News Tip: Refusal to Extend Ordination Rights to Homosexuals Outdated, Professor Says
"Refusing to ordain homosexuals does not put the church on higher moral ground," says Mary McClintock Fulkerson
By standing their ground last week and refusing to extend ordination rights to homosexuals, a majority of leaders in the United Methodist Church surely believed they were making a clear moral statement, said an associate professor of theology at Duke University's Divinity School.
The problem, according to Mary McClintock Fulkerson, is that the moral statement is outdated and ignores the views of many faithful Christians.
"In a world full of horror, where even so-called representatives of democracy and freedom can be found abusing helpless prisoners of war, there is good reason to long for strong moral sensibilities and communities that will not be easily dissuaded from doing the right thing," she said. "But refusing to ordain homosexuals does not put the church on higher moral ground. In fact, it threatens to pull the church apart on the basis of a myth that the Bible and the church's teachings provide simple and sufficient reasons for faithful contemporary behavior."
The major psychoanalytic and psychological associations deny that homosexuality is an illness or mental disorder. The church's refusal to take this seriously confuses selective rejection of modern knowledges -- those about human sexuality -- with moral superiority, she said.
The church has long struggled with the meaning of being moral and has by necessity changed its mind about what that entailed, McClintock Fulkerson said. Christian teaching has condemned many practices over the centuries, practices now engaged in by many Christians, such as non-procreative sex. "Moral clarity in this case is possible only if we ignore the changing, complex nature of human life and understanding," she said.
"The church needs to recruit good ministers who can help teach congregations and support Christian communities," McClintock Fulkerson added. "Refusing to grant ordination to homosexuals and denying them other rights only makes that job more difficult and creates a climate of blindness to our own biases."