our, gender. We read:
There is a love between men, also a love between women, and there is the love of a
man for a woman and the love of a woman for a man. And these three pairs of loves
are completely different from each other. (Conjugial Love 55:6)
What this teaching says to me is that each of us will have a range of
relationships with other human beings: some of them will be with people of
the opposite sex, and some of them with people of the same sex. Common
experience bears this out, and nothing here suggests that there’s anything
inherently wrong with these relationships.
Yet they are said to be “completely different from each other.” Again this
teaching uses the theme of love and wisdom to describe these differences.
“Love between two men is like the love between one intellect and another,” and
“love between two women is like the love between one affection and another.”
(Ibid) As a result there just isn’t the “capacity for conjunction in every detail”
as exists with people of the opposite sex. (See Ibid. 37)
A conclusion we can reach is that the Lord encourages relationships
among people of the same sex, some of which could be life-long and close in
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