November 13 1995

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Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality, by Andrew Sullivan (Alfred A. Knopf, 209 pp.; $22, hardcover); Straight and Narrow? Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexual Debate, by Thomas E. Schmidt (InterVarsity, 240 pp.; $10.99, paper); Scripture and Homosexuality: Biblical Authority and the Church Today, by Marion L. Soards (Westminster John Knox, 84 pp.; $9.99, paper).

Twenty years ago, most homosexuals guarded their sexuality as a shameful secret. Today homosexuals march into the White House to see the President, who hopes to secure their votes in the next election. Homosexuals have emerged from the shadows not as perverts but as co-workers, family members, and political operatives. Unwilling any longer to remain hidden, they have framed their public appeal as a matter of civil rights. Homosexuals are ordinary people, they say, despised for an attribute as accidental as skin color. Should they not be free from prejudice? Should they not teach school, adopt children, fight as soldiers, become pastors like any other person? Isn't that the American way?

Christians who think hard about homosexuality—and surely we must—have found this hard to answer. To begin with, scholars have argued furiously about the Bible's message; many contend that it says nothing about modern homosexuality at all. Even if we agree about the Bible's prohibitions, we have the difficult task of applying its message in a way that meets a new situation. It is one thing to condemn homosexual behavior, another to offer pastoral care to those with fierce homosexual longings. And even if we know how to treat homosexuality in the church, we have further questions of how to apply the Bible's message in a pluralistic society.

First, what does ...