LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 336

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336

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

a legitimate interest in protecting children from homosexual
influence in the years when their sexual identity is formed. At
any rate, the judgment of informed Christians may wel! differ
as to precisely where the legal! lines ought more properly be
drawn.

We cannot conclude without noting that the discussion
above suggests that Christian counsel for the homosexual is that
he seek to control his sexual orientation at least in the sense that
he abstain from homosexual acts. We should not overlook the
burden of loneliness which this places upon the homosexual. If
the discerning eve of God created woman as the answer to man's
loneliness, the homosexual who abstains from the sexual relation-
ship to which he is inclined must feel that there is no “other” to
answer to his loneliness. He must be helped to bear that burden.
not merely exhorted to struggle nobly against his inclinations.
It is right to remember, of course, that Christian counsel to
heterosexuals will also often involve asking them to restrain
their impulses and refrain from acts to which they are inclined.
Finally, we should note again that, while marriage can be said
to be the center of the male-female polarity. it is only a created
reality. As we stressed above. marriage has limits, and entrance
into a marital union is not a necessity. The person of homosexual
orientation must be constantly made aware that fellowship in
the church and a share in the hope of the heavenly kingdom is
also offered tohim her through faith in Christ. whose death has
atoned for all sins.

D. Artificial Methods of Reproduction

The words we use reveal more than we suppose about the
images which actually shape our thinking. There is wisdom and
insight in the reflection of Leon Kass, a contemporary Jewish
thinker. about some of the words we use:

Consider the views of life and the world reflected in the
following different expressions to describe the process
of generating new life. The Hebrews, impressed with
the phenomenon of transmission of life from father to
son, used a word we translate “begetting”™ or “siring.”
The Greeks, impressed with the springing forth of new
life in the cyclical processes of generation and decay.
called it genesis, from a root meaning “to come into

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creative power. We cannot penetrate the mystery of how God in
His love created the world. Yet we can affirm that all things
were made through Jesus Christ (who was with the Father in
the beginning). that nothing was made without Him, and that
God's own creative act is therefore an act of the One who to
Himself is love (1 John 4:8. 16). "We procreate new beings like
ourselves in the midst of our love for one another, and in this
there is a trace of the original mystery by which God created the
world because of His love.”" To sever our acts of procreation
from the personal! context of mutual love would be to deface the
image of God's creativity in our own.

Tt is in this light that Christians will evaluate various
proposed methods of artificial reproduction. In artificial
insemination, for example. it is possible that the donor of the
semen may himself be the husband of the woman and that for
physical or psychological reasons they are unable to fertilize the
woman's ovum in the ordinary way. Here artificial insemination
is offered as an aid to procreation within marriage. It is
intended not to separate procreation from the context of the
loving union of husband and wife. Instead, it is a way of
bringing their love to the fruition toward which it is naturally
ordered. Even here. however, a word of caution is in order.
Artificial insemination may be a way of avoiding underlying
psychological problems within a marriage rather than treating
them. It may also be a step—even if ajustifiable one—toward an
attempt to transform the mystery of human procreation in love
into a matter of reproductive technology.

We can see this when we note that the procedure dues not really
accomplish what medicine seeks to do; it dues not cure the
underlying defect. The physician is, one might say, treating
not the defect but the desire of the parents to have a baby.
Suppose. however, their desires gu further—suppose, for
erample, they destre a male baby. Is that an end which
medicine ought ty pursue? We think not. To frn in that
direction would be a definite step away from procreation and
toward reproduction.

Although the Scriptures do not deal directly with the

Ramsey, Bute certet Man p38

ded in this report, since the
otnis matter int idy of
nce Regarding Bivet ”

~Asectiunen + fertilization has not been inc.
Sova. Concerns Committee of the CTCR will give attents
tnumedical ethics ref 1975 Res. 4-286. “To Provide Ass

38

being.” (It was the Greek translators who gave this name
to the first book of the Hebrew Bible.) The pre-modern,
Christian, English-speaking world. impressed with the
world as given by a Creator, used the term procreation.
We, impressed with the machine and the gross national
product (our own work of creation}, employ a metaphor
of the factory, re-production.?%

This is not the place to provide a detailed discussion of the
various methods of reproduction which scientists have deve-
loped or are developing. The basic premise which emerges from
our discussion of sexuality and marriage within a Christian
perspective is the joining of mutual love and procreation within
the covenant of marriage. Even when we comtemplated above
the possibility that a husband and wife might—upon serious
reflection—have reason to limit the size of their families. we
never granted that their procreative capacities might then be
used to give birth to children outside of and apart from their
one-flesh union.

The joining of mutual love with procreation is an essential
element in the mystery of our created humanity.

One canin fact speak here of a mystery without exposing
oneself to the charge of tending toward irrational fuzzi-
ness: for what is meant by mystery here can be very
precisely defined. It is the mysterious, rationally un-
explainable bond between the personal act of human
communication—which, according to its purpose. is
live—and the biological creation of a new life. which
constitutes the pledge of this bond.

To make procreation a technical operation (mere reproduction)
and to remove it from the context of mutual love is to deprive
individuals of their role as persons in God's creative activities.
We spoke above of the fact that the child enters the world as a
manifestation that such mutual love between a man and a
woman is fruitful and creative. That is because the relation of
husband and wife here images the deeper mystery of God’sown

Pau! Ramsey's
rate

Thivcene

37

subject of artificial insemination by a donor other than the
husband (AID). it is our opinion that such a practice must be
evaluated negatively. Whatever the reasons offered in support
of AID. whether eugenic or simply concern that an infertile
couple be enabled to have a child, the process of fertilization is
removed from the personal context of the one-flesh union of
husband and wife ina way that not even their consent can allow.

In a wortd which has become increasingly technical and
depersonalized, the Christian church is called to bear witness to
the Auman significance of the bond between male and female. to
the purposes which God as Creator and Preserver has implanted
in marriage. and to the ways in which such an understanding
should shape our lives. To hold up before people once again the
human. personal significance of our fundamental fleshly relation-
ship. to explore the mysterious image of God's love in the one-
flesh union of husband and wife. and to recognize in wonder and
humility the limitations which our creaturely condition places
upon us—all this is part of fidelity to that God who has redeemed
us, not that we may flee from His creation but that we may
cherish it and find in it intimations of His love.