Endorsements of the “Academic Statement on the Ethics of Free and Faithful Same-Sex Relationships”
The Academic Statement is available here, and the full research report which it summarises it available here.
“The study ‘Christian Objections to Same Sex Relationships: An Academic Assessment’ is exegetically precise. I support its concern for the theological recognition of same sex relations.”
.
“The report draws on the latest research on Leviticus 18:22; 20:13 and Romans 1:26-27. It argues in a very concise way that the Bible does not contain any arguments against long-term and faithful same-sex relationships. The condemnation of homosexual acts by the Roman Catholic Magisterium no longer has a theological basis.”
“A message of hope in an hour of wavering certainties: This Academic Statement is a gift and a commitment to the Church. Theologians, aware of their scientific and Christian responsibility, address themselves to helping the judgment of the Church to mature… By presenting the progress of the humanities and biblical sciences, the signatories perform an act of intellectual honesty and trust in the Church.”
.
“Mark Jordan, in The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology, descended into the dark recesses of the Church’s homophobic discourse, just as others have descended into those of its anti-Jewish discourse, like a patient surgeon probing a nauseous wound. The Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research has tackled the biblical and magisterial fundamentalism that keeps the clerical church even now frozen in a rigid stance. The resources are there in the wider Christian community for a different, broader, more humane biblical hermeneutic and moral reflection than what is represented by the CDF documents that the Vatican continues to brandish proudly on its website. Many more theological scholars need to step up to the plate and develop this positive hermeneutic. It is obvious that the time has come to turn the page, just as Vatican II turned the page on anti-Semitic centuries in the fourth paragraph of Nostra Aetate in 1965. The Church proved able to dump centuries of false teaching and boldly enter “our age” with regard to its relation with Judaism, to immensely salutary effect. But 56 years later it is still unable to enter the modern age as regards LGBT folk, being stuck in a Stalinistic freeze, as one impotent Synod after another has shown.”
“This international collaborative research project is the first serious attempt to use the tools of interdisciplinary scholarship to challenge, probe and interrogate church teaching in the area of homosexuality. The People of God have needed this to help convince a blinkered magisterium to open its eyes and ears, to see and hear the damage inflicted on good people young and old by teachings that run counter to science and counter to the love of the Creator. The scholarly work of the Wijngaards Institute brings hope where it is needed.”
“The report draws on the latest research on Leviticus 18:22; 20:13 and Romans 1:26-27. It argues in a very concise way that the Bible does not contain any arguments against long-term and faithful same-sex relationships. The condemnation of homosexual acts by the Roman Catholic Magisterium no longer has a theological basis.”