Why Theology Should Precede Change

In August of 2007, we posted on the ACI site an essay by Dr. Jacqueline Jenkins Keenan. (The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc. - Why Theology Should Precede Change) In this essay, Dr. Keenan provided an overview of a number of recent scientific studies questioning the claims made by many that there is a biological basis to homosexuality that renders it an immutable condition.  These claims have also been made by some leaders in the Episcopal Church as part of their defense of the church's affirmation of homosexual unions.  They were made quite formally by the official response of TEC to the Anglican Communion's request for an explanation of the American church's reasoning in pressing for such affirmation, a response contained in the report To Set Our Hope On Christ.  Dr. Keenan's essay, therefore, stood as a direct challenge to at least one important aspect of TEC's argument offered to the rest of the Communion. In the ongoing debate about sexuality The Episcopal Church (TEC) has consistently looked to the medical and scientific community in order to understand human sexuality. This tradition was continued when TEC presented a theological statement in 2005 to the worldwide Anglican Communion in order to explain its consecration of a homosexual bishop in 2003. This theological document, To Set Our Hope on Christ, stated that "Altogether, contemporary studies indicate that same-sex affection has a genetic- biological basis which is shaped in interaction with psycho-social and cultural-historical factors. Sexual orientation remains relatively fixed and generally not subject to change. Continuing studies have confirmed the 1973 decision of the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from their diagnostic manual of mental illness." Unfortunately, the bibliography that was cited in this document consisted of scientific articles that were written between 1970 and 1995. In fact none of the TEC documents on homosexuality include any studies after 1995. But research on homosexuality has continued, and later studies have produced new data in the areas of genetics, prevalence rates, and mutability of homosexual attraction. These studies also show that data regarding homosexuality in men does not apply to women. Two months after TEC presented its document to the Anglican Communion, I sent evidence of most of the updated information that appears in this article to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop of TEC. The information included abstracts of all but the two newest articles, but I had included an article from The Washington Post quoting the researchers regarding those studies. I received a reply from Lambeth Palace that was general, but that thanked me for my "constructive and thoughtful contribution to the debate". The letter from the Office of the Presiding Bishop said, "I hope you will appreciate that the Presiding Bishop himself was not the author of To Set Our Hope on Christ, which your letter seems to suggest in its first sentence." Even though he was not the author, he chose the authors and left out anyone with a background in science. In an earlier letter from his office I was told "I would like to convey the Presiding Bishop's appreciation to you for drawing his attention to the importance that science plays in issues facing the life of the church." He should have included a person with a science background. Before any further discussion of the issues with TEC's theological document take place, it is important to present the research that TEC missed. Since many churches are struggling with the issue of homosexuality, the information is beneficial to most denominations. It seems quite probable that many churches are not up to date, because they use theological journals to present rigorous science. Although the Anglican Theological Review was interested in the information in this article, for instance, it would not have printed it before the summer of 2009, because of the lag time to publication at theological journals. By then the information would be out of date, and TEC's error of using old science illustrates the tendency to canonize bibliographies that take a long time to be produced. One clear area in which recent research has challenged earlier assessments is the genetic causality of homosexual attraction. In 1991 Bailey and Pillard ("A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation," Archives of General Psychiatry 48) published results of a study in men that suggested a genetic cause of same-sex attraction. It was largely on the basis of that report that To Set Our Hope on Christ concluded that homosexual attractions were based on genetic causes. But a 1994 article called "Homosexuality: The Behavioral Sciences and the Church" by Jones and Workman had already pointed out severe sample bias in that study. Further, a later study co-authored by Bailey did not support the 1991 results. The 1991 Bailey and Pillard twin study on men looked at identical twins, fraternal twins, siblings that were not twins, and adopted siblings. Seeing traits significantly more often in pairs of identical twins than in the general population suggests heritability of the trait. The authors found that 52% of homosexual identical twins had a homosexual co- twin. Since that was much higher than the 2% rate of homosexuality in the general population at that time, such a large increase would indicate that genetic factors were highly likely. However, the subjects for this study were individuals recruited through gay publications. Besides the obvious problem of who would be likely to respond to such a solicitation, the data itself showed that even the adopted children in the study had five times the normal rate of homosexuality. A high rate in unrelated children indicates that the families of respondents were not typical of the general population. It is clear that the Bailey and Pillard study was subject to sampling bias. In 1992 King and McDonald ("Homosexuals who are twins: A study of 46 Probands," British Journal of Psychiatry 160) did a twin study using an unbiased sample. It showed only about 25% of homosexual identical twins had a co-twin who was homosexual. This is still higher than the general population so it could indicate some heritability, but King and McDonald also did something else that any good researcher would do. They looked into the possibility that there might be environmental factors causing even this relatively low rate of concordance. They found that "genetic factors are insufficient explanation of the development of sexual orientation" because of social factors, including "a relatively high likelihood of sexual relations occurring with same sex co-twins at some time, particularly in monozygotic [identical] pairs." The identical twins were having a strong influence on each other. In 2000 Bailey published a new study, this time co-authored by Kirk ("Measurement Models of Sexual Orientation in a Community Twin Sample," Behavioral Genetics 30.) This new study drew on a twin registry for the subject population instead of recruiting participants through gay publications. This new study also reported a much lower heritability rate for men than had the 1991 report, which Bailey had co-authored. This time heritability was only 30%. Yet a close look at the study shows that even this lower rate is subject to question. Once environmental factors have been described that interfere with results on heritability, they must be addressed in all later research. For some reason, however, the Kirk and Bailey study asked no questions about the social issues that King and McDonald found. As a result the study is fundamentally flawed in design. Yet environmental effects became clear when the results of this same study were used in an article produced by Savin-Williams in 2006 ("Who's Gay? Does it Matter?" Current Directions in Psychological Science 15.) Savin-Williams produced a chart of prevalence rates of homosexuality in many countries and covering many age groups. The groups from Australia had markedly higher prevalence rates than any age groups in any other country. That seemed baffling until one noticed that the Australian population came from Kirk and Bailey's twin study. Now heredity does not increase prevalence. It only determines whether twins are concordant or discordant for the trait, but it does not cause an overall increase in the trait in the population. For example, if the prevalence is 2% and the trait is fully inherited, then 2% of the time both twins will have the trait and 98% of the time both twins will not. If it is not inherited at all, then of those twins with the trait, 98% will have twins without the trait. The greatly increased prevalence in the twins in the Kirk and Bailey study indicates a strong environmental influence, since prevalence is increased by environmental factors, not heredity. At this point twin studies have not conclusively demonstrated the existence of genetic factors that precondition a person to homosexual attraction. On the contrary, they have pointed to the existence of social factors in determining sexual behavior. In addition, a 2002 review article on homosexuality co-authored by Bailey ("A Critical Review of Recent Biological Research on Human Sexual Orientation," Annual Review of Sexual Research 13) said that "molecular research has not yet produced compelling evidence for specific genes." That same review article also expressed concern for "a lack of research on women." By that time, however, L. M. Diamond was well under way to remedying the situation. Diamond published a paper in 1998 ("Development of Sexual Orientation Among Adolescent and Young Adult Women," Developmental Psychology 34) in which it was noted that a majority of lesbian and bisexual women failed to report at least one of the usual childhood indicators of sexual orientation. She then began to follow a group of nonheterosexual women over time because she found that "Previous research suggests that the sexual identities, attractions, and behaviors of sexual-minority (i.e., nonheterosexual) women change over time, yet there have been few longitudinal studies addressing this question, and no longitudinal studies of sexual-minority youths." The young women she followed were 16 to 23 years old when the study started. Most of them were lesbians rather than bisexual. After two years one-third of the women had changed their identity since that first interview. At the five year interview one-fourth of the women had completely relinquished their lesbian/bisexual identities. Diamond noted that the women who gave up their lesbian/bisexual identities did not differ from those women who retained their lesbian/bisexual identities. She found no way to predict who would change. Finally, in 2005 she published a report of the interviews that took place after eight Years ("A New View of Lesbian Subtypes: Stable Versus Fluid Identity Trajectories Over an 8-Year Period," Psychology of Women Quarterly 29.) By then almost two-thirds of the women had changed identities at some point during the eight years. Since most of the population were lesbians, I will focus on what happened to them over time. Although these women started as lesbians, only 42 % stayed lesbians for the entire eight years; therefore, 58% changed. Diamond included a typical example of a lesbian, who changed over time. At the first interview the lesbian reported a 100% attraction to women. By the two-year interview she reported a 90% attraction to women. At five years she reported a 70% attraction to women. Finally, at eight years she reported a 50% attraction to women. In her interview at that time the young woman said that "currently I'm in a long-term relationship with a man that I find very, very ,very enjoyable and, um, fulfilling so it's hard for me to identify so therefore I kind of prefer not to identify." Again, Diamond could not predict which women would change over time, but clearly a number did change spontaneously. It is probably important to note that Diamond is not a social conservative with a bias against gay and lesbian behavior. Researchers who question claims about the permanence of same-sex attraction are often suspected of anti-gay sentiments. Diamond identified herself as a lesbian in an interview in The Washington Post on January 4, 2004 (Partway Gay? Trying Gay for the Day: The Rise of the Heteroflexible Woman.) She along with several other researchers were being interviewed to gain an understanding of a great increase in homosexual behavior in young women. The Washington Post reported many examples of the phenomenon and said that "Social scientists say that 5 percent to 7 percent of young people are gay or lesbian." After discussing the results of her research, The Washington Post quoted Diamond as saying "As gays, we have predicated our acceptance by the culture on something we can't change. We say 'Oh look at us! We can't help it! That's what the straights want to hear.'" (Italics are my emphasis.) A 2004 study by Otis and Skinner (An Exploratory Study of Differences in Views of Factors Affecting Sexual Orientation for a Sample of Lesbians and Gay Men," Psychological Reports 94) asked what homosexuals considered to be the cause of their sexual orientation. They reported that members of "the lesbian group were more likely to view positive relationships with the same sex to have a great influence on sexual orientation." This also suggests that social interactions may play an important role in formation of sexual identity. It also supports the report in the previously mentioned Washington Post article that studies indicate that women are more open to homosexual relationships than men. The 2006 article by Savin-Willliams confirmed high prevalence rates of homosexuality in young people. He reported that rates of homosexual self-identification differed with respect to age. The rates of homosexual self-identification for females in the USA were 1% for adults, 4% for young adults, and 8% for youth. Further homosexual behavior was 11% for female youth. The rates of homosexual self-identification in males were 2% for adults, 3% for young adults, 3% for youth, and 5% for behavior in youth. This research also verifies the high levels of homosexual behavior in the girls reported on by The Washington Post. In addition, Savin-Williams' article reported results of a study of one group of adolescent boys who participated in a CDC health study. This study found fluidity in the sexual attractions of adolescent boys. Most boys who reported exclusive same-sex attractions in one interview, reported a change in attitude by the time of a follow-up interview a year later, including 48% who reported exclusive opposite-sex attractions. This information makes the practice of "coming out" early - and encouraging such "coming out" -- quite worrisome. Further, all of this new information should have been considered before writing a theological paper based on a scientific understanding of how homosexuality functions in our society. By making a liturgical change before stating a theology, the opportunity for reasoned dialogue was lost. It is not irrelevant to note here that another principle of systems theory is that as the anxiety in a system increases, the ability to think decreases. When anxiety is very high, people just react without thinking. TEC is a very polarized and anxious body . My hope has been that if people could see how unclear our understanding of homosexuality really is, they would not pull the church off of its historic foundations in the Anglican Communion. But the Episcopal Church that claims to hear all voices does not want to hear a voice like mine. The conservatives will not talk to the liberals about what worries them as I have, and the liberals have made up their mind, so all new information is suspect. However, fifteen months after Presiding Bishop Griswold received this information along with copies of the Archbishop's comments and ten months after 93 bishops in the House of Bishops received the same letters and comments, they apparently had not successfully rebutted this information to the Archbishop. When I sent a copy of my Anglican Theological Review article containing this information to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he wrote me a personal note. It started "Many thanks for your letter. I hope the ATR will print your piece." Since the American bishops would have been highly motivated to rebut this information to the Archbishop, it seems unlikely that they have been able to do that. It will be interesting to see if, at the upcoming House of Bishops meeting, they will see fit to offer, in the presence of the Archbishop, any theological response that takes seriously the scientific data that, until now, they have so broadly ignored. Because the practical change in sexual norms within TEC has preceded the hard work of theological reasoning - one that must take into account scientific study -- , it now seems that the House of Bishops has decided to keep Episcopalians in the dark about the problems with their statement. So rather than having a discussion, we are dealing with a political situation. If there had been a discussion, the House of Deputies would have been informed. But in May of 2007 I sent an email about this material to Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies. Before I checked my email for a response, she had asked me twice for copies of my articles and the material that I had sent to the bishops in Feb. 2006. Clearly, she had not been informed of the scientific problems with TEC's theological statement. Whether knowing about these issues would have affected decisions by the House of Deputies at GC 2006 is doubtful. But there is no question but that in general we are now reaping the consequences of the bishops' silence. Also this spring I spoke to two members of the House of Bishops Theology Committee about the need to clear up the problems with the church's original theological document. I sent them the most updated science that appears in this article. Therefore, they could see how serious the problems with their original document were. Instead of telling the people of the Episcopal Church about this issue, they left To Set Our Hope on Christ as the official statement of the church on this matter, when they published their theology statement for the communique on June 1, 2007. They did that even though one of the two bishops had written to me about To Set Our Hope on Christ in May 2006 to say, "I share your belief that the job could have been done in ways that paid better attention to both science and theology." So here was the opportunity to be honest with Episcopalians, but instead they kept their secret. Christian theology and systems theory both recognize that secrets are divisive, cause distorted perceptions, and increase pathologic processes totally unrelated to the secret. Not only does the House of Bishops have a secret, the American Psychiatric Association has a secret. Not only was the APA's vote to remove homosexuality from their list of diagnoses in 1973 based on no science, but also they did not believe their own vote. Four years after the vote, a poll of the APA showed that 69% believed that homosexuality "usually represents a pathologic adaptation." (Bayer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis, 1981) A final reality, noted by practical experience and systems theory both, is that the person who reveals the secret will feel the reactivity and wrath of the system. But if learning to put reasoned theology first saves even one church, it will be worth it. In 2002 my Disciples of Christ congregation exploded over the matter of homosexuality. I went to an orthodox TEC congregation to hide. There is nowhere to hide. This article is not just about TEC. It is about all denominations, and the need to approach the challenge of change in a non-destructive manner.. Establishing "facts on the ground" without the reasoned agreement of the larger church has become the fuel today for the church's dismantling. State the theology of the change first. The discussion that ensues might be surprising for everyone. Jacqueline Jenkins Keenan (BA [Math/Chemistry -- UVA], DVM [Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine]) is currently in an MTS program at VTS, focusing on family systems. She has been reading and studying human and animal medical literature for 27 years and studying homosexuality for six years.