Review from Christian Scholar's Review, xxvi, 4, Summer 1997. pp. 574-577.

     Here we have an even-handed, nuanced treatment of homosexuality that disagrees with everybody. Pronk's dissertation is a syllogism: (1) no moral argument against homosexuality can stand, but (2) moral argumentation is antecedent to Scriptural interpretation, hence (3) no scientific refutation is possible--including theology in the sciences--of the thesis that in some cases homosexual intercourse can be a moral good. In this review I challenge both premises.

     Pronk is a biologist, theologian, philosopher of science, ethicist, and gay man. He reasons with scholarly integrity referencing 24 pages of bibliography in several languages from 505 footnotes. (Hence an index would make this book a more valuable reference.) Hendrik Hart continues in his thoughtful foreword his discussion begun in The Other Side (June/July 1993) of how Romans 1 fits into the story, complementing Pronk's fair treatment of all sources.

     Pronk's first 262 pages are easy to summarize and difficult to disagree with. They conclude that no evidence on the level of what "is'' can lead to a conclusion about what "ought to be.'' No historical evidence, no biological evidence, no sociological evidence, no psychological evidence can force a moral conclusion. These sciences simply do not have the tools to lead to the moral realm. Thus Pronk disagrees with almost everyone's argument for homosexuality. John Boswell's argument from the frequency of homosexuality in history, even in the Church's history, John McNeill's argument from the psychological experience of gays who claim that homosexuality is normal for them, Evelyn Hooker's argument that gays are not per se socially deviant, arguments from hypothalamus studies--all of these arguments are easy to dismiss.⁽¹⁾ "Is'' does not mean "ought''!

     Pronk proposes, "From a moral viewpoint, the sex of the partner is unimportant,'' because homosexuality "clearly carries with it the same potentialities for humanity or inhumanity as heterosexuality'' (p. 262). I disagree. Pronk calls this a "datum,'' although it seems to be neither "clear'' nor a bare fact as Pronk submits. Pronk seems to be reasoning backwards, for surely a mere "potential for humanity'' is not sufficient warrant for a moral claim any more than the above scientific evidence is. Pronk calls "tried-and-tested morality'' to task because it "was tried and tested within an exclusively heterosexual society'' (p. 263). One might equally well conclude that the "clear potential of homosexuality for humanity,'' as Pronk has it, is clear because Pronk writes within the Reformed Church of Holland where, according to Hart's foreword, "partnered gays are ministers'' (p. xxi). Pronk's first major argument for a moral kind of homosexual intercourse does not hold up. His argument that the field of ethics leaves open the question of homosexuality altogether is not at all convincing.

      What of Pronk's minor premise? He readily agrees that the biblical texts consistently condemn homosexual intercourse. But he reminds us that these too are an "is.'' From the "is'' of Scriptural prohibition, Pronk claims, we cannot conclude the "ought'' of moral behavior. The biblical data as such are uninterpreted, so there is no way that we can read them without supplying an interpretive grid, a hermeneutical framework. We bring that framework to our reading of Scripture, rather than the other way around. Our exegesis confirms views that we hold before coming to the Bible. It is impossible to read with understanding unless we interpret what we read. "One's moral position is clearly antecedent to one's theological view'' (p. 298). Pronk argues that Christians should arrive at their moral positions by "moral deliberation in the human community as a whole'' (p. 315). Even granting that the Bible is an infallible revelation from God forbidding homosexual intercourse, Pronk says, we cannot claim to understand that source infallibly without public discussion. This sounds suspiciously like morality by majority vote. I would narrow the interpretive community to Christian believers at the very least.

     It would be simple to say that God could enter the whole scene and make it clear, were it not for the fact that both sides claim that He has. So although revelation is the ideal basis for knowledge claims, "in fact nobody ... can successfully work on that basis'' (p. 306). Christians do not have a way of knowing unavailable to non-Christians (p. 318). Even authors holding the same view of revelation arrive at antithetical positions by choosing to consider different texts as relevant (p. 302). So one must make normative (moral) judgments even to decide what is biblical (p. 304).

     We decide what is biblical by accounting for the historical distance between the biblical authors and us. The Jerusalem Council did that in Acts 15 because the mystery of grace was not revealed in the ot. We do that when we refuse to find a Biblical mandate for slavery, or when we permit divorce which God "hates,'' or when we allow women to wear short hair and speak in church. Cultural change requires that we express the same principles in changing ways.

     We decide what is biblical by starting with central biblical motifs, letting the general interpret the specific: What does the Bible teach about a person's body, about covenant, about love? Pronk points out that Karl Barth is inconsistent on this point. Barth finds the image of God in all mankind (a central biblical motif) but then he condemns homosexuality because it does not reflect the image of God in the husband/wife relationship.

     Liberation theology decides what is biblical by "seeing what God is concretely doing in history,'' not by following rules. On that view,

[t]he Bible is the story of liberation from oppression. For that reason we must not automatically do the same today as what God's people did in earlier times. The church must understand the Bible in light of its concrete experience with liberation and oppression. (p. 284)

     Gay Christians claim to know that they stand in the tradition of Scripture "from experience, which they can interpret as Exodus-experience'' (p. 292). Ultimately this liberation theology is a witness, not an attempt to persuade. But Pronk cautions that this view too is brought to the Bible, not found in the Bible. "Faith'' (one's theological view) alone cannot resolve the issue of whether homosexual intercourse can be good, Pronk maintains (p. 298).

      How then do we know what is good? Is good defined by God, or do we have an idea of the good logically antecedent to our idea of God, and so call God good? Most (secular?) philosophers argue for the latter, claims Pronk, and so Pronk agrees with the "autonomy of morality vis-à-vis religion'' (p. 304). Pronk more precisely defends both positions: all that is good derives from God, yet that does not make moral argumentation unnecessary. To answer how we can know what is good, Pronk addresses the question of how we can know anything.

      Reformed theologians have been rightly distrustful of what we can know without revelation, given that we are fallible and prone to self-deception (p. 306). But we should also distrust claims of revelation, says Pronk. He follows Karl Popper in arguing that insofar as our knowledge is scientific (for which read "publicly discussible,'' that is "moral deliberation in the human community,'' p. 310), it must be subject to falsifiability, or at least refutability. Not everything that is true in some absolute sense is necessarily able to be corroborated (p. 307 n. 51). In principle maturity in Christ give us discernment (Phil. 1:10), but in fact "mature'' Christians held slaves 150 years ago "not because Scripture is unclear, but because we were lacking in discernment'' (p. 312). Pronk claims that theologians have refuted the idea that God reveals "propositional truth'' (p. 319).⁽²⁾ That is to commit a category mistake, claims Pronk, by confusing the source (revelation) with the means of knowing (testing in the scientific sense). Knowing of God's will because we have the Scriptures is not the same as "knowing what God's will is in a specific situation'' (p. 320). Humility is in order here on both sides of the debate.

      Pronk realizes that his major premise cuts both ways: if no moral argument against homosexuality can stand, then no moral argument supporting homosexuality can stand either. Hence he concludes modestly and appropriately that we cannot answer the scientific questions about whether some homosexual intercourse is good. But even if we could, "the problems of life have still not been touched at all'' (p. 325, quoting Wittgenstein). What may we, in turn, conclude from Pronk's study? We might wonder how we have read the Bible in harmful ways based on what we bring to the text. We might be open to the possibility that there is a valid gay Christian experience. We might redouble our love for homosexuals. We might affirm contrary to Pronk that the Church, not humanity at large, is the forum for moral deliberation. But then Pronk is a fellow believer, so to be consistent we would need at the very least to take him seriously. We might stake a claim to revealed propositional truth, as Pronk does not. We might agree with van Til and others that God is the standard of goodness rather than the other way around. Or we might appeal to experience as indeed Pronk is forced to do in the final analysis. Liberation theology does not have a corner on an "Exodus-experience.'' One might consider the exodus of others from homosexuality.⁽³⁾

1. I have picked American authors from among Pronk's list, because they are more readily accessible. John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, Chicago, 1980. John J. McNeill, The Church and the Homosexual, Kansas City, 1978. Evelyn Hooker, "Male homosexuals and their worlds,'' in Judd Marmor, Sexual Inversion: the Multiple Roots of Homosexuality, New York, 1965, pp. 83-107.

2. Many of Pronk's citations are not available in English. I substitute some that are available in English here and below. Some Christian philosophers argue that God's revelation does not include propositional truths (for example, Bultmann, Brunner, Tillich, and Richard Niehbur); others, that God's revelation does include propositional truths (C. van Til, G. H. Clark, Torrance, and Bloesch as a first group; Berkhof, Packer, Henry, G. I. Mavrodes, and G. W. Bromiley as a second group). But even among those philosophers who do, the first group disagrees with Pronk: they claim that knowledge is not mediated by general revelation. See for example By What Standard?; an Analysis of the Philosophy of Cornelius Van Til, by Rousas John Rushdoony (Tyler, TX: Thoburn, 1983, c1958). The second group agrees with Pronk: they claim that knowledge can be mediated by general revelation. See Bruce A. Demarest, General Revelation: Historical Views and Contemporary Issues (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982) for an excellent discussion of the issues.

3. On the one hand pro-gay testimonies include Mel White, Stranger at the Gate; To Be Gay and Christian in America (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1994); Frederick Suppe, "Becoming Michael,'' Philosophers Who Believe: the Spiritual Journeys of 11 Leading Thinkers (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 1993), pp. 137-178; Brian McNaught, A Disturbed Peace: Selected Writings of an Irish Catholic Homosexual (Washington, DC: Dignity Press, 1981); John E. Fortunato, Embracing the Exile: Healing Journeys of Gay Christians (NY: Seabury Press, 1982).

On the other hand ex-gay testimonies include Andrew Comiskey, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How Jesus Heals the Homosexual (Lake Mary, FL: Creation House, 1989); J. A. Konrad, You Don't Have To Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling with Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is (Newport Beach, CA: Pacific Publishing, 1987); Michael S. Munger, Out of the Closet into the Light (Newport Beach, CA: Pacific Publishing, 1980); Martin Hallett, I Am Learning to Love: a Personal Journey to Wholeness in Christ (London: Marshall Pickering, 1989); Kevin Linehan, Such Were Some of You: the Spiritual Odyssey of an Ex-gay Christian (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1979); and others available from Exodus, International, P.O. Box 77652, Seattle WA 98177-0652. Telephone 206-784-7799.