I’ve been reading a lot lately about progressive Christianity. I want to be up to date with what’s going on theologically around me. The most disturbing things I’ve come across are these: The “pliability” of Scripture (and the nature of its authority), and the idea that love makes everything okay.
To address the second thing first, love does not make everything ok. Jesus tells us to love everyone – our neighbor, our enemy, God, and ourselves – but he also called us to “do the will of [his] Father in heaven(Mt. 7:21, 24-25; Jn. 14:15).” God’s love for us is the driving force of the Gospel. His love fore Israel is the main theme of the Old Testament. The Law and the Prophets hang on love. But what does it mean to love, in Biblical terms?
When Christ gives the two great commands, the first and most important is to love God. In Deuteronomy we’re told to love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind. And how do we do that? We praise and obey Him. There’s more to it than that, of course, but if you boil it down, that’s what we come to. I won’t go into a description of this, because if you can disagree with it, I think you have bigger fish to fry.
The second command was like the first, to love one another. Obviously this love is not the same…we aren’t supposed to praise and obey each other indefinitely. But Christ gives many examples of what it means to love one another.
He eats with the outcasts, lifts up the sick and poor, focuses on children, and lays his life down for us. But, there is something that Christians are being asked to do by “progressive” and mainline churches that goes against Christ’s example, and Paul’s teaching. We are being asked to endorse sin under the pretense of loving one another. But Jesus did something quite different.
In Matthew 16, after Peter’s confession, Jesus rebukes him fiercely, calling him Satan. “You do not have in mind the things of God,” he says, “but the things of men.” Peter was working from the human assumption that God wouldn’t allow his Son, the Messiah, to be killed. We, much the same way, work from the human assumption that God wouldn’t allow someone to be born in a way that forces them to resist their natural desires.
Obviously, the subject at hand is homosexuality. And while I have known and befriended a handful of gay people in my lifetime, I remain convinced of God’s intention for romantic relationships. In the less applicable Mosaic Law, the text says that a man is not to lie with another man as he would lie with a woman, and the same thing for women. The prevailing wisdom says of this that there are two different verbs relating to sex, translated as “to lie with” and “to know”. The former is a reference to sex without attachment…one-night-stands and such. The latter refers to sex within a loving relationship. So, to make them current, we’ll use “have sex” and “make love”. What we’re left with is a simple “all a is b, but not all b is a.” All apples are fruits, but not all fruits are apples. All sharks are fish, but not all fish are sharks. You get it right? All love-making is sex, but not all sex is love-making. So, by comparison, to know is always to lie with, but to lie with isn’t always to know. So, if the Bible says you can’t have sex with a certain group of people, does that mean you can make love? I’m gonna go with…no.
But since the Mosaic Law was fulfilled, I’ll have to look at something a little more current. First, 1 Corinthians. Paul says here that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God, and includes in his list four sexual categories: the sexually immoral, adulterers, male prostitutes, and homosexual offenders. Depending on your translation the words may be different in English. Many will tell you that “homosexual offenders” means people who commit crimes of a homosexual nature (rape, generally). Unfortunately, that doesn’t really hold up to logic. If that was the case, why did he single out two types of homosexual activity? Why not lump them in with “sexually immoral” if you had to do something that would have been immoral if it were heterosexual to fall in the category? And why didn’t he enumerate female prostitutes as well? Does that mean it’s ok, since he didn’t say it? Obviously not.
Some theologians will posit that “porneia” the word translated “sexually immoral” refered specifically to pagan temple prostitutes, and therefore fits perfectly into this passage. But then why would Paul say that there must not be even a hint of “porneia” among us, if it meant temple prostitutes and not sexual immorality?
Alright, since you can hide behind Greek on that one I’ll back track a bit to Romans 1. “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
Again, people will say that this is condemnation of sex without love (based on the “inflamed with lust” part). But that’s not what I’m looking at. It also says that women gave up natural relations for unnatural ones, and in the same way, men “abandoned natural relations with women”. So, presumably, “natural relations” occur between members of opposing gender (heterosexual, if you need it spelled out). Don’t be fooled by people saying that the problem was that the men and women described switched from their “natural” orientation (be that hetero- or homosexual). That’s just bad theology.
So, when you combine these passages you get a pretty clear Biblical view on homosexuality. But there’s where the other problem begins. Apparently, “for the Bible tells me so” is no longer a sufficient answer for Christians. Strange, considering that’s what sparked the Reformation, which was the starting point for most of the mainline denominations.
Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion…
shadowreign
Perhaps an outsiders opinion could be helpful.
Myself, I am a pagan. I have many gods that I worship and I can tell you that the perception of us has not really dimmed all that much in the past few years. Despite some really cheesy movies and bad publicity, our “appearance” in the world has not changed much.
You wonder why such dim views of the conservative christian are presented. I can tell you.
First, there needs to be clarification to the things I’m about to say. Bear in mind that my assertions of christians in this response are generalizations only and while may encompass christians over a large range, they do not reflect on christians as a whole.
The christian community for the most part has been seen in recent years attempting to influence public policy using doctrine as its base. To cite examples, the state where I live, a prominient member of the state government repeatedly fought against tattoo parlors and in every argument used biblical passages in house meetings as his stance for his position.
This blatant use of faith to drive policy is not the only instance of christian “corruption” that can be cited. There are many others.
Eric Rudolph and his bombings of abortion clinic, while celebrated in christian circles, was considered murderous and evil by many others.
Point being, the christian community in general wants to see a gradual evolution towards a theologically based society where a mixture of biblical and secular law exist.
Another problem that many have with the christian community is how it interpets the bible to suit the situation. Even amongst themselves, christians argue as to how the bible should be interpreted: figuratively or literally. TO make matters worse, there is the ongoing saga of which books are acceptable to the christian world. The book of enoch, the doctrine of Q, and many others are still disputed by the church as uncertain or heresy. Interestingly, it was not God, but man, running a corrupt catholic institution that decided which books were going to be acceptable in the bible. Considering that God’s word is “perfect” would not all books be acceptable?
There is so much more that I could expound upon, but time is not my friend at the moment.
I will summarize as such: You ask why the rest of world catagorizes as they do, but your brethern threaten the rights of so many with self-righteous statements and hate speeches about the evils that the rest of the world indulges in.
Granted, I respect your right to believe what you believe and live how you wish to live. But can you truly say that you are right to deny others that same right? Is it right for christians to deny gays the right to marry when christians themselves have enough problems with their own marriages as it is? Is it right for christians to deny mothers the right to end a pregnancy rather than force the harsh realities of poverty, molestation and other forms of suffering that christians protest against?
While you yourself may be on of the few who sees with their minds as well as their hearts, many of you fellow christians do not and it is those that cause the grouping that you speak of.
I offer a dialogue with you.
shadowreign666@gmail.com
perhaps we can speak further on this issue.
Charles
Thanks for responding.
I’ll preface my statements with this: my arguments here and most of my others are about the internal conflict that you mentioned. As time passes I see more and more evidence of the fact that we (Christians) shouldn’t be trying to control public policy using the Bible. For example, like some friends of mine, I don’t think it matters if the government, state or federal or whatever, approves or disapproves of gay marriage. It does matter to me whether or not the church endorses it. The same would go for tattoos. In fact, tattoos are only prohibited in the Bible when they signify committment to another god.
Anyway, i think if you talked to Christians on both the left and the right, you’ll find a very small number who approve of violence, like the bombing you mentioned. I think most of us are angry because we’re perceived as reactionary bigots because of the outlandish actions of the lower 1%.
I think it’s a minority of Christians who even hope to see some sort of theocracy in the US. there are many who think the way to effect change in our society is through governmental influence. That’s the result of poor teaching. If they studied the history of the church and the history of Israel, they’ll see that theocracy was never good, and see that Jesus and the Apostles changed society through a “grassroots” movement. Good teaching can fix this.
As far as the canonization o the Bible, the church chose books that could be verified, not only by tradition, but also because they are extensively quoted by the Church Fathers, who lived and wrote before the Constantinian era. Also, God works through man, so the “proof is in the pudding”, as they say. And while the “corrupt Catholic” church oversaw the canonization, the books they approve directly contradicted much of the incorrect Catholic doctrine and tradition.
I respect each persons right to believe what they choose, but I expect those who call themselves Christians to abide by the full teachings of Christ.
Conservative Christians get the wrap of hating “sinners” and not caring about the poor. But that’s not true, many conservative churhes spend millions in benevolence work every year. The SBC was early, if not first, on the scene after Hurricane Katrina. But because most of us don’t think the government should decide for us how much we donate and where it goes, we’re seen as uncaring and selfish. But the private Christian charities are much more efficient than the government. But that’s another conversation.
Thanks for the thoughts.