HOW SWARTLEY GETS IT WRONG
A Review of Homosexuality

Bruce Hiebert

Willard Swartley, Homosexuality: Biblical Interpretation and Moral Discernment. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 2003.

A s much as I must honor Willard Swartley as a profound teacher of the church, his most recent book, Homosexuality, is the articulation of a theology of human sexuality more appropriate to a fertility religion than to Christianity.

The foundation of Swartley’s book is chapter 2, i which he begins by quoting Karl Barth to the effect that there is in God’s good creation a fundamental sexual duality of male and female. Barth’s position is this: There are in creation men and women. They are distinct, different, and unequal aspects of the way God created humanity, and their difference is essential to the created order (Church Dogmatics, T. & T. Clark, 1936-1970, 3:1:288, 301, and 3:4:116ff.). According to Barth, this is what it means for humanity to be in God’s image.

This is on the surface an appealing reading, and it is not surprising at first that Swartley takes this direction. It seems to make sense; that is how the world seems to work and how many cultures have understood the world.

But it is not a good reading of the Bible. The source text is Genesis 1:27, "God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (NRSV). The text does indicate that males and females are together created in the image of God. It says nothing at all, however, about the meaning of the difference between men and women. While it may mean that men and women (in opposition to most social perspectives) are equal before God, it could also mean men and women share in one "human-divine" image.

What Genesis cannot mean is that the differences between men and women are fundamental to human existence before God. While the text recognizes the mundane sexual differences, it is human unity with a God who is not sexually divided that is the point. The text assumes males are different from females; the good news for humans is that this does not disturb their unity with God!

However, this wrong interpretation by Barth and Swartley is an appealing move in the theological argument Swartley is developing. If you accept the premise that male and female are foundational to divinely ordered human existence, then the rest of his book follows logically. Built on this foundation, all texts that reflect this duality take primacy over any texts that suggest some alternative. With regard to homosexuality, then, the case is closed: homosexuality violates the fundamental order.

But arguing from created orders is a notoriously difficult task. The Bible itself does not permit such an easy reading and in fact requires a pre-acceptance of the Barth/Swartley premise to come up with anything approaching such a "normative" view of human sexuality, let alone the exclusion of homosexuality. From the rest of Genesis through the Song of Solomon and Proverbs to the apostle Paul, sexuality has many complex and difficult meanings in the Bible.

Further, Swartley’s foundation is anything but appealing once the implications are examined. Karl Barth himself uses this reading to justify the inequality of women and men (men are created to dominate; it is inherent to their maleness and "no shame to women" (CD 3:1:301).

Barth’s reading also asks us to place God’s creation as theologically before God’s redemption; this is completely backward to orthodox Anabaptist thought. This is clear as soon as we ask, Does fertility, the ability to procreate, have an effect on salvation? Swartley’s logic calls for a yes.

If there is any doubt that a fertility religion was other than Swartley’s orientation, then he would have spent the bulk of his time trying to understand the one passage in the Bible that attempts to develop a Christian perspective on what might be called creation orders. I refer to the view of the apostle Paul expressed in Galatians 3:28. There Paul argues that in Christ, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female. . . " (NRSV). This is the apostle Paul’s hymn to the putting aside of human barriers "in Christ." But you can look in vain through Homosexuality for any serious discussion of this foundational Christian text. (It receives a passing aside on p. 64 and is then misquoted as part of a slightly longer mention on p. 98.

A serious discussion of the Galatians passage would force Swartley to conclude that the apostle Paul saw human existence in its maleness and femaleness as not foundationally relevant to Christian existence. In making this case, the apostle Paul may even be basing it on Genesis 1:27. (See Terence Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles, Fortress, 1997; Lloyd Gaston, Paul and the Torah, U.B.C. Press, 1987; Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians, Yale Univ. Press, 1983.)

Another possibility is that Paul is referencing Greek concepts of androgeneity, concepts that link with his understanding of Christ as anthropos (Ernst Kaseman, Commentary on Romans, Eerdmans, 1980).

In either case, we are forced to recognize that Paul is driving at a human unity/identity that occurs "behind" biological existence. Regardless, it is precisely the duality of male and female that is not present in Christ, even though men and women are present in the church.

A third possibility is that the apostle Paul is building on Jewish concepts of the priority of humanity over males and females in God’s creation, a possibility drawn to my attention by Willard Swartley. If this is the case, it only reinforces the points already made.

According to Paul, it is as "created in the image of God" or "as an aspect of Christ-existence" that men and women participate in the body of Christ. Therefore there cannot be a moral or ethical distinction made between them. As Paul is at great pains to point out in most parts of his writings, what applies to men applies equally and exactly the same way to women.

However, and it is important to recognize, this is not something he argues with respect to either Jew or Greek (Jew is better) or slave or free (free is better). The apostle Paul is not entirely consistent in this regard. See especially 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. However, even within this text, in verse 12, Paul argues that to see this difference as foundational is wrong. (I also note that the contemporary Mennonite church does not see the apostle Paul as speaking authoritatively at this point.)

The position that must be read from the apostle Paul about the duality of men and women is that it does not exist "in Christ." It has no "saving" significance and is not a "mark" that belongs to Christians. Male and female? It makes no difference at all. Being "in Christ" takes place at a point outside of our self-experience as men or women.

Therefore the long line of argument that starts from the position of foundational sexual duality and concludes with a contemporary Christian command to heterosexuality must be eliminated. Christian sexual ethics begin elsewhere. As I have said, despite his citation of the Bible, Swartley is arguing the ethics of a religion that places fertility ahead of salvation.

Another weakness of Homosexuality is its treatment of Romans 1:18-32, perhaps the one passage in the Bible that does indicate a Christianly negative response to "homosexuality." (Here and elsewhere I place quotes around "homosexuality." I do so because, though it is not fully germane to this discussion of Swartley’s book, I find the easy use of the term "homosexuality" out of keeping with its complex history as a concept.)While Swartley correctly sees that the context of this passage is idolatry, he fails to follow through on this insight for the interpretation of the passage.

If it is idolatry that is the source of the problems, then everything Paul identifies is an example of what the fundamental powers of the universe wreak once God has turned idolaters over to the powers they have determined to worship. These consequences include "homosexuality" (1:26-27), and also evil, murder, God-hating, gossip, insolence, and disobedience to parents (1:29-31). These consequences are all, according to Paul, punishable by death (1:32).

It is appealing to read this passage as indicating that these behaviors are abominations and signs of apostasy; however, to do so is to misread the logic of the text. Paul is clear: Idolatry leads to a foundational change of state for these persons, and that in turns leads to a wreaking of havoc in their lives.

The issue for Paul is not the behavior, not the homosexuality, evil, murder, God-hating or disobedience to parents, though he obviously finds all of these things distasteful. The issue for Paul is idolatry. It is wrong worship he opposes.

To try to make the issues in this set of verses the behavior of the persons (rather than their idolatry) is to condemn the symptoms and not the cause. It is as if a doctor determined to treat the fever that comes from pneumonia with an ice bath, not through the application of antibiotics. To turn analogy into allegory, a better reading of the apostle Paul says that idolatry is just as fatal as untreated pneumonia. So bring in the doctor (Christ) to get at the causal bacteria (idolatry) by means of the antibiotic (confessing Jesus as Lord) and the symptoms will disappear.

Once the text is seen as the carefully constructed rhetorical-logical sequence that it is, further use of this passage against those in the church who experience homosexual desires or engage in homosexual acts collapses. Once people confess Jesus Christ as Lord, they are not idolaters. They are Christians regardless of past or future behavior. Not homosexuals, not gossips, not murderers, not insolent children, not slanderers; none of us can be denied access to the fullness of the church once we confess Jesus Christ as Lord.

However, the good news of Swartley’s work is that exclusion is not what he advocates. Despite a fertility religion-based argument throughout the bulk of the book, his fundamental Christianity leads him to speak for inclusion of "homosexual" persons in the church (see his Appendix 2; here and elsewhere I place quotes around "homosexuality." While it is not germane to this discussion of Swartley’s book, I find the easy use of the term "homosexuality" out of keeping with its complex history as a concept).

Finally, a strength of Swartley’s book is that he seeks empirical support for his position in the life of the church. Accepting that challenge, we are forced to ask, How does God use those who experience homosexual desires and engage in homosexual acts and also confess Jesus as Lord?

The answer is clear: We find some of them providing valued ministries as pastoral counselors, teachers, Mennonite Central Committee workers, Christian Peacemaker Team members, and even congregational leaders and pastors. Their possession by God does not, in some cases, eradicate desire or behavior, but does transform them into vessels through which God’s community can be strengthened and God’s grace spread into the world.

Homosexuality fails at the levels of Christian theology, Christian biblical interpretation, and existing Mennonite experience. As much as I appreciate Willard Swartley and am deeply appreciative that he was willing to accept the challenge of addressing the issue of human sexuality with such bravery and clarity, I cannot accept that he has in this case reasoned in a manner congruent with the key Christian emphases I’ve highlighted in this review.

Instead we are still waiting for a biblical Christian reference work that will enable Mennonites to deal effectively with the ethics of human sexuality.

—Bruce Hiebert, Abbottsford, British Columbia, lectures in History and Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University and University College of the Fraser Valley. He is currently completing his Ph.D. dissertation, which examines the relationship between gender and cultural change among nineteenth-century Mennonites. He has most recently published Your Soul at Work (Northstone, 2005), an examination of the ethics of work.