It is time to embrace the contradiction, the APPARENT contradiction, the two positions that seem to be irreconcilable. On the one hand, the ‘conservative’ church states that the Bible says the practitioners of homosexuality (because it is a choice) are sinful beings and that many bad things should happen to them. On the other hand, the ‘liberal’ church embraces those of God’s children who know themselves to be homosexual and that it is not a choice for them.
In an earlier generation, the battle was not over homosexuality, but over the gender role of women. That is still a line in the sand of orthodoxy for some denominations. It is no longer the battle it once was in the PCUSA, now that we have homosexuality to replace it as the new battle.
But here’s the thing. Is this what Jesus really wants us to take away from Holy Scripture? We’ve had a theology that looks to the Scripture to condemn practices not openly condemned in the pages of the Bible, two being slavery and polygamy. But as our culture has developed, as our worldview has progressed, as our knowledge has advanced, as we have advanced in what it means to understand love and grace, Scripture has followed. What kind of guiding principles of interpretation allow for such a structuring of Biblical theology?
And if we can use the bible to condemn practices that the Biblical literature does not condemn, can we flip the practice? Can we look at practices that the bible appears to condemn but come to the conclusion that these things are really okay and that, as our culture has developed, as our worldview has progressed, as our knowledge has advanced, as we have advanced in what it means to understand love and grace, Scripture will follow?
I think the devil has already won. He has convinced good Christians to oppress and sideline on biblical authority people that Jesus came to liberate. He has convinced good Christians to abandon biblical authority that tells us the very liberation story of Jesus. It is time to poke the devil in the eye.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
A Letter From Desmond Tutu to the PCUSA
To Rev. Grayde Parsons, Stated Clerk, Presbyterian Church (USA)
Dear Brother in Christ,
I am writing you with the request that you share these thoughts with my brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.):
It is incumbent upon all of God’s children to speak out against injustice. It is sometimes equally important to speak in solidarity when justice has been done. For that reason I am writing to affirm my belief that in making room in your constitution for gay and lesbian Christians to be ordained as church leaders, you have accomplished an act of justice.
I realize that among your ecumenical partners, some voices are claiming that you have done the wrong thing, and I know that you rightly value your relationship with Christians in other parts of the world. Sadly, it is not always popular to do justice, but it is always right. People will say that the ones you are now willing to ordain are sinners. I have come to believe, through the reality shared with me by my scientist and medical friends, and confirmed to me by many who are gay, that being gay is not a choice. Like skin color or left-handedness, sexual orientation is just another feature of our diversity as a human family. How wonderful that God has made us with so much diversity, yet all in God’s image! Salvation means being called out of our narrow bonds into a broad place of welcome to all.
You are undoubtedly aware that in some countries the church has been complicit in the legal persecution of lesbians and gays. Individuals are being arrested and jailed simply because they are different in one respect from the majority. By making it possible for those in same-gender relationships to be ordained as pastors, preachers, elders, and deacons, you are being a witness to your ecumenical partners that you believe in the wideness of God’s merciful love.
For freedom Christ has set us free. In Christ we are not bound by old, narrow prejudice, but free to embrace the full humanity of our brothers and sisters in all our glorious differences. May God bless you as you live into this reality, and may you know that there are many Christians in the world who continue to stand by your side.
God bless you.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu (Cape Town, South Africa)
This letter was shared on October 12, 2011 by the Office of the Stated Clerk, Presbyterian Church (USA).
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is one of the voices I most respect in Christendom today.
Dear Brother in Christ,
I am writing you with the request that you share these thoughts with my brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.):
It is incumbent upon all of God’s children to speak out against injustice. It is sometimes equally important to speak in solidarity when justice has been done. For that reason I am writing to affirm my belief that in making room in your constitution for gay and lesbian Christians to be ordained as church leaders, you have accomplished an act of justice.
I realize that among your ecumenical partners, some voices are claiming that you have done the wrong thing, and I know that you rightly value your relationship with Christians in other parts of the world. Sadly, it is not always popular to do justice, but it is always right. People will say that the ones you are now willing to ordain are sinners. I have come to believe, through the reality shared with me by my scientist and medical friends, and confirmed to me by many who are gay, that being gay is not a choice. Like skin color or left-handedness, sexual orientation is just another feature of our diversity as a human family. How wonderful that God has made us with so much diversity, yet all in God’s image! Salvation means being called out of our narrow bonds into a broad place of welcome to all.
You are undoubtedly aware that in some countries the church has been complicit in the legal persecution of lesbians and gays. Individuals are being arrested and jailed simply because they are different in one respect from the majority. By making it possible for those in same-gender relationships to be ordained as pastors, preachers, elders, and deacons, you are being a witness to your ecumenical partners that you believe in the wideness of God’s merciful love.
For freedom Christ has set us free. In Christ we are not bound by old, narrow prejudice, but free to embrace the full humanity of our brothers and sisters in all our glorious differences. May God bless you as you live into this reality, and may you know that there are many Christians in the world who continue to stand by your side.
God bless you.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu (Cape Town, South Africa)
This letter was shared on October 12, 2011 by the Office of the Stated Clerk, Presbyterian Church (USA).
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is one of the voices I most respect in Christendom today.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Biblically Based, Open and Affirming…
When I was considering my choices for a career…no, that sounds arrogant… When God closed every door but the door to ministry, when He was on the threshold of kicking me through it, he stuck me in the middle of a preconception. In the PCUSA, women have been ordained for a generation. In the Seminary I was attending, the line in the sand of orthodoxy was that women shall not be ordained.
“WOMEN SHALL KEEP SILENT IN CHURCH!!!!!”
Paul said it, I was raised with it in the CRC (Christian Reformed Church-which has, by the way, fallen across this line into whatever lies beyond orthodoxy), it was built into my paradigmatic understanding of the interpretation of Scripture. I should also say I am a great believer in the inerrancy and literate truth of Scripture.
So there I am, getting what may be the best education in the Reformed faith that can be found, the best traditions of Old Princeton, a non-denominational yet Presbyterian-aligned Seminary, carrying on power from the Scripture that I have never found elsewhere. Teaching me Women Shall Keep Silent in Church. Arguing over whether women in the “non-pastoral” M.Div. tracks should even be allowed in the lowest level homiletics classes, “Gospel Communications”.
And I am attending the First Presbyterian Church of Metuchen, under the pastoral dynamic duo of Bob Beringer and Lucia Jackson. I would be in classes teaching about the non-preachability of women and hear the heart preached when Rev. Jackson was on the pulpit. Bible and life, orthodoxy and praxis, Christian academia and the Christian parish, duking it out in the mind and soul and body of this person.
The preacher won.
At Westminster Theological Seminary, I was a heretic in their midst. I didn’t boast about it, I wasn’t even in the M.Div. program, but I was watching and listening and learning.
Then something Paul said brought about a paradigm shift in my understanding of Scripture. “In Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile.” Or something like that. And every barrier of gender, socio-economic situation, racial ethnic identity was stripped away in the light of the Risen Son. And Paul says “Women will keep silent in church” and “Women shall not teach men” (which, by the grace of God that I was in a progressive Christian school that had banned caning did not get me beaten stupid when I proposed that verse as undercutting the authority of the lady who taught me in the sixth grade) and a few more things that establish gender hierarchies and gender barriers, and I am stuck.
Is the systematic repression of women from pastoral leadership what Paul is teaching the church today? Or is something else going on? Have we missed the inerrant, literate truth of Scripture in some way? I don’t reject Scripture because I agree with Paul. I fear some in the denominations where women are in the ministry have taken that path. But I can be confident in the authority of Scripture and my obedience to Biblical authority while celebrating the gifts that my female colleagues in ministry bring to the task.
And if there was a paradigm shift there, another one has brought me to the conclusion that homosexuality and ordination too are not excluded from one another in God’s Word. But that is for another post.
“WOMEN SHALL KEEP SILENT IN CHURCH!!!!!”
Paul said it, I was raised with it in the CRC (Christian Reformed Church-which has, by the way, fallen across this line into whatever lies beyond orthodoxy), it was built into my paradigmatic understanding of the interpretation of Scripture. I should also say I am a great believer in the inerrancy and literate truth of Scripture.
So there I am, getting what may be the best education in the Reformed faith that can be found, the best traditions of Old Princeton, a non-denominational yet Presbyterian-aligned Seminary, carrying on power from the Scripture that I have never found elsewhere. Teaching me Women Shall Keep Silent in Church. Arguing over whether women in the “non-pastoral” M.Div. tracks should even be allowed in the lowest level homiletics classes, “Gospel Communications”.
And I am attending the First Presbyterian Church of Metuchen, under the pastoral dynamic duo of Bob Beringer and Lucia Jackson. I would be in classes teaching about the non-preachability of women and hear the heart preached when Rev. Jackson was on the pulpit. Bible and life, orthodoxy and praxis, Christian academia and the Christian parish, duking it out in the mind and soul and body of this person.
The preacher won.
At Westminster Theological Seminary, I was a heretic in their midst. I didn’t boast about it, I wasn’t even in the M.Div. program, but I was watching and listening and learning.
Then something Paul said brought about a paradigm shift in my understanding of Scripture. “In Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile.” Or something like that. And every barrier of gender, socio-economic situation, racial ethnic identity was stripped away in the light of the Risen Son. And Paul says “Women will keep silent in church” and “Women shall not teach men” (which, by the grace of God that I was in a progressive Christian school that had banned caning did not get me beaten stupid when I proposed that verse as undercutting the authority of the lady who taught me in the sixth grade) and a few more things that establish gender hierarchies and gender barriers, and I am stuck.
Is the systematic repression of women from pastoral leadership what Paul is teaching the church today? Or is something else going on? Have we missed the inerrant, literate truth of Scripture in some way? I don’t reject Scripture because I agree with Paul. I fear some in the denominations where women are in the ministry have taken that path. But I can be confident in the authority of Scripture and my obedience to Biblical authority while celebrating the gifts that my female colleagues in ministry bring to the task.
And if there was a paradigm shift there, another one has brought me to the conclusion that homosexuality and ordination too are not excluded from one another in God’s Word. But that is for another post.
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