The issue concerns the authority of scripture. What is the Bible? That is the question that is being worked out here at Lambeth.
What concerns me is that the conservatives in our church want to pick and choose which lines of scripture are meant to be taken literally and which are more metaphoric.
Of course, it says that a man lying with a man is an abomination, but it also says that eating shellfish is the same. Do we storm the Lobster Pot restaurant and brand all inside as sinners?
I find that the issue of divorce to be a good marker for this discussion.
In the Bible, Jesus is emphatic, divorce is not permissible, no debate, no back-sliding. And this is Jesus, not Leviticus or St Paul; this is the founder of our faith.
Read it all and then take the time to read this old blog thread and the comments and linked material.
I see that one of the links to the old old blog (as opposed to the old blog) is out of date. Since I am out of time for blogging this morning I will post my letter here for present purposes:
I see also on the old old blog thread there is a very worthwhile post from Chris Seitz which also has ties to this discussion:
Statements like this are proof of the failure of education for THEOLOGIA and indulgence in petty passing pretensions to the same. Alas for the Church that such are bishops! But you gets what you pays for and the heterogeneous “theologies” of the 20th century latter-half are biting derriers with a vengeance. Trouble is, the AC wants to teach this “hermeneutic” to the Global South. Fortunately, they are not buying very much! They are writing real theologia.
The liberals don’t care that this has been thoroughly rebutted in the past countless times. It has good spin value. It is a sound bite that they trust many will not bother look at in the comment section or letters to the editor. They simply have no integrity. They put forth these “arguments” knowing full well they have no merit.
My repost against the shellfish game:
The ancient texts of the old testament forbid homosexuality and eating shellfish. (They also forbid murder, adultery, stealing, etc.) Since we ignore the admonitions against shellfish, we can ignore the injunctions against homosexuality (why not murder,…, as well?). But why do we not follow the dietary rules?
First off, violations of dietary rules were a matter of purity codes. Sacrifice a pigeon or the like and you could be absolved for eating lobster Newburg. The same is not true for murder, adultery and homosexuality.
It was none other than Jesus who did away with the Christian’s need for following the dietary rules:
[blockquote]Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.'[/blockquote]
Now the Greek word for sexual immorality is [i]porneia[/i], and there is no serious Bible scholar who proposes that a first century Jew like Jesus ben Joseph would [b]not[/b] include homosexual acts in with porneia. So go ahead, eat without washing your hands, eat shellfish but don’t commit murder or adultery and don’t engage in sexual immorality including homosexuality.
As always, I note that the probition in Leviticus 18 is contiguous not to shellfish, but to this:
[i]You shall not have carnal relations with an animal, defiling yourself with it; nor shall a woman set herself in front of an animal to mate with it; such things are abhorrent.[/i]
Well, animals can’t give informed consent can they, so let’s pass that one by. How about this:
[i]You shall not disgrace your father by having intercourse with your mother. Besides, since she is your own mother, you shall not have intercourse with her.[/i]
Actually, most of the chapter concerns itself with varieties of incest, but one verse always catches me eye:
[i]3 You shall not offer any of your offspring to be immolated to Molech, thus profaning the name of your God. I am the LORD.[/i]
Finally, I can’t pass by Mr. Ross’s statement that his neighbor is “gay”. He might as well say that his neighbor is alcoholic, and therefore has a right to drink.
The same arguments do keep coming round and round. It would be useful to have a website that lists them, along with the same old counter arguments. I haven’t heard anything new in a long time.
So, he writes, “What concerns me is that the conservatives in our church want to pick and choose which lines of scripture are meant to be taken literally and which are more metaphoric.” That’s a good point if one removes “the conservatives” and inserts “there are those”. At one time or another, we all are Cafeteria Christians.
No lay person, and no ordained person has the authority to do this on behalf of the whole Church.
I believe that there is consensus among the Western and Eastern Patriarchs about the eating of shellfish, and the other dietary Laws of Moses. They are simply no longer required of Christians. Those who want to keep kosher may do so.
Those same Patriarchs have the authority to declare other parts of the Law as no longer applicable. Not one of them has done this for homosexual practice. In fact, several have specifically affirmed Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition on this matter.
Thanks for pointing us to these old discussions.
I did notice that not much was said about divorce (“a good marker for this discussion”). Some churches do not allow for divorce and remarriage, whereas the Episcopal church does. There are some reasserters who are divorced and remarried. This puts them in a group which interprets the very words of Jesus in a way that the church has not so interpreted them until the time of the reformation . Thus, in this moral and doctrinal issue they are the reevaluators!
I think this is an issue which must be dealt with by whatever new denomination or Province arises in the next year or so.
Thank you for the useful post Kendall.
Dear Kendall:
Nice post up there – well said and written.
🙂
“There are some reasserters who are divorced and remarried. This puts them in a group which interprets the very words of Jesus in a way that the church has not so interpreted them until the time of the reformation.”
Not so. The admissability of divorce was long recognized in the Orthodox Church. It was the Western Church that came to teach the ontological impossibility of divorce (like the ‘indelibility of orders’), and Anglicanism inherited these ideas.
Chronological snobbery is a door that swings both ways. We shouldn’t unthinkingly assume that we moderns know better than the ancients. But that doesn’t mean we should go to the other extreme: neither should we unthinkingly assume that they knew better than we do.
#7
Agreed. Evangelicals have largely dropped the ball on divorce and re-marriage. It is more than a little hypocritical to see a divorced-and-remarried priest object to a sexually active gay priest. Something about “beams” and “specks” comes to mind here…
[blockquote]Chronological snobbery is a door that swings both ways. We shouldn’t unthinkingly assume that we moderns know better than the ancients. But that doesn’t mean we should go to the other extreme: neither should we unthinkingly assume that they knew better than we do. [/blockquote]
Let’s put that in motion, DC…when your daughter decides to marry her horse, will you be thrilled to walk her down the aisle?
Methinks someone needs to go back and re-read the articles of religion:
Article 7 – The Old Testament
The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man. Wherefore there are not to be heard which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although the law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet, notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.
Thank you, #7 and #12.
According to Jesus, remarriage is adultery. Period.
Not only did the actor Marty Feldman, Igor in “Young Frankensteinâ€, die as a result of shellfish poisoning while on set in Mexico, but an otherwise little known fact is that Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds†was inspired by a case of avian shellfish poisoning.
Here is a link to some more interesting facts on shellfish poisoning, [url=http://www.scsextra.com/story.php?sid=77013]Our Oceans[/url], including that fact that Native Americans living along the coasts here in the Pacific Northwest, also shunned the eating of shellfish during certain times of the year.
Something that the article doesn’t mention is that shellfish, like calms and mussels, are filter feeders, so if there is any pollution in the water, they will concentrate it into their bodies. As a result they can also be carriers for pollution born diseases like cholera.
And for those so inclined I would also suggest a visit to the Centers for Disease Control’s web site, [url=http://www.cdc.gov]cdc[/url], where they can look up shellfish poisoning in their encyclopedia of diseases and conditions. And while there, just for fun, one might want to check out Pork Tapeworm disease too.
Dear Rev. Ross:
I am puzzled by the argument about the Leviticus prohibition on certain foods which you use; Jesus, Peter and Paul addressed the “shellfish†issue 2000 years ago:
Jesus:
“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him `unclean’? [For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”). He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.’ “. [Mark 7:18- 23]
Peter:
“Then I heard a voice telling me, `Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’ I replied, `Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ The voice spoke from heaven a second time, `Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.†[Acts 11: 8 -10].
Paul:
“As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean… For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.†[[Romans 14: 14, 17, 20]
On the other hand, neither Jesus, or Peter or Paul did ever say that we are exempt from the Leviticus moral law.
#15, remarriage is adultery in all cases except after the death of a spouse. If one of the two in a marriage dies, the remaining spouse is free to marry again.
1 Timothy 5:14 Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
I think we ought to get back to the divorce question. First, for Ross, it is a red herring issue. The same liberals who brought you VGR, also brought you serial monogomy. The flip side is that to view divorce like some of you seem to, it is an unforgivable sin. I think a preist who divorces for any reason other that adultery or the apostacy of his/her spouse should be defrocked. I remain upset that we didn’t give as much resistance to Beisner in California as we have to Gene. But, I believe divorced people, as all sinners, can repent of the sin and be forgiven. Why else did the woman at the well go back and tell her story of her encounter with Jesus to her friends?
In fairness to my side, many people arguing the reasserting position do not develop the argument the way that Dr. Harmon and Dr. Seitz do above. The exchange typically goes like this:
Reasserter: Leviticus says that homosexuality is an abomination. That settles it.
Reappraiser: Leviticus also says you should not eat shellfish; but we do anyway.
This ought to be the opening exchange for an extended discussion about how the Old Testament Law relates to and is used by the New Testament, and how the law is binding on Christians, and so forth. That discussion rarely happens; usually people just reiterate those opening statements back and forth until they’re tired, and then each goes home convinced their opponent is being willfully blind.
And this is without even getting into the discussion about Biblical authority, which really ought to come first.
Here’s one line along which the reappraising side might continue: libraryjim quotes Article 7, which divides the OT Law into three categories: ceremonial (irrelevant to Christians), civil (instructive, but not necessarily binding), and moral (absolutely binding.) Other authors omit the “civil” distinction and simply divide the Law into ritual and moral areas.
However, the OT Law itself shows no awareness of any such distinction, nor is the body of the Law divided into such sections with any consistency. And those making the division do not, in general, provide a rule for determining which precepts of the Law are in one category or the other; it’s presumed to be so obvious that everyone will agree.
Is the prohibition on homosexuality in the same category as the prohibition on rape? Or in the same category as the rule that a menstruating woman must be segregated from society? The latter being another one that Christians don’t seem to worry about much, and therefore by presumption in the “ceremonial” category.
The purity code, which includes the infamous shellfish prohibition, is largely concerned with putting things into categories and ensuring that the boundaries between those categories are maintained. Thus, you do not plant two kinds of seed in one field, or weave cloth of two kinds of fiber. Fish live in the water and have fins and scales and are good to eat; things that live in the water like fish but don’t have fins and scales like fish are not to be eaten. I think you can make an argument that a sexual relationship that violates the boundaries between traditional male roles and female roles is a violation of the purity code in this sense; which would imply that the Levitical prohibition on homosexuality is part of the “ceremonial” Law and therefore not binding on Christians.
#11 D.C. Toedt,
No, chronological snobbery is [b]not[/b] a door that swings both ways, nor can it ever be. Snobbery is a prejudicial preference for one’s own opinions. Attention to the opinions of others, whether it be by seriously listening to our contemporaries or by paying heed to tradition, is the opposite of snobbery.
I think what you mean is that when someone living now uses the opinions of the past as a mask for their own opinions, or as a substitute for thinking, that’s dangerous. If so, then to that degree you are right. But attention to tradition is reasonable humility, not snobbery.
Cheers,
Laocoon
#17, Jesus, nor the apostles exempted us from the Levitical Law. Those laws were given, and are still binding today. Jesus came to “magnify” or to expand on them. Many places in the NT he writes, “It is written, but I say…” Each time he is expanding on a Levitical Law.
#16, wildris, is right about shellfish and pork. God gave us laws about what we eat for health reasons. Shellfish are not safe to eat, due to the reasons wildris posted. Pork is also a very unclean meat. It carries tapeworms, trichamonas, and many other unclean bacteria. Pigs eat “slop”, a mix of discarded debris from waste. It’s very unsanitary. Knowing that, would you want to eat pork? I sure don’t.
The cases of poisoning due to shellfish are quite numerous and well known. I think the evidence there speaks for itself when looked at beside God’s warning to us in Leviticus.
Many use the statement of Jesus where he’s talking about handwashing to back up their belief that he abolished the food law. That is not a proper reading in the context it’s in. Jesus was addressing handwashing; a law the Pharisees added along with numerous laws. They tried to trick Jesus by observing his disciples not washing their hands prior to eating. He made a clear point that a bit of dirt that may be on their food taken by unwashed hands won’t defile them. BUT, what comes from the heart (especially what was coming from the Pharisees) is what defiles a man. It’s the lies, deceit, corruption, adultery, murderous thoughts, etc. which come from the hearts of men that Jesus was talking about here, not a law about food. That law still stands today.
Jesus clearly stated that He did not come to abolish the Law, but fulfill it. He fulfilled it. He sacrificed his own body for our sins. He did fulfill the law of ceremonial sacrifices for sins. We no longer need to give sacrifices on the alter for our sins. Jesus took care of that. However, the rest still applies today.
Very few farmers who raise pork feed their swine ‘slop’ any more. Most use a mixture of corn and other grains and greens, nor do they allow them to wallow in the mud if their intent is to sell the meat after slaughter, but keep them in clean pens or yards.
Most of the impurities mentioned are killed if the pork is cooked properly.
And I’m sure vegetarians would also point to ‘mad cow’ disease as a reason to avoid beef as well.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
[url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts 15;&version=31;]Acts 15[/url]:22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, two men who were leaders among the brothers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:
[blockquote]The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing.
28 [b]It seemed good to the Holy Spirit[/b] and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:
29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. [/blockquote]
30 The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31 The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. 32 Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers.
33 After spending some time there, they were sent off by the brothers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. 35 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.
(NIV — because the ESV I found online had too many footnote notations!!!)
Ross has it right. Thanks, Ross.
The reason why we use the shellfish argument is because the current conversation about homosexuality looks a lot like an argument based on purity. #4 illuminates the difference we see – he says that homosexuality is more like murder.
Mugsie correctly notes that “It’s the lies, deceit, corruption, adultery, murderous thoughts, etc. which come from the hearts of men” which are the problem. Reexaminers think that the closet and unreasonable, coercive expectations of celibacy encourage lies, deceit, and corruption. When one understands the love of God, one can better manage one’s desire and act upon them in a way that is honest, loving, and controlled. Paul suggests that “it is better to marry than to burn” for every one of us, while we wait for Jesus.
Regarding chronological snobbery, DC has it right: traditionalist bias that “older is better” or “we’ve always done it that way,” or “it has always been that way” requires perpetual argument in every age – at least in the reformed tradition. Ecclesiasties offered a solution for us while we argue: we should eat, drink and be merry, and this is what God wants from us. And given that Jesus was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard, it seems that he thought the same himself.
I am not arguing that newer is implicitly better.
People don’t really examine other places where Jesus transformed the reading scripture: his view of the Sabbath (which was quite radical – even more so than sexuality), and the church’s dropping of usury (“Ezekiel 18:13 If he has exacted usury Or taken increase — Shall he then live? He shall not live! If he has done any of these abominations, He shall surely die; His blood shall be upon him.” which changed to a much “softer” view.)
Do we really know how early Jews interpreted scripture? I’m not sure. Most didn’t know how to read. They had scribes – who had their own interests – interpret it for them. Chances are not everyone knew all the laws and could follow them. Jesus didn’t know the new testament – only the old. And he had a few pretty wild interpretations that horrified the powers. Further, there is the sense that there are cultural biases in Judaism that are diminished by other parts of scripture – those that Jesus affirms.
Jesus seems to go beyond the urge that reasserters insist upon: that we have to get things perfectly right to get with God. Isn’t it alright to be in community with others who have flaws, some of which are my issue, some of which are other people’s issues?
As God incarnate, I’d say Jesus pretty well knew about Scripture and proper interpretation. And as such, He’s the only One who has any authority to offer new interpretations (His were usually stricter than the present teachings of His day, by the way).
Don’t forget that many of the laws were simply given to separate Israel from the other nations. There may be a health reason to a particular law, but that would incidental to the theological purpose of the law.
I find the article irritating because it reflects a certain contempt for scripture. Ross throws out the old slander about killing children who show parents disrespect. But just what did that mean in the Ancent Near East? He makes no effort at an exegesis. He just says
‘Each time I read it I am pointed toward goodness and wisdom. I do not have to fret that I didn’t execute my children for cursing me as it says to do in Leviticus, I can see is as a recommendation to better discipline my kids.” Here he is applying, without analysis, modern sensibilities, which have nothing to do with the type of conduct the law is speaking to. What would we say if a modern child stole all their parents money and left them to die in the streets?
[i]Is the prohibition on homosexuality in the same category as the prohibition on rape? [/i]
As I mentioned above, the text situates it between incest and bestiality (and child sacrifice), so perhaps it is in the same category as rape.
It is unfortunate that dietary laws always become the focus of these discussions. What i find remarkable is that divorce, adultry, usary, and the use of birth control are so scantily mentioned. The prohibition on birth control after all is the tradition of the Western Church a position that is upheld by (in their minds) both Scripture and natural law. And correct me if i am wrong, but usary just doesn’t seem like a purity code to me. Again, Scripture and tradition support. So it looks like a case to me of whose ox is getting gored. Yet, what if a million angels can dance on the head of a pin. The fact remains that vast numbers of people believe that homosexual relations are not bad. Perhaps the TEC will pass away, but in a generation the issue of homosexuality will be about as pressing as whether or not flappers can bob their hair or it’s a sin to play cards. So what is to be done?
#26 – Jesus didn’t simply know proper interpretation. He WAS the proper interpretation of scripture. He WAS the WORD. And people continue to experience Him in their lives – even though they may not have memorized scripture themselves.
And Gay people have been experiencing Jesus’ love – and not going the same direction that reasserters want.
This is, of course, brand new. The love, however, isn’t.
#18 Of course, you’re right. Sorry not to include that circumstance in my post.
That may be the case. However, it does not make it true. I’m more inclined to heed the warning in Revelation about the level of deceit satan accomplishes on the world.
(NKJV) Revelation 12:9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and tan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
#30, John Wilkins, you are correct in one thing. Jesus WAS the Word. He breathed it into the minds of those who wrote the Scriptures.
However, I question your position with this statement: “And Gay people have been experiencing Jesus’ love – and not going the same direction that reasserters want.”
Yes, Jesus does love everyone. However, He has very clearly commanded that we must repent and follow Him. His own Word call homosexual behavior an “abomination” which is all I need to know to tell me it’s wrong. I’m not so sure that Gays are experiencing “Jesus’ love” when they express themselves homosexually and request that this behavior be blessed and accepted as not sinful. Remember, there is ANOTHER spirit in the Word; that of satan, the devil. Our job is to discern which is which in how our minds are affected. The Scriptures are given to use as our resource, for correction, instruction, for reproof. The Scriptures will tell us if something is coming from the Holy Spirit, or from satan. Since the Bible is quite clear on homosexual behavior being sinful, then I can clearly discern that the Holy Spirit is not telling me to bless it.
Jesus decided it was sin. He gave us the strong word “abomination” to tell us how truly horrid it is in His eyes. We must avoid that behavior, teach against it, and rebuke those who teach its acceptance as false doctrine. Those were Jesus’ own instructions to us through HIS word, not the instructions of MEN! We must heed Jesus’ word if we want salvation. No, we will never be perfect. No, we will never be sin free. BUT, we must repent of what we know as sin. We must turn back to God. THEN, we will be forgiven for our past sins. God will forget them. However, it doesn’t give us license to keep on sinning thinking God will forgive those too. The point is that the Scriptures have been given to help us identify what sin is. Once we know what sin is, we must make all efforts to AVOID it.
Remember, there is ANOTHER spirit in the Word; that of satan, the devil.
This sentence in my comment #33 should have read: Remember, there is ANOTHER spirit in the world; that of satan, the devil.
About Rev Ross
[blockquote]
We welcome today as preacher, The Reverend Rob Ross. Fr. Ross earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his Masters of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary in the Washington, DC area. For six years he was the
rector of Trinity Church in Menlo Park, the second largest parish in the Diocese of California. For the past three years Fr. Ross has been the Chaplain and Religion Department Chair at Wooster School in Danbury, Connecticut. [/blockquote]
I wonder about the implication of critical lack of understanding of the principles of Biblical interpretation on his ability as Chair of the religion department at Wooster School.
Sorry I should have sourced my quote. It is from here:
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:rJaXHSQHZ0MJ:www.americancathedral.org/en/news/bulletin.pdf+Rev+Rob+ROSS+Danbury,+Connecticut&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=nz&client=firefox-a
John Wilkins and Ross together provide a concise version of the view of Scripture taken by many reappraisers. To me, though, the first question is: Why reject the historic understanding of Scripture at all?
If you go to Scripture asking, “what does it have to say about this?” you can’t help but see the traditional view; only when you approach it from the perspective of asking, “can I construe it to make this acceptable?” would anyone come to the conclusion that it might be. Why, in this age where the zeitgeist is certainly pushing for a redefinition if not outright rejection of sexual morality, do so few “progressives” question the impetus behind their desire to remove these prohibitions? Why do so few seem to have second thoughts about proffering this sort of legalistic parsing of the text intended to rationalize one specific thing?
Whenever I’ve been able to get anyone to articulate his or her personal motivation, it has always been rooted in a therapeutic view of the church, which is itself rooted in a materialistic view of the human person, anthropologically and/or ontologically. The insinuation of these ideas into the church did not happen overnight, and will likely take even longer to clear up, but, as it undercuts the whole meaning of salvation and redemption, it’s a disaster for anyone dedicated to the proclamation of the gospel.
#37 Don R:
Well, I did say that the discussion about scriptural authority ought to come first 🙂
I view the Bible as a human work, not “the word of God written,” so naturally I’m going to view all its precepts with a critical eye. That means that I’m coming at it from the other end than your question presupposes: rather than, “Why reject the historic understanding of Scripture at all?” I’m asking, “Why accept the historic understanding of Scripture at all?” That’s not to say that I throw out a few thousand years of exegesis without looking at it; but my basic assumptions require me to always ask, “Do I, in this instance, agree with the historic understanding, and if so on what independent grounds?”
#37 Don R, your last paragraph in your comment is quite interesting. I’ve not been able to get anyone to admit where their views are coming from, even though I can see it from what they are saying. I usually get spouted to me a lot of gibberish commonly spewed out by those who don’t truly know Scripture, but want to carry on a conversation to try to defend their position. It’s usually the same statements. It often goes as far as a blatant statement that Scripture is not the authority by which we are to conduct our lives. It often goes to say that God did not breathe the Scriptures into the minds of those who wrote them. I’m usually told the Scriptures were written by men, so they are only the views of men. It’s quite sad to see how shallow and uninformed those arguments are.
I’m ashamed to say that for most of my own life, I was just as uninformed and shallow in my understanding of Scriptures. I believed the church played a very large part in that. I remember asking a lot of questions as a child. I also remember that I never received clear answers to those questions. It didn’t exactly do a lot for my respect for the knowledge of the leaders of the church. Never had a priest taken me and sat me down and started to teach me Scriptures to answer my questions, even though I was clearly asking for help. Thinking back on that now, I may not have made some of the decisions I did in life if I knew more of Scripture and how much my salvation depends on those words. I truly believe the church leaders are the ones wounding the sheep. The inflict wounds, they neglect to heal wounds, and they try to cover up for their actions. They neglect to feed their sheep, as Jesus instructed Peter to do. I was one who was asking to be fed, but was not given the spiritual food I was seeking. That is wrong.
If more people today would just admit they might be wrong and truly turn their hearts to the Scriptures and find the absolute truth they are seeking, there would not be so much suffering now. The church might be a totally different place. Perhaps a true place of healing and love as Jesus intended it. However, as long as the leaders continue to deceive, lie, corrupt and destroy the church it will only get worse.
#38, wham, you just confirmed what I wrote in my comment #39. You think the Bible is a “human work”. That is where the problem is. It’s NOT a human work. It’s the work of GOD, of Jesus as the WORD of the Old Testament. The same Jesus who constantly quoted OT Scripture in His teachings and rebukes during his ministry on earth. That you (and too many others) believe the Bible to be a “human work” is a very big part of the problem the church is facing right now.
#38, even this sentence you state is problematic:
You seem to think the “historic understanding” of Scripture should be different from our understanding now. To think that is to err. God does not change. His Word does not change.
Malachi 3:6 “For I [am] the LORD, I do not change;
The ten commandments and Levitical laws given to Moses to deliver to the nation of Israel in the wilderness have not been abolished. They were fulfilled and magnified by Jesus himself in His own teachings on earth. God gave us the Word for our use, for our correction, for our instruction, to help us reproof. To reject God’s Word as not coming from Him is to reject God himself. Are you sure you want to do that???
[blockquote]Well, I did say that the discussion about scriptural authority ought to come first[/blockquote]
Excellent, Ross, a point of agreement! 😉
Do you think the Holy Spirit had a guiding role in the writing of Scripture? Do you think the Holy Spirit is more active among reappraisers today than among the writers of the gospels and epistles? It seems to me that if the Holy Spirit permitted the early church to make such serious errors in matters of morality, there’s no reason to believe that the contemporary church is changing it to anything better.
And how do you distinguish between the cultural biases [i]you[/i] bring to understanding the text (i.e., eisegesis) as opposed to cultural biases you impute to its human writers? I think a hermeneutics of suspicion ends either in arbitrary and individualistic decisions, or, if consistently applied, in a hermeneutics of paranoia.
#42, yes, Ross did make a very good point in that statement. The authority DEFINITELY needs to come first. It needs to be a formal issue dealt with by the church as a whole. The homosexuality issue is a symptom of a lack of authority for, and a lack of knowledge of, the Scriptures.
Yep! The authority of Scriptures needs to come first. There’s no doubt about that. We’re in full agreement there!
In fact, I would take it back even a step farther, and say that before you have the discussion about the authority of scripture, you have to have the discussion about what scripture is.
If scripture is “God’s word written,” then it has the authority of God. You still need to do some work to figure out how God expressed himself in the scriptures to know how best to understand them, but the authority question is basically settled.
If, on the other hand, scripture is a human work — I should say, just a human work — then it has the authority of humanity. And humans, being human, can and do err; and sometimes come to greater understanding than they had previously; and contrariwise sometimes fall from wisdom into error. In any event, in reading any work of human authority, one has to ask not only what it’s saying, but whether it’s right to say it.
#42 Don R. brings up the point of cultural biases. That’s quite correct; I take a moderately “po-mo” position in that we can never entirely escape our own context, but neither are we completely bound by it. The best we can do is to do the best we can to be aware of our own biases, knowing that we can’t get entirely free of them. The same is of course true of the authors of scripture; the only advantage we have over them is that we have the benefit of knowing a couple thousand years more history than they did.
I believe that every age has characteristic insights — things it sees more clearly than any other age — as well as characteristic blind spots. The goal, in the ideal case, would be to use the insights as correctives to the evolving tradition of the church, and to use the tradition as a corrective to the blind spots. The challenge is distinguishing between the insights and the blind spots, because the age itself will have difficulty telling the difference. I don’t have a magic bullet for that, other than once again to say that you do the best you can to discern what you can. Future ages — because while they’ll have their own blind spots, no age is entirely bound by it’s context, and they’ll have the advantage of knowing our history while we don’t know theirs — will be in a better position to keep the good fruits and reject the bad.
In the present case, I think our age has insights on human sexuality that are worthy of being incorporated into the tradition. A reasserter would instead say that our age has a blind spot about human sexuality and needs to be corrected by the tradition. Which of us is right? Obviously I think my side is, but we’re both too close to the matter to say for certain. Ages to come will decide where the truth was.
44 Ross, your last paragraph gets to the real crux of the authority question: If God cannot be authoritative in our lives, who or what is? When you say [blockquote]one has to ask not only what it’s saying, but [b]whether it’s right to say it[/b][/blockquote] on what basis (i.e., by what authority) do you make that judgment? And how is that better than anything a materialist could muster in defense of private judgment?
#45 Don R:
On the basis of my own reason, operating on my own experience, supplemented by the wisdom of others (which is another way of saying, on their collective reason and experience.) I differ from a materialist primarily in that one of the things towards which I apply my wisdom (such as it is) and the wisdom of others is discerning where God has spoken and acted in the world.
And I do discern such action in some of the experiences that people wrote down and which became scripture. Not in all of it, and I don’t think that the people telling their stories were safeguarded from error any more than people doing anything else; but I do believe that God was active in the life of Israel. The fact that I think the Bible is a human work does not mean that I relegate it to the status of a collection of mildly interesting fairy tales (to steal a phrase from someone, but I forget who.)
Well Ross, that pretty much ends the discussion doesn’t it. Your subjective feelings vs. others’ subjective feelings. Force is the only solution. And by force I mean the ability to impose your view on others.
And this sentance: “The fact that I think the Bible is a human work does not mean that I relegate it to the status of a collection of mildly interesting fairy tales.” is a complete non sequiter. If scripture has no more authority than a pile of cow dung then it has no more vlaue than fairy tails.
#47 Br. Michael:
You pose a false dichotomy: either scripture is the word of God written, or it is worthless, cow dung and fairy tales. There is quite a range of possibility in between those extremes.
So it really just boils down to private judgment, accountable to no one. And discerning where God has spoken and acted is equally private and unaccountable. In fact, the method and results, apart from employing metaphysical-sounding locutions, are indistinguishable from plain materialism. Br. Michael may have put it less gently than I would, but he’s quite right: with no recognized authority outside the self, force is ultimately the only recourse. You might deny it and even believe it’s not so, but future generations following in your footsteps will take it to its inevitable conclusion. Not to generalize too much for one person’s beliefs, but I’d say this is at the heart of what afflicts the Church in western culture.
Not at all Ross. At least be honest. What authority do you give Scripture?
Don R, you said it well. If Scripture is on the same level as say Tacitus, or Homer or Pliny or whatever, then it has no more value than cow dung. That is, I can ignore it freely. It has no claim on me any more than the telephone directory.
You’re wasting your pixels, Ross. These folks seem to have it locked in their brains that Scripture is a manifestation of God and must be worshiped accordingly.
But they never seem to be able to explain why the world should privilege the particular collection of writings we call the Bible, and especially the New Testament, as opposed to (for example) the Bhagavad Gita. They claim to have explained this, but it’s indisputable that they haven’t been persuasive, otherwise surely more than just 1/3 of the world’s population would be “Christian” by now.
—————–
Don R [#49] writes: “Br. Michael may have put it less gently than I would, but he’s quite right: with no recognized authority outside the self, force is ultimately the only recourse.”
Wake up and smell the coffee, Don and Br. Michael: At least in this life, force is indeed the ultimate recourse. No “recognized authority” has been effective against Russian tanks in Georgia, or against the Iraqi Republican Guard that raped and looted their way through Kuwait in 1990.
This craving for an absolute authority, to which we can abdicate not just our gifts of judgment but also our responsibility, is a striking phenomenon.
#49 –
“Br. Michael may have put it less gently than I would, but he’s quite right: with no recognized authority outside the self, force is ultimately the only recourse.”
Lord – I hope not. I do recognize authorities outside the self – after all there are plenty of people who read scripture authoritatively for their own lives, and I’m influenced by them. Brother Michael and Don R clearly have a reading of scripture that is authoritative, and absolutely so – for them. I do not want to force them to read scripture in the way I do. In fact, if they discussed what scripture oriented them, we might get somewhere. Otherwise, it seems a lot like magic. Is that what scripture is?
Where is the liturgy and prayer and study in all this? When I gather people to read scripture, we come at it from different points without forcing people to agree. I have no interest in making Brother Michael agree with me that my view is right. I do find it odd that he is so sure that mine is wrong. And to me, there is the principle of charity here – one that scripture (Paul, for example) commends.
What does it mean to give scripture “authority” in the first place? I read it, study it, orient my sermons around it, offer bible studies. Thats a sort of authority.
Fortunately Brother Michael, #51, not everyone needs to have it one way or the other. If you need scripture to be a certain way, I don’t want to take it from you. It doesn’t need to be like that for me, or for lots of others.
[i] Comment edited by elf. Ad hominem attack on another commenter. [/i]
#49 Don R:
I certainly will deny it, because it’s a ridiculous assertion. Either incontrovertible authority or naked force. Either perfect certainty, or utter subjectivity. You’re excluding the middle in which the entirety of civilization, knowledge, and discourse reside; and I call that nonsense.
#50. Br. Michael:
Honest? How am I prevaricating? Was I unclear in what I said above? I ascribe to scripture the authority possible to a human work; which is to say, more than zero and less than absolute. I could discuss where in that range I consider scripture to fall, but it would apparently be meaningless to you; “zero” and “absolute” are the only values of authority you claim to recognize.
If you want more “honesty” from me, I’m at a loss as to how I can be more explicit than I have been. What kind of statement would you consider “honest”?
Obviously Ross does not consider himself Christian. If you do not believe the Word of God and follow our Lord, to the best of your ability, how can any one of us claim to be Christian? No, I do not feel that I am perfect, far from it, I am one of those with no health in me sometimes and weak the rest of the time. But I do go to confession, I do repent and do ty to make things right between others and myself and God. Since I started doing that, life has gotten better, or as my priest has told me, “No, life isn’t better, you are, now go do it some more.”
Good responses from DC, Wilkins and Ross. DC admits that for him force is the ultimate authority. And by force I include voting as that is non-violent force.
But they illustrate why it is a waste of time to argue and discuss scripture with them. It is not authoritative for them. It may be something that they put into their decision making tool box and give it some weight somewhere, but ultimately it is just one item among many and you can either accept it all, accept none of it, or pick and choose what ther want based on any criteria that they feel is valid for them.
And, at this point interpretation is pointless. If the text being interpreted cannot be relied on, if it is in error, is not authoritative then who cares what the interpretation is? Who care what theology is derived from it? All you have is non-authoritative interpretation of a non-authoritative text. A total waste of time. Gargage in garbage out.
Thus it is pointless to engage them in Christian debate on Scripture. You might as well argue over a phone book. A phone book I might add where the numbers in it might be right or not.
RE: “But they never seem to be able to explain why the world should privilege the particular collection of writings we call the Bible, and especially the New Testament, as opposed to (for example) the Bhagavad Gita.”
The world shouldn’t, of course. Only those who believe the Gospel should.
RE: “They claim to have explained this,”
No, we don’t.
RE: “. . . but it’s indisputable that they haven’t been persuasive, otherwise surely more than just 1/3 of the world’s population would be “Christian†by now.”
LOL. Nope. 1/3 of the world’s population is admirable, nay fantastic success for any worldview or product or service.
Again, only people who believe the Gospel should privilege scripture. The fact that five years later people are still debating these matters with those who don’t is quite stunning to me.
The fact that there resides in the same organization people who do believe the Gospel and thus privilege the Scripture and people who don’t believe the Gospel and do not privilege the Scripture is why, of course, the Episcopal Church will continue to enjoy the spectacular results of the past five years, only ever increasingly so.
Great comment Sarah.
It’s kind of a group lost in the desert. They need to find a way out and they have a map. Some in the group believe that the map is accurate and they want to take a route shown on the map that will lead them out. Other group members believe that the map is in error. Do you follow the map or not?
Now what if those who believe that the map is in error, or for what ever reason is not to be trusted, decide to argue from the map that they should take another route? Why would they do this? Why base an argument on a source that you don’t believe can be trusted? Why even study it? Whatever conclusions you draw from an erronous map can never be more accurate than the map itself (except for blind random chance). And why would you ever presume to instruct others on the map and the way out of the desert based on that map if you are in the group that denies the accuracy of the map?
Ross, it’s not quite as simplistic as you state in #55. Clearly, there are degrees of both certainty and force, even for materialists. It’s just that by effectively denying authority external to ourselves (the result of subjecting the legitimacy of all authority to our own private judgment), it is ultimately the only thing left to deal with important disagreements. Of course, even while we admit the existence of absolute authority, we have to recognize our own limitations of understanding, and our own tendencies to pursue private agendas.
John Wilkins, maybe the degree of authority is where we differ. While I recognize my own limitations of understanding, I do believe that Scripture is God’s revelation. All human knowledge and wisdom is rooted in the same essential fallibility that mires my own thinking. Because God’s revealed Word is authoritative in ways that purely human wisdom is not, my fallible understanding of it is more reliable than my fallible understanding of the human wisdom [i]du jour[/i]. And when I consider the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church through the ages, it becomes more reliable yet. It’s like the rule of Gamaliel.
Prayer and meditation have central roles in discernment (maybe blogging and commenting do, too ;)), but it strikes me as a sort of chronological hubris to think that newer is always better. That might be generally true in engineering or physics, but it’s clearly false in theology and philosophy. In the latter cases, “new” often isn’t even that; it’s often just so old that we just don’t remember why it was rejected.
And what of the Holy Spirit? Is he only active in our age? Did people in other ages misunderstand? Is he just working on the periphery of our own work in the Church? Is the Holy Spirit magic? I certainly don’t think so.
Br. Michael [#59] writes: “Whatever conclusions you draw from an erronous map can never be more accurate than the map itself (except for blind random chance). And why would you ever presume to instruct others on the map and the way out of the desert based on that map if you are in the group that denies the accuracy of the map?”
There’s that binary, diamonds-or-dog-dung thinking again. Just because a map has errors doesn’t mean you throw it away. It does mean that you have to pay attention to the other data available to you (which, I claim, is just as likely to arise from divine revelation as anything in the Bible). It also means you cannot pretend that the map is the source of all navigational truth, and offer that as a purported justification for slacking off in the rest of your navigation job.
Suppose you’re navigating a seagoing vessel (a line of work in which I have some experience from long ago). And suppose you admire your charts beyond all measure, almost to the point of adoration. Even so, when you’re underway you still post lookouts and watch your radar and depth-finder. You do this for two reasons: First, cartographers don’t always get it 100% right in every detail. Second, things change; what was once an accurate chart might now be out of date. If you pile the ship on the rocks, the board of inquiry isn’t going to care that you slavishly followed the chart. What matters is that you failed to safely navigate your vessel. (See for example the story of the USS San Francisco.) The chart is one of the important tools you use in that endeavor, but that’s all it is, just one tool among many.
————–
Our discussions are leading me to suspect that deep down, many hard-line scripturalists live in terror that a vengeful God will consign them to eternal damnation if they don’t believe and do the “right” things. Their fear is so great, it appears, that they shy away in horror from the often-difficult work of figuring out the answers to moral questions — and from the risk of sometimes getting it wrong. It’s so much safer, they reckon, to assume that all answers to moral questions will be spoon-fed to them from a book that (so they’ve convinced themselves) carries the divine seal of approval. I truly feel sorry for these people; it must be a miserable existence.
RE: “Our discussions are leading me to suspect that deep down, many hard-line scripturalists live in terror that a vengeful God will consign them to eternal damnation if they don’t believe and do the “right†things. Their fear is so great, it appears, that they shy away in horror from the often-difficult work of figuring out the answers to moral questions — and from the risk of sometimes getting it wrong. It’s so much safer, they reckon, to assume that all answers to moral questions will be spoon-fed to them from a book that (so they’ve convinced themselves) carries the divine seal of approval. I truly feel sorry for these people; it must be a miserable existence.”
LOL.
The discussions are leading me to suspect the direct opposite.
Funny, that. ; > )
Sarah [#63], there’s another category of reasserters out there. They live in joy. They’re joyful because they’ve talked themselves (and each other) into believing they’ve got all the answers anyone needs. If everyone else would just accept their answers, the whole world could experience the same kind of joy. The only shadow on their joy is when someone points out that their answers don’t always add up. Then some of them get really cranky.
The point, is DC is that you are your own authority. I expected you to miss the point of the analogy and you didn’t disappoint me. You simply have no use for God’s revelation, except when you want to pull a relvelation out of the hat like a rabbit.
The bigger point is that we don’t share the same religion.
Brother Michael: “ultimately it is just one item among many and you can either accept it all, accept none of it, or pick and choose what ther want based on any criteria that they feel is valid for them.” clearly this bothers you.
I’m not sure if it would bother God, or Jesus. “Picking and choosing” is actually an element of freedom, a core element: and freedom is one element of Christ. In other religions, one has to be bound to the text. I rely on the living Jesus, working in my life. Every day, through prayer, through study, through engagement.
Brother Michael uses words like “reliability” in a perfectionist sort of way. In my view, it is the gift of searching without being condemned (thus, “I desire mercy but not sacrifice”) that the cross and resurrection permitted. The old God would destroy us perniciously with their fickle demands. The God of Jesus Christ is now with us, beginning where we are, bringing us to the kingdom. You disagree? Jesus says, “you search the scriptures but you do not find me.”
Don R is working thoughtfully when he discusses “authority,” and for this I am grateful. Parsing through the techne of “authority” is complex: we read scripture in the liturgy; as prayer; as a rulebook; to help us reflect. I has been formed in its own culture, as we are in ours. I think that there is a sort of scientific “certainty” that many reasserters apply to scripture: it has to be as true as fact rather than a truth that matters in the complications of a human life.
For me the authority it has is the plain truth that I have a relationship with it. It is a frustrating, yet compelling, document (have you ever really read Numbers?) – and sometimes confusing when you read it sincerely. Because individuals make mistakes, the church combines scriptural authority with ecclesial authority. Throughout history, scripture was used to undermine ecclesial history, and this was demonstrated by the many different translations that occurred after movable type.
I also think that authority has an intrinsic “liturgical” sense. It’s not Tacitus, it’s not a phone book – because we read it in the midst of sacred time. By placing it in the context of the mass, we are attuned to hearing scripture differently. Reading it in my home might be useful for spiritual reflection, but it is different.
Don – your last two paragraphs are valuable questions. First, I don’t think newer is better. I just don’t think older is better. My criticism of most reasserters is the default position of “it’s always been this way” or “older is better.” I’m also skeptical of newer is better – usually “newer” is just what somebody wants to sell me. It’s simply important to trust that love works, and that because love works, we can make mistakes.
I will admit to you, I believe that what I think may be a big mistake. But I also think that God can handle it. He died for us, and was raised, after all.
Reappraisers believe that the Holy Spirit is still alive and working, which is why we are sometimes incredulous when a few reasserters insist that the Holy Spirit does not work when Gay Christians read scripture and find liberation from the closet of shame.
[blockquote]You’re wasting your pixels, Ross. These folks seem to have it locked in their brains that Scripture is a manifestation of God and must be worshiped accordingly.[/blockquote]
I would not say that Scripture is a “manifestation” of God, but rather that Scripture is the inspired record of God’s manifestation. We already discussed this at length in another thread when I made reference to Kierkegaard’s distinction between an apostle and a genius. If the authors of Scripture are indeed apostles, then we have reason to heed what they say. If they are mere religious geniuses, then their opinions are just as valuable or not as anyone else’s. In every conversation I’ve ever had with DC, he assumes as self-evident that the authors of Scripture are (at most) religious geniuses, then seems puzzled when those who accept that the authors of Scripture are apostles are not impressed with his arguments.
[blockquote]But they never seem to be able to explain why the world should privilege the particular collection of writings we call the Bible, and especially the New Testament, as opposed to (for example) the Bhagavad Gita. They claim to have explained this, but it’s indisputable that they haven’t been persuasive, otherwise surely more than just 1/3 of the world’s population would be “Christian†by now[/blockquote]
To compare the Bible with the Bhagavad Gita is to compare apples and oranges. Insofar as covenantal monotheism is at the heart of Christian faith, Christianity (and Judaism, and to a lesser extent Islam) presupposes a historical revelation. Everything depends on whether or not certain events actually took place in history. Hinduism is not concerned with history at all. In principle it really should not matter to a Hindu whether Krishna and Arjuna ever had the conversation described in the Bhagavad Gita. For a Jew, everything depends on whether Moses delivered Israel from Egypt, and whether God gave the law at Sinai. To a Christian, everything depends on whether Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.
There is only one reason to privilege the Bible and the New Testament over other writings. If the God of Moses delivered Israel from Egypt and gave the law at Sinai, and if the God who is the Father of Jesus Christ raised him from the dead, then the Bible’s account of reality is the correct one. If these events did not happen, then, not only is there no reason to privilege Scripture above any other religious writing, then there is no reason to call oneself a “Christian,” even a “doubting” one.
I can think of a lot of reasons why I believe the OT’s account of God’s revelation to Israel, and the NT’s account of God’s raising Jesus from the dead. I can think of no reason why I would want to be a liberal Protestant should I become convinced that these things have not happened. And, of course, far less than 1/3 of the world’s population is attracted to Liberal Protestantism. As a mere half-way measure on the way out of the church, it is parasitic on orthodoxy, and has no attraction whatsoever to those who are outside the church completely. Those who come in from outside come in much further. I cannot imagine any reason why a devout Hindu should trade full-blooded Hinduism for the milk and water substitute for Christian faith that is Liberal Protestantism.
Overall the discussion has been excellent on both “sides”.
When Ross wrote:
[blockquote]I view the Bible as a human work, not “the word of God written,†so naturally I’m going to view all its precepts with a critical eye. That means that I’m coming at it from the other end than your question presupposes: rather than, “Why reject the historic understanding of Scripture at all?†I’m asking, “Why accept the historic understanding of Scripture at all?†That’s not to say that I throw out a few thousand years of exegesis without looking at it; but my basic assumptions require me to always ask, “Do I, in this instance, agree with the historic understanding, and if so on what independent grounds?†[/blockquote]
my first reaction was [i]aha – well there you go[/i]. On the one hand reasserters need to concede the critique about “binary diamond-or-dung” thinking. D.C. is right on that point. Surely many human writings have tremendous power and authority. Granted they might not have “supreme” or “primary”(?) authority in matters of faith and practice.
But if we want to resist binary thinking might one wonder if “either it is human or it is the Word of God written” also constitutes binary thinking. Was Jesus human or divine? This or that? Perhaps the answer is [i]yes[/i] and the challenge becomes how we deal with that. When reappraisers say what Ross said above I do think that illustrates a critical difference. (Do those who say such also concede that the Bible never ever teaches that same-sex relations are fine? I hope so. I hope they have the honesty and intellectual rigor to say “the Bible does not support us on the matter of homosexual behavior – we just think the Bible is wrong on this point”. And to their credit [i]some[/i] do say this.)
The one thing that troubles me about the reappraiser position expressed above (not all reappraisers would be as careful as Ross I think, one does note the questions he asks at the end of the paragraph) is how then [i]do[/i] they determine what is just? best? holy? true? Too often I hear reappraisers argue (Ross does not – at least not in this thread) “this is where the Spirit is leading us” or “this is what experience teaches us”. But I cannot help but wonder how these claim a superior grasp on the leading of the Spirit. Reasserters at least point to a third party – Scripture – rather than their own rhetorical despotism. And how do we interpret experience?
One might also ask (given the discussion above) why do we conclude the Bible is wrong about same-sex relations (or sexual morality in general) but boy you better get on the Peace Love and Justice Train (which implies what we say it implies about… well… everything). Others have made this point already and well.
By the way – the critique about whether the Bible (specifically Torah) distinguishes between ceremonial, civil, and moral law is a good one. The problem is that apparently [i]Jesus and the New Testament[/i] often seem to take that approach (if implicitly). What goes in does not defile. What comes out defiles. Which means… there is still such things as words and actions that defile.
I guess all of the above rambling is to say:
1) Reasserters need to recognize that Ross, D.C. and John Wilkins do make some fine and cogent points. The conservative position is not as neat, clean, and perfect as we sometimes think.
2) Reappraisers need to recognize some deep flaws, possible contradictions, and especially [i]inadequacies[/i] in their approach. I do wonder if rhetorical despotism and naked force is the inevitable result. Witness the Presiding Bishop and her comrades. Even if “that side” is right – they have [i]not[/i] made their case! (A point which some reappraisers to their credit sometimes admit.)
#56 drummie:
No, actually I do; otherwise I would not spend so much time on Sunday morning 🙂 I am of course aware that many reasserters would not and do not consider me a Christian, because in their eyes I don’t believe what they consider core doctrines. That doesn’t change the fact that I call myself a Christian without qualm.
#59 Br. Michael:
As D.C. pointed out, there’s plenty of reason to consult a map that you believe is fairly accurate. It may show you that the way out is towards the east, through the mountain pass. But if you happen to remember reading a news story that the road shown on the map was recently flooded out between you and the mountains, then you’re going to argue against following that road. When your compatriots reply, “Well, why don’t you just ignore the map entirely then, if you don’t trust it?” then you’re going to think that they’re missing the point.
#67 Rick in Louisiana makes a very thoughtful reply, including among other things:
Yes, I’ll concede that. When the Bible speaks explicitly about homosexuality, it always speaks against it. You can quibble a little about definitions and cultural practices and so on, but when all is said and done, the Bible condemns homosexuality.
To construct a scripturally-based argument in favor of homosexuality, you first have to say that those passages where the Bible condemns homosexuality are simply wrong — the expression of local custom and taboo. Then you have to step back and try to discern the deeper underlying principles that can be detected driving the sweep of the Biblical narrative. There you can find some consistent emphasis on things like (to quote Rick) the “Peace Love and Justice” train, not to mention embracing the outcast and downtrodden. On this level, sin is seen as failure to love God and love one another, which (I don’t wish to speak for D.C., but I suspect) is why D.C. puts so much emphasis on the “Summary of the Law.” Homosexuality doesn’t figure as sin in the first place on this reading, and it’s certainly true that homosexuals are frequently oppressed and downtrodden; and hence you have the reappraiser view that supporting the rights of homosexual persons to marry and serve the church is a justice issue.
Reasserters hate this line of argument, because they reject the entire hermeneutic on which it’s based — and quite rightly, given what reasserters believe scripture to be. If scripture is God’s word written, then this is a terrible way to read it.
But, if scripture is not God’s word written, but is instead the very human writings of a number of people talking about how God has acted in their lives, then given human fallibility you would expect that they would often get parts of the story wrong, or write it down misleadingly; and you’d expect a certain admixture of material that people thought was God acting in their lives but really wasn’t. And in that case, this process of “stepping back” to look for consistent patterns and underlying principles — even if they contradict some specific details of the text — is exactly the right way to read scripture.
That question of what scripture really is seems to me to be at the root of this division. If it is one thing, then one position follows; if it is the other thing, then you reach the other position. Rick questions whether the truth about what scripture is might not be somewhere in the middle, or a “both-and” rather than an “either-or.” That’s a thought I’d be interested in seeing pursued.
Rick [#67] — an excellent essay. And you pose a fair question: “… how then do they [reappraisers] determine what is just? best? holy? true?”
I’m not sure any of us, individually or collectively, is competent to judge these things on a global scale. I know I’m not.
I can’t speak for other reappraisers, but for myself, I try to address a more manageable question: If I find myself in Situation S, should I do (or refrain from) Action A, or not?
As I’ve written here before, I find it useful to interrogate the Summary of the Law about such matters. The Summary can be paraphrased (or perhaps corollary-ized) as follows: Always try to face the facts of the reality that God created — don’t insist that what you imagine to be, necessarily is. And always try to seek the best for others as you do for yourself.
In facing the facts, we have to keep in mind two particularly-material facts: • First, our powers of observation and inference are limited; we have to be mindful that what we think we know may be incomplete or even flat-out wrong. So we need to take into account all the data we can — including the views of others present and past (which is where Scripture and tradition come in). • Second, things change; we can’t unthinkingly assume that what we observed in the past has not changed in some material respect. Nor can we presume that the inferences we drew in the past, from previous observations, necessarily retain whatever validity they originally had.
Those two facts suggest adding a corollary to the Summary of the Law: It’s inevitable that we will make mistakes — in assessing the current situation; in assessing what might be a “better” one; and in estimating what action will help get us from the former to the latter.
When it appears we’ve made such a mistake, the Summary of the Law calls for us to acknowledge it and try to fix it — which I suppose might be called metanoia (repentance).
Circling back to the question, should one do Action A or not: The answer is, it depends. If Scripture says yes (or no), that will weigh heavily in the decision. But it won’t be automatically dispositive. As I said in #61, Scripture is like a map or chart — it’s an invaluable tool, but our job isn’t to slavishly follow the chart, it’s to safely navigate the vessel as best we can.
Ross [#68] writes:
You’re close, Ross. As far as I can tell, the Summary of the Law is so important to me because it seems to encapsulate, in one paragraph, instructions for how to contribute our infinitesimal bit to God’s ongoing creation project, and incidentally to lead a reasonably-happy and -fulfilled life.
————–
Incidentally, I don’t think it’s possible to obey the Summary of the Law as written. I don’t think we’ve got much control over our feelings.
I’m not confident that I grasp the meaning of the Greek agapao (love, as an imperative). Whatever it means, I’m not sure that intellectual awe, and occasional gratitude, qualify as love. I’ve never been able to will myself into any other kind of feeling about God. Nor have I been able to will myself into loving my neighbor as I love my wife and kids, let alone myself. I’m fairly certain my feelings for random strangers don’t qualify.
But I can will myself to particular conduct: to try to face the facts of the reality God wrought; to try to seek the best for the random stranger in the same way (mutatis mutandis) that I would for myself or my family; to be mindful that I’m going to make mistakes; and to try to recognize and fix them when I do.
RE: “The only shadow on their joy is when someone points out that their answers don’t always add up. Then some of them get really cranky.”
Heh, well I wouldn’t know — why reasserters would get cranky over those who don’t believe the gospel espousing their own gospel I don’t know. It’s a free country . . .
But wait — I thought that reasserters had no joy. We were all dour and gloomy.
Or . . . is it that reasserters don’t have the [i]right sort of joy[/i]? First you say reasserters are joyless. Then they’re only joyful for the wrong bloomin’ reasons!
So very confused. ; > )
William Witt writes: “To a Christian, everything depends on whether Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.” Yes. But it is not merely because it is history. I know one Jew who believes Jesus did rise from the dead. Hindus themselves know of Yogis throughout history who have done that, also. It’s history, but not merely history. And just because the central part of the story is true, doesn’t make the details factual. The story is true enough to reveal certain truths about how people experience God now.
I believe because I’ve experienced the living God: Jesus is truly alive. I didn’t experience it after reading scripture: I experienced it when hearing the passion in the midst of the liturgy. At that point I realized the story is true: the spirit still conveyed the power of the resurrected Christ. It was my “born again” experience my meeting Jesus Christ.
The problem is that this power – which -because it is the power of resurrection – is leading gay people out of the closet and now throwing new light upon the lives of people who had been invisible – even in scripture. The apostles spoke with authority about that light. And it is their authority that allowed their faith to be transmitted beyond their immediate generation.
[blockquote]William Witt writes: “To a Christian, everything depends on whether Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.†Yes. But it is not merely because it is history.[/blockquote]
John Wilkins,
Of course, the resurrection is not “merely” history. The resurrection of Jesus belongs within the context of covenantal monotheism and Jewish eschatology, within the context of Jesus’ entire life and ministry, his consciousness of his role in God’s kingdom, and his identity as God’s Son. A Jew who believed that Jesus had risen from the dead, and did not accept Jesus as his Messiah would be irrational. I would doubt seriously whether there are any yogis who can be credibly claimed to have risen in the sense in which the NT says Jesus was raised–risen to an eschatological new life, risen never to die again, risen and seen by multiple eyewitnesses–but, regardless, resurrection in a Hindu context would not be the same kind of event at all, given the differences between Christian eschatology and Hindu reincarnation.
Certainly there is an experiential dimension to one’s faith in Christianity, or one’s commitment to any religion, philosophy, or worldview. Experience alone, however, is a fairly useless guide to truth. Your experience is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. It either happened or it didn’t.
To conflate the experience of the apostles with the experience of gay people coming out of the closet is once again to miss the distinction between an apostle and a genius. What the apostles “experienced,” according to the gospels, was not a subjective insight that “Jesus must be alive.” They saw him with their physical eyes. He spoke to them, and they heard him with physical ears. They touched him with physical hands. They visited his tomb and found it empty.
Moreover, these same disciples remembered Jesus’ words during his earthly ministry. While he constantly challenged the political and religious leaders of his culture to the point where they crucified him, he seemed to play fast and loose with concerns about sabbath-keeping, and he spoke in ways that the disciples interpreted to imply that all foods were clean, he rather strengthened the OT sexual ethic. At the same time that he ate with “sinners” and claimed the authority to forgive sexual sin (among others), he rejected not only adultery, but also divorce and lust. He regarded the creation narratives of Genesis as providing a normative account for exclusive monogamous heterosexual marriage. There is simply no evidence whatsoever that he ever considered softening the traditional Jewish rejections of same-sex sexual activity or compromising with the prevalent pagan ethic that did tolerate same-sex activity.
The “experience” that leads people to affirm same-sex activity is not the “experience” of the Jesus whom God raised from the dead. The two are incompatible.
I know I’m late to the party but I have been following this thread with interest. The re-assessors have amply demonstrated the role that experience plays in their thinking and I have two experiences that I would like someone to comment on:
* [b]Ex-gays[/b] I have known three Christians who identify as “ex-gay.†One of their complaints is that re-assessors don’t listen to their experiences at all. DC, Ross, or whoever else: what thought have you given to the testimony of ex-gay Christians and how does that inform your theology?
* [b]The decline of Progressive Christianity[/b] It is well-documented that the most progressive denominations and dioceses (in the case of TEC) have experienced dramatic losses of membership over the last forty years or so. DC, Ross or whoever else: what does it mean to your thinking that fewer and fewer people agree with you with each passing year?
In the interest of fairness I will add that re-affirmers have done a pretty bad job of listening to the experiences of gay Christians. Admittedly, “experience†plays less of a role in our theology but we can still do better in this area. I will also add that I know that many conservative denominations and dioceses are also experiencing membership loss but (I would add) not as severe as the progressive Christians.
Any thoughts from progressives?
DC – Re your post no. 61 – Would you please furnish an example of a specific moral question about which the “hard-line Scripturalists” would submit to a “spoon-fed” answer on the one hand, and where others not burdened by this approach would be able to think for themselves for an answer on the other hand? Give a real-life question, please, your choice. Thx.
DC,
I hadn’t noticed this quotation until rob k drew my attention to it. You reveal a rather breathtaking ignorance of how moral theology is done among believing Christians. Before making such statements again, I suggest you actually do some reading of the practitioners of the art. I would suggest beginning with something like Richard Hays’ Moral Vision of the New Testament, Oliver O’Donovan’s Resurrection and Moral Order, Stanley Hauerwas’s The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, Samuel Wells’ Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics, James McClendon’s Systematic Theology: Vol. 1, Ethics and Alasdair MacIntyre’s Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition: Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition.
That the only motivation you can ascribe to traditional Christian ethics is fear shows not only that you have not been listening very closely for the last several years, but also a tremendous lack of sympathy and imagination.
For starters, Christian ethics grows out of a doctrine of grace and forgiveness, not fear of judgment–although a healthy fear of consequences may be better than nothing. It may be preferable to eat healthy foods because one prefers them, but if nothing else, fear of heart disease can be a legitimate motivator. It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
I am persuaded that Jesus repealed the food laws.
For me, the big problem the conservatives have not answered are the proscriptions against collection of interest. Jesus never repealed those.
I find it interesting that there is very little discussion of this question.
#74 St. Cuervo:
If someone is left-handed, and they decide that what will really and truly make them happy is to train themselves to use their right hand instead — and if they’re not just being browbeaten into conforming with the right-handed majority — then I believe they should do what they need to do to feel comfortable with themselves.
But that does not give them, or anyone else, a warrant to go around to all the other lefties and tell them that they really must become right-handed, after all Bob over there did it and look how great he feels now, and why would anyone want to stay left-handed if they have an alternative?
There was a study a couple of years back — I can’t find the cite quickly, but I know that Kendall posted it — that found that when you look at individual parishes, the “liberals decline, conservatives grow” mantra is false. The most liberal parishes and the most conservative parishes were the ones that were, for the most part, growing; the parishes that were more in the middle were more likely to be shrinking.
It’s true that the mainline demoninations have been overall declining for some time. I think that may well be because most of the mainlines don’t stake out a clear enough position — either strongly liberal, or strongly conservative, or strongly anything else — to avoid the phenomenon that the study found. Both the (often conservative) evangelical megachurches, and the (often liberal) “emerging” churches have a very clear sense of who they are and what they’re about, and they tend to grow. Churches that can’t answer that question tend to dwindle.
I note that my map analogy was trashed. Now, assume that the map was given by God and showed the correct way out of the desert.
Ross, I’m surprised that you concede the point so easily in #78; if there really are people who are ex-gay (or as Peter Ould calls it, “post-gay”), in seems to undercut the ontological argument for the acceptance of homosexuality as “identity.” Of course, that whole aspect of reappraiser thought is a bit off-topic on this thread.
I think it’s pretty clear that our basic disagreements are at the level of axioms: the foundational premises from which we begin to reason about meaning are irreconcilably different. I’d argue that, as on display in this thread, the reappraiser view is based in philosophical materialism, attempting to undertake hermeneutics and exegesis from the same ostensibly[b]*[/b] skeptical perspective as science uses in its approach to the natural world. Needless to say, I, and I think most reasserters, view that approach as a serious error. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we should adopt a posture of credulity in all things, but some things really are settled, and basing our moral thinking on the scientific conclusions of the moment leaves our moral thinking ever shifting, chasing the prevailing winds.
[b]*[/b]I say “ostensibly” because the history of science shows us that scientific theories very often become articles of faith for those who have spent their lives developing and defending them. Which, of course, raises questions about the possibility of real and consistent skepticism as idealized in the scientific method.
Elves,
COuld you please edit post #36 to shorten the URL given as a citation? It is causing all the remaining posts to go off the edge (of the screen).
Thanks.
[blockquote] For me, the big problem the conservatives have not answered are the proscriptions against collection of interest. Jesus never repealed those.
I find it interesting that there is very little discussion of this question. [/blockquote]
I’m not sure what it would take to solve your “big problem.” But, for discussion’s sake I note that Jesus addressed interest in Matthew 25:14-30 and didn’t call interest sin. Then again, the point really wasn’t about money.
Let’s pray that we get an abundance more of what Jesus was talking about for the glory of His Kingdom.
Br. Michael [#79] writes: “I note that my map analogy was trashed.”
Br. Michael, thanks for being gracious about conceding a point.
—————-
Br. Michael writes: “ Now, assume that the map was given by God and showed the correct way out of the desert.”
I would guess that at some point in your life you’ve encountered this famous joke:
.
No DC. It’s that I rembered that pointless to discuss scripture with a non-believer.
#80 Don R:
Well, for one thing, the “ontological argument for the acceptance of homosexuality as ‘identity'” isn’t one that I make. But my concession in #78 doesn’t undercut that argument at all.
Some people are oriented exclusively towards one gender. Some people — many, in fact — are oriented mostly towards one gender, and slightly towards the other. If a person has a strong attraction to, for the sake of argument, men, and a weak attraction to women, then if they wish to undertake the exercise they can train themselves to focus exclusively on their attraction to women and to ignore their attraction to men.
If a person has no orientation towards a particular gender, then there doesn’t seem to be any way they can “learn” it, any more than you could train yourself to be attracted to end tables.
This means that some gay people, those whose orientation isn’t completely exclusive, can force themselves to focus only on their lesser attraction towards the opposite gender. If they succeed, they haven’t changed their nature or their orientation; they’ve just changed which part of it they emphasize.
Whether they’re truly happier by doing this is, of course, a question that only they can answer. Anecdotal evidence suggests that results are mixed.
Professor Witt, let me see if I follow your argument.
1) yes, experience is important.
2) The resurrection had to have happened, in fact, or it wasn’t true.
Of course there is no reason for me to believe the apostles, because the scientific evidence against bodies is against them. However. I do believe them. Because I believe I have seen the work of Jesus in my life. Plausible? I grew up in an agnostic household where there was a deep antagonism toward fundamentalism. And still I experienced the risen Lord and found him in scripture. I didn’t grow up in a household where I was brainwashed by my parents into the faith.
You seem to imply that seeing Jesus in the flesh was … not an experience. As a contemporary reader of these stories, it seems to me that they experienced the risen Lord. Now, why can I not also have such an experience, envision it through prayer, and let the holy spirit work within me as it did with them? They were still human beings – and could have gotten the meaning of their real, physical experience of Jesus wrong – because they were human and not divine. For example: every morning I really see the sun rise. It does not rise. Although you know what I mean when I say, the sun rose.
You say: “At the same time that he ate with “sinners†and claimed the authority to forgive sexual sin (among others), he rejected not only adultery, but also divorce and lust. He regarded the creation narratives of Genesis as providing a normative account for exclusive monogamous heterosexual marriage. There is simply no evidence whatsoever that he ever considered softening the traditional Jewish rejections of same-sex sexual activity or compromising with the prevalent pagan ethic that did tolerate same-sex activity.”
This seems to be a rehash of Gagnon. I have no doubt that Jesus believed what most first century Jews believed. Nor do I think he ascribed to the pagan ethic of same-sex activity. I just don’t think our current understanding – that given by Gay Christians – is based upon the pagan world view.
Was the Jewish understanding of what was pagan homosexual activity anything like what reappraisers think of gay relationships now? This isn’t clear to me. Given that our understanding of property, abundance and the sexual fluids were different, I think we can safely say that the foundations of Christian thought may lead us in a different direction: that the foundation of our relationships are not based on the “creation” narrative but on a “resurrection” narrative – relationships that bring peace, and are not centered on gender, but rather on one’s relationship to Jesus: for as Paul said, “neither greek nor Jew, male nor female….”
[blockquote]Of course there is no reason for me to believe the apostles, because the scientific evidence against bodies is against them.[/blockquote]
If Jesus was raised bodily from the grave, it was a miracle–in the strict sense of the world. The disciples knew as well as any contemporary scientist that dead people stay dead. The story of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, and of doubting Thomas would make no sense unless the disciples knew as well as you or I that people do not rise from the dead. So the question here is not whether scientific evidence counts against people rising from the dead. Under normal circumstances they don’t. The question is whether God can act directly in the natural order (bypassing secondary causes) to perform an act of new creation. Science does not and cannot address this question at all. If one does not presume ahead of time that miracles do not happen–and this is not a scientfic but a philosophical and theological question–there is no reason to distrust the disciples’ testimony to the resurrection. It is as well founded as any other of the material in the gospels.
[blockquote] You seem to imply that seeing Jesus in the flesh was … not an experience. As a contemporary reader of these stories, it seems to me that they experienced the risen Lord. Now, why can I not also have such an experience, envision it through prayer, and let the holy spirit work within me as it did with them?[/blockquote]
One of the serious mistakes in modern philosophy has been the Cartesian error–the subjective turn to the self that places the starting point of knowledge in the knowing self rather than in the external object. Given a Cartesian epistemology, it becomes way too easy to conflate terms like “experience” so that my “experience” of the sun rising is exactly equivalent to my New Age friend’s “experience” of past-life regression. The “experience” of resurrection in the gospels clearly is analogous to the “experience” of the sun rising. That is, it is an experience of an external reality that takes place in space and time. It is, not, for example, a subjective “vision,” or, contrary to theologians like Schillebeeckx, an “impression” that Jesus is still alive, or that, because I feel forgiven, Jesus must be forgiving me. The word used to describe the disciples’ vision of the risen Christ is “opthe,” the past participle of the ordinary Greek word “to see.” The point of the empty tomb stories, of Jesus’ post-resurrection meals, of Thomas demanding to put his hands in the nail prints, is to emphasize precisely this objective extra-mental character of the bodily resurrection of the same Jesus who was crucified. He rose and was seen in exactly the same sense as he died and was buried. If the disciples had had a digital camera, they could have taken a photograph.
[blockquote]Now, why can I not also have such an experience, envision it through prayer, and let the holy spirit work within me as it did with them?[/blockquote]
There is no reason in principle why you could not have such an experience, if the risen Christ were to decide to appear to you as he did to the apostles–as an observable external reality in space and time. But that would be entirely up to him. Paul claims in 1 Cor. 15:8 that his was the last of such appearances. Perhaps the risen Christ has made an exception in your case, but I doubt that you’re making that claim. Rather, I think you are more likely reducing the objective “experience” of the apostles to that of your own subjective “experience.”
[blockquote]For example: every morning I really see the sun rise. It does not rise.[/blockquote]
Yes, you do see the sun rise. That is, there is an external objective physical event that you discern with your ordinary eyes. Blind people do not see the sun rise. A blind person would not have sen the risen Christ–unless Jesus were to heal him as he had done for Bartimaeus. That modern science now says that it is you that is moving in relation to the sun rather than the other way around does not change the fact that this is a physical observation in space and time of an external event. The resurrection “experiences” described in the gospel are exactly that kind of external physical reality. They are not subjective impressions that arise out of “prayer” and “let[ting] the holy spirit work within me.”
[blockquote]This seems to be a rehash of Gagnon. I have no doubt that Jesus believed what most first century Jews believed. Nor do I think he ascribed to the pagan ethic of same-sex activity. I just don’t think our current understanding – that given by Gay Christians – is based upon the pagan world view.[/blockquote]
This is not a “rehash of Gagnon.” It is a rehash of what the texts say. Gagnon is just exegeting the texts. He is not “making it up” as he goes along. The vast majority of critical scholars agree with Gagnon that the texts say what they say, and that they condemn same-sex activity full stop. Moreover, Gagnon is not the first one to realize that what the Bible says about sexuality is rooted in the creation narratives. He is simply agreeing with the way the texts have been read through the entire history of the church. His reading agrees with the Fathers, with the Medieval Scholastics, with the Reformers.
It really does not matter whether the current understanding of gay Christians is based on the “pagan world view.” From a Christian perspective, what matters is whether it is based on the “Christian world view.” The Christian understanding of sexuality is rooted in Genesis 1 and 2. God does not create human beings as gay or straight; he creates them as male or female.
The current “understanding” of gay Christians is just as foreign to the biblical world view as was the pagan. It is based on the assumption that the morality of sexual activity can be reduced to the subjective sincerity of “relationships,” and can be divorced from the structures of creation that provide the objective context for permissible sexual activity in the Christian world view.
[blockquote]. . . that the foundation of our relationships are not based on the “creation†narrative but on a “resurrection†narrative – relationships that bring peace, and are not centered on gender, but rather on one’s relationship to Jesus: for as Paul said, “neither greek nor Jew, male nor female….â€[/blockquote]
This is rather careless exegesis. The context of the resurrection narratives is one of “re-creation,” a theme that appears repeatedly in the New Testament. That our relationships are based on a resurrection narrative means that they are based on the creation narrative. God does not undo his creation when he raises Jesus from the dead; he completes it. Paul’s statement about “neither greek nor Jew, male nor female” has nothing to do with a new more permissive sexual ethic. (The distinction between greek and Jew was not a sexual one, and male and female had always been the context for sexual activity.) Paul is saying rather that grace breaks down the historical and cultural barriers that gave Jews and males an apparent advantage in God’s covenant community. God is not a “respecter of persons.” Jesus died for everyone, and God’s grace and forgiveness is available for everyone, including Jews, Gentiles, men, women, but also, yes, “gays,” straights, idolators, bank robbers, computer programmers, theologians, atheists, Democrats, Republicans.
Grace does not mean, however, that Jews, Gentiles, men, women, gays, straights, idolators, bank robbers, atheists, etc., are simply encouraged to continue as they were before. As members of the Christian community, we are each expected to take up out cross and die to self. Certainly the bank robber can no longer steal. The Jew can no longer distance himself from Gentiles. The Gentile can no longer sacrifice to idols. Men are required to love their wives. Atheists have to turn to God. Adultery and fornication are forbidden to everyone.
And all sexual activity is confined to exclusive heterosexual lifelong marriages. Exegetically, there is just no way to get around that. It is what the texts say. It is signfiicant that in both your discussion about the resurrection and your discussion about same-sex “relationships” there is a parallel appeal to an “experience” that can only be subjective, and a retreat from the objective and the external. I suspect that the more immediate influence is Schleiermacher (whether consciously or not), but I would say you’ve rather plainly embraced Cartesianism. Beyond that, the root error is gnosticism, with its root and branch rejection of the Christian doctrine of creation, and its search for a subjective “gnosis.” It is no coincidence that the early gnostics were sometimes extreme ascetics (external physical reality is bad) and sometimes libertines (external reality does not matter). We seem to be living in a new period of gnostic libertinism.
[blockquote]I have no doubt that Jesus believed what most first century Jews believed. Nor do I think he ascribed to the pagan ethic of same-sex activity. I just don’t think our current understanding – that given by Gay Christians – is based upon the pagan world view.[/blockquote]
I thought this deserved special attention. In the area of sexual ethics, Jesus believed what first century Jews believed. But Jesus only knew the pagan world view. He didn’t know what we now know about homosexuality.
Wow. The Son of God was wrong about sex. But we know better today. Unbelievable.
William Witt [#87] writes:
Perhaps. But keep in mind that “dead” people do sometimes “come back to life.” Just the other day was the report of an Indian man who woke up in the morgue — surrounded by other bodies awaiting autopsy — after having been crushed in a stampede at a religious pilgrimage.
Do I claim that’s what happened with Jesus? No; I make no claims about what happened to him, because we simply don’t have enough information.
Leaving aside the Gospels’ lack of foundation (who actually saw what was reported?), they don’t give us a lot of details of what happened. They report only that Jesus was thought to have died, after a comparatively short time on the cross; that he was hurriedly entombed, by two influential Jews who had no apparent ties to Jesus’ disciples; and that starting a couple of days later, some of the disciples came to believe they had seen their Master, in some instances after initially thinking he was someone else. This paucity of information leaves room for a lot of simpler alternative explanations.
—————–
William Witt writes:
I think you missed John Wilkins’ point: When he said that the sun does not rise, he was referring to the abundance of evidence, universally accepted by all but a few kooks, that “sunrise” is no such thing; it’s an optical illusion created by the rotation of the earth.
—————
William Witt writes:
Dr. Witt, your answer illustrates the fundamental problem of the church, which comes, I submit, in two parts.
FIrst, the church includes folks who refuse to admit even the possibility that they might be wrong about what they believe; who are incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of others who find their case insupportably weak; and who refuse even to consider evidence to the contrary.
The existence of folks like this in the church is unremarkable in itself. In any large population you’ll inevitably find a certain distribution of various physical and mental characteristic.
Second, however, is the more important problem: The church refuses to acknowledge this implacable certitude as a shortcoming. Instead, we scrape and bow before its sufferers and their invincible certainty, because God forbid that we should ever offend them. We even elect them to high ecclesiastical office, and then we wonder why they cause so much trouble for the church as an institution.
William –
“wrong about sex” I did not say God was just wrong about sex. I said that Jesus was a man within the culture responding to that culture’s needs. I assert that at most nobody asked Jesus – or would have known to ask, or cared to ask, about the question about if gay people can see the image of God in each other. We don’t know how Jesus would have responded.
Jesus wasn’t superman. Why didn’t he alleviate suffering and give us instructions into superman? Why didn’t he just instantaneously make people agree with him? Couldn’t he have impressed Pilate with his expert knowledge of foreign relations? It is because Jesus was a historical, particular person that we do NOT know his answer to every question.
thank you for taking the time to respond. You are right, I owe a lot to Schleiermacher (I was Brian Gerrish’s student). I think your Epistemology is incredible, and not necessary to be Christian, or to be a friend of God – it seems to be convenient, and I’m not sure why God would just say that Jesus stopped appearing in the flesh to people.
Personally, I agree that there is plenty of gnosticism to go around, but reappraisers neither support libertinism or asceticism. I am a bit of a libertine myself, to be honest, but I’m also not asking God to bless libertinism (but wisdom does say, eat drink and be merry). I think that there are things that are neither sinful or blessed.
I think there is a credible position for reappraisers that is not gnostic, and that what constitutes the “created order” is precisely why science matters, and perhaps one place the early Jews – in their understanding of how creation happened – were wrong. If one thinks that homosexuality is a waste of a precious resource and that God wants people to be abundant – then yes, homosexuality is a sin. Yes – we know now that the contours of how creation happens is a bit more complex than what our spiritual forebears understood.
[blockquote]“wrong about sex†I did not say God was just wrong about sex. I said that Jesus was a man within the culture responding to that culture’s needs. I assert that at most nobody asked Jesus – or would have known to ask, or cared to ask, about [blockquote]the question about if gay people can see the image of God in each other. We don’t know how Jesus would have responded.[/blockquote]
John, in making the kind of distinction you make between “God” and “a man” who Jesus was, you are expressing a Nestorian Christology. Cyril of Alexandria expressed the dilemma well. Is Jesus “a man” in whom God was especially present, or God truly become human. We don’t know how Jesus would have responded, but we do know how he did respond. If Jesus is indeed the Word become flesh, to dismiss Jesus’ views on sexuality by the reductionism of “he accepted his culture’s views on sex,” but that we now know better–“science matters, and perhaps one place the early Jews – in their understanding of how creation happened – were wrong” is, in fact, to say that the Son of God was wrong about sex. Those are your words.
You beg the question when you dismiss Jesus’ views as culture-bound. In fact, Jesus’ views were not “those of his culture.” They are those of the Jewish world view rooted in the Jewish doctrine of creation. These views were counter-cultural. No pagans accepted the Jewish understanding of sexual morality because no pagans accepted the Jewish doctrine of creation.
What science tells us is that human beings are either male or female. That’s a scientific fact, known as well by ancient Jews as by contemporary scientists. The Jews did not know about X and Y chromosomes, but they did know as much as you or I about where babies come from. However, because modern science is a descriptive discipline, it addresses only questions of efficient and material causality. It does not address (and cannot address) questions of formal or final causality. Science can tell us a lot about the mechanics of sexuality. It cannot tell us anything about the morality of sexuality. A scientist has no more authority when it comes to questions of who I should or should not sleep with than would any “ancient Jew.” Questions of sexual morality belong in the realm of philosophy and theology–and that brings us back once again to the doctrine of creation.
[blockquote]I think your Epistemology is incredible, and not necessary to be Christian, or to be a friend of God – it seems to be convenient, and I’m not sure why God would just say that Jesus stopped appearing in the flesh to people. [/blockquote]
I would describe my epistemology as “critical realism.” Theologians and historians who are interested in the history and philosophy of science like Thomas F. Torrance, Herbert Butterfield, Alister McGrath, Bernard Lonergan, and Stanley Jaki, have documented that it was a combination of the Christian doctrine of creation combined with a critically realistic epistemology that led to the rise of modern science–and without critical realism, modern science is impossible. I have no interest whatsoever in the post-Cartesian subjectivist epistemologies that are incapable of moving beyond their own solipsism, nor in the modernist empiricism I see uncritically embraced by DC. Both are two sides of the modern epistemological split introduced by Descartes, and are incapable of holding together the knowing subject and external reality. I would suggest that it was precisely the loss of the Christian doctrine of creation that led to the abandonment of critical realism, with the inevitable dead ends of subjectivism and skepticism that always result.
William Witt [#91] writes: “What science tells us is that human beings are either male or female.”
People also have various eye colors, but we don’t restrict them from forming exclusive lifelong committed sexual relationships just because they have eye colors that some might deem incompatible. People have different fertility levels, but we don’t prohibit an infertile man from marrying a fertile woman or vice versa.
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William Witt writes: ‘I would describe my epistemology as “critical realism.†‘
I don’t think you merit the title of critical realist, my friend. (See chapter 2 of N.T. Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God for a very readable description of critical realism.) As I understand the term, a critical realist forthrightly acknowledges the possibility that his views might be wrong or at least incomplete, and that others might experience insights that give us better explanations of the extant data. A critical realist is willing in principle to modify his views as new evidence is revealed and new perspectives on the evidence are conceived. Your comments here at T19 have shown no sign of either of these qualities.
Perhaps we should revisit the Nestorian view. I admit, Professor, I do struggle with this, in part because I think that even the church fathers did not know as much about the cosmos as we do now. I do think this makes our understanding of Jesus’ mind a bit more challenging. And I wonder, If Jesus knew all the God did, and was omniscient in the way we could be omniscient, then it raises more questions than it solves. It is a view that is easily ridiculed (see Mr. Deity, for example).
You mention that the Jewish version of creation was “counter-cultural” but more accurately – it was counter- pagan culture. It was not counter Jewish Culture (this is… a truism, right?). What was counter-cultural to Jews, was the way strengthening the laws protected women. Jews and Pagans had different views of sex, which is fine. Muslims and Americans do also. This does not make Islam “counter cultural” because Islam is different. But I admit some ignorance about marriage in the pagan world. Was there same-sex marriage in the pagan world? If not, how could Jews be against it?
Admittedly, I’m not exactly sure about what the “doctrine” of creation is: that God created ex-nihilo is true. I’m a bit unsure about the reality of Adam and Eve (do you believe this? One man and a woman?) but I think it is an accurate etiology about the relationship between the sexes. I don’t think it provides a normative account of what is right or wrong. I think that men are men and women are women and most of the time they are attracted to each other. And in this resides a lot of danger, which is why the bible and God have something to say about it. And I agree that the act of naming and distinguishing provided the foundations for modern science, if that is what you mean.
I do question why Jewish Biblical culture must remain magically prior. I also wonder what is intrinsically true about what is “counter-cultural.” Either something is true or it isn’t. Is homosexuality a disorder? Or isn’t it? does it have a purpose? Or doesn’t it? If sex’s only purpose is procreation, then your view has greater strength. If sex has other purposes (peace, friendship, strengthening of love), then we’re on different territory. It seems that one of the cultural issues is that science does have some claims about the utility of parts of our body. Do I want to absolutely hang my hat there? No. But I do think that science – although it might not have ethical content on its own – changes the facts on the ground and alters the location of our moral decision making. In my view, it has shifted from emphasizing genital activity (which I find instinctively a bit strange) to covenant and social harmony (or greed).
I’m not sure where you are going with “critical” epistemologies: either something is critical or it isn’t. (And I admit, you have the stronger background in theology – because I was a philosophy person beforehand). I was influenced by Alvin Goldman, and more recently – Timothy Williamson when it comes to the philosophical field. This is to say that plenty of people active in epistemology are moving beyond Cartesianism (didn’t Ryle kind of end the discussion? It’s been so long…). And I don’t think I’m in that camp.
[blockquote]People also have various eye colors, but we don’t restrict them from forming exclusive lifelong committed sexual relationships just because they have eye colors that some might deem incompatible. People have different fertility levels, but we don’t prohibit an infertile man from marrying a fertile woman or vice versa.[/blockquote]
Entirely irrelevant to the point that I was making. My point was that science does not (and cannot) address moral questions. Eye color and fertility levels are equally irrelevant to morality–from a scientific perspective. Scientists can tell us why people have different eye colors. Scientists can provide us with causes of fertility, and even give advice on how to ameliorate them. Scientists qua scientists cannot tell us anything about whether or not people of different eye colors or fertility levels should or should not be permitted to marry. Eye color is simply irrelevant to the moral question since eye color has nothing to do with the teleology of sexuality Fertility may or may not be relevant–depending on what one perceives as the primary teleology of sexual intercourse. Sexual differentiation definitely is relevant to the moral question because there would be no sex at all without sexual differentiation.
[blockquote]As I understand the term, a critical realist forthrightly acknowledges the possibility that his views might be wrong or at least incomplete, and that others might experience insights that give us better explanations of the extant data. A critical realist is willing in principle to modify his views as new evidence is revealed and new perspectives on the evidence are conceived. [/blockquote]
Indeed. I am familiar with the discussions of critical realism in Wright, as in Lonergan, who is Wright’s original source, via Ben Meyer. I am also familiar with the discussions in Polanyi, T. F. Torrance, Alister McGrath, and Alasdair MacIntyre.
You are correct that a critical realist is open to modify his or her views based on new evidence. The key qualification, however, is (1) whether the evidence is really new; and (2) whether the evidence is relevant to the issue at hand. Moreover, the modified position has to take into account not only the new evidence, but also the old. That is, the new position arrived at cannot simply be a repudiation of the old evidence, but has to explain both old and new evidence in a way that accounts for why the previous position was mistaken.
[blockquote]Your comments here at T19 have shown no sign of either of these qualities. [/blockquote]
With all due respect, DC, I know how frustrating it can be when you’ve thrown out your best arguments and your opponent just does not find them convincing. Nontheless, in all my discussions with both you and John Wilkins over the last several years, I have heard no new evidence whatsoever. Rather, I have heard over and over again the same tired appeals to “experience” or to “love ethics” vs. “purity ethics” or to historical skepticism. I have seen no evidence on John Wilkin’s part that he has addressed or even acknowledged the current state of critical exegesis on the question of same-sex activity. I have sen no evidence on your part that you have the kind of familiarity with critical study of the NT or with historical, systematic or moral theology to justify your theological commitments, nor your historical skepticism. I’m sorry, but the heart of Jesus’ message and mission was not the Great Commandment, and all of your assertions will not make it so. That I did not find your historical skepticism based on appeals to court room cross examination convincing several years ago does not imply that mere repetition will make your case more credible.
William,
The teleology of sexuality is not merely a scriptural question: it is a theological question as well. Your argument seems to be that the theology we have found in scripture indicates that homosexual acts defy God’s will. Our view is that this is a perfectionist view of scripture which relies on a questionable (although traditional) hermeneutic. You say that it has always been a certain way, whereas I think that we are in a markedly different culture where God’s concerns are exposed (in scripture) to be less about the mechanics of sex, and much more about greed, rivalry and envy. As Tikva Freyer Kensky demonstrated, scripture diminishes the eroticism of religion; heightening gender differences reifies it. If anything, it is precisely your description of gender that seems pagan. In our view, gender is irrelevant (unlike the pagans. Or reasserters).
It seems to me that when your theology is wanting, you slip back into scripture. When there is a part of scripture you find inconvenient, you quote Kierkegaard. I will assent that scripture knows homosexual acts as a sinful – within its context. Its context has a misunderstanding of the effects of homosexual sex and a provincial (although generally historically true) view of the household economy. Forunately, we believe scripture offers some liberty in interpretation, and some opening for recognizing that in the love that two individuals have they may find in each other the image of God. And this liberty stems from Jesus himself, who was remarkably creative when it came to scripture.
Alas, in many reasserters, I glimpse of the Grand Inquisitor who want to ensure that there are no more apostles who would witness a new thing….
DC,
I should also add that your comment about “new evidence” seems to presuppose that minds can be changed in only one way. This is perhaps the perennial “progressivist” temptation. My mind has in fact been changed a couple of times at least. I was raised a Fundamentalist Southern Baptist, and during my undergraduate years, discovered the catholic tradition of the church, especially Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and critical orthodoxy through reading Barth, Pannenberg and others. Because of that change, I abandoned Fundamentalism, and became a critically orthodox Angican.
During the time I was doing my doctoral studies at the University of Notre Dame, there was an undercurrent in the department that was very “gay-friendly.” Names like Boswell and Countryman were brought to my attention. When I finished my Ph.D., I was at least open to what might be considered a “moderate” position on the current questions. That is, I was aware that the tradition was being challenged, but had not yet made up my mind one way or the other.
It was during the early and mid-nineties that “my mind was changed” again–at least on the controverted issue. That is, I gradually became convinced that the “moderate” position was simply untenable, and that the orthodox position on sexuality was the only correct one. The factors were numerous: 1) reading careful exegetes who showed that the revisionist exegesis was untenable; 2) reading the revisionists themselves, and finding their exegesis and logic superficial; 4) reading gay advocates of the “new thing” like Robin Williams and Carter Heyward in their own words, and discovering that they had no interest in “permanent exclusive” sexual unions; 3) coming to the clear realization that there is an inevitable connection between abandoning orthodoxy in sexual issues, and abandoning it elsewhere, as you and John Wilkins more than willingly demonstrate time and again. As I said somewhere above, I have no interest in Liberal Protestantism, and never have. Were I convinced either by your arguments or by John Wilkins, I would not become a Liberal Protestant. I hope I would have the honesty to admit that I had simply been wrong about this Christianity thing, and become something like a non-Christian Aristotelian theist.
Whoops. I was referring above to “Robert Williams,” the gay priest ordained by Bishop Spong, not “Robin Williams,” the comedian.
While it appears that a 3 way conversation has taken over the shellfish thread, the arguments have been helpful. I thank everyone for their thoughtful comments.
William Witt [#84] writes:
All the critical study of the NT relied on by reasserters, and all the historical, systematic, and moral theology that I’m familiar with, smacks of the economist joke whose punch line is “let’s assume we have a can-opener.” If they want to regulate their own lives on the assumption that the OT and NT stories are sufficiently accurate for their taste, fine. The trouble comes when they claim that those stories are also sufficiently reliable to justify barring homosexuals from settling down in lifelong exclusive sexual relationships, in more or less the same way that straights do, on penalty of being excluded from church office (and if some of them had their way, excluded from church fellowship as well).
William, you seem to think courtroom procedure is some sort of technical arcana, understood by and meaningful only to specialists, and having no application to “real” life. Quite the contrary: Courtroom procedure evolved precisely because of the endemic real-life problems of unreliability in human perception and memory, and of witnesses who have agendas to advance, axes to grind, and scores to settle. (Ask yourself why Torah prohibited putting anyone to death except on the testimony of two witnesses.) Apparently you deem these human frailties irrelevant to Christianity, even though orthodox Christianity expressly grounds its clam to validity on the supposed occurrence of certain historical events.
I think I said here awhile back that reasserters touting the beauty of their theology are like architects bragging about the magnificent, beautifully-decorated house they’ve built. The trouble is, these architects seem to know nothing of foundation engineering. They’ve erected their beautiful house on a hillside in southern California that annually experiences forest fires and mud slides.When a bystander points this out to them, they angrily dismiss her as not appreciating their architecture; besides, the architects mutter, foundation engineering isn’t relevant to what we do.
These discussions are certainly useful, even though I doubt we’re ever going to stop talking past one another. I guess all I can say is, happy theologizing.
D.C., the problem with the can opener joke is that all reasoning proceeds from presuppositions, so, in this case, it’s just as applicable to your own position as anyone else’s. Except that you seem less aware of (or maybe interested in) the epistemological problems with your own arguments. So it isn’t really that funny.
As to the foundations analogy, somebody else said it best in one of those [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=47&chapter=7&verse=26&version=47&context=verse]stories[/url] you’re so skeptical about.
Don R [#100], I’m keenly interested in, and try to take account of, epistemological problems with my own arguments. In particular, I try very hard not to claim more than I can reasonably support with evidence, as opposed to imagination. If you’ve notice any such flaws and would care to point them out, I’d be grateful.
Where do you get your understanding of what is good?
From #91 (William Witt):
[i]What science tells us is that human beings are either male or female. [/i]
Nope. Not true. There is a condition of so-called ‘intersexuality’ where people possess characteristics of both sexes and cannot be classified. I’m not going to claim it’s ‘normal,’ but there are such people, and yes, God made ’em, and yes, they can live otherwise functional lives.
So, whom may an intersex person marry?
Don R [#101] asks: “Where do you get your understanding of what is good?”
Jury-psychology studies have established, fairly persuasively, that anyone’s understanding of “the good” arises from his or her innate personal preferences as shaped by life experience; I doubt I’m any different.
Innate personal preferences seem to include, among many other things, a need to belong (which has obvious survival value to both the individual and the group). That need can generate a desire to conform to group norms of belief and behavior so as to be accepted, perhaps coupled with a fear of nonconformity because of the risk of being excluded. (See generally the early chapters of Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity.)
Life experience runs the whole gamut, including (for example) • attitudes observed in parents, peers, allies, and adversaries, interplaying with the need to belong mentioned above; • formal education; • personal experience of what seems to “work” and what doesn’t; • adverse interpersonal experiences with people outside of “the group,” which can lead to bigotry; • sympathies learned from observing the plight of others.
DC, so when we encounter things that we initially think are [i]not[/i] good, we would change our minds only because we conclude we can better satisfy our own preferences? Is really just as arbitrary for you as that, or do I misunderstand you?
Don R. [#105], I’m not sure I understand your question. I maintain that we simply don’t have a deep understanding of how or why people form their preferences; consequently we don’t really understand how or why they change their minds.
(Keep in mind that “preferences” can be both short-term and long-term, and can include preferences for altruism and/or deferred gratification, both of which can have survival value for individuals and groups.)
[blockquote] Nope. Not true. There is a condition of so-called ‘intersexuality’ where people possess characteristics of both sexes and cannot be classified.[/blockquote]
Such individuals will have either two X chromosomes (in which case they are genetically female) or one X and a Y (in which case they are genetically male), and science can actually tell us which pair of chromosomes they have. One of the tragedies of life is that some people are born with birth defects. That some individuals are born with anomalous genitalia has no more effect on the normativity of the distinction between male and female than that some people are born blind or deaf has an effect on the normativity of sightedness or hearing.
One of the mistakes of contemporary ethical discussion is that it has focused on “quandary ethics”: Should I lie to the madman to save the innocent victim? Should I have sex with the N*zi prison camp guard in order to escape from the concentration camp? The standard subject matter of ethical theory is the everyday and the normal–not the anomalous. Ethics does indeed sometimes have to deal with anomalies, but anomalies should be treated in light of the normative, not vice versa.
DC, what I don’t understand is that you argue as if your arguments could be interesting or even convincing to someone who doesn’t share your preferences (would they already agree with you otherwise?). Yet your notion of how we form preferences, i.e., the epistemological problem of how we know what is good in order to make judgments in particular circumstances, seems not to involve rational thought. Which seems to make argumentation moot, since we can never know whether it makes any difference.
Don R [#108] writes:
Don, I can’t say I have much of an affirmative notion about the mechanics of:
• how we form preferences, be they short-term or long-term (I want to sleep in but know I should get up to go swim laps), positive or negative (I like the mild endorphin high I get after swimming a mile but don’t like the boring nature of doing the laps), emotional or intellectual (I’m somewhat introverted by nature, but I know it’s not good to spend all my time alone at the computer); nor
• how we estimate what is “good,” viz., what optimum balance of particular preferences do we prefer (I love chocolate but hate gaining weight, so I tell myself I’ll eat just a small piece);
nor • how we “decide” what we will actually do to pursue the good (sometimes despite my best intentions I’ll eat more chocolate than I should).
My notion, such as it is, is simply that the process(es) aren’t well understood, and they’re not entirely rational. I have great sympathy for Paul when he says in Rom. 7.15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
William Witt [#107] writes:
William, I would think that quandries are precisely the proper focus of ethics. It sounds like you want to set up a Procrustean bed* on which all human experience is stretched or trimmed as needed to fit some arbitrary norm. While that may be easier to deal with intellectually, it’s reminiscent of so-called scientists who discard inconvenient observations that don’t fit their pet theories (and seriously breach scientific procedural norms by doing so).
* Some years ago I published a law-review article in which I used the term Procrustean bed. An overzealous student editor asked me to add a footnote defining the term. My reaction was a mixture of amusement (having been a law-review editor myself as a student) and concern that the editor didn’t seem to know the meaning of the term. In my marked-up galley proofs, I added a footnote quoting a dictionary definition, something like this: Procrustean bed: ‘a scheme or pattern into which someone or something is arbitrarily forced,’ [cite omitted] as ironically exemplified by this footnote. I didn’t hear back from the student editor, and wasn’t surprised when the footnote did not appear in the published piece.
DC, re #109, I guess this is what seems odd to me: your relentless, even adamant, skepticism in some cases (e.g., with respect to the validity of the Gospels’ historical content, as in your [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/15453/#268098]comment #89[/url]), combined with an almost insouciant lack of curiosity about why you (or anyone else) would believe such skepticism is warranted. You don’t seem even slightly skeptical about your skepticism.
Hm – the recent turn in the discussion, I think, demonstrates how difficult it generally is to make Jesus into the rulemaker. If anything, I believe the challenge he is making for us is to learn to think for ourselves. Who is good but God?
Given what Jesus did, he was clearly not “good” by his culture’s standards, and would probably be seen like a risk by most church-going people. He blesses, he curses, he is a glutton and a drunkard, and he constantly changes the terms of the good-evil debate. Jesus is himself. Which is unlike other people, who are constantly comparing themselves to others.
In this way, Jesus is more like Nietzsche than Kant. (Not equivalent, of course. More like….).
Some extremely interesting points to ponder. Yet I wonder whose arguments point the way to death and whose to everlasting life?
What I fail to understand are those individuals who reduce Scripture to just another tool, reject traditional interpretation as the product of inferior cultural mores and view Jesus as a cool dude who’s message was peace, love, and justice for all.
Why bother referring to oneself as a “christian” if allowing Christ into your heart is incidental? How can one be a christian and remain unchanged? Loving your neighbor, feeding the poor, visiting the sick do not require a belief in Jesus Christ as one’s King, Savior, Lord and Redeemer.
Dying to oneself and becoming a new creation in Christ, that’s what I see missing in those whose thoughts and desires remain the same as before their “profession” of faith. In these “christians” instead I see the presence of absence. They could partake of God’s Kingdom here and now if they could only see beyond their egocentric world view. At least in my limited personal experience.
John Wilkins, so the question remains: Are we of one faith, or can’t we tell? Do we need to agree on who (and what) Jesus was (and is)? Do we need to agree on what Scripture is? It seems to me that if we don’t agree on those things, we don’t really have much in the way common faith.
[blockquote]William, I would think that quandries are precisely the proper focus of ethics.[/blockquote]
Well, DC., you’re showing your age, since this was the unexamined assumption of a lot of ethicists during the middle of the last century. There has been a major turnaround in ethical theory beginning with the publication of Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue in the early eighties. Since MacIntyre, it has been realized that quandary ethics was a detour that led nowhere. The proper study of ethics is how we live our lives day to day. It is only as we have formed the virtues and character of day to day life that we are prepared to address the things that don’t fit the normal.
I’ve wandered away from the discussion for a couple of days, but I see it’s still going strong.
First, one small tangential point:
#107 William Witt:
That’s not always true; there are people with XXX, XXY, XYY, or in rare cases even weirder combinations. Biological gender is not nearly as simple as it looks.
However, that’s somewhat beside the point of this thread, I think.
D.C., I venture to guess that maybe what Don R is trying to get at is the question of: “What makes something good?” (Or, contrariwise, bad.) For instance, I have a belief that I should not kick puppies. Why is kicking puppies bad? Well, it causes harm to the puppy, someone might say. OK, but why is causing harm bad?
C.S. Lewis develops this argument at some length in Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man. In a nutshell, his conclusion is that in a purely materialistic universe, you can’t have values that are not completely arbitrary.
To Don R, I would suggest that nobody one this thread appears to be a materialist; so I, at least, will say that the values “good” and “evil” really do exist, are not completely arbitrary, and their source is God.
To which the returning volley is, “Very well then, given that good and evil really exist, how do we know which is which?” The traditional Christian answer is to say that everyone has a murky inborn sense of right and wrong (the law “written in their hearts”) but that scripture, for those fortunate enough to have it, lays it all out in black and white.
I would say, rather, that I agree that everyone (more accurately nearly everyone; a few tragic souls seem to be born without it) has that inborn capacity for “sensing” right and wrong. Unfortunately, it’s not a very clear sense in many cases. I think that if we read scripture — meaning, as I view it, the stories of many different people describing how God has acted in their lives — we can glean some important principles that, because of this inborn instinct, we can recognize as being rightness of a superior order. We can then reason from these principles, or at least attempt to do so, to build a consistent framework of morality that (we hope) is grounded on the real underlying truth of good and evil.
We can also read other sacred texts (the Quran, the Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and so on) to see if we can discern, by that inner compass, God acting in these stories as well.
But, someone will doubtless respond, people do this and sometimes come up with different answers. The presenting topic of homosexuality is one; even setting aside the specific prohibitions in Leviticus and Romans, many people find underlying moral principles in scripture (e.g., the “complementarity of the sexes”) and then reason out that homosexuality is wrong. I, and other reappraisers, come to a different conclusion. If scripture doesn’t provide us with final answers, how do we decide who is right?
To which I can only say: that’s the same situation we’re in for every other field of knowledge in the scope of humanity, and the only answer is, we do the best we can with what we have to figure it out. And if that ultimately doesn’t produce agreement, then we’re forced to find a way to live with disagreement. It’s something of a muddle, but it’s the human condition.
Ross [#116]: Very well put, and especially so in your last paragraph.
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Don R [#111] writes:
Don, I’ve written extensively about specific reasons for caution in accepting the factual claims of Christian orthodoxy (small “o”) at my own blog, The Questioning Christian. In the right sidebar thereof, scroll down to the section entitled “Some inconvenient difficulties with traditionalist Christianity.” One of these years I need to put together a consolidated posting, but you may find the following of particular interest:
• Serious Inconsistencies in the New Testament Writings: Six Reasons for Skepticism About the Traditionalist Account [link]. The inconsistencies I examine are things like (for example): Why wasn’t John the Baptist one of Jesus’ foremost apostles? Why weren’t Jesus’ influential friends, like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, among the leaders of the early church? Why did the disciples apparently flout Jesus’ (putative) command to use the trinitarian baptismal formula?
• Reasons to Question the Reliability of Scripture [link]. There, I survey some of the well-recognized (and indisputable) problems with hearsay testimony — which is what all the Gospel accounts are — and why it can be dangerous to place too much reliance on such testimony. I also address some of the usual reasserter counterarguments, such as “”But the early disciples died for their beliefs!” and “But informal controls guaranteed the accuracy of the oral tradition!”
• Synoptic Christians versus John Christians: A Critique [link]. Here I examine some reasons to be cautious in taking the Fourth Gospel at face value. One of my favorite parts is this, analogizing the beloved disciple to a hypothetical young aide of General Eisenhower during the Normandy landings:
I’m afraid I’m contributing to topic drift, but people seem to be enjoying the discussion.
DC, having just taken a look at your blog (and having read a few items), I realized I’ve checked in over there before. It’s probably not surprising that I find your approach to scripture unconvincing, wanting a degree of precision when matching up the Gospels that seems extreme to me. Almost like they should match word for word (I exaggerate somewhat, but hopefully you understand what I mean), or they’re not credible. I think they’re more credible for the differences that exist (what should a jury make of tales that match [i]too[/i] well?). It’s odd, but I’ve long thought that there is an interesting parallel between the literalism of fundamentalism and (what seems to me like) the literalism of your kind of empiricism. But that’s definitely off topic, something to save for another day.