A sex-education column in the latest issue of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society’s Web-based publication, Faith in Action, argues that persons can have “a moral, ethical sexual relationship” outside of the covenant of marriage — a position that stands in opposition to both historic Christian teaching and the language of the UM Book of Discipline.
Debra Haffer on 'The O'Reilly Factor' in 2007
The column was written by Unitarian minister and “sexologist” Debra Haffner, executive director and co-founder of the Religious Institute.
According to the Institute’s web site, the group’s mission is “to change the way America understands the relationship of sexuality and religion.”
Haffner is the former president and chief executive officer of the controversial Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), a strong opponent of abstinence-until-marriage policies.
In the Faith in Action column, adapted from her book, What Every 21st-Century Parent Needs to Know, Haffner writes that “based on my more than 30 years as a sexuality educator and now as a minister, [I believe] that a moral, ethical sexual relationship — whether one is married or single, 16 or 35 or 80, gay, bisexual or straight — is defined by five criteria: It is consensual, non-exploitative, honest, mutually pleasurable and protected, if any type of intercourse occurs.”
Last month, in a column published on another Web site, Haffner argued that non-married clergy should not be expected to remain celibate.
“I’ve long believed that the major sexuality problem denominations face is that they are unable to acknowledge that celibacy until marriage doesn’t apply to most single adults,” she wrote in an article posted on the Huffington Post site.
“It makes sense to require that clergy not engage in sexual relationships with congregants,” Haffner wrote. “[I]t does not make sense to ask them to give up adult sexual lives outside of the congregation.”
Also in that Huffington Post column, Haffner noted that the Religious Institute — the group of which she is the executive director and co-founder — “has long called for a new sexual ethic to replace the traditional ‘celibacy until marriage, chastity after.’ This new ethic is free of double standards based on sexual orientation, sex, gender or marital status.” (That “ethic” is outlined in the “five criteria” mentioned above.)
In the Church-and-Society-published article, Haffner argues that “[t]hese [five] criteria are more ethically rigorous than abstinence until marriage because they apply to intimate relationships both before as well as after marriage.”
∞
Haffner’s views in the Huffington Post and, more importantly, in the Church and Society article, run counter to the long-held views of the church, which are rooted in Scriptural injunctions, and to the official teaching of the United Methodist Church — teaching that was clarified and strengthened only last year.
The ethic of Scripture, as expressed in 1 Corinthians 6, is that believers should “[r]un from sexual sin!”
No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NLT)
Further, Titus 2:11-14 teaches that the ability to resist all manner of temptations is a gift of God’s grace.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (ESV)
The United Methodist Book of Discipline, in ¶161F, states that “[a]lthough all persons are sexual beings whether or not they are married, sexual relations are affirmed only within the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.”
That language was adopted by the 2008 General Conference to clearly express the church’s stand on sexual relations outside of husband-and-wife marriage.
∞
The Faith in Action column by Debra Haffner is the latest in the web-based publication’s series, “Sex and the Church.”
In announcing the series in February, Bishop Deborah Kiesey (Dakotas Conference), president of the General Board of Church and Society, and Jim Winkler, the board’s chief executive, issued a joint statement saying the series would “help provide needed education to our children and ourselves. We anticipate it may restore relationships, create new healthy ones and perhaps move people to act.”
The “Sex and the Church” series is overseen by Linda Bales Todd, director of the Louise and Hugh Moore Population Project at the General Board of Church and Society.
The General Board of Church and Society continues to be a blight on this denomination.
Linda Bales and more than 200 UMC clergy and staff have signed onto Haffner’s “declaration” that anything goes when it comes to sexuality, including sex outside marriage, sex at any age (no downward limit), sex between all ages, all sex acts, etc. The declaration is wide open.
I wonder how parishioners would feel if they knew what their pastors were advocating.
Here’s the declaration: http://www.religiousinstitute.org/religious-declaration-on-sexual-morality-justice-and-healing
[Ed. note: The list of endorsers is at http://www.religiousinstitute.org/list-of-endorsers.]
Why am I not surprised at her points after seeing “Unitarian” by her name??
For a much richer and Biblical take on sex, I recommend the following wholeheartedly!
http://www.examiner.com/x-8276-Methodist-Examiner~y2009m9d3-Sex-and-the-Christian
Blessings,
JMS
OK for real, how does this stuff actually happen — and be allowed to happen?
Where is the accountability these people face?
Hear the words of Bishop N.T. Wright:
I find it ironic and ridiculous that celibacy in singleness and chastity in marriage is said to not apply to most adults (presumably because the assumption is that it is simply too difficult for them to wait till marriage “in today’s world”) while the “new” teaching of sex with anyone you’d like, as long as they’d like it too, is said to be “more ethically rigorous” than the traditional teachings of the Church which are being tossed aside precisely because they are difficult!
Our problem is that as a society we totally lack self-control and discipline (which is, as I recall, a fruit of the Spirit). I suspect this has something to do with the ethic of indulgence that is by necessity an integral part of a consumer culture.
Daniel is exactly right. It helps to understand the Modern Left’s view of sex if you accept a couple of premises that seem to undergird their thinking:
1) Our sexuality is the primary means of our identity; and
2) We have no more control over our sexual urges than common barnyard animals.
Jim, thanks for the link to the religious declaration and the endorsements.
Why am I not surprised that the declaration calls for “A faith-based commitment to sexual and reproductive rights, including access to…abortion.”
How do Methodist clergy and bishops who publicly endorse statements such as this declaration (which are in large part in direct contradiction to the Book of Discipline) remain on the payroll (or retirement benefits) of the church? Most employers do not require their employees to take an oath to uphold. Yet anyone, especially a manager or executive, who makes public statements against their employer’s policies and procedures is subject to termination of employment.
Your apportionments at work!
OK, let’s just consider God’s Word a book of SUGGESTIONS! If you don’t like one, don’t worry about it. Just be “ethical and moral” (yeah, do that as you subvert God’s word). If it feels good, do it.
Lord, have mercy on our souls.
As far as “difficulty” goes, I suppose Jesus had an easy time on the cross dying to redeem us from our sins! Glad Jesus thought it was worth the difficulty of dying for my salvation — and everyone else’s.
Someone tell me why our tithes go towards this kind of trash? Please?
This is the type of teaching that turns people away from the UMC. As a UM pastor, it makes me sick to my stomach to hear such apostasy.
It seems a shame that the “progressive” views of many pastors and the GBCS are so far out of line with the views of most United Methodists.
We need to become more involved and “take back” our church.
My wife and I have been considering joining a local United Methodist Church, but after reading what is on the “Board of Church and Society” site, we are forced to reconsider.
As a United Methodist pastor, I’m appalled that our denominational leaders allow this type of insubordination to continue. I’m getting sick and tired of trying to defend our denomination when things continue to run unchallenged.
Sin is sin no matter how we try to “dress it up.” It’s still detestable in God’s eyes.
Why do we have a Book of Discipline? If there is no stomach to enforce its statements, and hold accountable our leaders, then why bother with it?
UMs are not known for holding to standards, and we continue to pay the price for our lack of resolve.