Message from Tim

‘Shibboleth!’

The other week Pope Francis said in a documentary that, ‘Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They are children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or made miserable over it. What we have to have is a civil union law – that way they are legally covered.’ There has been considerable debate as to precisely when he said these words, whether they have been translated correctly, and precisely what they mean. He has been heavily criticised for departing from the Catholic Church’s official stance, which is that, ‘respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions’. However, a careful assessment of his words seems to indicate that the Pope’s comments do not change the Church’s teaching, but they do modify the tone of previous statements, and as such, they have received a cautious welcome from the Catholic LGBTQI community.

Within the church there are few issues as contentious and divisive as this one. Some readers of the previous paragraph will warmly endorse what the Pope has said; others may recoil from it; others may feel he has taken just a tiny step in the right direction; others may be incredulous that the church is tearing itself apart over this issue. Where a church welcomes a gay couple and celebrates their relationship, are they distorting the clear teaching of the Bible or are they interpreting scripture in accordance with the mind of Christ? And if you come down on one side of this theological abyss, how do you view those on the other side of it?

That last question, I think, is a really important one. Somehow this issue has become a kind of theological shibboleth. This term finds its origin in the tragic story of Judges 12:1-6 where the men of Ephraim pick a fight with Jephthah the Gileadite. When he had summoned them to fight with him against the Ammonites, they did not come, but they resented the way he had defeated the Ammonites without their help, and so they threatened to burn his house down with him inside it. In the ensuing battle the Ephraimites were defeated, but as the remnants of their army tried to cross the fords of the River Jordan to get home, they were intercepted by the Gileadites. Anyone trying to cross the river was asked whether they were an Ephraimite and if they denied it, they were told to say ‘Shibboleth’. The men of Ephraim could only pronounce this ‘Sibboleth’, and anyone caught out this way was killed at the fords of Jordan. All in all, 42 000 Ephraimites were slaughtered.

Why do we fight so hard and so bitterly over the gay question? It is scarcely a central tenet of the Christian faith. Yet in the eyes of the traditionalists, not to take a stand on this issue would entail surrendering the authority of the Word of God. Whereas, for members of the LGBTQI community it is a matter of their own personal identity with their need of and their God-given capacity to form loving, intimate relationships with others. And so the battle lines are drawn.

But when I read the Pope’s words, I can detect a note of respect and pastoral concern for those with whom he disagrees – because, actually, whatever his critics may say, he is a really long way off from endorsing homosexual marriage. It is that tone which, all too often, I find is tragically lacking when Christians debate the issue. ‘Human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness’ (James 1:20). Whatever our stance, if we cannot learn to listen to each other’s fear and pain with love and humility then something is seriously wrong in our own heart. However, profound my understanding and insight, however, great and strong my faith, if I have not love, then I am nothing…