Formula of Agreement II: Responding to the RCA
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 8:43AM Yes, this is another post on homosexuality. Believe me I’d rather talk about something else too. I don’t relish the thought of people thinking I’m a nasty conservative. I don’t like the idea of being labeled homophobic. I’d rather spend time encouraging courageous brothers and sisters who battle to overcome their same-gender attraction. And frankly, I’d rather talk about something other than sex.
But every generation in the church has some parcel of truth to defend and this is the plot for the present generation. It sounds nicer to be argue about the doctrine of Scripture or original sin or something less intensely personal. But then again I’m sure those controversies would be no fun either (and probably need to dealt with in our time too!).
So whether we like it or not the controversy over homosexuality is here to stay. Especially in the Reformed Church in America (RCA). Especially as long as my denomination continues to hesitate between two opinions.
A Tempest in the Twin Cities
As most everyone knows by now the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voting last month in Minneapolis, approved a resolution allowing gays and lesbians in “life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships” to be ordained. The United Church of Christ (UCC) has gone down this road already. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has flirted with the idea. The official, though not undisputed, position of the RCA is that homosexual behavior is sinful and marriage is between one man and one woman.
These four denominations–the ELCA, the UCC, the PC(USA), and the RCA–share a Formula of Agreement which states, among other things, that we recognize each other “as churches in which the gospel is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered to the Word of God.” There are any number of reasons for the RCA to extricate itself from the Formula of Agreement. The recent action by the ELCA is one of the strongest.
Over a week ago I argued that it's time for a formula of disagreement. Since then RCA spokesman Paul Boice has reiterated the RCA’s commitment to the Formula of Agreement. In an article by the Christian Post, Boice is quoted as saying "Cutting ties with the ELCA over their Assembly’s narrow decision would witness to the world that Christians will fight and divide themselves from one another, and break the bonds of Christian fellowship, over such an ethical difference.” Boice also explained: "The official stances of our two churches [RCA and UCC] differed, and continue to differ today, as with the ELCA." But, "the difference on this ethical issue did not involve the core of the gospel; in other words, we still recognized one another as churches." And later Boice argues that "If we began cutting ties with every denomination with which we had a difference, we would be unfaithful to our Lord’s call to seek the unity of his body and do serious harm to our witness and mission in the world."
Unity Does Not Answer the Question
From what I know about Paul Boice he strikes me as a decent fellow, probably an evangelical in some sense of the word. But his explanation for maintaining official ties with the ELCA is very disappointing.
For starters, playing the unity card is an overused trick. Every Christian in the world believes in unity. We’ve all read John 17 and Ephesians 4, and we know that unity is a good thing. But the question is always "unity with whom and on what grounds?" It’s not fair to position the two options as “maintaining our present ecumenical agreements” or “sinfully dividing over every little difference.” Obviously, some division is not called for. But some is. Sometimes “there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Cor. 11:19).
Unity must always be based on truth, and visible external unity must be pursued only with those with whom we share real spiritual unity. Surely the history of the church teaches us that unity is not a simple matter of joining hands with anyone who goes by the name of Christian. Unity with Arians and Gnostics and Socinians is not the sort of unity we ought to prize. Just as there is schism that masquerades as principle, there is also faithless compromise that goes by the guise of unity.
In fact, the whole ecumenical enterprise ought to be challenged as a bureaucratic waste of time. I’m certainly not opposed to Christians of different stripes working and worshiping together. I love my pastors group which consists of a PCA pastor, a Baptist pastor, a Sovereign Grace pastor, and me. Where did we get this notion that unity is only achieved when denominational officials sign paperwork together? And why do we think that leaving denominational agreements means ruining our witness for Christ? Isn't purity an important witness too?
And let’s be realistic, are lots of new converts being made in the congregations of the World Council of Churches because a watching world can witness our unity? Hardly. The denominational ecumenism of the past 60 years has done little that is relevant to the average Christian in the pew and even less to win the world for Christ because it has been a unity based on doctrinal indifferentism and progressive politics.
The bottom line, of course, is that unity with those who encourage sexual immorality is not the sort of unity Jesus prayed for. Are we really to believe that if the Apostle John and Philip started having sex together in a committed monogamous relationship that Peter (not to mention Jesus) would have been ok with that? Or to put it in similar terms, are we to believe that if John started a church and ordained a man having gay sex with his partner that Peter would have thought, “Well, Jesus said we should be one. So no biggie.”
Come on, let’s be serious. Does anyone honestly think that if we could take a time machine back to 60 AD and we found (what we certainly would not find) Timothy and Titus sleeping together that Paul would have told the other churches “Relax, it’s only an ethical issue”? We can do all the mental gymnastics we want with word studies and the dialectics of Lutheran or Reformed hermeneutics but at the end of the day it takes an extraordinary degree of historical re-invention, not to mention hubris, to imagine the Apostles and the Church Fathers marching in gay parades and defending their associations with those who would.
And then there’s Jesus. It’s hard to imagine that the Son of God who promised not to relax one of the least of the commands of the Old Testament--this same Jesus who lovingly confronted the woman at the well and who upheld the sanctity of marriage in the strictest terms against the liberalizers of his day--would have blessed homosexual intercourse in direct disobedience to Leviticus 18 and 20?
Yes, the Gospel is at Stake
I have argued time and time again that there are not just two sides to the homosexuality debate. There are three: homosexual behavior is bad, homosexual behavior is good, homosexuality doesn’t really matter. The deviousness of denomination-speak blinds many evangelicals who know homosexuality is wrong into tolerating it as ok. In the RCA for example, there is very little chance in the next five years that the majority of the denomination will side with those who argue that same-sex unions are a blessing from God. But many may lack the courage to say that the promotion of homosexuality is flat-out unacceptable. Instead they will be lulled into thinking that we should simply agree to disagree and move on to “the really important issues.”
This is the underlying presumption in Boice’s statements about homosexuality being just “an ethical issue.” And if any RCA folks are reading this, you can be sure that this same argument for toleration of the ELCA has been and will be offered as a reason to tolerate gay marriage and gay clergy in the RCA itself. Too many "evangelicals" end up saying, “Hey, it’s not my thing. I wouldn’t support it. But the gospel isn’t at stake. So let’s not fight over this any longer.”
So why is Boice wrong when he says “the difference on this ethical issue [does] not involve the core of the gospel”? Let me suggest several reasons.
1. Promoting homosexuality is a violation of the catholicity of the church. Sure many in the West are arguing for the legitimacy of same-sex relationships, but for 99% of our history the church has considered homosexual behavior to be sinful. (And before anyone mentions slavery at this point I would encourage him to read Rodney Stark’s book For the Glory of God where he debunks the myth that the church was pro-slavery for 1800 years.) No one had to write a confession about homosexuality, because it was an implied status confessionis issue. No church would have tolerated a difference of opinion, let alone a deviant practice.
True, church tradition is not infallible. But when we make a decision (accepting homosexuality or tolerating those who do) that virtually every single Christian who has ever lived would consider unthinkable, we ought to pause and wonder if we’ve drunk too much from the spirit of the age. We would be wiser to listen to the testimony of our brothers and sisters in the two-thirds world who know that homosexuality is not an agree-to-disagree kind of issue.
2. Homosexual behavior is so repeatedly and clearly forbidden in Scripture that to encourage homosexuality calls into question the role of Scripture in the life of the denomination that accepts such blatantly unbiblical teaching. Luke Timothy Johnson, New Testament scholar and advocate of legitimizing homosexual behavior, is commendably honest when he writes, “I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us.” At its root, support for homosexual behavior is not simply a different interpretation of Scripture, it is a rejection of Scripture itself.
3. Far from treating sexual deviance as a lesser "ethical issue", the New Testament sees it as a matter for discipline (1 Corinthians 5), separation (2 Corinthians 6:12-20), and an example of perverse compromise (Jude 3-16).
4. Most importantly, commending homosexuality involves the core of the gospel because it urges us to celebrate a behavior the Bible calls us to repent. According to 1 Corinthians 6 unrepentant homosexuals (along with unrepentant thieves, drunkards, idolaters, adulterers, revilers, swindlers, and money-lovers) will not inherit the kingdom of God. Heaven and hell literally hang in the balance.
Of course, homosexuality isn’t the only sin in the world. But I know of no one who is advocating idolatry or championing stealing as a special blessing from God. Yet, many are advocating homosexuality, and the ELCA not officially endorses it. It is not an overstatement to say that such advocacy is in danger of leading people to hell. This isn’t because homosexuals are worse sinners than all the rest, but because unless we all turn from our sin and fight against it in faith–with victories and defeats to be sure–we will face God’s wrath. In tolerating the doctrine which affirms homosexual behavior, we are tolerating a doctrine which leads people farther from God, not closer. This is not the mission Jesus gave us when he told us to teach the nations all that he has commanded.
In short, those who pervert the grace of God into a license for sensuality are false teachers who do not preach the gospel rightly (Jude 4; Titus 2:11-15). A true church does not encourage people in deliberate sin when it ought to call them to repentance.
A Personal Word
I’ve been in the RCA my whole life. I’m convinced that the best and worst thing about our denomination is that we don’t like controversy. This is good in so far as it keep us from majoring on the minors and focusing on each other's faults. This is bad in so far as it keeps us from acting decisively and courageously. There are some denominations who can’t say yes to anything. That’s not us thankfully. But we often have a hard time saying no. We are a small group, tight knit, held together by relationships that stretch back into seminary, college, and family reunions. But the word of God calls us to a higher standard than niceness and warm relationships. It calls us to truth and grace–the truth that sets us free and the grace that transforms and forgives.
We are not called to be abrasive and arrogant, harsh and hateful. But we are called to be strong and courageous, willing to do the hard, uncomfortable, painful act of holding each other accountable and saying no to ungodliness and worldly passions (Titus 2:11). Let us not be cowed into silence by those who claim that all that’s at stake are two different interpretations of Scripture on an ethical issue. There comes a time when we must rule certain interpretations–no matter how sincerely held–out of bounds with Christian orthodoxy, unfaithful to Scripture, and unacceptable in our churches and in the churches we officially affirm.
While we do not want to be deserving of the words, let us not be afraid of epithets like “mean-spirited” and “intolerant.” Jesus himself commended the church at Ephesus because they did not “bear with those who are evil” and hated “the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (Revelation 2:2, 6). Besides, If we tolerate homosexual behavior and advocacy in others, we undercut the efforts of men and women in our congregations who struggle–in faith and repentance–to overcome same gender attraction.
Let us refuse to take the easy way out. Let's not allow what we know to be unbiblical under the auspices of unity and mission. We must not cry “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. With hearts of love and theological backbones of steel we must not compromise on homosexuality. Adding an amendment to our Book of Church Order in the near future would be one way to settle things, for the good of the denomination and the peace and sanity of all involved. Dropping the Formula of Agreement would be a place to start.
Reader Comments (36)
I agree Kevin.
Our stance as a denomination has always been compassionate, yet firm, that homosexuality is a sin. Ending the Formula of Agreement wouldn't take away our compassion. In fact, it could be the best expression of our compassion.
It takes real concern to correct those you love. Proverbs 9 tells us that correcting a scoffer only bring pain but if you "reprove a wise man he will love you. ... Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be wiser still." In other words, if you love someone and consider them wise, correct them! But if you think they are arrogant and unteachable, then keep your concerns to yourselves. (See Proverbs 9:7-9)
My hope is that by taking a strong stance we can add to the affection and wisdom of the Christian brothers and sisters that we love. Lets not treat them with less regard than they deserve. I hope that they are wise and teachable ... and I hope we are as well.
To any who think its wrong to distance ourselves over this topic, please look at the responses posted to Kevin's last blogpost. I would be as passionate to break a formal relationship with a denomination that allowed racism, heterosexual adultery or any other sin.
-Tim Schaaf
Kevin and Tim -
To END dialog - to place the period in its formal place is not the Reformed Church I grew to love. Change is inevitable, but our character as a Church is constant. As per your recommendation, Tim, I will "keep (my) concerns to (myself)."
May God's grace that ALWAYS goes beyond our purity, rain down on all of us.
William;
I'm wondering why you are choosing to lump Kevin and me into the "arrogant and unteachable" category, assuming that's what you mean by taking my advice and keeping your concerns to yourself. If that wasn't the intention behind your comment, please forgive me and correct my assumption
You wrote: To END dialog - to place the period in its formal place is not the Reformed Church I grew to love.
The point of my post, however poorly worded it might have been, was not to end dialog ... what Kevin is saying (and I agree) is that we need to add a clear boundary to this discussion, severing the Formula of Agreement. My hope is that by canceling the Formula of Agreement we see more discussion and a change of heart in our sister denominations.
A good friend of mine no longer has his drivers license. He drove drunk one too many times and state officials arrested him, corrected him and took away that privilege. He, more than likely will drive again - this time in a sober way. It would be wrong for anyone to let him behind the wheel before he establishes a track record of sobriety and of better choices. Once he drives again he'll still speed, still make mistakes behind the wheel, but I believe that if he stays sober he'll have won a major battle in his life.
I think of the Formula a little like a drivers license. It is a document, not a relationship. Canceling it does not end the interpersonal relationships we've developed. Those personal relationships with ELCA and UCC pastors should continue. Its the "legal" part of that agreement that needs to change.
Homosexuality is one of many sins that is afflicting the church today. Pride, adultery, alcoholism and others are just as bad, they just aren't the issue right now. No denomination will be perfect, but any group that endorses clear sin should be held accountable.
Just as the State would be irresponsible to let a drunk driver retain his license, the RCA would be irresponsible if they maintain the Formula of Agreement.
This doesn't END our dialog. It protects those we have a divine charge to shepherd, and it could be a step of healing for those we love.
It must be an amazing feeling to be so convinced of your own righteousness and rightness.
Does love tolerate sin? Does love make excuses to not repent? All Scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 2Tim 2,3,4 oh heck, read the Word and quit trying to conform our faith to the world. They hated our Lord, how much more will they hate us. If a christian can't handle it get off the boat. The watering down of the Word is not loving people to salvation but you who water down are guilty of death. Please, no tip toeing around the Word, the only Truth we have, not our opinions.
"It must be an amazing feeling to be so convinced of your own righteousness and rightness."
I don't understand that comment. I'm not assuming its directed at me, Kevin or anyone else ... but let me respond personally.
I am the worst sinner I know and hopefully nothing I've posted says different. Responding to Kevin's first post I publicly admitted that I used to be a gay-bashing homophobe who was brought to repentance and life-change. I'm not a better person than those I disagree with.
I'm daily confronted bymy sin and I'm eternally grateful for the Gospel. That's why its worth defending. Not because I'm good, but because we have a Savior who loves us enough to confront, challenge and change us. Its His righteousness I'm convinced of. Only His.
Tim
My apologies, my comment was directed to JVoss. I to struggle daily, I am a different man than I was twenty years ago. I do not do some of the things that I used to do. But the Word directs me and I to have been accused of being "dogmatic, self righteous, and worse names. But it is the Word that offends it is very warming to me to read the words of other men who hold the word as I do. I thank you brother. I only hope that those who claim to be christian but deny the power will continue to be convicted and maybe one day they will repent.
L.T.
Repentance always begins with me, but let us pray that repentance also begins at the top with those christians who are leaders in the RCA and who continue to advocate for same-sex unions/marriages. In effect these leaders work against the church that Jesus said He would build. We "must be born again" before we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Blessings ><>
Since prooftexting seems to the method du jour and we tend to hang out hats on particular Scriptures lets try this one on for size. James 2:11-13 For the one who said, "You shall not commit adultery," also said, "You shall not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery but if you commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
Now lets try some transitory logic. If judgement is based on truth, and mercy triumphs over judgement....wouldn't mercy triumph over truth. (note lower case "t")
Kevin talks about other things we shouldn't tolerate like Socinians or Gnostics....theological differences that define us.....but if we consider homosexuality a sin and we pronounce official judgments against it (change the BCO) and allow it to divide us....where is the mercy?
And please don't respond mercy is helping them see their sin and change their ways....it becomes a circular argument
I won't cry "Peace! Peace!" where there is none. But I will Cry "Mercy!" and trust the author of Grace.
Prooftexting smoof-texting. Context is everything.
James contrasted two attitudes: showing mercy to others, and refusing to show mercy. If we have been merciful toward others, God can be merciful toward us. However, we must not twist this truth into a lie. It does not mean that we earn mercy by showing mercy, because it is impossible to earn mercy. If it is earned, it is not mercy! Nor does it mean that we should “be soft on sin” and never judge it in the lives of others. “I don’t condemn anybody,” a man once told me, “and God won’t condemn me.” How wrong he was!
Mercy and justice both come from God, so they are not competitors. Where God finds repentance and faith, He is able to show mercy; where He finds rebellion and unbelief, He must administer justice. It is the heart of the sinner (and denomination) that determines the treatment he gets.
We shall be judged “by the Law of liberty.” Why does James use this title for God’s Law? For one thing, when we obey God’s Law, it frees us from sin and enables us to walk in liberty (Ps. 119:45). Also, law prepares us for liberty. A child must be under rules and regulations because he is not mature enough to handle the decisions and demands of life. He is given outward discipline so that he might develop inward discipline, and one day be free of rules.
Liberty does not mean license. License (doing whatever I want to do) is the worst kind of bondage. Liberty means the freedom to be all that I can be in Jesus Christ. License is confinement; liberty is fulfillment.
Paul you are right context is everything....but do you really want to open THAT can of worms?
Blogs = cans of worms. Consider it opened.
Bait taken....
This whole debate stems back to context...what is the context of Homosexuality in the Bible. The context we place it in is what drives our theology.
Leviticus Law.. role and context...is Homosexuality just like the food laws prohibiting shellfish which is right next to it....or is it different....what is the context?
Is Paul in Roman's setting a "trap" for the self righteous or is he condemning all homosexuality.
In Corinthians is he condemning all homosexuality or just the ritualistic temple worship kind?
All of these are old tired debates...but stem back to context...or our deciding what context they are in....
In many ways it is all about context and the context we chose to place them in....
And since non of us were actually there......
I'm not saying which context is right.....but at least let's be honest that we tend to choose the context we want to put it in....
Just thinking this can never be as black and white as we might wish....
Justin,
Your argument is arbitrary and self-defeating. Table the discussion on homosexuality for a moment and focus in on the essential elements in your logic.
First, context is the foundation for proper understanding. (I agree)
Therefore, the context drives our theology (understanding). (I agree)
Second, the context is clearly ambiguous to the modern interpreter. (I disagree)
Therefore, “since none of us were there” we cannot come to a clear conclusion.
Third, we (everyone on each side of an issue) are all guilty of choosing the best context to fit our theological bet.
Therefore, I’m not going to select a side and hint at the moral high ground of integrity/transparency.
Justin, I can personally attest to your character and desire to serve Christ as a humble servant, but your passivity (genuine passivity albeit) toward confidence/clarity in the biblical record is astounding and bordering on negligent.
Taking your trajectory of questioning the perspicuity of Scripture leaves me wondering what you actually trust as knowable in the text. What sections of the text are clear ("considering none of us were there") enough for you to form a solid faith? Your logic destroys any foundation for an ounce of credible faith…honestly; your logic makes Christianity just another religion at best.
In addition, why is it you refuse to come down issues of controversy? It does neither side any good to have a prolonged dialogue when people refuse to stand on a particular set of biblical convictions. You are an incredibly intelligent, compassionate and winsome individual, and I know you have core convictions on this matter, would you be willing to be transparent and share them? It’s incredibly difficult to engage someone in conversation when they remain hidden in the clouds of uncertainty (now, if uncertainty is where you’re at, then we can work from that point, but you don’t sound like someone who’s unconvinced of his convictions).
So, what are your honest thoughts on homosexuality? Is it an acceptable, unacceptable or gray lifestyle according to scripture?
**Also, according to your trajectory of logic, how could a person make any judgment on human sexuality from a biblical foundation? This is a key question- (yes, this has a hint of slippery slope, but it’s a valid hint) Who are we to say that Steve can’t become Stacy? Who are we to say that Bill can’t marry into a triad of himself, Stan, and Shirley (Yes, Paul said the whole, “husband of one wife thing” but how do we know the context)? On what basis do you put any restraints on human sexuality besides, “this can never be as black and white as we might wish”. These serious questions are left gray in your logic…would you be willing to address them?
A fellow servant,
Jeremy Visser
Jeremy,
I do think we can know and trust the Bible. I would not be able to be what I am or do what I do if it were otherwise.
I do have position and I have taken stand...I just don't find this blog the place to do it. There are limits to what I want to be transparent on the World Wide Web where anything can be taken out of context.
For me these blogs are better used to discuss process than to "figure out" exactly what each of us believes.
If you want to know what I believe fly out to NY and we can sit on my porch and talk about it.
And yes.....things...many thing....can never be as black or white as we wish...and to try to make them so robs creation of the beautiful colors that God created it with.
Justin
Justin and Jeremy: I don't mean to break up your discussion however you've got things going that could be valuable for another subject and help us to understand why there is no more Church Herald and maybe someone could have some comments on the last issue (September/October). Why did God take it away from the RCA? Is the picture a little clearer with all the comments on this Church Herald Blog why General Synod voted to cease the publication? What would it take to restore a magazine back into our fold and thereby help us to know again what is happening in our 'sheep pen'?
Klaas Detmar
Justin,
Thanks for the offer...you buy the ticket and I'll pack the bags ;-)
Kevin De Young wants to enlist Jesus to support his insistence that homosexuality is a status confessionis. Since Jesus (somewhat carelessly) failed to address the issue, Rev. De Young needs to infer that support. Here are his words:
"It’s hard to imagine that the Son of God who promised not to relax one of the least of the commands of the Old Testament--this same Jesus who lovingly confronted the woman at the well and who upheld the sanctity of marriage in the strictest terms against the liberalizers of his day--would have blessed homosexual intercourse in direct disobedience to Leviticus 18 and 20."
But it's not hard to imagine that Jesus would have accepted as a follower, and would want us to accept, someone with tatoos and a trimmed beard wearing a cotton-polyester blend shirt - Leviticus 19: 19 and 27-28 notwithstanding. These are obvious (even trite) examples of biblical laws that we no longer regard as binding on us, even though they lie right alongside commands that we do regard as binding, even central (e.g., Leviticus 19:18, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.") We don't think twice about it, although at one point the early church was in a crisis over such issues (see Acts 10-11 and 15). The developing experience of the people of God changed their views, and their exegetical principles caught up later. The process can move in the other direction, too. Paul and other NT writers clearly regard the institution of slavery as acceptable. We don't. The developing insight of the church over centuries has brought us to this point, which we now see as a clear implication of the Gospel.
What the ELCA has said (along with many other committed and thoughtful Christians) is NOT "We know what the Bible says, but we just don't care." Rather, it's "We struggle (as the church has always struggled on many issues) to discern what the Bible means for us in this regard, taking account of what we have learned from God's "other Book" of nature, from the experience of Christian brothers and sisters who face this issue, and from careful and honest scholarship." You may or may not agree with their conclusions, but to dismiss the whole process as a kind of deliberate defiance of Scripture is both inaccurate and uncharitable.
Dave Timmer
Dave: Maybe you could expound on God's "other Book" of nature and give an example where it differs from the Bible in describing God's created plan for male and female relationships.
KD
Klaas: I think that people with better training in the relevant fields than I have already done this expounding. For a good example close to home, see chapers 5-6 in David Myers and Letha Scanzoni's WHAT GOD HAS JOINED TOGETHER, where Myers (Professor of Psychology at Hope College and author of widely used psychology textbooks) summarizes the emerging consensus in biology and psychology concerning sexual orientation. His conclusions: Sexual orientation is not chosen by the individual; its causes are at least partly biological; about three per cent of males (and a lower percentage of females) have an exclusively same-sex orientation; for the vast majority of people, gay or straight, their orientation is not amenable to change, whether through therapy or behavior; people with same-sex orientation are not mentally ill or socially impaired to a greater degree than those with heterosexual orientation; etc. Some of these claims are contested by some within the field; but the general movement of scholarship is in this direction, and the likelihood of a radical shift in direction is remote.
I think that "reading the Book of Nature" means taking this consensus seriously, and reflecting honestly on what it might mean for our understanding of God's will concerning human sexuality. When the most important national associations of psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, and social workers affirm this consensus, I don't think Christians have the option of thinking that all of those highly trained professionals are just dumb, or crazy, or part of some evil conspiracy. At the same time, I think that we need to ask how the new perspective can be understood in relationship to the core of the Gospel, with the confidence that "God's truth is one" (even if our understanding of it is incomplete). I think that is what people like Myers and Scanzoni are trying to do, and I think that the ELCA statement needs to be read in that light. Whether you agree with it or not, it is a genuine attempt to think Christianly about a difficult, evolving issue. A truly Reformed church is never through reforming.
Dave Timmer
David -
Have you read Dr. Robert Gagnon's response to Myers and Scanzoni, What God Has Joined Together? found in the Reformed Review, a publication of Western Seminary (affiliated with the Reformed Church in America) called "WHY THE DISAGREEMENT OVER THE BIBLICAL WITNESS ON HOMOSEXUAL PRACTICE?"
Check it out. I would love to hear your prospective. Additionally, I would love to hear what as the end of the day is the "trump card": Scripture or Book of Nature.
Paul
Paul: Yes, I have read Gagnon's piece. On what he calls the "nature argument" (the biological and psychological issues), I find the piece unpersuasive, since he cites very little in the way of empirical research, and ignores a great deal. Most of his discussion depends not on data but on deductions from his rather elaborate theory of gender complementarity. He refers to some data that he holds to be consistent with his theory; but I often find his arguments to be baffling or self-contradictory. He is as much out of his element in that field as Myers and Scanzoni are in the biblical field.
As to what is "trumps," I don't think Gagnon's card-playing analogy is very apt for describing what ought to happen when the church struggles to discern the will of God through the faithful "reading" of Scripture and Nature. The point is not to determine which suit "wins." It is to deepen our insight into our core identity as God's covenant people. To go back to the slavery example, if Scripture is trumps, then the pro-slavery argument wins - as Southern apologists delightedly pointed out to their abolitionist opponents. But if the question is one of fighting through to a deeper grasp of the meaning of Christ's redemptive love in human life, then our knowledge and experience have to play a vital role in teaching us how to read and interpret the Bible. In Christian moral discernment, Scripture and Nature don't compete; they cooperate.
Dave
Thanks Dave, You gave a good reply to my question in responding to Paul but you did not fully answer what I asked. And, I can understand that it must be very hard for an academic like yourself, to reject the proven factual research of a noted professor for the "unseen" faith we profess in Holy Scripture. However, there must be a reconcilation, one way or another, because we believe God created both good, in the beginning.
"In Christian moral discernment, Scripture and Nature don't compete; they cooperate", you say. They cooperate in, what ways, Dave?... In displaying the glory of God?... In discerning God's good and perfect ways?... Perhaps, they cooperate in showing us the way of Salvation?... Or, perhaps they cooperate in showing to us how the one is fallen,(nature), and the other is able to restore (Scripture)? How does what is spiritual in essence, cooperate with that which is of our corrupt human nature? God bless you.
KD
Klaas: I should have said, "IDEALLY, in Christian moral discernment, Scripture and Nature don't compete; they cooperate." All of us, most of the time, fall short of that ideal. Often, it's easier to see the apparent conflict between the two than to envision a harmony that we haven't acheived yet. "If Darwin is right, Genesis must be wrong; if Galileo is right, the Ascension didn't happen." Eventually, we come closer to getting it right, but along the way there can be real puzzlement and disagreement among sincere and committed Christians.
I think that it helps to remember that we never really "have" Scripture or Nature at our disposal. We have our current understanding and interpretation of Scripture, and our current understanding and interpretation of Nature. Both are works in progress. Each can move the other forward. But if we allow Scripture to simply trump Nature, or vice versa, we may eliminate the tension that is necessary for that forward motion.
I need to get back to grading papers, or my students will be really grumpy tomorrow. Thanks for putting up with me, and for asking some probing questions.
Blessings,
Dave
Dave,
Thank you for your insights...they have been some of the most helpful in this blog/dialogue.
Justin