Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Politics and Religion
Morality, Culture Wars, and Consent, Part 1

Morality, Culture Wars, and Consent, Part 1

Last updated on: August 28, 2024 at 7:36 am by Herb Montgomery

Morality, Culture Wars, and Consent, Part 1 2024-08-28T07:36:22-04:00 Herb Montgomery

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark.

“The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

Welcome Readers! Please subscribe to Social Jesus Here.

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”

He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“ ‘These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rules.’

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” . . .

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them . . . For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)

The first thing that jumps out to me (because We spent so much time in August in the gospel of John. The first thing that jumps out to me in Mark is who it defines as opposing the Jesus movement. In John, it’s Jesus versus Jews in general. It’s Christianity versus Judaism. We have discussed at length how harmful this Christian anti-semitic trope has been and continues to be.

In Mark, however, the narrative is Jesus versus Pharisees. The debate is within Jewish society, an argument between Jewish voices arguing with other Jewish voices.

Nonetheless, in the same way that John overgeneralizes and lumps all Jews together, Mark overgeneralizes and lumps all Pharisees together. This has led many Christians to use the term “Pharisee” as a pejorative term. That is anti-semitic, and Christians today need to stop using the term Pharisee as a negative. The Pharisees were a religio-political party whose members held a spectrum of beliefs. Pharisees in the House of Shammai were at one end of the spectrum and were the most restrictive. Pharisees in the House of Hillel were on the other end of the spectrum and defined Torah observance as love, and specifically love of neighbor. After the time of Jesus, the school of Hillel became the dominant group in the Pharisees and later evolved into Rabbinic Judaism. It interpreted the entire Torah through the lens of how one treated their neighbor. Jesus’ teachings (with the exception of debt cancellation and divorce) were much the same as the Hillelian Pharisees in this regard. The debate we encounter in Mark 7 is with Pharisees on the most outwardly restrictive end of the spectrum.

The Pharisees were just one of many religio-political groups at the time of Jesus who competed for social authority and positions of influence and power. Isenberg gives us a window into understanding the social context of our reading this week:

“The Pharisees, as other groups, engaged in interpretation of the written Torah…[but] distinguished themselves from other groups by a peculiar claim for the authority of their traditions and, by extension, for the authority of the Pharisaic tradents. They established their right to interpret authoritatively by placing themselves in a chain of tradition going back to the original revelation of Torah at Mt. Sinai and then by putting the contents of their interpretive activities into that very revelation. This they did by telling a myth which reports that both Written and Oral Law were revealed on Mt. Sinai…. Such claims to authority put them implicitly in competition with the other groups that claimed and had legislative authority, the priests and their supporters, the Sadducees…. It is reasonable to assume that they clashed on the matter of the Oral Law, and there is reasonable evidence from Josephus and the rabbinic literature to support the assumption. Certainly the matter was worth disputing since the outcome of the argument established who had control over the redemptive media in Jewish Palestine (Isenberg, quoted in Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, pp. 220-221)

Next, we’ll try and unpack another reality in our reading this week that may be difficult for us to wrap our heads around.

(Read Part 2)

Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?

Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, justice and action. Free.

https://renewedheartministries.com/Contact-forms/?form=EmailSignUp

General Christian

Politics and Religion

About Herb Montgomery

Herb Montgomery, director of Renewed Heart Ministries, is an author and adult religious re-educator helping Christians explore the intersection of their faith with love, compassion, action, and societal justice. You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

August 22, 2024

Right Now Matters, Part 3

Next Post

August 28, 2024 Morality, Culture Wars, and Consent, Part 2

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Ableism Abolition Advent Anti Semitism Christianity Christmas Climate Justice Criminal Justice Democracy Disability Justice Distributive Justice Easter Economic Justice Environmental Justice Equity Feminism Government Immigration Justice Indigenous Justice Interfaith Law and Order LGBTQ Affirmation Liberation Theology Migrant Justice Myth of Redemptive Suffering Nonviolence Prayer Racial Justice Reparation Resistance Resurrection Social Gospel Social Justice Survival Uncategorized Womanism

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which book is the largest by chapters in the Bible?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Psalms Isaiah Genesis Proverbs