Defendant’s statement on same-sex marriage criticized
Posted, October 24, 2005
This letter is an open response by the Robert Brown, a deacon at Nor Kirk Presbyterian Church in Carrollton, Tex., to a statement by the Rev. Jim Rigby defending his part in a marriage ceremony for same-sex couples. Brown filed a disciplinary against Rigby, accusing him of willfully and deliberately violating his ordination vows. The Layman Online published a summary of Rigby’s defense and a link to his full statement on the Web site of That All May Freely Serve.
It was with a heavy heart last year that I filed the complaint with Mission Presbytery against the Rev. Jim Rev Rigby. I could not forget those words of our Lord reminding us of the plank in our own eye. Who was I, a sinner, to say what an ordained pastor should and should not do? However, it is with another heavy heart tonight that I write to counter the words of Rev. Rigby printed last week. His invocation of the will of Christ, as well as his uses of Scripture, the Confessions of the Church, our Book of Order, and the Reformation itself all to me are unacceptable. These Truths and institutions are the very reasons I chose to fight, and they are what sustain me today. I cannot ignore their misuse in a role that I find to be contrary to their very essence.
First, Rev. Rigby refers in his statement to the “nonjudgmental Jesus” whom he serves. I am curious as to where he has found this Jesus, for he is not the one of whom Scripture teaches and to whom we are commanded obedience. St. John writes in chapter 5 of his book that God “has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man.” A few verses later, Christ says, “As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the Father who sent me.”
So immediately we see that Rev. Rigby’s Jesus is not one he is basing on the gospels. It does not seem to be consistent with the rest of the New Testament, either. 2 Timothy 4:1-5 seems to ring all too clear to us in the PCUSA: “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
While I certainly do not agree with Rev. Rigby’s stance on the issue at hand, I think it must stem from one of two presuppositions; either:
- A) Homosexuality is not a sin and so should not preclude ordination; or
- B) The sin of homosexuality is one that the Church should not worry herself about or call her members to repent for.
Option A, to me, seems easy to refute. Even leaving out the standards of conduct in Old Testament Hebraic Law (remember though that Christ said he came to fulfill and establish the Law), Christianity’s view of homosexual conduct is very clear. Rev. Rigby seems willing to dismiss St Paul’s evident condemnation of homosexuality in Romans 1 as “impossible.” As a believer in the Reformed tradition based on Scriptural authority, I cannot accept that statement.
After stating in verse 18 that, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,” Paul says in verses 26 and 27 that “women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”
The sins outlined here are what Rev. Rigby says we cannot judge. But Paul does not only list homosexuality as unrighteous. He continues his list of “those things which are not fitting” in verses 29 and 30: “All unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents…” his list goes on. I would hope that no member of the clergy, or anyone in Christ’s Church for that matter, would excuse any of the sins listed in Romans 1:29-30. In fact, I would hope that they would point them out in themselves and in each other, so that the Church might be kept as the pure Bride of Christ that she was created on Pentecost to be.
So then, if we are to condemn murder, pride, envy and heterosexual lust as incompatible with the teachings of Holy Scripture and thus the will of God, how can we draw a distinction between those sins as listed by Paul and homosexuality. Paul did not insert any sort of break in his letter, or start the second list with the phrase, “These are the really bad ones. I wasn’t serious about the others.”
I would urge all Christians deciding this issue in their hearts to read 1 Corinthians 5 and 6. In it, Paul deals with the issue of sexual immorality in the early church. In 6:9a-10 he writes that, “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, not adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God.” Here again we see a list of sins that would (hopefully) be identified, condemned and attacked by the Church in all ages. Not because the doers of these deeds are outside the saving grace of Christ, but because these outward actions display every man and woman’s inner need for redemption in order to be made acceptable to God.
If Rev. Rigby is using what I have labeled argument B, that homosexuality is a sin that the Church should not worry about, I think he has just as weak a case. All men and women sin, including clergy. However, how they view their sin is what is important. If the sin is seen as something for which they are ashamed and something they wish to be free from; chains that separate them from Holy Communion with God, then of course they are welcome, regardless of the apparent gravity of the sin. It is when individuals begin excusing their sin, claiming that there is a part of themselves or their beliefs which they refuse to surrender totally to Christ that there is a problem. Scripture and the Confessions affirm that all men and women are born with sin. We are born with pride, envy, hate, lust, dishonesty, and a host of other evils. However, if we want the new life promised us in Christ, we must recognize that all we deserve is hell. If we tell homosexuals that yes, they must love their enemies and not delight in the material goods of this world, how can we in the same breath tell them that repenting for and turning from their homosexuality is not required of them?
Rev. Rigby has also said that he is bound by a higher power than the Book of Order. On this point, I would wholeheartedly agree with him. God help us if we allow a man made book to subvert the authority of Divine Scripture. But no one is making him stay in our denomination. There are plenty of progressive churches that would love to have him. The PCUSA has voted several times not to relinquish our ordination standards. Rev. Rigby speaks of our system protecting against a “tyranny of the majority,” but what of a tyranny of the minority – a very vocal minority that holds an entire denomination hostage while it presses its narrow agenda. Polls have shown that rank and file Presbyterians are against the ordination and marriage of homosexuals in our denomination by a much larger margin than the votes taken at General Assembly. These findings should only further discourage Rev Rigby and his camp from continuing their disruption of our mission.
I have heard from many sources that we are making too big of a deal out of the issue of homosexuality in the church. If the issue simply were homosexuality, I would perhaps agree with them. But I see it as much worse than that. The very words of Scripture are being ignored and warped to fit a social agenda. Rev. Rigby also has at least one atheist that regularly attends his church, a man who told me last month that (although an atheist) he was going to be speaking from the pulpit on an upcoming Sunday morning during the (worship) service. Having an atheist in church is certainly not a sin — we are called to minister to the lost. But when they are not treated as lost, but as full participatory members in the holy institution of the Church despite their rejection of truth, we have forgotten our mission and abandoned them to their fate. I have heard (in person and otherwise) presbyteries reading from the Koran, and churches praying to the god of Muhammad. Coincidentally, these are the same churches and presbyteries working for the removal of the fidelity/chastity ordination standards in the Book of Order. The slippery slope on which we find ourselves can only lead into the Abyss.
Let us not fool ourselves. The Church is at war. This is not new – she has always been fighting for the truth against the world. However, her enemies have traditionally been easy to identify: nonbelievers, tyrants, and those who hate. Today, her enemy hides behind the veil of acceptance and tolerance, and all too often clothes itself in the robes of the clergy. I take great comfort in the words of the final verse in that old hymn, The Church’s One Foundation:
- Though with a scornful wonder
- The world sees her oppressed,
- By schisms rent asunder,
- By heresies distressed:
- Yet saints their watch are keeping,
- Their cry goes up, “How long?”
- And soon the night of weeping
- Shall be the morn of song!
“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” – 2 Timothy 1:13-14
Robert Brown