Lutheran Researcher takes new look at homosexuality
Merton Strommen
Merton P. Strommen, best known as the founder of the Minneapolis-based Search Institute, which has produced influential research works on issues affecting youth, delivers his views in a new book, The Church & Homosexuality: Searching for a Middle Ground (Kirk House Publishers, paper, 96 pages, $9.95, 952/835-1828).
In the 90-page treatise, the product of three years’ research, Strommen lays out an approach which he hopes will provide a middle ground between condemnation and rejection of gays and lesbians in the church on one hand and adoption of what he calls “the militant gay agenda” on the other.
The middle ground that Strommen advocates is one in which two seemingly opposite positions are held in tension. These are the need for unconditional love called for in both the Old and New Testaments and the acceptance of the wisdom in the traditional interpretation of Scripture. This dialectic, Strommen says, rules out condemnation and allows for ministry.
He acknowledges that some gays cannot and do not want to be changed and says such persons should be welcomed and fully included in the fellowship of congregations rather than treated as outcasts. For the most part, these people have not chosen their sexual orientation, Strommen says, and he is not sympathetic with other Christians, all of whom are sinners, standing in judgment on them.
But, in most cases, he as-serts, those who are unhappy with their homosexual tendencies can be helped through therapy and are not biologically locked into a same-sex lifestyle. As one who has spent most of his life working with young people, the author is particularly concerned that many youths, who, he says, go through a period of sexual-identity confusion in their middle adolescent years, will get a message of hopelessness about their orientation that leads to despair. The book focuses exclusively on the problems of gays and not those of lesbians.
Drawing on the work of George Chauncey, a University of Chicago professor who is a historian of gay life in the United States, Strommen’s book says homosexuality probably became a major issue in U.S. society in the late 1960s. That date ties it in with the civil-rights, antiwar and other student-protest movements. Probably the straw that broke the camel’s back was the “Stonewall Rebellion,” in which New York City police, climaxing several decades of crackdowns on gay behavior, raided a bar frequented by homosexuals in June 1969 and set off a riot.
That event, according to Chauncey, marks the time when the gay culture became a political movement dedicated to the purpose of removing the stigma from homosexuality.
“Today,” says Strommen, “the goal of the gay activist movement is to identify homosexuality as an acceptable, normal and safe way of life. Its advocates demand that society view homosexuality as a sexual preference on an equal footing with heterosexuality.”
It is at this point that the author calls attention to the positions of the national professional societies of psychiatrists and psychologists, maintaining that they yielded to the political pressure of this movement and within a few years reversed stands taken only a decade earlier by removing homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses.
By 1975, he says, both the American Psychiatric and Am-erican Psychological Associa-tions had accepted the view that homosexuality is an innate, genetically determined aspect of the human body that cannot be changed.
Further, these groups say, efforts to change this orientation can be dangerous.
That continues to be the official position of both bodies, Strommen says, despite the fact that there was and is significant opposition within both groups to the new stance. Among psychologists, over 1000 have banded together to form the National Association for Re-search and Therapy of Homo-sexuality (NARTH), which regards homosexuality as a de-velopmental disorder, though not a debilitating emotional disturbance.
Although the two associations have excluded the views of this minority from the pages of their publications, Strommen maintains that “today’s most respected researchers say only that genetics may contribute a predisposition to a homosexual orientation.
“They generally agree that homosexuality — like most other psychological conditions — is due to a combination of social, biological and psychological factors. Homosexuality is developmentally determined.”
The author cites two New Zealand researchers who say the genetic contribution to homosexuality is only 10%. They also indicate, according to Strommen, that society and individuals can either cultivate a genetic tendency toward any behavior or bring an opposite environmental factor to bear, thus changing the relative strength of the genetic factor.
Strommen cites a number of factors that he and other researchers believe are more decisive than the genetic one in leading a young person into a homosexual lifestyle.
The author refers to a study which concludes that “an ab-sence of what are considered male behaviors in boyhood is an even stronger predictor of homosexuality than the presence of feminine traits.” Thus a boy who is labeled a sissy, is a loner or prefers the company of girls tends to shy away from the rough-and-tumble activities and competitive games and misses out on things that help him shape his concept of himself as a male.
“Boys in groups actualize the masculine potential in each other,” Strommen says of studies that have been done. “Males in groups teach each other a resilience and trust that the ‘prehomosexual’ boy misses.”
The author quotes another study that takes up the controversial topic of parental relationships.
“With only a few exceptions the male homosexual declares that his father has been a negative influence in his life. There is not a single even moderately well controlled study that we have been able to locate in which male homosexuals refer to their father positively or affectionately.”
Other factors cited as important in developing homosexuality in young boys are sexual abuse by an older man and the discovery of and virtual addiction to gay pornography.
Strommen maintains that professional groups in the fields of psychiatry and psychology are stifling debate on a complex subject that cries out for a vigorous exchange of views because they see their stand as one that is value neutral. But it is not, the author declares. They are siding with a belief system of naturalism against theism.
“Both theoretical orientations — neither of which can be proved — are legitimate as scientists acknowledge their positions,” Strommen declares.
“What is wrong is pretending that one’s position is value neutral.”
In charting a middle course for churches in the current clash of views, Strommen takes what would be considered the conservative side on the two issues now confronting his ELCA synod and other denominations — ordination of gays and lesbians and blessing same-sex marriages.
On the ordination issue Strommen says, “We need to provide youth, especially young males, with healthy role models. This may include mentoring or ‘Big Brother’ programs for fatherless boys. This need for sound role models also leads me to oppose the ordaining into ministry of practicing homosexuals.”
As for blessing same-sex unions, the author has this to say: “The church should continue to hold up committed, heterosexual marriage as God’s ideal (recognizing that singleness is also a God-pleasing calling). In doing so we are remaining faithful to the Bible and to the tradition of the Christian faith. By doing so, we may influence people, especially young people, away from a homosexual lifestyle and toward a heterosexual family life.”
To a layman, Strommen appears in his book to have tackled all the tough questions involved as the church grapples with the issue of homosexuality, from biology to biblical interpretation, giving all sides a chance to express their views.
In the preface, Dr. Thomas J. Kiresuk, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Minnesota Medical School and chief clinical psychologist at Hennepin County Medical Center, offers this observation, while not disclosing whether he agrees with Strommen’s conclusions, which generally support orthodox Judeo-Christian positions:
“I wish the reader could have seen the effort that went into producing the many revisions of this manuscript. If you wanted proof of this author’s sincerity and authenticity in his pursuit of a balanced, informed and healing solution, the evidence is here.
“I was impressed by the author’s struggle and personal transformation as he kept his own moral compass but at the same time did all he could to be responsive and adapt his writings to accommodate the large number of reviewers and critics whose opinions he sought and respected.”
