Romans 1-3 and Homosexuality

Today in Dr. McGrath's Sunday school class it was emphasized that those who use the material in Romans 1 about homosexuality as a weapon with which to condemn and "clobber" others have clearly made the error of stopping reading at the end of chapter 1 - which, like all the chapter and verse divisions in the New Testament, was not in the letter Paul wrote. If we continue reading, we discover that Paul engaged in a stereotypical Jewish condemnation of Gentiles (compare for instance Wisdom of Solomon 13-15) not as an end in itself, but in order to get Jewish readers who joined in the condemnation to understand that they themselves were in the same situation.

It was also noted that the dominant form of homosexual act in the Greek world in Paul's time was between a teacher and his male student. It is thus worth considering that Paul may have been more interested in condemning pederasty/paedophilia rather than addressing committed same-sex relationships. We also discussed whether an appropriate Christian outlook today is to condemn homosexuality in general, or to expect gay and lesbian Christians to hold themselves to a higher standard (monogamy) than prevails in our society, whether among homosexuals or heterosexuals. Also worth noting is that no one today practices "Biblical marriage", and to the extent that our view of the "nature" of men and women has changed (considered in Paul's time to be inherently active and passive respectively), is there any reason in our time to continue to view it as inherently demeaning for a man to take on a passive (i.e. female) role?

It is worth noting that in Romans 1, Paul apparently views homosexual practices as a punishment for Gentile turning away from God, rather than as something that itself is a cause of the divine wrath. Time prevented us from looking at the ways in which objects of wrath are turned into objects of mercy on numerous occasions in the Bible. Also left for consideration on another occasion is whether, should we wish to welcome homosexuals in a Christian community, we cannot find at least as much justification for doing so in the Scriptures as we have for other groups that might, on Scriptural grounds, be excluded (e.g. for instance the divorced).

The aim is to conclude the series on homosexuality next time, after which will follow some Easter-related topics.

Church and State

Today in Dr. McGrath's class we finished our introductory topic on the Bible in the "When Christians Disagree" series. We looked at the example of circumcision, which in Genesis 17 is quite plainly said to be a permanent and absolute condition of membership in the covenant people, even for those not actually descended from Abraham. We then turned to Acts 15 and looked at how the church (or at least part of the church) decided that it was going to do something different than what a plain reading of Genesis 17 would require. Reading Acts and Paul's letters as Scripture, it can be hard for Christians to put themselves in the situation of the time in which they were written, when these texts were not yet Scripture, and were making the case for something that seemed to many to represent a departure from Scripture.

In Acts 15, as also in Galatians, the argument seems to allow experience to trump Scripture. God had shown acceptance of Gentiles by pouring out the Holy Spirit on them while uncircumcised. If God had accepted them in this way, who are we to impose other requirements upon them? To get a sense of how this argument seemed to many Jewish Christians in the first century, one may usefully compare the topic of homosexuality, in connection with which many today might make a similar argument...

As we turn to various topics on which Christians disagree, there are other factors beside the Bible that we'll need to consider, such as reason, tradition, and experience. The Bible can of course be thought of in different ways: as a source of writings which are authoritative on Christian doctrine and practice, or as a source or writings which allow us to see examples of how the earliest Church worked through issues, themselves making use of Scripture, reason, tradition and experience.

The biggest news is perhaps that we have chosen our next major topic: "Church and State". It was on our list and seems particularly timely (we'll probably finish with the topic in early November). We will begin next week. We did not have a chance to discuss what we'd read to prepare, but I'd suggest that, in addition to the Ten Commandments and some of the places where Paul and Revelation mention those in authority, we should also read the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, since that is a key component in the distinctive form that debates on this topic take in an American context. Here it is:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.