Abstract for TI Colloquium

I am presenting a paper at a colloquium on theological interpretation this month. I put myself in for this last year, knowing full well that I would regret it but having committed to do it have to do something.  This should hopefully be a reworking of the last chapter of my MTh thesis but I have been away from the material so long I'm worried even I'm not going to be convinced by my arguments!  I'm going to get started on the paper in the next few days, be keen to hear any initial reaction or questions to the abstract.  This will be my first proper presentation at an academic colloquium and there are some fairly heavy weight contributors so it will be inspiring and perhaps intimidating.  It will hopefully also result in a book so will be a first publication for me so I will try not to screw it up!

Paul’s Unconventional Sexual Ethics: A Theological Reading of 1 Cor 6:12-20

ABSTRACT


David Horrell argues that Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 6:12 – 7:16 is based on the “presumption” that sex with a prostitute is illicit, while sex with a spouse, believing or not, is permitted.  He claims that, “while Paul uses arguments about holiness and bodily union with Christ to support and promote his sexual ethics, the substantive ethical convictions themselves are not derived from these arguments but are already assumed.”  Likewise, Bernard Lategan, in a study on Paul’s ethics in Galatians, comes to a similar conclusion: that the content of Paul’s ethics is merely conventional but that “Paul develops a new understanding of what ethical responsibility entails – an understanding that flows directly from his theological assessment of the new existence in faith.”  Thus for Horrell and Lategan Paul’s motivation and responsibility for ethical behaviour may be transformed by his theology, but the actual ethics are both “universal” and “conventional.”  In opposition to this view, this paper will give initial consideration to what a conventional 1st century ethic of prostitution might be, with particular reference to Josephus and Dio Chrysostom.  Paul’s own ethic will then be explored revealing both a radical contrast to the conventional ethics of his contemporaries and a robustly theological ethic constructed from the perspectives of God, Christ, and the Spirit.  Finally it will be argued that, in this instance, a theological reading of the text has served as a valuable corrective to the readings produced by the social science methodology of Horrell and others.

Margaret Davies on Prostitution and the Bible

Google Books really is a splendid resource, and it is getting to the satge now that undergraduate students can probably find enough information on it to not have to read any real book at all for assignments.  Margaret Davies has a chapter in The Bible in Human Society called "On Prostitution" (pp225-49) and it is that piece of work that I knew I would find soon after submitting my thesis that I would have loved to be able to interact with in my thesis.  But such is life!  Only the first part of the essay is visible via Google Books, but there is enough in there to still be a very worthwhile read.  I was very interested that for a feminist biblical scholar she seemed intent on interpreting the biblical evidence in the worst possible way.  This may reflect my own personal bias but I think there is something extraordinary about the Bible in its historical context that means that its message seems to be more contrast than correspondence with the misogyny of the world around it and should be interpreted accordingly.  Her all too brief but very interesting treatment of 1 Cor 6:12-20 (p240) fits in well with my own thesis.

She also briefly touches on Dio Chrysostom's treatment of prostitution (p242) and gives him credit for trying to marshall public opinion against the exploitation of prostitutes in the 2nd century while the Christians did no such thing.  To which I would respond, 1) the Christians were in no position to do any such thing, and 2) my own analysis of Chrysostom's argument does not put him in such a noble light although Davies' statement is essentially true, her failure to even refer to the particular passage of Chrysostom's (it would be Discourse 7:133-37) suggests she may not have read it herself yet.

Quote of The Day: Margaret Davies on Prostitutes and Capitalists

The Pauline denunciations of prostitution are usually coupled with denunciations of extortion, but churches have usually been more keen to exclude unrepentant prostitutes than 'venture capitalists.'

Margaret Davies, "On Prostitution" in The Bible in Human Society, 1995, p240

brick-a-brak 17/10/10

• Glen thinks being a Christian might have a positive influence on some people, well duh!
• Andrew Marr says some hurtful things about bloggers, HT
• Vinoth wants to save Adam Smith from the free marketeers
• Steve gets into the proverbial Odyssey
• For those who go to academic conferences this will be depressingly familiar

• My eldest daughter really liked this picture, perhaps you will too?

Proverbs 6:20-35, Background to Paul's Sexual Ethics?

I just came across this in my devotional reading recently and was kicking myself for not spotting it earlier as this may have been something that would contribute to my already submitted thesis.

In Prov 6:20-35, we have the interesting juxtaposition of the act of adultery with the stealing of a loaf of bread, and while the bread thief will have to answer for what he has done (v31), no one thinks any the worse of him (v30), but the adulterer's punishment and disgrace are endless (v32-35).  Interestingly the prostitute's fee (a loaf) is compared with the price of adultery - death (v26).

This passage could well be important background for 1 Cor 6;12-20 and 1 Thess 4:1-8.  In 1 Cor 6:12-20 Paul contrasts the eschatologically indifferent act of the consumption of food to sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:13-14).  In 1 Cor 6:12-20 it is not the prostitute who is condemned but the adulterous believer.  In 1 Thess 4:1-8 Paul warns against adultery with the promise of vengeance (v6).  In both cases the part of wronged husband from Proverbs is assumed by God as the one to whom the believer belongs (1 Cor 6:19-20, cf. Prov 6:29) and as the one who will avenge (1 Thess 4:6, cf. Prov 6:34). 

Obviously, to show any connection would require a good deal more work, but I think there are some interesting parallels there.  Let me know what you think.  :-)

brick-a-brack

• While away, I missed this storm in a tea cup.
• I'm very excited about this book
• More on the social damage caused by pornography from Gail Dines, HT
• Three posts on homosexuality, one statistical, another emotional, and one cautional.
• A reading list from some fairly respectable theologians, 
• or if you are more historically minded, one on the crusades.

Masturbation 1: What Not To Say

Jim asks whether or not masturbation is a sin.  Which is a good question, even in these days when objective right and wrong are so unpopular. Before the topic can be approached in its own right, a few misunderstandings need to be laid to rest.

First, "the sin of Onan" was not masturbation but coitus interuptus, a form of natural birth control.  His sin was not pleasuring himself, or using birth control, but failing to do right by his dead brother and continue the family line (Gen 38:8-10).  Thus we exhaust all possible references to masturbation in the Bible.

Second, the advice given to Jim by his pastor and advice I have heard given elsewhere, that as long as you masturbate "without lust," i.e. not thinking about someone, is crazy talk.  I once heard a youth pastor tell her flock that as long as you thought about something non-sexual while doing it it was OK, and so she recommended thinking of shopping trolleys!  This ignores the possibility that, "Sexual responses can become attached to formerly neutral stimuli by pairing them with masturbation."  Simply put, you run a severe risk of developing a sexual orientation towards shopping trolleys (or whatever else you might be thinking of).  This may have the consequence of inhibiting normal sexual expression at a later date and/or of making visits to the supermarket an uncomfortable experience.

Third, advice about masturbation is usually given to young men who also suffer from another issue related to their adolescant sex drive: "nocturnal emmissions," AKA wet dreams.  Accordingly I have a heard a youth pastor teach that boys should avoid masturbation, which makes them lustful, and instead enjoy their wet dreams, which, while may be every bit as lustful, they cannot be held responsible for because they are only dreaming.  However this in no way spares boys from their lustful desires but merely makes them prey to their subconscious which is likely even more depraved than their waking imaginations.

And so the question becomes, given that all the above are dead ends, how should we begin to construct a Christian ethic regarding masturbation?  What do you think?

Pain Confuses Our Ethics

Earlier this year a Massey University survey showed that Kiwis considered assisted suicide more acceptable if the patient is in severe pain.  Which makes no sense unless pain is the ultimate evil in our society, which would presumably make pleasure the ultimate good.  Here's why, unless we have an irrational aversion to pain, this is an example of poor ethical thinking:

• If a person is in pain they will be less rational with regard to considering their death, therefore their opinion should be given less weight not more.
• Most people who suffer extreme pain will do almost anything to make it stop, in such circumstances a decision to die is actually a decision to stop the pain, not a calculated and rational decision to end their life.
• If a painful human life can be legally disposed of but one void of pain should be preserved we are essentially valuing human life based on how much pleasure those lives are capable of?  That would mean those who hedonistically pursue their own gratification at the expense of others are worth more as human beings than those who sacrificially choose to suffer in the service of others.

A second issue arising from the study is the idea that having an incurable disease means you should be helped to die.  Why does the fact that you are possibly going to die a little sooner than the rest of us mere mortals mean we should help you make it even quicker?  Surely your life has been shortened enough?  But I digress.

Unless we are willing to say that human life is devalued by the existence of pain, which I am not, then pain should not be a criteria for whether or not you help someone to kill themselves.  I think this could well be a case of confusing our own aversion to anything that interupts our pursuit of pleasure with compassion for the suffering.  Or am I wrong? 

Thesis Conclusion: Paul’s Theological Ethic in 1 Cor 6:12-20

[This is the conclusion from my thesis which I just submitted for marking yesterday, remember this is not a bunch of unfounded assertions but the conclusion to 40,000 words of argument worked out over a year and a half of research.  Not that that means you should agree with them, but remember this is just a teaser, before I publish the whole thing online.  I'm interested in your reactions, especially which areas you would like me to share/argue in more detail on the blog, but if you spot a typo don't tell me, it's too late! PS the cartoon is not in the actual thesis, but seemed appropriate for my premature moment of triumph. :-)]

 
This study has examined the notorious crux that is 1 Cor 6:12-20.  It has arrived at a reading which traces a clear and logical progression of thought through the pericope that is fully coherent with Pauline thought on Christian freedom elsewhere.  Attentiveness to the images and metaphors underlying Paul’s logic, and a desire to let them all influence the reading without privileging one over another, has exposed the intricacy and the consistency of Paul’s argument.   Even though some statements might appear un-Pauline in isolation, within the context of the pericope every phrase operates as Paul’s own words.  It is, consequently, unnecessary to attribute any of the phrases therein to the Corinthians as slogans. 

Within the pericope the citation of Gen 2:24 (1 Cor 6:16) functions as a central explanatory concept, both for the arguments preceding and the statements to follow.  For Paul, the sexual act constitutes an “oath-sign” which creates “one flesh” from the joining of the two bodies.  Πορνεία results in the removal of the believer from union with Christ, because union with Christ excludes such behaviour.  The believer unwittingly makes the prostitute his wife but treats her as if she was as insignificant as food, there only to serve an appetite.  The statement of 1 Cor 6:18, that only fornication is a sin against/into the σῶμα, is to be understood as hyperbolic, indicative of the unique seriousness with which Paul views πορνεία, rather than an absolute statement.  The pericope’s emphasis on σῶμα is indicative of a wider concern within 1 Corinthians to increase the Corinthians’ esteem for the body.  For Paul, the σῶμα is not a discrete part of the human being but an integral aspect, one that is essential both for glorifying God in this life and for the believer’s future hope.  Paul’s argument reveals how he understands the believer’s σῶμα relates to God as creator and eschatological judge, to Christ as “husband” and redeemer, and to the indwelling Holy Spirit.  When this argument is examined it is found to be theological in both form and content, constituting a dinstinctive Trinitarian argument against πορνεία, which stands in stark contrast to 1st cent. Jewish or Greek treatments of the same subject. 

Ultimately, the study of 1 Cor 6:12-20 yields rich insight into Paul’s understanding of and response to fornication.  It shows how Paul interpreted the received tradition of Jesus’ life and teaching to formulate and apply a Christian ethic in Corinth, a place removed geographically and culturally from Palestine of the same era.  It is an ethic that is radically opposed to an anti-somatic spirituality or to traditional notions of uncleanness and defilement.  It is also an ethic rooted in religious experience.  It demands that the believers situate their bodies in a matrix of relationships with God, Christ and Spirit, and also with the prostitute they seek to use for their own gratification.  Only when the Christian is attentive to their relationships with God, Christ, Spirit, and the human other can they truly exercise their Christ bought freedom as freedom from domination and as freedom for the good.

[Let me know what you think. :-)]

round em up cowboy

• John Byron on beer drinking  in the Bible
• Nijay Gupta gives his book away
• Pam thinks about faith sharing and accountability groups
• Cynthia asks for Christian posts on violence
• Ali continues his series for a better evangelical response to homosexuality
• Quotes from Moltmann on universalism and Childs on Christological reading of scripture
• Mike Bird on the ethical indicative and imperative, a subject close to my own heart
• Fake Christianity is on CNN

Sex in the City of God

Gerald Hiestand a fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology writes, regarding his book Raising Purity, "As a pastor striving to write robust eccleisal theology, a book on dating seems a bit off topic."  I have a review copy waiting on my desk, so I can't tell you if it is any good or not yet, stay tuned.  However, his story rang bells for me, because my thesis on Paul's approach to prostitution in 1 Cor 6:12-20, where I had to spend a whole year thinking about sex in the ancient world (among other things), started as an examination of Paul's use of the "body of Christ" as a metaphor for the church.  My entire 40,000 word masters thesis is in fact a (necessary) digression before I could approach the topic I was really interested in.  So why is there such a connection between sexual ethics and ecclesiology, and should it be so surprising?  Some ideas:

• Being God's people means being holy to/for God, appropriate sexual conduct has always been one of the ways of maintaining that holiness
• Being God's people involves us in a complex network of relationships, as with all human relationships, sexual conduct must be regulated in order to keep those relationships in harmony
• Being God's people makes us a diaspora in the world, to maintain our unique identity in the world means resisting conformity to the world's patterns in all areas of life, including sexuality
• Especially in light of our increasingly permissive society God's people stand in need of a distinctive, gospel centred and persuasive sexual ethics that works not as a barrier to but as an apologia for the church
• The church's public image (protestant and catholic) has been destroyed in recent decades by sexual scandal, there is an urgent need to get our house in order if we are to have a credible moral witness
• The "gay" debate is dividing churches and yet most pastors cannot give a properly theological rationale for either position, the debate is currently characterised by people not listening to each other, anyone who cares about the church needs to be engaged in this

Any other thoughts?

Lev 24:10-23, Blasphemy, the Lex Talionis and the Imago Dei

So there I am, minding my own business, reading through Leviticus with my lady wife one evening, when suddenly I realise, with great anger, that the person responsible for paragraphing my Bible (in this instance an ESV) has started a new paragraph complete with section heading in the middle of a narrative unit.  What a wally.  But then again, you could understand why someone might think v17 starts a new subject on account of the fact it moves from the topic of blasphemy to lex talionis (the law of retaliation).  The section starts in verse 10 with the introduction of a new character:

 pic from here

That is him in the middle, the offspring of a Danite woman and an Egyptian man.  It seems like he was visiting his mum (maybe he had had a row with dad?) and then, perhaps because someone made an unkind remark about his parentage, and then got into a fight and whilst he was fighting blasphemed (v11).  So the Israelites, who until that point had been enjoying watching a good fight, put him in custody until Moses could tell them what God wanted them to do (v12).  So far so good, the Lord then speaks to Moses explaining the method for dealing with blasphemers and also pointing out that the same rule applied to both aliens and citizens, one rule for all (v13-17).  But then God seems to go off on a tangent,

'If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death. Anyone who takes the life of someone's animal must make restitution—life for life. If anyone injures his neighbour, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death. You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.'  Lev 24:17-22

Which you might think started a new subject, except for the fact it cannot, because the story that started with the introduction of the half-Israelite half-Eygyptian blasphemer is yet to finish, and does in fact finish in the next verse, where his story ends with his violent death (v23).  So what is the connection between blasphemy and the lex talionis, so that the author would place the two together like that?  (if indeed they needed to "placed" together in the first place)

What occurred to me as I pondered this was whether or not this might relate to Gen 9:6, where we have another lex talionis (kind of), that "whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind." (NRSV)  Isn't the justification for this lex talionis that murder equates in someway to blasphemy against the image of God in one's fellow human?  In which case the link between blasphemy and murder has already been made.  In Lev 24:10-23, that link is simply made in another direction, possibly predicated on Gen 9:6.  The punishment for blasphemy is death, and murder is itself a form of blasphemy, so it is simple move to go from talking about blasphemy (of the name) to murder (of the image bearer).  However the law is careful to differentiate between the life of an animal and the life of a human, because the animal does not bear the image (v18, 21; animal rights activists take note!).  On the other hand it is equally careful to remove differentiation between citizen and alien in this matter, all human life is equally sacred, it is not dependent on nationality (v16, 22). 


Ok, so here are some questions:
1) How come all the conservative Christians that want the death penalty for murder don't campaign equally vigorously for the death penalty for blasphemy?
2) Those of you who don't support the death penalty for murder, what does that say about your valuing of the human life that was taken?
3) Matt 5:38-42 anyone?

The Sword that Heals

This weekend I found a battered copy of Martin Luther King jnr's book Why We Can't Wait, (Signet, 1963).  I am amazed at how moving it is to read, even despite my cultural, geographical, and chronological distance from the events.  Expect plenty of quotes over the next while:

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon.  It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.  It is a sword that heals. (p26)

The Negro turned his back on force not only because he knew he could not win his freedom through physical force but also because he believed that through physical force he could lose his soul. (p34)

Acceptance of nonviolent direct action was a proof of a certain sophistication on the part of the Negro masses; for it showed they dared to break with the old, ingrained concepts of our society.  The eye-for-an-eye philosophy, the impulse to defend oneself when attacked, has always been held as the highest measure of American manhood.  We are a nation that worships the frontier tradition, and our heroes are those who champion justice through violent retaliation against injustice.  It is not simple to adopt the credo that moral force has as much strength and virtue as the capacity to return a physical blow; or that to refrain from hitting back requires more will and bravery than the automatic reflex of defence. (p37)

The Return of the Abortion Debate

Well, with the news that Steve Chadwick is wanting to make abortions more accesible and reform the 30 year old law on the matter the pro-life groups are going to be coming out of the woodwork like Thunderbird 5 from a tropical island.  Coming from the UK where abortion was never discussed in the political sphere (although i think that has changed in recent years) this is something a little refreshing.  NZ with its massivelly high rates of abortion really needs a reasoned and empassioned public debate on the issue.  The problem is that when the pro-life groups come out we often get only passion and not reason, heat and not light.

The truth is, as much as I believe in the sanctity of life and would do anything to support a friend or relative in the decision to bring to term rather than terminate a baby, I have to shout, the formula abortion = murder is just plain unhelpful.  Abortion is a fact of life, and whenever and wherever it has been criminalised, that has merely driven it underground, desperate women have always sought to terminate babies and they will do so by any means, safe if available, unsafe if not.  There is no way we should ever advocate for a return to a world where the backstreet abortion is the only option for a woman who decides to end a pregnancy.

Magret Sparrows' declaration that, "abortion is a medical matter, not a crime," is equally unhelpful.  Medicine is not a stand alone arbiter of right and wrong, medicine must be governed by ethics.  Abortion is an ethical matter, and like crime and child abuse statistics merely focussing the attention on the act totally loses sight of the real issue, that is the causes and contributors to that act.  Focusing attention on the act only gives people a chance to condemn or feel condemned.  There is enough guilt associated with abortion without any outside help being required.  By the same token, removing any element of morality or conscience from such an action dehumanises the women involved and suggests that they are nothing more than a lump of animated meat and all that matters is their continuing biological functioning.

The real question is, why nearly 18,000 abortions are needed or felt to be needed in NZ every year and what do we as a society need to do in order to reduce the number of women who find themselves in a situation where this appears to be their only option?

Let me know what you think.

[Update: some further cogent reflections from Dita de Boni who argues for why the law needs changing and discussing the likely reasons for late term abortions.]

Love is NOT all you need

Richard Hays in The Moral Vision of the New Testament, (p202)  gives three reasons why "love" is inadequate as a unifying theme for NT ethics (and by implication why it is inadequate for ethics today).

1.  Mark, Acts, Hebrews, and Revelation "resist any attempt to sythesze their moral visions by employing love as a focal image . . . Despite the powerful theological uses to which the motif of love is put by Paul and John, that motif cannot serve as the common denominator for New Testament Ethics."  Instead Hays suggests "community, cross and new creation."

2.  "What the New testament means by love is embodied in the concretely in the cross."  and so to treat love apart from the cross is to result in "conceptual abstraction, away from the specific image of the cross."

3.  "The term ["love"] has become debased in popular discourse; it has lost its power of discrimination, having become a cover for all manner of vapid self indulgence."  "We can recover the power of love only by insisting that love's meaning is to be discovered in the New Testament's story of Jesus - therefore, in the cross."

So who do you believe, Hays or the Beatles?

Jensen on Sex, Slavery and the NT

This is another rare instance of a NT scholar noticing the elephant in the room of the sexual use of slaves.  This comes at the end of Jensen's clinical demolition of an earlier article by Bruce Malina that argued that porneia, a NT term for sexual immorality, did not include non commercial and non-cultic extra-marital sex. My only complaints are that he does not discuss the fact that male slaves might also be preyed upon and he neglect the evience of Philemon and 1 Cor 7:21 as Paul's implicit desire to see slaves freed.

The following remarks venture into what may be called purely indirect evidence.  This is less satisfactory, but nevertheless it seems necessary to ask whether we can suppose that the New Testament was wholly silent on the difficult and delicate question of relations between master and famle slave.

The was a close connection bewteen slavery and prostitution in the Hellenistic world.  Liddell-Scott give the probable derivation of porne, prostitute, from pernemi, because "Greek prostitutes were commonly bought slaves."  But also frequent was the use of female household slaves, who were subject to the whims of their masters for sexual relations.  In Israel too, this sort of relationship was l;egitimated.  Exod. xxi 7-11 deals with the Israelite girl sold as a slave and Deut. xxi 10-14 with the prisoner of war.   The basic protection offered each is that she might not later be sold.

It can hardly be supposed that this srt of behaviour was tolerated in the Christian community, but the silence of the New Testament is surprising.  Paul is aware of the hold a master can have over his slave for evil, for he uses it as an illustration (Rom vi 16), but this has no place in his exhortations.  Instead we find the New Testament writers exhorting slaves not to seek their freedom (1 Cor vii 21-23); to obey wilingly (Eph vi 5-8); to render their masters respect for the sake of God and the church, mst especially if the masters are Christian (1 Tim vi 1-2); to try to please them in every way and not contradict them (Tit ii 9); to obey not only good and reasonable masters but even those who are harsh (1 Pet ii 18-20).

Human Nature being what it is, the abuse of female slaves would tend to persist, even in Christian circles, especialy those subject to hellenistic influences, unlessthe standard moral teaching made the matter clear.  The exhortations we have in the epistkles merely tell slave owners not to threaten (Eph vi 9) and to be just and fair (Col iv 1).  Unless we are willing to suppose that this important matter was completely ignored, we must suppose that the early Christians understood it to be included in the frequent exhortations addressed to all about avoiding porneia and that, therefore, the term included this as well as other sorts of extra-marital intercourse.

From Joseph Jensen "Does Porneia Mean Fornication? A Critique of Bruce Malina" 

Novum Testamentum, Vol. 20, Fasc. 3 (Jul., 1978), pp. 161-184 

Let me know what you think :-)

Virtue Can Cause Atheism Too

With all the recent excitement about a book to argue the thesis that sin can be a cause of atheism us believers need to not get too excited.  It is worth remembering that, while some manifestly have turned away from faith because of moral failure, others have turned away from faith because they were too moral to accept what they felt their faith demanded of them, whether in terms of action, attitude, or belief. 

Not only that but moral failure is often a catalyst for people to find faith as they come face to face with their own moral bankruptcy and seek redemption.  However, a church that is full of judgmentalism will succeed in creating atheists both through moral failure and moral virtue and will also prevent those seeking redemption from finding it there.  That is why the Lord told us to take the plank (judgmentalism) out of our own eye before we dare to address the dust in the eye of another.

Sex isn't icky for Paul

One of the fascinating results of my thesis research (IMHO) has been to realise how much we tend to impose modern evangelical conceptions of sexual purity onto the NT texts (even if we don't hold to them ourselves).  In the Torah sex has a defiling potential so, to use Lev 15:16-18 for example, an emmission of semen requires a ritual bath (for the man and for the woman if she is involved) and a wait until evening before they can be cosidered clean again.  Sex is apparently dirty and needs to be dealt with to avoid contaminating other things and rendering them dirty too.

But in NT Christianity purity ceases to revolve around that which is dirty and becomes an issue of the heart's intentions.  The classic text where this revolution takes place is Mark 7:17-23.  In this text Jesus denies the ability of any external physical thing to make someone "unclean."  As witnessed to by Jesus' ministry this included corpses, lepers, and women with bleeding, all of whom should never have been touched under the Torah's purity regulations.  And yet through his miracles Jesus showed that his "pure" compassionate intentions were stronger than the defiling capacity of those external facts, he could touch and remain undefiled.  Instead his "purity" often spread to those he touched, as evidenced by their healing.

Unfortunately readers of Paul often come to the passages where he talks about sexual purity and think that he has reverted back to the Levitical idea of sex being "icky".  That it is something dirty which will stick to you and make you dirty too.  But although Paul uses purity language in regard to his exhortations regarding proper sexual conduct, careful reading reveals that the purity Paul is concerned with stems not from a revulsion towards icky sex but from other considerations.  In both 1 Cor 6:12-7:40 and 1 Thes 4:3-8, which are the two key Pauline passages on sex, the driving concerns are not the potential for contamination but,

1. the respect of people's sexual property "rights" (1 Thess 4:6; 1 Cor 6:20; 7:4)
2. the demonstration of the self-control that comes from a Spirit filled life, i.e. not being dominated by the gratification of one's urges (1 Cor 6:13, 19; 7:9; 1 Thess 4:4, 7)
3. the maintenance of the believer's right relationship with members of the community and with God/Christ (1 Cor 6:15, 1 Thess 4:1, 6, 8)

Within those concerns Paul's purity language is consistently used regarding the interior, spiritual, and social effects of sexual immorality, the consequences of the sexually immoral acts not the external fact of the act at all.  To my mind this means that contemporary Christian sexual ethical reasoning must move away from purity language because we are unable to get out of our heads that certain external actions are just plain "icky" in and of themselves.  Instead, if we are going to critique promiscuity, homosexuality, or pre-marital sex, we need to do so from a point of view of how these acts actually effect those who particpate in them and the society in which they live and what motivates those actions. 

Apart from being "Biblical," the other real advatnage to this approach is that it both allows us to argue in terms that a non-believer can meaningfully engage with (i.e. personal and social consequences), but also forces us to respect the fact that a key reason for our own sexual restraint is maintenance of a relationship with God, an aim many non-believers don't share (funnily enough).  This alone should cause us to slow down if we are under the impression we need continually agitate to legislate Christian sexual morality in our secular nations.

let me know what you think :-)

Bribery is OK by Me!

An intrepid OT teacher ponders the ethics of bribery here. 

I would tentatively suggest that the situation is less complicated.  By bribing a border guard you can claim no complicity in the corrupt system.  If you tried to bribe a immigration officer in Heathrow or Auckland Airport you would find that the system is not influenced at all by your bribe.  Equally your refusal to bribe a corrupt guard would do little to change the corrupt guard or system.  Rather than a consequence based ethic how about a virtue (character based) ethic.

What sort of person bribes a border guard?  If you are bribing him to allow you to smuggle narcotics or children for prostitution then your bribery is motivated by avarice and lack of concern for others.  Your bribery is bad because you are bad in motive. If you are bribing him because of your compassion for a refugee from a corrupt and despotic regime your bribery is good, because it is motivated by your compassion.  Bribe for the glory of God!  (Of course accepting bribes is a different matter altogether.)

Then there is alaways Proverbs 17:8, :-)


Now thinking about the ethical problems in marginal situations has made me think a of a trickier example.   Anti-slavery groups often debate whether or not it is ethical to buy slaves their freedom.  On the one hand you are showing compassion to the individual (virtue) but on the other hand you are fueling the slave trade by becoming a buyer (consequence). 

Let me know what you think :-)

The Missing Elements of Human Rights: A Theological Opportunity?

I've posted a fair bit about human rights and human responsibility, but generally only to be critical. I have yet to try to construct anything useful. Roman Catholic Theologian Anthony Kelly makes the same critique but with reference to some interesting and little know data:

While it is true that the terrible toll of the victims of totalitarian regimes have pricked the conscience of the international community, that conscience has not been uniformly reformed. The moral revolution that was hoped for has been frustrated in innumerable instances. One example is the prevalence of a spurious language of victimhood. Claiming “victim status” has now become a familiar manipulative technique in politics. A contributing factor in this distortion is the missing element in the UNDHR itself. As it framers admitted, there was no accompanying declaration of responsibilities—on the part of persons, groups or institutions—to assume the duty of implementing the basic rights in question. Another document was promised, but never appeared. With no reasoned grounding of universal human rights in universal responsibility, rights-language can be simply taken over by a consumerist culture. If that is the case, the appeal to rights is no more than a political machination, a useful rhetoric for the exercise of power. It balloons out into an uncontrolled assertion of rights, individual or corporate, against others, without any commitment to the common good and of responsibility for the truly powerless. And so it happens that the originally noble conception of human rights for all is trivialised, liable to exploitation by the politically adept few. Shared responsibility for the most vulnerable and powerless is thus compromised. A study by L. C. Keith sought to assess how much belonging to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights affected the promotion of human rights. [Journal for Peace Research 36, no. 1 (1999): 95-118] After examining a hundred and seventy eight countries over an eighteen-year period, his conclusions were not optimistic: observable impact was minimal.

He sees this lacuna as an opportunity for constructive theological work:

The very gap in the UNDHR Declaration and the current confusion as to what constitutes the basis of human rights is an open door for Christian theology, inviting it to recover a distinctive voice. The message would be something like this: Jesus’ rising from the dead undermines the history of mutual blaming and victimisation. For he freely exposed himself to the violence of cultural forces in order to disrupt, once and for all, the old world order based on the victimisation of others. His resurrection is not a new thought, but an interuptive and communicative event. It has its effect in a human community transformed into the image of the self-giving love of God. Jesus is glorified, not so as to glorify the role of the victim, but to unmask the victimising dynamics latent in all societies. The resurrection of this victim has a disturbing but liberating effect in the human community. It demands to be taken as the decisive influence in human relationships, the inexhaustible inspiration of responsibility for those victimised by suffering and oppression. Those who have suffered (victims, martyrs), and those who have caused such suffering (the enemy), are alike enfolded in the originary compassion and forgiveness embodied in the risen One.

Extracts from the article "The Resurrection and Moral Theology".

I think Kelly is working here in the direction that Jurgen Moltmann has already taken, and I'm surprised not to see Moltmann referenced in the article (he has been heavily involved in the ecumenical movement.) The themes of hope and the resurrection' s contradiction of death and violence are Moltmann's bread and butter.

The real concern I have is that while such thinking provides an ethic for the Christian it is is not easily applicable to the political sphere where most people live in ignorance of the resurrection of Christ and its implications. Moltmann has been saying this sort of stuff for decades and many Christians have taken notice, but it has had little or no effect on such organisations as the UN because the logic on which it is founded is peculiarly Christian. I have to be honest, in my old age I think I am becoming a Niebuhrian Christian Realist. I don't like it, I especially don't like how close it seems to bring me to being a Lutheran "two kingdoms" kind of thinker, but it is better than classical just war theory (although this guy doesn't think so) because it refuses to relativise the teaching of Christ .