Sunday, July 12, 2015
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Four Appeals to Christians Embracing Gay Marriage
by Gavin Ortland
I was not particularly surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision last Friday. Nor do I feel alarmist about it. Some Christians are responding to it in doomsday tones, but to my mind that attitude is at odds with the basic tenor of the gospel. Panic and pessimism are out of order for a worldview anchored in belief in an omnipotent God, irresistible grace, and an eternal heaven.
On the other hand, how a society defines the institution of marriage is important. For me, it is too important to remain silent—particularly because so many Christians I know are joining in to celebrate the Court’s ruling. My Facebook news feed has been lit up over the last several days with two basic types of articles, coming from various different circles of friends that Esther and I have made over the years: some disappointed and basically asking “now what?”; others exultant and proclaiming #lovewins.
To my friends in the church embracing gay marriage, I offer these four “appeals.” I do not expect that those who have studied this issue thoroughly and landed squarely in that camp will necessarily find these appeals new or convincing. But I’m also seeing a lot of Christians, particularly younger millennials, whose openness to gay marriage seems to me more impulsive, emotional, un-careful. Our cultural moment is experiencing an incredible lunge toward more latitudinarian views on sexuality and marriage, and its easy for people to get caught up in it. So I offer these comments to people in that camp in the spirit of saying, as Lloyd says to Harry in the great theological treatise Dumb and Dumber, “do you realize what you’ve done?” (In other words, have you thought this through fully and carefully?)
I recognize that publicly affirming a traditional definition of marriage makes you vulnerable to stigmatization, so I’ve been a bit hesitant to write this. But I also think complete silence is a mistake. And at any rate I’ve never been able to suppress my convictions out of fear of how people will respond. It’s just not who I am. So I offer these thoughts hoping they might be helpful to some, even though they are somewhat ad hoc and do not constitute a comprehensive statement on this whole issue.
(One final thing: If you’re reading this and not connected to the church in any way, just be aware your “listening in” a bit here to conversation among Christians. Probably the best way for us to dialogue directly would be over email or coffee—and I would love to do that.)
1) Traditional views are not always bigoted (and progressive ones sometimes are)
Many younger people seem to intuitively sense that accepting gay marriage is tolerant and compassionate, and opposing it is narrow and mean. That instinct is not incomprehensible. There is indeed a lot of bigotry and homophobia in the world, and there has been a lot of downright meanness directed toward the LGBT community. I grieve and oppose this as much as anyone. It is wrong. Christ has called us to love our neighbor, whatever their sexual identification, and the gospel calls us to be more concerned about our own sin than anyone else’s.
But many prominent voices in our culture regard all opposition to same-sex marriage as bigoted. There is an aggressive, “take-no-prisoners” mindset that—all in the name of open-mindedness and tolerance—sweeps away any space for principled disagreement. There are only two options on the table: the celebration of gay marriage, or “nonsense … absolute stupidity” of the kind that is comparable to denying women or black people the right to vote and can only be met with exasperation and disbelief.
But if we are really seeking to advance the cause of tolerance, shouldn’t we be willing to tolerate persons who hold to the traditional view? If we are really seeking to advance the cause of open-mindedness, shouldn’t we be willing to distinguish between more and less thoughtful expressions of the view we oppose?
Imagine there is a 65-year-old professor at NYU (I’m just making this up for the sake of argument). She is an atheist. She has no particular loyalty to the Judeo-Christian heritage regarding marriage and sexuality. But she happens to read the sociological data for male-female complementarity benefiting children, and, after careful analysis, ends up supporting the traditional view of marriage.
Even supposing this professor is wrong on the issue, would her error be the result of bigotry? My dictionary defines bigotry as: “stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.” What if you just happen to think that it’s best for society when children, generally speaking and on balance, have both a mom and a dad? Does this make you a bigot?
If you need to support gay marriage in order to love your gay friend, do you need to support polygamy in order to love your polyamorous friend? If people have a “right” to marry whomever they love, should two 15-year-olds be able to get married? Is opposition to cousin marriage a form of genetic and sexual discrimination? These examples are not scare tactics. They are real issues being debated. But the more basic point is this: we all define marriage in ways that exclude people, and it is not necessarily the result of discrimination or bigotry to do so.
It is possible to hold to a traditional view of marriage without an ounce of prejudice in your heart against anyone. I believe Christ did (Matthew 19:4-6). I believe that is what Christians are called to do. Between the noise and rancor crowding towards us from various angles, this is one option that needs to be calmly considered.
2) History provides some perspective
99.8%+ of human cultures have considered gender diversity to be of the essence of marriage, and even in our culture almost everyone understood marriage this way, until the last 5-10 years, including President Obama. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it, this view of marriage has “formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs.”
So you’ve got this institution called “marriage” that every society recognizes, and it’s universally understood as male-female throughout all religions, cultures, societies, etc., and then the 21st century West comes along, and—in the space of a decade—the baseline values and assumptions change so much that everything flips around.
Suppose such a radical revisionism is justified. Suppose everyone throughout history has simply gotten it wrong, and this narrow little slice of humanity in the first-world at the dawn of the 21st century have alone arrived on the truth.
If such a radical u-turn were required, it should at least be accompanied by a great deal of caution and circumspection. What concerns me is the seeming lack of such caution among many on this issue, and the lack of sensitivity to the danger of cultural elitism. When we are plunging against 99% of human history, when we are setting off of the well-worn pathway of human civilization into an unprecedented direction, how about a little more humility and a little less triumphalism?
Of course, those advocating for gay marriage are calling for humility—but only from the traditionalists! I read one post that basically said, “if you celebrate this decision, I rejoice with you; if you are disappointed, just remember that you might be wrong.” This kind of appeal reeks of an enlightened condescension. Why not remind both sides that they might be wrong—particularly the more historically isolated one?
Advocacy for gay marriage also appeals to courage because it provides a sense of connection to a moral cause. To be sure, many of those embracing gay marriage do so at great cost and with great conviction. But many others are simply jumping on the bandwagon at its crescendo of popularity. That seems to me to require far less courage than holding to the traditional view. And while it may connect you to one cause, it also separates you from a far older and deeper one.
3) Marriage matters
I also hear some Christians basically saying, “what’s the big deal?” Many are personally opposed to gay marriage, but don’t want to engage in the public debate. Many have been turned off by the politicizing of the religious right, and/or the cultural conservatism they’ve seen in their family or church. In general, it seems like younger people—particularly the younger slice of millennials, people 25 and younger—tend to value law, government, and authority much less than previous generations, and relationship, transparency, and self-expression more. So the motivation to oppose gay marriage is very low.
My appeal is to consider that how society defines marriage is very, very important. The philosopher Rousseau said that a nation is only as strong as its mothers. The family unit is the primary nurturing context in which people are shaped in their moral, social, personal, and psychological instincts, and so how the state defines and delimits this entity has profound implications. Jerry-rigging a new definition of the word “marriage” is one of the most significant ways to reshape and redirect the broader culture.
We can discern the importance of marriage from the sociology and anthropology. But for those of us in the body of Christ, marriage has an additional, theological importance. In a Christian worldview, marriage is ultimately not a human invention, but a divine institution. The whole Bible starts and ends with marriage (Genesis 2, Revelation 21), and throughout the Bible marriage is identified as a portrait of God’s love for his people in the gospel (e.g., Ephesians 5:32). Marriage is therefore sacred. It is a little window into the most profound and beautiful mystery at the heart of the universe: the love of God.
The government is going to operate with some kind of moral compass, some kind of vision for human flourishing. So if we believe that God’s design is indeed wise and good, we shouldn’t check out in this debate.
4) The comparison to slavery is slippery
Perhaps the greatest concern to me among my Christian friends supporting last Friday’s decision comes in the area of biblical interpretation, and what Christians have believed about homosexuality for 2000 years. The most common argument I hear goes something like this: “yeah, Christians throughout church history have believed the Bible prohibits homosexual behavior, but then again, most Christians throughout church history also believed the Bible approved of slavery, and they were wrong about that—so how do we know Christians haven’t been wrong about homosexuality, too?”
In more sophisticated discussion this kind of argument is often tied to what is called the redemptive-movement hermeneutic, and involves issues of segregation and gender equality as well as homosexuality. You can delve into some of the discussion, if you are interested, by reading Tim Keller’s review of two recent books affirming same-sex marriage and Matthew Vine’s response.
Now, there are complicated historical and hermeneutical issues involved in this debate, and I don’t aim to offer any kind of final analysis here. I think what concerns me most in the present context is the seeming hastiness with which many Christians are appealing to a comparison of homosexuality and slavery. The problem is that unless we get specific with each text involved, this kind of appeal can function as a way to blunt biblical authority on any issue. You can say about anything, “well, yeah, the Bible prohibits that, but then again, the Bible advocates slavery, so it’s all a wash in the end.” Until we’ve done the careful work of interpreting each particular biblical text in its own context, and then applying it in our own, we really don’t have the right to make this evaluation.
Does the Bible really advocate slavery? When we read verses like Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, I Peter 2:18, we hear the English translation “slave” in light of our own historical context, and typically think of race-based, chattel slavery. But that kind of slavery was always condemned in Scripture—in fact, that Old Testament law commanded the death penalty for anyone who bought or sold another human being (Exodus 21:16).
The Greek word translated “slave” in the Pauline passages mentioned above is the word doulos—a term that Paul uses to describe his own relationship with Christ (e.g, Romans 1:1). It is often translated “bond-servant,” and in the first-century Graeco-Roman world often referred to people with considerable more legal and social status than we usually think of when we hear the term “slave.”
But even that milder form of slavery is more tolerated than affirmed by the Bible. When the gospel comes into any cultural context, we don’t expect total perfection right away. Ethical exhortations in ad hoc documents like epistles will give us more of a picture of day-to-day life as a Christian in a certain context than the Bible’s overall ideal with respect to institutional and structural evil. (Unless we expect the apostles to call for immediate social revolution.)
But in the epistle to Philemon Paul writes to a slave owner about his runaway slave, and in that unique scenario I think we get a clearer sense of how Paul regards the gospel playing out with respect to structural, societal evil. Paul appeals to Philemon (the slave owner) and says that Onesimus (the slave) has become a Christian, and thus is no longer a slave, but instead a brother in Christ—so “receive him as you would receive me” (v. 17). So Paul dissolves the slave/master relationship, and erects in its place a brother/brother relationship, in which the former slave is treated with all the dignity that the apostle himself would be treated. This is what the gospel does: even before the actual institution of slavery is abolished, it unmakes the assumptions and prejudices that make slavery possible.
There is nothing comparable to the book of Philemon (or Exodus 21:16) in the Bible with respect to homosexuality.
Nor are homosexuality and abolitionism equally opposed throughout church history. Vines counters Keller’s critique on this point by arguing that he only focuses on the modern West, and thus “badly misrepresents the church’s history on the issue of slavery.” It’s true that many Christians throughout church history supported slavery, and that is an evil not to be excused. But it’s false that slavery was approved by the church until people like William Wilberforce. Most church fathers like Augustine tolerated slavery only as a result of the fall, and some like Gregory of Nyssa attacked the institution of slavery as contrary to God’s intent for humanity. In the era of medieval Christendom, several nations abolished slavery (continental France in 1315, Sweden in 1335), and several popes in the following centuries, particularly Pope Paul III, condemned both slavery and the slave trade.
So the church’s record on slavery is mixed, while it’s nearly impossible to find advocates of homosexual practice anywhere before the recent past. So I don’t think the comparison between homosexuality and slavery ultimately works here, either. But if you do use this comparison, my appeal is to do the hard exegetical work to justify it.
Conclusion
If you are a Christian open to gay marriage, have you considered that the options between open celebration and reactionary prejudice? Have you thought through the importance of the institution of marriage in society, and the massive historical pedigree standing behind the traditional definition of it? Have you worked your way carefully through the various relevant biblical texts, “examining the Scriptures daily” like the noble Bereans (Acts 17:11)?
I recognize that support for gay marriage has garnered so much emotional and social momentum in our culture that appeals like this will not have any impact at all on some people. But I also see a lot people putting up rainbow flags on facebook probably without having carefully thought it through. I offer these appeals in the hope that they will stimulate greater critical reflection concerning the emotions and eccentricities of the present cultural moment.
I was not particularly surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision last Friday. Nor do I feel alarmist about it. Some Christians are responding to it in doomsday tones, but to my mind that attitude is at odds with the basic tenor of the gospel. Panic and pessimism are out of order for a worldview anchored in belief in an omnipotent God, irresistible grace, and an eternal heaven.
On the other hand, how a society defines the institution of marriage is important. For me, it is too important to remain silent—particularly because so many Christians I know are joining in to celebrate the Court’s ruling. My Facebook news feed has been lit up over the last several days with two basic types of articles, coming from various different circles of friends that Esther and I have made over the years: some disappointed and basically asking “now what?”; others exultant and proclaiming #lovewins.
To my friends in the church embracing gay marriage, I offer these four “appeals.” I do not expect that those who have studied this issue thoroughly and landed squarely in that camp will necessarily find these appeals new or convincing. But I’m also seeing a lot of Christians, particularly younger millennials, whose openness to gay marriage seems to me more impulsive, emotional, un-careful. Our cultural moment is experiencing an incredible lunge toward more latitudinarian views on sexuality and marriage, and its easy for people to get caught up in it. So I offer these comments to people in that camp in the spirit of saying, as Lloyd says to Harry in the great theological treatise Dumb and Dumber, “do you realize what you’ve done?” (In other words, have you thought this through fully and carefully?)
I recognize that publicly affirming a traditional definition of marriage makes you vulnerable to stigmatization, so I’ve been a bit hesitant to write this. But I also think complete silence is a mistake. And at any rate I’ve never been able to suppress my convictions out of fear of how people will respond. It’s just not who I am. So I offer these thoughts hoping they might be helpful to some, even though they are somewhat ad hoc and do not constitute a comprehensive statement on this whole issue.
(One final thing: If you’re reading this and not connected to the church in any way, just be aware your “listening in” a bit here to conversation among Christians. Probably the best way for us to dialogue directly would be over email or coffee—and I would love to do that.)
1) Traditional views are not always bigoted (and progressive ones sometimes are)
Many younger people seem to intuitively sense that accepting gay marriage is tolerant and compassionate, and opposing it is narrow and mean. That instinct is not incomprehensible. There is indeed a lot of bigotry and homophobia in the world, and there has been a lot of downright meanness directed toward the LGBT community. I grieve and oppose this as much as anyone. It is wrong. Christ has called us to love our neighbor, whatever their sexual identification, and the gospel calls us to be more concerned about our own sin than anyone else’s.
But many prominent voices in our culture regard all opposition to same-sex marriage as bigoted. There is an aggressive, “take-no-prisoners” mindset that—all in the name of open-mindedness and tolerance—sweeps away any space for principled disagreement. There are only two options on the table: the celebration of gay marriage, or “nonsense … absolute stupidity” of the kind that is comparable to denying women or black people the right to vote and can only be met with exasperation and disbelief.
But if we are really seeking to advance the cause of tolerance, shouldn’t we be willing to tolerate persons who hold to the traditional view? If we are really seeking to advance the cause of open-mindedness, shouldn’t we be willing to distinguish between more and less thoughtful expressions of the view we oppose?
Imagine there is a 65-year-old professor at NYU (I’m just making this up for the sake of argument). She is an atheist. She has no particular loyalty to the Judeo-Christian heritage regarding marriage and sexuality. But she happens to read the sociological data for male-female complementarity benefiting children, and, after careful analysis, ends up supporting the traditional view of marriage.
Even supposing this professor is wrong on the issue, would her error be the result of bigotry? My dictionary defines bigotry as: “stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.” What if you just happen to think that it’s best for society when children, generally speaking and on balance, have both a mom and a dad? Does this make you a bigot?
If you need to support gay marriage in order to love your gay friend, do you need to support polygamy in order to love your polyamorous friend? If people have a “right” to marry whomever they love, should two 15-year-olds be able to get married? Is opposition to cousin marriage a form of genetic and sexual discrimination? These examples are not scare tactics. They are real issues being debated. But the more basic point is this: we all define marriage in ways that exclude people, and it is not necessarily the result of discrimination or bigotry to do so.
It is possible to hold to a traditional view of marriage without an ounce of prejudice in your heart against anyone. I believe Christ did (Matthew 19:4-6). I believe that is what Christians are called to do. Between the noise and rancor crowding towards us from various angles, this is one option that needs to be calmly considered.
2) History provides some perspective
99.8%+ of human cultures have considered gender diversity to be of the essence of marriage, and even in our culture almost everyone understood marriage this way, until the last 5-10 years, including President Obama. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it, this view of marriage has “formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs.”
So you’ve got this institution called “marriage” that every society recognizes, and it’s universally understood as male-female throughout all religions, cultures, societies, etc., and then the 21st century West comes along, and—in the space of a decade—the baseline values and assumptions change so much that everything flips around.
Suppose such a radical revisionism is justified. Suppose everyone throughout history has simply gotten it wrong, and this narrow little slice of humanity in the first-world at the dawn of the 21st century have alone arrived on the truth.
If such a radical u-turn were required, it should at least be accompanied by a great deal of caution and circumspection. What concerns me is the seeming lack of such caution among many on this issue, and the lack of sensitivity to the danger of cultural elitism. When we are plunging against 99% of human history, when we are setting off of the well-worn pathway of human civilization into an unprecedented direction, how about a little more humility and a little less triumphalism?
Of course, those advocating for gay marriage are calling for humility—but only from the traditionalists! I read one post that basically said, “if you celebrate this decision, I rejoice with you; if you are disappointed, just remember that you might be wrong.” This kind of appeal reeks of an enlightened condescension. Why not remind both sides that they might be wrong—particularly the more historically isolated one?
Advocacy for gay marriage also appeals to courage because it provides a sense of connection to a moral cause. To be sure, many of those embracing gay marriage do so at great cost and with great conviction. But many others are simply jumping on the bandwagon at its crescendo of popularity. That seems to me to require far less courage than holding to the traditional view. And while it may connect you to one cause, it also separates you from a far older and deeper one.
3) Marriage matters
I also hear some Christians basically saying, “what’s the big deal?” Many are personally opposed to gay marriage, but don’t want to engage in the public debate. Many have been turned off by the politicizing of the religious right, and/or the cultural conservatism they’ve seen in their family or church. In general, it seems like younger people—particularly the younger slice of millennials, people 25 and younger—tend to value law, government, and authority much less than previous generations, and relationship, transparency, and self-expression more. So the motivation to oppose gay marriage is very low.
My appeal is to consider that how society defines marriage is very, very important. The philosopher Rousseau said that a nation is only as strong as its mothers. The family unit is the primary nurturing context in which people are shaped in their moral, social, personal, and psychological instincts, and so how the state defines and delimits this entity has profound implications. Jerry-rigging a new definition of the word “marriage” is one of the most significant ways to reshape and redirect the broader culture.
We can discern the importance of marriage from the sociology and anthropology. But for those of us in the body of Christ, marriage has an additional, theological importance. In a Christian worldview, marriage is ultimately not a human invention, but a divine institution. The whole Bible starts and ends with marriage (Genesis 2, Revelation 21), and throughout the Bible marriage is identified as a portrait of God’s love for his people in the gospel (e.g., Ephesians 5:32). Marriage is therefore sacred. It is a little window into the most profound and beautiful mystery at the heart of the universe: the love of God.
The government is going to operate with some kind of moral compass, some kind of vision for human flourishing. So if we believe that God’s design is indeed wise and good, we shouldn’t check out in this debate.
4) The comparison to slavery is slippery
Perhaps the greatest concern to me among my Christian friends supporting last Friday’s decision comes in the area of biblical interpretation, and what Christians have believed about homosexuality for 2000 years. The most common argument I hear goes something like this: “yeah, Christians throughout church history have believed the Bible prohibits homosexual behavior, but then again, most Christians throughout church history also believed the Bible approved of slavery, and they were wrong about that—so how do we know Christians haven’t been wrong about homosexuality, too?”
In more sophisticated discussion this kind of argument is often tied to what is called the redemptive-movement hermeneutic, and involves issues of segregation and gender equality as well as homosexuality. You can delve into some of the discussion, if you are interested, by reading Tim Keller’s review of two recent books affirming same-sex marriage and Matthew Vine’s response.
Now, there are complicated historical and hermeneutical issues involved in this debate, and I don’t aim to offer any kind of final analysis here. I think what concerns me most in the present context is the seeming hastiness with which many Christians are appealing to a comparison of homosexuality and slavery. The problem is that unless we get specific with each text involved, this kind of appeal can function as a way to blunt biblical authority on any issue. You can say about anything, “well, yeah, the Bible prohibits that, but then again, the Bible advocates slavery, so it’s all a wash in the end.” Until we’ve done the careful work of interpreting each particular biblical text in its own context, and then applying it in our own, we really don’t have the right to make this evaluation.
Does the Bible really advocate slavery? When we read verses like Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, I Peter 2:18, we hear the English translation “slave” in light of our own historical context, and typically think of race-based, chattel slavery. But that kind of slavery was always condemned in Scripture—in fact, that Old Testament law commanded the death penalty for anyone who bought or sold another human being (Exodus 21:16).
The Greek word translated “slave” in the Pauline passages mentioned above is the word doulos—a term that Paul uses to describe his own relationship with Christ (e.g, Romans 1:1). It is often translated “bond-servant,” and in the first-century Graeco-Roman world often referred to people with considerable more legal and social status than we usually think of when we hear the term “slave.”
But even that milder form of slavery is more tolerated than affirmed by the Bible. When the gospel comes into any cultural context, we don’t expect total perfection right away. Ethical exhortations in ad hoc documents like epistles will give us more of a picture of day-to-day life as a Christian in a certain context than the Bible’s overall ideal with respect to institutional and structural evil. (Unless we expect the apostles to call for immediate social revolution.)
But in the epistle to Philemon Paul writes to a slave owner about his runaway slave, and in that unique scenario I think we get a clearer sense of how Paul regards the gospel playing out with respect to structural, societal evil. Paul appeals to Philemon (the slave owner) and says that Onesimus (the slave) has become a Christian, and thus is no longer a slave, but instead a brother in Christ—so “receive him as you would receive me” (v. 17). So Paul dissolves the slave/master relationship, and erects in its place a brother/brother relationship, in which the former slave is treated with all the dignity that the apostle himself would be treated. This is what the gospel does: even before the actual institution of slavery is abolished, it unmakes the assumptions and prejudices that make slavery possible.
There is nothing comparable to the book of Philemon (or Exodus 21:16) in the Bible with respect to homosexuality.
Nor are homosexuality and abolitionism equally opposed throughout church history. Vines counters Keller’s critique on this point by arguing that he only focuses on the modern West, and thus “badly misrepresents the church’s history on the issue of slavery.” It’s true that many Christians throughout church history supported slavery, and that is an evil not to be excused. But it’s false that slavery was approved by the church until people like William Wilberforce. Most church fathers like Augustine tolerated slavery only as a result of the fall, and some like Gregory of Nyssa attacked the institution of slavery as contrary to God’s intent for humanity. In the era of medieval Christendom, several nations abolished slavery (continental France in 1315, Sweden in 1335), and several popes in the following centuries, particularly Pope Paul III, condemned both slavery and the slave trade.
So the church’s record on slavery is mixed, while it’s nearly impossible to find advocates of homosexual practice anywhere before the recent past. So I don’t think the comparison between homosexuality and slavery ultimately works here, either. But if you do use this comparison, my appeal is to do the hard exegetical work to justify it.
Conclusion
If you are a Christian open to gay marriage, have you considered that the options between open celebration and reactionary prejudice? Have you thought through the importance of the institution of marriage in society, and the massive historical pedigree standing behind the traditional definition of it? Have you worked your way carefully through the various relevant biblical texts, “examining the Scriptures daily” like the noble Bereans (Acts 17:11)?
I recognize that support for gay marriage has garnered so much emotional and social momentum in our culture that appeals like this will not have any impact at all on some people. But I also see a lot people putting up rainbow flags on facebook probably without having carefully thought it through. I offer these appeals in the hope that they will stimulate greater critical reflection concerning the emotions and eccentricities of the present cultural moment.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
The Bible and same sex relationships: A review article
June 2015
by Tim Keller
Vines, Matthew, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same Sex Relationships, Convergent Books, 2014
Wilson, Ken, A Letter to My Congregation, David Crum Media, 2014.
The relationship of homosexuality to Christianity is one of the main topics of discussion in our culture today. In the fall of last year I wrote a review of books by Wesley Hill and Sam Allberry that take the historic Christian view, in Hill’s words: “that homosexuality was not God’s original creative intention for humanity ... and therefore that homosexual practice goes against God’s express will for all human beings, especially those who trust in Christ.”
There are a number of other books that take the opposite view, namely that the Bible either allows for or supports same sex relationships. Over the last year or so I (and other pastors at Redeemer) have been regularly asked for responses to their arguments. The two most read volumes taking this position seem to be those by Matthew Vines and Ken Wilson. The review of these two books will be longer than usual because the topic is so contested today and, while I disagree with the authors’ theses, a too-brief review can’t avoid appearing cursory and dismissive. Hence the length.
I see five basic arguments that these books and others like them make.
Knowing gay people personally.
Vines and Wilson relate stories of people who were sure that the Bible condemned homosexuality. However, they were brought to a change of mind through getting to know gay people personally. It is certainly important for Christians who are not gay to hear the hearts and stories of people who are attracted to the same sex.
And when I see people discarding their older beliefs that homosexuality is sinful after engaging with loving, wise, gay people, I’m inclined to agree that those earlier views were likely defective. In fact, they must have been essentially a form of bigotry. They could not have been based on theological or ethical principles, or on an understanding of historical biblical teaching. They must have been grounded instead on a stereotype of gay people as worse sinners than others (which is itself a shallow theology of sin.) So I say good riddance to bigotry. However, the reality of bigotry cannot itself prove that the Bible never forbids homosexuality. We have to look to the text to determine that.
Consulting historical scholarship.
Vines and Wilson claim that scholarly research into the historical background show that biblical authors were not forbidding all same sex relationships, but only exploitative ones — pederasty, prostitution, and rape. Their argument is that Paul and other biblical writers had no concept of an innate homosexual orientation, that they only knew of exploitative homosexual practices, and therefore they had no concept of mutual, loving, same-sex relationships.
These arguments were first asserted in the 1980s by John Boswell and Robin Scroggs. Vines, Wilson and others are essentially repopularizing them. However, they do not seem to be aware that the great preponderance of the best historical scholarship since the 1980s — by the full spectrum of secular, liberal and conservative researchers — has rejected that assertion. Here are two examples.
Bernadette Brooten and William Loader have presented strong evidence that homosexual orientation was known in antiquity. Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium, for example, tells a story about how Zeus split the original human beings in half, creating both heterosexual and homosexual humans, each of which were seeking to be reunited to their “lost halves” — heterosexuals seeking the opposite sex and homosexuals the same sex. Whether Aristophanes believed this myth literally is not the point. It was an explanation of a phenomenon the ancients could definitely see — that some people are inherently attracted to the same sex rather than the opposite sex.
Contra Vines, et al, the ancients also knew about mutual, non-exploitative same sex relationships. In Romans 1, Paul describes homosexuality as men burning with passion “for one another” (verse 27). That is mutuality. Such a term could not represent rape, nor prostitution, nor pederasty (man/boy relationships). Paul could have used terms in Romans 1 that specifically designated those practices, but he did not. He categorically condemns all sexual relations between people of the same sex, both men and women. Paul knew about mutual same-sex relationships, and the ancients knew of homosexual orientation. Nonetheless “Nothing indicates that Paul is exempting some same-sex intercourse as acceptable.” (Loader, Making Sense of Sex, p.137).
I urge readers to familiarize themselves with this research. A good place to start is the Kindle book by William Loader Sexuality in the New Testament (2010) or his much larger The New Testament on Sexuality (2012). Loader is the most prominent expert on ancient and biblical views of sexuality, having written five large and two small volumes in his lifetime. It is worth noting that Loader himself does not personally see anything wrong with homosexual relationships; he just — rightly and definitively — proves that you can’t get the Bible itself to give them any support.
Re-categorizing same sex relations.
A third line of reasoning in these volumes and others like them involves recategorization. In the past, homosexuality was categorized by all Christian churches and theology as sin. However, many argue that homosexuality should be put in the same category as slavery and segregation. Vines writes, for example, that the Bible supported slavery and that most Christians used to believe that some form of slavery was condoned by the Bible, but we have now come to see that all slavery is wrong. Therefore, just as Christians interpreted the Bible to support segregation and slavery until times changed, so Christians should change their interpretations about homosexuality as history moves forward.
But historians such as Mark Noll (America’s God, 2005 and The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, 2006) have shown the 19th century position some people took that the Bible condoned race-based chattel slavery was highly controversial and never a consensus. Most Protestants in Canada and Britain (and many in the northern U.S. states) condemned it as being wholly against the Scripture. Rodney Stark (For the Glory of God, 2003) points out that the Catholic church also came out early against the African slave trade. David L. Chappell in his history of the Civil Rights Movement (A Stone of Hope, 2003) went further. He proves that even before the Supreme Court decisions of the mid-50s, almost no one was promoting the slender and forced biblical justifications for racial superiority and segregation. Even otherwise racist theologians and ministers could not find a basis for white supremacy in the Bible.
So we see the analogy between the church’s view of slavery and its view of homosexuality breaks down. Up until very recently, all Christian churches and theologians unanimously read the Bible as condemning homosexuality. By contrast, there was never any consensus or even a majority of churches that thought slavery and segregation were supported by the Bible. David Chappell shows that even within the segregationist South, efforts to support racial separation from the Bible collapsed within a few years. Does anyone really think that within a few years from now there will be no one willing to defend the traditional view of sexuality from biblical texts? The answer is surely no. This negates the claim that the number, strength, and clarity of those biblical texts supposedly supporting slavery and those texts condemning homosexuality are equal, and equally open to changed interpretations.
Wilson puts forward a different form of the recategorization argument when he says the issue of same-sex relations in the church is like issues of divorce and remarriage, Christian participation in war, or the use of in vitro fertilization. We can extend that list to include matters such as women’s roles in ministry and society, as well as views of baptism, charismatic gifts, and so on. These are “issues where good Christians differ.” We may believe that another Christian with a different view of divorce is seriously wrong, but we don’t say this means his or her view undermines orthodox Christian faith. Wilson, Vines, and many others argue that same-sex relations must now be put into this category. Since we see that there are sincere Christians who disagree over this, it is said, we should “agree to disagree” on this.
However history shows that same-sex relations do not belong in this category, either. Around each of the other items on Wilson’s list there are long-standing and historical divisions within the church. There have always been substantial parts of the church that came to different positions on these issues. But until very, very recently, there had been complete unanimity about homosexuality in the church across all centuries, cultures, and even across major divisions of the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant traditions. So homosexuality is categorically different. One has to ask, then, why is it the case that literally no church, theologian, or Christian thinker or movement ever thought that any kind of same sex relationships was allowable until now?
One answer to the question is an ironic one. During the Civil War, British Presbyterian biblical scholars told their southern American colleagues who supported slavery that they were reading the Scriptural texts through cultural blinders. They wanted to find evidence for their views in the Bible and voila — they found it. If no Christian reading the Bible — across diverse cultures and times — ever previously discovered support for same-sex relationships in the Bible until today, it is hard not to wonder if many now have new cultural spectacles on, having a strong predisposition to find in these texts evidence for the views they already hold.
What are those cultural spectacles? The reason that homosexual relationships make so much more sense to people today than in previous times is because they have absorbed late modern western culture’s narratives about the human life. Our society presses its members to believe “you have to be yourself,” that sexual desires are crucial to personal identity, that any curbing of strong sexual desires leads to psychological damage, and that individuals should be free to live as they alone see fit.
These narratives have been well analyzed by scholars such as Robert Bellah and Charles Taylor. They are beliefs about the nature of reality that are not self-evident to most societies and they carry no more empirical proof than any other religious beliefs. They are also filled with inconsistencies and problems. Both Vines and Wilson largely assume these cultural narratives. It is these faith assumptions about identity and freedom that make the straightforward reading of the biblical texts seem so wrong to them. They are the underlying reason for their views, but they are never identified or discussed.
Revising biblical authority.
Vines and Wilson claim that they continue to hold to a high view of biblical authority, and that they believe the Bible is completely true, but that they don’t think it teaches all same-sex relations are wrong. Vines argues that while the Levitical code forbids homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22) it also forbids eating shellfish (Leviticus 11:9-12). Yet, he says, Christians no longer regard eating shellfish as wrong — so why can’t we change our minds on homosexuality? Here Vines is rejecting the New Testament understanding that the ceremonial laws of Moses around the sacrificial system and ritual purity were fulfilled in Christ and no longer binding, but that the moral law of the Old Testament is still in force. Hebrews 10:16, for example, tells us that the Holy Spirit writes “God’s laws” on Christians’ hearts (so they are obviously still in force), even though that same book of the Bible tells us that some of those Mosaic laws — the ceremonial — are no longer in binding on us. This view has been accepted by all branches of the church since New Testament times.
When Vines refuses to accept this ancient distinction between the ceremonial and moral law, he is doing much more than simply giving us an alternative interpretation of the Old Testament — he is radically revising what biblical authority means. When he says “Christians no longer regard eating shellfish as wrong,” and then applies this to homosexuality (though assuming that Leviticus 19:18 — the Golden Rule — is still in force), he is assuming that it is Christians themselves, not the Bible, who have the right to decide which parts of the Bible are essentially now out of date. That decisively shifts the ultimate authority to define right and wrong onto the individual Christian and away from the biblical text.
The traditional view is this: Yes, there are things in the Bible that Christians no longer have to follow but, if the Scripture is our final authority, it is only the Bible itself that can tell us what those things are. The prohibitions against homosexuality are re-stated in the New Testament (Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1) but Jesus himself (Mark 7), as well as the rest of the New Testament, tells us that the clean laws and ceremonial code is no longer in force.
Vines asserts that he maintains a belief in biblical authority, but with arguments like this one he is actually undermining it. This represents a massive shift in historic Christian theology and life.
Being on the wrong side of history.
More explicit in Wilson’s volume than Vines' is the common argument that history is moving toward greater freedom and equality for individuals, and so refusing to accept same-sex relationships is a futile attempt to stop inevitable historical development. Wilson says that the “complex forces” of history showed Christians that they were wrong about slavery and something like that is happening now with homosexuality.
Charles Taylor, however, explains how this idea of inevitable historical progress developed out of the Enlightenment optimism about human nature and reason. It is another place where these writers seem to uncritically adopt background understandings that are foreign to the Bible. If we believe in the Bible’s authority, then shifts in public opinion should not matter. The Christian faith will always be offensive to every culture at some points.
And besides, if you read Eric Kaufmann’s Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? (2010) and follow the latest demographic research, you will know that the world is not inevitably becoming more secular. The percentage of the world’s population that are non-religious, and that put emphasis on individuals determining their own moral values, is shrinking. The more conservative religious faiths are growing very fast. No one studying these trends believes that history is moving in the direction of more secular societies.
Missing the biblical vision.
The saddest thing for me as a reader was how, in books on the Bible and sex, Vines and Wilson concentrated almost wholly on the biblical negatives, the prohibitions against homosexual practice, instead of giving sustained attention to the high, (yes) glorious Scriptural vision of sexuality. Both authors rightly say that the Bible calls for mutual loving relationships in marriage, but it points to far more than that.
In Genesis 1 you see pairs of different but complementary things made to work together: heaven and earth, sea and land, even God and humanity. It is part of the brilliance of God’s creation that diverse, unlike things are made to unite and create dynamic wholes which generate more and more life and beauty through their relationships. As N.T. Wright points out, the creation and uniting of male and female at the end of Genesis 2 is the climax of all this.
That means that male and female have unique, non-interchangeable glories — they each see and do things that the other cannot. Sex was created by God to be a way to mingle these strengths and glories within a life-long covenant of marriage. Marriage is the most intense (though not the only) place where this reunion of male and female takes place in human life. Male and female reshape, learn from, and work together.
Therefore, in one of the great ironies of late modern times, when we celebrate diversity in so many other cultural sectors, we have truncated the ultimate unity-in-diversity: inter-gendered marriage.
Without understanding this vision, the sexual prohibitions in the Bible make no sense. Homosexuality does not honor the need for this rich diversity of perspective and gendered humanity in sexual relationships. Same-sex relationships not only cannot provide this for each spouse, they can’t provide children with a deep connection to each half of humanity through a parent of each gender.
This review has been too brief to give these authors the credit they are due for maintaining a respectful and gracious tone throughout. We live in a time in which civility and love in these discussions is fast going away, and I am thankful the authors are not part of the angry, caustic flow. In this regard they are being good examples, but because I think their main points are wrong, I have had to concentrate on them as I have in this review. I hope I have done so with equal civility.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Pro-Life: The Right Side of History
Guest blog by Dr. Justin Bass
“One of the chief features of the state of Peace we now enjoy is the killing of a considerable number of harmless human beings.” —GK Chesterton, The Well and the Shallows
When it comes to the controversial issue of gay marriage, we regularly hear the statement from gay marriage advocates, ‘You’re on the wrong side of history.’ They mean by this that those who believe that marriage has been definitively defined by God (Gen 2:24) and Christ (Mark 10:5-9) as the union of one man and one woman are behind the times, draconian, and need to join with the rest of humanity progressing towards a marriage defined by the culture trends of the moment. The fickle winds of the culture do happen to be blowing towards gay marriage at the moment and if the Supreme Court redefines marriage later this year, we will in coming years witness the cultural winds blowing towards polyamorous marriages and same-sex ‘thruple’ marriages and even new ideas for ‘marriage’ our culture’s imagination has yet to invent. This is the slippery slope that even the Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito asked about because if there is no limiting principle by which we define marriage, then there is no legal reason to deny polygamous, polyamorous and even couples in various forms of incest the right to marry.
The situation in the early 1970s is very instructive here in the case of abortion. Soon after the case of Roe vs. Wade, the culture was also saying in so many words to those who were pro-life ‘You’re on the wrong side of history.’ And yet over 40 years later, we see that the pro-life movement is stronger than ever and the majority of the people you will find at 40 Days for Life or praying outside of abortion clinics are millennials. In fact, Gallup recently found that the number of Americans who identify as pro-choice is at a record low (41%). Wendy Davis led a campaign last year with the mantra she was fighting for Texas women’s reproductive rights, but when Texas women went to the polls, they voted overwhelmingly against her. Texas women did have a choice and they chose Life.
Moreover, just as Ryan T. Anderson, in his early 30s, is one of the leading voices defending traditional marriage, so too are the leading voices rescuing babies from destruction; young men and women using their gifts, talents, backgrounds and influence to stop our modern day holocaust (around 55 million babies murdered and counting since Roe). Lila Rose, in her late 20s, is the president of Live Action devoted to ending abortion and building a culture of life. Lila was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for more “creative extremists.” She is definitely a creative extremist as she has gone undercover to many abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood organizations exposing sexual abuse, racism, assistance to sex traffickers, sex-selective abortion, and infanticide. She has even been responsible for a number of workers being fired, clinics shutting down, and countless women choosing Life.
In addition, we have seen abortion clinic after abortion clinic close down over the last decade all across America. In 1991, there were 2,176 surgical abortion clinics in America which is the highest number of clinics since Roe. As of 2014, there are only 582 left! 87 clinics closed in 2013 alone and I have personally witnessed since 2011 the abortion clinics in Texas drop from 42 to less than 20! In the states Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming — just one clinic remains. The abortion rate even hit an all-time low in 2011 since Roe. Every state that has seen this significant decrease in abortion clinics has seen a corresponding decrease in the number of abortions annually.
Why has the majority of our culture, especially the younger generation (who are no doubt moving more in favor of gay marriage), been moving more towards a culture of Life and against abortion? Here are some contributing factors.
Technology
The Ultrasound and even 3D/4D imaging has allowed an entire generation of mothers (and fathers) to watch their baby grow within their womb even to the point of seeing them smile and even clap! Just hearing that strong, on average 150bpm, heartbeat has saved many lives. A famous example is Governor (running for president) Chris Christie who converted from Pro-choice to Pro-life after hearing his daughter’s heartbeat. Despite all the debates about personhood, it is an undeniable fact that all 327,653 abortions Planned Parenthood performed in 2014 stopped a strong, healthy beating heart.
Education
The more our culture is educated on the science of embryology and what actually happens during an abortion procedure the more likely they will be pro-life. Even the late great atheist Christopher Hitchens said: “I do, as a humanist, believe that the concept ‘unborn child’ is a real one and I think the concept is underlined by all the recent findings of embryology about the early viability of a well-conceived human baby, one that isn’t going to be critically deformed (or even some that are) will be able to survive outside the womb earlier and earlier and earlier, and I see that date only being pushed back. I feel the responsibility to consider the occupant of the womb as a candidate member of society in the future, and thus to say that it cannot be only the responsibility of the woman to decide upon it, that it’s a social question and an ethical and a moral one.”
And as far as the brutal nature of the procedure, read how a former abortion doctor testifying before congress described a late term abortion. “The toughest part of a D&E abortion is extracting the baby’s head. The head of a baby that age is about the size of a large plum and is now free floating inside the uterine cavity. You can be pretty sure you have hold of it if the Sopher clamp is spread about as far as your fingers will allow. You will know you have it right when you crush down on the clamp and see white gelatinous material coming through the cervix. That was the baby’s brains. You can then extract the skull pieces. Many times a little face will come out and stare back at you.” 55 million little faces are staring back at all of us.
When is the Baby a Baby?
In 2007, the Supreme Court upheld a ban on partial birth abortion that involved cutting the baby’s head in two, sucking his or her brains out and now in 2015 at least one state has stopped the procedure that dismembers a baby inside the womb during a second trimester abortion. You’d think all 50 states would be against dismembering babies wouldn’t you? Apparently only one is.
79% of pro-choice advocates believe abortions during the third trimester should be illegal.
But why? Why is it nothing but a medical procedure (even “women’s health”) to abort a baby at 15 weeks, but it is murder that should be illegal at 30 weeks? What is different about a baby at 15 weeks vs. a baby at 30 weeks? If viability is the dividing line then all abortion should be illegal after 20 weeks as we have record of babies surviving even at 21 weeks outside the womb. But the vast majority of pro-choice advocates still want abortion legal during the second trimester (13-28 weeks). The fact is there is no clear dividing line (like conception) for the pro-choice advocate and so they inevitably have to argue that the women’s choice must trump the baby’s right to life.
This irrational line was made even more abundantly clear in the case of Kermit Gosnell, an abortion doctor, who put babies to death minutes after they exited the womb. Gosnell was found guilty of 3 counts of first degree murder as he snipped the spines of 3 babies minutes after they were born. Gosnell also performed numerous third trimester abortions and parts of those babies were found all over his clinic. But in all these cases the law said he did nothing but perform “a medical procedure on fetuses” because they were still inside the womb. Madness!
A young atheist mother named Jennifer Fulwiler was staring at her newborn baby one day and realized in that moment the bankruptcy of the atheistic worldview, and gave her life to Christ. We need the culture to see these babies’ faces. Sometimes they do need to see dead faces looking back at them like the former abortion doctor mentioned that still haunts him, but we must constantly be putting the beautiful living, smiling faces before them as well. Being for Life, especially for the lives of precious children, is always the right side of history.
May God give us more “Creative extremists” to fight for them.
Monday, May 18, 2015
10 Ideas Embedded in the Slogan “All Truth Is God’s Truth”
Duane Litfin writes that the slogan “All truth is God’s truth”
became popular because it “encapsulated a set of convictions that are
vital for the Christian’s intellectual task. These ideas lie embedded in
the sloan as entailments, necessary implications. To embrace the slogan
was to embrace these implications. My purpose here is to surface these
entailments so that, even if we may allow an overworked catchphrase to
rest in peace, we will not lose the truths it was designed to express.”
Here is his outline:
Here is his outline:
- God exists. (“This is the most basic idea of all. It is the foundation for all that a Christian can know.”)
- Through the agency of his Son, God created the universe and all that is in it.
- We can therefore entertain an intellectual construct called “reality.” (Reality = “things as God knows them to be.” “While a God-centered definition of reality does not by itself grant us access to that reality . . . it is nonetheless what makes it possible to talk about reality in the first place.”)
- This reality is complex and multi-dimensional. (“The cosmos God created . . . has physical, spiritual, and moral dimensions to it, but each dimension is fully real because its reality is anchored in the fact that it is part of what God knows to be the case.”)
- This reality, though complex and multi-dimensional, is also coherent and unified, centered upon the person of Jesus Christ. (“When [the universe] is properly understood, as by God himself, Jesus Christ is seen to be the Source, the Sustainer, and the Goal of all created things.”)
- God has created humans with the capacity to apprehend, however fallibly and incompletely, this reality.
- Genuine knowledge is therefore feasible for humans. [“. . . in some ways, humans are able to some extent, to know and describe some dimensions of the reality God knows.” Jonathan Edwards: true knowledge consists of the “agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.” ]
- Human knowledge of reality stems from two prime sources: special revelation and discovery. (“Humans can come to know that something is the case because God has told them by special revelation it is so . . . ; or they can know something is the case by discovering it for themselves—that is, by applying their God-given capacity for apprehension to those dimensions of the created order that are available to them.”
- We can therefore maintain a distinction between truth and error. (“. . . in the end, some version of a representational theory of language and or a correspondence theory of truth must remain in play if we are to conceive of truth in a fully biblical way.”)
- All that is truthful, from whatever source, is unified, and will cohere with whatever else is truthful. (“Because God’s reality is unified and coherent, centered as it is on the person of Christ, all truthful apprehensions of that reality, or truthful expressions of those apprehensions, will cohere and contribute to an integrated, unified, Christ-centered vision of all things.”
Friday, May 15, 2015
Love Theologically
by Mike Wittmer
I learned today that a prominent evangelical pastor warned in a sermon that we must not let our theology get in the way of our love. I didn’t hear the message myself, as I rarely listen to podcasts besides “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” and “Planet Money.” But I trust my friend who told me, and even if he heard wrong, it’s a sentiment I hear often.
I’m always shocked to hear pastors warn against theology, because it amounts to an act of self-sabotage. Theology is all we’ve got, so we can no more be against theology than the George Foreman grill can be against meat. Take away either the meat or the theology, and all that’s left is hot air.
I understand how bad theology can get in the way of our love. In fact, if it’s bad theology then it must. But good theology is simply God’s view about creation, humanity, sin, salvation, sex, and so forth. To the extent that what we say about any of these things lines up with what God says, to that extent we have good doctrine. This right thinking about God and his world must prompt us to love both God and his world, or either we don’t yet really understand or we’re willfully blind sinners, or both.
The Bible nowhere suggests that good theology can hinder love. Paul spends the first half of his letters expounding good theology. When he transitions to application in the second half, he never warns that some of that good stuff he mentioned up front might now become a hazard. And neither should we.
I suspect the pastor believes there is something wrong with our theology, but since he was addressing the issue of homosexual practice, he was afraid of offending his conservative listeners. So he conceded that our theology is good. But he also wanted to keep his progressive crowd, so he said that love rather than doctrine is the important thing.
What he forgot, or counted on us forgetting, is that we don’t even know what love is apart from theology. John wrote, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Those are theological statements. Like all good theology, they lead us to love. That love may be misunderstood and slandered, as Jesus’ was. But it remains the purest form of love, because it started with God.
When we study this God of love, we’re doing theology. Theology is not an obstacle to love, but as 1 John repeatedly says, it’s the only way we can.
I learned today that a prominent evangelical pastor warned in a sermon that we must not let our theology get in the way of our love. I didn’t hear the message myself, as I rarely listen to podcasts besides “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” and “Planet Money.” But I trust my friend who told me, and even if he heard wrong, it’s a sentiment I hear often.
I’m always shocked to hear pastors warn against theology, because it amounts to an act of self-sabotage. Theology is all we’ve got, so we can no more be against theology than the George Foreman grill can be against meat. Take away either the meat or the theology, and all that’s left is hot air.
I understand how bad theology can get in the way of our love. In fact, if it’s bad theology then it must. But good theology is simply God’s view about creation, humanity, sin, salvation, sex, and so forth. To the extent that what we say about any of these things lines up with what God says, to that extent we have good doctrine. This right thinking about God and his world must prompt us to love both God and his world, or either we don’t yet really understand or we’re willfully blind sinners, or both.
The Bible nowhere suggests that good theology can hinder love. Paul spends the first half of his letters expounding good theology. When he transitions to application in the second half, he never warns that some of that good stuff he mentioned up front might now become a hazard. And neither should we.
I suspect the pastor believes there is something wrong with our theology, but since he was addressing the issue of homosexual practice, he was afraid of offending his conservative listeners. So he conceded that our theology is good. But he also wanted to keep his progressive crowd, so he said that love rather than doctrine is the important thing.
What he forgot, or counted on us forgetting, is that we don’t even know what love is apart from theology. John wrote, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Those are theological statements. Like all good theology, they lead us to love. That love may be misunderstood and slandered, as Jesus’ was. But it remains the purest form of love, because it started with God.
When we study this God of love, we’re doing theology. Theology is not an obstacle to love, but as 1 John repeatedly says, it’s the only way we can.
Monday, May 11, 2015
A Concise Summary of Reformed-Evangelical Spirituality
Peter
Adam, seeking to show that the shape of Evangelical and Reformed spirituality
corresponds to revelation, both in content and in form:
- Christ is the mediator of the revelation of God, so this spirituality is Christ-centered, responding with faith in Jesus Christ, and especially to his saving death and resurrection.
- Christ has revealed the Father, so this spirituality is that of trust in God our Father, his love and kindness in Christ, and his sovereign and providential rule over everything.
- Christ has sent the Spirit, so believers are sealed or anointed with the Spirit, the Spirit witnesses within them that they are the children of God, and they use the gifts of God in the service of God.
- The response of trusting Christ and obeying him, of loving God with heart, mind, soul and strength is common to all believers, so spirituality is not just an option for the advanced but is required of all the saints. It is a spirituality common to all the people of God. It is a spirituality of normal humanity, of daily life and duties, or work and play, of family and society.
- God’s grace and acceptance of us in Christ means that we do not have to search for God, find him, ascend to him or journey towards him. God has come to us in his Son Jesus, spoken to us in the gospel, and welcomed us into his presence through Christ our High Priest. We stand now in God’s grace, we are now at peace with God, we can now have assurance of final salvation, through trust in his promises.
- The great barrier to true spirituality is not the lack of technique in spiritual aptitude, but sin. Sin is the state of humanity in every aspect of life and personality, and the wages of sin is death. But God has dealt with our sin by the sacrifice of Christ, and has accepted us as his children. His holiness and righteousness are demonstrated in the death of Christ, our sin is atoned for and we are forgiven. We stand in his grace, and he works in us by the death and resurrection of Christ and by his Spirit, to change us into the likeness of Christ. God gives us faith and obedience, God trans- forms us, and God does his good works through us.
- God has provided ‘means’ by which he works in us for his glory. We must make good use of the means provided by God, and not replace or supplement them with means that we devise. The means provided by God are explained in the Bible, namely the Bible itself, the fellowship of the people of God, prayer, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and a right use of the creation. We should not neglect these means, nor use other means, such as statues, pictures, icons, silence or impressions of God’s will. We should not over-value the sacraments, those visible words of God. While we will hear echoes of the Bible in our inner selves, the God-given and certain place to hear God speaking is in the Bible.
- The great means is the Bible, in which we find Christ clothed in all his promises. To love God is to love his words, and to be alert to the Spirit is to receive the words of the Spirit in the Bible. In the Bible we find God’s self-revelation, God’s character, God’s will and God’s plan. In the Bible God’s mystery, Christ, is now revealed. A corporate and personal spirituality of the Word is at the heart of biblical faith and life. We do not know everything about God and his plan, but what we do know is found in the Bible.
- Prayer is an expression of our trust in God, and our dependence on him. It is gospel-shaped: we come to pray to God our Father through the power and goodness of Jesus’ death on the cross. This is the means of our access to God. We pray in response to God’s words in the Bible, so that we know the God to whom we pray, and what he has promised. As we read his Spirit-inspired words, the Spirit also works within us, prompting us to know that God is our Father, and that we may approach him with boldness because of Christ’s death for us on the cross. We pray to God alone, and not to saints, because we pray as instructed by God in the Bible.
—Peter
Adam, Hearing God’s Words: Exploring Biblical Spirituality,
New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Apollos/IVP, 2004), 39-40.
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