What are the theological implications of current scientific data suggesting sexual preference is a genetic trait?

By The Rev. Dr. John Maxwell Kerr, SOSc (Society of Ordained Scientists),

Episcopal Chaplain to the Faculty, Staff and Students of the College of William & Mary.

 

Science tells us about the way the natural world is, based on carefully-researched evidence.  Scientific understanding of sexual preference does have theological implications because all science provides raw material for Christian theology, which must take seriously what we learn of the world God has created.

The best current scientific evidence on sexual preference is based on several years of extensive peer-reviewed research principally carried out at McMaster University Medical School, the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary College in the University of London, and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. It refutes two polar positions.

First, is the idea that sexual preference, unlike all other aspects of what it is to be human, is a matter of freely choosing to sin, and has no relationship to our genetic inheritance, or any other aspect of our physical selves. This view is wrong: genetically inherited brain structures correlate with sexual preference (and also with left-handedness, presumably also not a matter of sinful choice.)

Although opinions presented on such topics tend to focus exclusively on homosexual preference, heterosexual preference is demonstrated equally not to be a matter of mere choice. Genetics plays a role in sexual preference: its insights have shed tremendously helpful light on Christian anthropology and improved pastoral care far beyond questions of sexual preference.  

“Traditionalist theology” is sometimes mistakenly said to reject genetic science. Theology which rejects outright scientific research on our human genetic inheritance can not be rightly be called “traditionalist.” It can hardly be called Christian theology at all.

The second simplistic opinion can be characterized as “Genes ‘R’ Us.”  Some years ago, there was a mistaken claim to have found a “gay gene.”  This so-called “gay gene” would be like a light switch in humans (and animals: about 10% of all mammals show a homosexual preference – is this a matter of a sinful choice?).  If the “gay gene” were switched on, you must be gay. If it is off, you are not. This was taken by some to imply that God installed the switch and turned it on or off deliberately. The theological implication was that there could be no question of sin.  Some pastors strove to cure sexual preference by “switching off the gay gene” through conditioning. 

More adequate research showed that such genetic determinism is not how genes operate. Behavioral traits, such as aggression or sexuality, are extremely complex and cannot be explained by one gene or genetic component.  A World Health Organization report is emphatic (and correct): “the existence of a gene does not guarantee the expression of that gene; indeed expression is the product of a complex network of other genetic, developmental, biological and environmental factors.”  Sexual orientation or preference is affected by the subtle interaction of many genes, by complex biochemical and hormonal factors in utero, by social factors such as parenting: that is, by many pathways, not just one single pathway. The remedy for bad theology, traditionalist or reformed, is better theology based on understanding better science. That is the work the Church has yet to do and it cannot be done by chanting slogans and soundbites.

Question: How do you understand the relationship between science and theology?