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How Did Christians Choose What Old Testament Laws to Uphold?

How Did Christians Choose What Old Testament Laws to Uphold?

Last updated on: August 4, 2024 at 12:28 pm by Richard Ostling

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How Did Christians Choose What Old Testament Laws to Uphold? 2024-08-04T12:28:45-04:00 Richard Ostling

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THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The long-running religious debate over same-sex relationships recently contributed to the largest U.S. schism since the Civil War in the United Methodist Church, provoked a current referendum to restrict Presbyterian Church (USA) conservatives, and is inflaming Methodists and Anglicans across Africa – among others.

In such an era, believers need to understand where the other side is coming from. Conservative Christians maintain longstanding — and long unanimous – teaching. Liberals depart from that by giving priority to modern interpretations of identity and biblical principles of love and fairness, while some also contend that Christianity abandoned many biblical laws so likewise it’s proper to adjust to contemporary LGBT interests.

That raises the intriguing historical question of how and why Christianity upheld some tenets inherited from the Jewish Bible or “Old Testament,” but discarded hundreds of others as it evolved from a Jewish sect into a separate world religion. After all, Christianity defined the entire Old Testament as the Word of God for all time when it ruled Marcion a heretic in the 2nd Century.

Thousands of Years Ago

The background on this reaches back thousands of years to the depiction of homosexual activity as an “abomination” in Leviticus 18:22, a belief repeated in 20:13. That second passage adds the death penalty for violations, but there’s no historical evidence that executions for this and other biblical infractions were ever actually carried out. To conservatives, that indicates mention of capital punishment was meant to underscore the seriousness of the offense.

In Judaism, as recently as 1983 even the liberal Reform branch issued a compendium that declared “Scripture considers homosexuality to be a grave sin.” This ruling said “it may well be that we do not consider ourselves bound by all the ritual and ceremonial laws of Scripture, but we certainly revere the ethical attitudes and judgments of the Bible.” The text called same-sex marriage “a contravention of all that is respected in Jewish life.” However, by 1990 Reform endorsed the training of openly gay rabbis and in 2000 supported rabbis who conduct same-sex weddings while acknowledging “a diversity of opinions within our ranks.”

Orthodox Judaism continues to affirm the traditional proscription. So do conservative Christians, based not only upon Leviticus but consequent New Testament teaching on marriage and sexuality from Jesus Christ (Matthew 19:4-5, Mark 10:6-8) and the Apostle Paul (Romans 1:26-28, I Corinthians 6:9-10, I Timothy 1:10).

Christianity dramatically removed two points of Jewish law by direct revelation from God, according to the New Testament. In Acts chapter 10, St. Peter fell into a trance and received a trio of heavenly visions directing him to suspend the extensive kosher dietary laws and eat “all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds,” which fostered evangelism among non-Jews. Similarly, the first council of church leaders in Acts chapter 15 (circa A.D. 50) decided it was God’s will to encourage conversions by not requiring non-Jewish males to be circumcised, though the council agreed the Jewish sexual restrictions were to be upheld.

Three Types of Law

On other Old Testament laws, many scholars explain that God gave them to sharply define and strengthen the identity of his uniquely chosen people and isolate them from surrounding pagan religion. But in the New Testament all ethnic lines are removed. The Roman Catholic Catechism says “the Old Law is a preparation for the Gospel” that teaches us about sin and “presages the work of liberation from sin which will be fulfilled in Christ.”

Christianity’s legal situation is neatly summarized in the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, repeated in the Methodists’ Articles of Religion: “Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.”

Translation: Old Testament laws fall into three categories. Christians are no longer bound by ceremonial and ritual laws (though they might choose to observe some of them) and as a practical matter those that detailed the priesthood system were moot after the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. Also bypassed are civil governing tenets that applied to ancient Israel’s monarchy. That leaves the third category of “moral” commandments, which Christians are mandated to obey.

But what counts as “moral” and thus binding? Modern-day scholarship views Leviticus chapters 17 through 26 as a “holiness code,” a distinctive body of legislation not only on ritual and practices that marked off the people of Israel from pagans. These chapters include the verses on homosexuality that today’s proponents of change often dismiss as part of a long-outmoded code. Yet Leviticus 18 is a prescribed reading in Jewish liturgy on the Day of Atonement. Traditionalists note that alongside homosexuality this chapter addresses what Judaism and Christianity to this day regard as binding “moral” principles, against incest, adultery, sexual abuse of animals, and child sacrifice.

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