Excerpt from "The Prophetic Stand of the Ecumenical Churches on Homosexuality," by Max L. Stackhouse, Professor of Christian Ethics, Princeton Theological Seminary and Minister, United Church of Christ:
(www.ucc.org/beliefs/theology/the-prophetic-stand-of-the.html)
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To be sure, distinctive expressions of freedom and structure are proper to different relationships in life. Honoring the right order of things as a sign of faith and enacting generative fertility as a sign of hope, both proper to the formation of family life, can be organized within this general normative framework in a number of ways. Indeed, it is not unlike every other area of life that is to be lived as a context in which the grace of God's love can be made manifest. There is no single blueprint for politics, economics, culture, law, education, any more than there is for sexuality. But that some patterns lack or threaten or deny or exclude these qualities must be acknowledged.
In fact, most Christians believe that everyone knows something of these normative standards and qualities, for what is revealed in scripture and in Christ accords with how God formed all humans at their deepest levels. These religious themes are not something imposed on people, or distinctive to one religious group, but are revealing of how life is really constituted. That is why many believe that all morally honest people know that something is wrong with relationships that are driven only by instinct or emotion or that do not sustain fidelity or hope. And that is why people feel violated by the infidelity of those they love, lament the prospect of infertility, resent social policies that weaken families, and turn to extreme ideological or life-style strategies to overcome these difficulties.
For this reason, the Christian tradition has held that it is proper for the church to guide the formation of public thought and the institutions in which sexuality is most directly expressedespecially the family, but also education, law, and economics as they influence or inhibit the formation of the social channels in which sexuality can find expression. The earliest Christians began to advise believers on how to live their sexual lives as we can see in both the Pauline and Pastoral letters and early books of moral instruction. Further, whenever Christians had a chance to shape the civilization, they formed patterns for the expression of sexuality that sustain fidelity, fecundity, and family, infused with love, and developed critical stances toward attitudes and policies that distorted these, even when these distortions came from sources within the faith.
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