Thimbleful of Thoughts Friday, June 20, 2008 at 7:53 am
I said I wouldn’t write weightier posts and I am trying to keep myself to it. But my mind is like a whirlpool of these lately, and my lighter reading is rapidly coming to an end. In appeasement to myself, I will post a few ‘weightier’ links.
Andrew is back to the online world, for which I am somewhat happy. I wish I had his knowledge about church history (which he finds depressing), for then I could say more than just that Christianity became progressively a political force, and it did, but also such things like ‘Cyril of Alexandria is an “uber-super-unmatched-bastard.”‘ Although I am not as knowledgeable as he, I have wondered about the ‘heresy’ of Nestorianism as it seems to deal with erudite matters over which ‘heresy’ is an overstrong word. And anyone willing to rationally defend Pelagius (who does seem to have far more in common with the early Fathers than Augustine!) gets automatic addition to my list of cool people. I don’t know why I still have so much interest in all this. Perhaps I really am turning into Bart Ehrman.
On another church-related note, it deeply saddens me to see the looming schism in the Anglican church. Honestly, for a church that remained united despite the issue of slavery, I find homosexuality a rather trivial thing to schism over. In fact, are they splitting over what it means to be a Christian, or who Jesus is, or the nature of God, or (for God’s sake) even over how to organize a church? No - it’s that members of the Global South can’t stand that there are congregations that disagree about whether it’s okay to advance a sexual ethic of monogamy regarding approx 3% of the human population. This may become a contentious issue to debate, but schism over it, really? Akinola I find to be a rather harsh and intolerable man, who has supported and advanced the passing of the world’s harshest anti-gay laws, which I should hope one opposes regardless of one’s ‘position’ on the morality of the issue. In light of the sort of legislation he backs, I am even more appalled that many US episcopates have switched allegiance to the Global South - I’d like to think that they are blind to Akinola’s political policies, as sadly few people know or care about this sort of thing, but that does not fully excuse them.
The world food crisis has me progressively concerned. And as Dan of Poser or Prophet points out, we typically find entertainment in stories of horror and exploitation when we should find transformation. I have been lax about finding a place to dedicate myself to the underadvantaged (a too-weak word: poor and exploited) this summer. I don’t know where to go through if not through a church, and don’t know whether to go through a church, but these are no excuse. And then at times I find myself wondering what the good is of working where I am, and if it is not just an exercise in selfishness.
Other deep currents in my mind have been spun off by listening to a very interesting interview of Jonathan Haidt by Will Wilkinson on the topic of happiness and morality, from a social sciences and, at least on Wilkinson’s end, libertarian perspective.
Well, that wraps it up for this installation of The Blog.
I agree strongly about the “schism” in the Anglican church. I understand that they see this issue as one about Biblical authority in general, but if denominations can stay intact over issues of divorce (and many have), which have many more Biblical guidelines and prohibitions, then I don’t see why homosexuality should be any different.
Oh, and Akinola is a nut. I can’t understand how any Christian who says to love America can disregard a man who has helped pass laws that are so offensive to the virtue of freedom.
While slavery affected more people directly, it would seem that Scripture’s authority in speaking to the sexual ethic is more far-reaching. If Scripture has created a trajectory in which its own words have a shelf-life that terminates prior to the second coming, then we have a problem: for what is Scripture authoritative? I know you and I disagree on many things (and I actually like that), but I would respectfully submit that the ‘question of homosexuality’ in the Church-at-large is actually symptomatic of a much larger question which needs to be asked and repeatedly: what is the nature of Scripture and how can that purpose be consistently applied?
Hey David! I had forgot that you were browsing stuff here. (And I’m still looking forward to your response to the Grudem materials you sent me.)
I agree with you that the question of homosexuality is much about the nature of Scripture. But you have just said that ’scripture’s authority in speaking to the sexual ethic is more far-reaching’ and I do wonder what hermeneutic you are using to back this up. I understand that the typical apologetic for things like (say) the book of Philemon is that slavery looked different, but this is quite a similar argument approaching things like (say) the comments about homosexual acts in Romans 1, and in both cases doubters are more than capable of saying that one is treating the words of Scripture as having ‘a shelf-life that terminates prior to the second coming.’ And as I have spoken about before, moral issues in New Testament are at a minimum not always straightforward (viz. food sacrificed to idols).
To the question of the authority, I might recommend the (Galileo) Galileian approach: and that is that it is nonsensical to take it as God’s Word in a literalist sense, but that ‘the primary purpose of the Holy Writ is to worship God and save souls.’ It is not denying the authority of Scripture to attempt to place its words in context, and read its purpose and central authority as disclosing the nature of God, and understanding the moral matrix of Scripture through that purpose shaped by its historical context. But simply throwing out homosexuality as an issue of accepting or not accepting the authority of Scripture is a gross simplification. (Which I know you know.)