Breaking down the dividing wall: ending the silence about sexuality - Homosexuality: Some Elements for an Ecumenical Discussion

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 1998 by Melanie A. May

On being the church

These and other questions about moral formation and moral identity cannot be clarified abstractly or normatively. Only in relation to "a sense of moral communion in the words of the report of a WCC consultation on ecclesiology and ethics." can the lived reality out of which these questions arise be considered. The process of moral formation and the creation of moral identity happen face-to-face in congregations and parishes, that is, in ecclesiological perspective.

Thinking of moral questions in ecclesiological perspective reminds me of some words of Leonardo Boff:

Pure Christianity does not exist, never has existed, never can exist.

The divine is always made present through human mediations which are

always dialectical. They are divine me in

the reality of history (identity), revealing divine identity while, at the

same time, hiding it because of their intrinsic limitations

(non-identity). What exists concretely is always the church, that is.

the historical-cultural expression and religious objectification of

Christianity.(12)

In other words, the churches' conversation about moral questions, including Human sexuality and homosexuality, takes place amid the ambiguity of Christian "identity" and "non-identity". Christian identity is not an a historical given to be preserved and protected. To speak about Christian identity is to acknowledge that there are no universal doctrines or guidelines or principles to be applied as authoritative. To speak about Christian identity is to be drawn into the heart of human reality, in which our difference and diversity are not problems to be solved, but are the stuff of our living, flesh-and-blood existence, which God chooses again and again to engage and to bless. Only in this way will we break down the dividing walls of separation and silence that keep all members of Christ's body from life abundant.

For God's gift of life abundant does not come to a select few. As long as anyone suffers, all suffer separation and silence; and until all are free, none is free. We may not say, as I have heard it said with regard to human sexuality. especially homosexuality, "This issue is not on my church's agenda." Here we must be altogether honest: despite our rhetoric about recognizing one another's baptism, despite our rhetoric about bearing one another's burdens and being in solidarity with one another in times of tension and pain and perplexity, we still too often walk away from one another, thereby saying: "I have no need of you" (1 Cor. 12:21). We retreat, filled with fear. We view the more and more richly visible and voiced diversity of our churches in terms of transgression rather than in light of the possibility for mutual transformation.

Perhaps it is time to turn again in all honesty to the statement "Towards Unity-in-Tension", drafted at the 1974 meeting of the WCC's Commission on Faith and Order in Accra, Ghana. This statement was clear that church unity must be viewed from the perspective of God's design for justice, reconciliation and the renewal of human community. This commitment, however, was accompanied by a sober affirmation: