Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: homosexuality

  • Trajectories, Hermeneutics, Sexual Ethics, and Ecclesiology

    Reading Chris Seitz on the Biblical Crisis in the Homosexuality Debates (by Alastair Roberts) reminded me of three things I already believed:

    1. It is very dangerous to try to develop hermeneutics while wrapped up in a debate on a particular topic.
    2. The best test of one’s hermeneutics is to change the subject. Does it still work?
    3. Debate often tends to obscure the middle ground.

    Despite the pretentious title, I mean this to be a short post. I also would like to note that I have not read Chris Seitz; I have only read Alastair Roberts’ comments. But his comments are not particularly wild or annoying, compared to other things I have read.

    You need to read Alastair’s entire post, but here’s a key line:

    The flirting of many evangelicals with forms of trajectory hermeneutics is just one example of the way in which the creedal understanding of the relationship between the testaments has become compromised.

    I’ve written before about trajectories, and clearly I believe that there are trajectories in scripture and that we need to pay attention to them. This is part of my belief that we often develop doctrines of inspiration (and a resulting hermeneutic) that ignore the human portion of the communication. I don’t refer here to the prophet, but rather to those who receive God’s communication. The accuracy of communication cannot be stated without noting how accurately a message is received. But that is another topic which I discuss further in my book on the subject.

    What I’m interested in here is the suggestion that the debates about sexual ethics in general, and about homosexuality in particular, have done violence to hermeneutics that had not already been done.

    So I change the subject. What hermeneutic produces the liturgy and organizational structure of the Episcopal Church USA or the Anglican communion as a whole? How do we get from the New Testament to the cathedral, from the home meeting where everyone participated to church architecture with a raised platform and a privileged few leaders? Might I even go so far as to ask what trajectory permitted these changes?

    I note that one departure from scripture, in sexual ethics, is regarded as sufficient to prevent certain levels of fellowship between the United Methodist Church, of which I am a member, and the Episcopal Church or the United Church of Christ. The other, in ecclesiology seems less important to those in positions of authority.

    But of course that question is grossly unfair, because I could ask the same thing about the organizational structures and liturgy of the United Methodist Church. Well, as long as everyone is sinning in the same way …

    This reminds me of a conversation I had with a theology professor about a colleague who was teaching religion somewhere in the Bible belt. This colleague noted that there was a great deal of tension about his moderately liberal academic views regarding scripture as he taught. He was teaching a general course in basic Christianity, however, and eventually they came to sexual ethics. Suddenly the students reversed positions. The professor took the idea of sexual purity seriously, with sexual relations only permissible within marriage. Suddenly the conservative students thought their “liberal” professor was way too conservative.

    Which reminds me of another thing I’ve observed about the human side of doctrine. There are clean sins and dirty sins. Clean sins are the ones I commit. Dirty sins are the ones you commit.

    I wouldn’t want to speak for God, but I’m suspecting God’s view might be different.

  • Patience for the Nuts and Bolts

    Last night I attended a Bible study in which my pastor was teaching on Romans 1:22-32.  If that verse selection doesn’t fully make sense to you, consider that he was simply following up from the point at which he stopped the prior week.

    My pastor is Dr. Wesley Wachob, an accomplished exegete.  One of the joys of attending First UMC in Pensacola is that while I may occasionally disagree on some technical point, I never have to cringe while listening to the sermons.  Elsewhere I frequently have order myself to ignore exegetical problems or those related to Biblical languages while listening to otherwise uplifting sermons.

    So, being who he is, Dr. Wachob starting out by teaching precisely what Paul was saying.  It’s not relevant to my point here, but I happen to agree with that position.  I’m also not trying to proclaim Dr. Wachob’s position on all issues related to homosexuality, which is only a minor point of the passage, though it is the primary one for which it is cited.  (I eagerly await the sermon on how gossip and slander represents the true measure of human depravity as in verse 29-30.)  The issue I’m looking at is the starting point.  (For my Methodist readers, Dr. Wachob in no way violated the Methodist discipline in anything he said to the group.)

    In particular, Paul is not writing an essay either on what constitutes an appropriate list of sins, nor is he arguing for what things are sinful and why.  He is taking an assumption of what is sinful and tying it all to idolatry, i.e. anything that places anything other than God in God’s place.  Thus homosexuality is assumed to be wrong, based on the Torah, and this is something that Paul can count on as an agreement with his audience.

    Thus the point here is that while we can be pretty certain based on this passage that Paul thought homosexuality was wrong, it is as an underlying assumption, rather than as something explicitly explained.  When I say that, if you know my own view of inspiration as message embedded in surrounding cultural views, then you don’t know how I feel about homosexuality generally, gay marriage, or any related issue concerning how we respond to gays in our society today.

    The text does not immediately translate itself into modern context.

    If you doubt this, consider Numbers 31:15-20.  Does the command that Moses gives, couched in support for the moral preservation, not to mention the physical, of the Israelite people, represent a good standard for warfare?  I would, of course, argue that it does not.  How it can be a command of God in scripture is worthy of a bit more discussion, but that isn’t going to happen today.

    Last night in our class there was a gentleman who was clearly quite knowledgeable.  Throughout the discussion he kept asking our teacher to make the application.  His requests were resisted.  Now I understand his impatience, but at the same time I applaud the resistance.  The nuts and bolts of exegesis need to be done first.

    This doesn’t mean that we don’t later view the scripture in their canonical context or in the broader context of theology.  It doesn’t mean that we never get down to current, practical applications.  It just means that we have to do the hard work first.

    Dr. Wachob’s interpretation of this passage–and mine–will not satisfy many on any side of this debate.  The general desire is to somehow have Romans tell us directly what to do today.  And yes, there are interpretations that make this not address homosexuality as such in its original context.  But that is a very unlikely reading of what Paul is trying to say.  Paul is talking not about some isolated group of people, but rather is talking about all gentiles here (he’ll get to the Jews later) and making a case that all have failed.  That is is theological point.

    It may require some patience.  But it is worth it.

  • Reading 11/12/07

    Update: Edited to correct the date in the header from 10/12/07 to 11/12/07. I truly have not invented a time machine!

    Here’s some things that caught my attention:

    • Richard Rice Discusses Open Theism
      20 years ago I read his book The Openness of God when it was first released. I was intrigued by its ideas of open theism then, and I continue to be intrigued now. I appreciated the summary of key issues provided in this post by David Larson. (From the Spectrum Magazine blog/Association of Adventist Forums).
    • Hard and Soft Legalism
      OK, I’m a legalist, but so was Jesus. If the point of this series is to show that N. T. Wright isn’t 100% in the reformed camp, then I suppose it’s succeeding. As a matter of Biblical studies, not so much.
    • “What is at stake is the very nature of Anglicanism” (from Gentle Wisdom) and Romans and Rhetoric Again. (Hat tip: Lingamish on the second post.)
      The key arguments are about the Bible statements regarding homosexuality. This is a particularly contentious topic, of course, and I would urge charity on all who participate in it. None of the participants have taken their stands lightly, in my view, and all deserve serious consideration.

    Such are the varied topics of which I read with interest!