Revisiting and re-evaluating same-sex sexual acts in Christian ethics – four evaluations and a suggestion

Abstract: This paper investigates three questions; how an exegetically sound basis for a biblical ethics concerning same-sex sexual acts might be construed, what role the Bible, and other sources of ethical insight, should play in construing Christian ethics, and what a Christian ethic founded on the answers to those questions would say concerning same-sex sexual acts today. To perform these investigations, the hermeneutical issue regarding biblical texts, as well as the relation between revelatory and non-revelatory ethical sources within Christian ethics, is discussed, and the construed Christian ethics concerning same-sex sexual acts and sexuality of Lisa Sowle Cahill, Samuel W. Kunhiyop, Richard B. Hays, and Peter Coleman are evaluated before a suggestion is presented. That suggestion states that a sound exegetical basis demands a historical-critical reading that aims at understanding the language agreement between first recipients and author(s). It also claims that it is the perspective of the text that should be in focus in forming biblical ethics. Further, it is suggested that the Bible should be considered as having a unique role in Christian ethics by means of supplying a unique perspective on other sources for ethics, as well as on the insights of Scripture itself. This perspective is based on revelation, and should be formed from the central Scriptural notion of imitatio Dei/Christi. The Bible should also be recognized as a unique source of Christian ethical insight. However, an awareness of the impossibility of perfect understanding of Scripture opens the need for a dialog with other sources of ethical insight, such as experience, tradition, and secular reason, through which they are able to play a role in construing Christian ethics. Finally, the Christian ethics concerning same-sex sexual acts holds such acts to be in need of a discriminating division between good and bad; those that are performed within a loving and caring relationship and those that are not. The former are tentatively commended based on an understanding of the clearly encouraged homosocial love they might result of, as well as positive human experience, while the latter are vehemently condemned because of their damaging nature to one or both of the people involved.