Call for clergy confession

Father Sean Major-Campbell, a priest of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and The Cayman Islands, is calling for members of the clergy to confess their use of mistranslated versions of the Bible to promote homophobia, misogyny, stigma, discrimination and prejudice, none of which, he says, are consistent with the early teachings of Jesus Christ.

“There is an old and overworked saying that repeats ‘God never made Adam and Steve, he made Adam and Eve’. Well, a very important truth is that God actually made Adam, Eve, Steve and yes, Adam and Adam, Eve and Eve, Steve and Steve. We should always be aware of how we use the Genesis myth of creation to determine our understanding of the length and breadth of life in all its dynamic reality and complexities,” said Major-Campbell, who was speaking during a hybrid panel discussion on the topic ‘The Church and Sexuality’ held by the Caribbean Christian Leadership Network (CCLN) last Saturday.

He continued that many generations have been led astray because of this, as many “rabid and opinionated thinkers whose only agenda is their religious doctrinal teaching which has clothed their political angst with Jesus operate as if once they use the word ‘Bible’ or the name ‘Jesus’ or ‘God’ in their statements then everyone must just stop and accept all that they have to say”.

Major-Campbell, who is also an advocate for human dignity and human rights, stated that public advocacy in the framework of human rights work should never be viewed as being in opposition to Christian evangelism. According to him, people in the early church were not swayed by the political biases of the time. Rather, they aimed to further God’s kingdom, whose mandate is to ensure justice, peace, and love.

He maintained that within the modern era, any Christian evangelism that fails to advocate for equal rights and justice for all is “suspect and bereft of empathy, compassion and a basic morality that affirms everyone’s dignity and in particular, the divine image in which all have been created”.

He said that individuals in same-sex relationships were “not any more or less” living in sin, than those who are in heterosexual relationships.

When challenged by another member of the panel, Attorney Phillipa Davies, founder of #MarriageMattersJamaica, on whether both kinds of relationships were “treated as one and the same” in his view, he stated that all human beings should be treated as one and the same.

The clergyman further shared that the issues in life were not always “black or white” as the answers to life’s difficult questions were not always as simple to answer as we would want them to be.

SEEK TO PUT OFF ‘DISCOMFITURE’

Meanwhile, he asserted that conversations around sexuality must be had in the church and that Christians should “disabuse” themselves of their “discomfiture” with the subject, being no longer embarrassed and accepting that we are all sexual beings.

He continued that heterosexual and homosexual relationships, as well as monogamy and polygamy and other forms of human relationships, existed long before the Bible and Christianity.

The clergyman also called for a shift in how church leaders counsel their members as it was insufficient for the church to address issues like masturbation and premarital sex by merely declaring that these behaviours are sinful.

He continued that if a 35-year-old couple who are sexually active for example, comes in for counselling, the church must not “give them a lecture” about how sinful they are.

Instead, he said, the church must seek also to discuss with them the importance of being sexually responsible, respectful, and to ensure that they are in the relationship for the right reasons, while also understanding the risks that come with their actions.

“How can you be a leader, saying things that impact people’s lives in some really powerful ways, and you are not ready to honestly engage the subject of human sexuality? What often happens, and I see a lot of this from people across denominations who come in the counselling context, they just get told by somebody who doesn’t know what to say [that] this is sin, just pray about it, you need to do prayer and fasting, beware of demons and all of that,” he added.

Davies, who strongly disagreed with some of Major-Campbell’s radical views, declared that marriage is a crucial pillar of a healthy society.

She contended that there are two types of world views: the Judeo-Christian (Judaism and Christianity combined) or the biblical world view, and the secular, atheist or humanist world view, which is based on what an individual believes to be right or wrong and may be at odds with God’s world view.

Clearly stating her advocacy of the Judeo-Christian world view, Davies explained that God created two sexes, male and female, who are equal in value but distinct and complementary.

“The Lord’s simple, straightforward command for sexual purity and behaviour was commandment number seven ‘Do not commit adultery,’ no sex outside of marriage,” she said.

SETTLED MATTER

She also maintained that, from the perspective of the Christian church, human sexuality is “a settled matter” and that there remains a wealth of evidence supporting the goodness and truth of “God’s design”.

Referring to the anthropological study “The puzzle of monogamous marriage,” Davies shared that this revealed a consistent pattern in which societies with high rates of one-man, one-woman marriages enjoyed lower crime rates, increased savings, better child investment and economic productivity.

DAMAGING CHAIN REACTION

She stated that because of the “disastrous event” that occurred in the Bible, where Adam and Eve were deceived by Satan, all relationships between man and woman and God were “shattered” and resulted in a “damaging chain reaction” to every relationship in society.

The effects of such a decision, she continued, resulted in the sinful “fallout” of the devaluing of human life, a disregard of marriage and the cheapening of sex.

According to Davies, the messages of American sexologist Alfred Kinsey, who was dubbed “the father of the sexual revolution,” was instrumental in causing a shift in societal and cultural norms that has influenced laws, sex education programmes, and the rise of LGBTQ+ advocacy and the normalisation of that lifestyle.

“Another turning point in the sexual revolution was the pill, oral contraceptive. It’s touted as giving women more freedom, but it has resulted in a lot of negatives that have hurt women ... . The pill also sells the lie that you can have sex without consequences,” she added.

According to Davies, the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ‘70s also led to an increase in demands for access to abortion, the establishment of the porn industry, which denigrates sex, kills true love, fuels rape culture, causes erectile dysfunction, and destroys marriages, and has birthed campaigns urging people to have fewer children, which jeopardises the economy and social continuity because of low birth rates.

BASIS MUST BE CHRIST

All of this, said Davies, feeds criminality, prostitution, and human trafficking and leads to issues such as deviant and delinquent behaviours in children and adolescents.

She stated that when we destroy the foundation for healthy human relationship and abandon God’s world view, we lose our sense of identity, sense of worth and belonging, which leads to confusion and chaos.

To “recover from the mess,” Davies said all followers and believers must confidently proclaim “the pure and unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ”.

In order for the Lord’s cleansing, healing, and forgiveness to be received, she called for a widespread acknowledgement of sin, repentance and obedience to his teachings on how to create wholesome relationships and live a life that will lead to human flourishing and societal change.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com