Avoiding Counternarratives
Thanks to Richard B. for this link: Luke Timothy Johnson and Eve Tushnet, a freelance journalist who is a lesbian, take different positions on the Catholic Church’s prohibitions against homosexuality. You may be surprised.
Here’s a statement from Tushnet: “But our human experience, including our erotic experience, cannot be a replacement for the divine revelation preserved by the church. We must be careful not to let it become a counternarrative or a counter-Scripture.”
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I’m going to spend a few days here working through John Stackhouse’s wonderful Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology)
Stackhouse honestly shows that the Bible is both feminist and patriarchal. It has passages that sound complementarian and those that are egalitarian (for those who are familiar with this language). And he seeks to show why that’s the case.
Here are a few words from the end:
“We are happy to affirm for the record that men are not inherently superior to women, that male and female together are created in the imago Dei. But then we act as if males really are superior — superior as topics for Bible study, superior to lead in church and home, even superior to represent all human beings (as in the so-called generic language of ‘mankind’). Where are the women? More basically, where is the female, the feminine, the not-male in the Bible, in our churches and families, and in God? We must resist contemporary extremes such as lesbian marriages and goddess worship. We must resist the loss of rich biblical truth encoded in masculine language for God in the Bible and in traditional theology. But our fear of those losses must not keep us in a masculinist extreme. We must encourage more women to undertake careers in theological scholarship. We must hear women’s voices in our churches. We men must ask feminist questions along with our more standard lines of intellectual interrogation. We must pray for God to forgive us our sexist sins, heal our blindness, motivate our hearts, and open our minds. If the women are absent in biblical and theological studies, we are missing out on half of the Story.”
Mike, that sounds like a fantastic book – I’ll have to get a copy. It is such a shame to see how reactionary we can be as individuals, congregations, and larger church affiliations and organization. This author seems to be taking the approach of really being led by the entirety of scripture and God’s voice, rather than either adamantly clinging to or reactively rejecting church tradition.
My shaking fingers on the keyboard illustrate the way women possibly feel when approaching this subject. I have so much I would like to say about this, but I hold back. I place a high value on unity in the body of Christ, and love takes a higher position than rights. At the same time, I wonder how long our stance on women’s roles can remain unified.
I appreciate your leadership in this area. I listened to one of your sermons on this subject, and John shared about how Highland incorporates women in leadership there (he visited a couple of weeks ago).
The book you quoted sounds like a must-read.
I’ve always taught our daughters that God can use anyone he chooses, when he chooses, and for what purposes he chooses. That is the witness of Scripture.
I think Stackhouse’s book is weak on exegesis, but generally I agree with his thesis.
I much prefer Sarah Sumner’s Men and Women in the Church: Building Consensus on Christian Leadership. It’s scholarly, well written and written in humility. I met her at the National Pastors Convention last year and she is a very capable speaker. She includes in her book what those who disagree with her strongly in the evangelical community have to say about her role as professor and preacher. I was quite surprised and pleased.
Peace.
As a woman who holds a BA in Biblical Studies from Dallas Christian College, I long for settings to put my degree to work. Thankfully, I attend a church in Houston that has put much time and study into women’s leadership, and incorporates female leadership in our ministry (public and private).
I’ll never forget the feelings in my mind and heart when a beloved (perhaps mislead) college mentor told me that no matter how hard I studied or how much I acheieved academically I’d never teach Bible courses at an Independant or C of C Bible College. Apparently these ideals stretch across denominational lines (the authors of said book being Catholic) in delves into sexist theology. This promises to be an interesting study for you, Mike, and I’m keen to see what your insights will be. I’m checking Amazon and Half.com for a copy of my own. Thx for the inspiration!
It might be interesting to take this as an occasion to look beyond the counternarratives others advance about gender or sexual orientation and to ask ourselves what our own counternarratives to scripture might be.
So you decided to lay off the controversial topics (like saying the Pledge in church) and discuss something more mundane like the roles of men and women in the church. BTW – that’s a joke.
Anyway, I love that quote from Stackhouse. I think the two challenges facing our churches today are how to deal with couples who live together without getting married and the roles of men and women in the church.
Stackhouse does a good job of outlining the dangers of going to extremes on this subject.
Beth,
I completely agree with Steve’s POV about Sarah Sumner’s book. It made my heart jump with excitement and hopeful joy! She has written one of the best, imho. I’d strongly urge you to read her book as well as the one Mike is about to read.
We must treat women like like the majority of decent US companies. Seems like the US business world has lead the way on this one.
I find it funny and infuriating that my female boss Monday -Friday at work, can’t be an elder on Sunday.
This is a huge civil rights issue within the church. Men only watering fountains (positions). Women aren’t genetically smart enough to have a good theological thought in front of a man.
I don’t get it and it is really pathetic.
The church is so full of Pharisees, no wonder you are irrelevant in my life. The people who attend are relevant, but so are the people at work and the people next door.
Shut ere down Gator!
I don’t know if it is right or wrong but I have heard women “preaching” on links and frankly they put me to sleep, like they were reading an essay.
I think many cofC’s have taken a step backwards in this area, sad, but that’s my take on it. If not a true step backwards – they’re certainly entrenched. I’ll refrain from posting what my heart is really saying right now. I just really feel for the young Christian women who are pre-eminent Bible majors, take leadership roles in their Spring break trips and summer intern programs for multiple years, then find their options remain childrens ministry or church secretary unless they opt to move on to another denomination – which many are doing.
Mike,
thanks for the book reco, and thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Allison,
i’m just nerdy enough to enjoy essays being read aloud. any particular sites where i could find these womens’ sermons?
Okay, I have a theory I’ve been working on…
I’ve been part of a tradition that has historically relegated women to non-speaking, non-”up in front” roles in assemblies (I’ll let you guess which tradition). I have noted in a number of my own personal interactions as a member and as a minister within said tradition, that much trouble has been stirred up by women who hold very fast to their roles as “submissive wives” but work a great deal of control and manipulation via covert means (ie gossip, passive-agressive manipulation, etc.) NOW… before you get angry a seemingly “sexist” accusation, let me share my theory: when you relegate intelligent, insightful, Christlike human beings to “non-vocal” roles, they will OF NECESSITY find ways of exerting influence. They might not even realize that they are actually “running the church” via covert means, but I’m certain I’m not the only one to notice this within my tradition (it’s often stated like a joke… “well Brother so-n-so is our preacher, but it’s his better half who really runs things!”)
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we officially gave voice and influence to that beautiful, insightful “other half” of our body so that we didn’t tempt them beyond bearable measure to exert influence under the table? I don’t blame the “female gossips and manipulators” as much as I blame those males who, by virtue of anatomy and faulty proof-text, prevent them from participating in healthy, Christ-like ways….
Anyone else noticed this pattern?
Luke Timothy Johnson’s words are a bit hard to swallow.
“Many of us who stand for the full recognition of gay and lesbian persons within the Christian communion find ourselves in a position similar to that of the early abolitionists-and of the early advocates for women’s full and equal roles in church and society. We are fully aware of the weight of scriptural evidence pointing away from our position, yet place our trust in the power of the living God to reveal as powerfully through personal experience and testimony as through written texts. To justify this trust, we invoke the basic Pauline principle that the Spirit gives life but the letter kills (2 Corinthians 3:6). And if the letter of Scripture cannot find room for the activity of the living God in the transformation of human lives, then trust and obedience must be paid to the living God rather than to the words of Scripture.”
I don’t think that is what Paul was getting at, that if your perception of God working and moving in this world (in this case the love, care and concern shown by gays and lesbians to each other) somehow contradicts Scripture, then chunk Scripture. It’s your personal experience and testimony that hold the most weight.
God might be a bit insulted at that, don’t you think?
Alison, if you’ve ever heard Barbara Brown Taylor preach, I promise you wouldn’t be bored. I was an undergrad Bible major at one of our smaller C of C schools. At the time, I was one of two female Bible majors. It was made very clear to me that it was generally a waste of my time to major only in Bible, so I doubled and also got a BS in psychology. It was very surprising to me when one of my professors in Intro to Ministry showed a video of one of Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermons to provide an example of an excellent sermon. Of course, there was an extensive disclaimer given before we watched the video. Ten years later, I still remember that sermon for a few reasons. First, she was a woman who spoke so authoritatively about the Bible, and I was enthralled with her. Second, the language she used in her sermon was beautiful and poetic in a way I have never experienced since. Unfortunately, we are still not accustomed to hearing women’s voices in public forums in our society. Those that we do hear often sound more like men in their speech because of their efforts to fit in. We must learn to accept and appreciate women’s voices as they are rather than expecting them to sound like men’s.
I found it highly amusing and at the same time highly frustrating when a special course was developed for me and the other female Bible major, Religious Speaking for Women. A preaching class was a requirement for the degree, but there was no way they were going to let us preach in front of the male Bible majors. So, we preached in a female-only class. I ended up continuing my education in marriage and family therapy and am now a professor at ACU. I’m very pleased with my career path and would not change my decision if given the opportunity. But, if I had had a supportive environment and seen ministry as a real option, I may have chosen a different route.
Brad,
This issue is similar to the one faced in Acts 15. The pro-circumcision group had Book, Chapter and Verse on this. God says to Abraham in Genesis 17:12-14 that circumcision is to be an “everlasting covenant.†The point being that Paul’s case for uncircumcised Gentiles receiving the blessings of God’s promises had scant biblical support (similar to the abolitionist, women’s roles, and LTJ’s stances). All the biblical support was for circumcision. Yet, the church went against Scripture and with human experience (note that all that Paul shares as evidence in Acts 15 are his experiences from his missionary journeys). The point is that in Acts 15 we see clear BILICAL evidence for allowing human experience to trump what appears to be the clear witness of Scripture. LTJ is simply reading the bible the way the first-century church did.
Richard,
The issue was not circumcision, but some claiming its necessity for the Gentiles “to be saved”. The pro-circumcision group was completely at odds, not only with what God had required of the Gentiles up until that point for salvation, but also at odds with Paul and Barnabas. It was always about faith and will forever be about faith. There was no biblical support requiring circumcision of the Gentiles to be saved, and Paul and Barnabas came and straightened them out on it. The experience referred to by Paul was that God was saving all kinds of Gentiles because of their faith, not because of their circumcision.
Circumcision?! Isn’t this a discussion about women?
;-D
Brad and Richard,
A rhetorical ?? for you. Was circumcision pronounced a sinful action by God’s word?
Mike,
Thanks so much for having the courage to break with the c of c lines about women in the church. I remember hearing sermons as a child in my small town churches about how women were first deceived, silenced by Paul, therefore their voices could not be heard in church. I felt like someone had hit me in the stomach.
On a personal note, my family and I go to just a plain christian church now, and women are allowed to speak and pray. Just hearing their voice in the service made my heart glad: not because they speak better than men, or have less or more insight than a man, but because the silencing of women in the church is unjust. And, any student of the scripture knows that above all things, God is a just God.
Brad,
I think you are missing the point.
Q: Where did the pro-circumcistion group get that crazy idea that access to God’s promises required participation in an everlasting covenant?
A: The Bible.
Q: Where did Paul get the idea that such a requirement was not necessary?
A: His Experience of God (he certainly didn’t get it from the Bible)
Do you see?
Richard,
I get your line of thinking, but it’s faulty. Circumcision was never meant for the Gentile. There were no scrolls, no papyrus, no tablets, no Scriptures anywhere where God laid circumcision on the Gentiles as requirement for everlasting covenant relationship with Him, at least the physical act they were demanding in this case. That all came out of the head of some Jews there in Acts 15, and Paul put a stop to in no uncertain terms. In fact Paul said it was a load being put on people that no one could bear, not them or anyone before them. They weren’t quoting the Scriptures in regard to the Gentiles needing circumcision because it wasn’t there. Their own arrogance, selfishness, human will and misunderstanding of God led them to that conclusion. So no Scripture is being set aside for the sake of experience.
Circumcision was a sign of the covenant God had with Abraham and his descendents only, a sign of God blessing a man who was as good as dead in his body, reproductively speaking, and making him the literal father of multitudes. You might want to look into the “everlasting” idea. Covenant promises were only valid as long as the covenant was in force. The new covenant God makes with all people, Jew and Gentile, is not the one He made with Abraham and his descendents. That one was replaced because the people walked away from it. (Heb 8:7-13) It is the new covenant Paul invited the Gentiles into based on their faith in Jesus, not their observance of rituals from an obsolete covenant no longer in force.
And, just logically thinking, how far do you take this idea of experience trumping Scripture? Which experiences do I say are trump experiences and which ones aren’t? When do I know that it’s OK to tear pages out of my Bible?
(I am enjoying this discussion, though. No sarcasm here. Your ideas just puzzle me.)
Sorry, Kathy. I meant to respond. I’m not sure I get what you mean. Circumcision was only pronounced sinful if it was done outwardly only. Signs and rituals were never meant to be a substitute for the dedicated heart God wants.
If the church moves in the direction of egalitarian and the feminization of the church then the church will be weaker. If we begin to compromise on the homosexual question then the church will become weaker. And we will not be more relevant to the culture. The chuch must always be counter – cultural.
There is the desperate need for the church to have an even greater emphasis on strong male spiritual leadership. No , not the oppression of women but the complementarian basis is the design from God. His word and our obedience to His will is what makes for good relationships.
What I’d like to see are women in professional baseball. I’ve had it with that exclusive boys club. Maybe the right book could convince people.
Brad,
Since your are enjoying the conversation we can keep it going.
First, let me suggest that you’ve again misunderstood the situation in Acts 15.
You say this: “That all came out of the head of some Jews there in Acts 15, and Paul put a stop to in no uncertain terms.”
This is a baffling statement for someone who says they are reading the bible closely. The belief in the early church was that access to God’s promises had to come via the covenant of Abraham. Please back up and read Acts 10 for the account. The circumcision idea was decidedly NOT made up out “of the head of some Jew.” This was the universal understanding of the church (who were all Jews, BTW). The reason for this universal consensus was that this was the overt witness of Scripture. God’s promises were to come through the convent made with Abraham. There was no clear indication in Scripture that this would be otherwise. Neither did Jesus teach anything to the contrary. So it is not surpassing that this was the church’s understanding.
Also, in Acts 15 we don’t see, in your words: “Paul put a stop to it in no uncertain terms.” Brad, did you even take a minute to READ Acts 15? Paul doesn’t render the verdict, James does. Also, the conclusion of the Counsel was “it seemed good to us” (vs. 28) which contrasts markedly with your “put a stop to it in in no uncertain terms.” The point here is that the whole process was very uncertain, tense, and error-prone. Why? BECAUSE SCRIPTURE WAS A CONFLICTING GUIDE. In fact, the Counsel’s decision was glitchy (How could it not be with Scripture pointing in different directions?) in that they prohibited food sacrificed to idols and some other “Jewish” (to use your word) stuff that Paul had to fix later on in the Corinthian church.
The point of all this is not to rip pages out of your bible but to encourage you to read your bible. The early church shows you how. Sola scriptura is a nonstarter and, ironically, an unbiblical notion.
Perhaps they will just sound like essays being read, but here are some examples of preaching and teaching by a woman.
http://rccaudio.christianwitness.us/?page=5
http://rccaudio.christianwitness.us/?page=13
http://rccaudio.christianwitness.us/?page=12
Two of my favorite speakers are Kim Engelmann and Nancy Ortberg (wife of John Ortberg). Kim speaks regularly and pastors with John Ortberg at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in California. Nancy is only an occasional speaker which is very unfortunate since she is a great speaker.
You can listen to these speakers at http://www.mppcfamily.org or watch them on video.
Click on online sermons.
Nancy Beach, who, I think, is at Willow Creek is also an excellent speaker. I heard her at the National Pastors’ Convention a couple of years ago.
Peace.
Richard,
This is spiraling into a debate which may not belong on Mike’s comments. I’ll be brief and then let it go.
I’ll give you one thing. I said, “Paul put a stop to it in no uncertain terms.†Oops. It wasn’t Paul, or James. It was Peter. But the point still remains. Circumcision was never required of the Gentile by God. The Jews were trying to put that on them, and the result of Acts 15 was that the leaders of the church told them to stop teaching that.
The Abrahamic covenant was never designed to be the vehicle to bless Jew and Gentile with salvation. It was the vehicle which brought the covenant that would, prophesied through Jeremiah, explained in Hebrews 8.
Your comment that “scripture was a conflicting guide” has no basis, because Scripture never addressed the circumcising of the Gentile for salvation. There was conflict in their mind because they were Jews, thinking themselves to be a “guide to the blind”, but Paul spends a large amount of space in the book of Romans trying to straighten that mess out.
Your original premise and the words of Luke Timothy Johnson are dangerous ground to stand on. It is humanism defined, to let experience dictate God to you. I pray you’ll see that.
You get the last word.
I grew up believing women had just as much right to speak and pray in church as men. Imagine my shock when I got to ACU and realized what a heart-wrenching issue the role of women has been in the Church of Christ for so long.
I’m thankful to be a part of Highland, which welcomes my voice and participation and my story as a member of the body of Christ. I, too, am keen to see what the discussion leads to here. Thanks, Mike, for facing this issue again and again – it needs to be faced.
Brad,
My only comment is that I think you are reading too much certainty back into the events of Acts 15. Paul’s letters occur a long time after those events. That is, the teaching on this issue looks more certain, solid, and worked out in his letters. But you can’t read that back into Acts. In Acts the situation was a lot more fluid and opaque. Clarity came much later. Also note that Paul was very uncertain about his teaching on this matter as well. Note that in Galatians 2: 1-3, FOURTEEN YEARS into his ministry, Paul thinks he may have made an BIG MISTAKE on this very issue. Just keep that in mind. Paul himself had grave doubts. It is not so clear cut as you think.
The point is that the reason why this new teaching was so doubt-filled was that there was no biblical guidance. If anything the bible was giving Paul doubts. He was swimming against Scripture (I can see him reading the Torah at night and trying to jibe the bible with his sermon in the morning) and this, apparently, worried him. It took a toll on him. And, fourteen years later, he just couldn’t take it anymore.
In sum, the revelation about Gentiles was extra-biblical.
For more on this, see Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity: A Missing Dimension in New Testament Study
by Luke Timothy Johnson.
Katie,
As a person who has grown up in the Church of Christ, I have never known the role of women to be a “heart-wrenching” issue. I have gone to several different congregations and it has never been a point of discussion. Perhaps it is more so now. I agree with Ray B. It is not a matter of men being superior to women. Men are the head of the house and should be the leaders in the church. I don’t recall, in the selection of elders, that the Bible says that an overseer should be the wife of one husband.
Allison ,
Thank you for your comments. You are right. God’s word instructs the men to provide the leadership in the home and in the church. This gives the church the strength that is needed and protects the women from being abused. The women of each local congregation have a very important ministry in the church. They can help and reach out in the distinctive way God has designed. The church is a body and when the church functions as a body by God’s design then the church is relevant and will reach out and become effective in touching lives.
Brad,
Oh, one last thing (and please feel free NOT to give me the last word)
If by humanist you mean that my primary religious impulse is to reduce the suffering of humankind then I am, I guess, a humanist. I take Jesus to be the charter member of this club.
Club mottos are:
“I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”
Or the club bumper sticker:
True Christianity? People First!
mike, this is the most christlike a contentious discussion as i’ve seen on a blog lately. good topic. if you happen to read this, could you point me to anything you’ve written to account for highland’s move toward recognizing women’s gifts, roles, and leadership in the church?
ray b., i hope that the irony of defending the bride of christ from feminization isn’t lost on you.
allison, as one committed “lifer” to another, and for the sake of the church, please look around you. ask sympathetically whether other women (and men) feel the heartbreak katie mentioned, even if they’ve never complained aloud. there are some hurting women out there (every Godfearing woman in my family, in fact) who need a lot less of our judgment for wanting to serve in some so-called “male” ways, and a lot more of our love, whether we ask them to serve in those ways or not.
Mike, I preached a sermon at my congregation about women’s roles in the church, and I used many of the ideas you used in one of the sermons you preached on the topic. I wouldnt have preached it at the time that I did except for the fact that we had so many gifted women in our congregation who were hungry to use their gifts to serve the body and so many men who only held them down, but never did anything themselves.
Anyway, I got fired fairly soon after that and I was told that I was too liberal and the church needed more conservative folks so that they could get more people in who could put money in the offering plate. Its going to continue to be a battle like many of the traditions we must face as we genuinely seek out the face of God!
The children of Israel probably were heartbroken for not having a king, but in the long run it was a wrong decision. I’m sorry for the heartbreak in your family. In my case, I’ve always considered myself lucky. I hate speaking in public, horrible stagefright!
I do not have to defend the church from anybody or anything. All any of us can do is to teach the truth of scripture.
I realize that most of the discussion has been concerning gender roles, but I wanted to comment on Tushnet’s remark about homosexuality. She said that our erotic experiences must not become a counternarrative or a counter-scripture. First of all, concerning narratives, from what I understand about narrative, it is a story of significant length that revolves around and supports a central theological truth. I see no biblical narratives revolving around or supporting the condemnation of homosexuality. The few times homosexuality is casted in a negative light through a narrative, the story is dealing more with rape (Gen. 19, Judges 19) not a voluntary relationship between two people. Secondly, in regards to being counter-scriptural, from what I have learned about the cultural context of the NT letters condemning homosexuality, it is speaking about orgy type relationships or relationships between older men and younger boys, once again not a sexual relationship between two committed consenting adults.
The homosexual sin is a clear violation in that God joined a man and a woman together in marriage Male amd female he made them. Also the sin mentioned in Romans 1 in that the natural relation of a man and a woman is violated. There is in homsexual behavior a sinful lust.
I skipped over reading all the comments in my rush to say, “YEA!”. I’m excited about a book like this. I’m excited you’re quoting it, Mike. Last Sunday morning after I attended Highland I weighed my choices since the rest of my family was out of town – attend class or visit another congregation. I chose the other church, First United Methodist, and was pleasantly surprised to encounter a visiting preacher. Her name was Peaches Evans and God poured through her the gift of preaching that day. He rocked the place! I didn’t get home until nearly 2:00 and I hadn’t even eaten lunch. I didn’t need to. I was full. I was so glad I went – to both services.
That’s a misnuderstanding of what narrative means in the philosophical sense, I think.
A narrative is not simply one story about a topic, but rather a set of texts, traditions, and interpretations that defines a group’s discourse and what can be taken as true (“scientific”, but not just in the biology-sense) among that group — what scholars would call its episteme (see Foucault in his book Power/Knowledge: “I would define the episteme retrospectively as the strategic apparatus which permits of separating out from among all the statements which are possible those that will be acceptable within, I won’t say a scientific theory, but a field of scientificity, and which it is possible to say are true or false. The episteme is the ‘apparatus’ which makes possible the separation, not of the true from the false, but of what may from what may not be characterised as scientific†(p. 197).) Our metanarratives (like the Biblical one) give us a sense of what kind of judgment to make about situations so that they are in accordance with that narrative, whether or not the situation is explicitly mentioned.
There are many reasons why Christians reject endorsing a consensual homosexual lifestyle, and most of them fall into the category of being consistent with the Christian narrative (in the larger sense), which declares that God ordered the world and human relationships in a certain way — one that excludes homosexual behavior as acceptable to God. Whether or not the narratives explicitly mention homosexuality is beside the point (by the way, they don’t mention “consensual” or “adult” either — those are words from the contemporary American counternarrative).
In regards to Romans 1, the main point of the passage is the condemnation of these people for suppressing God’s truth. The homosexuality mentioned here is a characteristic of the oppressors, not the main point of the passage. Furthermore, we have no idea what kind of homosexuality Paul is addressing here and like I stated before, a very probable situation in Rome is public orgies, not an erotic relationship between two people of the same sex who happen to be in a loving committed relationship.
In regards to Jonathan’s comment. The scriptures not mentioning “consensual” or “adult” was my whole point. Just because homosexuality is condemned in a certain context while being practiced in a certain way does not mean that is impossible for it to be practiced in an appropriate way in any context. Just as there are many reasons Christians reject a consensual homosexual lifestyle, there are also many reasons Christians endorse it. I agree that God ordered human relationships in a certain way, but I think the core characteristics of those relationships are: self-sacrifice, forgiveness, accountability, mercy, grace..etc. which are all perfectly compatible within a consensual committed adult homosexual relationship.
Part of suppressing the truth would be to engage in homosexual behavior of any kind. To engage in homosexual behavior is a clear violation of God’s design for intimate sexual relationships.
Brian –
Right. And my point is that if we define what those supposedly appropriate contexts are (such as “adult” and “consensual”), then we are doing violence to God’s narrative by preferring our contemporary definitions of what is appropriate over asking what God might think is appropriate. Sure, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, accountability, mercy, grace… etc. are things God desires for our lives, but he desires those in all stations of life, whether relationship-related or not. To point to a homosexual relationship and say that those things are present and thus God must endorse the relationship is like saying there must be peace in the world because we’re all sitting at a camp fire singing kumbayah. I think what this is is a prime example of a desire to be good and loving trying to come to grips with the fact that not everything that seems good and loving, as we see it, is something that God must also see this way.
I think we would be well advised not to elevate our desire to include everyone who plays nice over God’s desire for us to be holy — on His terms.
Manley Pointer, you are right, I think there are a lot of silent, hurting women in churches. Or maybe they buried their pain a long time ago. I myself used to have a recurring nightmare about 1 Corinthians 34-35 even though I never complained in church. Click my name to read about it on my blog. (I would have Trackbacked my blogpost but it didn’t seem to work.)
Sounds like an amazing book.
Ray – First of all, the suppression of the truth and the homosexual behavior are two different issues. Secondly, as I already said, it is not fair to use this condemnation and say it applies to homosexual behavior “of any kind.” That would be like quoting 1 Corinthians 13 and saying there is absolutely no circumstance that permits a woman to speak in a church. Thirdly, it’s obviously not so “clear” or else it would not be so debated in the Christian community.
Jonathan – I began including the words “adult” and “consensual” in my definition by asking what I thought God thinks is appropriate, not by looking at contemporary definitions. Furthermore, I don’t think your camp analogy is fair. We could all be sitting around a camp fire singing kumbayah while bombs were exploding and bullets were whizzing by. If there was no fighting it would be fair to say “there is peace in the world.” I connect the love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, adult, consensual characteristics with the bullets, bombs, and tanks. If those exist (first set that is) I think God is pleased with the relationship. Lastly, whenever disagreeing I think it is dangerous to present your side as God’s side by using words like “on His terms,” when you are really referencing “on Jonathan’s terms.” Obviously we both believe our views are in accordance with God’s.
Brian –
I assure you that I have a whole lot of sympathy and respect for your position. So when I say “on God’s terms”, I don’t mean to equate my own understanding with God’s; I don’t need to take cheap shots like that. I’m saying exactly what I mean: We need to live life on God’s terms. And I don’t believe that my views or yours ARE in accordance with God’s. I don’t know His mind. But I do think — and this has been my point throughout — that our priority should be to align our views with God’s as far as we can, not with what we want God’s view to be because it serves our desires.
Secondly, I’m afraid you prove my point about coercing a contemporary take onto a question that has been around within Christianity since its inception. For two thousand years, Christians have agreed that homosexual relationships of any kind are contrary to God’s will. It is only since we’ve (contemporarily) have defined appropriate relationships as those which are by today’s standards consensual and between what we would today consider adults, that those two aspects have come to redefine that debate.
Nowhere in the Bible or in the long history of Christian tradition has God been understood to assign to a God-pleasing relationship PRIMARILY the characteristics “consensual” and “between adults.” There are plenty of arranged marriages in scripture that God seems quite pleased with, and frankly if Mary (who was approximately 14-16 at the time) were to conceive in the U.S. today, the Holy Spirit would find Itself in court for statutory rape of a minor. So I agree with you on love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, and so on. Those are clearly expressions of God’s love, as taught by scripture. The rest, I’m afraid, is tagged on.
Nor am I saying that we’re wrong about our view of appropriate relationships today. I certainly agree with them. My point is that it is faulty reasoning with scripture to say that God wants us to have all the things scripture says he wants us to have, plus what we think he ought to have said he wants us to have if He’d just remembered to put it in — especially if it just so happens that the addendum God forgot turns our to fit better with our desires.
There is a case to be made for dealing more lovingly with people in homosexual relationships than we have in the past, but playing the It-seems-like-a-good-thing-by-my-standards-so-God-must-like-it card is faulty.
Brian ,
When the truth is suppressed then one of the results will be homosexual behavior. There is more but it is one of the many results of disobedeince to the truth.
Scripture is clear that all homosexual behavior is sinful. All of our sins
express a rebellion to God’s standard
The teaching about women in the assembly is clear. Sure , it is debated but that debate begins when individual will becomes more important than the will of God.
Ray B,
Here’s my take:
God’s a big boy and can take care of Himself. So it seems to be a poor use of a religious life to spend your time worrying about pissing Him off.
And if God is so easily pissed off then people have good cause to consider Him unworthy of worship. Sure, He might send them all to hell for that defiance, but who looks more virtuous in that transaction? The God you worship, or the people holding out for a more perfect Deity?