Last Thursday I was involved in the nth session of an important and difficult dialogue. How does the church, how do those of us who have leadership in the church, respond to the questions of sexual ethics in the Twenty-first Century? My partners in dialogue were a half dozen clergy, involved in a variety of ministries, and from a smattering of Theological backgrounds--a retired" missionary/pastor, still very active; four pastors of churches here on Guam, but from at least three different subcultures; a military chaplain; and me, an old pastor and somewhat reformed Fundamentalist, now serving as president of a small Christian college. Theologically, the guys are from Baptist, Pentecostal, Reformed, and Evangelical churches and backgrounds. All are conservative--they take a high view of scripture--well-read, and articulate.
Basically, the topic of the conversation was the same as it had been in scores of other conversations I have been involved in with different partners, "How should the church respond to the unBiblical, in some cases antiBiblical, sexual mores of our day, and how do we minister to those who choose a way of life that the Bible labels as sinful?" My current ministry places me in the midst of young adults, many of whom have been abused by sinful, dare I say "perverted," versions of sexuality that are winked at, if not culturally sanctioned in the communities they come from. The "winking and sanctioning" includes some church leaders. On top of that these "kids" (I have a grandson older than some of them) now live in a world where they have 24/7 exposure to the sexual muck of the world I used to live in, on the other side of the pond, plus all the stuff that comes from the other direction as well. It's like they are trying to put their lives together in the aftermath of one typhoon while enduring the fury of another one bearing down with full-force. It is a privilege for Kathy and I to model what a wholesome marriage looks like, and to, whenever possible, engage in productive conversation on the subject.
This morning two articles came my way that profitably continued the conversation.
Joe Rigney posted an article at Mere Orthodoxy, "
Today’s World Would Not Be Strange to Paul: On Church Discipline." His article is mainly a critique of a post by Wesley Hill, a name that came up in my conversation last Thursday (though I mistakenly called him "Wesley White), "
FIVE THESES ON CHURCH DISCIPLINE." I encourage you to read Hill's article first and then read Rigney's reaction to it.*
Knowing, though that many of you won't read the articles, I share a few comments below. My hope is that they will encourage you to read the articles.
Here are Hill's Five Theses:
- There is no singular biblical model of church discipline, and our obedience to what the New Testament teaches in this regard must be an imaginative, metaphor-making obedience.
- Church leaders must face the fact of their own complicity in the moral failings of those under their care.
- The complexity of our post-Sexual Revolution cultural moment should lead us to expect that many “conversions” to a scriptural view of sex and marriage will be gradual and halting.
- Church discipline in Anglicanism should be treated as a largely forgotten practice in need of rediscovery, rather than a possession being intentionally neglected.
- In our slow recovery of the practice of church discipline, we must remember the aim of discipline: the forgiveness of sins.
#1 is primarily a matter of exegesis. I'll leave it for another day. Rigney has some thoughtful comments on this aspect of the discussion.
I was most interested in #s 2 & 3.
#2 is true beyond any doubt. Some church leaders, being so desperate for a place at the cultural table, have become exegetical contortionists, excusing, and even embracing what scripture condemns. Others by their proverbial ostrich stance, teach and act like a traffic cop at a wreck, "Move along, there's nothing to look at, here." Still others by their lack of compassion, and failure to accurately reflect what Scripture really says, are like straight men for those who proclaim a new version of sexuality. A good straight man makes it easier for the other guy to deliver his lines effectively.
In particular, Hill points to the lack of clear winsome teaching on sexuality.
One of the details in 1 Corinthians 5 that has struck me with more and more force in recent years is how Paul not only counsels the Corinthian Christians to hand over the sexually immoral man in their midst to Satan (i.e., excommunicate him, in the hopes of his eventual restoration) but also stresses their collective failure in handling the situation in a godly way. Immediately after naming the presenting problem, Paul rounds on the church as a whole: “[Y]ou are arrogant! … Your boasting is not a good thing” (5:2, 6). In context, Paul is accusing the Corinthians of hypocritical pride in their spiritual status when they can’t even muster the moral will to confront the flagrant immorality of one of their congregants. But his point seems to me to have a wider significance. It highlights the fact that no individual sin is truly individual. We are all implicated in one another — or, to use Paul’s organic metaphor, we are members of the same body (Rom. 12:5) — and one person’s disobedience can affect the community, just as the community’s disobedience can affect an individual.
This strikes me as incontrovertibly true.
#s 3 & 5 mark the overall tone of Hill's article, as well as his book*. We on the conservative end of Christianity need this counterbalance.
Concerning #4, I'll let my Anglican friends sort their own laundry. I would say in general, though, concerning this one, that it has to be put next to #2. When we adopt the ostrich stance we are not innocent.
I think last Thursday I gave my version of one of Rigney's points. "If you bought the Apostle Paul a suit of 21st Century clothes, gave him a Star Trek universal translator, and dropped him in San Francisco, as soon as he figured out how to ride the trolley, he'd feel pretty well at home. While I don't think Hill is guilty of this, he does lean more in this direction more than I'm comfortable with. One of the tendencies in our day is for exegetes to adopt a stance toward the Biblical text that sees it as so culturally embedded that it loses any relevance to any cultural situation beyond the one immediately addressed in the text. Good Biblical hermeneutics demands that we respect the cultural setting. Yet, it appears to me that when we consider that Holy Spirit is the coauthor of scripture, and that He oversaw (sees) the preservation of Scripture (canonicity), that we can conclude that there are timeless, transcultural truths and ethical standards contained in the Bible. I maintain that a Biblical view of marriage and sexuality is one of those universals. Hill agrees with that, but he gives a greater level of sympathy to those who take the other side, than I or, it would appear, Rigney.**
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*Several years ago, when I and a fellow pastor were working on a series on how the Bible defines marriage, I read Hill's book,
Washed and Waiting. It did a great deal to help me understand the questions, not only intellectually, but empathetically, something that is hard for we "straight" oriented types. I hadn't heard from Hill recently. Though I am somewhat disappointed that he is no longer a Baptist, I am pleased that his orientation toward how to handle homosexuality is still the same. I encourage anyone who is studying deeply on 21st Century sexuality to read his book. Here is a review that will give you an idea of what Hill has to say,
http://www.bloggingtheologically.com/2010/11/09/book-review-washed-and-waiting-by-wesley-hill/.
I'm not familiar with Joe Rigney. I do appreciate the way he interacts with his friend in this article.
