Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 30, No. 3. 1967.

Homosexuality not sinful —theologian

Homosexuality not sinful —theologian

Professor Norman Pittenger, a distinguished American theologian now studying at Kings College, Cambridge, has denied that homosexuality is a sin.

"I Cannot see that the fact that one loves a person of the same sex, and wishes to act upon that love, is in itself sinful," he writes in the current issue of New Christian.

Nor can I see that acting upon that desire, when there is true intention of love with the mutuality, fidelity, respect and tenderness I have urged, is in and of itself sinful.

"Supposing the law in this land is altered, as seems very likely, church dignitaries and moral theologians tell us that this would mean that homo-sexual physical activity, under proper safeguards as to age and privacy, would no longer be accounted as 'crimes,' but would still be sins."

My question is: Would they, or better, are they?

If my argument is correct, what constitutes sin, from the deeply Christian understanding of man, is that which introduces coercion, fails in mutuality, lacks fidelity, has no concern for the other Person, manifests no abiding tenderness. I do not pretend this is a conclusive argument. I know that it is rejected by most of my fellow-Christian theologians. But I have yet to be convinced that it is wrong.