Brett Tilford

Philippians 2:5-11

Verse 5: Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

Now there are two primary ways this phrase has been interpreted, each with it’s own nuance. The first is how I just read it above, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” The emphasis here is on imitation. Jesus had this particular attitude, this mind, and so we should try and emulate him. However, the second, and I think better translation, is something to this effect “Think this way among yourselves which also you think in Christ Jesus.” In this translation, the emphasis is on the location of the believer. We exist in the fellowship of Christ. We are members of his body, and on that basis we think in certain ways. It’s sort of the difference between your father saying that you need to act like your mother because she’s a really humble person, and him saying that you’re part of the family, and the ethos of this family is that we have a way of being in the world – a way that’s exemplified in your mother.

Verse 6: who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

As children of the enlightenment, the modern era, we’re a people of rights. It’s built right into our constitution, that as humans we have certain ‘inaliable’ rights. Rights that can’t be stolen. You’ll recognize rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Or perhaps in the capitalistic world we might say that the capitalist has a right to his profits, or that the worker has a right to a living wage. I’m not against this language of rights per say, it certainly has it’s place, however the example of Jesus models something very different for us because Philippians 2:6 says that Christ was equal with God, however he didn’t see this equality, this position, as something to be held onto; a right to be defended at all costs but rather, as something to be released for the sake of the liberation of others.

vs. 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
vs. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

First, what’s evident here is that Paul doesn’t see the incarnation (God becoming Man) of Jesus as an upward move, but rather a downward move. In other words, he doesn’t begin with this man Jesus and how he was such a religious genius that God ended up highly exalting him. Instead, he begins with the pre-existent Christ who then empties (Ekenosen – kenosis) himself, not of his deity or his God-ness, but an emptying/humbling that allowed him to take on the form (morph-n) of man. So in terms of direction we see a downward movement from pure Spirit into flesh and worldly life.

The other point of interest is to pinpoint exactly what this emptying and humbling consisted of. To do that though, I think we need to understand what it means to be human. There’s an old dead German philosopher named Martin Heidegger who in 1927 published a famous book named “Being & Time.” In that book, he explains that if you want to understand human beings, and specifically if you want to understand what distinguishes us from all other living creatures, then you need to understand that we are ‘Being-Towards-Death’. In other words, what distinguishes humans from all other creatures isn’t simply that we die, but rather that we know we will die. So what’s interesting about Philippians 2:8 is that Paul seems to agree with this analysis and in effect says that this is what the self emptying and humiliation of Christ consisted of, precisely that he not only took the form of human, but that he actually subjected himself to death. But it wasn’t just any death was it? No, it was one of the most humiliating deaths a person can undergo: stripped naked, exposed, humiliated, abandoned by his closest friends, and if we take his cry on the cross from Mark 15:34 seriously then we’d even say he experienced being abandoned by God.

vs. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
vs. 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
vs. 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I recall a friend pointing to a crucifix (You of course, know the difference. A cross is empty, while a crucifix displays the corpse of God.) and telling my brother and I that that crucifix is the difference between us and the Catholics – “the Catholics want to keep Jesus on the Cross.” That crucifix is the difference between us and the Catholics – the Catholics want to keep Jesus on the cross. Now my friend’s anti-Catholic bias came out a bit there, but still I have to admit that this was really insightful theological analysis. Because while I don’t think Catholics deny the resurrection, I do think our crosses tell us something significant. So rather than taking a swipe at Catholics, let me cut at myself, my own tradition, for a moment. The reason we don’t like crucifixes is because for us theologically the resurrection is the negation, the erasing, of the cross. The cross is the humiliation of God, the resurrection is the exaltation. The cross is the humbling of God, the resurrection is his glory. The cross is the moment of loss, when it looked like all was lost, but the resurrection is where God declared that we would not be the losers, but the winners. But that’s not what this hymn seems to be pointing to. Instead the idea is this: in the cross we see the glory of God. That the weakness and humility of Christ was in fact His greatness.

The way we know this is the word “Therefore” (or ‘For’ or ‘Wherefore’ depending on your translation) at the beginning of verse 9. If we were writing the text we might have used the word “Yet, God highly exalted…” or “In spite of this humiliation…” but the text says ‘therefore’. In other words, this self-emptying (kenosis) this self-humiliation isn’t a compromise of His deity, but rather the very expression of it. It’s interesting that in other texts Paul speaks that he’s not ashamed of the Gospel and I wonder if the cross is what he has in mind. That Paul isn’t ashamed by the cross, isn’t ashamed by a God who is for us precisely in his death, a God who’s power is expressed through weakness. A God who’s moment of self humiliation is in fact his glory. As Karl Barth wrote in his wonderful Church Dogmatics, “He is not a God who is what He is in a majesty behind… this cross on Golgotha. On the contrary, the cross on Golgotha is itself the divine majesty…” (C.D. II.1 – pg. 517)

So perhaps our Catholic brothers and sisters have something to teach us with that crucifix, at least insofar as it exists as a symbol that reminds us that we serve not simply the God of glory, omnipotence, power, might, and strength… but that we serve the crucified God. The God who’s strength is not the strength of this world, but is in fact expressed in weakness. The God who’s might is not the might of a Caesar Augustus, or a Barack Obama, or a President Bush, but who’s might is shown in his furious humility and humiliation. The God who’s victory is achieved not by worldly systems of coercion and force and violence, but by sacrificial love. That word ‘therefore’ in verse 9 is so extremely important because it stops us from importing all of our very human and worldly concepts of power, victory, and glory into the text. In other words it stops us from reading verses 9-11, in isolation from verses 6-8.

Reflection & Application

There’s a story towards the end of a popular Christian book that came out a few years ago that’s stuck with me for quite some time. The story is about a small group of Christians on the secular campus of Reid College in Oregon. This college was known as a major party school, and they had a week called ‘Ren Fair’ where all of the students just went crazy: lots of partying, excessive drinking, drugs, people running around literally in the nude – it was pretty wild. So what these Christians were pondering is how on earth they might make an impact during that week. In other words, how could they witness to the reality of Christ in a godless, largely post-Christian environment. So here’s what they came up with: they decided to setup a confessional booth, but not so that the students could confess to them, instead the Christians would confess to the student. And so they did. They built the confession booth right in the middle of campus, they dressed up in robes like monks and when people walked in they’d say something to this effect. “This is a confession booth. It’s a place where confessions are heard, and if you don’t mind I’d like to begin.” And then they would. They’d confess the short comings, the failures, the weaknesses of the church. They confessed their irrational fear and violence towards people in other religions like in the crusades, they confessed their failure towards people of color in this country, they confessed they’re failure towards the LGBT community, they confessed they’re failure to look after the people Christ said to always be on the lookout for – the poor and the needy. On this day, they were the confessors.

To me this is the kenotic – self emptying – move. It’s not about a formula, or a quick list of do’s and don’ts, that ensure you’re sufficiently humble and Christ like. Instead it’s a posture, an invitation to think our faith through the lens of the cross, through the lens of a life poured out. I think that’s what Paul is doing in this passage he’s grabbing our shoulders, looking right into our eyes, and asking us “Do you see? Do you see the implications of the humiliation of God? Do you get what this means for you politically? Do you understand what this means for your patriotism? For your views on war?  For your posture towards the lowly and despised in society? Do you understand, Brett?

This passage in Philippians 2 is an invitation to think our lives, and our churches, in light of the unsettling memory of the crucified God.

Let us pray.

Based on William Stacey Johnson’s book A Time to Embrace in part one of this series we covered a handful of cultural-philosophical arguments leveled against same sex marriage. In part two we turned to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and reviewed a few of the more prominent verses that touch on ancient homoerotic practices, explored their historical background, and speculated on how they may or may not inform our perspective of same-sex relationships today. In this third and final post we’ll dig a bit more into how we approach the Scriptures and why the church needs to begin affirming same-sex relationships, however a brief word is in order on the context of this post before we jump in.

This argument will not convince the hardened skeptic among us; instead, it’s pointed at those within the church who find themselves on the fence of the “gay marriage” debate. It’s for those stuck between a powerful majority prepared to invoke the clobber passages at the drop of a hat on the one hand and a smaller but equally passionate group calling for full inclusion of their LGBT friends on the other. It’s meant as a cup of cold water for those in the parched desert of indecision – a barren place if ever there was one. It’s for the pastor or church leader who, while sympathetic to the plight of LGBT persons in our culture, hesitates in speaking out at the risk of splintering their congregation.

Our Approach to Scripture

I’ve often reflected on how I can be so confident about my decision to never attend a church again where my wife couldn’t be fully embraced as a women every bit as capable, mature, and called by God to lead and teach as any man on God’s  green earth – because truth be told – this wasn’t always the case.

I can still recall various conversations with other men through the years on this topic (it’s interesting that these conversations always took place with other men in much the same way the LGBT discussions are nearly always held without LGBT people). We’d normally begin with some non-sense about women being too emotional to lead and top it off with a discussion of 1 Timothy 2 (women should keep their heads covered, hair long, and mouths shut). I admit to being a bit shocked later on when I learned the cultural background of those verses and others like them but it wasn’t enough to convince me; I was a Bible believing Christian after all and couldn’t risk 2,000 years of church tradition over an issue like this. And so it might have continued to this day had not fate intervened and led me to join the staff of a church that, while relatively conservative on every other matter, happened to embrace women at every level of leadership. And what did I observe? Women were thriving. Seriously, they were kick ass teachers, counselors, pastors and elders. In many churches I’d either attended or heard of, women were second class citizens of sorts, free to run the bake sale (anything food or children related was normally within their domain) but not much beyond that and this either frustrated them, at which point they were often labeled “strong” women – which wasn’t a compliment, or it turned them into docile mousy women who embraced their oppression and even thanked God for it. Neither of those seemed very healthy to me, however now I observed them as equals, now they had a place at the table and it was exhilarating to behold. This experience was incredibly formative for me because from it I gained the following hermeneutic (method of interpretation) that’s guided me ever sense: any interpretation of Scripture that results in oppression, suffering, discouragement, and pain in people’s lives is the wrong interpretation.

I believe this is what Jesus was getting at in his encounter with the pharisees at the end of Mark chapter 2. Jesus and the disciples were walking through a wheat field on the Sabbath and as they went they ate a few heads of grain. When the pharisees saw this they chastised the disciples for breaking the Sabbath laws (aka working on the ‘day of rest’) and Jesus responded with the most interesting answer: he said, “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, the purpose of the law is to be a life giving force for good in people’s lives. It’s not about arbitrary rules sent down from on high “just because”, rather it’s purpose is to encourage “Shalom” (peace, wholeness, goodness, health) in human society. What Jesus’ critique reveals is that the very Scriptural commands meant for the flourishing of men and women can, with the passage of time and the tradition of interpretation that springs up around those passages, be used for their oppression. The perfect example of this type of process are Jesus’ commands around divorce. It’s pretty clear that Jesus forbids divorce except in the case of adultery but a little historical research shows the “why” behind this. The situation in the 1st century is that men were leaving their wives over nothing – “You burned dinner again! I’m outta here.” – which resulted in the impoverishment and suffering of these women. Jesus doesn’t like this, not one bit, and so he gives this command that the only reason a man can leave his wife is in the case of adultery. Now fast forward 2,000 years and what do we see? Abusive men use this passage all the time as a power play to prevent their wives from leaving the relationship. In fact, even pastors will encourage a women in an abusive relationship to “make the best of it” because unless the man commits adultery, biblically speaking, she’s forbidden from leaving. In other words, the very passages Jesus’ meant as a protection for women are now being used to oppress them. It’s actually pretty sick if you think it.  This is why as Christians, as people who live and move and have our being in the midst of the God who is known to us as love, we absolutely must have a hermeneutic, an interpretative approach to the Scriptures, of love itself. Otherwise we run the risk of taking the very passages originally intended as something life-giving and beautiful and turning them into demonic structures that bring pain and misery to people’s lives.

Hopefully it’s abundantly clear at this point that although technically we’ve been discussing women in leadership and the biblical parameters for divorce, really we’ve been talking about same-sex marriage all along. Having said this, coming to the place as individuals where we can embrace same-sex marriage is different than coming to this conclusion as religious institutions, communities, and churches. What rational can possibly be provided for church leaders to ’step off the cliff’ so to speak and begin to openly affirm their LGBT brothers and sisters as denominations and church communities as well? Wouldn’t it be better for the revolution to occur on an individual basis rather than risking schism by pressing the issue at a communal level?

Naming God’s Activity in the World

There’s a part of my evangelical heritage that I love, a piece of spiritual insight that’s not only stuck with me but actually increased through the years even as I’ve drifted from my conservative roots in other ways, and the insight is this – God is up to something new in our world. In this vision, God is much more than a word or abstract concept, He is living and active, interested in much more than simply preserving the past but always moving us forward. This is why we get in small groups and ask questions like, “So what has God shown you this week?” or “What is God doing in your life?” because the expectation is that He is in fact up to something. Of course this raises an excellent question – how exactly do we spot God’s activity in the world?  Or put another way, how do we know when it’s really the Spirit? Here’s what my churches taught me. Wherever the good and the beautiful and the true are occurring – that’s God! In other words, the little seedlings of God’s Spirit aren’t in big things like political power, prestige, fame, or riches but rather are evidenced in little things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, and self control. So when I look out into the world what I’m looking for are these little shoots of the presence or activity of God – these little moments of grace, those startling encounters with generosity and kindness. This is why the single most important factor in someone making the switch from opposing same-sex marriage to supporting it is to actually be in relationship with LGBT people. Why? Because as we encounter them as individuals and as couples we begin to recognize these seedlings of God’s presence in their lives and relationships. We realize that they aren’t the demonic caricatures portions of our culture have made them out to be. They are every bit as capable of love, kindness, and compassion as anyone else and their relationships are capable of just as much beauty as more traditional marital relationships.

Now having said this, it’s wonderful as individuals to learn to see God in unexpected places but what I’d argue is that it’s an absolute non-negotiable for us as churches. As church leaders, I believe that one of our most profound duties is to recognize the activity of God in the world and help communicate that to people both within and outside the church. But  frankly, we’re failing to do this on the questions of same-sex marriage and the full inclusion of LGBT persons in our church communities. I believe the reason this is the case is because we currently only see risk from one perspective – the risk of moving too quickly, of being too hasty. In other words, we’re on the defensive when it comes to these questions because we’re afraid of the misstep, the wrong turn, and the mis-interpretation. In short, we’re being driven by fear. However what often goes unnoticed is that we have a profound risk in the opposite direction – the risk of failing to name the new things God is up to in the world, the risk of refusing to recognize the good, the beautiful, and the true in same-sex relationships. It seems right now that all we’re conscious of is what we have to lose by stepping out: who might leave, what might go wrong, and what we might lose; rather than what we might gain, what justice might be done, what positive example we might set for those within and outside the church. My point is, there’s risk in both directions, so the questions is, which one will we choose? And let’s not kid ourselves either, by failing to do anything we are in fact making a decision in favor of the status quo.

So as Churches here’s our situation: we have people wanting to get married, raise children, and join our churches.  They’re asking that we trust them and believe in their relationships. They’re asking us to affirm the activity of the living God in their lives. I believe it’s up to us to not merely tolerate them but to name what God is up to, celebrate it, and consecrate it. We need to declare that the days of second class citizenship for our LGBT brothers and sisters are over. That we refuse to give into fear and hesitation and that we affirm the good, the beautiful and the true wherever it is found and that these relationships bear the evidence of God in them. God is doing a new thing, a thing we might never have guessed or foreseen, but to turn our backs on them now would nothing less than  sin.

While some may find the arguments from part 1 compelling, for most Christians wrestling through this issue their main sticking points are the texts of Scripture which mention certain homoerotic acts. What follows won’t be a comprehensive review of every Scripture, for that you’ll need to purchase A Time to Embrace, however I will touch on some of the more popular texts. My goal is that by the end of this post you’ll have a feel for how Bible believing Christians (as we say in the South) can interpret old texts in new ways and be empowered to not only love their LGBT brothers and sisters but come to see them differently than say, an alcoholic or someone struggling with a sexual addiction.

On this topic one of the first statements Johnson makes is, “…it should be clear that the biblical passages invoke by prohibitionists have nothing explicit to say about the relationships of mutually and exclusively committed same-gender couples.” In other words, there’s no story decrying the evils of two men or two women who devoted themselves to one another in marital love and quietly served their family, neighbors, and faith community to the end of their days. Instead, what we see is exactly what we’d expect from a religious book centered around love of God and neighbor, a critique of cultural practices that promote sexual promiscuity, violence, and cruelty. This is the crux of the welcoming and affirming viewpoint as it relates to the Scriptures, however it doesn’t preclude us from wading into the text so let’s begin with the controversial story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sodom and Gomorrah

In this story God hears an outcry from the city of Sodom and sends angelic messengers to investigate. Upon arrival they’re taken in by Abraham’s nephew, Lot, but then things begin to go south. The men of the town surround Lot’s house and demand that he offer up his visitors so that they can rape them. As a trade of sorts Lot offers up his virgin daughters instead. In this version God blinds the men of Sodom so both the angelic visitors and Lot’s daughters are saved, however in a parallel story in Judges 19 the women offered up to save the man isn’t so lucky – she’s abused all through the night. Clearly these are dark and violent stories that have thoroughly embedded themselves in the western consciousness and my hunch is that for prohibitionists this story is in the back of their minds whenever the topic of same-gender marriage comes up. Thus, it’s here that many prohibitionists take their stand, arguing that this sexual behavior is clearly condemned by the Scripture, and of course they’re absolutely right. Yet the question must be asked whether the nature of the acts mentioned here are despicable because of their same-gender character or because they’re violently abusive?

In the stories of Sodom and Gibeah I believe it’s something other than the same sex character of the conduct that makes it wrong. Rape is violent and destructive no matter the gender. Growing up in the South I’d always heard the story of Sodom and Gomorah invoked to condemn same-gender love. It was the perfect picture of how we imagined ‘the homosexuals‘ – filled with violent lust, a danger to others, a people completely out of control sexually speaking. The Bible couldn’t have been clearer in it’s condemnation than that story. Which is why I was shocked when I came across this passage from Ezekiel 16:9 which clearly states that the sin of Sodom is… wait for it… “…they did not help the poor and the needy.” In other words, what jumped out to the ancient writer about this text wasn’t the same gender nature of the abuse but rather the lack of hospitality shown to the visitors. Surely Ezekiel was mistaken! Or might the issue be that we have an amazing capacity to read our own cultural assumptions into the biblical text? Two other sets of passages from the book of Leviticus figure strongly in the non-affirming case.

Levitical Passages

Leviticus 18:22 states, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman, it is an abomination.”

Leviticus 20:13 says, “If a man lies with a man as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

Clearly these passages forbid certain homoerotic acts, however the questions we’re asking as people committed to the authority of text is the what and why of the prohibition because these types of questions are always at the heart of interpreting any Biblical text. The reason, and this is something we all readily admit when it comes to other Old and New Testament passages, is that it’s easy to read our own cultural assumptions into the text; thus completely bypassing the cultural assumptions of the writers themselves. In fact, as you’ll see below Johnson argues that prohibitionists, tolerationists, and accomodationists do just that.

Based on what scholars know of the ancient world at this time one of the major reasons for the prohibitions in Leviticus 18 and 20 is that this type of homoerotic act was often practiced by one socially superior male on a social inferior; normally a slave or some other subordinate member of the household. The social superior would never have identified themselves as a homosexual and certainly didn’t intend to begin “a romantic relationship” with their social inferior. In fact terms like homosexuality (a medical term that didn’t come into use until the 1850’s) or same gender relationships would have been completely foreign to ancient cultures. Instead the purpose was pure sexual gratification, similar in a way to masturbation, it just happened to be with a person the socially superior person could take advantage of.

A second incredibly sinister cultural practice that is squarely in the sights of these Levitical passages is the mistreatment of prisoners of war. In the ancient world a conquered people were often subject to various forms of torture and humiliation at the hands of their captors. For example, the Assyrians were notorious for impaling their victims on poles and abandoning them to a slow and gruesome death. However, another common practice was to rape (sodomize) the enemy soldiers now under one’s control. Again, this can’t be confused with a few soldiers engaging in some sort of gay lifestyle, rather the purpose was the humiliation of your enemy. The thinking seemed to go that now that they had forced the enemy to submit in physical combat, the enemy should now be forced to submit sexually, thus furthering their shame by turning the vanquished into symbolic women. Obviously, this type of historical background is important to know when approaching the Levitical texts.

Romans 1

Romans 1:27 “Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.”

1 Timothy 1:9-10 “We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, ¹⁰ for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men ¹⁰ nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

The Roman 1 passage is coming out of the hedonistic practices of the Roman world and are grounded in certain cultural assumptions about proper male roles There were two incredibly popular, but nonetheless destructive, sexual practices going on in his era: rampant male prostitution and the freedom for social superiors to perform sexual (and often homoerotic) acts on their social inferiors without their consent. Imagine today if employers were not only free to sexually abuse their employees but it was actually expected of them? While it’s an analogous situation, it gives a better feel for the cultural situation Paul is speaking to.

Another pernicious activity was the sexual slave trade of boys and castrated young men. These were often prisoners of war who would be sold into a life of exploitation and abuse. Johnson believes this is almost certainly the context behind 1 Timothy 1:10 which condemns, “fornicators, men who have sex with men, and slave traders.”

The phrase “men who have sex with men” in the 1 Corinthians 6 passage is the Greek term “arsenokoitai” which breaks down into arsen (“male”) and koite (“bed”) which is literally “males who go to bed with males.” Yet again, in the ancient world this word came to be associated with certain hedonistic homoerotic practices that were widespread in the Roman Empire – practices often performed by social superiors on their inferiors or male prostitution. It’s these practices that Paul doesn’t want to see infiltrate his fledgling religious communities built on a love of God and neighbor.

In my final post I’ll cover how Johnson encourages us to move from a place of prohibition to liberation and consecration.

For thoughtful Christians wrestling with questions of sexuality and same gender relationships I really can’t recommend William Stacey Johnson’s book A Time to Embrace highly enough. As both a theologian (Princeton Seminary) and a lawyer he’s uniquely situated to offer insights into the complex world’s of not only church history and biblical interpretation but politics and the interpretation of law as well.

One of the more helpful moves Johnson makes is to bring some much needed nuance to the various arguments on the issue of same gender relationships. He notes that the broader cultural level debate, likely for political reasons, is often cast in simplistic terms: you’re either for gay marriage or against it, period. It’s polarities like this that get people to the voting booths or the protests downtown. Unfortunately it’s not a helpful way to spur discussion or wrestle through questions for churches. To that end he outlines 7 positions that he feels most Christians would find themselves within on this issue as it relates to the church:

• Prohibition: does not approve of and would bar same-gender unions
• Toleration: does not approve of, but would not prosecute or reject gay and lesbian people
• Accommodation: does not approve of ordinarily but would allow for exceptions on a “lesser-of-the-evils” rationale
• Legitimation: wants to include gays and lesbians in the community, and wants to prevent them from being singled out and condemned unfairly.
• Celebration: believes same-gender unions should no longer be scorned but affirmed as good.
• Liberation: perceives societal attitudes concerning gays and lesbians as being caught up in wider injustices, which need to be remedied.
• Consecration: argues for the full religious blessing of same gender unions.

Johnson fleshes out each of these seven positions chapter by chapter, however for the sake of brevity I’m going to focus on the prohibitive stance which is supported by four interconnected layers of argument: marriage as an order of creation, arguments from nature, arguments from tradition, and arguments from Scripture – although this last one (Scripture) will be covered in a separate post.

Marriage as an Order of Creation
The first argument for the prohibitive stance is institutional in nature: marriage as an order of creation. The point here is that a marriage between a man and a woman is the only context for a healthy and appropriate sexual relationship. Obviously, this position draws on the early chapters of Genesis as a way to establish the marital norm and then goes on from there to invoke other verses in the Old and New Testament that reflect this structure.

Johnson’s major push back here is that while it’s perfectly acceptable to understand the early chapters of Genesis as establishing some sort of theology of marriage, what’s impossible to establish from the biblical record is, as the resoundingly un-biblical conservative bumper stickers announce, “MARRIAGE = ONE MAN + ONE WOMAN.” What we find in the biblical record, especially the Old Testament, are the following arrangements:

• marriage = 1 man + 1 wife
• marriage = 1 man + many wives
• marriage = 1 man + many wives + many concubines

Based on this these arrangements we’re assuming good Christian women won’t object if their men embrace a truly biblical stance on this topic.

Arguments from Nature
The second argument draws on the natural-law position from the ancient Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers -  which was later picked up by Saint Thomas Aquinas and made normative in the Roman Catholic tradition. The argument goes something like this: a marriage creates a “one-flesh” union between a man and a woman that is by definition committed, exclusive and indissoluble.  Within this context the sexual relationship is, what the natural-law philosophers call, an intrinsic good. This means it’s something good in and of itself, as opposed to instrumental goods which are pursued for some other good external to themselves. In this way of thinking masturbation, sex outside of marriage and gay sexuality are all instrumental goods because their only purpose is to seek pleasure, however marital hetero-sex (I’m not sure if that’s a word – but it should be) is an intrinsic good because it promotes a one-flesh union that intrinsically brings new life into the world. Johnson writes, “In short, the purpose of marriage in the natural law tradition is procreation.” Incidentally, this same argument is used by Roman Catholic leaders to denounce birth control because by effectively ending the procreation aspect of marital sex you’re changing it from an intrinsic to an instrumental good.

Here’s the push-back. Although this is a legit philosophical argument, to really work it has to be made consistently. In other words, while many conservatives are quick to embrace it in relation to the gay marriage debate, most balk at the idea when it’s used to argue against the use of birth control by hetero-sexual couples. Why? Because most of us don’t really believe sex is solely for procreation. Also, keep in mind that Thomas Aquinas believed masturbation was more evil than rape because a “sin against nature” was less serious than a “sin against reason.” Needless to say, for all his brilliance on other theological issues I’m afraid Aquinas got slightly screwed up on this issue by his appropriation of Aristotle, so I’d encourage a wee bit of caution prior to jumping on board with anything Aquinas has to say about sex.

Arguments from Tradition
The third argument prohibitionist’s appeal to is one from tradition. They say that for thousands of years the Christian and Jewish traditions denounced homoeroticism in the strongest terms. Yes, a quick review of church history would seem to indicate that the argument from tradition is on the prohibitionist’s side but I’d offer two short responses.

First, queer studies/theology has done some really interesting work the last few years to dispute the idea that the church has been monolithically against same gender relationships since Jesus rose to heaven. Google the names Serge and Bacchus for a good historical example and checkout this book for a more detailed analysis.

Second, and I think this is the strongest of the two arguments, is that the statement “But this is how it’s always been.” isn’t particularly Protestant or Christian. As Christians we are people of the Spirit, people grounded not just in what God has done in the past, but what She might be up to in our present day. The perfect New Testament example is the inclusion of Gentiles in the early church. As Johnson states on page 142:

“In the 1990’s some Christians, among them New Testament scholars Luke Timothy Johnson and Jeffrey Sikers, began to ask whether the movement of the Holy Spirit among gay and lesbian people was analogous to the early church’s experience with gentiles, among whom God was performing ’signs’ and ‘wonders.’ The earliest Jewish Christians had assumed that, if gentiles were to enter the fellowship of the church, they could do so only by first becoming Jews, that is, by observing the Jewish laws concerning circumcision, dietary requirements, and so forth. This assumption was based on texts such as Genesis 17:9-14, which demands circumcision of all males, including foreigners. From their experience of gentile conversion, both Peter and Paul came to a different conclusion: gentiles were permitted to enter the church as gentiles without being circumcised or conforming to kosher laws, though they were of course expected to put aside immorality.”

In the next post we’ll move to the biggest sticking point for most Christians – arguments from Scripture.

I’ve begun working through A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics by William Johnson this weekend so I thought I’d drop a few initial thoughts.

One hotly debated question is what percentage of the population would describe themselves as “gay.” Depending on the study this number has fluctuated wildly so Johnson tries to bring some clarity to the issue by noting the difference between identity, behavior, and desire. If your poll asks if people would identify themselves as gay or lesbian then the numbers are lower than if you ask if they’ve engaged in same gender sexual activity in the last twelve months. Johnson writes,

“In summary, when it comes to arguing numbers, there are misleading statements made on both sides of the debate. On the one hand, the idea that 10 percent of the population is “gay” is an urban legend: we now know that not that many people in the population at large are willing to identify themselves as gay or lesbian. On the other hand, the 10 percent figure is not completely off base: it is a fact that almost 10 percent of the population self-identify as something other than heterosexual; and it is also a fact that over 10 percent of the population (8.6 percent of men, 13.6 percent of women) claim some degree of sexual attraction to members of the same sex. And it is a fact that well over 8 percent of the population (6 percent of men, 11.2 of women) have at some time engaged in same-gender sexual behavior.”

What’s at stake in all of these numbers is that opponents of same gender relationships want to paint this as a wildly aberrant phenomena that few, if any people, really experience. The rarer it is the more we can simply write it off to a few folks expressing their rebellion against God. Of course, it’s another thing entirely when 10% of the people sitting in the pews would admit to having some level of attraction to members of the same sex.

I have this suspicion that extends even to my own faith: that God is this utilitarian thing. This thing I use to make me happy. This thing I wheel in when I’m scared. This belief that gives me meaning. This assurance that everything will turn out okay, that there really is this deep meaning to life. It’s what Bonhoeffer called the Dues ex Machine.  This is why everyone should work in some really good atheist literature into their reading cycle. Not to critique them, but to let them critique you.

I have a friend who has drifted away from church and his Christian faith in recent years. I asked him why and his answer surprised me, “It’s exhausting” he replied dryly, “The whole thing is just exhausting”. His answer caught me off guard, not because I couldn’t relate, but because it resonated with me so deeply.

Seek God, read the Bible, analyze yourself, work on yourself. Obsess. Stop your sins. Purify. Repent. Cry out to God, pray to God, give to God. Save the world. Love everyone. Love Love Love until you just want to puke everywhere. Of course you feel like giving up. The enemy wants you to feel that way. It’s the trick. The more resistance you feel the closer to the breakthrough you are. The answer is to push in harder. Word harder. Pray harder. Sing harder. Press into God. That’s your salvation. Of course, we’d never say this because we’re saved by grace. But don’t listen to what we say, look at what we do.

I heard a story of a women who went to a psychoanalyst because she was compulsively sleeping around with men and couldn’t stop herself. She knew it was unhealthy but it didn’t matter. The worst part was the guilt. She felt so incredibly guilty for the wicked things she’d done. Of course, the analyst gave her the only reasonable advice there is. He told her to go ahead and do it. Sleep around all she wanted. It didn’t matter. And of course, that was the day it ended. Sometimes the prohibition stokes the desire.

I wonder if many Christians are addicted to God. Not in a good way, a way that thrusts them back into the dirt and smut of the streets with a love that astounds, but in a really bad way, a Joel Osteen kind of way that says God is here to make you happy. God is just another product, a commodity. Remarkable. Shame on us, on me.

It reminds me of Nietzche’s parable of the mad man running through the streets bellowing on about the death of God. But in my spin of the story, instead of Him dying at the hands of science or secularism, he’s found dead of Christian “love” that turned out to be nothing more than weak sentimentality. Not murdered, just completely irrelevant and wasting away in some cosmic nursing home – a hand-maiden to the state and the powers that be.

But of course, I have hope. Hope that the there’s something to that apocalyptic preacher who had good news for the poor. And so I’ll keep reading and praying for the kingdom to come. Not that Jesus would return on some sort of stallion in the sky… but in much subtler ways, in quiet acts of service through our hands and feet.

Here’s a question that’s worth reflecting on: are people primarily autonomous individuals who make themselves what they are or are they largely shaped by the societal structures in which they’re placed? Obviously, most of us wouldn’t be inclined to pick one to the complete exclusion of the other, however what I’d argue is that the degree to which we emphasize one over the other often shapes our philosophical, religious and political views in profound ways.

On the one hand, I really do think there’s something powerful about taking radical responsibility for our lives. As human beings we wake up in the morning and we have choices to make and it’s up to us, for good or ill, to make them as best we can. In the church we’re often prone to shirk this responsibility off to God: telling everyone that He’s whispered in our ears and so it’s not really us that’s making the decision at all. This mostly drives me crazy. At the end of the day we have to put on our big kid pants, make decisions, and live with the consequences.

And yet as a Christian I’m also very influenced by the idea that there are larger forces at play in our lives – something the Apostle Paul refers to as the Principalities and Powers. This is usually interpreted in one of two ways. My Christian friends take it very literally, with some notion of ghastly invisible demons flying around oppressing people, tempting them to take a drink of alcohol and engage in buddhist meditation. On the other hand, my secular non-religious friends laugh these notions off as just so much silly pre-enlightenment bunk. These concepts are the naive remains of a bygone era that we can’t move beyond quickly enough.

Might they both be missing the point?

There’s a story about a town that was deeply divided by racial and economic strife, and as if to highlight the issue geographically, a highway literally split the town in two. On one side you had a new shopping mall, nice roads, and a pristine high school, while on the other side (which was of course predominantly African-American) unemployment and crime had ravaged the landscape: no new roads, no upscale shopping malls, and no pristine high school. Furthermore, a handful of white upper-crust Christian folks had campaigned and gotten themselves elected to the school board at the African American school. Once in office, they had the gall to begin diverging what little funds the struggling school possessed over to the wealthier high school across town based on the notion that this was a more ‘prudent’ use of the cities’ finances. Upon hearing of this, a local African-American pastor stormed into the next monthly gathering of local church clergy, put his finger in the faces of the white pastor’s who’s congregants had run for the school board and proclaimed flatly that these parishioners were demon possessed by a spirit of racism and greed. He declared that they should be called to account for their actions by their local churches.

Of course, whether you believe in literal angels and demons is completely beside the point – the pastor was absolutely right. There were larger powers at play here, structures of exploitation that needed to be called out and dismantled in the name of the God who is love. I believe this is what’s “getting said” when the Bible talks of the Principalities and Powers. There is more going on than individuals making choices – we all unknowingly participate in systems and structures that perpetuate injustice and and as Christians we shouldn’t be blind to that fact. In conclusion, here’s  a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that seems to strike at the heart of this dilemma.

“It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”

Many people wonder why I read so many books. It is a peculiar habit. I’ve actually turned down sex once because I was reading. (I said “once” so wipe that smirk off your face.) The answer is simple enough because it’s rooted in an experience that’s universal for anyone who’s read even a handful of books. You’re sitting there just humming along with no idea that you’re life is about to change forever when WHAM the damn author says the very thing you’ve been wanting to say but couldn’t quite express, couldn’t quite form your lips into the correct shape to utter those sacred words, and now she’s given you the very thing you’ve been searching for. It’s the moment when the author gives you new language – language that helps make sense of your experience.

Language matters. Give a person a new vocabulary and you’ve literally given them the tools to process and articulate their experience at a whole new level. We all have feelings and intuitions about the world but it’s not until we receive language that we’re able to clarify and articulate exactly what “it” is we’ve been grasping for.

Summer is here. It’s the time that our culture ever-so-slightly taps the breaks and we all have just a bit more time for ourselves.

Read a book. Heck read 20 books.

A few days ago I exploded my little corner of the Facebook world with the following posts on the topic of LGBT inclusion.

• Church, silence makes us an ally with the oppressors – it’s time to work for the full inclusion of our LGBT brothers and sisters. #justice
• Loving our LGBT friends while refusing to go to bat for them politically in society and our churches is pure bull****.
• Here’s an old post on why a gay “accepting” church merely perpetuates injustice while paying lip service to “love” bretttilford.com/2011/08/are-yo…
• It is not the words of your enemies that you will remember… but the silence of your friends – MLK youtube.com/watch?v=s30ZKj… #gayaffirming

Below is a 20min video I made as a followup to the facebook posts. I’ll also be blogging through A Time to Embrace this Summer to cover the biblical texts on this topic. I’d highly encourage you to purchase it and follow along.

You can read part one of this post here.

As mentioned previously, I think the accusation of divine child abuse is a bit unfair when it comes to the penal-substitutionary atonement (PSA), however aside from that accusation, I do have a few theological issues with the theory.

First, I think the PSA is pretty intertwined with a literal reading of the Genesis creation account, which I now think is outdated in light of an evolutionary understanding of our origins. In many ways the early chapters of Genesis are absolutely central to the PSA because they contain the “why” behind the “what.” How many time have we heard a gospel presentation that begins with an explanation of how we’re fallen and separated from God? Theologically that’s Genesis 1-3 language. Of course, even without a literal reading of those stories you can still talk about sin, the wrath of God, and how Jesus took our place, but without a literal reading of that narrative undergirding it, it simply lacks the biblical “punch” it once did. This is especially true as it pertains to very specific doctrines that come straight out of those chapters – like Original Sin – which is also pretty central to the PSA theory.

The second issue is that the understanding of God embedded within this atonement theory is still quite violent – even without claims of divine child abuse. In the PSA narrative someone has to pay… with blood. God can’t just forgive because He’s bound by some sort of cosmic justice that requires a blood sacrifice be offered to atone for the sins of the people. Just let that sentence sink in. God is somehow “bound” to the need for a bloody sacrifice in order to forgive? What the hell is going on here? How did we go from a non-violent Jesus preaching Abba intimacy with a God who forgives before we even ask (parable of the Prodigal’s Son), to an understanding of the cross as a cosmic economic “transaction” where God requires a payment in order to justify his forgiveness. Technically that’s not even forgiveness. It’s also not the God I see revealed in Jesus.

Finally, as I mentioned in pt.1, I think our understanding of the atonement bleeds over into other parts of our theology, which means that a view of God as a vindictive patriarchal deity who needs a blood sacrifice in order to forgive, whether we’re conscious of it or not, ends up casting a shadow over our entire understanding of the Christian faith. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I believe this shadow (often disguised in language about God’s “justice”) becomes the theological justification for things like a downright sadistic doctrine of a literal/eternal/conscious hell where people are tortured with fire, an eschatology that looks forward to the day when Jesus comes back as a horsed bandit complete with a sword dripping in the blood of his enemies, and a supposedly “Christian” nation that believes in God ordained pre-emptive war which is alo rooted in Old Testament genocidal passages that should embarrass anyone who identifies themselves with the Judeo-Christian tradition. But rather than embarrassment at these passages we actually defend them because we honestly think this is who God is. On the contrary, I think we should take Jesus at his word when he says that if we’ve seen him then we’ve seen the Father, rather than backpedaling on the forgiveness and love of God we’ve come to see in Jesus with comments about how we have to “balance” the love of God’s with his “justice” (which again is normally our code word for violence).

Obviously, I think this atonement theory was a mistake in the history of our tradition. However, what’s strange is that some people feel that by questioning it, I’m questioning an “essential truth’ of the Bible. My problem with this is that fact that the PSA theory was barely mentioned for the first 1,000 years of church history, so anyone who claims that you can’t be a Christian without holding to this supposed “crown jewel” of atonement theories simply doesn’t have church history on their side.

For those who are curious in years past I resonated with the moral influence theory and more recently with Rene Girard’s scapegoat theory of the atonement. I’m reading two of his books now: Violence of the Sacred and Deceit, Desire, and the Novel so there may be a post coming up on those in the weeks to come.