Cross Shadow Bible
“Bible with Cross Shadow,” David Campbell, Flickr C.C.
In mid-May the Reconciling Ministries Network of Western Pennsylvania posted a positional article on use of scripture by Dr. Steven Tuell, a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, in response to an article by Dr. Jeff Greenway of the Wesley Covenant Association.
This article is a response to Dr. Tuell's, with concern for a balanced overview of scriptural interpretation in general, and its application to the current, pressing issue before our church and society regarding LGBTQ acceptance. Many credentialed writers have presented on all sides of these issues, after all, and the conversation must continue.
When the passages Dr. Tuell cites, and the issues they represent, are viewed in a larger context of covenant history, we find different implications from those offered in his article.
Mosaic law was variously civil, ceremonial, and moral. Its revisions came with major, covenant-altering episodes:
- Execution of Old-Testament civil penalties essentially ended with the Babylonian invasion. Thus, for instance, the Sanhedrin needed Rome to crucify Jesus.
- Second Isaiah’s new allowances for permission to enter the envisioned New Temple were based on his new
understanding of Israel’s divine purpose in history—a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6, 60:1-3); a house of prayer for all people who hold fast to the Lord’s covenant (Isaiah 56:4-8).
- Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection introduced the radical New Covenant—the ultimately worldwide Kingdom of God. Ceremonial law became obsolete. He declared all foods clean. Sabbath obedience was re-oriented. Discussions about vengeance were about its morality rather than civil legitimacy; Moses restricted it, and Jesus went to the motive, offering a counter-approach for New Covenant disciples.
- With respect to moral law, however, Jesus’ teachings—especially in Matthew 5—actually raised the bar for his
followers. The consistent principle there took obedience from outward action to inward motive. Thus those innocent of actual murder are not off the hook while harboring malice, those innocent of actual adultery must still answer for harboring lust, etc. Men (the only ones allowed at the time to divorce) had no moral right to cut loose their wives except for adultery. Those teaching to relax the moral code “will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” Those not embracing the higher moral bar “will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Dr. Tuell goes on to suggest that the Church already has co-opted practices contrary to scripture in positions regarding divorce, Christian sabbath, and female leadership. It would be redundant to re-articulate the biblical and theological bases for these practices, which long-since have been made in other venues. In brief observation, though:
- Divorce by any measure is a consequence of our fallenness. Jesus accepts divorce in the case of unfaithfulness (Matt. 5:32); but it is always, as our Discipline also states, a tragic result of our human brokenness. Conscientious believers recovering from it testify to recovery from sin that induced the divorce before being ready for a new start.
- Christian choice of sabbath is based on Jesus' identity as Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27f), the consistent practice of Christians to gather on the first day of the week, (eg. Luke 24 and John 20, Acts 20:7, I Corinthians 16:1f.}, the omission of Jewish Sabbath in the letter to Gentile Christians in Acts 15, and the dismissal of preoccupation with the issue, Colossians 2:7. Effectively, only Jewish Christians in the New Testament observed Jewish Sabbath.
- Scriptural references regarding female leadership are not unilateral. Dr. Tuell mentioned only the situational
passages against it, sans the balancing references in its favor, eg. Judges 4:4,8f.; Romans 16:1-2; and Joel 2:28f. (quoted also by Peter in Acts 2:17f.).
Dr. Tuell cites these perceived contradictions as if to suggest that, since we have already taken liberty with these issues, we are now free to take it wherever we choose. These are not compelling analogies to the “elephant in the room”, as Dr. Tuell dubs it.
First, to be clear, the issue at hand is not about whether practicing homosexuals have been in pews. Nor is it about whether we are called to love people in spite of sin. The questions are:
1) Is homosexual practice sin?
2) If so, is it of a kind that precludes one from Christian leadership?
Tradition and the historical weight of scriptural interpretation say yes to both, evidenced by the consistency of Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and pre-20th Century Protestant positions on the matter. Wherever the practice is explicitly mentioned in scripture (mainly Leviticus, I Corinthians, and Romans), it is described with unambiguous repugnance, across over a thousand years, from Jewish distinction as God's people to Gentile Christian witness in a morally pluralistic culture. The revisionist view has arisen in the 20th-century West, in the context of the Sexual Revolution’s new ethic, and the desire of the Western church to recover former rapprochement with the increasingly secularized ambient culture. It is the revisionists’ contrast to this historically consistent exegetic—not simplistic conservative interpretation—that raises the WCA’s question about revisionist priority for biblical faithfulness.
There are widely accepted boundaries around eligibility for Christian leadership. No church is likely to publicly endorse leaders known for present drunkenness, theft, gambling, or racism, for instance. In the realm of sexual practice, there also are boundaries honored by consensus: practicing adultery, polygamy, marriage to relatives, non-marital relations, relations with animals, to name some. Most of these are biblically based, as is homosexual practice. If we make a singular exception for homosexual practice, we need a strong theological rationale for doing so. The culture has already started asking us about some of the others. If we pass on one, on what grounds do we continue to exclude the next?
Further, rearranging historically-accepted boundaries of moral behavior also should come with a watershed redefinition of covenant identity as it has in the past, on the scale of Temple destruction and exile in the Old Testament, or the Resurrection of Jesus in the New. Even in those critical events, it was ceremonial and civil—not moral frameworks—that were revised. Against the magnitude of those events, the Sexual Revolution or the affluent West’s cultural drift do not appear to stand tall.
One of the things seekers want deeply to know from Christians is what a godly ethical framework for living looks like. Many are earnestly willing to change much—sacrificially—in their lives to be closer to God. Traditionalists and revisionists agree on much of what this framework is. And most agree that we do people more good with clarity, and rescue from evil, than from redefining the boundaries of fidelity. The disagreement is not about whether to have boundaries, but rather about whether/where to shift them.
A deeper dialogue on what compassionate consistency looks like is our best hope for restored cogency of our witness in these confusing times.
The Rev. Joseph R. Stains is a full-time elder in the Western Pennsylvania Conference.