Appealing to Scripture, Moral Foramtion, and Re-imaging Homosexuality

Description

In the contemporary Western church’s vexed discussions about homosexuality, nearly everybody is appealing to Scripture. Some appeal to scripture and find clear reasons for resisting any legitimation of same-gender relationships. Others appeal to Scripture and find no directly relevant material and conclude that there is no reason not to legitimate such relationships. Others appeal to Scripture and find the relevant material so susceptible to an irreducible hermeneutical diversity that the church is invited correspondingly to embrace a diversity of positions on such relationships. Still others appeal to a ‘canon within the canon’ in order either to reinforce biblical prohibitions against homosexuality or to theologically relativise them. In each case there is an appeal to scripture. The dividing lines between the different positions are not lines between being more or less serious in the acknowledgement of scripture’s authority. Nor are the dividing lines simply those which separate different exegetical or hermeneutical methods from each other. So why the diversity?