divorce v. homosexuality

Good post by Russell Moore:

This week my denomination, through its executive committee, voted to “disfellowship” a congregation in California that has acted to affirm same-sex sexual relationships. This sad but necessary move is hardly surprising, since this network of churches shares a Christian sexual ethic with all orthodox Christians of every denomination for 2,000 years. One of the arguments made by some, though, is that this is hypocritical since so many ministers in our tradition marry people who have been previously divorced.

The argument is that conservative Protestants already embrace a “third way” because we’ve done so on divorce. Couples divorce, sometimes remarry others, and yet are welcomed within the congregation. We don’t necessarily affirm this as good, but we receive these people with mercy and grace. Why not, the argument goes, do the same with homosexuality.

The charge of hypocrisy is valid in some respects. I’ve argued for years and repeatedly that Southern Baptists and other evangelicals are slow-motion sexual revolutionaries, embracing elements of the sexual revolution twenty or thirty years behind the rest of the culture. This is to our shame, and the divorce culture is the number-one indicator of this capitulation. The preaching on divorce has been muted and hesitating all too often in our midst. Sometimes this is due to what the Bible calls “fear of man,” ministers and leaders afraid of angering divorced people (or their relatives) in power in congregations. Sometimes it’s due to the fact that divorce simply seems all too normal in this culture; it doesn’t shock us anymore.

A recovery of a Christian ethic of marriage will mean repentance, and a strong commitment by churches to courageously say, where applicable, what John the Baptist put his head on a platter to say to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” In that sense, the charge is correct.

But divorce and remarriage is not, beyond that, applicable to the same-sex marriage debate. First of all, there are arguably some circumstances where divorce and remarriage are biblically permitted. Most evangelical Christians acknowledge that sexual immorality can dissolve a marital union, and that innocent party is then free to remarry (Matt. 5:32). The same is true, for most, for abandonment (1 Cor. 7:11-15). If the church did what we ought, our divorce rate would be astoundingly lowered, since vast numbers of divorces do not fit into these categories. Still, we acknowledge that the category of a remarried person after divorce does not, on its face, indicate sin.

The second issue, though, is what repentance looks like in these cases. Take the worst-case scenario of an unbiblically divorced and remarried couple. Suppose this couple repents of their sin and ask to be received, or welcomed back, into the church. What does repentance look like for them? They have, in this scenario, committed an adulterous act (Matt. 5:32-33). Do they repent of this adultery by doing the same sinful action again, abandoning and divorcing one another? No. In most cases, the church recognizes that they should acknowledge their past sin and resolve to be faithful from now on to one another. Why is this the case? It’s because their marriages may have been sinfully entered into, but they are, in fact, marriages.

Jesus redemptively exposed the sin of the Samaritan woman at the well by noting that the man she was living with was not her husband. “You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (Jn. 4:18). It could be that her husbands all died successively, but not necessarily. Christians are forbidden to marry non-Christians. This does not mean, though, that these are not marriages, or that, after repentance, these marriages are ongoing sins. Instead, the Scripture commands a repentance that looks like fidelity to that unbelieving spouse (1 Cor. 7:12-17; 1 Pet. 3:1-2).

Even if these marriages were entered into sinfully in the first place, they are in fact marriages because they signify the Christ/church bond of the one-flesh union (Eph. 5:22-31), embedded in God’s creation design of male and female together (Mk. 10:6-9).

Same-sex relationships do not reflect that cosmic mystery, and thus by their very nature signify something other than the gospel. The question of what repentance looks like in this case is to flee immorality (1 Cor. 6:18), which means to cease such sexual activity in obedience to Christ (1 Cor. 6:11). A state, or church decree of these relationships as marital do not make them so.

We have much to repent for in the accommodation to a divorce culture in our churches. And if we do not articulate an alternative gospel vision of the definition of marriage, we will see the same wreckage we’ve seen on so many churches’ capitulation on the permanence of marriage. But our attitude should not be that so many have shirked their churchly responsibility in some things, so let’s then shirk our responsibilities in everything. That would be the equivalent of someone saying, “Since I have had lust in my heart, which Jesus identified as root adultery, I should go ahead and have an affair” or “Since I am angry with you, which Jesus identified as springing from a spirit of murder, I should go ahead and kill you.

Instead, our response ought to be a vision of marriage defined by the gospel, embodied in local congregations. This means preaching with both truth and grace, with accountability for entering marriages and, by the discipline of the church, for keeping those vows. We don’t remedy our past sins by adding new ones.

lgbt debate in the church

Wolfhart Pannenberg died last week. In 1996, Markus Bockuehl wrote the following of him:

When mainline denominations debate whether to ordain practicing homosexuals or to sanction same-sex marriages, one wonders: Where are the persons of Christian stature and theological wisdom who will stand up for the biblical truth about human sexuality? In Germany there is such a person: Wolfhart Pannenberg, eminent professor of theology at the University of Munich. While evangelicals would question aspects of Pannenberg's theology, his critique of liberation theology and his defense of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ have been widely influential. In this essay he takes his stand on the issue of homosexual behavior. Perhaps his voice will give courage to others to speak the truth about love—in love.

And translated the below from him:

Can love ever be sinful? The entire tradition of Christian doctrine teaches that there is such a thing as inverted, perverted love. Human beings are created for love, as creatures of the God who is Love. And yet that divine appointment is corrupted whenever people turn away from God or love other things more than God.

Jesus said, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:37, NRSV). Love for God must take precedence over love for our parents, even though love for parents is commanded by the fourth commandment.

The will of God—Jesus' proclamation of God's lordship over our lives—must be the guiding star of our identity and self-determination. What this means for sexual behavior can be seen in Jesus' teaching about divorce. In order to answer the Pharisees' question about the admissibility of divorce, Jesus refers to the creation of human beings. Here he sees God expressing his purpose for his creatures: Creation confirms that God has created human beings as male and female. Thus, a man leaves his father and mother to be united with his wife, and the two become one flesh.

Jesus concludes from this that the unbreakable permanence of fellowship between husband and wife is the Creator's will for human beings. The indissoluble fellowship of marriage, therefore, is the goal of our creation as sexual beings (Mark 10:2-9).

Since on this principle the Bible is not time-bound, Jesus' word is the foundation and the criterion for all Christian pronouncements on sexuality, not just marriage in particular, but our entire creaturely identities as sexual beings. According to Jesus' teaching, human sexuality as male and as female is intended for the indissoluble fellowship of marriage. This standard informs Christian teaching about the entire domain of sexual behavior.

Jesus' perspective, by and large, corresponds to Jewish tradition, even though his stress on the indissolubility of marriage goes beyond the provision for divorce within Jewish law (Deut. 24:1). It was a shared Jewish conviction that men and women in their sexual identity are intended for the community of marriage. This also accounts for the Old Testament assessment of sexual behaviors that depart from this norm, including fornication, adultery, and homosexual relations.

The biblical assessments of homosexual practice are unambiguous in their rejection, and all its statements on this subject agree without exception. The Holiness Code of Leviticus incontrovertibly affirms, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Lev. 18:22). Leviticus 20 includes homosexual behavior among the crimes meriting capital punishment (Lev. 20:13; it is significant that the same applies to adultery in v. 10). On these matters, Judaism always knew itself to be distinct from other nations.

This same distinctiveness continued to determine the New Testament statements about homosexuality, in contrast to Hellenistic culture that took no offense at homosexual relations. In Romans, Paul included homosexual behavior among the consequences of turning away from God (1:27). In 1 Corinthians, homosexual practice belongs with fornication, adultery, idolatry, greed, drunkenness, theft, and robbery as behaviors that preclude participation in the kingdom of God (6:9f.); Paul affirms that through baptism Christians have become free from their entanglement in all these practices (6:11).

The New Testament contains not a single passage that might indicate a more positive assessment of homosexual activity to counterbalance these Pauline statements. Thus, the entire biblical witness includes practicing homosexuality without exception among the kinds of behavior that give particularly striking expression to humanity's turning away from God. This exegetical result places very narrow boundaries around the view of homosexuality in any church that is under the authority of Scripture.

What is more, the biblical statements on this subject merely represent the negative corollary to the Bible's positive views on the creational purpose of men and women in their sexuality. These texts that are negative toward homosexual behavior are not merely dealing with marginal opinions that could be neglected without detriment to the Christian message as a whole.

Moreover, the biblical statements about homosexuality cannot be relativized as the expressions of a cultural situation that today is simply outdated. The biblical witnesses from the outset deliberately opposed the assumptions of their cultural environment in the name of faith in the God of Israel, who in Creation appointed men and women for a particular identity.

Contemporary advocates for a change in the church's view of homosexuality commonly point out that the biblical statements were unaware of important modern anthropological evidence. This new evidence, it is said, suggests that homosexuality must be regarded as a given constituent of the psychosomatic identity of homosexual persons, entirely prior to any corresponding sexual expression. (For the sake of clarity, it is better to speak here of a homophile inclination as distinct from homosexual practice. ) Such phenomena occur not only in people who are homosexually active.

But inclination need not dictate practice. It is characteristic of human beings that our sexual impulses are not confined to a separate realm of behavior; they permeate our behavior in every area of life. This, of course, includes relationships with persons of the same sex. However, precisely because erotic motives are involved in all aspects of human behavior, we are faced with the task of integrating them into the whole of our life and conduct.

The mere existence of homophile inclinations does not automatically lead to homosexual practice. Rather, these inclinations can be integrated into a life in which they are subordinated to the relationship with the opposite sex where, in fact, the subject of sexual activity should not be the all-determining center of human life and vocation. As the sociologist Helmut Schelsky has rightly pointed out, one of the primary achievements of marriage as an institution is its enrollment of human sexuality in the service of ulterior tasks and goals.

The reality of homophile inclinations, therefore, need not be denied and must not be condemned. The question, however, is how to handle such inclinations within the human task of responsibly directing our behavior. This is the real problem: and it is here that we must deal with the conclusion that homosexual activity is a departure from the norm for sexual behavior that has been given to men and women as creatures of God. For the church this is the case not only for homosexual but for any sexual activity that does not intend the goal of marriage between man and wife—in particular, adultery.

The church has to live with the fact that, in this area of life as in others, departures from the norm are not exceptional but rather common and widespread. The church must encounter all those concerned with tolerance and understanding but also call them to repentance. It cannot surrender the distinction between the norm and behavior that departs from that norm.

Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

vusa on lgbt

I loved the Vineyard and I miss being part of it. The following summary statement on the issues related to LGBT reminds me why. Note the Kingdom, the authority of Scripture, and the command for compassion and holiness all side-by-side. This summary along with some great reference material may be found here.

First, we must be committed to both mission and holiness. The message of the kingdom is a message of welcome. Anyone can come to the feast- Jesus himself was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. And at the same time, the message of the kingdom is repent, believe, and follow Jesus in every area of life. At times, it can feel as if these two principles are mutually exclusive. But we are convinced they are not. It is possible to offer the radical welcome of Jesus while calling people to high standards of discipleship.

Second, the Bible promotes, celebrates and affirms marriage as a covenantal union between a man and a woman. Marriage is not the highest purpose of humanity. The apostle Paul himself was single, as was Jesus. At the same time, it must be honored as a sign and gift from God.

Third, we believe that all humans are to be treated with kindness and compassion, as the image-bearers of God on earth. We are all sinful, and it is profoundly unbiblical to pick out one sin that is stigmatized above others. In the history of the church, homosexual persons experienced such sinful stigmatization. We repent and renounce this sort of sinful treatment.

Fourth, we believe that outside of the boundaries of marriage, the Bible calls for abstinence. We know that in our culture, premarital sex, along with many other forms of non-marital sex, has become normative. We want to lovingly help people of any sexual orientation to live up to this standard. We recognize that it can be a difficult journey, and there must be grace along the way. The powerful, beautiful gift of human sexuality must be stewarded with seriousness and compassion within our movement.

I'm reading through VUSA's larger paper The Vineyard Movement and the LGBT Question now. Very, very well done! Worth the read.

homosexuality and love

A year ago Mike Riccardi wrote this excellent piece in response to Kevin Rudd. I post it here for posterity.

A video of Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has gone viral, as a Christian pastor asks the Prime Minister, who supports homosexual “marriage” and also identifies as a “devout Christian,” why he doesn’t believe what the Bible says about the sinfulness of homosexuality.  You can hear his response here:

There’s a lot to address in his response. Al Mohler has already responded to the Prime Minister’s speech in his September 3rd episode of “The Briefing,” which you can (and should) listen to here. His treatment of this issue starts at around the 14:30 mark. Andrew Courtis provides a a transcript of portions of Mohler’s response here.

But I notice that Mr. Rudd makes a lot of the same arguments that we’ve actually already sought to address here at the Cripplegate (too bad he’s not a reader; we could have cleared all this up ahead of time!). And so I’d like to adapt the answers we’ve given to Rudd’s presentation above, not because I want to pick on him but because his reasoning represents that of an enormous amount of people who try to reconcile homosexuality with Christianity. It’s a bit longer than a normal post, but I hope it will be beneficial to you, and will serve those who erroneously believe that faith in Jesus and His Word can be reconciled with attempts to legitimize homosexuality.

Slavery

Firstly, Rudd makes the argument that “the Bible also says that slavery is a natural condition,” and so if we really obeyed the Bible we should have all fought for the U. S. Confederacy. Now, it’s been ably demonstrated that comparing homosexuality to civil rights and slavery is unbiblical, facile, and just flat-out unreasonable. This post is already too long, so I’ll direct you to those resources for more in-depth responses on those issues.

But aside from that, that argument concedes the point that the Bible condemns homosexuality as sinful, but reasons, “Since we ‘disobey’ the Bible in all sorts of other ways, let’s feel very free about disobeying it in regards to homosexuality as well.” The same unbiblical reasoning is employed when folks speak about mixing fabrics and eating shellfish and pork. But of course, “We disobey a bunch of stuff, why not one more?” is just not the way a Christian thinks about God’s Word.

Someone who loves God in the Person of Jesus Christ does not look for ways to legitimize their disobedience or to free themselves from what He’s actually said. The one who loves God loves His Word. The Word of God is the delight of the child of God (see Psalm 119; Job 23:12;Jer 15:16). If God’s Word is something you feel you have to get around or escape, that may be quite a good indicator that you’re not truly a Christian at all.

The Human Condition

Further, Rudd suggests that the human condition changes, and so society must adapt to such changes. I agree with Mohler’s response to this:

This is not an intelligent argument. This is a profoundly unintelligent argument. It is an argument made by someone who claims to be a devout Christian but doesn’t know anything about interpreting the Scripture. And instead [he] simply throws the Scripture under the bus, so to speak…. To suggest that the human condition and the social conditions change and therefore we have to abandon the Scripture, is to defy the very nature of Scripture itself as not only the inerrant and infallible word of God but a word that has endured not only through the ages but will endure for eternity. In other words, even as social and human conditions change, we need to recognize that that change has been a constant since Genesis 3. It didn’t await the last couple of decades of Australian history.

Mohler hits the nail on the head when he mentions that whatever “changes” there have been in the human condition, those changes have been constant since the Fall of man into sin in Genesis 3. That’s another way of saying that while societal conventions may change on a superficial level, the human condition does not change at its fundamental core. And what is that fundamental core of the human condition? Sin. Rebellion against God. Unbelief in Him and in His Word. The expression of our sin will change at the societal and cultural level, but the human condition has not changed. And it won’t change until the Lord returns to judge the wicked and renew all things. To believe otherwise is, as Mohler says, “to defy the very nature of Scripture itself… as the inerrant and infallible Word of God.” This is not something that “a devout Christian”—or any kind of Christian—does.

Born that Way

Much of the Prime Minister’s view seems to hinge upon his belief that homosexuality seems “natural” to people. He reasons that since sexuality is not a choice, for someone to be homosexual  is natural; it’s “how people are built.” The implicit reasoning, there, is that human beings cannot be held accountable for moral wrongdoing if such actions are natural to them.

But this is also unbiblical thinking. See, every human being is born with a naturalpredisposition to love sin and hate righteousness. That is an effect of the Fall. We are all born with a sinful nature that rebels against God and all that is lovely and holy and to gratify our selfish lusts. But our natural state of sinfulness does not mitigate our moral accountability for that sin.

Some people are naturally inclined to one sin or another. For one, it might be drunkenness. For another, it might be lust and promiscuity. For another it might be greed. For another, laziness. And for another, sexual and emotional attraction to the same gender. But in all those cases, we do have a choice. The choice is, “Am I (1) going to give in to these impulses to drink heavily, to have sex outside of the covenant of marriage, to lust after money and wealth and power, which feel so right and seem so natural — or, am I (2) going to recognize that my Creator has commanded me not to do these things, and by His grace, am I going to fight these sinful inclinations?”

“Are you saying that people should not act upon their feelings? This is who they are! You’re telling them not to be who they are!” Yes, that’s right! That is precisely how the law of God speaks to us. It says to all of humanity, “Because your very nature is sinful, you desire sinful and evil things. But you must not do them. You must not act on those desires.” And the response from our society is, “That’s impossible!”

And they’re exactly right! The Bible says that it is impossible. Being a Christian—obtaining a righteousness by which we may be accepted into the holy presence of God—is not about making a few minor shifts in our character, behavior, or ideology! It’s not just about adhering to a few rituals, like church attendance or even Bible reading and prayer (all of which areessential!). Most fundamentally, a Christian is someone whose nature has been changed and renewed—someone whose entire fundamental constitution has 

changed as a result of a divine miracle operated upon our soul by the Spirit of God. Something is so fundamentally wrong with all of us thatnothing we can accomplish in and of ourselves can fix us. We need an entirely new nature. We need, as Jesus told Nicodemus, to be born again.

It needs to feel difficult. In needs to feelimpossible. If it didn’t, we would think that we can just go on and work our way to Heaven. But we can’t. If we believed that, we would deceive ourselves and do the worst thing we could do to ourselves: lull ourselves into complacency by believing we’re saved when we’re not. And that’s the point. We can’t look to ourselves for salvation. The inner transformation of the heart that salvation requires can only be accomplished by God. It falls to us, then, to humble ourselves, admit we can’t do it — any of it — and beg God to receive us by grace and mercy.

God’s commandments show us our sinfulness and the impossibility of doing anything about it in our own power. And in doing that, it points us to Christ, who only had righteous and godly feelings, and obeyed God in all the ways that we failed. And because He lived that perfect life and died on the cross in the place of sinners, if we purpose to turn from our sin, repudiate it, and cast ourselves on the mercy of Christ, trusting in His work alone to provide our acceptance with God, our natures can be renewed. When that happens, Christ dwells in our heart by faith through the Holy Spirit. And He gives us power from the inside to overcome those sinful feelings, not just so that we don’t do what we want, but in such a way that we begin to actually want different things—in such a way that we desire righteousness and holiness and truth.

Love: The Fundamental Principle of the New Testament

But more than the rhetorical comparison to slavery and civil rights, and more than the appeal to natural desires, choices, and normality, Rudd’s response is founded upon his view of love. He says, “What is the fundamental principle of the New Testament? It is one of universal love. Loving your fellow man. And if we get obsessed with a particular definition of that through a form of sexuality, then I think we are missing the centrality of what the gospel, whether you call it a social gospel, a personal gospel or a spiritual gospel, is all about.”

That strikes at the very core of the worldview of the contemporary “wisdom” that seeks to marry homosexuality with biblical teaching: “In the midst of all of your fundamentalist attention to details of various Bible verses, you’ve lost the big picture. The cardinal virtue that Jesus taught His followers was love. If you value love, what’s the problem with two consenting adults making a commitment to each other out of love? Love is love. To insist that homosexuality is sinful and to deny them the right to get married is simply not loving, and therefore not Christian.”

But this argument, like the others, simply doesn’t hold biblical water. (In explaining why, I’m going to reprint something I’ve written a while ago when addressing this issue, adapted slightly.)

Love as Unconditional Acceptance

The reason, stated simply, is: the wisdom of secular society has failed to define love biblically. To our self-indulgent, narcissistic, perennially adolescent, self-willed culture, “love” means nothing more than Carl Rogers’ notion of unconditional positive regard. 

To “love” someone, according to our society, is to affirm every decision they make and to applaud them just for being them. Bruno Mars’ hit songis the soundtrack to Western secularism’s gospel of unconditional acceptance: “You’re amazing, just the way you are.”

And that kinda thing feels good, doesn’t it? It feels really good to be affirmed without qualification—to be told that you’re amazing, just the way you are. And because of that, people have confused the idea of being affirmed, accepted, flattered, and made much of with true love. Loving me means making me feel good by making much of me. And this ideology of love as unconditional acceptance is woven into the fabric of the cultural consciousness of western society. To believe anything else is archaic, un-evolved, and priggish.

And then, those who have imbibed that definition of love turn to the Bible. And all of a sudden they start reading and hearing about love. God is love (1 John 4:8). For God so loved the world (John 3:16). The greatest commandment in the Law is that you love God and love others (Matt 22:37–40). Love your neighbor as yourself (Gal 5:14). By this everyone will know you’re My disciples: if you love one another (John 13:35). All of these wonderfully biblical concepts come flooding into their minds.

But then something tragic happens. Rather than surrendering their own preconceptions to the authority of God’s Word and seeking to understand how God defines love, they use their own distorted definition of love that they have imbibed from our society, and they foist that definition onto the Scriptures and onto their conception of God. So now, when they hear that “God is love,” they think, “God doesn’t ask people to change. God doesn’t judge people. God accepts everyone just as they are. And so Christians must do the same.”

Love Seeks the Objective Benefit

But this isn’t true, because this is emphatically not how God defines love. “In this is love,” says the Apostle John, “not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be thepropitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). “God loved the world in this way: Hegave His One and Only Son, so thateveryone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, HCSB). “But God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). All of these passages and dozens more teach us that love is acting, even laboring, to secure someone’s greatest benefit.

These passages aren’t teaching us that God just thought we were so wonderful, just the way we were, that He would deliver His Son to death just to show us how great we were. No way. These passages teach us that God labors at great cost to Himself, and even suffers in the Person of Jesus Christ, in order to secure the greatest benefit of His beloved. When we were dead in our sin, cut off from God, and without hope, what would have been our greatest benefit at that moment? Answer: a perfectly righteous, wrath-propitiating, sin-bearing Substitute. And that is exactly what God gives us. God demonstrates His own love bybenefiting us with Himself in the person of His beloved Son.

Biblically, then, love does not mean to accept someone unconditionally, to affirm them without qualification, or to make them feel good by making much of them. Biblical love laborsfor the beloved’s greatest benefit.

What is Our Greatest Benefit?

That’s the question, then, isn’t it? If love labors to secure the beloved’s benefit, what’s someone’s greatest benefit?

I’ll tell you what it’s not. Our greatest benefit is not to be made to feel good about ourselves! To be made to feel that every unrighteous desire we have is normal and natural and should be unconditionally affirmed! “Well hey, why not?” you ask. “That doesn’t sound too bad.” Here’s why: If all I do in my effort to love you is try to make much of you—to work for your own self-exaltation and unconditional affirmation, I rob you of joy. I rob you of true and lasting satisfaction and happiness. “How in the world do you figure that, Mike?” Because your ownglory and self-exaltation (“You’re amazing just the way you are!” “Do what feels natural!”) might feel good for a little while, but they will not satisfy the longings of your soul for eternity. You just haven’t been designed that way. God didn’t design human beings to thrive on the glory of self. So the one who seeks to satisfy you by holding you up to yourself as an all-satisfying treasure does not love you. They lie to you, and lead you down a short road of naïve “happiness” to an eternity of misery.

But God did design you to thrive on the glory of Jesus Christ. Just as a car is designed to run on gasoline, you were created for the glory of God (Isa 43:7). He has designed your heart, your soul, your affections, your emotions—all of you—so that you are most satisfied by Him. He calls spiritual life the ability to see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). This means that love is helping someone to see and know and enjoy God in the person of His Son! That is the greatest benefit you can do for anyone! The vision of your own glory and self-exaltation won’t satisfy the desires of your heart. But the vision of His glory will!

So love is not making much of someone. Love is laboring, and often times even suffering—even being called hateful and bigoted—so that the beloved might find joy in making much ofGod forever, because that (i.e., making much of God) is what will most truly and lastingly satisfy them.*

Loving Homosexuals

Can you see why, then, Kevin Rudd’s version of “loving your fellow man” is not love at all? Can you see why the unconditional acceptance and affirmation that our culture calls love, is actually hate? Can you see why never warning someone that fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers, will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9–10), but encouraging them to engage happily in all these behaviors if it is natural to them, is the opposite of love? Because it is not in the best interest of sinners for Christians to affirm a lifestyle which, if unrepented of, will end in eternal destruction.

It’s like seeing a child running into the middle of the street, delightfully chasing one of his toys, tickled to death and seemingly enjoying himself—because he has no idea a truck is speeding through at 50 miles per hour. A good person—a loving person—does not stroke the child’s ego and encourage him in the fun that he’s having, because he doesn’t want to be judgmental. No, a good, helpful, loving person is going to yell, scream, warn, and even run in front of the truck to save that child. Christians—those who endeavor to obey Jesus in loving our neighbor as ourselves—refuse to affirm homosexuals in their sin and even speak out against it, because we desire to warn them that what seems like a delightful enterprise is actually going to end in tragedy, but that there’s still time to get out of the street. It is not hate to warn people of danger. It is hate to fail to issue such warnings.

We do not love like Jesus loved if we unconditionally affirm someone in a choice that robs them of true, abiding satisfaction and leads them to ruin. We love like Jesus loves when we graciously and patiently proclaim a message that has the power to free people from the bondage of their suicidal love affair with themselves—the power to liberate them into the freedom and the joy of making much of the glory of God. We love like God loves when we point people away from worshiping themselves and their own desires, and when we steer them toward their greatest benefit: God Himself.

lg on altmc

Luke Geraty continues his series (this is part 5) dealing with Ken Wilson's, A Letter to my Congregation. The following is Geraty's writing. If you are as impressed as I, you will follow his blog here.

In this post, I want to review and interact with Ken Wilson’s work in ALTMC on the Apostle Paul. In addition to several posts covering Ken’s introductory work (here, here, and here), I’ve posted my thoughts on his use of the Old Testament. Now I want to start looking at his work on the NT, specifically related to the Pauline corpus. Don Bromley has already done a splendid job of why Ken’s use of Romans 14 is problematic, so I’ll simply be referring to the prohibitive texts and Ken’s use of certain sources.

Romans 1

The first NT text that Ken engages in ALTMC is Romans 1:24-27. Ken is helpful in pointing out that modern culture, especially in the Western world, does not generally include an awareness of pederasty. When we think about homosexuality in today’s culture, we do not normally think of a sexual relationship between an adult male and a pubescent or adolescent male. We generally call that child abuse. Yet in the ancient world, this type of relationship was common. Ken is also correct to remind us that a significant amount of “homosexuality” in the 1st century included what is known as “temple prostitution.” Additionally, the ancient world’s understanding of homosexuality included the sexual relationship between masters and slaves. As Ken notes, “we have three very significant and pervasive sexual practices that would have been well known to Paul’s audience and would shape their view of same-gender sexual practices: temple prostitution, pederasty, and the sexual services required of slaves.” These approaches have been argued by John Boswell and Robin Scroggs, though thoroughly refuted in numerous works (cf. Loader, Gagnon, Davidson; for a full refutation of Scroggs, see Mark D. Smith, “Ancient Bisexuality and the Interpretation of Romans 1:26-27,” JAAR, 223-256).

These are all very important issues for us to understand if we want to discuss the complexity of sexuality in the ancient world. Ken suggests that committed monogamous homosexual relationships “are very different than the things the Roman Christians were familiar with” and that “any comparison between the modern world and the ancient world is very difficult because “homosexuality,” in the sense we use it today (people who are primarily sexually attracted to members of the same sex), wasn’t a recognized category.” Furthermore, Ken thinks it is arguable to suggest that Romans 1 has application to the modern homosexual relationships. He writes:

“The fact is, when scholars search the literature of the period, they can find untold examples of same-sex acts in the context of pederasty, temple prostitution, and slavery. The case for asserting the existence of something like contemporary monogamous gay unions is sketchy at best. To assert with great confidence that such relationships were well known to Paul doesn’t seem justified.”

Ken’s primary scholarly source appears to be Sarah Ruden’s Paul Among the People, as she is referenced and footnoted in ALTMC. Ruden’s work has some significant flaws though. For example, her work largely ignores St. Paul’s Jewish background which means that his understanding of sex and sexuality is not acknowledged to come from a framework that is shape by the Old Testament (see this review for a devastatingly accurate evaluation of Ruden’s methodology). This appears to be why Ken suggests that it is “sketchy” and “doesn’t seem justified” to conclude that St. Paul had all homosexual activity in mind when he condemned it.

While this line of argumentation is popular, it appears to lack the support of the scholarly community. As I’ve already noted, Loader, Brooten, Davidson, Dover and a host of other scholars have demonstrated that there were homosexual relationships in the ancient world that correspond to what we see in today’s world. Ken appears to be unaware of these sources.

Furthermore, ALTMC suggests that the textual background to Romans 1 is Leviticus 18-20. While a host of NT scholars make this suggestion, it would seem just as likely if not more likely to see the background to Paul’s work in Romans 1 being Genesis 1-3. Loader writes:

“… Paul sees same-sex intercourse as disorder and sets it in parallel to the disorder when people stop worshipping God and worship idols instead. Not only are the two disorders parallel; one is the consequence of the other. God let people continue their denial of God’s reality into denial of reality in their own lives. So they not only deny God’s reality, they deny their own nature as (heterosexual) human beings, and engage with those of their own sex instead or with the opposite sex. So this is not simply a transgression of a biblical prohibition which Paul assumes (Lev 18:22; 20:13); it is deliberate perversion of God’s intention and their nature.” (The New Testament on Sexuality, 227).

One doesn’t need to point out that St. Paul would look at Gen. 1-3 to explain God’s intention. Loader further acknowledges that “the allusion to male and female in 1:26-27 very likely reflects the language of Gen 1:27 and, generally, one can scarcely ignore that for Paul divine creation is a major presupposition of his thought” (p. 301, emphasis mine; it seems important to note that while Loader acknowledges that the Bible condemns homosexuality, he simply believes the biblical authors are wrong). Hays pointedly writes:

“The reference to God as Creator would certainly evoke for Paul, as well as for his readers, immediate recollections of the creation story in Genesis 1– 3, which proclaims that “God created humankind in his own image… male and female he created them,” charging them to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1: 27– 28).” (The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 386)

Additionally, in ALTMC Ken raises some challenges to the issue of female homosexuality (lesbianism). I won’t go into detail concerning the lack of plausibility for the views that he thinks may be a better way of understanding Rom. 1:26 other than to suggest that Brooten’s Love Between Women largely undermines most of his assumptions about St. Paul and the ancient world’s understanding of lesbianism (Ken only quotes an essay written by Brooten and does not reference her actual book on the subject).

Regarding Ken’s work on Romans 1, I must say that I was disappointed to see that he selectively uses Richard Hays and absolutely ignores what he writes concerning the ethical challenge found in the Pauline text. Advocates of the traditional approach to understanding these texts can be greatly served by Hays’ work because he does a splendid job of reading the texts and then approaching the practical ethical issues in a balanced way. Thus, Hays understands that homosexual activity is indicative of a larger issue and yet still something Paul condemns. It should neither be overlooked as being non-evil or seen as being any worse than other evils. Hays writes that “self-righteous judgment of homosexuality is just as sinful as the homosexual behavior itself” (p. 389)” In my opinion, Richard Hays offers a far more trustworthy resource than Ken Wilson’s ALTMC.

1 Corinthians & 1 Timothy

Engaging ALTMC and Ken’s interaction with Paul’s first epistles to the Corinthians and to Timothy will take a bit of technical work. In addition to suggesting that the ancient world’s understanding of homosexuality differed from ours, which has been demonstrated as being incorrect, Ken spends time analyzing Paul’s use of the Greek words malakoiand arsenokoitai. The two prohibitive texts are:

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Cor. 6:9-10)

“Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine…” (1 Tim. 1:8-10)

Before we look at the definition and lexical range, I want to address a passing statement that Ken makes. He writes:

“… there is not a single condemnation in scripture that is specifically and explicitly aimed at monogamous gay couples.”

Readers of these reviews will likely know that my response to this statement is simple: hogwash. It is only possible to suggest that the Bible does not condemn homosexual activity within a committed monogamous gay relationship if it can be demonstrated that the NT was unaware of that type of relationship (which it isn’t) or that the NT’s use of porneia didn’t include all homosexual activity (which it did). When the Bible condemns homosexuality, it condemns all homosexual sex. It’s important to note that this is not the same as condemning homosexual orientation or homosexual identity. The bottom line is that all of the evidence, both historically and biblically, is diametrically opposed to the position that Ken Wilson argues for in ALTMC.

Back to the challenges raised by the Greek.

Ken’s contention is that malakoi and arsenokoitai are difficult words to translate, so we shouldn’t be so quick to assume that they are referring to the passive and active participants in homosexual sex. ALTMC appeals to Soards’Scripture and Homosexuality and Fee’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. However, the only way that Ken’s concerns about malakoi and arsenokoitai stand are if we concede that the NT knows nothing about committed monogamous homosexual relationships. Otherwise, most of Ken’s issues are essentially moot.

Furthermore, BDAG defines malakoi as pertaining “to being passive in a same-sex relationship” (p.613) and Louw-Nida as “the passive male partner in homosexual intercourse” while noting that “as in Greek, a number of other languages also have entirely distinct terms for the active and passive roles in homosexual intercourse” (pp.771-772). The Dictionary of BIblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) lists among possible definitions “passive partner in male-to-male sex act” and the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament notes that malakoi‘s use in 1 Cor. 6:9 is the “reprehensible examples of passive homosexuality” (p.381). My point in listing these lexicons (and there are others) is that a number of well-respected (if not authoritative) lexicons view malakoi as pertaining to the passive partner in homosexual activity. Interestingly, in the context of Fee’s statements in regards to malakoi, Fee writes that “for Paul’s attitude toward homosexuality in general one need refer only to his own Jewish background with its abhorrence of such,28 plus his description of such activity (Rom. 1:26–27)” (p. 244). That’s similar to what Loader, Gagnon, and a host of other exegetes suggest too. I’ll grant that malakoi is not a slam dunk for the traditional view, but certainly the majority of Greek scholars seem to disagree with Ken (and Fee) here and tend to indicate that the best guess is to view it as the passive homosexual partner.

When it comes to arsenokoitai, it should be noted that the word is comprised of ἄρσην (male) and κοίτη (bed), which, as Fee notes, “there is no question as to the meaning of the koitai part of the word; it is vulgar slang for “intercourse”” (p.244). This is why the Greek word is seen as pertaining to the active participant in homosexual sex by BDAG, Louw-Nida, DBL Greek, LXGRCANLEX, EDNT, etc. In other words, Ken’s caution at translating arsenokoitai are not shared by the scholarly community, and these are just lexical sources, not exegetes and commentaries. In addition to the scholarly literature, it’s important to note that this Greek phrase likely is based on the LXX and it’s translation of Lev. 20:13 (cf. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 382-383). This is to say that St. Paul is likely building his case off of the Jewish background.

Plus, we still have to deal with Paul’s use of pornos, a cognate of porneia, in 1 Cor. 6:9 and 1 Tim. 1:10. Even if we granted that 1 Cor. 6:9 and 1 Tim. 1:10 are ambiguous when it comes to translating malakoi and arsenokoitai, there’s the challenge of porneia that still remains. Unfortunately, Ken completely ignores this issue. Once again, I would suggest that it is better to go with Hays on this issue, who writes:

“The early church did, in fact, consistently adopt the Old Testament’s teaching on matters of sexual morality, including homosexual acts. In 1 Corinthians 6: 9 and 1 Timothy 1: 10, for example, we find homosexuals included in lists of persons who do things unacceptable to God.” (p. 382)

Lastly, I think it is very important to note that the NET’s translation note for 1 Tim. 1:10 states that “since there is a distinction in contemporary usage between sexual orientation and actual behavior, the qualification “practicing” was supplied in the translation.”

The “Sexual Immorality” Texts Are Noticeably Absent

As has already been noted numerous times in this post, as well as observed by Thomas Lyons, Ken virtually ignores the texts that state that sexual immorality is sin. This is because Ken clearly wants to control the data so that, in the end, he can argue that the Bible is silent on monogamous homosexual relationships and that the NT’s use of porneia has nothing to do with LGBTQ issues. I beg to differ.

As another alternative alongside Thomas Lyons’ posts, I’d want to argue that we need to consider Ephesians 5:3-20 just as much as Revelation 2. In the future a number of us plan to provide a more constructive way forward and I plan to spend more time engaging with this Pauline text.

I’d interact and engage with Ken’s thoughts on St. Paul’s writings concerning the issue but, like I stated, they are virtually absent in all of ALTMC. For Ken, porneia (sexual immorality) simply doesn’t have anything to do with this issue.

I think St. Paul disagrees. And I think Jesus does too.

goo-rot

Doug Wilson on goo-rot:

It has now started. The ubiquitous goo-rot of modern thought has advanced far enough that folks are now openly calling for a new sexual ethic among evangelicals. These new advances promise to be entirely exegesis-free, which in some quarters is quite a plus.

For example, see Tony Jones here. And Rachel Held Evans sobs out the “you go, girl” approach to these issues here. And then Barton Gingerich talks some sense here.

I would like to offer a couple comments, if I may. And I would like to do so without coming off like a dwarf shooting at the Calormenes and the horses both.

First, the fact that we are sexual beings, which nobody is denying, does not mean that we get to fornicate. The prohibitions and boundaries found in Scripture are given precisely because we are sexual beings. Scriptural morality knows that lust is a loaded gun, and even has to tell teenaged boys to stay away from the livestock. These commandments, and the high state of caution among those who respect such commandments as the Word of God, show a healthy respect for human sexuality. Wise men on a shooting range know that every gun is always loaded, and this approach is a respectful one. The same kind of mentality is necessary when it comes to our sexual desires and actions.

That said, those who want us to loosen up in this area do have one point, which I will get to in a minute. But it has to be said bluntly that they don’t have a point when it comes to what the sexual standard actually is. That is set by God, and it is set for His glory and our good. It is better to go into a marriage as two virgins than not. It is better not to have had a abortion, or to have a kid growing up somewhere else in the country, because you were pretty horny when you were fifteen. We can say this even while we recognize that the human race is sinful enough to be able even to screw virginity up, which we have done lots of ways, lots of times. Fine. But the scriptural standard for sexual expression still stands. Start with that as the baseline, and make sure that you don’t turn into Mrs. Grundy while you are at it. That would be fine too.

So where do they have a point? The point is that cheesiness does not really protect anyone from ravenous lust in any significant way. Campaigns about true love waiting, purity rings, etc. are a thin defense against what everybody wants to do as soon as they can. Sons and daughters are actually protected from immorality by having the right kind of relationship with the grace of God in the first place, and with the grace of their father and mother in the second place. This kind of thing can be communicated and taught, but it cannot be mass-produced and marketed with trinkets.

Only the grace of Jesus Christ can keep the pine sap of immorality off us in the first place, and only the grace of Jesus Christ can get it off us after the fact. Some sin is like dirt that washes right off. Other sins are more complicated than that, and sexual sin is in that category. But Oprah-sobs won’t do the job. That pine pitch comes off, but not by pretending it never got on.

Change the metaphor. This grace from Jesus Christ is not a little dollop of cream that we add to the top of our latte of traditional Victorianism — it is much more thoroughgoing than that. This thoroughgoing Jesus has a lot to say to all of us. The liberals need to listen to Him explain what sin is. The conservatives need to listen to Him explain what can actually keep us out of it.