The Church and Same-Sex Relationships: My response to Sam (part 2)
Hi Dojo readers,
Here is part 2 of my response to my friend Sam regarding whether or not the Church should endorse same-sex sexual relationships as a valid expression of Godly sexuality among followers of Jesus.
If you’re just joining us, Sam’s initial guest post can be read HERE.
My initial response to Sam can be read HERE.
Below I will address Sam’s second major point (his third major point will be looked at in my next post, so stay tuned). Again, for the sake of reading, Sam’s points are in bold and my responses follow.
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“For Christians, judgments about the rightness or wrongness of sexual acts should and do always involve both Scriptural and extra-Scriptural data.
This argument is predicated on the principle that the Bible is not self-interpreting. As with all the mysteries entrusted by God to the church, we must in a certain sense live with Scripture in order to read Scripture. You’ve enacted this principle well when you discussed the “yes, but” dynamic present in reading Jesus on divorce; yes, Jesus is pretty harsh on divorce, but there are other places in the Bible where the Spirit has led authors to nuance the view, such that we don’t just read what Jesus says and nod our heads unquestioningly. And on top of all this, we know and love and live with divorced people in our daily lives. Though their decisions to obtain divorces are often tragic in some way, divorced people are people beloved by God and the community, and those who remarry in the UMC are rightly, and in the general sense, not considered sinful despite some Biblical evidence (some eight places in Scripture—a very small amount of textual discussion that we rightly regard as insufficient for a comprehensive moral position on divorce).”
I see what you are saying, Sam. But I should point out that the reason I don’t believe divorce is always necessarily sinful is not because it’s only discussed in a few places in Scripture…but rather, because it is portrayed as acceptable (though not ideal) in some places in Scripture. In other words, there is an explicit counter-witness within Scripture itself which forces us to recognize a nuanced view. The same could be said for many other issues that some revisionists often seek to compare same-sex sexuality to such as slavery, women’s roles in ministry, etc.
However, there is no such counter-witness when it comes to same-sex sex. It is, wherever it is discussed in the pages of Scripture, always spoken of as a moral wrong. There are no exceptions to this witness within Scripture itself. Thus there is a categorical difference between this and issues like divorce.
It’s convenient for my argument that Jesus Christ—the paradigmatic, once-for-all self-revelation of God among us—has nothing to say about queerness per se in the Bible.
This is often-stated, but I don’t believe it’s actually true. I would argue that since same-sex sex was universally considered to be a form of sexual immorality (porneia) by 1st century Jews, and Jesus specifically declared porneia to be sin (Matthew 15:19, Mark 7:21), then it necessarily follows that Jesus declared same-sex sex to be sin.
However, I recognize that this is not your primary argument, so I just wanted to note it in passing.
But the more crucial point for me is that we don’t only look at what Jesus, or St. Paul, or Moses, or any Biblical author, or all the Bible authors put together, say(s) about a question like this. We look at what God has given us to look at. God saw fit to inspire the composition and compilation of the Scripture for our edification, just as God saw fit to provide the Holy Spirit to guide our lives, to provide us with minds and an appropriate way of using them, to provide us with relationships with people who reflect the Image of God to us afresh, and so on.
Indeed He has.
BUT…
The “more crucial” question, I believe, is this: What do we do when what we observe in surrounding culture, or even what we feel inwardly, conflicts with the Spirit-Inspired Scriptures which Jesus and His Apostles regarded as authoritative in terms of expressing God’s will to His people?
Which do we give more weight to?
Which do we follow when push comes to shove and they are in direct conflict?
I believe we must accept and obey what has been spoken by God through Scripture in such cases…no matter how painful, inexplicable, or hard it may seem to us at the time.
After all, in Eve’s judgment, using her pre-fall-untainted-by-sin-reasoning-capacities, the fruit was “good” and “pleasing”…there was no reason she and Adam should NOT have eaten it. Except God had said not to and warned of dire consequences if they did (Even if one takes the story of Adam and Eve as paradigmatic rather than literal, the point still stands—there was a seemingly arbitrary command given by God which humanity rejected in favor of their own determination of right and wrong).
“You compared people in “same-sex sexual relationships” (quoted to capture your terminology, not to scare) to alcoholics, arguing that women’s desire for sex with women and men’s for men is like an addiction to a harmful substance that has the potential to physically destroy bodies and which is dangerous to one’s self and relationships. Of course the comparison is somewhat hyperbolic, but really, it’s something that those who maintain the sinfulness of queer people have to make at some point. You have to appeal to an outside normative source in order to make the case that woman-woman and man-man sexual experiences are sinful. Why? Because, as a responsible Christian, you know that Scripture is not arbitrary. God doesn’t inspire the first communities of faith to avoid idolatry or adultery or murder or usury or temple un-cleanliness for no reason, but because they harm others (God included). In ethical matters like those I’ve mentioned God inspires the community to communicate the truth that is already present in God’s good creation and economy of grace, not to reveal the truth for the very first time. People’s ethical needs and God’s ethical commands have a non-arbitrary causal relationship. Though I make this argument on the historic and universal activity of the church, and of my own experience as a disciple of Christ, the Scriptural principle to which I might appeal is that Jeremiah 29:11 is the normative framework within which Isaiah 55:8 is in any way good news for us.
If that’s true, then we can’t throw our hands up in the air when talking about queerness and say something like, “Well, it’s just the way God made it. I don’t know why it’s sinful, but my hands are tied: Scripture doesn’t allow otherwise.” It may be the case that God forbids women from sex with women and men with men, but if God does, it’s pretty cheap for us to just refer to God’s inscrutable will. And it’s unfair to those whose sacred worth we affirm to bar their sexuality from them (in any case, but especially) if we don’t have an explanation for it.”
They do have a causal relationship…but as I noted above, the relationship between the ultimate and innate harm caused by sin and the measurable harm we humans are able to perceive are not always clear. To expect them to be is an assumption that I do not share because it is one that is not characteristic of God as Father. There are times when a father must tell a child “because I said so”…and that is all the reason the child need be given.
Obedience to God is never predicated upon understanding and accepting the God’s reasoning. Of course it helps if we understand why something must be obeyed…but it is not any less authoritative simply because we don’t.
There is, I would argue, a subtle arrogance in your assumption that we must know why something is harmful (and be able to clearly state it in a convincing manner to those who disagree) in order to be obligated to obey God’s will about it.
However, I DO believe there is discernible spiritual harm in same-sex sex (as in all other forms of sexual immorality) and it is similar to other things which God prohibits in terms of its harmful impact. In fact, you mentioned the perfect example, idolatry.
There is no measurable human harm that science or psychology “prove” to be caused by praying or worshipping other gods through the use of idols. In fact, hundreds of millions of people around the world do so regularly and many would be considered very “healthy” and “happy” (I can attest to this firsthand having spent a few weeks teaching in India earlier this year). But as you also noted above, there IS harm in it–harm to one’s relationship with God.
That is EXACTLY the same harm that Scripture declares inherent in same-sex sexual acts. In fact, the New Testament goes out of its way to link the capitulation to same-sex sexual impulses with the sin of idolatry, and nowhere is this more explicitly clear than in the first chapter of Romans (which I’ll come back to in a few minutes).
So while same-sex sex may not always cause the physical harm that alcoholism does, the spiritual harm is equally real. In fact, I would argue that the spiritual harm, being eternal, is an infinitely greater danger than any physical harm sin might bring. After all, didn’t Jesus Himself say make this very claim in Matthew 10:28?
“So those who hold your view have to make an additional ethical claim not explicitly made in the Scriptural data that they claim applies to queerness—they have to find what harm lesbian and gay sex does, or they have to say God is ethically arbitrary/unknowable. As you may have found, finding such harm is pretty tough, because it’s not there. Being lesbian or gay isn’t really anything like being addicted to alcohol: with respect to necessity, it doesn’t hurt your body; it doesn’t destroy relationships; it doesn’t impede the use of your gifts for the promotion of holiness in society (unless holiness is somehow linked to an absence of queerness, which, again, would be logically circular).”
I must disagree with this almost completely, Sam.
The claim IS explicitly made in Scripture—in both Testaments, no less—that same-sex sex is spiritually destructive and utterly prohibited by God.
And Holiness IS linked to an absence of sin (something I actually wrote a book on! 🙂 )
So if same-sex sexual relationships are a form of sin, then such behavior absolutely DOES “impede the use of [one’s] gifts for the promotion of holiness in society”…or more specifically, in the Church (because it is acceptance of such behavior within the Church that is the issue here; not within society in general).
Women married to women and men to men aren’t in any necessary way less faithful or supportive or committed to Christ.
Again, this is diametrically opposed to the witness of the Holy Spirit in Scripture–particularly to the foundational declaration found in Paul’s letter to the Romans, where same-sex sexual relationships are depicted as a form of idolatry and listed alongside such sins envy, murder, strife, malice and gossip…all of which alienate humanity from the saving power of the Gospel.
If same-sex sexual acts are prohibited by God (which they are in both testaments and with no counter-witness which would lead us to see some instances in which they are not), then to unrepentantly and unapologetically engage in same-sex sexual acts ABSOLUTELY renders one “less faithful or supportive or committed to Christ.” (I say “unrepentantly and unapologetically” because I want to distinguish between those who embrace and endorse same-sex sexual relationships and those who struggle with, but recognize the sinfulness of, same-sex attraction. I will take up this topic more in my next response, but for an example of the latter, see this post in which Richard Hayes gives an incredibly moving account of such a person and their struggle.)
So I guess my question to you, JM, is: How would you argue that same-sex/gender sexual relationships do non-arbitrary (as a conversation partner, my use of “arbitrary” here and elsewhere does entail that potential participants in this conversation are the subjects which determine the correlation between terms, not God) harm to others, including God? As noted before, I think you may have something interesting to say about the Imago Dei on this point.
Yes, I’ve noted it throughout the discussion and I want to allow the full weight of the claim from Scripture to be felt:
18 For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven upon all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who are suppressing truth by their unrighteousness, 19 because what is known about God is visible by them, because God has made it visible to them. 20 For since the creation of the world his unseen works—his eternal power and divinity—have been understood and are being perceived. So that they are without excuse.
21 Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give him thanks. Rather, they were given over to worthlessness in their reasoning and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became foolish 23 and exchanged the glory of the imperishable God for a likeness-image of perishable humans or birds or quadrupeds or reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to rottenness, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. 25 Whoever exchanged the truth of God for a lie and venerated and served the creation instead of the Creator, (who is praised to the ages! Amen!)
26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their females exchanged the natural functions for those contrary to nature, 27 and likewise the males also, abandoning the natural functions of females, were inflamed by their cravings for one another. Males committing shameless acts with males and received among themselves the penalty necessary for their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit to have knowledge of God, God gave them over to a failing mind, to do improper things. 29 They have been filled with every kind of unrighteousness…
wickedness…
covetousness…
evil…
full of envy…
murder…
strife…
deceit…
spitefulness…
gossipers…
30 slanderers…
God-haters…
insolent…
arrogant…
braggarts…
inventors of evil…
disobedient to parents…
31 without understanding…
untrustworthy…
unloving…
unmerciful…32 Although they are knowing God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things, whoever they are, are worthy of death, they are not only doing them but are also approving of those who practice them.
(Romans 1:18-32, my translation)
It’s important to note that this passage is not talking about “gay people” and how evil they are in particular (despite how some traditionalists have shamefully used it for such).
Rather, it’s talking about humanity’s collective wickedness in turning away from God and worshipping other things in Creation rather than the Creator. Thus ALL humanity (Jew and Gentile alike, as Paul will go on to explain in the next chapter) stands before God fallen, broken and guilty of sin.
So while those who engage in same-sex sexual relationships aren’t “more sinful” than others who engage in the actions listed along with it above, they ARE committing sinful actions which demonstrate well the nature of sin as the twisting of what was originally good into something that is spiritually destructive.
And the fact that the above passage is riddled with terms from Genesis 1 (see the LXX) is an often-overlooked, but absolutely crucial, detail.
Just as Jesus did before him, Paul here takes discussion of human sin (particularly as it pertains to sexual sin, which the Roman Christians were quite familiar with) back to the foundational teaching in all of Scripture on the subject: the Creation account of Genesis 1-2.
What we see at the beginning of the entire Bible is that human sexuality finds its truest intended fulfillment in the male-female union. In fact it is this relationship of male and female together which is said to constitute the “image of God” in Genesis 1’s famous tripartite poem:
So God created human in His image,
in the image of God He created them
male and female He created them.(Genesis 1:27, my translation)
The structure of the Hebrew text makes it clear that whatever else it may mean, the Imago Dei consists of “male and female”. And in Genesis 2 we see that the sex act (“becoming one flesh”) is to be between a man and a woman. Of course, with Sin’s introduction into human relationships this immediately gets distorted (beginning with Lamech’s wanton polygamy and culminating in the destructive evils of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah). But the foundational concept of human sexuality in its intended form by God is found in Genesis 1-2 (which is why both Jesus and Paul appeal to it as authoritative in their discussions).
Same-sex sexual relationships are an inversion of this dynamic in that they take the union which is the most full and intimate expression of the Imago Dei and apply it in a manner which does not exemplify it. This is the core of all idolatry, and thus it is explicitly and universally prohibited by God in both the Old Testament and the New.
[Note: While I don’t have the space to elaborate fully on this section of Romans and what Paul is arguing in terms of same-sex sexual relationships, there is a full half-hour treatment of it HERE in a video in the drop-down menu entitled “Marriage and the Bible” by Robert Gagnon. I can’t recommend it strongly enough for those who are unsure of what Paul is doing in this section and have heard that he’s only condemning certain forms of same-sex sexual relationships such as temple prostitution or pederasty, both of which are popular claims among revisionist authors. It deals with a number of concepts which I believe MUST be addressed by those seeking to revise the Church’s teaching on the subject.]
So while the sinfulness of same-sex sex doesn’t hinge upon our being able to demonstrate persuasively how it is harmful to humanity in a physical or psychological sense (though one could plausibly make that argument given the amount of physical/psychological harm which can be observed by a significant number of those involved in same-sex sexual relationships), it is consistently cast in the same light as other forms of idolatry by the Holy Spirit through the Scripture He has inspired.
And for that reason alone, faithful followers of Jesus cannot embrace and celebrate something that God Himself has prohibited clearly.
I will respond to your final point in the next post, as it pertains to the practical ministry aspects of this discussion. We’ve focused on Biblical, theological, and theoretical aspects of the debate thus far (which I believe are necessarily foundational and which keep many on both sides talking past each other in endless volleys of rhetoric). But same-sex sexual relationships take place between REAL people with REAL needs and REAL desires which must be addressed and responded to with REAL love by followers of Jesus. That is what I hope to exhibit in my subsequent post.
Blessings from the Dojo,
JM
Categories: Biblical Theology, Blog, Ministry, Relationships, Theological issues
First, your argument falls apart if “male and female” is a spectrum rather than a binary, which was not conceivable to the 1st century Jewish imagination but is to ours. Your social schema doesn’t allow for the existence of biological or hormonal hermaphrodites, which is what I understand most queer people to essentially be. If God creates someone “male and female” rather than “male” or “female,” then what are they supposed to do?
Second, Jesus and Paul both dealt with sexuality primarily from the standpoint of asceticism (Matthew 19, 1 Corinthians 7). Paul says outright that marital sex is a “concession not a command.” The ideal is celibacy. But as Jesus says in Matthew 19: “Not everyone can accept this teaching.” Paul says, “Better to marry than to burn.” Marriage is for people who can’t control their passions otherwise. It’s already a pragmatic compromise, heterosexual or otherwise. As much as we try to bring scripture into conformity with the nuclear family idolatry of the past thirty years, we’re talking about a Savior who disowned His nuclear family by saying, “My mother and brothers are those who do the will of my Father in heaven” (Mark 2 or 3?). Sex always has the potential to become an idol that competes with God, but we have to make babies somehow so it has to be tolerated (unless the apocalypse is coming soon enough that babies are a moot point which sometimes Jesus and Paul appear to suggest). The question is whether same-gender-attracted person should be expected to “burn” instead of “marry” if their burning doesn’t involve any physical acts but just an ongoing psychological torture.
Third, in a Wesleyan understanding of holiness, all morality has to do with love of God and love of neighbor. When you talk about holiness in terms of conforming to an “order” that has nothing to do with our pursuit of Christian perfection, you’re describing a reformed account of holiness where holiness is the forensic fulfillment of God’s “because I said so” rather than the therapeutic transformation into Christian perfection.
by Morgan Guyton on Jun 6, 2012 at 8:41 pm
Thanks for commenting, Morgan.
I don’t think it “falls apart” by any means. The existence of sexual deformity is not an argument against the Imago Dei or the uniqueness of the male-female dichotomy.
It does require deeper sensitivity and more nuanced approach when dealing with those who are born in such condition, but as the exception rather than the norm.
Secondly, I disagree that Jesus treated marriage as a concession. He elevated the status of eunuchs to greater than what they were seen as having at that time, but this was not a denigrate of marriage. Likewise, Paul spoke as one called to celibacy, but made it clear that this was only his personal preference rather than everyone’s calling. The Hebrew Bible’s celebration of male-female sex is not something Jesus or Paul would shy away from. (I also don’t believe either were expecting “the apocalypse”, as has been a common charge within Liberal Protestant scholarly circles over the past century…but that is taking us off the subject. I’d recommend Ben Witherington’s “Jesus, Paul and the End of the World” for more on those passages specifically.)
Finally, the Wesleyan concept of holiness hinges upon obedience to the known law of God (with the arrival of the New Covenant, this is the Law of the Spirit). Conforming our behavior to the revealed standard God has given His people, whether in regard to sexual ethics or any other area of life, is at the very core of Wesley’s teaching on Holiness. One cannot separate the “because I said so” from loving obedience. To do so is to embrace the very antinomionism that Wesley wrote against so vehemently.
Sadly, I believe we Methodists have created various forms of “Wesleyan” theology that Wesley himself would find utterly reprehensible in many ways.
by jm on Jun 7, 2012 at 8:41 pm
“Sex always has the potential to become an idol that competes with God, but we have to make babies somehow so it has to be tolerated (unless the apocalypse is coming soon enough that babies are a moot point which sometimes Jesus and Paul appear to suggest). The question is whether same-gender-attracted person should be expected to “burn” instead of “marry” if their burning doesn’t involve any physical acts but just an ongoing psychological torture.”
Since when is sex something to be tolerated? It is something to be enjoyed and is a normal practice (1 Cor 7:5) in a Biblically defined marriage (one man, one woman).
I don’t think that Paul is saying that marriage is just an avenue to release sexual drives ( as it could be interpreted this way ), but rather the sex and everything else in a marriage is to glorify God and to serve your mate. This sexual desire is placed in us by Him and it is healthy, so if we have a drive to marry, then we should, instead of denying that and constantly being plauged with that desire to marry, to be yearning for intimacy with a mate, and also being overly exposed to temptation of lust.
Now in view of that, your question (basically if homosexuals are expected to undergo psychological torture by being denied marriage) doesn’t make sense in this context. There are healthy desires that can be turned into unhealthy things ( sexual drive into lust as seen previously ), but there are also unhealthy and unnatural desires that can lead nowhere else but to unhealthy things (homosexual attraction leading into relations/lust )
Let’s say I have a huge desire to have two wives, but this doesn’t fall into the way God set out for marriage. So is that unfair because I can’t express myself how I want to and enjoy things that I want? No. That is called having a sinful desire and God forbidding it because that is against His design and purpose. We were all born sinful and have a huge tendency to lean towards sin and running away from what God has in store for us, and I think that is the lens we have to look through when understanding this subject.
by Andrew on Jun 8, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Part 1
I don’t agree with the assertion that there is no counter-witness in scripture about homosexuality, but rather that there is a counter-witness in the form of Scripture’s teaching on Eunuchs (Who were known to dress as women and engage in homosexual acts) as well as Natural born Eunuchs (which Jesus mentions) and in the gay relationship of David and Jonathan. But even if there wasn’t, that doesn’t prove that homosexual acts are intrinsically wrong. There’s no counter witness in scripture about the goodness of gold, or the goodness of men having long hair, or the goodness of tattoos. Yet even though scripture universally witnesses that these three things are wrong (in both Testaments) that doesn’t make them morally wrong intrinsically. What makes them morally wrong intrinsically is if they violate the law of love.
Part 2
Here you are comitting what I have come to call the “Porneia” fallacy. “Porneia” is a general word which means “sexual immorality”. Your assumption here is that Jesus agrees with you about sexual ethics, which is what you set out to prove in the first place. You take a general word that means “perversion” and then you say “What does “perversion” mean to me? All homosexual acts! So that is what Jesus is saying as well (since Jesus obviously agrees with me!). Therefore Jesus condemnns all homosexual acts.” This doesn’t actually add any information to the ethical question of homosexual acts. It’s merely you putting your opinion in Jesus’ mind. You are assuming the conclusion at the outset with absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
Theologians are guilty of this fallacy a lot, using a general term to prove a specific case, and assuming their conclusion in their evidence, thus creating a circular argument:
How do we know homosexual acts are morally wrong? Because I think homosexual acts are a perversion. Jesus was against perversion, therefore Jesus is against all homosexual acts. This argument in no way proves that Jesus agrees with you about whether or not homosexuality really is a moral perversion. You simply assume that Jesus agrees with you at the outset, assuming your conclusion and not entering anything into evidence.
Part 3
You claim that we should give authority over to scripture over and above our culture. For Christians, scripture isn’t authoritative, the Law of Love is. If Scripture was authoritative, we would still be following the Niddah, Circumcision, and a host of other scriptural-authoritative laws. We would worry about using gold and money, we would divide all things equally amongst christians as decreed by the Book of Acts, and we would decry males in long hair as sinful. We don’t because being written in scriputre isn’t the final word, the Law of Love is the final word.
You claim that we should give authority to Scripture over our current culture. I respond that we should respond to the Law of Love over the response of culture. You claim that your objections to homosexual acts are rooted in scripture. I disagree. They are rooted in the Holy Roman Empire and Anglo Saxon sexual taboos, NOT in scriputre. I would urge you likewise to abandon YOUR CULTURE’S objection to homosexuality, that is, the culture of Western European Christianity.
In your second paragraph you claim that Eve was wrong to eat the apple simply because she was commanded to by God. This is true in as far as it goes, as Eve was a proto-Jew. But for christians if God (supposedly) commanded us not to eat, say, pomegranetes, dates, or apples, would we as Christians be bound to obey it? No, we would not. Christians are bound to obey the Law of Love, not any other law. This is the key point on why your assertion that homosexuality is wrong fails. Christians are not beholden to the Laws that we don’t understand: that’s the old law, the Jewish law. You are making again the same error that the Judaizers did: That Christians are beholden to moral laws that DO NOT violate the law of love. We aren’t. The reason for this is that we are no longer under the Old Covenant but the new. Jews had to obey culturally specific laws, Christians do not. This again arises out of your “Divine Command” theory that God arbitrarily commands that Christians do or not do certain things irrespective of their moral worth. You claim that God for some inextricable reason has commanded that all homosexual acts are wrong, even though they don’t violate any moral principle.
Part 4
In this part you continue to assert that God has placed certain actions off limits simply because “I said so”, and that moral reasoning is not available to us, but is available to God, and he has placed these things in the realm of being universally morally wrong.
What this does is position you in a place where you can claim that moral acts are right or wrong “because you say so”. By claiming that you don’t have to enter a moral argument and simply appeal to divine command theory, you are essentially equating yourself to God. By disallowing God to be questioned or examined, you are disallowing yourself to be questioned or examined. Saying “Cause I said so” is a fallacy: it is an appeal to authority.
The logical problem with this from an ethical standpoint is that if you cannot demonstrate that homosexual acts are evil, cause harm, or are unequivocally unloving to neighbor, then essentially you are comitting a Gnostic fallacy. In other words, that there are some sins which are morally demonstrable according to the law of love and some sins which are not, and are only wrong if you have a knowledge of the Bible (or even more narrow, have a knowledge of your hermenutic). This again is why Paul claims that the Judaizers are wrong: they are condemnning the Gentiles who have no idea about the Old law. If what is morally wrong isn’t demonstrable outside of scripture, then it isn’t prohibited to Christians.
If the only way you can know or demonstrate it to be wrong is through scripture or htrough your own hermaneutic, then we have two sets of wrongs: a set of ethics for people who have read scripture and a set of ethics for people who haven’t. By claiming to have this secret knowledge, you are comitting the Gnostic heresy.
Part 5
You then go into an argument in which you claim that there is something which is morally wrong even though it doesn’t violate the law of love: Idolatry. Idolatry DOES in fact violate the law of love, and even though this isn’t “psychologically” demonstrable, it is ethically demonstrable. If you value an object, any object, over your fellow man, then you are in violation of the law of love. If you do not value an object over your fellow man, then you are not comitting idolatry. Idolatry is when a Christian values fetishes above their fellow man, whereby they put love of ephemeral things over their own moral care of their fellow man. The law of love and the Love of God are not two seperate commandments but one. Loving God entails loving man and loving man entails loving God. “God” is a broad category that includes all form of love both human and divine. The minute you say that love of man is to be denigrated or ceased in favor of Love of God you have created a dichotomy and you are not loving either.
The second part of why idolatry is wrong is because it is simply false. This is not a morall wrong but rather is simply an incorrect view of reality. Small idols do not really hold divine power and worshipping them doesn’t actually in any way change your fate. This is why it was so heavily condemnned by Judaism, because it led to a false view of the world, a world where golden calfs can provide boons by drinking flecks of it, where half human animals dance in a pantheon. None of that is true.
Next in your argument, you propose that idolotry has a “wrongness” apart from it being harmful or unloving, and that’s why idolatry is mentioned in Romans. That is NOT why idolatry is mentioned in Romans in conjunction with homosexuality. It’s mentioned in romans because homosexual acts were occuring in idolatrous form: to worship false Gods and for materialistic purposes (also for the purposes of prostitution and sex worship).
The fact that idolotry is mentioned so closely alongside homosexual acts, is because these homosexual acts were occurring in an idolotrous context. Any act of idolatry is wrong because it violates the law of love, and by extension, any sexual act which is an act of idolatry (whether by heterosexual or homosexual) is likewise wrong for that reason. You ignore the many references in Romans which directly reflect these acts being carried out in Roman temples where prostitution and worshiping Gods with sex acts was par for the course.
Part 6
In this part you claim that same sex acts are wrong in both testaments (which I have already addressed), but you go on to say that [“Same-sex relationships” are a sin!]
Your entire premise was that it was the ACT of sex that was morally wrong. Do you recant that now? Because now you are saying that not only is the sex act wrong, but a homosexual RELATIONSHIP is wrong.
As a for instance: two lesbians in their 50’s are in a homosexual relationship. They kiss, they hold hands, they have romantic relationship with one another, they share the same bed. But both are on Zoloft for clinical depression and this kills their sex drive. They do not engage in any sex acts from their 50’s unto death. According to you have they done anything morally wrong? And if they haven’t, should Christians who are homosexuals simply get a pill to kill their sex drive and then have same-sex relationships, get married and so forth? If not why not?
You claim that the sin is the sex acts, but I don’t think that’s what you really want. What I think you and other conservatives want is an end to homosexual relationships: an end to comitted, loving gay relationships because THAT is the biggest threat to your culture. Once people see that homosexual RELATIONSHIPS are legitimate and loving, that makes it more difficult to object to sexual acts.
Part 7
To counter your argument that Paul is saying that ALL homosexual acts are morally wrong, I cite verse 26 in your own translation. Paul explains WHY people are comitting these homosexual acts: “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions…”
For what reason? What reason is Paul talking about? He’s talking about idolatry, which is mentioned in verse 21: “They served the creature rather than the creator”. Paul here is explaining that these sexual acts are being done so as to worship idols in the Roman temples.
Part 8
You start off by doing a hack job of hermenutics of Genesis. Your assertion is that Genesis is an affirmation of heterosexual marriage and heterosexual behavior. It isn’t, it’s a description of Gender. You claim that male and female comprise the “image of God” and that therefore homosexual acts do damage to the “Image of God”. You also ignore the fact that there are TWO DIFFERENT CREATION STORIES, not one, in Genesis. In the one you cite, Male and Female are created at the same time. You then use the second creation story to back up the first, that the “becoming one flesh” has something to do with the first creation story, when in fact the stories are very different. The second story first has God create humanity as androgynous. Thus God’s ORIGINAL plan for humanity was androgyny and asexual reproduction, not the genders we have today.
Those were only created later, after God decided it wasn’t good for humanity to be alone and have one gender. There are no wedding rings in this exchange, there is no ceremony, no sacrament. It is merely an explanation of genders, not an endorsment of heterosexuality above all other sexual practices. In fact, the notation of humanity as previously androgynous sets the stage and justifies same-sex attractions, asexual humans and homosexual humans who are attracted to androgyny rather than the opposite sex.
You are also doing something here that Gagnon and many other theologians are guiltyof. Since you can’t find in any way that homosexual actions violate an actual ethical principle (does it do harm? no, Is it unloving? no. Does it steal, cheat, lie, betray trust, hurt, etc? no). You simply invent your own principles and claim that homosexuality violates your own made up principle.
In this case you claim that homosexuality offends your concept of the “Divine Image.” You create your own moral precepts and then claim that homosexuality violates them.
Yet your prinicple isn’t used to determine if ANYTHING ELSE is immoral. The only thing it is used to determine immoral is homosexuality.
This sort of reasoning angers me the most because it is pure sophistry. Instead of having consistent principles, you simply make up principles which you claim homosexuality violates. This is particularly true of most anti-gay theologians, and frankly it’s BS. I can make up any concept I want to to prove that something is wrong. I can claim that men having long hair does damage to “the Imageo Dei” because it violates gender roles, or that female equailty isn’t scripturally supported because it violates the “penetrating nature of man”. Appealing to abstract arbitrary constructed concepts is often the last refuge for Theologian, when nothing they say makes any sense.
Trinity, anyone?
by Christopher Bowers on Jun 8, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Thank you for responding Chris. Your voice is always welcome in the Dojo.
But I’m afraid that your post is riddled with so many errors, fallacies, eisegesis and false-assumptions that I literally do not have the time to go through and respond to each. I’ll leave that for any readers who may wish to do so. We’ve done this dance so many times that if anyone wants to read my response to your claims they can just read comments on previous threads.
by jm on Jun 11, 2012 at 3:10 am
I think I was a little too wordy in my post above, JMS, so I will sum up, in a more neutral way with my objections.
1. Don’t agree that there is no pro-gay counterwitness in scripture.
A. Eunuchs, who were blessed and engaged in homosexual acts.
B. David and Jonathan who were in a homosexual relationship.
2. Simply because there is no counter-witness in scripture doesn’t prove something is wrong.
A. No counterwitness regarding the banning of tattoos.
B. No counterwitness about long hair for men.
C. No counterwitness about the evils of gold.
D. It’s not counterwitness or lack therof that determines moral worth. It’s violation or keeping of the law of love.
3. Use of the word “porneia” doesn’t prove that your sexual ethics match the sexual ethics of Jesus.Nor does it prove that Jesus disapproved of homosexuals.
4. Scripture is NOT the final word on ethics, the law of love is.
A. Claiming that being against homosexual acts isn’t being “with scripture” or “with the church, it’s being with your own culture.
B. Christianity has permitted and restricted homosexual acts and unions dependingon it’s culture.
C. You are not following scripture, you are following your Culture, which bans such acts as a taboo.
5. Christians are not beholden to “because I say so” laws.
A. Christians are not Jews. We are not beholden to the old law.
B. Paul specifically states that we are only beholden to the new commandment, not the old.
6. In making something wrong simply “Because God Says so” you are comitting a Divine Command fallacy.
A. Really, you are saying “Because I say God says so.” Which really comes down to “Because I say so”. Fallacious appeal to authority.
B. Gnostic fallacy: You claim that only people who have read the Bible (or have your interpretation) can know that things are morally wrong. This violates the concept of univesal ethics. Only people with this secret (Biblical) knowledge can know homosexual acts are wrong.
C. Contradicted by Paul: New Christians aren’t beholden to knowldege in scriputre that they don’t know, they are only accountable to conscience and the New Covenant, the “Law written on their hearts”.
7. You claim there is a category of acts that do not violate the law of love, but are still morally wrong. That is false. All immoral acts violate the law of love.
A. Idolotry violates it by loving objects over people.
8. Idolotry is NOT mentioned in Romans because it is a “seperate” category of wrongness. It is mentioned because homosexual acts were used to worship idols.
A. Many connections between idolotry and sex acts are discounted or ignored by you.
B. Using homosexual acts to commit acts of idolotry is wrong because it violates the law of love in loving objects over people. Prostitution is a violation of the law of love because it treats people as sexual objects, not because homosexuality is wrong per-se.
8. You claim that homosexual relationships are a sin, and abondon your claim that only homosexual acts are a sin.
A. If only homosexual acts are a sin, the Church should have no problem with homosexual relationship, or homosexual marriage.
B. Many homosexual relationships (particularly between women) may be completely devoid of sex acts.
C. While claiming to be against only sex acts, you are really against homosexual relationships, whether or not there are sex acts involved.
9. God’s “original plan” or the “Imageo Dei” doesn’t constitute a moral imperative.
A. God’s “original plan” was Androgyny, not heterosexuality.
B. God’s description here isn’t one of marriage or sexuality. It’s simply a description of Gender.
C. You are using two different creation stories as if they are told with one vision, and use elements in one story to back up elements in the other, ignoring the aspects in each that contradicts your account.
D. Since homosexuality doesn’t violate any moral precept, you create moral precepts for it to violate. Since you can’t find any “wrongness” to homosexuality, you artificially create a moral principle: the “Image of god” which homosexuals (supposedly) violate.
E. The claim that homosexuals violate the “Image of God” is only used for them, not to establish any other moral claim, which demonstrates that you constructed it soeley for them.
F. Using abstract concepts for ethics, rather than the law of love, can cause you to justify or decry anything. Women’s rights can be objected to because it violates God’s “Original plan” that woman was lesser, being created out of God’s rib. Long hair violates the “Imageo Dei” because it makes a man look like a woman, and so on.
G. Appealing to abstract, made up fictional constructs is the last refuge of any Theologian who can’t appeal to logic, reason, or fact to make their case. It’s what theologians do when they must hold a view which makes no sense. Appeal to some arbitrary irrational abstaction so that you can justify yourself.
by Chris Bowers on Jun 17, 2012 at 12:23 pm
[…] here for Part 2 of James Michael Smith’s […]
by Thought of the Day 06/06/12- “The Church and Same-Sex Sexual Relationships: A Response” | Letters From the Top on Jun 8, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Okay now, even shorter:
1. Neither Scriptural Hermenutics, nor Scriptural writings determines moral wrongness. Universally, the Law of love does. That’s why gentiles can be Christians: because anyone can follow their conscience, you don’t need Scripture to do that. Your primary error is in thinking that because it’s written in scripture, (because YOU THINK it’s written that way in scripture) it’s morally wrong. Moral wrongness is not determined by scriptural writings. Rather, it is established outside of scripture on the hearts of men.
This is why I’m explaining to you that you are approaching scripture from a Judaizer perspective. You think that moral wrongness has to do with your reading of scripture, it doesn’t. Moral wrongness and rightness is according to the universal law of love, which everyone in all cultures and religions knows, and is written on the conscience of man:
Romans 2
9. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek,
10. but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
11. For there is no partiality with God.
12. For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law;
13. for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.
14. For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves,
15. in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,
16. on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.
2 Corinthians 3
1. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?
2. You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
3. being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
2. Christians aren’t bound by laws that are not rooted in the law of love. There are no other “concepts” to violate. We are only beholden to that:
Romans 13:
8. Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
9. For this, “YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”
10. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
by Chris Bowers on Jun 17, 2012 at 12:43 pm
3 things worth noting, Chris…
1. You are using Scriptural hermenuetics (i.e. your interpretation of Romans in this instance, as well as your citing of Jesus’ two great commandments) in order to prove your conclusion that morality is not determined by Scriptural hermeneutics. Think about that for a minute.
2. The same Paul you are quoting as authoritative in determining your view of morality as universal to humanity is the same Paul who insisted upon the immoral nature of same-sex sexual acts, even adopting Torah’s language (LXX) of same-sex sexual relationships to describe such immorality.
3. You are incorrectly using the term “Judaizer” and also painting a false picture of what Torah Judaism believed in terms of the basis of morality. (Where do you think Jesus got those “two great commandments” from to begin with?)
The rest of your points have all been covered before in our discussions so I won’t go over them again here.
by jm on Jun 17, 2012 at 5:37 pm
>1. You are using Scriptural hermenuetics (i.e. your interpretation of >Romans >in this instance, as well as your citing of Jesus’ two great >commandments) in >order to prove your conclusion that morality is not >determined by Scriptural >hermeneutics. Think about that for a minute.
1. I am going to try to respond to this with writing as well as I can, because it strikes at the heart of what the difference between what a Universalist Christian believes and what a Conservative Protestant believes.
I think this really strikes at the heart of the matter between your difference and my own. I maintain that you are still on the same side as the Judaizers that Paul denounced, but that bears some explaining. (And I understand you see this as an insult, but it’s really not, it’s just a difference in doctrine).
As a conservative Protestant, you believe the Bible is the SOURCE of truth. I don’t believe that. As a Universalist I believe that scripture is an EXPRESSION of truth.
The basis for ethics isn’t particular, it’s universal. If an ethics is rooted in particularism, then it only applies to a limited sphere and is thus relativism.
What is morally correct in one sphere isn’t morally correct in another sphere. That’s the nature of relativism.
For the Hebrews, they had a particularist code of ethics, which we call the Old Law, or the 613 Commandments. Some were based on universal ethics, some were not universal ethics, they were particularist law: they only applied to the Hebrew people. The Hebrew people, (as you have rightly claimed) made no distinction between particular law and universal law. They treated them as the same. They treated the proscriptions not to have tatoos (in Leviticus) with the same seriousness as they took loving their neighbor (which is also in Leviticus). Are they the same? Should they be treated the same? Well, NO.
They aren’t the same.
When God tells Eve not to eat from a tree, that’s not a universal moral law. It’s just a particularist law for Eve.
When we are talking, later in Genesis about Cain killing Abel, we are no longer talking about particularist ethics, or particularist law. Everyone, in every culture knows that killing your brother in a jealous rage is wrong. It’s not up for debate. It’s demonstrable from every angle: utilitarian, the law of love, even from a darwinian standpoint, as well as from a logical standpoint. It’s universally wrong for anyone to do (very unlike the apple).
In other words, my citing of the two commandments isn’t a “scriputral hermenutic”. It doesn’t rest on scripture at all. In cultures that have no Christianity, even that have no religion, it’s still true. If Christianity had never existed it would still be true. It’s true in all the Abrahamic faiths. It’s true in Buddhism, Taoism, it’s true in every genuine ethical system. It’s true from a logically provable perspective, that is “a priori” as well as “a posteriori”. You can prove it with Kant’s Categorical Imperative and you can prove it with Prisoner’s Dilemma (a priori).
This is the difference between our ethical systems. You think it’s true BECAUSE I SAY SO or BECAUSE SCRIPTURE SAYS SO. That’s not the cause of it being true. That is not where the truth comes from. It was true before it was written down in scripture. Scripture isn’t the SOURCE of ethics. Ethics is true independent of scripture. Scripture is simply EXPRESSING what is true.
So, no, my assertion that the Law of Love is supreme doesn’t rest on MY interpretation of scripture. It rests on independently verifiable law of reciprocity, found in all cultures and all religions. It rests on logical proof as well as empirical evidence. You don’t have to take my word for it that loving your neighbor is the right thing to do. Nor do you have to adopt my hermenutic, it’s true whether you believe me or not.
My citation doesn’t PROVE that the law of love is true. It simply proves that Jesus and Paul agreed that it was universal, AND it proves that they thought that the law of love was supreme to writings in scripture (specifically the Old Law, (particularism) which they said that Christians didn’t need to follow any longer, because under the new covenant, loving one’s neighbor was the WHOLE of the law, and was ALL DUE to anyone. The idea that they owed things to the Torah law that they had to do (particularism) was gone. THEY knew that following old Scriptural laws wasn’t necessary anymore, since they were under the NEW COVENANT. Christianity was no longer a Jewish movement, it was a world movement, spanning many cultures and nations. And as such, they needed to adhere to universal ethics, not particularist laws.
2. I agree that Paul thought that Same-sex acts, as practiced at the time, were immoral. I don’t agree that those relationships were egalitarian and based on love, and instead assert that they were based on sexual slavery (pederasty) and temple sex worship (idolotry). I agree with Paul that those acts were wrong. Where I disagree with you is your assertion that modern homosexuality bears any resemblance to what Paul was objecting to.
You are asserting that simply because one type of behavior was objected to, all forms of that behavior should be proscribed against. This is again the same error that the Judaizers made. They wanted proscriptions to be enforced simply because they were written down in scripture. They didn’t care about the law of love, all that mattered was obeying scripture.
You are making the same error. You don’t care if homosexuals are genuinely loving one another or not, all you care about is if their behavior violates some iota of scripture. That is not the thinking of a Christian. That’s the thinking of a Judaizer.
Your refusal to adopt the law of love and instead enforce scripture over it makes you a heretic. You are a Judaizer and are trying to get people to follow your hermenutic even though it contradicts the law of love.
3. I am not painting a false picture of what a Judaizer is. The Judaizers believed that all new Christians should follow Torah law and adopt Jewish customs, especially eating Kosher and Circumcision. Paul, and more importantly Jesus did not believe in following the Old Torah law for new Christians, and they didn’t believe in following Torah Law over the Law of Love.
Your claim is that we should follow scripture even though following that scripture violates the law of love, and that is the Judaizer heresy.
Romans 13:8 states:
8. “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.”
You are claiming that Christians owe more than the law of love. That they owe something ethically beyond that. That we owe the “Imageo Dei” or that we owe “scripture” or that we owe the “old law” or that we owe “tradition” and that we must follow those.
The reason, the PRECISE REASON that Paul wrote these words was that the Judaizers were claiming that new Christians “owed more” than loving their neighbor, that they had to follow codes and customs and rituals beyond that. They had to get circumcised to get saved. But we don’t. I don’t owe Tradition, I don’t owe anyone’s interpretation of scripture, I don’t owe the Catholic Church, the Saints, Judiasm, the Torah, the 613 commandments, the historical tradition up to this point or any other proscription or ethical concept whatsoever.
By giving power over to your (or the Church’s law, or Tradition’s) Hermenutic, you are placing it over and superior to the Law of Love. That makes a Golden Calf out of Scripture, and it makes you guilty of the Judaizer heresy.
Now, let me just say, me accusing you of Heresy is pretty laughable. Most people would consider me a Heretic for imagining Christianity never existed, that people in other cultures can go to heaven (since the law of love is all they are due) or that people, lived and died by the ethic of reciprocity for hundreds of thousands of years before Christ. I’m sure you can take that accusation with a grain of salt, especially coming from a “philosopher” or “universalist” or “liberal heretic” like me.
But I would like you to think deeply for a moment about how your ethic is based on ephemeral things like scripture, tradition, church and culture, and how my ethic is based in a universal, eternal principle.
If I lived 10,000 years ago I would still be a Christian, having never met Christ and never having read a single scrap of scripture. The law of love would still be my due and it would still be what God judged my heart by.
Maybe that gives you pause, maybe it doesn’t. But I’m evangelizing you in Christ’s name for his name was love.
by Chris Bowers on Jun 17, 2012 at 10:06 pm
Chris, you have a copy of Bible for the Rest of Us and I believe you’ve watched at least the first few sessions…so you can’t plead ignorance when it comes to your getting my position wrong. I do not and never have believed that “the Bible is the SOURCE of truth.”
God is the source of all truth. Scripture is only authoritative insofar as it accurately reflects God’s revealed truth (which I believe it does, as it is ‘God-breathed’ and as Jesus consistently spoke of it as authoritatively communicating God’s truth to humanity). If you would like to know what I actually believe about Scripture’s authority (rather than making up what you think I believe about it based on your idea of ‘Conservative Protestantism’) a few good reference points would be N.T. Wright’s “The Last Word”, Scot McKnight’s “The Blue Parakeet”, and Ben Witherington’s “The Living Word of God” (all of which are recommended resources in Bible for the Rest of Us, btw).
by jm on Jun 18, 2012 at 1:49 am
That’s fine JMS. Somewhere in your journey from the farthest reaches of Conservative Protestantism into Universalism you get off the boat.
I’m not sure where you stop at, or precisely where you get off, but you are advancing a scriptural theory of ethics rather than a universal one (that the scriptural somehow trumps the law of love).
I apologize if I haven’t represented your position with proper nuance or delicacy, but I don’t think I can. At some point in your reasoning, you agree with following tradition (to some extent) and obeying a scriptural traditional hermenutic (to some extent) over a Universalist theory of ethics, and the best I can do (in terms of your nuanced position) is point out that you belief that there is “more due” of a Christian than simply loving one’s neighbor. You’ve termed this “loving God” or “loving God’s commands” or “mirroring the Imageo Dei” or what have you.
But it’s clear that you believe in some sort of holdover of the old law, some sort of “do it because I told you so” ethic, some sort of ethical duty that falls outside the scope of the law of love, and falls into obedience to Scripture.
I’m not sure what that is, (precisely because as a Universalist Christian) it makes no sense to me. I only follow the Law of Love, that’s all that makes sense to me. Obviously there are other ethical holdouts you have, other ways you make your reasoning besides the Law of Love.
Adding one iota beyond this law makes you a Judaizer, because it makes Christians beholden to an ethic above and beyond what Jesus and Paul required, and claims that there is some sort of sin beyond that, and some sort of requirement beyond that in order to receive salvation.
by Chris Bowers on Jun 18, 2012 at 11:18 am
I think I’m going to bow out of this for now. I think I’m distracting from your and sam’s discussion. I’d much rather read that and focus on it then get side tracked by my own arguments.
by Chris Bowers on Jun 19, 2012 at 4:14 am
I’ll file my own thoughts and we can have a more well rounded discussion between just us later, I’m starting to lose track of where I end and sam begins.
by Chris Bowers on Jun 19, 2012 at 4:15 am