Tony, Peggy Campolo differ on homosexuality issues
4/23/1998 Note: Photo available with this story. By Carolyn R. Simms* WEST CHESTER, Pa. (UMNS) - Popular evangelical clergyman Tony Campolo, a Baptist minister who teaches sociology at Eastern College, St. Davids, Pa., considers the practice of homosexuality unnatural and forbidden by Holy Scripture. His wife Peggy disagrees.
Tony rests his case on Romans 1:26-27: "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due."
Acknowledging that the root causes of homosexuality remain unknown, he makes a distinction between homosexual orientation and behavior. The latter, he believes, is clearly a sin and should not be accepted by the church.
In contrast, Peggy, his wife of nearly 40 years, points to John 15:12 as her own biblical reference: "This is my commandment that you will love one another as I have loved you."
"Christ told us to love one another," she says. "He does not tell us one kind of love is better than another."
The Campolos spoke to about 200 United Methodists gathered here late in March for the first of three events on homosexuality scheduled by the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual (regional) Conference. The meetings are planned during a two-year period in which the conference has agreed on a moratorium on all resolutions related to homosexuality. Stated purpose of the moratorium is to "allow biblical witness and the Holy Spirit to work in our midst, through ongoing discussion in appropriate and open sessions beyond the conference floor."
In spite of his belief that the practice of homosexuality is a sin, Tony warned his 200 listeners not to let the issue split the United Methodist church. "Jesus never mentioned it, nor was it on his 'top 10 hit list' of sins," he said. "In fact, at the top of Jesus' list were people who condemned others."
Tony said gay people with whom he has talked do not remember a time when they chose to become straight or gay. But to be Christian, he said, the individual with a homosexual orientation must remain celebrate. Asked why he expects gay people to embrace celibacy when he, a heterosexual male, can have a loving relationship with his wife, Tony said the Bible calls all single individuals to be celibate.
In a radically different interpretation of the Romans passage, Peggy said Paul was exhorting the Roman Christians to give up the orgies associated with the goddess Aphrodite. What Paul was calling unnatural was not in response to sexual orientation, she argued, but to pagan religious practices. Thus, she concluded, the verses in Romans should not be applied to same-sex relations.
"I believe that a committed same-sex partnership is the same as marriage," she said. The daughter of a Baptist clergyman, Peggy said she was deeply involved in the church but didn't have a sense of knowing Jesus until she was in her 30s. "When I finally met Jesus, I found the courage to stand up for my gay friends," she said. "At a church retreat, the Holy Spirit came to me. God was in that place and I realized that gay people were children of God."
Tony said it is possible that the church will change its interpretation of Scripture but expressed hope that it would not.
He noted that only 4 or 5 percent of the population is gay and that only one out of five in that group practices homosexual behavior. "With such a large percentage not acting on their sexuality you know these people," he said. "They are in your churches."
Both husband and wife acknowledged that gay people feel despised by those in the church. "If we are a despising people, we have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God," Tony said.
Leaders of the event said evaluations were "overwhelmingly positive." A second event is planned in the fall, and a third early in 1999.
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*Simms is director of communications for the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference.
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