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My Stunning Realization on Biblical Authority and Same-Sex Relationships (Leaving Evangelicalism #5)

My Stunning Realization on Biblical Authority and Same-Sex Relationships (Leaving Evangelicalism #5)

Last updated on: July 6, 2015 at 11:17 am by Kyle Roberts

My Stunning Realization on Biblical Authority and Same-Sex Relationships (Leaving Evangelicalism #5) 2015-07-06T11:17:57-05:00 Kyle Roberts

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This is the fifth post of a series I will be writing over the next few months in which I reflect on my theological journey through Evangelicalism and “out the other side.”

A few years ago, when my church small group decided to study the question of the Bible and same-sex relationships, I was nervous. I was nervous because I had not to that point really looked at the issue in depth, and I was teaching then at an institution whose administration seemed very much decided on the issue and didn’t appear to be ready to open up a dialogue on this anytime soon.

But I was also glad. I knew it was time to look at the issue. As a theology and “Christian thought” professor, how could I avoid this question? It’s not as if I had given the issue no thought at all. I had imbibed the conservative interpretation pretty much by osmosis, given my conservative evangelical background and theological training. But I hadn’t yet applied to this issue the insights I had gained over the past number of years studying and teaching theology with fresher eyes, outside of the limited parameters of Evangelicalism, attuned to more complex dynamics of context–the context both of the text’s and of the reader’s.

As I entered the study, I had a sense of where I would end up on the question, but I didn’t know what that would mean for my future vocation as a theologian in an Evangelical seminary.

The book we agreed to study together was Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality. The author, Jack Rodgers, is an accomplished evangelical theologian. In that book, describes himself as an evangelical theologically, though uncomfortable comfortable associating with the “movement.”

He taught at Fuller Seminary for many years, which was (and still is) at least one of a few epicenters of American Evangelicalism. After studying the issue extensively, and contributing to theological discussion on a study committee of his Presbyterian denomination, Rodgers had changed his mind, shifting from a common “traditional” view (i.e. homosexual “orientation” is fine, homosexual practice is not) to an inclusive view, affirming the theological and moral validity of monogamous, covenantal same-sex relationships.

Rodgers’ shift reflects what’s happening with more and more progressive Evangelicals and post-Evangelicals these days. I’m grateful to his careful work for awakening me from my heteronormative slumber.

Rather than attempt an exegesis of the “key texts” that are bandied about in the theological debate, let me lay out the big picture.

My mind (and heart) changed when I began to apply a few big theological themes to the particular issue of same-sex relationships. Here’s one:

The Bible is Meant for Salvation and Liberation, not for Death and Oppression

As I mentioned in my earlier post on inerrancy and biblical authority, to claim the Bible is authoritative doesn’t mean much at all. Most Christians claim that the Bible is an authority for them. But what kind of authority does it wield? What is it authoritative about? What is its authority supposed to accomplish?

I argued in my earlier post on the Bible’s authority that the best way to think about biblical authority is as deriving from God’s authority. God uses the Bible as an instrument to mediate divine authority–but the authority is ultimately God’s; not Moses” (or his editors), or Isaiah’s, or Mathew’s, or Paul’s. This means that biblical authority is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.

Granted, if we’re going to take the Bible as a derivative authority of God’s authority, we are still going to use the text and attend to what it says. But as we do so, we need to recognize the complications and ambiguities involved. We need to recognize that we have to make decisions–decisions based on values and assumptions that we hold as we read it. But these are not values and assumptions that we impose on the text from outside of it–but values and assumptions that we derive from the text itself as we have used the text as authoritative for our living faith.

Let me give just one example:

The “Ten Commandments” has taken on transcendent meaning throughout history. It is taken as universally relevant and binding for many Christian cultures. The tablets are even known to show up in American courthouses from time to time.

One version appears in Exodus 20. Immediately following Exodus 20 (in Ex. 21) are the “Laws Concerning Slaves.” Why don’t we take them as equally transcendent and binding? These laws were established for Israel to govern their purchase of and treatment of slaves and their families. There is no obvious textual reason to distinguish one as transcendent and universal, and the other as temporary and local. In fact, chp. 21 begins with the lofty phrase: “These are the ordinances that you shall set before them.” That’s a divine sanction for the institution of slavery within the “people of God.”

We should be troubled, but not surprised, at the fact that many pro-slavery Christians did take these texts as universally valid–at least insofar as they gave divine sanction for the institution of slavery.

This was what was so eye-opening about Rodgers’ book: He recounted the vigorous arguments by Christians (theologians, pastors, and denominational leaders) on behalf of the institution of slavery. If you think the Bible cannot be taken as a pro-slavery book, you need to read Rodgers’ chapter on the history of this debate in our country.

Why don’t we take Ex. 21 as ethically binding today? Well, it’s not hard to explain. We now know that slavery is wrong and even evil. We have learned there is a better way to treat our fellow human beings.

Granted, there are hints of this “better way” given in the Bible itself. But they don’t jump out at you. You have to bring other knowledge to bear on your reading of the Bible to get any real ethical sense of the evil of slavery.

This very basic point betrays a flaw in the Evangelical approach to the ethical question of same-sex relationships. For many Evangelicals, you don’t turn to social sciences, or to contemporary experiences, or to pragmatic or practical issues, or to philosophy, or even to what Jesus and the Holy Spirit might be speaking today. You just read the Bible, and it will tell you.

But it’s not so simple to discover “what the Bible teaches” about X, Y, or Z. We all read the Bible with an interpretive grid. We all read the Bible with hermeneutical and theological assumptions, values, etc., and we bring those things to the text; those shape what we do with the the text.

As Rodgers argues, rather than appealing to an ultimately indefensible description like “inerrancy,” I think we are better off resting in the inspiration of the Bible as a divine Word from God; we need to be more realistic and more accurate in expecting from the Bible what it actually gives us. The Bible helps to facilitate our encounter with God and it mediates the church’s relation to God and to each other as the community of God.

As soon as “the authority of the Bible” becomes synonymous with someone’s (or a particular community’s) interpretation of the Bible, it can easily become a political weapon, wielded to oppress, suppress, and diminish the lives of others.

My stunning realization was that it is much easier to make a pro-slavery argument on the basis of the “authority of the Bible” than it is to mount a “biblical” argument either for or against same-sex relationships as we know them today.

The Bible’s authority does not stand alone. It must be accompanied by other sources of knowledge–sources which help us not only to understand it better, but to better use it as an instrument of love, peace, wholeness, liberation, and salvation.

In a subsequent post, I will commend James’ Brownson’s approach to the Bible as an Evangelical-friendly approach to the ethical question of same-sex relationships. Brownson is a proponent of biblical authority and he looks for the moral logic unfolding within the text itself. He discerns the “countervailing” trajectories within the text on moral questions, arguing that ethics and morality moves toward a culmination in a better ethic.

This “eschatological” approach to interpretation is both necessary and right. It allows for the continuing role for the Bible’s authority in the life of the church, while embracing the way of inclusion and full equality for our friends who have for so long experienced marginalization, degradation, and exclusion in the name of the heavy hand of “biblical authority.”

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Previous Post

July 2, 2015

Can the Bible's "One Flesh" Include Same-Sex Love?

Next Post

July 7, 2015 A Note For Bible-Believing Christians Who Want to Be Inclusive

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