Notes: Sexual Ethics, Aesthetics, and Analogies
An Appraisal of Eugene F. Rogers, Jr.'s "Sanctification, Homosexuality, and God's Triune Life"
I recently had the opportunity to give a presentation on Eugene F. Rogers Jr.’s, essay, “Sanctification, Homosexuality, and God’s Triune Life”1 for my Ethics of Human Sexuality class, during which I offered a brief appraisal of three aspects of his argument. What follows is an edited version of my notes.
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I want to start off by saying that this essay by Eugene Rogers, Jr., titled “Sanctification, Homosexuality, and God’s Triune Life,” is probably the best argument I have ever read that makes the case for the expansion of sacramental marriage to include same-sex couples, and therefore the moral affirmation of same-sex sexual activity within such marriages. It is a nuanced argument I respect, even if I still find myself unconvinced. Today I want to offer a brief appraisal of three threads of Rogers’ argument: first, his emphasis on “fittingness” or aesthetic argumentation, second, his description of the purpose of and relationship between marriage, sex, and procreation, and third, his deployment of the “Gentile analogy.”
Argument from Aesthetics
One of the first rhetorical moves Rogers makes in this essay is to shift the framing of the debate. Debate about the morality of same-sex marriage and sexual activity is typically framed in terms of an argument ex necessitate, or from necessity. But Rowan Williams’ “The Body’s Grace”—which inspired Rogers’ essay and to which he frequently refers—involves “not starting from the shared premises but…attempting to make its own premises attractive through disciplined elaboration” (p. 218). Rogers suggests the debate on same-sex marriage and sexual activity needs more attention to an argument ex convenientia, or what might also be called an argument from aesthetics.
I have sometimes expressed (a bit tongue-in-cheek) that “all moral arguments are aesthetic arguments”—which I admit is a bit of an intentional provocation. But Rogers expresses this point in a better and more reserved way here. What is often lacking in debates about same-sex marriage and sexual activity, in my experience, is a defense on aesthetic grounds: less “does this argument make sense” and more “is this argument beautiful?” I respect this approach, because it challenges traditionalists like myself to describe the beauty or “fittingness” of traditional Church teaching. But I think it can also make it really easy to evade the pushback that logical argumentation provides. In this critique, I will try to argue both ex necessitate and ex convenientia.
Marriage, Sex, and Procreation
The fundamental question Rogers asks at the beginning of the article is, “By what sort of sacramental practices can the church best teach gay and lesbian Christians to see themselves as occasions of joy, that God desires them as if they were God?” And a big part of his answer is marriage between people of the same sex, although he recognizes that celibacy may also play a significant role (earning much respect from me!). He notes that God, as Trinity, is already a community of persons and does not need creation. Analogously, he claims, procreation is not essential to humanity, marriage, or sex:
“It has been argued that human beings are created in God’s image in that as God creates, human beings procreate. Quite aside from the fact that it makes Jesus a deficient human being and separates celibacy from marriage, that argument makes creation necessary to God…such views of creation ignore the Trinity.” (p. 220-221).
God has no need of creation; creation is grace. Rogers then observes that the consistent analogies used throughout Scripture for the relationship between God and human beings are marital and sexual, but generally not procreative:
“Passages that speak of Israel as God’s bride are distinct from those that speak of Israel as God’s child, and do not speak of procreation. Jesus and Paul both speak of marriage without mentioning children. That they do so because they expect an imminent end of the world only heightens the point that marriage has an integral, eschatological end in the grace and gratitude of the trinitarian life, apart from childbearing” (p. 221).
There is no mention of procreation in, for instance, the Song of Songs—perhaps the most celebrated biblical example of marital imagery for the relationship between God and human beings. So why insist that sex must be the kind of act which produces children? Important biblical themes such as adoption (into the family of God), ingrafting (of the Gentiles into Israel), and resurrection (of all) have the effect of relativizing procreation:
“The whole pattern of adoption, ingrafting, and resurrection, which goes to the very heart of God’s extension of the covenant to the gentiles, relativizes procreation, insisting that all human beings…find fulfillment in sanctification–that is, in God” (p. 221-222).
This is part of where I think Rogers goes a little wrong, because as I see it, resurrection relativizes procreation precisely through relativizing marriage and sex. And so Jesus teaches in the Gospel of Matthew that “in the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30 NRSVUE). And the apostle Paul counsels the Corinthians that, in light of what he thought was the imminent eschaton, it is better, not merely to not procreate, but to remain unmarried: “I think that, in view of the impending crisis, it is good for you [virgins] to remain as you are” (1 Corinthians 7:26 NRSVUE). Later on in that same letter, Paul continues this line of argumentation:
“I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord, but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit, but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:32-34 NRSVUE).
I accept Rogers’ claim that procreation is relativized in the pattern of the New Testament Scriptures, but not his claim that this suggests the moral acceptance of sex that is fundamentally not open to procreation (and therefore, expansion of sacramental marriage to include two people of the same sex). He ends by returning to the passage in “The Body’s Grace” he quoted at the beginning, saying that marriage is spiritually significant, not just because of procreation, but because it cultivates desire and helps partners know themselves as beloved (a beautiful insight!).
One of the quickest ways to my heart is a reference to Gregory of Nyssa, so Rogers is really pulling on my heartstrings when he writes:
“Christian life is an expansion, a straining forward (epektasis) into ever-greater love of God, which means that God is constantly expanding human desire for God even as God fulfills it…Marriage is a sacrament because it gives desire time and space to stretch forward (another epektasis) into things that are more desirable” (p. 223-224).
Nyssen’s doctrine of epektasis has become, over the last year and a half or so, part of the core of my own personal theology of sexuality and friendship (an aspect of which I have written about here), and I am thankful that Rogers employs it to direct our desires beyond sex and marriage to God. This is an example, I think, of his commitment to aesthetic argumentation, but there is a logical angle to it as well: he suggests that the purpose of marriage (and therefore, sex) is to direct our desires “further up and further in” to God himself. It is a kind of ascesis, which makes marriage and celibacy more similar than often thought. He explains:
“[M]arriage shares with celibacy the end of sanctifying the body, of permitting it something more to be about, something further to mean, something better to desire, until it finally gets taken up into the life in which God loves God” (p. 223-224).
But I see a key flaw in this argument. Rogers initially frames this essay as more of an extended argument of “fittingness,” or an aesthetic argument, rather than strictly logical argumentation, but in this key moment I think he fails to really address the idea of the biological complementarity of male and female in the sexual act, and the life-giving (i.e. procreative) aspect of opposite-sex sexual activity, as especially beautiful or “fitting”. I find myself wishing that Rogers would make a clearer case for the beauty or aesthetic value of same-sex sexual activity itself; I want someone to try to convince me that same-sex sexual activity is not only licit, but also “fitting,” beautiful!
The “Gentile Analogy”
Rogers examines a phrase from Romans— para physin, or “against nature”—that the apostle Paul uses once to condemn same-sex sexual activity (in Romans 1) and once to describe God’s grafting of the Gentiles into Israel (in Romans 11). Rogers sees a unity in these seemingly contradictory verses:
“[I]n Rom[ans] 1, acting contrary to nature characterizes idolatrous gentiles, and the great amazement that drives Paul’s ministry is that God pours out the Spirit on those people, an amazement Paul expresses in Rom[ans] 11 by characterizing God’s saving action itself as contrary to nature” (p. 226).
Rogers sets up an analogy between Gentiles being grafted into Israel and gay people being grafted into sacramental marriage—both “contrary to nature”.
“Like the claim that the Spirit of Christ is joining the gentiles to the tree [of Israel] in baptism, the claim that the same Spirit is building up the body of Christ by joining together gay and lesbian couples is pneumatological one,” which for Rogers means that it can become “empirically verifiable in the church’s life” (p. 226).
He ushers in biblical and historical support. Paul’s claim that “there is no longer Jew or Greek…no longer slave or free…no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28), he claims, means an erasure of the distinction between gay and straight. This verse Rogers sees as a warning, and he uses quite forceful language to make his point: either overcome these distinctions in the life of the church, or risk salvation:
“Failing to accept faithful, monogamous gay and lesbian marriages puts gentile Christians in danger of their salvation. Marriage for gay and lesbian spouses depends upon the work of the Holy Spirit no less than baptism for the gentiles, and disbelief in either risks blasphemy against the Spirit” (p. 227).
Then Rogers describes to what he calls the “standard argument” that has formed the backbone for anti-Gentile, pro-slavery, racist, anti-feminist, and anti-gay biblical arguments made by Christians throughout history (p. 228-229). First, “fall narratives” in Scripture reveal God’s punishment of a certain group [Gentiles, racial and ethnic minorities, women, gay and lesbian people]. Second, God’s punishment is a certain group’s “natural disorder or weakness that is not yet itself a moral fault,” i.e. special susceptibility to temptation. Third, this natural disorder or weakness can lead to immoral behavior. Fourth, it is not prejudicial to restrict the certain group, because restriction is based not on the natural disorder or weakness, but immoral behavior. Fifth, restrictions protect both the certain group and broader society. Sixth and finally, this should lead to pity and compassion, but not moral leniency.
If God overturns this “standard argument” in regards to the Gentiles (who were often understood as “constitutionally incapable of keeping the commandments, and especially at risk of moral fault,” p. 227), then it stands to reason (for Rogers) that God overturns it in regards to enslaved people, racial and ethnic minorities, women, and gay and lesbian people.
But I think this analogy between Gentiles and gay and lesbian people is not airtight, and needs to be further interrogated. John Perry, in a 2011 article titled “Gentiles and Homosexuals: A Brief History of an Analogy,”2 mentions five aspects of the “Gentile analogy” that should be taken into consideration, and that complicate Rogers’ case a bit:
The Jerusalem Council. When the Gentiles were included in the early Church, they were not required to observe the entirety of Torah, but still required to observe some of its commands (significantly: to refrain from “sexual immorality”). Might this imply that gay and lesbians are still required to abstain from same-sex sex? If not, why not?
Keeping kosher. “Jews already distinguished laws binding on all humans from laws binding only on Jews” (p. 329). But keeping kosher is not like prohibitions on same-sex sex, is it? How are they the same? Different?
The reason for change in teaching. “[W]elcoming gentiles apart from the law does not denigrate Torah-observance” (p. 330). Torah observance is still good for Jews, although Gentiles need not observe it; does this imply marriage is still good, and gay and lesbian people need not marry?
The trajectory of salvation history. “How clearly did characters in Acts believe gentile inclusion was anticipated in their Scriptures” (p. 330)? Was the morality of same-sex sexual activity somehow anticipated in Scripture, or is this a radically new movement of the Holy Spirit?
Gentile God-fearers. There is a Jewish category for righteous and non-Torah-observant gentile “God-fearers”. But this is not the same for Christians and prohibitions on same-sex sexual activity, right?
Perry’s purpose in bringing up these five points is not so much to argue for any particular perspective, but just to move the conversation forward. He observes that analogies are useful precisely because the details never match up perfectly for anyone; the debate moves forward by discussing which should be emphasized and which should be ignored. Providing my own positions on all of these questions would take up much more time than I have been given, so I will just offer them as a starting point for further discussion.
Discussion Questions
Aesthetic argumentation, although it can be subjective, is oftentimes more convincing than logical argumentation alone. In this essay, Rogers offers an aesthetic argument about the expansion of sacramental marriage to include same-sex couples, and the moral acceptability of same-sex sexual activity within such marriage. What might the contours be of an aesthetic argument for current Church teaching on marriage and sexuality–one which appeals to gay people and accounts for gay longing?
Rogers describes what he calls the “standard argument” for anti-Gentile, pro-slavery, racist, and anti-feminist biblical positions articulated throughout the centuries, and sets up an analogy between Gentiles and Torah observance on the one hand and gay and lesbian people and the sacrament of marriage on the other. In what ways do you think this analogy works, and in what ways do you think it falls short?
Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., “Sanctification, Homosexuality, and God’s Triune Life” in Theology and Sexuality: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Eugene F. Rogers. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002)
John Perry, “Gentiles and Homosexuals: A Brief History of an Analogy” in Journal of Religious Ethics 38:2 (2010), p. 321-347