Mixing and Matching

President Josiah Bartlet:

Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

In another post I point out that there is nothing to suggest that the death penalty was ever applied or expected to be applied in the case of someone planting different crops side by side or wearing garments made from two different threads. The insinuation here that it might is a form of bearing false witness to the biblical text.

But what is the significance of YHWH’s instructions for holy living in Leviticus 19, sandwiched as they are between two chapters which stress that the Israelites must distinguish themselves as holy by following YHWH’s commands and not the nations’ sexual and religious practices? We learn that holiness is not only about abstaining from certain practices but about being discerning in every sphere of life (cf. A Jewish definition of holiness). It means, e.g., engaging in economic practices that are pro-actively helpful to the poor (19:9-10), not just refraining from stealing and defrauding people (19:11). It means not to do harm even when there is little risk of being detected (19:14) and it means judicial impartiality (19:15). It means not only refraining from slander (19:16a) but also being pro-active about helping someone discern the wrong in which they are engaged (19:17). It means not only that one does not jeopardize a neighbour’s life (or allow a neighbour to be victimised, 19:16b, the precise meaning is uncertain) but also not to bear a grudge (19:18, “but love your neighbour as yourself”). And then it also means

“You are to keep my statutes. Do not crossbreed two different kinds of your livestock, sow your fields with two kinds of seed, or put on a garment made of two kinds of material.” (19:19)

According to some Jewish interpreters, “statutes” are “those laws for which no rational justification was obvious. They are to be treated as ‘decrees of the king,’ to be obeyed simply because they come from God. This,” as Ephraim Radner observes, “represents, at best, a pure fellow following of God’s will, at worst a kind of blind obedience. Holiness here is a cleaving to God, but not one imbued with a coherent understanding.” (Leviticus [London: SCM Press, 2008], 213) It may be the equivalent of a football jersey or a school uniform – a marker of identity which is largely arbitrary but not therefore irrelevant. Keeping these statutes may also be a training ground for authentic and faithful performance where it really matters, cf. Hayim Donin’s comments on food laws.

Others, however, do find a rationale. They suggest that the instructions against cross-breeding and mixing different kinds of seeds in one field are about keeping separate what the Creator God had made distinct, “respecting the categories he has established” (Jay Sklar, Leviticus, TOTC [Nottingham: IVP, and Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013], 247, cf. Nahmanides [c.1194-c.1270], going further than the Rabbinic tradition of interpreting the mixing of different kinds of seeds as a prohibition against grafting). Understood in this way, the law could have implications for the ethics of genetic engineering. “But,” as Ephraim Radner notes, “God’s own love, which creates these in their discreet character, also seeks to bring them into the fullness of proximity with him” which leads him to a discussion of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds and Paul’s use of grafting imagery in Rom 11:17-24 (Leviticus, 214)

Sklar notes that the use of different kinds of fabric in making garments is not forbidden but wearing such clothing is. “The rationale may be that some priestly garments were made from mixed fabrics (woollen yarn and linen, Exod. 28:5). Since non-priestly Israelites were forbidden from doing priestly duties (Num. 3:10, 38), this prohibition would have prevented them from heading in that direction (cf. Josephus, Ant. 4.208 [4.8.11]), something the early Israelites were tempted to do (Num. 16:1-40).” (Sklar, Leviticus, 248). The more specific reference to wool and linen in Deut 22:11 supports this. The abrogation of this priesthood and its regulations would mean that this specific command is not directly applicable among the new covenant people although the principle of respecting the calling and ordination of some people to specific ministries remains. Radner suggests, again, that Christ’s passion brings together what had been kept distinct (Leviticus, 215-16). In a more beautiful world a Bishop in the Church of England with a PhD in Old Testament studies would help us explore this further rather than ape President Bartlet’s dismissive attitude to OT law.

Stoning and Burning

President Josiah Bartlet:

Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

These questions apparently relate to Leviticus 19:19 (cf. Deut 22:9-11), except that the punishments are gratuitously added from elsewhere. It is presumably a case of combining what appear to us the most ridiculous Old Testament statutes with the most abhorrent ancient punishments.

Pelting with stones is the means of execution in Lev 20:2 for devoting one’s children to Molech, in Lev 20:27 for mediums and spiritists, in Lev 24:10-23 for someone who used the divine name in a curse, and in Num 15:35-36 for violation of the Sabbath by manual labour. It is a punishment for sin that goes right to the heart of Israel’s relationship with YHWH, cf. its use in Deut 13:10 (“You must stone him to death because he tried to entice you away from the LORD your God, who delivered you from the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.”) and 17:2-7 as a punishment for false prophecy and idolatry. In Deuteronomy it is also specified as a punishment in cases that were likely seen as jeopardizing the covenant community, namely a son’s persistent rebelliousness in 21:18-21 (threatening the continuation of the household on its land), a daughter’s sexual affair while in the paternal household in 22:21 (explicitly designated “a disgraceful thing in Israel”), and adultery involving a married woman in 22:22-24 (raising paternity issues; the penalty was executed on both if consent could be presumed, on the man only if the woman’s consent could not be assumed, see verse 25).  

Fire features as a means of executing the death penalty in the case of a man marrying both a woman and her mother (Lev 20:14) and in the case of the daughter of a priest engaging in prostitution or promiscuity (Lev 21:9). In Deuteronomy burning is associated with items connected to idolatry (7:25; 12:3; 13:17) but not referenced as a form of execution.

The prevalence of the death penalty in biblical law codes warrants a separate discussion. It would need to take into account not only the different forms of sanctions available to ancient and modern societies but also the difference between ancient law codes and modern legislation. Note, e.g., that even the stark and urgent warnings against adultery in Proverbs 6 do not use the threat of the death penalty, assuming rather than the cuckold might ruin you in other ways instead.

More importantly for the question(s) at hand, there is nothing to suggest that the death penalty was ever applied or expected to be applied in the case of someone planting different crops side by side or wearing garments made from two different threads. The question “Does the whole town really…” is therefore bearing false witness. As, for “Can I burn my mother…?,” this is nowhere permitted in the OT. To insinuate that it might be is again a form of bearing false witness.

So what is the significance of YHWH’s instructions for holy living in Leviticus 19? That’s for another post.

Selling my daughter

President Josiah Bartlet:

I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?

To become president of the United States you have to be one thing first of all: very wealthy. This presumably goes for West Wing’s fictional president as well who feigns an interest in making more money by selling his youngest daughter into slavery. Her virtues, he suggests, will fetch a good price.

This is very far removed from the situation envisaged in Exodus 21:7. Selling your daughter into slavery was not a choice within a free-market economy designed to maximise profit. Many in ancient Israel lived much closer to subsistence levels than modern despisers of the Old Testament. There was no such thing as a single-person household. Everyone was attached to a family – for a woman this meant being a daughter (and/or sister), a wife (and hopefully mother), or a widow (hopefully with children).

Exodus 21:7 concerns the transition from daughter to wife. This would usually involve a reciprocal financial transaction which binds two households together. The father of the bride pays a dowry which is meant to offer financial security for his daughter (if she were to be divorced she would receive back this dowry rather than be left destitute) and the groom’s family pays a bride price (which compensates the woman’s first family for lost labour).

Exodus 21:7 has a situation in view in which a father is unable to pay a dowry for his daughter. His household may struggle to feed everyone, e.g., if the poverty is the result of a series of bad harvests. But even if the extra labour of his daughter would make it possible for her to survive within her father’s household in the short run, her long-term security is under threat. The following verses indicate that she is bought as a wife or concubine either for the master of the household (verse 8) or his son (verse 9). In other words, someone will pay the bride price but no dowry is received.

Given that the dowry is a back-up for the daughter, getting married without one presents a risk. The regulation in Exodus 21 seeks to minimise this risk by forbidding the master to sell her on, as if she were his possession over which he could freely dispose. (The text specifies “sell her to a foreign people” because within the covenant community slavery was essentially only permitted for defaulting debtors.) If he wants to be rid of her, he is not allowed to receive any payment. In this case, the woman would be free to leave without owing the master anything. 

The example is taken from case law and regulates a situation in which an attempt by a poor man to provide a better life for his daughter might put her at risk by specifying an arrangement which preserves her honour as an Israelite woman. Insinuating here a parental permission to maximise profits by selling one of their daughters is bearing false witness to the text.

Dead Pig Football

President Josiah Bartlet:

Here’s one that’s really important because we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?

The question assumes that it is important that people avoid becoming unclean. Why should that be? Uncleanness is not a punishable crime. If a member of the Israelite covenant community touched the skin of a dead pig, they were unclean until the evening (verse 39) which means they could not come to the sanctuary on the same day. If they handled the skin, they should also wash their clothes (verse 40) which, one might assume, football players would do anyway after a match. Given that the use of pig skin is hardly essential to playing American football, ancient Israelites would presumably have used a different leather if they had played American football but they would not have had to call off a match against the Moabites just because the ball was made of dead pig skin.

What’s more the function of these laws was to set apart the Israelites as a holy people of YHWH (cf. verses 44-45; see also Lev 20:24-26). Laws touching all of life were a constant reminder that Israel was to be distinct from other nations. But this does not mean that all the laws were of equal weight and significance. Idolatry and immorality whose seriousness is underlined by the punishment specified for them are the real deal, as it were. Dietary laws were YHWH’s forget-me-not and forget-not-that-you-are-to-be-holy.

The different cultures suggested by the reference to three football clubs [*] highlights how strange it would be to make dietary laws a universal norm, thereby erasing cultural distinctives. It would be like requiring all teams to wear the same jerseys. The church has always made a distinction between, on the one hand, laws which reflect God’s character which God’s people are to imitate at all times and in all places, and on the other hand, laws which were given to Israel specifically to mark them out as distinct and remind them of the call to be holy to YHWH.

See also Hayim Donin's comments on the dietary laws.

[*] The Washington Redskins, founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves and renamed “Redskins” after they moved to Fenway Park, were under pressure from major sponsors to change their name and since July 2020 are the Washington Football Team.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is the intercollegiate football team representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana.

West Point is The United States Military Academy in New York.

Responding to President Bartlet

I want to reflect on some questions raised by President Josiah Bartlet in the TV drama The West Wing, Season Two, “The Midterms” (written by Aaron Sorkin).

The Jenna Jacobs character in the following exchange is apparently based on talk show host Laura Schlessinger. The Bartlet challenge is cribbed from an open letter written by Kent Ashcroft that circulated anonymously on the internet at the time.

Hyperlinks within the exchange point to my blog posts. The questions are obviously rhetorical. In addressing them I want to challenge the dismissive attitude towards the Old Testament they reveal.

 

Bartlet:
I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.

Dr. Jenna Jacobs:
I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does.

President Josiah Bartlet:
Yes it does. Leviticus. [*]

Dr. Jenna Jacobs:
18:22.

President Josiah Bartlet:
Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I’m interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? Here’s one that’s really important because we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made fromtwo different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: while you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.

[Dr. Jenna Jacobs stands]

 

[*] This rather depends on how one defines “homosexuality” and how one translates the relevant verse(s). Mark P. Stone recently published an overview of suggestions with regard to the latter in which he also observed that “while ‘homosexual acts’ are available for historical investigation in every human era, ‘homosexuality’ is not.” See ‘Don’t Do What to Whom? A Survey of Historical-Critical Scholarship on Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13,’ Currents in Biblical Research 20/3 (2022): 203-233. Casting his net wide and making every nuance count, Stone identifies twenty-one hypotheses on Lev 18:22 and 20:13.  He suggests that the sheer variety should lead one to hold any conclusions about the meaning of the text tentatively. Others may conclude that the variety demonstrates that the growing resistance to the most common reading (“you must not lie with a man as you would lie with a woman”) has not produced a plausible alternative and that the “traditional” understanding as a reference to male same-sex intercourse emerges the stronger for having been stress-tested in this way. But which way one leans here is, in a sense, irrelevant for contemporary questions in Christian ethics, if Biblical law is dismissed as irrelevant..

Here is Stone’s list:

1. Same-Sex Eroticism (‘homosexuality’)
2. Male Same-Sex Intercourse (both partners culpable)
3. Sexual Intercourse between Israelite Males in The Promised Land
4. Unrestrained Bisexuality
5. Sexual Intercourse with Intersex Persons
6. The Active/Insertive Partner in Male Anal Intercourse
7. The Passive/Receptive Partner in Male Anal Intercourse
8. Gender Confusion (male acting as female)
9. Social Humiliation (male treated as female)
10. Pederasty
11. Male-Male Rape
12. Idolatry
13. Fear of Demons
14. Male Cult Prostitution
15. Improper Mixture of Defiling Substances (semen & excrement)
16. Failure to Ensure Procreation (waste of semen)
17. Improper Placement of Semen (i.e., not wastage)
18. Redactional Layer Clarifying Implicit Acceptance in 18.7*, 14*
19. Male Same-Sex Incest
20. Ambiguous Paternity from Male-Male-Female Threesome
21. Male Same-Sex Intercourse with an ‘Unavailable’ Man 

Defining Holiness

 

Ephraim Radner, Leviticus (London: SCM Press, 2008), 204.

Working on the Sabbath

President Josiah Bartlet:

Can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? 

By phrasing the question in a way that assumes the existence of a police force and a strong culture of individualism, the distance to ancient Israel is immediately highlighted. There the context would less be one of individuals monitoring other individuals but of a community committed to a communal rest day which explicitly includes every resident, whatever their status in society (Exod 20:10), all across the country (Lev 23:3). It is a responsibility laid on the community as a whole and infringements would be dealt with by the community.

That Leo McGarry would insist on working on the Sabbath is plausible. Powerful people often like to think of themselves as too important to stop working (although it is perhaps also true that those with power over others like to imagine that their underlings want to work all the extra hours expected of them). It is arguably especially important for people who are “in charge” to be reminded regularly that they are not ultimately in charge of the world. Readiness to stop working is an acknowledgement that the flourishing of our world does not ultimately depend on my input. Designating the rest day as a holy day further underlines that it is the Holy One who is in charge of the world. Specifying the death penalty for breaking the Sabbath rest underlines the deadly seriousness of living as if oneself rather than YHWH is in charge. (Strictly speaking, exclusion from the community might perhaps have been another way of dealing with infringements once Israel was settled, given that the death penalty is only specified in the wilderness context.)

This holy day is given to a holy people. The incidents reported in Exod 32–34 have just highlighted the potential for sin to sabotage God’s presence. The warning in Exod 35:2 comes in the wake of all this, just as the book moves from the instructions for building God’s tabernacle to their implementation. Given that neither President Bartlet nor his Chief of Staff show any interest in God’s holy presence among his holy people, it seems altogether hypocritical for him to feign interest in keeping a holy day, let alone in punishing  others who do not keep the Sabbath. Of course Bartlet only means to imply that those who consider male same-sex intercourse a taboo (“abomination”) must also put to death those who break the Sabbath (with he himself being interested in neither) but it is not clear why this should be so. It seems perfectly possible for someone who reads the Bible as God’s Word written to deduce from the specification of the death penalty the seriousness of a matter, as one might deduce from taboo/abomination language the non-negotiability of a matter, without believing for a minute that our contemporary communal life should be organised in strict accordance with laws and penalties specified to ancient Israel on route from Egypt to the promised land. The church has centuries of experience with this, never accepting that the only options are either (a) to pretend that we are ancient Israel bound to strict observance of all the old covenant law and stipulations, or (b) entirely free to ignore whatever we do not like about these old covenant law and stipulations. Given that Leo McGarry is not a member of the community addressed in this text, it is bearing false witness to claim that “Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death.”

No Christian is under obligation to execute punishments stipulated under the old covenant. But neither should any Christian ignore what the laws reveal about the character, values and purposes of God. This reminder about the importance of Sabbath rest just before the narrative of the building of the tabernacle (cf. 31:12-17 right at the end of the instructions for the tabernacle, characterising the Sabbath as “a sign between me and the people of Israel”) perhaps puts the large amount of detailed work that is now required into perspective. Acknowledging that God is in charge by taking a break from work every seven days is more important than building the tabernacle as quickly as possible.

Just as the Sabbath marks the climax of the specification section (see 31:12–17), so now it stands in the forefront of the execution section…The Sabbath as weekly day of rest takes precedence over even the urgent work of constructing the tabernacle as the dwelling place of YHWH among the Israelites. To observe the Sabbath is to participate in the perfection and completion of God’s own creative work. This is the essential context within which all human labor takes place.

William Johnstone, Exodus 1–40, SHBC (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2014), 435–436

Holy eating

Hayim Halevy Donin observes that the food laws are regularly associated in the Torah with a call to holiness (e.g., Exod 22:31; Lev 11:44; Deut 14:21) and concludes

"To distinguish between "the beast which is to be eaten and the beast which is not to be eaten" (Lev. 11:47), is an aspect of the broader requirements that Israel learn to "distinguish between the unclean and the clean" not only in food, but in all areas of life -- the sexual, the moral, the ethical, the spiritual. The laws of kashrut do not stand isolated from the purposes and goals, from the disciplines and demands that are part of the total picture of Judaism. To treat kashrut in isolation is to distort and misunderstand it."

"Holiness meant and means becoming master over one's passions so that one is in command and control of them, and not they of him. The one who has been trained to resist cravings for forbidden foods that tempt him may also have strengthened his capacity to resists his cravings for forbidden sexual involvements that may tempt him too; it may also strengthen his capacity to resist forbidden unethical questions that may hold forth the promise of tempting financial or status rewards. The transference of this religious discipline to other areas is not guaranteed, but there is no denying the inherent value in religious discipline intended to train one to resist bodily drives and urges just to satisfy a craving or experience a pleasure."

"Kashrut is a good example of how Judaism raises even the most mundane acts, the most routine activities, into a religious experience. What narrower minds look upon as a picayune concern with trifling kitchen matters is really an example of how Judaism elevates the mere physical satisfaction of one's appetite into a spiritual act by its emphasis on the everpresent God and our duty to serve Him at all times."

To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life (New York: Basic Books, 1994 [1972]), 100-101

A Jewish definition of holiness

"A Jewish definition of holiness may be put in these terms: Holiness does not lie in the ascetic, saintly withdrawal from life, or in excessive denial to oneself of all human pleasures, or in the repression of all human drives. It consists, rather, of full participation in the stream of human community life, sharing the joyous as well as the sorrowful experiences which life has to offer, denying to oneself no legitimate pleasures; but at the same time so developing one's sense of discernment as to be able to distinguish and choose the right from the wrong, the true from the false, the good from the bad, the sacred from the profane, the pure from the impure, and the clean from the unclean. The greater the sense of ethical-moral-religious discrimination, the greater the holiness of the individual."

Rabbi Hayim Donin, To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life (New York: Basic Books, 1994 [1972]), 36.

Of justice and judgement

Steven Croft speaks of the need for resolving a ‘fundamental issue of justice’ and observes that ‘it is almost impossible to have a mutually respectful conversation between Church and society on the grounds of justice, if the Church denies the rights of homosexual people to enter into loving and faithful partnerships and marriage.’  

To be precise, the Church does not seek to roll back anti-discrimination laws nor to abolish civil partnerships and while the waiving of the requirement that marriage partners must be of diverse sex puts the secular definition of marriage at odds with the Church’s understanding of marriage, the Church does not campaign to bring the civil definition in line with the church’s. In this sense, the Church does not in fact deny the civil rights of homosexual people to enter into loving and faithful partnerships and marriage, it merely, at present, refuses to approve of sexual intimacy in same-sex relationships or to redefine its own understanding of marriage.

For Croft there is an issue as to whether ‘the Church is fair and just in its ethics’. He notes ‘a fundamental disagreement about justice and fairness: we [the church] are seen [by society] to inhabit a different moral universe’ (20)

The booklet uses ‘justice’ consistently in a positive way, as it should. By contrast, ‘judgement’ is regularly contrasted with mercy and portrayed negatively. But throughout the Bible wise and appropriate judgement is a means of bringing about justice for the oppressed. Last Sunday’s OT reading from Jeremiah 23 condemning the shepherds that did not keep the flock safe is a case in point.

Is it really coherent to claim that justice demands the Church to welcome and affirm (sexually active) same-sex relationships but to affirm that the traditional view of marriage and human sexuality ‘remains a legitimate and honourable position’? Can a demand for justice be suspended in this way, by refusing to judge those who withhold justice?

It seems to me that a judgement is required: either approving of sexual intimacy outside the parameters of traditional Christian teaching is a matter of justice in which case no clergy should be allowed to withhold such justice, or it is not.

Of trajectories

‘The idea of a trajectory or a redemptive-movement approach to understanding and applying Scripture is hardly a new concept’ is the opening sentence in William J. Webb’s ‘A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic: Encouraging Dialogue Among Four Evangelical Views,’ JETS 48 (2005): 331-49. Steven Croft notes,

Many evangelicals with a high view of the Scriptures find themselves persuaded by this trajectory argument on the question of the equality and inclusion of women in leadership and ministry, despite the prohibitions to the contrary contained in some parts of the New Testament. However, they are unable to discover a parallel trajectory on questions of human sexuality and the recognition of same-sex relationship.

He adds

I believe that trajectory is manifestly present. The direction of travel in the New Testament trajectory is undeniably towards the worth of each individual, the equal value of all humanity, and the freedom that is entrusted to us in Christ.

But it is not clear how he identifies a trajectory within the New Testament. A trajectory implies movement along a path. Where is the beginning of the path and where its end? Does he mean to imply that while Jesus in the Gospels is a bit hazy about the worth of each individual (perhaps thinking of the incident with the Syro-Phoenician woman?), Paul has a better grasp of it (in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek), and the book of Revelation gives us the clearest picture of the equal value of all humanity (a great multitude from every nation, tribe , people and language)? Against this, Croft sees the Biblical understanding of human worth as flowing ‘most of all, from the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ and the life that Jesus lives’. Given that the incarnation and the life of Jesus arguably stand at the beginning, not the end of the path traced in the NT, it is hard to see what kind of trajectory there might be, or is it that Jesus himself, prior to his cross and resurrection, did not yet fully realise what would flow from his life?

Croft observes that ‘this understanding of human worth and dignity…is unfolded from Genesis to Revelation.’ Clearly, man and woman made in the image of God is a key marker of human worth and dignity. Does Croft believe that the implications of this are seen more clearly in Revelation 21-22 than in Genesis 1-3? Does the OT focus on Abraham and his seed (‘in whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ [Genesis 12:3]) suggest to Croft uncertainty about ‘the equal value of all humanity’? Even if that were the case, the Bishop of Oxford must surely know that many Christians past and present would strongly contest the view that the OT is equivocal about the worth of each individual, the equal value of all humanity.

The problem here is arguably that Croft accepts the widespread cultural belief that denying sexual intimacy within same-sex relationships denies the value and worth of some individuals. In other words, the key element of the alleged ‘trajectory’ is not taken from Scripture which makes it hard to claim that the trajectory is to be found in Scripture itself. This is essentially different from ‘the question of the equality and inclusion of women in leadership and ministry’ which needs to be addressed in the light of diverse passages which directly concern the matter but at least on first reading seem to point in different directions. The same is true for the argument about slavery and about divorce. In all these cases, the church had to bring into conversation passages which directly address the matter at hand and it has historically done so, knowing that ‘it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another’ (Article 20 of The Thirty-Nine Articles). By contrast, in seeking to redraw the boundaries of sexual morality, Croft suspends the teaching of passages which directly address the matter in the light of his belief about what ‘the worth of each individual, the equal value of all humanity, and the freedom that is entrusted to us in Christ’ imply. This reflects a different hermeneutical approach and a different view of the authority of Scripture from what the Church of England has historically taught.

What about freedom in Christ? This, too, is not best described in the language of trajectory. There is no ever growing movement of freedom in Christ through the Bible or even the NT. The freedom for which Christ has set us free came at a definite moment in history and relates to the end of the old covenant which was brought about by the establishment of a new covenant. This new covenant comes with the same call to be holy and blameless before God (cf. Ephesians 1:4) but no longer is a nation sanctified, set apart for God’s special purpose, and the worship of God in Spirit and in truth no longer needs the regulations that concerned the shadow of the substance that is fulfilled and accomplished in Christ.

Of commandments and prohibitions

Steve Croft’s Together in Love and Faith observes that ‘resistance to changing the position of the Church of England on sexually active same-sex partnerships is principally focused on the prohibition, in biblical texts, on sexual activity between two people of the same gender.’ This seems to be true, if by ‘gender’ we mean ‘sex’ (it is doubtful that within Scripture we can speak of ‘gender’ as a category distinct from biological sex) and understand  ‘prohibition’ as broad enough to include New Testament censures of sexual intimacy outside (diverse-sex) marriage. The Bishop of Oxford appears to address this ‘roadblock’ in a twofold manner: by cancelling the prohibitions and by postulating a trajectory which allows for a re-shaping of biblical morality.

A rhetorical question sums up the argument: ‘how many other commandments and regulations in Leviticus does the Church keep and teach today?’ Croft appears to suggest that we need not pay any attention to perhaps different ways in which various commandments and regulations function within Leviticus, nor to the way in which the church throughout the ages has differentiated between them. We must treat all the commandments and regulations the same – either they are all binding on us or none of them are. This impression is reinforced by the citation of the ‘powerful moment’ in The West Wing in which President Bartlet replies to a Christian fundamentalist who quotes Leviticus 18:22 at him [*] by pointing out that we ignore, among other things, the injunctions against planting two kinds of seed in the same field and against wearing garments made from two kinds of materials (Lev 19:19), implying that we are therefore free to ignore what Leviticus says about sexual morality.

We can ignore all these commandments, according to Croft, because ‘the view of ethics and morality set out in Leviticus has been revised and adapted within the Biblical period and beyond it, in the light of the incarnation, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because of these truths, everything has changed.’ To me this sounds rather different from what the Thirty-Nine Articles claim about the Old Testament:

THE Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.

Note that the Bishop of Oxford does not suggest here that Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 should be re-interpreted as civil law which need not be received in our society but he seems to dispense with the threefold division of the law itself (cf. later: ‘Gentile Christians are not to be bound by the law of Moses’). Sorting commandments into three boxes labelled ‘ceremonial’, ‘civil’ and ‘moral’ can indeed be problematic but failure to distinguish between the different functions of the law which translate into different ways in which individual commandments might be considered binding on Christians is a different matter altogether. ‘Not uniquely Eastern or Western; Roman Catholic or Protestant; conservative or liberal; Patristic or Puritan; Thomist, Calvinist, or anything else; the threefold division of the law is catholic doctrine.’ (Phillip S. Ross, cited from an article by Nicholas J. Mattai). We may agree that (non-Jewish, and I would suggest Jewish) Christians are not legally bound to the Sinai law but we are arguably morally bound to commandments which reflect the character of God and his universal purposes.

Croft is somewhat less cavalier in his treatment of NT texts such as 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. He is right to note that the full list covers the majority of us and that the emphasis falls on the conclusion ‘And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God’ (verse 11). The verses should not be used to victimise others. But we are warned not to be deceived (verse 9): sexual activity in same-sex relationships is listed alongside idolatry, adultery and other forms of sexual immorality, theft and robbery, greed, drunkenness, verbal abuse and fraud as activities from which we need to be cleansed in order to inherit the kingdom of God. Croft acknowledges that if the relevant Greek terms do not refer exclusively to abusive relationships but to all sexual activity in same-sex relationships, this ‘would support no change in the present position of the Church.’ Alas, he provides no reference or justification for why the Church should commit to the alternative view that this only refers to abusive relationships, even though the Living in Love and Faith book notes the obvious point that ‘there were common Greek terms used to describe these practices, not used here by Paul’ (292).

Croft suggests that ‘the apostles are very careful not to define “porneia” closely in their letter[s]’, as if they went out of their way to keep matters open for ‘a modest redrawing of the boundaries of what constitutes…sexual morality’ by later Christians. But I know of no example of the church re-defining sexual morality in the first nearly two thousand years of its history and can see nothing to suggest an effort on the apostles’ part to keep the definition of sexual morality vague. It seems more obvious that they left porneia undefined because sexual immorality had already been defined in the OT and they saw no need for boundaries to be redrawn by themselves or later Christians. Joshua Pendock observes in his open letter to Steven Croft

It is not difficult to imagine the early Church looking at the wicked examples of pederasty in Greek culture and arguing, ‘there are holier ways of practising same-sex love’. Examples could easily have been given of loving same-sex couples in the Greek world. Furthermore, the argument could easily have been made that considering the eschatological non-procreational issues of sexuality raised by Jesus’ reference to being ‘like the angels’, early Christian theologians could have Christianised same-sex activity through notions of faithfulness and covenant. Considering the strangeness of Christian practice in comparison to the Mediterranean world as witnessed to by the contextually bizarre practices of virginity and celibate marriages, notions of same-sex blessing and even marriage could easily have developed in such an environment. It may even have helped with evangelising many a Greek man.

But they did not. Steven Croft’s assumption that the apostles did not know about loving same-sex relationships and his conviction that our modern knowledge of sexual identity and orientation puts us at such an advantage over Moses at Sinai, Jesus in Galilee and Judah and Paul in the Greco-Roman world that we can now formulate a better, more just sexual ethics than they were able to do, has to carry a lot of weight. Put in the balance it seems to allow him to make light of biblical commandments and prohibitions.

When the Church previously declared that a specific injunction was no longer directly applicable to God’s people, we were still able to affirm that the law was good and right and just for the time and place for which it was given – God's commandments were not suspended on the grounds that people back then were ignorant about things of which we are now cognisant.  To say that at the right time a greater high priest inaugurated a new covenant by his supreme sacrifice which takes away the animal sacrifices under the old covenant is one thing; to say that we no longer bring animal sacrifices because we now know that animals have feelings too and must not be killed would be an altogether different thing. Analogically, Croft’s argument seems a lot closer to the latter than the former.

[*] This is how Croft presents the scene, not entirely accurately. The President actually opens the verbal confrontation.

Remembering Hilda

Different ways of calculating the dates for festivals may not seem sufficiently important to cause a rift among the people of God but there is a long tradition of such disagreements doing exactly that – it is one of the things which put the Essene community (primarily known to us today through the Dead Sea Scrolls) at odds with the Jerusalem establishment.

Today we remember Hilda, born in the year 614 into the royal house of Northumbria. She was baptized at the age of twelve and became a Religious at the age of thirty-three. She established monasteries at Hartlepool and Whitby. The latter became a great centre of learning and Hilda is indeed remembered as a great educator which is a reminder that while the wider church remains in disagreement about the ordination of women, even the Roman Catholic church recognises women as church teachers.

Whitby was also the meeting-place for an important Synod in the year 664 at which it was decided to adopt the Roman tradition in preference to Celtic customs. Hilda, herself formed in the Celtic way of living the faith, played a crucial rôle in reconciling others of that tradition to the decision of the Synod. Alongside monastic tonsure (how to cut hair as a sign of religious), controversy about the calculation of Easter was a key element of the Synod of Whitby, as it had been previously in the church.

We may well struggle to understand why agreement about monastic tonsure was felt necessary. Why was it not possible to agree to disagree on this, letting each monastic foundation adopt their own rules? Setting a common date for Easter is more obviously important, if one wants to celebrate together. Still today the (Eastern and Oriental) Orthodox and the (Roman and Reformed) Catholics struggle to mark the festival together because we mark it on different days. This is perhaps a reminder that even some of the less important things are not open to disagreement, if one wants to walk together. It is of course perfectly possible to respect one another, without walking together.

Hilda considered walking together more important than holding on to customs that are of secondary importance. The long term impact of such Celtic submission to Roman tradition was to preserve close links between the church in Britain and the wider church on the continent.

Hilda died on 17 November in the year 680.

 

Early Anglicans reading Scripture: Bookmarks

That it may please thee to give to all thy people increase of grace to hear meekly thy Word, and to receive it with pure affection, and to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit; We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

Jeremy Bergstrom’s posts

• The early ‘Anglican’ reading of Scripture (1): William Laud
• The early ‘Anglican’ reading of Scripture (2): Cranmer and the prayer book

Ashley Null, ‘Thomas Cranmer and the Anglican Way of Reading Scripture,’ Anglican & Episcopal History 75 (2006): 488-526.

John Downame (ed.), Annotations upon all the books of the Old and New Testament wherein the text is explained, doubts resolved, Scriptures parallelled and various readings observed / by the joynt-labour of certain learned divines, thereunto appointed, and therein employed, as is expressed in the preface (London: Printed by John Legatt and John Raworth, 1645), http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A36467.0001.001

Contributors:

• Casaubon, Meric, 1599-1671
• Featley, Daniel, 1582-1645
• Gataker, Thomas, 1574-1654
• Gouge, William, 1578-1653
• Ley, John, 1583-1662
• Reading, John, 1588-1667
• Reynolds, Edward, 1599-1676
• Taylor, Francis, 1590-1656

See also https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp78144 

The Rt Revd Joseph Hall (1574-1656), Contemplations of the Historical Passages of the Old and New Testaments, various editions, including Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1836.

John Trapp (1601-1669), A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments: In Five Volumes, Vol. 1: Genesis – Second Chronicles (London: Richard D. Dickinson, 1867)

 

 

The keys of the kingdom

 In Matthew 16, Jesus says to Peter: 

‘I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’

This has been variously interpreted as teaching that the (Roman Catholic) Pope, as the successor to Peter, has the authority to absolve sins, to pronounce doctrinal judgments, and to make disciplinary decisions in the Church; that bishops are entrusted with the exercise of church discipline which signals whether someone belongs to the body of Christ or not;  that the church has the task of proclaiming the Gospel which opens the kingdom for those who confess Jesus as the Christ and closes it for those who reject the Lordship of Christ; and probably in a number of other ways.

Steven Croft believes that Jesus here entrusts the church with the responsibility of customising its moral teaching and practice across different cultures (Together in Love and Faith, 29). How this differs from a more traditional approach is perhaps best seen when one considers the Christian faith being proclaimed in a polygamous society. The traditional approach would uphold monogamy as the Christian teaching, while seeking a way of justice and mercy in messy situations that diverge from the Christian understanding of marriage. Following their conversion Christians would not be permitted to enter into more than one marriage but men who were already in multiple marriage relationships before they came to faith in Christ might remain in those polygamous relationships, notably so if divorcing wives would lead to hardship for the women, even if men in polygamous relationships would not be considered for church leadership.

By contrast, the Bishop of Oxford does not believe that there is a (cross-cultural) Christian doctrine of marriage. A polygamous cultural setting would lend itself to a non-monogamous Christian ethics in such contexts, even if none of the examples of polygamy reported in the Bible are encouraging. (Polygamy is not characterised as intrinsically evil in Scripture although it is nowhere commended. It is regulated in the law, just as divorce is which similarly falls short of God’s intention.) This is the difference between, on the one hand, seeking to discern a morality that is first of all consistent with the whole of Scripture* and, on the other hand, establishing a morality that is first of all responsive to its cultural context, as long as it is ‘consistent with the principles of love’ (29).

The latter qualification is critical. A profound dislocation between the national church and the society it was called to serve opened up in 1930s Germany. Church leaders argued that the mission and ministry of the church would be hindered and severely impeded if it did not adopt the Aryan Paragraph which excluded ‘non-Aryans’ (Jews). This Nazi Gleichschaltung (synchronisation) of political, educational and social bodies was resisted by some within the German Evangelical Church, provoking a split between the main body and the Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche). One would like to think that we all, including Steven Croft, would have been in the Confessing Church, preferring lack of synchronisation with wider society to lack of synchronisation with New Testament teaching in this case. In retrospect it looks easy: the Aryan Paragraph was not consistent with the principles of love. The German church mishandled the keys of the kingdom.

The ‘Christian’ teachings that justified the slave trade and apartheid were a similar departure from mainstream, catholic Christian teaching in order to serve people in a particular cultural setting. As these teachings were not consistent with the principles of love, Steven Croft would reject endorsing them for the sake of inhabiting the same moral universe as the people which the church is to serve. But his reference to them on page 40 tells the story differently. Croft suggests that these were historic teachings of the church which required ‘vigorous debate and often conflict between Christians, over several generations’ before a ‘responsible revision of our interpretation of Scripture’ was found which allowed the church to move forward. Not so. It was the rejection of revisionist readings of Scripture that finally freed the church from these false teachings. That it took so long merely shows how deeply embedded self-serving or culture-accommodating readings can become. If Jesus gave authority to the church to devise its own moral teachings as befitting diverse cultures, it was an authority that has been badly abused. It is arguably more accurate to observe that the church is always in danger of being compromised and has time and again found its way back to healthy teaching by paying close attention to Scripture. It is hardly conceivable that the reading of Scripture could convince Christians who were not already so inclined of the need to support apartheid or the slave trade. It was Christians who liked apartheid and supported the slave trade who re-read Scripture to affirm them in this.

The case of money lending at interest is a different and more complex matter. I have written on this at some length elsewhere, e.g., here. In my view, this has little directly to do with the keys of the kingdom, unless perhaps in the sense that we must warn the greedy that they will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:10). This raises the question whether for Croft passages such as 1 Corinthians 6  are still determinative for how the church is to exercise the ministry of the keys. What seems clear is that it would be difficult to hold together within one church clergy which teach ‘greed is good’ (growing pie for everyone, trickle down benefits etc.) and clergy which affirm that greed excludes from the kingdom of God. Even cross-culturally, I find it hard to conceive of churches  warning against greed in their context remaining in a strong communion of shared ministry and mission with other churches affirming greed in their different cultural context. The exercise of the ministry of the keys must be reasonably uniform, it seems to me, for it to be credible.

* Many now believe that the various parts of Scripture are irreconcilable but this is itself a marked departure from tradition. My aim here is to highlight this seismic shift. It is probably not possible to defend the view that a consistent Christian ethics can be derived from Scripture without writing a book.

A high view of Scripture

‘As an evangelical, I retain a high view of Scripture’ writes Steven Croft in Together in Love and Faith (11).  A high view of Scripture is apparently what evangelicals are known for although few conservative Anglo-Catholics or even liberal clergy would confess to having a low view of Scripture. The expression can arguably be used not only by those who hold to a traditional view of Holy Scripture but also by those who merely privilege the Bible as a reference point without accepting its authority and sufficiency as historically understood. Some may well be able to combine ‘a high view of Scripture’ with a liberty to correct it, improve upon it, or even discard individual texts within it as ‘toxic’ which others would find indicative of having abandoned the historic Christian teaching about the nature of Scripture.

Evangelicals within the Church of England Evangelical Council believe that the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments were ‘given by the Holy Spirit as the true word of God written…to lead us to salvation, to be the ultimate rule for Christian faith and conduct, and the supreme authority by which the Church must ever reform itself and judge its traditions.’ This reflects the historic teaching of the CofE. It is therefore no surprise that it is a view also held by many who do not own the label ‘evangelical’.

Steven Croft’s characterisation of the Scriptures as ‘the foundational and authoritative teachings of the faith’ (25) suggests that he wants to affirm ‘a high view of Scripture’ in this traditional sense. He adds that ‘we approach the Scriptures poor in spirit, with empty hands, in need of light and guidance, rather than bringing our own certainties’ (27). This perhaps shows more ‘evangelical’ than ‘catholic’ leanings in apparently seeking to ensure that the Scripture – doctrine relationship is a one-way street but it is not altogether clear what ‘empty hands’ means in practice. The Bishop allows that he ‘may be wrong’ (3) and so does not bring ‘certainties’ to the text but he does approach the text with a clear sense of what he wants to hear in the light of our cultural context. Perhaps whether we come to Scripture with ‘empty hands’ is less the issue than whether we respect its integrity, seeking to make sense of all the parts of the puzzle, or whether we are prepared to manipulate and even discard pieces of the puzzle to get the picture we like to see. In other words, whatever we bring to the text, are we ready to let go of our pre-judgements or do we rather let go of uncomfortable texts of Scripture?

When we read Scripture, we want to see Jesus. We meet in Jesus someone who calls to repentance, upholds righteousness and the law (sometimes in a stricter sense than other Rabbis), shows mercy and compassion, and is gentle with the marginalised. On this we are agreed. But while for some readers all this holds together in the holiness of God and as an expression of God’s coming to right all wrongs, Croft believes that in the Gospels ‘judgement and mercy are brought into contrast with each other’ and that the mercy of Jesus may be a ‘counterpoint’ to the call to holiness in Leviticus (apparently some commentators have suggested this; he provides no reference). In his view, the church is not given a vocation in which mercy and holiness necessarily cohere (as they surely do in God) but ‘a dual vocation to mercy and holiness’ which are sometimes in such conflict with each other that we have to choose one over the other. Rather than concluding that we must have fundamentally misunderstood something, if the demands of mercy and holiness seem to pull us in different directions, Croft argues that ‘we should prefer and privilege…the way of mercy’ (28). This suggests that we may need to pick and choose from Scripture rather than interpreting each part in such a way that it is not repugnant to any other part.

What does this look like in practice? Croft’s claim that ‘Jesus himself is largely silent on the matters of human sexuality’ (28) is very odd, even if one focuses on the gospel narratives only. I point to John Nolland’s essay Sexual Ethics and the Jesus of the Gospels. In revisiting the question of remarriage the Bishop appears to suggest that the Anglican Church followed the teaching of Jesus until ‘in the changing cultural context of late-20th-century Britain, the Church of England chose the path of mercy over judgement’ (29). This seems to make the question whether Jesus has something to say in Scripture on matters of human sexuality largely irrelevant. If it sounds judgemental, it is not binding. This reflects a different view of the Bible (and of Jesus) from that held by those for whom allowing for remarriage after divorce in certain circumstances was a matter of critiquing an overly restrictive church tradition in the light of Biblical teaching.

How can the Bishop claim that the church may well promote a different morality from the one taught by Jesus? By reading the passage about the keys of the kingdom (Matthew 16) and the teaching about the Holy Spirit (John 16) as telling us that Christ gave ‘responsibility to the Church for the crafting of ethics and practice in ways appropriate in each culture…The Christian Church is entrusted with responsibility and flexibility in matters of ethics, consistent with the principles of love, to enable development and evolution in the light of changes in knowledge and the culture in which the gospel is taking form and shape’ (29). This extraordinary reading of the passages in question is offered without any justification or even acknowledgement of its novelty. (The church has long affirmed that its rites and ceremonies may look different in different cultures but has not, to my knowledge, based this on these passages nor read them as permission for different local churches to adopt different moral teaching.)

Based on this alleged permission given to local churches to develop moral teaching, the Bishop’s call ‘to adjust and revise the traditional teaching of the Church’ in the area of sexuality is based not on a better reading of passages touching on these matters but on ‘new and well-established truths’ about ‘human sexuality and the human condition’ (30) which were (he believes) inaccessible to the biblical writers. While the decision to allow for the remarriage of divorcees in some circumstances and the decision to ordain women into positions of church leadership were carried because there were a large number of people who argued that this did greater justice to the directly relevant passages in Scripture (against some who disagreed, and alongside others who did not care much for what Scripture teaches), the argument here is that passages that deal with sexuality may in fact be irrelevant for our ethics because we now know more and better in this area. It is hard not to see this as a massive departure from the traditional way of using Scripture to be guided in divine truth about matters of morality.

The Church will not split over gay sex

The Church of England will not split over gay sex.

If it splits, it will do so over the authority of Scripture. It is one of the failures of the LLF journey thus far that this is still barely understood. Many people believe that it is homophobia pure and simple that prevents progress in this area. After all, have we not long ceased to treat the Bible as the word of God, departing from it when we felt it was in need of correction? Why not do so now? Surely it is just bigotry that leads some to cling to the words of Scripture in the area of sexuality.

It is undeniable that there are many in the CofE, including many clergy, who do not consider the Bible to be the authoritative word of God in the way those did who wrote our Christian confessions of faith and devised our historic liturgies. A good few among them perhaps really do not realise that there are others within the CofE, including clergy, who still believe the Holy Scriptures to be ‘God’s word written’ (Article 20 of the 39 Articles) and who seek to submit to the teaching of the Bible, read carefully in the light of how it has been understood throughout church history (tradition) and informed by biblical scholarship (reason).

Some of those who have departed from this understanding of Scripture know that there are others within the CofE who have not done so but they expect that ‘traditionalists’ will continue to tolerate departures from Scripture within the CofE, given that they have done so in other areas, unless in this case their homophobia prevents it. This overlooks something crucial. To take one example, ‘revisionists’ may well allow for remarriage after divorce because they think of themselves as more compassionate than the sound of the words on the lips of Jesus in the Gospel but ‘traditionalists’ fall into two groups – a smaller one (I believe) who considers this wrong but tolerates it because the official teaching of the CofE is still that marriage is life-long and the liturgy has not been changed, and a larger one (I believe) who allow for remarriage after divorce in some circumstances because Jesus did, and who consider the twentieth century changes within the CofE a belated return to Scripture (belated, because all other reformed churches had done so during the Reformation period).  

It is true that ‘traditionalists’ by and large have been very tolerant within the last hundred years or so, as the CofE in practice abandoned conformity to a doctrinal standard, but this tolerance was facilitated by the absence of changes to the official teaching or liturgy of the church which enshrined a departure from, say, Article 20 of the 39 Articles. It would be a different matter if the teaching of the BCP had to be suspended to drop the diversity-sex requirement of marriage or if the claim that ‘no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral’ were qualified to make space for a sexual morality which is no longer circumscribed by Scripture.

It is not gay sex that will split the church; it is irreconcilable views about how we discern God’s will which will split the church if it splits.

Mike Gorman

 I enjoyed the Wipf & Stock interview with Mike Gorman. Here are a few notes:

Theological interpretation = reading for the subject (Karl Barth)

“Don’t forget that this is primarily a course about God” (Richard Hays)

Missional hermeneutics:  reading the Bible as Scripture in order to discern and participate in the mission of God, what is usually called the missio Dei. 

•  How does this text bear witness to the human predicament?   
• How does this text bear witness to what God is up to to repair and renew that human condition? 
• And thirdly, how does this text bear witness to the responsibility of God’s people to be involved in that reparation of the human condition?

Missional theosis: we become transformed into the image of God by participating in the divine mission. It’s that we become more like God when we have the opportunity to participate in what God is up to in the world either individually or corporately, according to the testimony of Scripture.

Paul’s core message: in Christ God has intervened in human history to create a new humanity that’s characterized by faith—or faithfulness—hope, and love, and that we all are invited to participate in the spreading of that new humanity. 

I like to read—and I like to encourage other people to read—Revelation as really focused on Christ the Lamb who was slaughtered and raised… It has to do with the worship of the Lamb, as well as of God the Father. It has to do with the struggle between the misguided marriage of religion and political power. The book of Revelation stands over against that, in my term, “civil religion.” Today, we might call it Christian nationalism or religious nationalism. Revelation’s trying to undermine that and show its demonic—literally demonic—and dangerous quality and to offer an alternative way of being not only human but of being Christian, anticipating this new creation that we see in Revelation 21 and 22.

the starting point … for Christian ethics is that the gospel reveals to us a God who is wanting to promote and provide life for humanity individually and corporately from womb to tomb…. It seems to me nonviolence is not a superficial supplement to the gospel or an add-on, but rather it’s at the very core of what God’s up to in the world and what the gospel calls us to. 

Updated NRSV

 Ben Witherington’s blog post Why the NIV, NRSV and NET Bible are the Best Translations Available prompted me to check the Updated NRSV on the passages he cites. I had previously checked a few chapters in Deuteronomy which impressed on me how few the changes were.

In Luke 2:7 the updated NRSV corrects “the inn” to the guest room (fn Or their room). The inn does not even make it into a footnote. Perhaps the tide is really turning on this particular misunderstanding. (The NIV had already rendered “guest room”.)

John 3:16 remains unchanged with a rendering that focuses on how much God loves the world rather than how God loves the world, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Witherington’s ‘superman’ verse Philippians 4:13 also remains unchanged, I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

In Romans 3:22 the updated text speaks of “the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ” (fn Or through faith in Jesus Christ), thus reversing the preference of the previous edition.

The manuscript evidence for the ending of Mark 16 is treated subtly differently. The NRSV appeared to offer two alternatives: ‘The Shorter Ending of Mark’ and ‘The Longer Ending of Mark’. NRSVue uses the headings ‘The Intermediate Ending of Mark’ and ‘The Long Ending of Mark’ which corresponds better to the footnote (already in NRSV) which notes that some of the most ancient authorities end with verse 8, i.e. before the passage formerly headed ‘The Shorter Ending’.

John 7:53–8:11 is treated in NRSVue the same as in NRSV, as one would expect.

First impressions confirmed: the changes are few but usually for the better.