Ok think of Hooker’s position this way, or at least ponder it. When he considers Scripture he draws two lines.
One line is between those things necessary for salvation and those things not. You can best place that line by reading his Learned Discourse on Justification, where he offers the most minimalist possible description of what is necessary for salvation. Not only is it minimal, it is nigh unto impossible to lose justifying righteousness once accepted. It is nigh unto impossible to overturn the foundations of the faith, the believe that Jesus is Savior, with even the most pernicious church docttrine (the RC’s).
Draw this first line down the left side of the page.
On the right side draw another line parallel to the first. To the right of that line is the abuse of scripture. Abuse is the extensions of scripture into realms where discredit is brought upon it because it is no long being utilized in congruence with its purpose. Creationism would be an apt example. Hooker would place right on that line those who argue that scripture teaches all things simply, rather than all things necessary for salvation.
Between the two lines there is a good bit that Scripture may say tings about, but it is Reason and the principles he lays out in Books II, III and IV and then illuminates in V-VIII that determines whether or not Scripture still commands in those arenas. Scripture is not, I repeat not a guide for all things simply.
The fight over homosexuality seems to boil down to two assertions. one is that because it is a choice it is immoral. The second is that even if it is not a choice, because Scripture sorta says something about it it is prohibited. There is a third ancillary one about sex outside of marriage, which is married of course to a false notion that scripture uniformly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.
We should remember also that the Law of Nature (that is the open ended learning about Nature through observation) is itself a source fo revelation about God. And the Law of Reason, too, is from God as well. Remember too that Hooker does not share the general view of either the conformists or the Presbyterians that humanity is so depraved that Reason cannot function. It cannot show is the supernatural path to salvation, but even fallen human appetites push us towards the supernatural.
So in the present moment there is good reason to accept that homosexuality is not a choice but an ontological condition. Those who usually make the second argument have grudgingly conceded that point. Even those who argue that homosexuality is a disease or an addiction have conceded that it is an ontological event, not a moral one. But I am sure that many will still argue the relevance of evidence from nature, but I would argue that Hooker would find himself guided by such new learning.
The second argument, that even if ontological homosexuality should not happen because it is forbidden in Leviticus, fails on the Hooker test to rise to something necessary for salvation. If we make the Levitical passages normative we have to ask upon what warrant we so flagrantly ignore other portions of the Jewish Law. Since this is not part of the moral laws of the Hebrew Scripture, it is time and custom bound and therefore no necessarily normative for us. We are no more bound to obey it, than say to obey God’s command to put to death people who fail to keep the Sabbath holy. There’s just tons of HS law that we set aside and the Levitical passages are among them. I would argue as well that the CS comments are time ans situation bound, and again we do not follow all the patterns even of the Jerusalem Council.
So for my revisionist money the path set by Mr. Hooker easily brings us to an inclusive place about homosexuality. In fact those who hyperventilate about it, as in Uganda at the moment and well, in the US too, actually do damage to scripture through the violence they incite. Re-read the passages in Hooker on the law of Equity too, another principle of law that he applies. If the application of a law would do more damage than the good it intends then the law can be set aside.
As for marriage. The simple solution is to bless glbt relationships. Then there is no issue of sex outside of marriage. The Dobsonesque version of marriage is neither Scripturally nor historically accurate. Now we can argue about that too, and of course hear the calumnies that we revisionist support polygamy and polyamory, but in the end we will need to see that marriage is a mutuable estate and there are good and merciful reasons for that.
So there is a short discourse on the scheme of Hooker’s laws.
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