Category Archives: Christian morality

The Road to Moral “Progress”: From Obedience to Self-Governance to Autonomy and Beyond (Part Two)

This essay is part two of a series I began on July 10, 2023 in which I am pursuing the question of the origin of the moral climate that dominates large segments of modern society. Before the modern era, the ideal moral person dutifully conformed to the moral tradition handed them by their forbearers. The church was the chief guardian and the clergy were the main interpreters of this tradition. People were expected to obey their betters or else.

Note: As in part one of this series, also in this essay I am relying on J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Moral Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1998). In addition, I will use the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s (SEP) entry on “Hugo Grotius” written by Jon Miller. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grotius/

What is Self-Governance?

Around the year 1600 confidence in the authority of tradition and the church began to wane. Moral philosophers began to seek ways to replace tradition and the clergy with other sources of moral knowledge and establish another ideal for a moral person. That other ideal was self-governance, that is to say, the view that every rational agent has independent access both to the moral knowledge they need to guide their lives and to the motivation to act in keeping with this knowledge.

None of the early architects of the morality of self-government denied the existence of God. Practically all of them believed that a creator God was necessary to morality. However, they focused not on supernaturally revealed moral law but on the moral guidance woven into the created order and in human nature. Human beings possess the power of reason, which enables them to discover the moral law embedded in nature.

Hugo Grotius (1583-1645): Pioneer of Self-Governance

As an example of the change from the ideal of obedience to that of self-governance, we can examine the thought of the Dutch lawyer and statesman Hugo Grotius. Hugo Grotius transformed the medieval moral law theory into a modern one. His works were studied for 200 years after his death and even today he is still recognized as the father of international law. According to Jon Miller [“Hugo Grotius” (SEP)], we can get a handle on Grotius’s moral theory by looking at his answers to four questions about the nature of morality, questions about the source, contents, obligatory force, and scope of moral law.

What is the source of the moral law?

As I said above, no early modern moral philosopher denied the existence of God. Nor did Grotius do so; nevertheless, he did not want to root our knowledge of the moral law in a source accessible only by faith in divine revelation. He makes this clear in a famous (or infamous) passage:

What we have been saying would have a degree of validity even if we should concede [etiamsi daremus] that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God, or that the affairs of men are of no concern to him (Quoted in Miller, SEP).

To discover the moral law, we must look at nature. “The mother of right—that is, of natural law”—Grotius explains, “is human nature” (Quoted in Miller, SEP). In another place he says,

The law of nature is a dictate of right reason, which points out that an act, according as it is or is not in conformity with rational nature, has in it a quality of moral baseness or moral necessity; and that, in consequence, such an act is either forbidden or enjoined (Quoted in Miller, SEP).

Clearly, viewing nature as the repository and reason as the measure of the moral law gives plausibility to the idea of self-governance.

What is the specific content of the moral law?

According to Grotius, we find two contrary drives in human nature, the drive for self-preservation and the need for fellowship with other human beings. The challenge of living successfully in human society is finding a way to harmonize these two seemingly contrary drives. For Grotius, the system of rules that harmonizes, or at least balances, these two forces is the law of nature. And this system of rules must be discovered by empirical observation and study of human behavior. It cannot be derived deductively from first principles.

The theoretical status of moral law, in the Grotian understanding of it, has more in common with the empirical sciences than it does with theology or metaphysics.

What gives moral law is obligatory force?

If the moral law is merely a set of rules that balances self-interest and sociability, what gives it the force of obligation? The laws that govern the physical world do not obligate human beings to obey them. If moral rules are merely guides for living successfully in the world, why do we incur guilt by breaking them? Is morality no more than prudence and enlightened self-interest? According to Schneewind (pp. 73-75), Grotius never answered this question. He merely asserts that some acts are inherently good and some inherently evil and that we should do good and avoid evil. But if you ask why we should prefer good over evil, the answer seems to be that doing good will lead to success in living and doing evil will lead to failure. Whence then the obligation?

What is the scope of moral law?

According to Grotius, the moral law applies to every human being. Since all (or most) human beings are rational and social and have independent access to the law of nature, everyone falls under the jurisdiction of the moral law. Religious disagreements, class differences, and other distinctions between human beings do not lessen the binding nature of moral law.

The Instability of Self-Governance

As time passed, the Grotian concept of self-governance proved unstable. It contained inner contradictions that eventually caused its dissolution. Originally, the ideal of self-governance was opposed to obedience. Obedience had to be rejected because it divided human beings into those who commanded and those who obeyed, masters and servants, learned and ignorant…all to the detriment of the ideals of universal human dignity and freedom. Self-governance promised to do greater justice to human dignity and freedom.

But the concept of self-governance could not completely rid morality of obedience to an alien law and obligations not imposed on oneself. Indeed, individuals were presumed to be competent to use their reason to discern the moral law given in nature. Nevertheless, that law—whatever its origin—was not the product of the human will. Though reason possesses power to discover the moral law, it cannot create it. Self-governance, then, does not live up to its name. As long as the moral laws we must obey derive from the will of another or from blind and purposeless nature, we are not truly self-governing.

A truly self-governing agent must not only be able to discern the moral law embedded in nature but must also be the author of those laws. The name given to this type of moral ideal is autonomy, which means something like “law unto oneself.”

Next Time: The Invention of Autonomy

The Road to Moral “Progress”: From Obedience to Self-Governance to Autonomy and Beyond

Morality in General

As preparation for comparing and contrasting these three views of the ideal moral life, let’s make some generalizations about morality. Every moral ideal must answer certain questions about the nature of morality:

(1) What is the ground of the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad?

(2) How can we discern what is right and good in life’s circumstances?

(3) What is the proper motivation to act in a right and good way?

(4) What is freedom?

(5) What is the nature and extent of human dignity.

Obedience

In the Bible and for most of Christian history, the ideal moral stance of the individual was a spirit of humble obedience to God’s commands. Human beings stand under divine authority and God has graciously revealed his wise and good will. The first verse of Psalm 119 pronounces a blessing on those “who walk according to the law of the Lord,” and the hymn continues to praise God’s laws for 175 more verses. The Old Testament book of Proverbs begins with this maxim: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (1:7). The Lord promises to bless Abraham, not only because he believed (Gen 15:6 and Romans 4:3), but also because he “obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions” (Gen 26:5). The New Testament also exalts the life of obedience. Jesus does the “will” of his Father (John 4:34, Matt 26:35, 42). He “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5: 8b). And obedience to God’s will remains an ideal in the life of the Christian.

Obedience in Practice

The ideal of obedience answers the questions above in the following way: In the Bible and in traditional Christian moral theology, (1) God’s holy character and good will determine what is right and wrong and good and bad. (2) Human beings, being blinded by pride, misdirected desires, and limited knowledge, need divine guidance and wisdom to discern the right and good way. God knows perfectly his character and will and in various ways has communicated to us what is right and good. (3) Human beings ought to be motivated to obey God as a response to his perfect character and his love demonstrated in creation and in Christ. However, the Bible also warns of the destructive consequences of disobedience that follow naturally from misdeeds or that are inflicted by the divine Judge. (4) In the Bible, freedom is the removal of all impediments that hinder the soul from knowing and loving God and conforming to the divine life. True freedom is found only through union with Christ in the power of the Spirit. Faithful obedience to God’s will in the present anticipates the future realization of perfect freedom. (5) For Christianity, true human dignity or worth is grounded in God’s plan to share his eternal life and power with his human children. There is no greater dignity than to be a child of God. Obedience is our way of stepping into the character of that future eternal life insofar as possible in the present life.

Obedience Abused

By 1600, however, the ideal of obedience had come into disrepute in the eyes of many moral philosophers. In the medieval church, the ideal of faithful obedience to God’s will was used to justify the demand that the people obey the clergy and the Christian state. The people were expected to obey without question their “betters” in spiritual and secular matters. In the century of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Hobbes, and Locke (1609-1690), however, demands for blind, “servile” obedience to authority seemed more and more out of step with the progress of reason. Galileo had demonstrated by empirical evidence that the earth orbits the Sun, and Newton had discovered the mathematical laws of celestial motion. Descartes proposed that all knowledge be grounded in the human mind’s power to establish a point of certainty within itself. Hobbes and Locke, each in his own way, proposed that rational analysis of human nature itself could discover moral principles sufficient to found a governmental order and legitimate its exercise of coercive power. In this climate many thinkers were searching for a new understanding of morality to replace obedience to authority. The stage was set for the new moral ideal of self-governance to make its appearance.

To be continued…

The LGBTQ+ Question: Debated or Debatable?

2 Replies

“In the beginning was the Word…and the Word became flesh and lived among us.” (Jo 1:1-14). This Word could communicate the truth about God because “the Word was God.” God’s Word is truth by nature because it is God by nature. In contrast, our words are not by nature God and hence not by nature truth. We are subject to error. At best, words communicate accurately the fallible thoughts of the human mind from which they come. I say “at best” because the process of choosing the right words to communicate our thoughts is also fallible. Often, we are not clear on what we think, and even if we possessed inner clarity of thought, experience teaches us that words cannot perfectly reproduce our thoughts in the minds of others. Not only so, others hear our words through the filters of their own vocabularies and experiences.

Given these challenges many thinkers have observed that open-ended, personal conversation is the best way for two minds to achieve mutual understanding. The back and forth, trial and error, proposal, correction, and counterproposal method of dialogue gradually creates mutual understanding. Writing, podcasts, public speaking involve one-way communication. They are highly subject to misunderstanding, distortion, and caricature. Ideally, we would engage in conversation with everyone we wish to understand. Because the ideal is unachievable, we have to learn to read and listen carefully, analytically, and critically to one-way communications.

An author whose book I read recently drew an inference I think is unwarranted. They based that inference on the verbal similarity between two words. This author observed, quite correctly, that over the last 10 years traditionally evangelical publishers—Eerdmans, Zondervan, and Intervarsity—have started publishing books on both sides of the debate about the Christian acceptability of LGBTQ+ identities and ways of living. So, the subject is debated among self-identified evangelicals. But the author inferred from the fact that the moral status of people who identify as LGBTQ+ is debated that the subject is now debatable within Bible-believing, evangelical churches.

I do not think this inference is warranted. To say that an issue is debated is to make a statement of fact apart from any judgment about its status in relation to Christian doctrine. To say that a subject is debatable is to make a claim about its legitimacy as a viewpoint that may be held under the umbrella of Christian faith. For sure, to label a matter debatable takes no position as to which side is correct. But it envisions a state in which churches must tolerate and listen to both parties in the dispute with an open mind.

Within the history of the church many issues have been designated debatable, disputable, or indifferent matters on which believers may disagree without breaking fellowship (See Romans 14 and 15; Acts 15). But which matters were debatable was itself debated! This debate (about which matters were debatable, disputable, or indifferent) turned on the distinction between matters that were essential beliefs, scruples, and practices and those that were in some way adjunct. In the end, however, the church had to make judgments, come to consensus issue by issue, and enforce those decisions as community standards.

With regard to the debate over the Christian acceptability of LGBTQ+ identities and ways of living, it will take more evidence than the mere existence of a debate to prove that it is now a debatable matter within Bible-believing churches. This change from a settled to a debatable question would overturn a consensus that is unanimous in the Bible and the universal church until recently. The mere presence of a few authors that dispute that consensus does not warrant breaking with that settled teaching. They would need to convince the church that it has misread the Bible and held to a false, cruel, and destructive teaching for 2,000 years.

In my view, the claim that the issue of LGBTQ+ acceptance is a debatable issue because it is now openly debated within evangelical circles is a rhetorical ploy designed to grant legitimacy and gain a hearing for a viewpoint that has not earned that legitimacy the hard way. Hence the debate today is not only about the Christian acceptability of LGBTQ+ identities and ways of living, it is a debate about this issue’s debatability. And the “debatability” of an issue cannot be decided by a few authors’ assertions but is a judgment that only the church can make. In the meantime, the church—given the prima facia teaching of Scripture and the 2,000-year consensus—has every right (and in my view is obligated) to debate with this new teaching as it does with other error and heresy.

Progressive Christian Ethics—An Exercise in Duplicity?

2 Replies

In my recent studies of progressive Christian thinkers, many of which I have published on this blog, I keep running into a paradox in their ethical reasoning, specifically in their arguments for full acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities and lifestyles and their justifications of abortion and sexual activity outside of marriage. On the one hand, they argue like strict legalists, focusing on the precise meanings of words and sentences, and on the other hand they dismiss or reinterpret the Bible’s moral commands by means of general principles.

Progressive Legalism

As examples of the legalist mentality, we saw the Dean of Yale Divinity School argue in effect that because the Bible does not say in many words, “You shall not kill your unborn baby,” we can assume that we are permitted to do so. See my July 7, 2022 essay “A Wizard Ought to Know Better.”

“A Wizard Ought to Know Better”

Also, Karen Keen*, Robert K. Gnuse*, David Caden*, and David P. Gushee* argue that the Bible permits loving, non-coercive, same-sex sexual relationships among equals.** A significant component of their argument contends that since the Bible never specifically condemns such relationships, the texts that mention same-sex sexual activity (Romans 1:26-27, 1 Cor. 6:9-11, and others) should not be used in moral arguments to condemn loving gay relationships. Freed from scriptural condemnations, we can look for other ways to justify same-sex sexual relationships as good and right—gathered from science, psychology, sociology, or evolutionary biology.

Progressive theologians fuss over words like clever lawyers looking for loopholes they can exploit. In my reading of their works, I do not get the impression that their fussiness about the letter of the law arises from a desire to obey God’s commands to the letter. Some other desire seems to be at work.

Progressive Liberalism

On the other hand, when explicit biblical instructions and the consensus of the 2000-year Christian tradition stands irrefutably against them, they abandon the “letter” for the “spirit” of the law. They appeal to general principles to overturn the specific moral teaching of the Bible and tradition. We should, they say, always do the loving thing, the just, merciful, compassionate thing. We should not cause harm. And if following the Bible’s and the tradition’s moral teaching does not seem loving and compassionate, we must reinterpret or reject it. In this way, progressive Christians set aside explicit biblical teaching and the consensus of the ecumenical church when it does not seem to them loving, just, merciful, compassionate…or progressive.

General Principles Are Not Enough

But a moment’s thought reveals that general principles alone cannot guide us in specific situations. How do the principles of justice, peace, mercy, and love, apart from specific commands and a tradition of examples, doctrine, and narratives, give us concrete guidance in particular situations? They cannot do so. What is justice? What does it mean to cause harm to someone? Is making them feel uncomfortable causing harm? How do I love my neighbor? What are compassion and mercy?

Every observer of modern culture knows that many of our contemporaries, having cut themselves loose from the biblical and ecclesiastical tradition, use these words as empty vessels into which to pour their own wishes, desires, and preferences. Do you love someone when you validate their desires and feelings, when you care only for their subjective sense of well-being? Or, does loving someone mean to will and seek the best for them? From where, then, do we learn what is good, better, and best for human beings? Progressive Christians clearly look to progressive culture for guidance.

But progressive Christianity is not the real thing. It is a fake. Taking up the real Christian life involves learning the true nature of love, justice, mercy, compassion, and all other virtues from the Bible’s commands, narratives, doctrines, and examples. It involves listening to the wisdom of the tradition and joining with the whole church in seeking to obey God’s will. We cannot do this if we claim the right to sit in judgment over every specific command in view of empty general principles.

*To read these reviews, copy and paste these names into the search box on the top right of this page.

**Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships

Robert K. Gnuse,“Seven Gay Texts: Biblical Passages Used to Condemn Homosexuality” (Biblical Theology Bulletin 45. 2: 68-87).

David A. Kaden, Christianity in Blue

David P. Gushee, After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity

A New Christianity? A Post-Evangelical Progressive Vision (Part 1)

4 Replies

In the previous two posts I reviewed a book by a far-left representative of progressive Christianity, namely David A. Kaden, Christianity in Blue. Today I will begin a review of David P. Gushee, After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2020; pp. 225). A Baptist, a “self-identified progressive evangelical” (p. 5) and a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University (Macon, Georgia), Gushee advocates a position much closer to traditional and biblical Christianity than does Kaden. As the book’s title proclaims, Gushee rejects evangelicalism and proposes a “New Christianity,” which he calls “post-evangelicalism.” This “new Christianity” is animated by a spirit of “Christian humanism.”

The book divides into three parts and nine chapters. Part one deals with the question of the sources of authority for theology and ethics. Part two deals with three central theological topics, God, Jesus, and the church. Part three explores the topic of ethics. I will briefly summarize each chapter and for the most part save my critical assessment until we have the entire argument before us.

Part One: Authorities: Listening and Learning

1. Evangelicalism: Cutting Loose from an Invented Community

According to Gushee, modern evangelicalism “was invented through a historical retrieval and rebranding move undertaken by an ambitious group of reformers within the US Protestant fundamentalist community of the 1940s” (p. 15). Evangelicalism, according to Gushee, “was never more than fundamentalism with lipstick on” (p. 27). From the beginning, the evangelical movement set its sights on recapturing American culture from political and theological progressives. By the 1970s, an “identity fusion” (p. 24) between white evangelicals and the Republican Party had been accomplished. However for a minority of moderate to left-leaning evangelicals, the overwhelming support of evangelicals (81%) for Donald Trump in the 2016 election “became a bridge too far” (p. 25). The evangelicalism of today is white, Republican, fundamentalist, sexist, homophobic, and racist. Evangelicalism revealed its true colors in 2016 and thus provoked a “massive exodus” (p. 28) that continues today.

2. Scripture: From Inerrancy to the Church’s Book

According to Gushee, evangelicalism’s union with right-wing politics is not the only thing driving the mass exodus. Its fundamentalist view of the Bible as “inerrant” creates huge intellectual, theological, and ethical problems for many people. Leaving aside the history and detailed description of the doctrine of inerrancy, the bottom line is that evangelicals accept the Bible as the Word of God, true in everything it asserts in matters of faith and morality. Gushee raises six objections to the evangelical/fundamentalist view of the Bible. (1) The Bible is obviously a human product, and “any human product is subject to human limits and various kinds of error” (p. 31). But Gushee does not for this reason reject the Bible as of no use to the church. In place of the doctrine of inerrancy, he proposes a theory of “limited inspiration” wherein “some scriptural texts consistently demonstrate that they are inspired by God because they prove so useful in Christian experience for drawing people to Jesus and his way” (p. 32; emphasis original). These “inspired” texts serve as a “canon within a canon” (p. 33). Jesus’s teaching that we are to love God and our neighbor serves as the criterion for what is canonical. (2) The Bible is a collection of ancient documents, written in three different languages and set in cultures vastly different from ours. Our attempts to interpret the Bible are beset by many exegetical obscurities and translation problems. Understanding the Bible is not as simple as “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” (p. 35). (3) The “Bible does not interpret itself” (p. 35). Human beings do the interpreting. Because human interpreters are “flawed, limited, and self-interested,” a post-evangelical approach “will emphasize a communal process of interpreting Scripture, which occurs in an ongoing conversation between individual Christians, clergy, scholars, and the historic church, with the help of God’s Spirit” (pp. 36-37).

(4) The Bible is the church’s book. These texts became “sacred” to the church “because they were believed to bear witness to Jesus and to help people find salvation through him” (p. 37; emphasis original). Gushee proposes an alternative way to understand the Bible as sacred Scripture to replace inerrancy: “That way is to recognize that the Bible is and always has been the church’s book” (p. 38). What does it mean to read the Bible as “the church’s book”? The next point sheds some light on this question. (5) According to Gushee, Christians can learn much from the Jewish way of reading the Bible. At least some Jews read the Hebrew Bible as “a dialogue between God and God’s people” (p. 39) rather than a one-way communication. Christians have a responsibility, claims Gushee, “to read texts in ways that bless rather than harm human beings” (p. 40). Gushee quotes Elie Wiesel with approval: “If even the most authoritative teaching, the most sacred text, leads to dehumanization, to humiliation, to harm, then we must reject it” (p. 40).

(6) Finally, the doctrines of the inerrancy and all-sufficiency of Scripture distracts us from seeking God’s voice in other places: “These include tradition, science, reason, experience, intuition, community, and relationships” (p. 41). Gushee continues: “The power of a narrow evangelical biblicism must be broken, but you can’t replace something with nothing. We need to open ourselves to other ways of discerning truth” (p. 41).

3. Resources: Hearing God’s Voice Beyond Scripture

It seems to be a defining characteristic of “progressive” Christianity of whatever stripe that it seeks insight into God’s character and will from sources in addition to Scripture. Moreover, progressives are willing to judge and correct Scripture’s teachings about God and morality in view of these other sources. In this chapter Gushee outlines “a new approach to listening for God’s voice and discerning God’s will” in sources other than the Bible (p. 45). He proposes three sources in addition to Scripture to which we should listen for guidance. (1) The first is internal to the church, its tradition, and communal life. Gushee does not advocate treating tradition as an authority to which we must submit our own judgment. He recommends that post-evangelicals “not bow before tradition, or dismiss it with a sneer, but to understand its shaping role in creating Christianity as we know it” (p. 50). That is to say, post-evangelicals need to develop a historical awareness of the forces determining their doctrinal and moral biases and the biases of others. Only then will they be able to listen seriously to the second and third sources. (2) The second set of supplementary sources for discerning God’s will are “reason, experience, intuition, relationships, and community” (p. 51), all of which are located and grounded in natural human capacities. Reason detects and rejects logical and factual contradictions even if those contradictions are found in the Bible. Gushee gives as an example the contradiction between the biblical assertions that God is love and the biblical command to the invading Israelites to wipe out the inhabitants of Canaan. Experience also teaches what is good and bad, healthy and harmful, humanizing and dehumanizing, and what God’s will is and what is not. According to Gushee, the experience of LGBTQ+ people is a source of knowledge of God’s will and must not be denied on the basis of Bible texts and their traditional interpretation. (3) The arts and sciences can also serve as sources for hearing God’s voice. Post-evangelicals must take the conclusions of the sciences with respect to climate change, homosexuality, and other areas of scientific discovery seriously.

The Progressive View of Authority: A Preliminary Assessment

As will become even more obvious in the next chapters, the views that set progressive Christianity apart from traditional/biblical Christianity cannot be derived from the Bible. From where, then, do they come? In part one, Gushee makes it clear that progressive Christianity looks to reason and experience to justify its proposed changes to biblical/traditional Christianity. Hence the church’s traditional teaching that the Bible alone is the ultimate norm of Christian faith and morals must be rejected. To defend their progressive views, progressives reinterpret,* correct, reject, or even condemn the teaching of Scripture. God’s “voice” in personal experience, political movements, culture, and psychology in certain cases trumps Scripture. Apparently the “progress” of progressive Christianity depends on a constant flow of new divine revelations. It should not escape notice that these new revelations track almost perfectly, albeit a few months behind, with advances in secular culture and politics.

*To interpret means to explain an obscure text in other words and concepts clearer to the listener. The goal of interpretation is to unite the mind of the listener with the original meaning of the text along with its full implications and applications. To reinterpret usually means not merely to challenge older, established interpretations but to read an alien meaning into the text with as much plausibility as one can create. It is to hijack the accrued authority of a text and place it in service of a meaning more acceptable to the interpreter. Many reinterpretations involve distortion, deception, and downright lies.

Next Time: We will examine part two, “Theology: Believing and Belonging” wherein Gushee proposes progressive views of Jesus, God, and the Church.

Progressive Christians: Beware of Liberal Theology (Part Two)

1 Reply

Today’s post is part two of my review of Roger Olson’s new book Against Liberal Theology (Zondervan, 2022).

Chapter Six, “Liberal Theology and Salvation”

Liberal theology rejects the traditional doctrine that salvation comes to human beings through the atonement and resurrection accomplished in Jesus Christ. If Jesus’s death plays a part at all in the process of salvation, it is as a noble example of faithfulness to God. Jesus saves only by the continuing influence of his teaching and example. Salvation in Christ does not involve atonement for sin, supernatural transformation, a new heaven and a new earth, or the resurrection of the dead. For liberal Christianity, salvation is about psychological healing, moral improvement, liberation from oppression, and greater social justice in this life. Salvation is “a new principle of life implanted in the heart” (p. 130, quoting Washington Gladden). According to Gary Dorrien, “The liberal gospel is that the victory of spirit over nature may be won if men will appropriate the light and life which are mediated to them through the impact of the historical Jesus” (p. 128).

Chapter Seven, “The Future in Liberal Theology”

It is not an exaggeration to assert that liberal theology possesses no eschatology. Everything in liberal religion focuses on this life. All liberals agree that the resurrection of the dead, the Second Coming of Christ, the transformation of creation, the final judgment, and heaven and hell are at best symbols of an afterlife and at worse left over imagery from Jewish apocalyptic fantasy. If there is an afterlife at all, which many liberals deny, no one will be excluded. All will be saved. Olson quotes John Shelby Spong who entertains the possibility of an afterlife in which there is “some sense of eternity in which my being, differentiated and empowered by the power of love, is joined with the being of others who are at one with the Ground of all Being” (p. 158). As is the case with so many liberal assertions, what they say is not wholly false from a traditional viewpoint. But the claims they make are ungrounded in the historical events of the gospel and what they leave out is essential to the biblical, orthodox faith.

Chapter Eight, “The Crisis in Liberal Theology”

After the American Civil War, liberal Christianity steadily gained influence in mainline Protestant denominations—Disciples of Christ, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran—reaching its high point in the middle of the twentieth century. Since then it has declined precipitously. According to Olson, liberal theology “is frustratingly vague, shallow, limp, unhelpful in answering life’s ultimate questions. It is dying out except in certain mainline Protestant colleges, universities, and seminaries” (p. 174). Liberal theologian Donald Miller may have put his finger on the reason for the decline: “the Christian message [as preached by liberal churches] may become a mirror reflection of the spirit of the age” (quoted on p. 171). Liberal Christianity remains, however, attractive to some people wounded by their narrow, rigid, and dogmatic, fundamentalist upbringing. On their journey toward liberalism (or pure secularity) they move through a progressive stage but do not find it satisfying. Something drives them onward toward liberalism.

What then is “progressive Christianity,” and why does it serve as little more than a rest stop on the way from fundamentalism to liberalism? According to Olson, many on this journey find it [progressive Christianity] “fuzzy, unclear, mediocre, and on a trajectory toward liberal Christianity” (p. 173). Olson observes that,

“Progressive Christianity is not a tradition or a movement or even a real identity. It is simply a label used by many different individuals who do not want to be thought of as conservative and who are attracted to social-justice issues [LGBTQ+, racial justice, etc.], often to the neglect of evangelism, sound doctrine, and traditional Christian norms of belief and life” (p. 173).

In the book’s concluding paragraph, Olson urges progressive Christians to “beware of liberal Christianity, because it is not real Christianity at all. Look for and find a church, a seminary, whatever, that truly takes the Bible and orthodox doctrine seriously but is not cultic in its ethos, like most fundamentalist churches, seminaries, and other ultraconservative Christian organizations” (p. 174).

Observations

In Against Liberal Theology, Roger Olson argues that liberal Christianity is not authentic Christianity but another religion. I believe he develops and sustains this thesis admirably. But Olson also wanted to make a case for “putting the brakes on progressive Christianity.” I think the book is less successful in achieving this second aim, though not by any means a failure. On the positive side, by reading about liberal theology in such detail and realizing that it is not true Christianity but a heresy, progressive Christians may become more self-aware of their drift and reassess their thinking in the way Olson recommends. However I think Olson’s case is weakened by the book’s lack of a detailed description of what makes a theological position “progressive.” Not every Christian who holds “progressive” views uses that label as a self-description. In the absence of a profile of the progressive stance how will individuals number themselves among the book’s target audience? Olson points to progressive Christianity’s diversity and lack of inner coherence. Perhaps this diversity provides an excuse for not attempting to describe progressive Christianity in greater detail. Nevertheless there must be a family resemblance or an inner principle that unites these diverse positions under the label “progressive.”*

Moreover, while Olson warns progressives against becoming liberal, he does not criticize progressive Christianity as such. At the end of the book I am left with several unanswered questions: Do progressive Christians need to rethink their progressivism? After all, it is in Olson’s words a “halfway house” to liberalism. Has progressive Christianity become “progressive” precisely because it has unknowingly adopted and internalized some of liberal theology’s original critical principles, specifically its view that affirming human freedom and dignity demands liberation from all forms of oppression, with such liberation defined as the right and power of self-creation and self-definition? Is there an internal logic at work driving progressive Christianity inevitably toward liberal theology? If so, wouldn’t “putting the brakes” on progressive Christianity require exposing and rooting out the progressive/liberal principle that drives it forward?

*Do a quick Google search for “progressive Christianity” and I think you will see that for many self-designated “Progressive Christian” groups you could substitute the word “liberal” for the word “progressive” without distortion. For example, see The eight points of Progressive Christianity listed on the progressivechristianity.org website.

How Man Became God: The Story of Progressive Humanism

3 Replies

In the two previous essays we considered the phenomenon of Christian people who adopt a progressive humanist framework to guide their moral actions but continue to use Christian words to express their progressive views. Old words, lifted from their original scriptural matrix and placed in a new setting, acquire alien meanings. Scripture texts are quoted selectively and are reinterpreted by clever exegetes to conform to progressive values. And they believe this sterile hybrid is true Christianity. This essay is the first of two in which I dig down to the foundations of these two moral visions to show at what point they diverge and how much they differ.

God and Human Aspirations

Everyone by nature desires good things. No one can be satisfied with good when they can have better; and who can be happy with better when the best is available? Why be satisfied with little when you can have much? Though we know we can’t have it all, we still want it all.

In the history of religion, people always attribute to God (or gods) the maximum of wealth and power and life conceivable. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) articulates this principle in a memorable way:

For on this principle it is that He is called Deus (God). For the sound of those two syllables in itself conveys no true knowledge of His nature; but yet all who know the Latin tongue are led, when that sound reaches their ears, to think of a nature supreme in excellence and eternal in existence… For when the one supreme God of gods is thought of, even by those who believe that there are other gods, and who call them by that name, and worship them as gods, their thought takes the form of an endeavor to reach the conception of a nature, than which nothing more excellent or more exalted exists… All, however, strive emulously to exalt the excellence of God: nor could anyone be found to believe that any being to whom there exists a superior is God. And so all concur in believing that God is that which excels in dignity all other objects (Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 1. 6-7).

Augustine reminds us that human beings think of God as the perfect being who actually possesses everything we desire and is everything we wish to be. Your view of God determines your view of humanity and vice versa. The history of theology is simultaneously the history of human ideals and aspirations.

How Man Became God—A History

Two Views of God

During the high Middle Ages (1000-1250) a debate ensued among theologians in the newly established universities in Europe (Paris and Oxford) about the nature of God. Should God be understood primarily as an infinite Mind that produces the natural world logically and by necessity? This view of God and creation enables theologians and philosophers to know something of the mind of God, natural law, and the good by contemplating nature and reflecting on their own minds. On the other hand, some thinkers argued that we should view God primarily as an all-powerful Will who creates nature freely and always retains freedom to change the order of nature in anyway God chooses. This view protects the freedom of God and makes God inaccessible to the human mind apart from his free choice to reveal his will. The first view is designated intellectualism and the second is called voluntarism. Many thoughtful students of the history of theology consider both of these views extreme. Surely we should think of God as both mind and will in perfect harmony even if we cannot harmonize them perfectly in thought.

Two Views of Human Nature

Because human beings always view God as the perfect being and the goal of human aspirations, the two views of God (intellectualism and voluntarism) generate two views of human nature and human aspirations. In the late middle ages and Reformation era (1300 to 1600), voluntarism became a powerful theological and cultural force. God was conceived primarily as an all-powerful, absolutely free, and self-determining Will. God is free not only from nature and natural law but from his own past actions. And in this theological environment, human aspirations were directed toward maximum freedom from external determination, aimed at dominating nature, and focused on expressing one’s arbitrary will in word and deed. To be in the fullest sense of the term is to be nothing but what one wills to be in the same way and to the same extent that God is only what God wills to be.

It would be a great mistake to think that the seventeenth-century Enlightenment signaled a return to intellectualism. The Enlightenment rejected intellectualism and viewed reason as an instrument to uncover the secrets of the physical world that could then be used for human purposes. In other words, the Enlightenment was an expression of the desire of the human will to dominate and recreate nature in our image in imitation of the Creator. What God is eternally, humans beings strive to become in the course of history. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Romanticism turned its attention from the will to dominate nature to the self-creative will of the unique individual.

Apotheosis and Utopia

Contemporary progressive culture combines the impulses of the Enlightenment (the will to dominate nature) and the Romantic Movement (the will to recreate oneself as one pleases). After all, they are but different forms of the desire to be like the voluntarist God, to free oneself from all alien structures, laws, and forces. Progressive humanism was constructed by removing God from the picture and transferring the divine qualities of unlimited will and absolute freedom from God to human beings. Without God in the picture, nothing remains to remind us of our limits, the order of nature becomes plastic subject to no law but human will, and absolute freedom from every restriction becomes the aspiration toward which we strive. God’s eclipse from human consciousness made it possible to deceive ourselves with the illusion that human beings could take their destiny into their own hands and achieve individual apotheosis (transformation into a god) and social utopia.

Creative Destruction

The LGBTQ+ liberation movement is but the latest chapter in the story of progressive humanism’s quest to overcome all limits and achieve individual apotheosis and social utopia. It will not be the last. The destructive impulse at the heart of progressivism will not have reached its goal until every boundary has been erased, every limit has been transgressed, and every rule has been abolished. Progressivism cannot acknowledge a principle of limitation and order without destroying itself. The political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) envisioned pre-political humanity living in a “state of nature” marked by social chaos, without rules, where everyone has a right to everything, and human life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbes devised a plan to escape the undesirable state of nature into a condition of order and peace. In contrast, contemporary progressives work to create a world where “there are no rules and everyone has a right to everything.” And they call it “progress.”

To be continued…

The Bible and Christian Ethics (Part Three)

Distinctions

Universal Moral Law

In the previous essays I spoke of a universal moral law as the set of the basic moral rules known everywhere, at all times, and by all people through reason and conscience. The Bible demands that we live according to these rules, but it does not claim that they are grounded or known exclusively through its commands.

Ethics

Ethics is a rational discipline of reflection on morality—on the grounds, justification, ways of knowing, extent, and application of morality. Every society articulates moral rules, but not every society produces a rational account of those rules. Christian ethics is a theological discipline that reflects rationally on the Christian way of life for the Christian community. This series is an exercise in Christian ethics.

A Way of Life

A way of life is a comprehensive set of rules, often unarticulated, for living in a particular community. It incorporates the universal moral law but includes much more. It embraces also the traditional wisdom and customs learned by communal experience and a vision of human living inspired by its views on human nature and destiny—all of which are set within its understanding of the divine. A community may be called to a way of life more demanding—but usually not less—than the universal moral law instructs. Christianity is a way of life that incorporates everything right and good taught by reason, conscience, and experience into the vision of God and humanity revealed in Jesus Christ.

The Christian Way of Life

Each traditional community embodies the basic universal moral rules in its own distinct way, given its unique history and identity and beliefs. The ancient Israelites, as I said in previous essays, incorporated the universal moral law into their laws but embodied it in distinct ways and augmented it in view of their beliefs about God and their unique calling to be the holy people of a holy God.

Christianity incorporates within its way of life the universal moral law as mediated by the Old Testament law along with the wisdom embodied therein. In continuity with ancient Israel the church understands itself to be God’s special people, called to live in a way consistent with the character, identity, and expectations of Israel’s God. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And referring to Leviticus, Peter urges believers living among pagans,“But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16).

But Christianity does not merely continue the Old Testament way of life unchanged. It reorients everything with a view to Jesus Christ—his teaching about his Father, the kingdom of God, the life of peace, love of enemies, purity of heart, and suffering for righteousness sake. The apostolic teaching points to Jesus’s humility, obedience, and self-giving, especially as exemplified in the cross, as the model for all Christians to follow (Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Peter 2:21). This new Christ-centered way of life places the universal moral law and traditional wisdom about what is good for human beings within a new order, but it does not delegitimize them.

Christians are expected to be good people by universal moral standards. Christianity calls on all members of the Christian community not only to avoid criminality and behavior reprehensible to everyone but also to the highest ideals of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and all the other pagan moralists as a minimum standard. Christians must not lie, steal, murder, commit adultery, or dishonor their parents. They must also rise above the common vices tolerated by the world. They do not curse, use profanity, gossip, or slander. They are not greedy but content, not arrogant but humble, not selfish but generous. They do not envy, get angry easily, act rudely, or boast (1 Cor 13:4). They are just, honest, kind, and faithful in all their human relationships. They control their passions: they are not gluttons, drunks, quarrelers, pornographers, fornicators, adulterers, or greedy. They love their wives and husbands, and they take care of their children. They exemplify the full spectrum of inner virtues: courage, prudence, humility, patience, faith, joy, peace, and love. Above all, they love God with their whole being and seek him in everything they do.

The Way Forward

I have argued that the Christian way of life set out in the New Testament is a combination of the universal moral law known by conscience and reason, traditional knowledge of a good and wise life learned though communal experience, and the Old Testament’s vision of a holy people in service to a holy God—all placed in relation to the definitive revelation of God and human destiny in Jesus Christ. Everything in the Christian way serves the end of transforming us into the image of Christ and achieving for us the destiny he pioneered, eternal life in likeness and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The New Testament’s inclusion of the universal moral law, traditional wisdom, and the Old Testament’s vision of the holy people as a part of the Christian way of life validates their force for the Christian life. Each component of the package is important and possesses its own weight. Many mistakes made in current debates among Christian ethicists result from neglecting this fact. In the next essays I will address the proper role of the Bible in discussions of moral issues where reason, conscience, and traditional wisdom have something to say. Specifically, I want to return to the issues of same-sex relationships and transgender issues and apply to those disputes the view of the Christian way of life I have developed in the previous two essays.

The Bible and Christian Ethics (Part Two)

1 Reply

Previously…

In the previous essay I argued that it is a mistake to treat the Bible as if it were the only basis for belief in a divine reality or for the concept of God. The Bible itself presupposes that people outside its sphere of influence believe in a divine reality and share some beliefs about the nature of the divine with those of the Bible. The Christian doctrine of God is shaped by the history of Israel’s experience of God as documented in the Old Testament and even more by God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. If we do not acknowledge that belief in God’s existence and some beliefs about the divine nature can be properly founded on reason, nature, human experience, and other sources available apart from the revelation contained in the Bible, we deprive ourselves of the common ground on which we can share the distinctly Christian understanding of God with outsiders and we exclude the help that reason, nature, and human experience can give in forming our concept of God.

Universal Moral Law

The Universal Influence of Moral Law

In this essay I want to show why it is important for Christian ethics to acknowledge that the Bible is not the only basis for moral beliefs. Just as human beings have a tendency to believe in a divine reality and hold certain beliefs about the nature of the divine, human beings also have a tendency to believe that some acts are good and some are bad, some right and some wrong, and some just and some unjust. The people of Israel, Egypt, and all other ancient nations believed it was wrong to dishonor one’s parents, commit adultery, steal, covet, murder, and bear false witness long before God gave the Ten Commandments at Sinai. These laws and all the others given in Exodus and Leviticus have parallels in the nations and cultures of the ancient world. The covenant and the laws promulgated at Sinai were given to constitute Israel as a nation, not to reveal hither to unknown moral rules. All cultures have rules that govern marriage, proper sexual relationships, personal injury, property rights, family relationships, and myriads of other human interactions as well as penalties for infractions. The boundaries that define what is permitted and the nature of the penalties differ from culture to culture and age to age but the presence of moral rules and mechanisms for their enforcement remains constant.

Even without going into great detail about the history of moral codes and ethical and legal systems, two things are clear. First, human beings everywhere and always know that some acts are good and some bad and some are right and some are wrong.* Second, people do not live up to the moral ideals they acknowledge. The existence of laws proves the first point and the necessity of penalties demonstrates the second.

The Source of Moral Knowledge

What is the source of this universal moral knowledge? Clearly, it must be founded in something universal in human beings, given with human nature, derived from human experience, or some combination of the two. Some have argued that knowledge of the universal moral law has been implanted in human nature as conscience (the Stoics and Immanuel Kant). Others speak of human nature as possessing an inner urge that seeks what is truly good for its perfection, so that through individual and collective experience people discover what is good* (Aristotle and Alasdair MacIntyre). In my view both are important factors in moral experience. For what distinguishes moral action from other types of goal-seeking behavior is a sense of obligation. But it does not seem right that obligatory moral action should be completely disassociated from what is good for human beings.

What Does the Bible Add?

A Repository of Wisdom

What, then, does the Bible add to general moral knowledge acquired through conscience and experience to constitute a distinctly Christian way of life? First, for cultures influenced by Christianity, the Bible functions as the most significant repository of this general moral knowledge and wisdom. Every new generation must be taught the traditions, customs, morals, and wisdom received from the foregoing generations. No one is born wise or can gain sufficient knowledge of what is good, right, and wise from their untutored private experience. Irrational emotions must be disciplined and destructive desires need to be enlightened. Viewed in this light the moral laws of the Bible are not all that different from the proverbs and wise sayings found in the Old Testament book of Proverbs or the wisdom traditions of other nations. As a repository of moral wisdom, the Bible’s authority is no greater than the wisdom embedded in the laws and wise sayings themselves. It is important not to dismiss—as we modern people are inclined to do—this type of authority as of no significance, because it derives from the collective consciences and experiences of many generations and has been tested in the lives of millions of individuals.

The Laws of a Nation

Second, it is vital to understand that the Old Testament law also served as a moral, civil, criminal, and religious regime for the ancient nation of Israel. It would not be true to say that the Old Testament makes no distinctions among these four areas, but compared to modern secular societies the boundaries are a bit blurrier. The most obvious difference between the laws of ancient Israel and those of modern secular states is that religious infractions—worshiping idols, witchcraft, or working on the Sabbath, for examples—are punishable by the state. With regard to criminal law, every nation must decide and continually evaluate which actions are so detrimental to the peace, order, and general welfare of the nation that they must be criminalized. This judgment must take into account all known factors that can affect the welfare of the nation. Though there is some overlap, the factors considered by ancient peoples to be vital to the common good differ dramatically from those so considered by modern secular states. No state, however, attempted to criminalize every immoral and irreligious act. The Old Testament considers adultery and same-sex intercourse to be seriously detrimental to the general welfare and punished them with heavy penalties whereas modern secular societies have decriminalized these acts, albeit only recently. The measures by which the two societies measure the harmful effects of these and other immoral acts differ markedly.

Are the Laws of an Ancient Nation Still Relevant?

Of what relevance are the Old Testament civil, criminal, and religious laws for Christian ethics? Old Testament civil and criminal laws are of no direct relevance to Christianity because the church is not a nation, state, or empire. The Old Testament’s religious laws were given to the ancient Jewish people and cannot guide Christians in their religious practice. The New Testament makes clear that Christianity includes gentiles and Jews in a new covenant based on faith. The laws about sacrifice, ritual purity and separation from gentiles, circumcision, Sabbath, and other religious matters no longer apply.

But what about the Old Testament’s moral laws? Are they useful in constructing Christian ethics? In answering this question we need to remember first that many if not all the Old Testament’s moral laws merely republish moral laws universally found among human beings. Hence their authority derives not from their sheer presence in the Old Testament but from their universal acknowledgment as right and good. In so far as the Old Testament is authoritative in its own right—because it is included in the Christian canon—its affirmation of these universal moral laws may be viewed as a confirmation of their validity. But Christian ethics must not indiscriminately appeal to Old Testament moral law as authoritative. Christianity is based on the new covenant. The Laws of Moses—moral as well as civil, criminal, and religious—are the rules that define faithfulness to old covenant that God made with the people of Israel and them alone. Hence no law of any category in the Old Testament possesses universal and abiding force simply because it is commanded.

Next Time

As we shall see in future essays, Christian ethics incorporates the universal moral law into its vision of the Christian life. And in a way similar to the Old Testament, the New Testament adds to these universal moral laws its unique rules and principles guided by the vision of human nature and destiny revealed in Jesus Christ.

*For a detailed treatment of the concepts of “the good” and “the right,” see my essays from July 9 & 12, 2021.

Two Views of Scripture and Same-Sex Relationships—A Review (Part Four)

The Clash of the Titans

Keen constructs this chapter as a debate between traditionalists and progressives about the biblical view of same-sex relationships. It focuses specifically on the question of the significance of “gender and anatomical complementarity” for the issue. In previous chapters Keen concluded that traditionalists and progressives agree that the Bible condemns same-sex relationships for a variety of reasons–idolatry, coercion, and exploitation. But they disagree on the crucial issue of whether or not the Bible forbids same-sex relationships because of their lack of “gender and anatomical complementarity” and requires such complementarity for legitimate marriage. The debate turns on the interpretation of six texts: Genesis 1-3; Matthew 19:1-6; Mark 10:1-9; Romans 1; Ephesians 5:22-32; and Revelation 19:7-9.

Keen sets out the traditionalist argument against same-sex relationships in four theses and the progressive case in five theses:

Traditionalist Arguments

The Bible teaches that “gender and anatomical complementarity” is an essential feature of legitimate marriage because…

“Heterosexual marriage is a creation ordinance, and therefore not culturally relative” (Genesis 1:27; 2:24; Matt 19:4-6).
“Marriage is ordered toward procreation, but procreation is not required to validate marriage” (Gen. 1:28).
“Same-sex desire is the result of the fall” (Romans 1; Genesis 3).
“Heterosexual marriage is a living icon or a symbol of the union of Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:25; 29-32; Revelation. 19:7-9)

Traditionalist arguments appeal in a straightforward way to the texts they quote: The Bible obviously prohibits same-sex intercourse and commends marriage as a God-sanctioned covenant, which it never contemplates as anything other than a union of male and female.

Therefore…

The Bible teaches that “gender and anatomical complementarity” is an essential feature of legitimate marriage.

Progressive Counter Arguments

The Bible does not teach that “gender and anatomical complementarity” is an essential feature of legitimate marriage because…

“Covenant fidelity, not sexual differentiation, is the foundation of biblical marriage.”
“Procreation is minimized in the New Testament.”
“Paul’s use of “unnatural” (para physin) in Romans 1 must be understood in his historical context.”
“Romans 1 does not describe most gay and lesbian people.”
“Same-sex relationships can symbolize the union between Christ and the church.”

The cumulative force of the progressive theses is mostly negative. They propose exceptions and alternative explanations to the traditional interpretations, thereby creating doubt about traditionalists’ exclusive claims. Newly formed doubt and alternative explanations wedge open the possibility that “gender and anatomical complementarity” may not be an essential feature of legitimate marriage. At this point affirming same-sex relationships as biblically legitimate is a mere possibility. It needs further support to increase its credibility. Keen offers that support in succeeding chapters.

Analysis

1. This chapter operates on two levels. Our attention is drawn first to the debate between traditionalists and progressives. Although Keen denies that she fits in either camp, she nevertheless uses a progressive voice—rather than her own—to represent the viewpoint she accepts. Why? Throughout the chapter Keen’s invisible hand is at work using this debate for her own purposes. But it is not until the next chapter that she tells us that the debate between traditionalists and progressives ends in a “stalemate.” This conclusion opens space for Keen to make her own contribution, which she does in the rest of the book.

2. There may be, however, another reason Keen uses the progressive voice to critique the traditionalist argument. Or, if not a “reason,” an effect. Most Christian defenses of same-sex relationships have been articulated by progressives. Their rejection of biblical authority, embrace of historical relativism, and adherence to theological liberalism gives them greater freedom to question even the plain meaning of the Bible and look for alternative interpretations. Keen does not wish to be associated with this aspect of progressivism. However, she uses the imaginative work of progressives to put these alternative interpretations into our minds. It is an open question, however, whether you can justify the conclusions progressives reach without accepting the whole progressive package. Keen will argue that you can do so.

3. Keen devotes nearly three times as much space to progressive arguments as to traditionalist arguments. Perhaps this lack of balance makes sense because the traditionalist case is rather simple whereas the progressive case is more complicated. The traditionalist needs only point to biblical texts, which clearly condemn same-sex intercourse and commend marriage between male and female. What more needs to be said? Progressives, however, must argue against the grain of the plain meaning of the text. Each of the five progressive theses listed above attempts to defeat the traditional reading of the biblical proof texts for the traditional theses. The effect of the five progressive arguments is to create doubt and stimulate us to imagine alternative interpretations. But I don’t think I am being uncharitable to surmise that Keen gives much more space to progressive arguments because she agrees with them and wants to persuade us of their strength while maintaining her distance from progressivism’s offensive features—offensive, that is, to conservative, Bible-believing Christians.

Critical Comments

I will make my critical comments brief. I don’t want to go into detail in a critique of the chapter’s progressive arguments because Keen has not yet tied herself to them or explained just where she agrees or disagrees with them. I do not want to risk attributing to her something she has not affirmed. In any case, my critique of progressivism would begin at a more fundamental level than the interpretation of the six texts discussed in this chapter.

1. Keen uses the term “heterosexual marriage” to designate the traditionalist understanding of biblical marriage. Usually Keen resists using anachronistic terms that attribute a modern idea to an ancient author. She violates that rule here. Traditionalists would not (or should not) accept this term as descriptive of what they believe. In the Bible marriage means just one thing. It needs no qualifier. To add the adjective “heterosexual” begs the essential question, and thoughtful traditionalists will not overlook this fallacy.

2. Keen has not yet clearly differentiated herself from what she calls “progressive” Christian theology. Hence the reader is kept in the dark about her theological stance and is forced to guess what she is up to. Her thesis is that you do not need to reject biblical authority or your evangelical faith to accept same-sex relationships as biblically legitimate. But her use of insights generated on progressive premises and developed using progressive methods evoke some suspicion about her sincerity in claiming to support an evangelical view of biblical authority.

Next: Keen introduces and applies her own interpretative method to help us to “make sense of Old Testament law.”

	Dr Jonne Smalhouse on A Clarification on the Histori…
	Dr Jonne Smalhouse on How Experts Stole the Bib…
	ifaqtheology on Galileo, What Hast Thou W…
	Dr Jonne Smalhouse on Galileo, What Hast Thou W…
	ifaqtheology on Teaching the Faith in a Christ…