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{"id":14152,"date":"2016-06-23T14:18:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T19:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/mercynotsacrifice\/?p=14152"},"modified":"2016-06-23T14:18:03","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T19:18:03","slug":"my-quarrel-with-n-t-wright-about-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mercynotsacrifice\/2016\/06\/23\/my-quarrel-with-n-t-wright-about-sex\/","title":{"rendered":"My quarrel with N.T. Wright about sex"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

"Wright" <\/a><\/p>\n

Much of what Wright said was rich and beautiful. His Christian vision is so much more compelling than the evangelical \u201corthodoxy\u201d he has challenged. But some of his comments would be very hurtful and patronizing for any queer Christian listening to it, such as his insinuation that the debate over queer\u00a0inclusion is a \u201cfirst world Christian problem.\u201d It isn\u2019t. In Africa, queer people get lynched<\/a>\u00a0for their identity largely due to the homophobia brought into African societies by Christianity and Islam.<\/p>\n

I have been trying to put my finger on exactly where I part ways with N.T. Wright in how I\u00a0interpret scripture. And I think the best way to capture it is in a widely circulated quote of his. Wright says, \u201cFor too long we have read scripture with nineteenth-century eyes and sixteenth-century questions. It\u2019s time to get back to reading with first-century eyes and twenty-first century question.\u201d I don\u2019t think the authority of scripture depends upon letting the first century get the last word on how to understand human identity. While understanding first-century Judaism can tremendously illuminate scripture for us, I don\u2019t think we have to adopt the sensibilities of first-century Judaism to get Christian theology right.<\/p>\n

For Wright, the one relevant question for interpreting much of the New Testament is what did Paul really think<\/em>. He\u2019s devoted his career to the historical scholarship that gets us much closer to\u00a0understanding this with accuracy. For example, when Paul talks about justification, he wasn\u2019t talking about Martin Luther\u2019s terrified neurosis over\u00a0his personal damnation, but about the restoration of the Israelite people from centuries of exile. I think Wright\u2019s scholarship is super-important, but I don\u2019t think that theology can only be<\/em> historical.<\/p>\n

For me, the interpretive question is not solely what did Paul (or Luke or Matthew) really think but what are the implications of how the Holy Spirit speaks through the Bible\u2019s human witnesses. <\/em>As an English major,\u00a0I look for paradigms and analogies. When Paul says, \u201cNothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean\u201d (Romans 14:14), I hear a paradigmatic statement about the nature of holiness with regard to every possible human activity, whereas a historian like Wright might say nothing doesn\u2019t really mean nothing here; Paul is only talking about sacrificial meat.<\/p>\n

When I read about the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, I see a model for how the church should engage in spiritual discernment about every sort of issue, whereas Wright said in our podcast that it\u2019s a \u201cone-off event\u201d that opens the church to Gentiles but shouldn\u2019t be used to consider the status of other long-time outsiders in the church. As a historian, that\u2019s the stance Wright has to take. It\u2019s beyond the boundaries of his scholarship to make any claims about how Acts 15 should be applied today. But I question whether Acts 15 is merely a \u201cone-off\u201d first-century event that cannot model anything for our discernment today because that\u2019s all a historian can say about it.<\/p>\n

The most significant paradigmatic claim I see Paul making about holiness is that it has to do with spiritual fruit. Some behaviors produce \u201cfruit of the flesh\u201d (Galatians 5:19); others produce \u201cfruit of the spirit\u201d (Galatians 5:22). Paul says, \u201cAll things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything\u201d (1 Corinthians 6:12). I see here the framework for an entirely pragmatic ethical system. It\u2019s not about obeying rules just because God said so, but about seeking habits of life that are spiritually \u201cbeneficial\u201d and avoiding addictions that \u201cdominate\u201d us.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s where my quarrel occurs with a strictly historical Biblical interpretation like N.T. Wright\u2019s. Paul did believe that non-heteronormative sex was \u201cunnatural\u201d and that \u201cunnatural\u201d sex resulted in bad spiritual fruit. In Romans 1, he says that when people \u201cexchange natural intercourse for unnatural\u201d (v. 26), they are \u201cfilled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice\u201d (v. 29). The\u00a0reason Paul calls non-heteronormative sex bad is because he thinks it fills people with bad spiritual fruit.\u00a0<\/em>That\u2019s the plain meaning of a straightforward reading of Romans 1, which is consistent with the fruit-centered ethical framework Paul exudes throughout his epistles.<\/p>\n

For N.T. Wright, there\u2019s only one question to be asked, since we\u2019re supposed to answer twenty-first century questions with first-century eyes: does Paul think non-heteronormative sex is bad? If he does, then we have to agree with him if we\u2019re Christian. Case closed.<\/p>\n

But what if it turns out that Paul\u2019s grasp of human biology was inadequate while his ethical instinct was right? Does his biology have to be perfect and timeless for his words to be canonical? What if \u201cunnatural\u201d sex actually means for a gay person to marry straight and have a turbulent, dishonest relationship in which authentic physical intimacy is painfully impossible? What if the best way for gay people to live with good spiritual\u00a0fruit if they aren\u2019t uniquely called to celibacy is \u201cto marry rather than to burn\u201d (1 Cor 7:9) in a way that is \u201cnatural\u201d to their biology?<\/p>\n

When I look at the pragmatic pastoral theology Paul demonstrates throughout his epistles, I honestly believe if he were walking around today, he would say, \u201cLet them do what is natural to them and least disruptive to their communion with Christ.\u201d That seems to be a reasonable, straightforward application of Paul\u2019s ethical framework.<\/p>\n

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul reveals where he\u2019s coming from when he\u2019s talking about sexuality. He says to the Corinthians, \u201cI want you to be free from anxiety\u2026 I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord\u201d (1 Corinthians 7:32, 35). So Paul is not invested in arbitrary restraints. In terms of our sexuality, he wants to promote freedom from anxiety, good order, and unhindered devotion to the Lord. Those three principles are not contingent upon retaining \u201cfirst-century eyes\u201d when it comes to human biology. They are timeless, and I believe they should be the foundation of our sexual ethics today.<\/p>\n

Check out my book on Amazon!<\/a><\/p>\n

Subscribe to our podcast Crackers and Grape Juice!<\/a><\/p>\n

Like my author page on Facebook!<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I realize we\u2019re not supposed to quarrel with N.T. Wright. Because he\u2019s already refuted every possible challenge to his thinking\u00a0in one of the several hundred books he\u2019s published. (He\u2019s also a very humble, kind person.) It was pretty surreal that I got to skype with Bishop Wright recently through our podcast Crackers and Grape Juice. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1934,"featured_media":14154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[85,91,207,3760,3793,1015,1236,1408,1509,1588,3795,3794,1993,2036,2074,3050,2389,2403,3791,3792,2549],"class_list":["post-14152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1-corinthians-612","tag-1-corinthians-7","tag-acts-15","tag-crackers-and-grape-juice","tag-first-century-eyes","tag-galatians-5","tag-homosexuality","tag-jerusalem-council","tag-judaism","tag-lgbt","tag-new-perspective","tag-npp","tag-nt-wright","tag-orthodoxy","tag-paul","tag-queer","tag-romans-1","tag-romans-1414","tag-romans-126","tag-romans-129","tag-sexuality"],"yoast_head":"\nMy quarrel with N.T. Wright about sex<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I realize we're not supposed to quarrel with N.T. Wright. 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