Report Affirm Marriage As Ideal
Episcopal News Service. October 8, 1987 [87198]
Barbara Benedict
ST.CHARLES Ill. (DPS, Oct. 8) -- The long-awaited interim report from the Commission on Human Affairs and Health was presented to the House of Bishops by the Rt. Rev. George N. Hunt, chair, then distributed to the bishops for small group discussion.
The report opens by affirming the traditional posture of the Christian Church in respect to sexual morality: that, for Christians, the ideal for the appropriate expression of sexual intimacy lies within the bounds of a life-long commitment in marriage by two persons of the opposite sex.
However, the report notes, although the Church's teaching has remained unchanged, actual sexual behavior appears to have departed significantly from that teaching. Although members of the commission were not necessarily agreed on the answer, the report poses a basic question to the Church: What is the appropriate teaching on human sexuality that the Church should utter at this time?
In struggling with this question, the Commission looked at three categories of morality: principles, policies and practice.
The report observes that there are five areas of human sexual experience that are addressed either directly or by implication in the resolution referred to them: intimate sexual relations between persons of the opposite sex, united in marriage; pre-marital sex; post-marital sex; extra-marital sex and intimate sexual relations between persons of the same sex.
While saying that the 1986 House of Bishops resolution has much to commend it (the resolution states that "sexual relations are to be confined to one's partner in marriage"), the report suggests that it fails to address adequately the complexities of modern life.
Looking at the five areas of human sexual experience, the Commission "uniformly agreed that life-long, monogamous marriage is the normative or ideal context for moral intimate sexual expression between Christians."
The Commission also agreed that extra-marital intimate sexual relations are immoral. In regard to pre- and post-marital intimacies, the Commission again affirmed marriage as the norm. While conceding that some such relationships "have the potential to be life-giving" intend to mirror the faithfulness of marriage, the Commission observed that "the widespread and increasing number of them seem to us to witness more to promiscuity than to fidelity."
"We cannot recommend that they be affirmed by the Church as acceptable relationships," states the report.
Commenting that the truth and value of traditional Christian moral principles are not here questioned, the Commission asks, "How can we teach these principles... without a tedious moralizing?"
"We believe that the Church should stand firm on its traditional moral principles in this area, but without ignoring the theological and pastoral implications of such a seemingly widespread rejection of those principles in society and in the Church."
Such a resolution may cause confusion or be open to misinterpretation the Commission concedes, "Yet it seems clear that a simple restatement of the Church's traditional stance does not have the moral power it once appeared to have, and which we believe it should have now."
The matter of same-sex sexual relations presents a different and more complex set of issues to the Church, according to the report. It emphasizes that it does not attempt to deal with the blessing of same sex unions but rather with how the Church relates to persons who discover themselves to be homosexual.
Recent studies are cited which indicate that homosexuality/heterosexuality are human conditions, formed in utero, over which the individual has no control. Some estimates suggest that as many as one in ten males (and a slightly lesser percentage of females) are primarily homosexual in orientation.
Confronted by all this confusing data, the Commission "encourages and entreats" the Church to listen and pay attention to its homosexual brothers and sisters.
"All our people need to know they have the love of the Church, are part of it, and are entitled to its full pastoral care and concern."
"The Commission challenges this Church to suspend for a time the ancient judgments against our present homosexual Episcopalians and simply open to them a process that will allow them to tell us the stories of their lives," the report reads. "This ambitious challenge is fraught with threatening possibilities. Yet we believe it can be met."
The interim report closes by commending several booklets and study guides, including Sexuality, A Divine Gift, an intergenerational curriculum just published and available through the Episcopal Church Center. It also commends the 1982 General Convention resolution concerning diocesan commissions to review policies on marriage; asking for development of further educational materials on human sexuality and for compilation of a booklet setting forth what this Church has said and believes regarding all issues relating to human sexuality.
The Commission also noted that it is working on a resolution for General Convention and, in closing, cautioned members of the House to be sensitive to the different contexts in which their fellow bishops work. "Although the moral principles are the same in each place, pastoral circumstances in different places and times may suggest different policies in application."