Case Not Made:

A Response to Prof. John Thorp’s “Making the Case” for Blessing

Homosexual Unions in the Anglican Church of Canada


Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary


Preface

A 29-page paper entitled “Making the Case: The Blessing of Same Sex Unions in the Anglican Church of Canada” (May 2007) has been circulated to all the delegates at the 2007 General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. The writer of the paper is a certain John Thorp, who is a professor of philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. A copy of the paper can be found on the web at the Anglican Church of Canada website at http://www.anglican.ca/faith/ethics/documents/Making-the-Case-Thorp.pdf.

Although Thorp apologizes in his preface for the limited scope of his essay, this does not stop him from making many bold claims. He ends with the following: “Gay liberation is clearly the work of the Spirit. How can it reasonably be judged otherwise?” (p. 29; his emphasis). He believes that the case he has made for blessing homosexual unions at three levels—Scripture, Tradition, and Reason—“easily overcomes the surface prohibitions” against homosexual practice in Scripture (p. 19; my emphasis).

The reality of the matter is quite different. I see very little evidence that he is even aware of the major counterarguments to his position, much less that he responds effectively to these arguments. This circumstance apparently forms the basis for his overconfidence. True, he has some understanding of the philosophical discussions in ancient Greece; see, for example, his essay “The Social Construction of Homosexuality” in Phoenix 46.1 (1992): 54-61 (online at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/thorp.html). But his lack of expertise in biblical studies, theology, and science shows throughout the essay. Even where one would expect him to be strongest, namely in his own area of philosophical argumentation, the presentation is surprisingly weak.

Even so, I never assume that what appears as a markedly weak case to the trained eye will also appear so to the untrained eye. The rebuttal below presents in relatively short order some of the major counterarguments, following in order the basic outline of his essay. We can only be cursory here given the short turnover time that delegates will have to read and digest this material. Fuller documentation of my arguments can be obtained by reading material from the abridged bibliography. Hopefully Prof. Thorp will begin reading some of these resources.

For full text:

http://robgagnon.net/JohnThorpResponse.htm