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What would John Wesley have said about this debate in the church?

Last Spring the United Methodist Church, the second-largest Protestant denomination in the United States, met for its quadrennial ten-day general conference. Among its actions, the United Methodists reaffirmed their doctrinal statement that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching (CT, June 17, 1996, p. 58). This affirmation, however, did not occur without heated debate.

One issue that arose during the debate was how to weigh a traditional understanding of Scripture with what science and the lives of gays and lesbians are telling us about homosexuality. This issue is of special importance to United Methodists because of the theological legacy of John Wesley, who allowed tradition, reason, and experience to inform his theological positions.

Wesley, the founder of Methodism, affirmed the primacy of scriptural authority. But he also acknowledged the genuine, albeit secondary, religious authority of tradition, reason, and experience. By doing so, Wesley simply made explicit what is implicit in all theological reflection, even when it ostensibly is based on Scripture alone.

Given this so-called quadrilateral of religious authority, how should Methodists—or any Christian interested in considering a breadth of relevant data—view homosexuality? Although Wesley did not specifically deal with the issue of homosexuality, his theological legacy provides a comprehensive and integrative way of evaluating it.

Scripture
Many Christians fear that acceptance of religious authority other than Scripture leads inexorably to the breakdown of historic Christian beliefs. This is not the case. Wesley remained thoroughly orthodox in his theology, and he expected his followers to do the same. He described himself as a man of one book, emphasizing his submission to the primary authority of the written Word of God. So we may ask, how would Wesley have dealt with the biblical evidence regarding homosexuality?

Historically, Scripture has been interpreted as prohibiting the practice of homosexuality. But some biblical scholars have now challenged interpretations of key texts. Some Old Testament scholars maintain that the infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19) is not relevant to homosexuality; it deals more with inhospitality and violence.

Likewise, some New Testament scholars have questioned whether Paul is really such a hard-liner against homosexual activity. They speculate that Paul was specifically addressing Greco-Roman culture, in which homosexual behavior took the form of male prostitution and pederasty (the practice of adolescent boys selling themselves for sex with older men); thus Paul's condemnations (Rom. 1:27; 1 Cor. 6:9), they argue, had more to do with lust and exploitation than homosexual activity in general.

If nothing else, the work of these contemporary scholars reminds us that we cannot understand Scripture without thoroughly considering its literary, cultural, and theological context. And when we thoroughly consider the various contexts of Scripture, we discover that its teaching remains consistent: Scripture prohibits homosexual activity.

The New Testament, particularly Paul's writings, assumed and affirmed the Old Testament prohibitions against homosexual behavior (see Lev. 18:22; 20:13). Paul did not make a distinction among various forms of homosexuality, and he seemed not to define homosexual activity so narrowly as male prostitution and pederasty (see 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10).

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November 11 1996, Vol. 40, No. 13