Monday, March 15, 2010

Further on Clarity or Confusion?

Given that hermeneuticists are likely to pay more attention to a matter on which there is a perception of lack of clarity, rather than on matters that are perceived to be clear, it is easy to wonder whether hermeneuticists ever deal in clarity!

Briefly, I want to suggest that there are many matters hermeneuticists are clear about. Rather than speak for all of them, let me speak for myself.

I am very clear that God through his written Word has revealed that his intention in creating humanity as male and female was that men and women would marry in an exclusive lifelong and fruitful relationship. I am also very clear that the theology of marriage revealed in Scripture means that a married couple should do all in their power to remain married. But. Yes, there is a 'but'! I am less clear about what people should do when a marriage has not been successful and divorce takes place, when a couple discover that they are infertile but may be fertile with the assistance of various 'in vitro' or surrogate or whatever possibilities for fertility, or when adultery takes place whether the onus falls on the hurt partner to the marriage to not only forgive but to take their sinning partner back into the full intimacy of marriage. Matters such as these are the 'stuff' of hermeneutics; and often they represent the real and present questions of Christians, both those new to the faith and those mature in the faith. It is pastorally necessary in many instances for the church to encourage good hermeneutical work in relation to such matters rather than to discourage it.

Another example: I am very clear that the Bible encourages good, wise, faithful, and bold leadership in the ministry and mission of Christ. Equally clearly, this leadership should be taken up by gifted, called, empowered and enthusiastic men and women. As far as I can tell 99% Christians are agreed with me on this; so my clarity is our clarity. But there is a specific issue within this understanding of Christian leadership on which Christians disagree about: that is, whether women may lead and teach mixed gender congregations; and this disagreement for some stems from a more 'traditional' reason (presbyters and bishops, like the Twelve, have always been male) and for others from a more 'Scriptural' reason (either women are specifically prohibited from doing so or men and women are ordered in such a manner that it is not a woman's role to do so or both). Some Christians are very clear that this is so. Some Christians are not clear that this is so. How might agreement be reached between us? One way, of course, is to keep examining Scripture, working through all relevant issues and questions, seeking a joint clarity. Again, this is the 'stuff' of hermeneutics.

A third example: I am very clear, as stated above, that "God through his written Word has revealed that his intention in creating humanity as male and female was that men and women would marry in an exclusive lifelong and fruitful relationship". But I am also clear that some men and some women are not made up - genetically, psychologically, etc - in such a manner as to have the requisite attraction for the opposite sex in order to be fruitfully bound together as 'one flesh' - body, heart, soul, and mind intwined as intended in marriage. Perhaps some may be transformed from this shortfall; but it is increasingly clear, as more and more testimonies of people are being revealed in a day when greater honesty seems possible, that some people are resolutely and unchangeably attracted to the same sex and not to the opposite sex.

What advice is the church to give to those among our brothers and sisters who are made this way? What response are we to make as God-appointed governments around the world move to legitimize formal commitments of couples of the same gender? I am less clear on these matters - the more so as increasingly I recognise that the way the church responds and has responded may be a significant cause of teenage suicide, of people leaving the church, and of depression and despair among homosexual Christians who long to be able to freely love and enjoy being loved by another person. It may be confusing to a new Christian to find their way to a website such as this and be drawn into reading material which does not immediately give a black/white answer or set of answers. I suggest we need to sit with that possibility and recognise another: that to give a black/white answer or set of answers may be devastating to a Christian who is beginning to wrestle with the reality, and the implications of their sexuality.

Must stop. More soon on whether God is somehow deficient if we argue that Scripture is not clear on this and on that.

12 comments:

  1. “These are grave charges, as Rosemary points out, for Scripture has some serious warnings for false teachers.”

    And I thank you for taking me seriously Peter, this is not something I do lightly. I AM aware of the seriousness of my concerns.

    ”In response I would say, first, that certainly it is possible that I am wrong.”

    Chuckle .. without a doubt, we are ALL wrong Peter, in many ways.

    “But what if a hermeneuticist avoids these dangers, and carefully works away at issues of interpretation? Is this a wrongful activity, full-stop?”

    I hope my final paragraph on the NECESSITY of this sort of work, [Packer ..plumber .. need for unclogged water pipes] demonstrated my complete support of this activity.

    ”Has any reader of this blog sold all they have and given the proceeds to the poor?”

    Good question, what is the teaching of the church on this, or did you in fact answer your own question while raising the issue as something of a red herring?

    “Given that hermeneuticists are likely to pay more attention to a matter on which there is a perception of lack of clarity, rather than on matters that are perceived to be clear, it is easy to wonder whether hermeneuticists ever deal in clarity!”

    Where does the phrase, much in use these days, ‘the mind of the church’ come from? It’s certainly a phrase I would use with regard to your above. What I’m asking for Peter, is clarity on the essentials. Clarity where there IS clarity. Sometimes I feel we actually worship obscurity these days, only feel comfortable when there’s a bit of ‘well we can’t be sure.’ So we listen to all the ‘you’ve hurt me’ words which indicate a pastoral situation, and instead of dealing with it as a pastoral matter, try instead to develop a system that allows that expression of hurt to be vindicated by total acceptance. [continued]

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  2. Peter you continue in this post to answer the questions that clearly led to my concerns. You do so in a very pastoral way and with extraordinary compassion. Thank you.

    However my concern is that the pastoral care and compassion of our church, and our hermeneuticists is what is getting in the way. That in fact such compassion leads to the LACK of clarity I’m talking about .. leads us to put compassion above what Jesus/God are telling us.

    We are frequently told about Jesus’ compassion, but what is the result of His compassion? Does He once suggest that because we can’t reach the ‘ideal’ we don’t have to strive for it? Does He once suggest that if we find ourselves unable to forgive, that that’s OK? Those ARE matters of pastoral care, but do matters of pastoral care drive the teaching of the church? Should they? Is that where the line is drawn? There surely must be a line Peter, otherwise this will just continue and continue until there is nothing of God’s teaching left. What precisely is supposed to drive us to our knees in the knowledge that we can’t achieve it on our own? That we need Jesus?

    I would suggest a couple of things in this regard. The church is often accused of being too black and white, you imply as much at the end of this post. So called ‘fundamentalists’ frequently suffer this opprobrium. The implication is that a local church believing and trusting in God’s Word this way does not care for people pastorally. The most frequent accusation these days of course is that we are homophobes. But are you really suggesting that if a wife should divorce her husband, that local church would shun her? That should a same sex attracted person darken their doors, they would close the door in his or her face? At the end of a couple of weeks, they’d have no congregation left, because we ALL fail and fall. The best of us are weak vessels who are a disgrace to our Saviour, so we are ALL in need of pastoral care. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to hear the Truth .. with a capital T.

    I am genuinely and deeply concerned Peter. Jesus most frequently accused those who genuinely loved God, that they were ‘protecting’ God’s people from the Truth, only He put it more harshly than that! That they’d wrapped God’s Word and Laws in so much protective ‘stuff’ .. that God’s people could no longer recognise it .. AND NEITHER COULD THEY .. consequently they were whitewashed tombs. Fearful, fearful words. [continued]

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  3. To take a slightly different slant, yesterday I listened to Rabbi Kushner speaking about the death of his first born son, and the reason why he came to the conclusion that God chose to designate two areas off-limits to His power. He concluded that God would not arbitrarily interfere with the laws of nature and He would not take away our freedom to choose between good and evil. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124582959

    Apart from a wrenching sadness that Rabbi Kushner hasn’t encountered our compassionate, healing and supernatural Jesus, I want to suggest that Jesus’ compassion always led Him to heal, not to compromise and come up with pastoral resolutions. The supernatural is a NATURAL part of the Gospels. Surely that must be our ideal? What we look for? What we hope for? What we listen to? Surely that is the ‘ground’ of our faith?

    Of course we’re not Jesus, but we DO have Him to apply to, and we do have faith that it’s His to heal and transform. We just also have the reality of the pastoral issues that are in every ONE of His local churches, and involve ALL his people, but should that compromise God’s Word?

    I’m not going to attempt to answer all the questions you put, which are all in the pastoral care realm IMHO, I’ve failed too often in my own pastoral dealings, not to tread exceedingly warily. But when Jesus/God asks us to forgive, and like Peter we ask how many times, the fact that we have a problem forgiving .. is a pastoral problem. It doesn’t alter the FACT that Jesus/God wants us to forgive. It doesn’t mean the message changes. So I can’t see that such issues are hermeneutical, they’re pastoral. It’s either that or I’ve never understood what hermeneutics means. [continued]

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  4. Chuckle .. with regard to the issue of women in leadership within the church. 99%? That is a HUGE and completely unsubstantiated claim surely Peter? However this IS a clear example of my concern. God didn’t appoint a woman as the leader of His people. Jesus didn’t appoint a woman as the leader of His people, so as far as I’m concerned, THAT is what God has said, and you can hermeneutic away to your hearts content, but you can never forget what His decision is and remains. If you do, then you’re saying God was wrong. Jesus was wrong. The Holy Spirit was wrong. I’m sorry, I know that’s blunt, but that’s my understanding. To me that is clear .. but that clarity has been obscured by what must surely be secondary hermeneutics. A discussion of the hermeneutical understandings of the Talmud and the midrash rather than the Pentateuch if you like. [Not a very good analogy I admit, but with my previous reference to the Pharisees, I hope it makes sense.] You see I DO believe, as I’ve said to you many times, that the church’s understanding of the role of women has been extremely bad for centuries, so that hermeneutical discussion SHOULD take place, but you don’t start by forgetting what God/Jesus said.

    Lastly, you ask the question with regard to same sex attraction. “What advice is the church to give to those among our brothers and sisters who are made this way?”

    Well what advice does the church give to those who are born greedy? Naturally acquisitive? Genetically predisposed to addiction? Are we going to go on and declare all sin is good? Where please Peter, is the line going to be drawn? What WILL drive us to our knees? Does the church you represent care to inform us what exactly is sin

    Of course black and white answers are not the method or system we should use when we’re dealing with pastorally sensitive situations, but we also shouldn’t be suggesting that Our Lord hasn’t got ANY answers. That He isn’t entirely capable of healing and transforming. That He may not choose to do so, is our problem as a church, but as a matter of pastoral care and concern.

    In one way, I’d be delighted to be wrong about this, because my concern is so painful. Also, I’m sure I’m too blunt and don’t go into enough detail, but I’m hoping someone out there can see through my feminine leaps of logic and make the case better than I can.
    Rosemary

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  5. Hi Rosemary
    A few notes in response!

    (1) I acknowledge that for many pastoral situations pastors act instinctively and intuitively in making their responses and thus do not always need a handy hermeneuticist nearby for assistance.

    (2) Yet there are situations where hermeneuticists may be useful: a bishop wondering what to do when a thrice divorced person appears in the diocesan discernment process; a vicar and vestry wondering whether to protest publicly about a family planning clinic being set up next door to the church ... that is for pastoral situations that are less private, less able to to be sorted out 'quietly', and more likely to lead to public questions about 'the church's stance and why it is what it is'.

    (3) You say, "However this IS a clear example of my concern. God didn’t appoint a woman as the leader of His people. Jesus didn’t appoint a woman as the leader of His people, so as far as I’m concerned, THAT is what God has said, and you can hermeneutic away to your hearts content, but you can never forget what His decision is and remains. If you do, then you’re saying God was wrong. Jesus was wrong. The Holy Spirit was wrong. I’m sorry, I know that’s blunt, but that’s my understanding. To me that is clear .. but that clarity has been obscured by what must surely be secondary hermeneutics." But that overlooks things which have little to do with "secondary hermeneutics": (a) the role of Deborah in Israel (b) the fact that Jesus appointing Twelve male apostles, and Paul prohibiting women leading/teaching in 1 Tim 2:12 becoming a definitive doctrine that no woman may ever lead or teach a mixed congregation is an inference from the text, not itself a clear, direct teaching of Scripture.
    (4) I agree that hermeneuticists and all theologians should be able to be clear about 'essentials' (as, for example, JI Packer has been a wonderful example of being so) ... but you and I both know that it can be difficult securing agreement on what those essentials are!

    (5)I do not think that a church revising its approach to homosexuality is necessarily on a path to "declare all sin is good". (It may be ... some dreadfully loose statements are made by people in ecclesial authority!!) Specifically, the difference between a propensity towards greed and a homosexual orientation is that the former has no potential for expression in self-giving love to another person; the latter has that potential. Precisely because of that potential some in the church think review is timely: should human capacity to love another be thwarted or supported? An affirmative answer to that question does not necessarily imply that (say) greed is also going to be deemed okay. (There are a number of other matters to consider about this issue - please don't take these few sentences as a complete word on the matter)!

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  6. "Specifically, the difference between a propensity towards greed and a homosexual orientation is that the former has no potential for expression in self-giving love to another person; the latter has that potential."

    Unless "self-giving love" is informed by God's love, it falls very far short of God's purpose. Agape is not self-defined. Loving God is biblically defined as keeping His commandments.
    Adultery can also be actuated by 'self-giving love'; even incest and pedophilia, too, though you wouldn't like that comparison.
    What do you counsel the pedophile? Change if possible; restraint and self-mortification otherwise. Is that unloving? "Unpastoral"?
    What has changed since the 1950s is not the Bible but the context in which it is (mis-)understood. As secular society has become highly permissive about many (not yet all) forms of consensual teenage and adult sexual behavior, the pressure on culture-affirming, liberal churches has been to accommodate these changes to secure its place in this new, cold world. That is really all that has been happening.
    Rosemary is right: these are pastoral issues, not really hermeneutical ones.
    Stand back and view the bigger picture.

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  7. Hi Anonymous
    What you say is both helpful and challenging.
    Precisely the kind of rejoinder I wish to see in this debate. Thank you.

    It would be helpful, sometime to hear what a homosexual Christian thinks about these things!

    Of course there is a significant difference between adultery, incest, pedophilia and self-giving/mutually consenting same sex partnerships. The first three involve some element of injustice (betraying a promise, risking a deformed progeny, denying the right to consent as an adult) which is not clearly present in a same sex adult partnership.

    But I agree with you that true self-giving love is love informed by God's love seeking to fulfil God's purpose; and that agape is not self-defined.

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  8. Sigh .. I’m obviously not capable of making this case to you Peter. Would it help do you think if I changed my name to Deborah, or Junia?

    It would be nice occasionally to hear the words, “You have a point,” rather than just the endless denial that those who believe as I do, don’t have any Scriptural grounds for so doing. Or as you put it .. BUT .. Deborah trumps God.

    I think you will regret using the term ‘self-giving to another.’ Everyone without exception has that opportunity, and Jesus DEMANDS it, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with sexual gratification. So when you use that expression vis-à-vis those with a same sex orientation, you are in effect saying that they in particular have a right to express that love in a sexual manner, and there I’m not at all sure you’re right. I haven’t noticed Jesus saying that.

    Anonymous, thanks for your support. Much appreciated.

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  9. Hi Rosemary
    You do have a point and you do have Scriptural grounds for your case. I had hoped that I have been clear about that in my posts (for example, above when I say, "But there is a specific issue within this understanding of Christian leadership on which Christians disagree about: that is, whether women may lead and teach mixed gender congregations; and this disagreement for some stems from a more 'traditional' reason (presbyters and bishops, like the Twelve, have always been male) and for others from a more 'Scriptural' reason (either women are specifically prohibited from doing so or men and women are ordered in such a manner that it is not a woman's role to do so or both).").

    Far from endlessly trying to deny that there is a Scriptural case for not having women as leaders of mixed gender congregations I am in this thread trying to deny the charge that "you’re saying God was wrong. Jesus was wrong. The Holy Spirit was wrong." That is a pretty strong charge and I am in serious trouble if I am wrong!!

    I see your point re 'self-giving'. That may not be a helpful way to express things because, indeed, we should be self-giving in love to each and every person we meet.

    Please do not change your name :)

    With warm regards
    Peter

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  10. My very humble apologies Peter. I can have no excuse, I was skim reading rather than concentrating. I AM glad I can keep my name though! Our Lord never lets us swim too far from the boat before He hauls us back though, so 'Do not be anxious.'

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  11. PS. Have you read this? http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=517

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  12. No problems, Rosemary!
    That's a good article.
    I will post a link to it.
    Thanks
    Peter

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