Working Out Truth and Love in the Context of the Church, Homosexuals, and Marriage (2nd post)

Part II: Sources of Truth

As Christians, we must be careful where we get our ideas about what is true and right. We are easily embarrassed by the contrast between biblical pronouncements on morality, which appear so foolish and backward, and the seemingly self-evident moral statements of our culture. However, we have been warned: "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise" (1 Cor. 1:27). With this in mind, I must warn you that, in your article, you appear to court two attractive but ultimately disastrous strategies: i) taking the inexorable progress of history towards a certain belief as justification for the truth of that belief and ii) citing past misuse of the Bible as a disqualification for its use as an authority on right and wrong in a particular arena. While your underlying point may be important and even justified, these types of arguments represent a troubling approach to truth and the Bible that we should not encourage fellow Christians to take, no matter what else is at stake.

Getting Truth from Progress?

Though you never explicitly spell out the first argument, your article gives the sense that because our society has proceeded from wrong beliefs to right beliefs on a number of issues in the past couple centuries, and because homosexual practice is one of those things that our society is coming to accept, that means that homosexual practice is good. But perhaps I have constructed a straw man. If instead you believe that homosexuality in the proper context is good based on the authority of God and his word, and if you are simply celebrating the widespread realization of an unchanging truth, then that is a valid way of making your case. However, if you really are using this idea of inevitable progress to say that the ever-increasing acceptance of homosexual practice proves that it is good, then I must object. True, at certain times in history, the vector of evolving social opinion has indeed pointed towards what is right, but many other times it has swung in the opposite direction. For instance, the moral "progress" of Roman society at the height of its power involved more and more violent forms of public entertainment, demonstrating gradual acceptance of a wrong practice. More recently, the global intellectual community in the late 19^th and 20^th centuries increasingly bought into the idea that the struggle between nations and cultures should be encouraged in order to promote survival of the fittest. Decent and well-meaning people accepted this philosophy as an effective means of improving and strengthening humanity; that is, until it found its ultimate expression in Hitler’s paradigm of the “strong” Aryans exterminating the “weak” Jews. In this case, people found out the hard way that extrapolation from a snapshot of social “progress” does not necessarily lead to what is right.

Society does not move in a uniform, automatic fashion from wrong to right, nor should we be content to wait for such progress, even if it does occur. As Christians who have been given insight into the underlying structure of God’s moral universe, we must be leaders. We need to guide society’s understanding of morality: separating the good from the bad, correcting our culture where it goes astray and affirming it where it remains true. In the issue at hand, we the church need to be leaders in fighting discrimination against homosexuals and welcoming them into our communities as children of God, even as we wrestle with the moral status of homosexual practice and articulate a coherent ethic of sexuality for our distorted and confused culture.

Reliable Truth from the Bible?

With respect to the second tactic I mentioned, though again you make no specific claim in your article, the reader comes away with the implication that the Bible, since it has been the source of supposedly convincing support for bigotry in the past, cannot be fully trusted as a guide to moral truth. I would argue that the historical abuses of the Bible for the sake of tyranny and discrimination are anything but convincing to one who reads the Bible with diligence, humility, and insight. I know that in at least one respect I am preaching to the choir now, since you make this same point yourself on your website with regard to the biblical passages commonly used to attack homosexuals. Someone who reads these “clobber passages” with a casual eye (perhaps blinded by a prior agenda) may come to the conclusion that God calls for us to judge and punish homosexual behavior; however, a careful reading of these verses in their historical, textual, and theological context shows that they do not explicitly or universally condemn homosexual acts between committed partners and that they certainly do not authorize violence or ostracism against homosexuals. Failing to read the Bible the right way can lead to disastrous results, but the lesson here is not that the Bible is not to be trusted, but rather that superficial readings of the Bible are not to be trusted. The Bible warns readers that it is sharper than any two-edged sword: casual wielders of such an instrument are a danger to themselves and others, but in skilled hands, the Bible is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).

However, the careful development and articulation of a holistic biblical viewpoint will never fail to reveal the truth, and this truth can always be recognized by the hallmark of power and love, for those with eyes to see. Perhaps this is what you mean when you say that you accept the Bible’s authority “as mythos, as story, as a book that gives our lives meaning and deepens our relationship with God.” (from the comment pages of your RD article). As long as you don’t mean that the Bible is mere mythos and mere story – if you recognize that God’s word is meant to effect profound and dramatic changes in our attitudes and behaviors and that even the parts we find challenging must never be dismissed as outdated or irrelevant – then I agree with you. The same goes for the other side: the Bible is not merely literal, not merely a straightforward list of commands to be fired from the hip. It is a complete record of God’s creative and redemptive activity and must be read as a whole, with an eye for overall messages, not succinct formulas. Discerning truth from Scripture requires hard work -- relentless pursuit of a faithful interpretation that gives God the maximum credit for his words by neither dismissing them nor distorting them.

Slavery: a Case Study

Take slavery, for instance: a casual reading of the explicit biblical references to slavery suggests that God possibly condones, and at least does not condemn, the institution of slavery. These superficial readings were propagated and used to support the type of slavery practiced in the antebellum South. But if the passages on slavery are seen in their proper theological and historical context, then the Bible, without using the term slavery, clearly denounces and forbids the essence of slavery and what makes it evil. The correct theological framework for looking at slavery involves the concept of authority and its application to human relationships. Broadly, authority was originally set up by God to serve a good purpose (that of providing order and direction) but has since been corrupted by the Fall and human sin. Authority was meant to be limited and shared in the context of a hierarchy with God as the ultimate authority, and it was to be used by the one in authority for the good of the one under authority. In our fallen world, authority is somewhat of a dirty word because humans routinely take advantage of their authority, expanding it inappropriately and using it to impose their will on others without regard to their interests. As described in the Old Testament, slavery was one instance in which humans would abuse their authority over others if left unchecked, so the Old Testament sought to regulate it by reminding the master that his authority was not absolute and by spelling out protections for the slave in the law against abuse.

However, if one only reads the passages that mention slavery by name, the protections are woefully inadequate from a humanitarian perspective, and God, by his silence, seems to leave the door open for justification of slavery. But slavery falls under the broader umbrella of relationships of authority, about which God has a great deal to say. Both the Old and New Testaments make clear everywhere that God holds those in authority (governmental and religious leaders, employers, masters, etc.) to a high standard in their treatment of those under their authority, and his anger burns against those who misuse it. This standard obviously applies to slavery, for God speaks through the prophets in the powerful language of liberating his people from slavery to sin. His choice of slavery as a metaphor for evil further indicates that he views slavery as the poster child of fallen authority run amok. Deeply distressed, God promises to rectify the situation by sending his Messiah king, who will not only exercise benevolent authority but will also change the hearts of people so that nobody ever misuses their authority again. So while the Bible does not renounce slavery in name, it roundly condemns and actively opposes the substance of slavery, which involves the distortion and abuse of authority.

Antebellum slavery in the South embodied this substance because it involved masters holding absolute, lifelong authority over slaves and their progeny without any protections against abuse. People who found justification for slavery in the biblical passages that explicitly mention it make the same mistake as people who read six or seven verses and find there an excuse for hatred and mistreatment of homosexuals: they fail to take a holistic view of biblical truth. Those who did read their Bibles in order to understand God’s message were compelled to fight for abolition, as is evident from the profoundly biblical content of the preaching and activism of people like William Wilberforce and William Lloyd Garrison. It appears to most people today that these activists had little biblical ground to stand on, compared to the slave-owners who could quote their seemingly straightforward verses in support of slavery. But those who read and understand the Bible and its treatment of authority can see that the abolitionists occupied a veritable continent of God-ordained truth, while their opponents inhabited a raft of their own construction. These examples demonstrate that the truth of the Bible cannot be plucked simply from a few isolated passages; it must be forged from principles which are, in turn, mined from the text as a whole.

Still, the question lingers “Why didn’t God explicitly forbid slavery in the law, if he saw how corrupt it would become?” In other words, even if God meant well on the issue of slavery, he was terribly ineffective at getting rid of it. In fact, we humans managed to abolish it on our own where he failed, so why should we take our cues from him when it comes to moral issues? However, judging the effectiveness of God and humans on this issue requires a closer look, and we find that God is light-years ahead of us. God has realized from the beginning that a legal prohibition against slavery would do little to solve the underlying problem of corrupt humans abusing authority. Even if it were illegal to own a slave, people would still find ways to make others do backbreaking work with no say in the matter, no hope of freedom, and no reward for their labor. This principle was sadly demonstrated in America after the civil war: the legal abolition of slavery was a very righteous thing, but for more than a century afterwards, White people continued to exercise unjust authority over Black people, abusing them as badly as before, through less direct, more institutional means. Even today, authority in general is still open to legal abuse. Though there are many kind employers, the stereotypical American workplace (to say nothing of the developing world) is a place of oppression and dehumanization dressed in professionalism.

To be sure, God hates slavery in all its forms and wants it gone from this earth, but he realizes that the substance of slavery is still very much alive today and that truly abolishing it requires more than legislation. In our age, we tend to think that if we can just elect the right leaders and enact the right policies, we can eradicate every social ill from the top down. But God’s ways are different from our ways. While God absolutely applauded the abolitionists and expects us to do everything in our power to protect the weak against abuse by the strong, yet God has always understood that only a change in people’s hearts will address the root of the problem. That’s why he sent a Savior instead of a political leader, and that’s why social justice is not possible without salvation. Our job is to bring God’s good news to politics, economics, society, culture, etc., but our work proceeds from the bottom up and begins with the completed work of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: The Source of Progress

In today’s world, the work of Christ seems superfluous. We have great faith in the intrinsic goodness of humanity, and we believe that society will inevitably become better and better as each new generation throws off the errors and prejudices of its predecessors and exposes its own innate virtue. We kind of like Jesus and his teachings, but we are suspicious of Christianity and the Bible because we perceive that they hold back social progress. But, if we lose our historical and geographical tunnel vision, or even if we take a hard look within ourselves, we realize that advancement is not inevitable and that whatever innate goodness we have is buried in piles of selfish rubble. Rather, what good has been accomplished is largely the result of God invading human culture with his radical ideals and working justice through his faithful servants. As such, the careful study and holistic application of God’s word is our best hope (I believe our only hope) for lasting progress.

The discussion of the church, homosexuality, and marriage resumes in the next post.