Keller getting the OT wrong

Tim Keller makes a careful and patient explanation of how we should pick and choose from the OT laws.
The problem is the whole ceremonial/moral law divide is nonsense. The OT laws are not arranged into moral and ceremonial categories, no such division could have existed in the minds of its original audience and no indication is ever given in the text as to such categories. The only way to make such categorisations is to impose totally arbitrary criteria. Admittedly Keller's criteria has the appearance of being less than arbitrary,

One way to respond to the charge of inconsistency may be to ask a counter-question—“Are you asking me to deny the very heart of my Christian beliefs?” If you are asked, “Why do you say that?” you could respond, “If I believe Jesus is the the resurrected Son of God, I can’t follow all the ‘clean laws’ of diet and practice, and I can’t offer animal sacrifices. All that would be to deny the power of Christ’s death on the cross. And so those who really believe in Christ must follow some Old Testament texts and not others.”

Now before I am misunderstood I both advocate Christological readings of the OT and am a conservative on issues of sexual immorality. Keller has ably demonstrated why some OT laws are not followed by Christians. What he has failed to do is show why any OT laws should be followed by Christians. Obviously Keller has in mind Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 which he wants to still carry weight because to him this is not a ceremonial issue but a moral one. But the argument from the other side of the debate is that both these chapters are set firmly in the context of OT worship and avoidance of idolatry, yes the chapters feature incest and bestiality, but they also feature Canaanite idolatry and unclean animals. More to the point, "man lying with man as with a woman" is more likely a description of male temple prostitution than a modern monogamous and loving homosexual relationship. The modern social construct of homosexuality did not exist when Leviticus was written so it can hardly be expected to be addressing our contemporary situation in quite such a direct and convenient manner.

Keller is wrong because Christians do not follow any of the OT laws - we follow Christ. We may extract principles from the OT for our theology and ethics - an example of where this is done constructively is around the year of Jubilee, an example of this being less useful is Leviticus 18 - but this is fraught with danger if not done very carefully. As Christians we only read the OT as Christians, we are God's people not because we follow the law but because of the blood of Jesus (Rev 5). We read the OT to meet Christ, not to find legal precedent for our moral convictions. So where do we get our moral convictions from? Well I'll have to leave that for another post, it is time for breakfast and to wake my kids up for school.

Let me know what you think, :-)

Blips on the Gaydar

A few more posts on the issue,

• Chad Hall thinks legalising Gay Marriage will be good for the church
• Mike Bird goes European while in exile but is worried about the gay mormons
• And from last year Jenell Paris wonders What is a homosexual anyway?

Queer Suicide in NZ

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, but here goes. A new video has been released to promote LGBT equality in New Zealand. It carries the charming title WTF, which according to project director Sam Shore, "it can mean anything you want." But of course viewing this brief video leaves you in no doubt that the F-bomb is what is intended, which is interesting because in my experience that word suggests and promotes sexual violence and disrespect like few others. But I'm sure that is just me being a prude.


So here is my problem, if this is an anti-bullying campaign then I have no problem with it, but the video's argument is constructed in a rather disconcerting way. Firstly we are told NZ has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world, this is kind of true, we come in at 29th on the WHO list, behind countries like Japan, Switzerland, North Korea and South Africa. Then we are told that in NZ there were 558 suicides last year. I can't verify this the govt website only has stats for 2010 at present but it sounds like the right ball park. We are then immediately informed that LGBT are four time more likely to attempt suicide than others. So what is implied is that LGBT people are committing suicide left right and center and because of NZ's inequality towards LGBT our suicide rate is super high. Now even one suicide due to bullying would be enough to take action, but why present the data in such a confusing and manipulative way?

So here are my questions:
1. What is the breakdown for likely causes of those 558 suicides, sexuality, poverty, substance abuse, family breakup or something else? If we are concerned about suicide then lets be concerned about suicide not use it as a guilt trip for other issues.

2. The reason for the high correlation between LGBT and attempted suicide (notice I'm only using the video's words there) is assumed to be bullying and I've no doubt there will be anecdotal evidence to support this, but is it also possible that the correlation exists for other reasons. Without proper data and unbiased research it is impossible to say. So is anyone doing that research?

3. In my experience with bullying (both personal and professional) the problem is usually not with the victim (e.g. because they are gay, Christian, fat, etc) but with the the bully who themselves suffer from low self esteem and have usually been victims of discrimination and relational violence themselves.So who is working with the bullies?

4. Does the high level of sexualisation among our youth of whatever orientation lead to depression, anxiety, suicide and bullying because young people lacking the emotional and spiritual resources to cope with their sexuality are being forced to make decisions and define themselves according to the social constructs promoted by the mass media before they are ready? And again how would anyone know if it was?

Please, let me know what you think.

Gay Sex and Marriage

Well since Obama "came out" in support of Gay marriage blogs have been abuzz with the urge to let everyone else know what their opinion is on the matter. I thought the world would be a better place if I too shared my opinion on this important but controversial topic. firstly I agree that whatever your personal beliefs everyone just needs to get a grip and realise that with the US and western society in general this is just the way it is going to go, the laws are just staring to catch up with public opinion the "battle" was lost or won a long time ago. I also agree that this discussion has never really been had mainly because anyone who has ever approached the issue allready had their minds made up and has felt free to arrange the evidence to fit their case. I agree the Old Testament law doesn't clear things up for Christians either way and that people will say just about anything to make their case. I don't agree this is comparable to the issue of slavery but that wont stop others making that unhelpful comparison. I wish more people would listen to Jennifer Knapp just as I wish more would listen to Erik Raymond. I agree that Christians are not called to culture war and that it takes two to tango. And I agree that if Christians are acting out of fear on this issue or any other then their grasp of the gospel is very poor indeed.

Most of all I agree with Bob Hyatt about the only way forward where everyone is happy. Which is good because it saves me having to explain it all to you and I can just go to bed now. A snippet:

The State needs to get out of the “marriage” business. It should recognize that as long as it uses that term, and continues to privilege certain types of relationships over others this issue is going to divide us as a nation, and is only going to become more and more contentious. We need to move towards the system used in many European countries where the State issues nothing but civil unions to anyone who wants them, and then those who desire it may seek a marriage from the Church. When I pastored in the Netherlands, this was the system- you got a civil union certificate at the courthouse and then a Marriage ceremony at the church. This division largely negated the culture war aspect, and allowed those churches who objected to same sex marriage on biblical grounds to not only opt out, but to be able to continue to teach their biblical view of marriage, uncontradicted by the State.

Having presented the solution I now just have one passing question to conservative America, how come you get so uptight about legislating social morality (e.g. health care, welfare system, etc) but so rabid about legislating sexual morality? What should the goverment be more interested in, that people are healthy and fed or that they aren't putting their ding dongs in the wrong orifice? Just a question.

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.

Food for thought

• Kim Fabricus challenges our understanding of what repentance really is.
• John Byron offers some pertinent thoughts on inerrancy
• Paul Windsor takes a look at the biographies of his dad and Don Carson's dad
• Richard Beck discusses Romans 1 and "nature"
• Scot McNight ponders the "Historical Jesus"
• And Roger Olsen makes an irenic plea for historic premillenialism

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?

Another bumper day on the web

• Marc Cortez gives a salutary lesson in statistics, as it seems rumours of the Web's demise have been greatly over exagerated
• Cynthia Neilsen on the dehumanization of slaves in the USA
• Steve Douglas writes to a friend struggling with faith
• Jim West shares a Michael Crichton quote on reading the news
• Ali tries to work out how to argue against homosexuality without being a jerk
• the Biblical World on the women in Paul's life
• and don't miss the majestic plastic bag, i have a song about this, but i won't sing it for you today cos i have lost my voice :-(

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 :-)

Countryman - Dirt, Greed, and Sex: A Book Review

William Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex, Fortress 2007.

This book is a brilliant and challenging survey of New Testament sexual ethics.  What is unique about it (at least in my experience) is that it approaches these issues, not through the grid of our own modern approach to such matters but seeks to reconstruct the grid which those in the world of the NT would have used.  This book is frequently cited in other literature and usually accompanied by the word "provocative."  I took this to mean that not everyone liked the conclusions but they weren't interested in arguing the point right now.  How ever I think it is a fair word to use of the book.  It has two levels to it.  On one level it is an excellent attempt at bring the reader into a different way of looking at sex and, as far as I can tell, from the point of view of 1st century Christians.  On the other hand this book is not written into a vacuum and while the book is hardly dedicated to the gay debate it is nonetheless intended as a contribution to it and it is where things come closest to this topic that I think the book is at it weakest. 

The first major section is dedicated to the concept of purity, drawing heavily on the work of Mary Douglas Countryman first shows how purity considerations operated in the OT and 1st century Judaism.  He argues that while we moderns hapily differentiate between say food hygene and sexual purity, the ancient world had no concept of germs, genetics or STDs and treated all purity considerations as of one set.  Countryman then goes on to show how the NT reframes purity considerations from external matters (food, dead people, sex, etc) to that of the heart (motive, intention, love, hate, etc).  Countryman concludes that for the NT purity considerations are no longer binding on the conduct of Christians for any area of life, including the sexual.

The second section moves onto what for Countryman is the other major ancient concept for sexual ethics, property.  Countryman persuasively demonstartes how sexual transgressions were primarily conceived of as transgressinos against the property of another.  he demonstrates the OT and second temple judaism backgrounds for this and then shows how the NT both retains this understanding but also radically modifies it.  This section of the book is the most exciting as Countryman skillfully explicates how Jesus' prohibition against divorce served to deconstruct the system of patriarchy.  Countryman then traces this impetus through Paul but concludes that the later NT writings show evidence of a reversion to patriarchy and that even Paul was never consistent in applying this new radical approach to the equality of the sexes.

The final (and shortest) section contains a summary and then Countryman's suggestions for how his exegesis of NT sexual ethics might be aplied today.  This is by far the weakest section.  Countryman's arguments here lack the thoroughness and consistency he (generally) applied to the earlier sections.  While many of his conclusions are hard to disagree with his ethical method is rather slipshod and he spends too little time working on how to move from the NT to today but merely seems to muse on how his findings affect his selection of topics.

With regard to the gay debate, Countryman's own agenda appears to affect the exegesis negatively at a couple of points, not least his discussion of malkoi and arsenokoitai  in 1 Cor 6:9-11 (pp195-6) and of Luke 7:1-17 (pp75-6, 246, 327).  1 Cor 6:9-11 especially is a big issue and I hope to blog specifically on it later as it bears on my own thesis.   What he succeeds in doing, very well, is showing the ambiguity of those NT texts which are often used to forbid homosexuality.  This is a point that needs to be made, however to the educated it should hardly be surprising as "homosexuality" per se was not a concept for either Jew or Gentile in the first century, it is a modern idea.

Overall I am grateful for a very well written book that has given me a lucid and extremely helpful introduction to NT sexual ethics.  By comparison the other books I've read have tended to both treat NT ethics as if they were written about our (modern) problems and be as dull as ditch water.  In particular the insight that NT sexual ethics revolve around concepts of property (why has no one else pointed this out to me!!!???) is a vital insight for my work on 1 Cor 6:12-20 and will be an important shaping factor for my final conclusions.  Already it is an insight that has made sense of a lot of loose ends for me and I'll be keeping the book close for the next few months.

[I have also quoted from the book here and here.]

can human rights dehumanize us?

Currently reading a very impressive article "Rhetoric, Postemodernism, and Theological education," by A.K.M Adam writing in To Teach, to Delight, and to Move, 2004, the following quotes are from page 69:

"Modern ethical reasoning speaks "human rights" as its native language, asserting the fundamental interchangeability of any human person - though these are usually defined in markedly particular terms (citizens of the United States have "free speech" as a human right, but not adequate health care, whereas citizens of China have "adequate health care" as a human right, but not free speech)."

This to me is a very important insight, the language of human rights is very relative depending on your cultural location. Hence so much misunderstanding between the West and radical Islam, to the westerner the sexual display of women in public is their human right, but to a conservative Muslim, or orthodox Jew, it is her human right to be covered up and protected from the lust of men, and it is mens right to be protected from her lust inducing potential! Yet most rights campaigners assume that their concept of human rights is universal and that no other possibilities exist. This is most tellingly manifest in the talk we have now in NZ regarding sexual rights. That prostitutes have a right to sell their bodies on the streets and homosexuals have a right to adopt children or marry is the obvious manifest universal truth to the liberal majority, and yet is it really being a reactionary conservative to suggest that these are not truly human rights at all, but rather arbitrary ones?

"To the extent that such a person a hypothetical person is universal, of course, [they are] no one in particular - but the God of Christian theology knows everyone particularly, so that the extent that theologians permit a modern insistence on universality to dominate their doctrines, they collaborate with the modern proclivity toward homogenisation."

This one could really screw with your mind, how do you do theology if you have to accept that God deals with everyone on a case by case basis?! What does this really mean? Is this a demand for situation ethics? Are there not universal axioms that can be applied to the human race? The idea that no person can be interchanged with another really makes the issue of 'rights' a very thorny one, because people 'rights' are always going to impinge on the rights of others. Especially in a world where people don't recognise the subjectivity of those rights.

In this way the idea of 'rights' dehumanizes and puts all the attention on the person as victim demanding to be treated fairly. By contrast we gain our humanity by living up to our responsibilities to each other, often giving to and serving those who in our world might have no rights to our resources and concern. It means nothing to assert that a street urchin in an Indian metroplolis has a right to food. It means a great deal to assert that maybe I have a responsibility to feed her. As a victim whose rights are being ignored, she is dehumanized; just one more statistic. As someone to whom I am inescapably connected she is a human who belongs to me, and to whom I belong. If I meet her rights I place myself above her as her saviour. If I fulfill my responsibilities, she allows me to be who I should be, and we are both beneath the saviour who called me to serve and who blesses her through me.

Just thinking out loud, :-), let me know what you think.

Wright on Rights and Sex

"Sex and ‘rights’... someone, sooner or later, needs to spell out further (wearisome though it will be) the difference between (a) the ‘human dignity and civil liberty’ of those with homosexual and similar instincts and (b) their ‘rights’, as practising let alone ordained Christians, to give physical expression to those instincts. As the Pope has pointed out, the language of ‘human rights’ has now been downgraded in public discourse to the special pleading of every interest-group. The church has never acknowledged that powerful sexual instincts, which almost all human beings have, generate a prima facie ‘right’ that these instincts receive physical expression. Indeed, the church has always insisted that self-control is part of the ‘fruit of the Spirit’. All are called to chastity and, within that, some are called to celibacy; but a call to celibacy is not the same thing as discovering that one has a weak or negligible sexual drive. The call to the self-control of chastity is for all: for the heterosexually inclined who, whether married or not, are regularly and powerfully attracted to many different potential partners, just as much as for those with different instincts."

from this enormous document