My Dad was talking to a former moderator earlier.  They had been talking about the different ways that the Bible plays into the same-sex relationships debate (note, there will be no mentions of ordinations or inductions in this blog - hopefully that's keeping to the spirit of things).

The guy my Dad was talking to, one of my top favourite people, had said something like "there is a difference between the texts of scripture and the themes of scripture."

I can see where that's coming from.  There are broad themes in scripture, and they don't come much broader than love.  Jesus said that the whole law was summed up in the command to love, and John tells us that "God is love".  "Love is the greatest thing", says Paul.

So the theme is love, and it kind of trumps the texts in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Leviticus (folk never seem to read Leviticus, rather they talk about getting bogged down in Leviticus - a tragedy since someone like Rob Bell once preached for a year on Leviticus and filled his Church) and Jude.

Except for this.

Those texts are not isolated.  They too are about a theme.  It's the sex theme.

Not just sex as it is in the magazines - mechanics and performance.

Sex as it is in the Bible - the sex theme is about the mingling of souls.  Sex is a deep mystery that stands for the maleness/femaleness mixture found within God, and as a picture of the relationship between Jesus and the Church. 

If you asked a biologist "Why sex?" they would give you an answer about the need to reproduce. 

If you ask the magazines they give you an answer about pleasure. 

If you ask the Bible then the answer seems to be that we need a way of knowing what God is like, and we need a way of knowing how Jesus loves his people - so sex is an icon into something bigger.  In fact, a viewing glass into the biggest thing.  Sex is a glimpse of God.

It's not just that there are some similarities between sex and God, some interesting connections; no, it's almost as if that's the purpose of sex.  Beyond the reproduction and the joy, sex's biggest job is to point us to God.  Theologians might say "sex is a sacrament", or put another way "sex is sacred."

What we do in a wedding service is ordain two people to the sacrament of sex.

Don't worry, I'm not going to be saying that in any wedding service soon.

I was at an evangelical meeting in Glasgow's Tron church a few Saturdays ago where the Archbishop of Sydney was speaking on human sexuality under the topic of "contending for the faith". The title was taken from Jude where the author talks about contending against false teachers and Satan.

It's fair to say that the Archbishop’s presentation was one-sided and railed against the evils of same-sex relationships, modern views on equality, the contamination of the mind of the youth by the schools and media, and the secularization of culture by the view that the reader's interpretation of literature is sovereign over the author’s intention. "Witch hunt" is a fair assessment of the evening. One may excuse the Archbishop's fury at the change in contemporary views from the days of his youth to 2009, however, his failure to examine what the Bible actually says about human sexuality, “ ‘cos it would take too long”, made his presentation seem more reliant on the "God hates fags" tradition than inspired revelation from God through the scriptures.

The Protestant audience was quick to congratulate the speaker for highlighting the struggle between evangelicals and liberals and they agreed that "this is the issue” to fight to the death. The issue of the "gay Church of Scotland minister" was briefly mentioned and the criticism of his character was unopposed.

etc etc. I agree absolutely with the Bible that a lot of gay relationships in the past have been sinful, and that a lot of heterosexual relationships in the past have been sinful. No one disputes that the Bible is correct to challenge destructive, degrading, and perverse sexual relations as in all of the above passages.

However, this is not conclusive proof- from the Holy Scriptures themselves-that the likes of Rev. Rennie are in League with Satan. The evangelicals who are quick to jump on the witch hunt bandwagon should first question HOW they are so sure of their own salvation. Surely they will say they are sure because of their repentance of sin, faith in Christ, and their continual repentance under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The gay Christian would say exactly the same. At a time when so many gays tell us they know Jesus IS Lord and God and that they have received spiritual gifts from the Holy Spirit can the Kirk can be so arrogant as to dismiss them universally? If so the Kirk is no better than past generations of church folk who mocked some for contradicting the Bible by suggesting 1 Chronicles 16:30 and Psalm 104:5 were wrong, or when abolitionists questioned the morality of slavery, or when interracial marriage was first raised. Another example is usury which the Bible categorically condemns (Exodus 22:25, Psalm 15:5, Ezekiel 18:10-13) and the Church vehemently opposed for centuries (Shylock the Jew in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, and Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta) until the early modern period when developments in the European economic context led to the Church’s understanding and view being re-evaluated. Yes, NOW we all agree on those issues, HOWEVER, the precedent of Christians getting it horrendously wrong cannot be denied.