THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409190231
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
Huck Finn chose hell. He had been aboard the raft with his black brother on the Mississippi River. But the society and the church of the time informed him that Jim was a slave, and Huck's moral obligation was to return him to the person who owned him.
But Huck couldn't do it.
And he figured if that meant he was going against the moral tenor of his time, so be it.
When his friend was recaptured, Huck resolved ``to go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again.''
This is explosive material still, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn goes on getting routinely censored by people whose sensibilities its truths affright. Some of us would prefer to forget that many mainline Christian denominations divided for more than a century on slavery. A lot of Christians maintained the Bible said that blacks bore the mark of Cain and, therefore, slavery was not only justifiable but downright godly.
Mark Twain simply pointed out, with his customary irony, that there is nothing like a convicted moralist to promote wholesale hypocrisy.
The book came out more than 100 years ago, but it remains timely. Today the Christian church, all denominations and versions of it, finds itself splitting down the middle on yet another issue of separating the sheep from the goats. Now that African Americans and other ethnic minorities belatedly have been granted admittance to the mainstream, the church has turned a prejudicial eye to another embattled group:
Homosexuals.
And we're hearing it all again. The mark of Cain and all that. Abomination, unpardonable sin, exclusion.
The same congregations that embrace charity recoil from the sexual orientation of many of their own members, most of whom remain undeclared. Right now in America. Right now in Hampton Roads.
The newly revised Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? by Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott (HarperCollins, 242 pp., $12) is a thoughtful attempt to encourage Christians to re-examine their attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. Included are insights into issues that have become national considerations of late: gays in the military; the AIDS crisis; genetic research on homosexuality.
It's another explosive book.
The authors are both professed Christians. One is heterosexual; one is homosexual. Unsparingly, Mollenkott recounts her admission of homosexuality to co-author Scanzoni, an emotional moment. ``I wish,'' grieves Mollenkott, ``I had been created acceptable.
``Part of it,'' she adds, ``is the loneliness of it all, knowing that one cannot discuss it or seek counsel from other Christians because they wouldn't understand.''
Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? is an illuminating series of essays from scientific, psychological and scriptural perspectives. With the exception of an occasional lapse into contemporary correctspeak (the term ``personhood'' comes to mind), it is gracefully written; the collaboration between college professor Mollenkott and popular writer Scanzoni is seamless. Examined are the pain of gay young people afraid to face their parents and the pain of parents, having faced their gay offspring.
There is also the pain of the gay parishioner and the straight congregation, the pain of friends of differing persuasions, the pain of easy judgment. Pain: The biblical injunction is to love our neighbors as ourselves, the authors emphasize; there are no conditions, qualifications or exceptions to that compelling advice.
The book's plea is for acceptance of diversity among straights and gays alike. Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? is really two simultaneous questions - one general, one specific. For Scanzoni and Mollenkott, the answer to both is persuasively in the affirmative.
German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wisely observed that the minority voice in any age is usually the correct one. So it is time once again for the responsible person to side with Huck instead of conventional wisdom. It is time once again to choose hell.
The church has to be an imperfect place; but the difference between it and all other flawed human institutions is an avowed and relentless commitment to become better than it is. Not for profit, and certainly not for status in the community. For the glory of God.
So it is in the interest of the church to emphasize the similarities of its members and minimize their differences.
The crucial question in our time should not be whether you happen to be gay or straight. The question is: Are you hungry, my sister? The question is: My brother, are you warm? MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia Wesleyan
College. by CNB