CELIBACY should not be enforced for homosexual clergy or lay people, according to Jeffrey John, the Southwark theologian whose elevation to Reading was thwarted by evangelical opponents.

Dr John, who is himself in an abstinent but long-term relationship with his male partner, makes a case for sexually-active committed gay relationships in a collection of essays published next week.

He says a large minority of people “find themselves overridingly, unchangeably and often exclusively attracted to their own sex”.

He argues that this is an important part of their personal identity and they are not being foolish or misguided when they say so. “On the contrary, saying so is part of their Christian responsibility to deal with the truth.”

Dr John says that Christian homosexuals are, just like heterosexuals, concerned with finding the “way of holiness” and with growing in love and self-sacrifice. He argues that this can be found in a faithful, lifelong, same-sex partnership just as it is found in marriage or celibacy.

He says: “A covenanted homosexual partnership involves no less demand for self-denial than a heterosexual marriage (arguably rather more in the face of social and ecclesiastical hostility), and is no less a school for sacrificial love.”

He challenges the view that homosexuals should be asked to embrace celibacy on the ground of self-denial. “There is nothing good about self-denial for its own sake (on the contrary, it generally has a warping effect), nor does God demand pointless and arbitrary sacrifices,” he says.

He says the inference that to be homosexual is the same as to be called to celibacy is demeaning to genuine celibates. “A vocation to celibacy is a positive calling, not a pis aller or a bolt-hole from the truth about oneself.”

He resists the terminology of “disorder” or “handicap” in relation to homosexuals but says even if he were to accept it, those who suffer other forms of disorder or handicap are not usually condemned for adapting the capacities they do possess in a creative way.

“Those who claim to be repelled and disgusted by homosexual forms of intercourse might ask themselves whether they would be disgusted by a painter who expresses his creativity by painting with his feet; or by an author who expresses himself by blowing down a tube to operate a typewriter.”

He adds: “I believe there is a true analogy between the homosexual’s ‘unnatural’ use of his or her genital equipment to make love, and these examples of the ‘unnatural’ use of the body to make art.”

The essays were written originally in response to a statement drawn up by evangelicals, traditionalists and a few homosexuals in an attempt to find a common way forward on the issue.

Their discussions, which resulted in the St Andrew’s Day Statement, which draws heavily on Romans i as a New Testament reference, were used as a source document by the 1998 Lambeth Conference. The subsequent statement on sexuality from Lambeth reflects its language, particularly on the issue of human identity.

Tim Bradshaw, acting Principal of Regent’s Park College, Oxford, and editor of the book, says in his preface: “The Christian ethical tradition encourages friendship of a deep kind between friends male and female.

“The disagreement arises over how such friendship is to be conducted when sexual desire maps on to it: is this to be regarded as a problem to be coped with pastorally to prevent a sinful pattern of life, or something to be celebrated and implemented as a good?” Dr Bradshaw said last night: “We wanted the book republished because it was a resource for the Church’s ongoing discussions, and because some of its interesting and challenging questions had hardly been taken up. It was originally published before its time in a way.”

Of particular concern today was “the question of identity and whether sexual orientation is in fact fixed and given for life”.

The essays come as a campaign to allow homosexuals to become bishops attracted nearly 3,000 signatures to an online petition from around the world in four days.

Romans I, 24-27 (King James Bible)

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their bodies between themselves:

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which is meet.

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