So most of you probably have lives and didn't notice, but last week there was a raging debate between my old friend/antagonist Royale and Wonders for Oyarsa (with me occassionally chiming in) on my November 17th post "The Purpose of Purity." In the course of the conversation, Royale misquoted me (or at least I don't think I ever said this) that we shouldn't second-guess Christian tradition.
Like I said, I don't think I said that, but it raises a pretty significant issue for Christians: what is the role of church tradition and history? Or to put it another way, how do we understand the role of continuity with our past and the role and importance of discontinuity?
It seems to me that this was very much the hot topic for the New Testament church--how "Old Testament" did they need to be? Galatians is all about this, really. And it's significant that Paul makes a case for some degree of discontinuity based largely on the teachings of the OT itself, NOT because he's so much more enlightened now than silly old Abraham was several thousand years ago.
Martin Luther made similar arguments in his Reformation. He argued not based on current enlightenment but rather on the Scriptures themselves and what they taught.
And so today I think we're responsible to do the same thing. We cannot simply accept all church tradition as sacrosanct. But at the same time, we must recognize that this whole Christianity thing has been a mighty and powerful force throughout history and it is not simply up to us to "gut out" the parts that we feel uncomfortable with or happen not to like. The temptation to do this is perennial--it goes back to the garden's lie that "you will be like God." We all basically would rather be God or at least make God into our own image.
There is always a push-pull here: submission to what is being taught is a requirement of faith, but we are not supposed to check our brains at the door and ignore the things that seem to not quite add up. William Wilberforce was a great example of this as he led a Christian fight to end the slave trade against other Christians who argued that Scripture either upheld slavery or at the least didn't condemn it.
When Royale argues that 2,000 years of relentlessly consistent Christian interpretation of sexual purity is wrong based on what he claims to know about the culture of the time, I find myself dismissing it pretty quickly and easily--my guess is that the earliest church fathers who were just a short while removed from the original writing of these texts knew better than we do now what the cultural implications of sexual purity were and were able to make a more accurate interpretation of what was meant. And besides, if you're going to "make up" an interpretation, why not make up one that's more favorable both to our own biological and sensual inclinations as well as more popular among the people that you're trying to convert? The Christian sexual ethic has never won us many friends.
But I must confess that I think author N.T. Wright's "New Perspective on Paul" may be a helpful corrective to much of the post-Reformation understanding of what Paul was arguing for and against. This makes me about as much a heretic in some circles as I find Royale to be in his questioning of the Christian sexual ethic!
So how do I decide which teachings I'll re-evaluate and which ones I won't? I think we have to be relentlessly honest with ourselves about our motives--why don't I agree with/like this particular teaching of the church? Is it just inconvenient for me? Am I simply caving into what the culture teaches me? Does it strike me as unjust or unfair? Does it seem to go against other teachings of the Scriptures? Here again, I think that community is important--and not just to surround ourselves with people who will agree with us, especially if we tend to be cynical anyway. Cynics love to clump together and affirm one another in our cynicism.
In the end, all must be done with great humility, care, wisdom and love. And some mysteries will indeed never be answered. And so again, we are driven to prayer and dependence on God, which is exactly where he most often wants us.
6 comments:
i like what you're saying here...and i'm definitely agreed on Wright's 'New' Perspectives opening up the context on things a bit. and your last bit about cynics...how sad is it that so many christians (both cynical and not...) put themselves in circles of people who do nothing but agree with them. doesn't do a whole lot to challenge thinking (or cynicism for that matter).
thanks, jimk, and welcome to piebald life! i certainly don't put myself beyond being one of those people who surrounds himself with people who think like he does...i personally prefer people who are serious about the same things i'm serious about and cynical about the same things i'm cynical about!
Great post, Alex.
EDITOR'S NOTE: ROYALE TRIED TO POST BUT COULDN'T GET IT TO PUBLISH (ANYONE ELSE HAVING THIS PROBLEM? I JUST SWITCHED TO BLOGGER BETA). I'LL POST THIS AND THE FOLLOW-UP ON HIS BEHALF AND THEN MY RESPONSE IS BELOW....
I love how you complain about me misquoting you and then you misquote me.
note - i WAS going to compliment your post, then I saw your misquotes halfway down.
"When Royale argues that 2,000 years of relentlessly consistent Christian interpretation of sexual purity is wrong based on what he claims to know about the culture of the time"
I never made such argument. My argument is that the "Christian sexual ethic" was something very different in 100 AD than it was in 1000 AD and now in 2000 AD. It changes over time. That much is historical. But if you want to get to the Apostolic conception of sex, as if that's the pure "Christian sexual ethic," then you must know about contemporary sexual ethics in their time. To say otherwise is complete intellectual dishonesty and invites circular reasoning.
And no, the "Christian sexual ethic" has not been consistently applied throughout the ages. For starters, there was no NT for several centuries. In that time, there were competing Gospels, Epistles, and forgeries of both. To say that ANY Christian thought at that time was consistently applied just completely defies history.
And by the way, I'm waiting for your rebuttal on my interpretation of Paul. Am I wrong to think that Paul was counselling a church broken by temple prostitution? That it was a crisis that is obsolete today? Is your rebuttal to this the oversimplification (actually, historically inaccurate) "Christian sexual ethic has always been the same?"
"This makes me about as much a heretic in some circles as I find Royale to be in his questioning of the Christian sexual ethic!"
When the "Christian sexual ethic" - as preached by contemporaries - consistently and explicitly ignores the Old Testament's treatment of concubinery and polygmany - while simultaneously saying that the moral law of the OT must be imported into the NT, I find myself questioning if the "Christian sexual ethic" is actually the BIBLICAL sexual ethic.
So, what did you say about not taking out the portions of the Bible that we don't feel comfortable with? Are you comfortable with slavery, genocide, polygamy, concubinery? Last time I checked, those were Biblical.
Note - I never said you were a heretic, and I would kindly prefer if you treated me with a similar dignity, especially since I'm just asking questions, and have refrained as much as reasonably possible from stating any personal conclusions or beliefs. If you judge mine or anyone else's soul and conscience as "heretic" simply because you're uncomfortable with the questions they ask, well, then you cross a line that I certainly won't.
"Royale misquoted me (or at least I don't think I ever said this) that we shouldn't second-guess Christian tradition."
I'll have to find it, but you did say something to that effect.
ROYALE'S POST #2:
From your post on November 20
"Does this mean that we simply "chuck" several thousand years of rich Christian tradition? Does that mean that lowest-common-denominator should dictate what we do or don't do in worship? I don't think so. But does that mean that we just do what we do and ignore the needs of the people that Jesus spent most of his time with? I don't think that, either. Where does that leave us? Beats the heck out of me."
I took this to mean you defer to tradition and prefer not to challenge it. If I was wrong, then I apologize.
Okay, here we go!
RE: calling you a heretic--I meant that as playfully as one could. In my geeked-out world of amatuer-ish theologians, we call each other heretics on a regular basis. No offense meant, and I certainly want to keep the tone as cordial as possible. I felt that the last conversation got a little out of hand...please accept my apologies if that was inappropriate.
RE: the post about tradition. That certainly was not meant to communicate that we should just accept all tradition without questioning it. What I meant was what I said--that there's some great tradition that I can learn from as I'm entering into this new worship context...and there's stuff that I struggle with/question.
RE: my mis-quoting you. This is essentially your argument. You're saying that the church has had all these different interpretations of the NT's sexual ethic, but you've not substantiated this claim with any quote from anyone. In actuality, any and all of the church's earliest writings on the subject are, indeed, relentlessly consistent.
None of the earliest post-NT church fathers affirm anything apart from chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within it. I strongly disagree with your statement that the sexual ethic was different 100 AD, 1,000 AD, and today. All of the earliest church writings pretty much hold that same line. Even given some period of time where there was not a specific canon, the folks whose writings we do have still date much closer to the actual situation that Paul and others were writing to than you do arguing for something completely different 2,000 years later. So my argument is that the earliest church fathers are in a better position to accurately ascertain what Paul and Jesus meant by their sexual ethic because they're much closer to the contexts and situations that were being addressed. So I trust them and their interpretation much more than I do yours.
RE: more about concubines. This was basically the point of this post. There's both continuity with the OT and discontinuity with the OT as the new church figures out what it means to be a new kind of God's people. We don't sacrifice goats any more, we don't circumcise boys on the 8th day any more, and we don't do concubines any more. That's discontinuity. We still think it's not a good idea to kill someone, which is in the Ten Commandments. That's continuity. Perhaps that leaves us open to picking and choosing, but I think really what it is is understanding the OT in light of the fullness of the revelation of Jesus Christ who is "the end/the point of the [OT] law." Paul is doing this all the time in his writings. The sexual ethic is one of those things that has some degree of discontinuity with the OT, just like a number of other things (again, see sacrificial system, etc).
RE: the exact circumstances of Paul's writings. You are right-on with your assessment that Paul is writing his letters to specific churches with specific issues and in specific contexts. But then you go all wrong in your inference that we then can just chuck everything he says and just fill in with our own wishful-thinking theology of what we think he would say today.
The analogy to post-9/11 situation is a bit misleading in that Paul is not panicking here. His letters are arduous, pain-staking in their reasoning, logic, and purpose. He spends 11 "chapters" in Romans outlining in deep detail the larger story, God's purposes, and all this theology, only 4 telling people what to do and what not to do. He spends 3/4 of the book teaching, framing everything in a larger context and only 1/4 of the book telling people the "therefore" of what to do. Does that sounds like a frenetically written missive to try to just plug the holes in the dam? He does the same thing in Ephesians, Colossians, Galatians, and 1 and 2 Corinthians.
So yes, temple prostitution is a problem in the NT church. But absolutely and emphatically NO! That does not mean that we can then disregard his sexual teaching because he always roots his teachings in a bigger theological understanding--for example, don't hook up with a prostitute fore the grand, holy and beautiful reason that the body is the temple of the Lord. If he just said don't hook up with prostitutes, maybe you'd have a point. Instead, you're missing the point: Paul is not writing general theology in abstract but theology that is then explicitly and painstakingly applied ONLY AFTER it has been framed in this larger point. The "do/don't do this" always comes well after or sometimes in the immediate context of a larger theological point. It is therefore doubly instructive, rather than ignorable: it teaches us both the theological truths that matter most AND it teaches us pastorally how to apply those truths to real live people, churches, situations. That we receive instruction in a specific context lends it even more weight, not less.
Okay, that's all I got for tonight, it's my bedtime!
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