More Thoughts On Death And Afterward

Never in my whole life have I spent such a focused, extended period of time thinking about death.

For the last two weeks I have been a part of an intensive module course at a local seminary. The class is called "Resurrection in the New Testament," and is a theological approach to how death, resurrection, and judgment are depicted in the NT. We just finished discussing our secondary text for the class, Anthony C. Thiselton’s Life After Death: A New Approach to the Last Things (Eerdmans: 2012), and I’m perhaps even more confused now than I was before. The fact is that many people in the Church simply do not think about life, death, and the “Last Things” nearly as thoroughly as they should. Below are some of the thoughts that have challenged me these last two weeks.

1. Eternity

What exactly is time? We flippantly throw around the idea that God is eternal, but what exactly does "eternity" mean? Is it a really, really, really, really long period of immeasurable time? Is it another dimension, outside of the four with which we are already familiar? Does God really exist outside of time? If so, how then does Christian tradition allow for such a deity to enter into the human story and be affected by it? How is it possible to have “a relationship” with a being that exists outside of time? How did you or your church define eternity when you were young? How do you feel about it today?

2. Hell

Two years ago, if you'd have asked me if I believed in Hell, I would have responded, "Absolutely not." These days, I’m not so sure. Thiselton presents three distinct streams of thought that have deep roots in the tradition of the Church, with each also being somewhat grounded in scripture:

a. The view of Iranaeus that afterlife consisted of “conditional immortality.” 

Sometimes this view is called “annihilationalism.” It’s based on the belief that, upon death (or perhaps more accurately, at the time of the resurrection), the faithful will live while the “wicked” perish, simply slipping into nonexistence. This is partially supported by Paul, who claims that “the wages of sin is death.”

b. The view most prominently held by Gregory of Nyssa, which is similar to what today we would call universalism.

Move over, Rob Bell! As early as the fourth century, this Cappadocian Father was preaching that “It is the peculiar effect of light to make darkness vanish, and of life to destroy death…Cleansing reaches those who are befouled with sin; and life, the dead…Error may be corrected, and what is dead is restored to life.”[1] Gregory believed that the ultimate goal of God (again, supported by Paul) was that God become “all in all,” even if it meant that the “wicked” must be purified by fire before entering the Kingdom. This view caused quite a bit of controversy recently with the publication of Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins.

c. The Augustinian view of a conscious, eternal torment. 

Hellfire, burning, eternal torture. This is perhaps the most commonly accepted understanding of Hell in the Protestant and Evangelical tradition. A person chooses to turn away from God, and is burned for all eternity as a consequence. However, Thiselton acknowledges that this view is particularly problematic: "The greatest difficulty of the 'everlasting punishment' view may be partly the relation between eternity and time; but even more fundamentally how we can conceive of God eternally sustaining both the life of believers in fellowship with [God], and also that of a group who are in every other sense 'separate' from [God]."[2] In other words, if God is truly the sustainer of life and is fully present with those who take part in the resurrection, how can a life exist outside of that life-giving presence?

I am particularly fond of Gregory of Nyssa’s view. However, I acknowledge that it has its shortcomings. Many of the early Christians sought universal salvation as “something to be hoped for,” even if it wasn’t a solid reality. I would like to hope for the idea that the Creator with restore all things in the end, as well, but I have this crazy notion of justice that keeps me from fully believing it. Which brings me to my final topic that I have been pondering:

3. Justice and Mercy

The United States is a place of "liberty and justice for all." In many ways, we still operate on the foundational social code of Hammurabi: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In most states, those convicted of first degree murder are often considered for the death penalty. Kill, and we kill you. That's how justice works, right? Thiselton suggests that in reality, we have a skewed understanding of biblical justice (Heb: tzedekah, Gk: δικαιοσύνη). A better translation of both words is perhaps “righteousness,” the idea that God is going to “put things to rights,” as N.T. Wright says. In essence, there is no conflict of justice and mercy in God. Righteousness includes a freeing of the oppressed, in whatever form their oppression might take. This entails a profoundly different understanding of the word justice; rather than God submitting to the back-and-forth of human right and wrong, God fixes the root of the problem. In other words, it's as if a mother chided her two children for fussing, and one of the children responded, "He started it!" to which the mother answers, "And I'm finishing it." What matters is not that God repays all wrongs tit-for-tat, but that in the end, God makes all things right. That is the righteousness of the Deity.

The Church has struggled with these questions for the better part of 2,000 years, and humanity itself has pondered the same issues since the first people began to consider their purpose in the cosmos. Honestly, I don't yet believe that there are any real answers. However, these are the questions that effective ministers should be struggling with. Death is always around us, regardless of whether our culture admits it. The families of those coping with the suicide of a loved one, or the young man who died of a drug overdose, or the child who fell victim to cancer—these are all problematic to the Christian worldview of an all-loving God. But it is precisely these circumstances that call for real, humble ministers, who approach such great questions with fear and with trembling.

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[1] Gregory of Nyssa, Catechism 25, quoted in Thiselton, 147.

[2] Thiselton, 149.

Why You Should Leave Behind Left Behind

If you're going to believe you could be Raptured at any

given moment, it's probably a good idea to keep that

denim skirt at least ankle-length.

When I was a kid, I was crazy about the Left Behind series. By the time I was around 15, I had almost all of the books. We watched the film version of the first book, starring Kirk Cameron, in my youth Sunday school class. It wasn’t until years after being introduced to the books that I began to see the deeply flawed nature of their theology.

Let me be blunt from the beginning of this post: there is no such thing as the Rapture. Nowhere in the New Testament text does it explicitly state that Christians will ever disappear, or suddenly be propelled into "Heaven," leaving the rest of humanity and the earth to go to Hell in a hand-basket. 

The text most commonly utilized as an apologetic for the dubious doctrine of the Rapture is 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve, as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

A 19^th-century clergyman named John Nelson Darby is largely responsible for the twisting of this passage to suggest that on the Last Day, Christians will be “caught up” in the air (Latin: rapiemur, the root of the English word “rapture”) and sent to Heaven, leaving this mortal coil behind. His ideas were further interpreted and integrated into the Scofield Bible (1909). The idea of a rapture is only a little more than a century old.

In reality, Paul is referring to the Royal Return of Jesus, or the Parousia (Greek: parousiva). According to scripture, this event immediately precedes the final resurrection of the dead. But a little more insight is necessary to understand why this text-segment has nothing to do with the subject of the Left Behind series. The primary question that any Bible interpreter (pastor, scholar, or layperson) should ask of any given scripture is this: What is the context of this passage?

“We don’t want you to be uninformed concerning those who have died, brothers and sisters,” Paul says. Paul is here addressing concerns from within the Thessalonian community about the return of Christ. By the time Paul was writing to the Church in Thessalonica, the death and resurrection of Jesus was nearly a quarter of a century in the past. People were beginning to die, and communities were beginning to question whether or not their loved ones would be raised from the dead in time to participate in the Royal Return of Christ, which many believed would happen within their own lifetime. In an attempt to calm their fears, Paul is arguing that the dead will indeed be raised at the time of Christ’s return, and that both the living and the dead will be caught up in the air to greet him.

The Greek term parousia (parousiva) literally means “return,” or “visitation.” In the first century, it was often used to describe the royal visits of Caesar. When the emperor would ride into a town, the wealthy and political elites would ride outside the gates of the city to greet him. They would then return in a royal procession into the town square, where the emperor would be presented with lavish gifts worthy of his lordship. The Apostle Paul applies the term to the Return of Christ, and it is this idea that he is getting at when trying to describe the circumstances of what many refer to as the Second Coming. Sure, the living and the dead will be caught up in the air to greet Christ. But the implication (assuming Paul was consistent in his description of the Resurrection on the Last Day) is that when Christ returns, as N.T. Wright says, to “put things to rights,” we will all return to earth to inhabit the New Creation that God has prepared for us.

“Going to Heaven” is not at all a Christian idea. Heaven, in fact, comes to us (as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer). 

Now, one could ponder all day about how exactly this whole business of “getting caught up in the air” is going to happen. However, to give too much authority to a literal interpretation of this text—as George B. Caird says of over-literalized readings of Revelation—is to “unweave the rainbow.”[1] The main point Paul is trying to communicate is quite simply hope. The dead will not be forgotten or abandoned when Christ returns to make all things new, as the Thessalonians feared. In fact, the living and the dead will both share a role in welcoming the Parousia and establishing God’s Reign on Earth for eternity, a reign that leaves no room for death, decay, hatred, or greed.

 

I should make note of the fact that this theological discussion is not a minor one, and the debunking of Rapture theology is extremely important. The most concerning problem of the doctrine is this: dispensationalism and millennialism aren't merely harmful little belief systems that just happen to contradict scripture and the better part of two thousand years of Church doctrine. It is—as my "Resurrection in the New Testament" professor calls it—a "sub-Christian" ideology. And the way these ideas are spoon-fed to our youth is quite dangerous. These beliefs breed assumptions about the inherently evil nature of Creation (which we know from Genesis is untrue; after all, God “saw that it was good”). If we are simply “going to Heaven” and leaving this crazy place behind, there is no need for us to be good stewards of Creation, or even care much for our fellow brothers and sisters who may not share the Judeo-Christian worldview, since it’s all going to burn away, anyway. It becomes a way of avoiding the problems of our time, rather than addressing them, and it takes a dim and shallow view of God’s power to fully redeem the world. It is the ultimate escapist revenge fantasy.  

What do you think? Were you raised to believe in the Rapture? Have you changed your mind since you were younger? Feel free to leave your comments below.

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[1] George B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (London: Black, 1966), pg. 25. Quoted in Anthony C. Thiselton, Life After Death: A New Approach to the Last Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), pg. 109.

A Perfect Church?

Over the last several months, I have found myself involved in a number of conversations regarding what a church service would look like if I were designing it from scratch. Part of this stems from my own disenchantment with the Church, as well as the feelings of many of my peers who have been alienated by the institution. Part of what follows also stems from my dreams of what the Church could be. These words are my own opinions, and partially the product of many of the above-mentioned discussions. I'd love to take this opportunity to encourage further dialogue.

• "Bigger is better?" Not in this house.

First of all, the church should be small. Early churches functioned within the confines of the immediate "neighborhood," with worship services often being held in houses (these house churches formed a larger community network, resulting in "the Church in Corinth," or "the Church in Rome"). In a culture that often values a super-sized McChurch over an intimate community, it is refreshing to think of the Spirit of God moving more fluidly among less institutional meetings. Additionally, churches that get "too big for their britches" often fail at adequately discipling and providing for the spiritual needs of their congregants; often, members of large churches simply have the opportunity to show up, feel good about themselves for a while, and return home without offering much in return to the community (for more on this topic, see Wolfgang Simson's 2001 book, Houses That Change the World: The Return of the House Churches). A 20-30 member church provides an opportunity for adequate, organic community without drowning the congregants in the costs of coffee bars and theater seats.
Furthermore, churches should have no business owning property (unless it serves a significant purpose other than being a house of worship—ie., a homeless shelter). The house of God is not a steepled building (as beautiful as they may be). The house of God is all of creation, and is attested to in the human heart. Why should a congregation take on the burden of a mortgage, or pay to heat/cool for a whole week a building that is mostly utilized only on Sundays?

• No creeds, no sacraments, except...

The years have not been very kind to the Church's penchant for setting beliefs and practices in stone. The Nicene Creed, influenced by the major political and theological issues of its day, is not as pertinent to today's Church as it once was. In general, creeds are no sooner set to paper before they become over-analyzed and outdated—especially in the fast-paced theological milieu of the 21st century. Though I'm sure many will disagree, I propose that the only necessary sacrament to maintain a healthy Christian community is the tradition of the Eucharist. The symbol of the table is the most spiritual element of Christian orthopraxy; it feeds the body while also feeding the spirit. It carries with it the notions of sharing, sacrifice, friendship, and social health, and I feel it should be a vital piece of weekly worship.

• Order of Worship

It is important to explore and expand beliefs and traditions. However, there must be a baseline order of worship for any regular meeting/service, or its own fluidity will cause it to fail. Granted, every order of worship is subjective, and reflects the values of its particular faith community. With that in mind, however, here is what I envisioned:

- Gathering/Greeting/Passing of the Peace/Reading of Scripture (15 minutes). I seldom experience as much joy as when I have the privilege of initiating the Passing of the Peace in the small rural church where I often preach. By beginning the service this way, a general pleasant attitude is engendered in the hearts of those gathered. Reading scripture at the start of service and before the period of contemplation gives congregants something to meditate upon.

- Contemplation (30 minutes). I love this Quaker practice, and believe that it should comprise the most significant time segment of worship. I personally feel closest to God in a room full of people together in total silence. However, even I will readily admit that a full hour of silence is taxing, and perhaps does not exactly fulfill all of a community's spiritual needs.
- Homily/Music (15 minutes). This should be the least important part of the service, and at the same time, the most malleable. Should someone desire to speak, that would be fantastic! Should the congregation happen to have a musician that could lead us in one or two songs, that's wonderful! But the service does not hinge on this portion. This is merely a time of worshipful expression, in whatever form that might take.
- Fellowship/Eucharist (As long as it takes). This should be the most important part of the service. Being the central practice of Christian tradition, the sharing of a meal helps build community and invites us to share in the same love that Jesus shared with his disciples.

Congregants would sit in a circle/square, similar to the style of a Quaker meeting house. There may be candles; perhaps not. There may be an altar; perhaps not. The focus would be on one another.

• Diversify, diversify, diversify!

I want to attend a church that is not afraid to try new things. I want to attend a church that is not afraid to reach out artistically to feel out the meaning of its own humanity. The human soul is free, and the Church should relish and take advantage of this freedom in any way it can. If a painting, song, film, or other piece of art seems particularly relevant to the worship of God, it should be used and discussed! Art and the process of creation should play a vital role in a worship service. People should be free to express themselves, and the Church should make room for them to do so! And the above-mentioned Order of Worship should be adapted to accommodate. I want to attend a church where this is as welcome as this. Or this. Or, for whatever reason, even this.
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This all sounds fine and dandy to me. But here's the great difficulty: the Church does not exist to serve the needs of one person, or even two or three. Churches—as places of worship—exist to serve the spiritual needs of the congregation; they function primarily as a place where communities can gather to experience the Other. Post-modernity has splintered any illusions of a monolithic worship service that we might have previously held to be true. The so-called "Emerging Church Movement" has given birth in the last twenty years to schizophrenic faith communities who vacillate between the desire to be grounded in tradition and the desire to be sensitive to those without a specific tradition (a stance that has erroneously been dubbed "seeker-friendly"). I suggest that a church need not be encumbered by its desire to be sensitive to others' unfamiliarity in order to make converts. Churches should be courageous laboratories of spiritual experimentation that are at the same time unafraid of seeking out their own traditions. The only way in which the Church can continue to be a place of hope in this decade and the decades to come is if we break free of what is known and begin to dream.
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For more information about house churches, check out these 15 theses by Wolfgang Simson.

Gay Zombies?: A Letter to the Editor

The above letter appeared about a month ago in my hometown newspaper, The Wayne County Journal Banner. Partly out of whimsy and partly out of genuine concern, I posted the photo on Facebook to try to get friends to flood the author of the piece, Mr. Robert Fox, with letters describing his errors—both logical and grammatical. It was then suggested by a friend that I write a personal response. After drafting a rebuttal, I discovered that since Mr. Fox's initial letter was classified as a "paid election letter," I would have to pay a $25 fee in order to have my response published. Rather than submit to such a fee, I have decided to post my response online, instead. 

To the Editor of the Wayne County Journal Banner,

I am writing to express my extreme frustration with the political ad recently published by Robert Fox in the June 14 edition of your newspaper. I would like to set a few things straight about what I feel is a misunderstanding by Mr. Fox of current events.

Mr. Fox drew absurd and nonexistent parallels between recent reports in the news involving horrifically violent crimes and the gay community. First, it should be mentioned that each story—while admittedly bizarre—was a completely isolated incident, unrelated to each of the other stories mentioned in the ad. In fact, at least two of the cases have been determined by officials to be the result of mental instability and drug abuse—NOT homosexuality. In addition, while the repetitive appearance of such terrifying stories might very well be attributed to the kind of media sensationalism often found in the news these days, it is in no way connected to the general moral decline of society or to the gay community than an earthquake in Indonesia is connected to a butterfly’s burp in southeast Missouri. Gays are not cannibals or zombies, as inferred by Mr. Fox’s letter. I have many friends who happen to be gay, and I have not once seen any of them attempt to eat a person.

While the above stories are by all accounts disturbing and saddening, the proper response is not the pointing of fingers. If Mr. Fox wishes to step up to the plate as one of the moral people he speaks of, he should begin with reading the Sermon on the Mount, one of the greatest moral codes in human history, which includes such radical teachings as “love your enemies,” “give to all who ask of you,” and “do not judge, so that you may not be judged.” In the future, he would be well advised to do his research before making dubious connections between sensational news stories.

Bear in mind that I write this letter not as just “some kid” who moved away from home, went to college, and “got liberal.” I am a born-and-bred southeast Missourian, and I have spent the vast majority of my life living in Wayne County. I have great respect and admiration for the place where I grew up, as well as the people who encouraged me as a child and young adult. As long as I live, Williamsville will always be my home. I respect where I come from, and I feel that the outside world should respect it, too. But it is extremely difficult to build any trust or respect of difference when all the outside world sees of southeast Missouri is the kind of shock-and-awe political tactics exhibited by Mr. Fox’s ad. I write this letter to suggest to your readers that though a person may come from a small town, it by no means follows that they have a small mind or a small heart.

I welcome Mr. Fox to engage me in any form of intelligent dialogue on the subject. Because of my Christian faith and my great concern for scriptural integrity and social justice, I have researched the issue of homosexuality at painstaking length, and have spent years discerning an ethical, Christian response to the subject. My ears are always open for discussion.

Peace and grace,

Joshua Smith
1134 Hasbrook Ave.
Kansas City, KS 66105

Christian Against Universal Healthcare? No Such Thing.

For a much more eloquent and well-researched article on this subject, please see this recent article posted by my friend and New Testament professor, Dr. David May.

*****

"What Would Jesus Do?" is probably the most useful phrase to come out of the contemporary Christian movement of the last several decades. Since first appearing among Christian youth groups in the early 1990s, WWJD? has become almost as ubiquitous as "John 3:16," showing up on billboards, church signs, and the shirtless chests of body-painted, rainbow-wigged sports fans. Now that the Affordable Care Act (pejoratively known as "ObamaCare") has been ruled perfectly legal by the Supreme Court, it seems that we must take WWJD? more seriously than ever: when it comes to government policies which attempt to make healthcare affordable to families that would otherwise have no way of receiving medical treatment, we must either support these policies in any way we can, or we must cease to define ourselves as Christians.

St. Francis comforts a man with a pre-existing condition.

Please bear in mind that what follows is not an arguement from a medical perspective, from a capitalist perspective, from a political/Constitutional perspective, from a legal perspective, or even from an American perspective. The point of this post is not to show you that many other developed (and developing) countries have had universal healthcare plans for years. I argue this strictly from the perspective of a Christian with an ethical obligation to love and serve my brothers and sisters. And you can feel free to disagree with me—but (you will rarely ever hear me say this so matter-of-factly) you'd be wrong. Wrong.

There are few circumstances for which this argument is either called-for or efficacious—but the debate over healthcare is, I think, one of those circumstances. 

Christians who oppose affordable health care do so without a leg to stand on, ethically speaking. Without some extreme hermeneutical gymnastics, it is nearly impossible to answer the question "What would Jesus do?" with "Deny millions of Americans the ability to afford to have their illnesses treated." After all, Jesus was a healer. But perhaps more importantly, Jesus was also an ethicist, and if we are to seriously consider using the Nazarene as a model of ethical Christian behavior, we must consider the implications of some of his  teachings.

• Matthew 25 tells the parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats, in which the animals are judged according to how they treated the poor, the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, and the imprisoned. As they find out later, those who helped the people mentioned above were actually giving aid to Jesus—the implication being that we are to treat the less-fortunate as though they were Christ himself. If we deny affordable healthcare coverage to the types of people mentioned above, we are effectively denying them to Jesus.
• The very foundation of Christian doctrine lies in the notion of self-sacrifice for the benefit of our neighbors, regardless of the personal cost to us, and regardless of whether or not we believe they deserve it. As he was nailed to the cross and executed by the Romans, Jesus uttered the prayer, "Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing."
• The fundamental debate over U.S. healthcare reform is in reality directly related with your individual perception of the poorest among us. I have seen families ruined by outrageous and unjust medical bills and lack of access to affordable care. I've seen brothers and sisters that have had to drop out of college to help care for their injured and ill siblings because their family could not afford long-term healthcare and education. But Jesus showed unwavering solidarity with the poor. Jesus said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God belongs to you." Jesus said, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release of captives and recovery of sight to the blind..." Jesus said, "Go, sell what you own, give to the poor, and follow me." Jesus said "When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you." It does not matter if you believe that the poor are lazy moochers who are only looking for a handout, the point is they are poor, and Christ commanded his followers to serve them. End of story.
• And, in case your concern is that the government is telling you what to do with your money, see Luke 20:25 ("Give to Caesar what is Caesar's") and Luke 6:30 ("Give to everyone who asks of you"). Unless you're willing to go all "Peter and John" on a sick person and say, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee..." and heal the person then and there, it looks like you're going to have to show your support monetarily.

At this point, it matters little in what form universal health care materializes: whether it is through the government, like the Affordable Care Act, or through a church or other nonprofit organization. The important part is that it becomes the standard by which we can measure the care of our nation for its citizens. As someone who has been a vehement advocate of the egalitarian and peaceful Kingdom of God, I am by no means a fan of government when it gets in the way of personal spiritual liberty and freedom of the soul. BUT: if it is indeed absolutely necessary to have a governing body, should health care not be one of the primary reasons for the existence of such an institution? After all, it states in the Preamble to our United States Constitution that "We the People" established the document to help (among other things) "promote the general welfare" of the public. If we are to continue to call ourselves followers of Jesus we must come to terms with the fact according to his teachings, we have a moral obligation to ensure a higher quality of life for our neighbors. And if we can't bring ourselves to part with our own possessions to accomplish that goal, then we need to stop referring to ourselves as Christians.

What would Jesus do? Most likely, he would stop whining about paying taxes and pursue the cause which seeks to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, regardless of power, politics, and money. So you may argue the finer details of this debate—it is, after all, a much more complicated discussion than what time and space have permitted me to write about here—but in the end, for the Christian, it ultimately falls to the simple decision of whether or not we are loving our neighbors with our actions. If your argument is more about splitting hairs than about showing love, you are wrong. Wrong.

Queering the Church, Part Two: Praxis

In my last post, I discussed how the letters of Paul are not as clear on the issue of homosexuality as many in the Church would prefer—indeed, of the two primary pericopae often utilized by “Christian” heterosexist pastors and theologians, the language is in some places quite murky. In contrast, however, Paul does iterate multiple times the absolute necessity of unity, fellowship, love, and submission to one another in the body of Christ. How then do we illustrate this to our congregations? How can the quickly growing field of biblical scholarship and gender studies begin to turn around such an ambling, socially and culturally stunted behemoth? I suggest that this might best be done by “queering” the Church.

             This term, coined by literary queer theorists and theologians in the 1990s, refers to the reappropriation by a marginalized group of a word or object that was previously used to degrade, demoralize, and dehumanize members of that group. Great theological strides have been made in recent years in “queering the Bible,” that is, reading and studying the Bible from an LGBTQ perspective. In this particular case, “queering the Church” refers to the act of making the Church—an institution whose most recognizable public trait is homophobia—into not only an institution which is unashamed and unafraid of its gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, but an institution which openly embraces them. But the term “queering” has another connotation, as well: the action of setting apart, or “peculiarizing.” This is a notion that has deep roots in the liberation theology of the Exodus: “You shall not wrong or oppress the stranger in your midst, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.” In queering the Church, we should hope not only to become opened to the LGBTQ community, but stand out among our culture as God’s peculiar, inclusive people, for the simple reason that at some point in our long history, we knew what it was like to be despised, persecuted, “queer.” Is this not the greater mission of the body of Christ?

While it should be observed that no persecuted group has ever achieved justice with a magical catchall sermon or speech, I would here like to briefly outline five specific ways in which our congregations and faith communities might begin to push forward in this dialogue.

1. Begin the conversation

People fear what they do not understand. The more an issue can be discussed, however, the closer our brothers and sisters in the church can be moved toward understanding. David L. Tiede spells out the responsibility of church and seminary leaders to their congregations and students: 

Those who believe that the prevailing mores are unjust or oppressive must either garner the authority of the institutions which articulate and maintain the moral standards of the community or they must challenge that authority. Institutions such as seminaries, congregations, and church offices steward their legitimate authority in these matters more by persuasion than coercion. They must listen to the arguments of those who believe the standards are inept for the many or unjust to the few.[1] 

Sometimes the best way to initiate revolutionary change is to be open with our questions, and not be afraid to push back a little against the presumptions of others.

2. Illustrate the inherent misogyny that underlies homophobia.

As mentioned above, when the Bible is appealed to as a source of wisdom worthy of the so-called “problem” of homosexuality, it may be helpful to very carefully frame the issue within the historical context of misogyny in the ancient world. Most (though not all) modern Christians recoil from the accusation of sexism, and upon further discussion it will become evident to our congregations that our heterosexism is actually just thinly veiled sexism. As Martin claims, “The ancient condemnation of the penetrated man was possible only because sexist ideology had already inscribed the inferiority of women into heterosexual sex. To be penetrated was to be inferior because women were inferior.”[2] If we confront our churches and ourselves with the knowledge that our historical hatred of gays and lesbians is less about sin and morality than it is about deep-rooted assumptions about the superiority of men to women, we can then repent and begin to press beyond such social structures.

3. Be your faith community’s Paul.

            The Apostle Paul was perhaps the very first Christian contextual theologian, and we admire him for this. Should we not fulfill the same role for our congregations and faith communities that are struggling to accept gays into the family of God? Paul wrote on Kingdom ethics from a specific cultural and historical context. We should, therefore, also let our culture and historical context influence how we perceive Kingdom ethics today. It makes little sense to attempt to plug Paul’s contextual theology neatly into our own.

4. Value experience.

Our congregations have too long sat in the festering stagnant water of bibliolatry. When experience ceases to inform reason, and when scripture is treated as a god and not as a tool for communing with God, the Church will lose relevance. To prevent this, we must open ourselves to the moving of the Spirit in our lives, not restricting it to the pages of a book. It is criminally myopic for a church to publicly condemn gays without having ever met one. Actual face-to-face encounters with the LGBT community help to connect faces with the growing number of openly gay Christians who are struggling for a place in the Church, and it is hard to hate someone whom you know and love deeply. We simply cannot afford to place the Bible in such high esteem that we alienate and devalue the experience of others. Our churches need to develop a sensitivity to the Biblical text which is not often seen among people absolutely certain of the truth of their perspective, moving forward with fear and trembling.

5. Love.

Above all, we must love. Often, those claiming to be moderates circumvent the issue of
homosexuality by proclaiming that we should “hate the sin, not the sinner.” Unfortunately,
what we have thus far failed to grasp is that hate is the sin, as described by Paul in the
opening verses of Romans 2. It is easy to isolate two verses in 1 Corinthians 6 and read
what we want to hear from them, giving ourselves permission to discriminate and
marginalize by right of Biblical authority. It is a much more difficult task to take in the
entire letter through the pivotal locus of 1 Corinthians 13: unless we infuse our discourse
with openhearted love, we are but clanging cymbals. And now, perhaps more than ever, is
when the public needs to hear the melody of the Church ringing clearly, a song of freedom
and acceptance.

---

[1] Tiede, 153.

[2] Martin, 48.

Queering the Church: It's About Time (Part One)

Note: This is Part One of my two-part series on homosexuality and the Church. The first part examines supposed references to homosexuality in the letters of Paul; Part Two, which I will post tomorrow, will outline five primary ways to introduce this information to a church congregation.            

For the Evangelical Christian who leans even modestly leftward, it is not a difficult task to hermeneutically bypass Hebrew scripture that appears to condemn homosexual activity. The admonition found in Leviticus 20:13 that anyone found to be engaged in same-sex intercourse should be put to death can be cast in doubt simply by engaging in the process of questioning: In our current cultural context of modern and postmodern American Christianity, who should be deemed worthy by the public to carry out the sentencing of such a crime? Should it be our officers of the law who are to put all homosexuals to death? The absurdity of the question exposes the cultural and contextual gap between ancient Hebrew Yahwism and twenty-first century American globalism, and is often left unconsidered by many who vehemently defend what they call “traditional marriage.” The New Testament Gospels contain virtually no references to homosexuality at all (with the exception of a few queer theological interpretations of extracanonical Gospels[2]), so little can be argued from the authoritative words of Jesus of Nazareth. On this particular issue, he remains peculiarly silent. But what of the letters of Paul? How do we confront the theology of a man whose writings make up more than a quarter of the New Testament with our rapidly shifting knowledge of gender identity and human sexuality? Such is the aim of this study.

In Part One I will address two primary pericopae from the writings of the Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Romans 1:24-27, and their literary, historical, and social context. In Part Two of this post, I will help to outline a method in which the material of Part One might be disseminated within a congregational or ministerial setting. 

PART ONE: Textual Analysis

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth deals with several important issues with which the early Christians in that city struggled, particularly unity, holiness, love, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and sexual morality. It is the latter with which this section is concerned. Paul was undertaking no small task to preach to the Corinthians about sexual ethic. Of the cultural setting of Corinth, David L. Tiede writes, “Corinth was a town with a reputation for cosmopolitan airs, for bawdy sex in the marketplace, for crafty dealings among the traders at the port…The human meat markets of every age have looked about the same, and every generation has had its high priests of sexual freedom and pornography.”[3] With this context in mind, two words in particular should be given special attention from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: arsenokoitai (arsenokoitai) and malakoi (malakoi).

            The fluidity of language has a long history of birthing numerous interpretations of the Biblical text, both in ancient times and throughout recent history. Dale B. Martin, in his excellent study of human sexuality and the Church, Sex and the Single Savior, notes that both of these mysterious terms included in Paul’s Corinthian vice list held, until the 19^th or 20^th century, a distinctly male connotation, with no respect to our modern concept of sexual orientation. The term arsenokoitai, for example, took on new meaning when the Greek noun—which refers solely to men—was translated in the early twentieth century with the generic label of “homosexual,” thereby feeding the growing misconception that both the male and female gay identity stemmed from what was commonly considered to be a mental disorder.[4]

Furthermore, Martin suggests that arsenokoitai (arsenokoiteV) has a much more specific meaning than any generic homosexual activity. This specific meaning might be lost to us, but contextual hints may be found in the Sibylline Oracles (2nd - 5th cent., CE), an ancient Greek text which utilizes the word in a vice list very similar to (yet totally independent of) Paul’s reference in 1 Corinthians. However, arsenokoiteV here takes on a distinctly economic meaning, sandwiched between such admonitions as “Do not steal seeds. Whoever takes for himself is accursed,” and “Give one who has labored his wage. Do not oppress the poor man.”[5] In addition, two other early Christian texts, The Acts of John (2^nd cent.) and Theophilus of Antioch’s To Autolychus, also include arsenokoiteV among economic vice lists.[6] It is possible that by including aresenokoitai among such sexual sinners as adulterers (moicoi) and fornicators (pornoi), Paul is attempting to single out those who are motivated by their own greed toward sexual exploitation. In any case, it should be pointed out that the exact definition of this term has been and will most likely remain a mystery, and that due to this ambiguity, translations will continue to be influenced by the particular ideological milieu or bias of the translator. 

Unlike arsenokoiteV, however, the word malakoV (plural: malakoi) does have a well-documented meaning. Long before Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to his political opponents as “girly-men,” the ancients used the term malakoV to refer to any man with a less-than-masculine demeanor, a physically feminine build, distaste for hard work, or an otherwise milquetoast disposition. Josephus and Plutarch both use the term in their writings to refer to the cowardly.[7] The Greek word is actually the etymological ancestor of the English word malleable, and means, literally, soft. Often translated together with arsenokoitai as “sexual perverts” or “homosexuals,” a much closer understanding of the word might be its original King James English translation, effeminate, which inadvertently takes into consideration the inherent sexism of Paul’s culture. Men were chiseled and virile, but women were weak, both in will and in physical stature. The ancient understanding of the feminine was very much influenced by the coital act—men were aggressive penetrators, while women were to passively allow themselves to be penetrated. Any man who was seen to be “soft” followed the natural order of distinction bestowed specifically upon women, and was therefore weak and cowardly. As Martin concludes, the difficulty with Paul’s use of the term malakoV is not the inherently sinful nature of homosexuality, but instead the “rank misogyny” implied by the term.[8] This concept will be explored further in Part II of this study, which will be posted tomorrow.

Romans 1:24-27

In this text-segment, as in the Corinthian correspondence, context becomes one of the key issues to interpreting the passage. It should first be noted that the overarching theme of the Romans letter involves the complicated interplay of salvation for the Jews and salvation for the Gentiles, and it is through this lens that Romans 1:24-27 must be viewed. Specifically, when Paul speaks of what many today consider to be a theological re-hashing of the Fall of Humanity, he is actually referring to the idolatry of the pre-Christian Gentiles, as is revealed by the preceding paragraphs.

It should not be overlooked or ignored that the primary sin that Paul is speaking against here is not some modern concept of sexual orientation, but the sin of idolatry. The  “exchanging of natural intercourse [Greek: cresin, or use] for unnatural” among men and women is not the sin being committed, but is instead punishment meted out by God for the sin of worshiping false gods! Furthermore, David L. Balch observes that “Paul is not evaluating homosexual ‘relationships,’ a modern value, but judges the psychological state of the person experiencing addictive desire…Paul's terms desire, passion, inflame, appetite, and error suggest that he is critiquing unbridled eros, sexual passion.”[9] Paul, like many other ancient moralists, viewed homosexual activity as “the most extreme expression of heterosexual lust.”[10] This interpretation of the pericope holds that Paul was instead noting the consequences of idolatry; that is, the total abandonment of will to appetite. Indeed, the link between sexual promiscuity and gluttony has been well-explored by recent scholars:

Sexual desire and hunger for food were thought to be analogous. The pleasure or use of sex is to be limited by satisfaction, as a full stomach limits eating. The Greco-Roman question of sexual use does not ask about the gender of the subject or the object, does not ask whether the activity is homo- or heterosexual.[11] 

Women being inflamed with passion for women and men being inflamed with passion for men is not, then, the result of any innate, natural, sexual orientation that causes one to be attracted to a person of the same sex, but is instead the carrying out of a natural sexual drive to its depraved ultimate conclusion.

Finally, it is a tragic irony that those who utilize this very passage as fuel for the fires of judgment against the LGBTQ community apparently (and most unfortunately) read no further than the end of the first chapter of Romans. The very next portion of the letter contains the following admonition:

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, ‘We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.’ Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? 

The same Paul who proclaims that the New Age of Christ has arrived, urging Gentiles and 

Jews alike to embrace one another as brothers and sisters, also writes to the Church in 

Galatia that “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no 

longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” This understanding of God 

as no respecter of persons bears a remarkable resemblance to Peter’s epiphany in Acts 10, 

as he preaches to Cornelius following his own vision regarding the acceptance of the 

profane: “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a 

Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” As long 

as proof-texting is utilized by those perceived to be in power as a tool for marginalization 

and rejection of our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters, the church 

will never be seen by the oppressed as the catalyst for the New Age of Christ that Paul 

envisioned it to be.

---

[2] For more on this, see Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship (Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies) (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), particularly Jione Havea‘s chapter, “Lazarus Troubles.”

[3] David L. Tiede, "Will idolaters, sodomizers, or the greedy inherit the kingdom of God : A pastoral exposition of 1 Cor 6:9-10." Word & World 10, no. 2 (March 1, 1990): 152.

[4] Dale B. Martin, Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 39.

[5] Ibid, 40.

[6] Ibid, 41.

[7] Ibid, 45.

[8] Ibid, 47.

[9] Balch, David L. "Romans 1:24-27, Science, and Homosexuality." Currents In Theology And Mission 25, no. 6 (December 1, 1998): p 437.

[10] Victor Paul Furnish, “The Bible and Homosexuality,” in Homosexuality: In Search of a Christian Understanding, ed. by Leon Smith, p 13, quoted by Martin, p 49.

[11] Balch, 437.