Tag Archives: biblical ethics

Sex and the Single Christian (A New Christianity? Part 3)

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In this essay I continue my review of David P. Gushee, After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity, this time focusing on a single chapter: “Sex: From Sexual Purity to Covenant Realism.” It would take a small book to deal thoroughly with the substance and rhetoric of this chapter. Almost every sentence calls for comment. In some cases the choice of one word instead of another places Gushee and me worlds apart. I will try to distill Gushee’s essential argument as efficiently and fairly as possible before I offer my critique.

Introduction

Gushee opens with a rather contemptuous summation of evangelicals’ view of sex: “no sex for no body outside straight marriage” (p. 119; emphasis original). The double negative in the expression “no sex for no body” seems intended to give the impression that evangelicals are a bunch of backwoods hicks hailing from somewhere in hills of flyover country. And the reference to “straight” marriage, which a few years ago would have been considered redundant, needles those who adhere stubbornly to marriage as it has been understood for a thousand generations. The evangelical view of sex, according to Gushee, has caused great suffering for LGBTQ people and shame for young people, gay and straight, who cannot live up to it. In this chapter, Gushee argues for a sexual ethic “that sets enthusiastic mutual consent as a floor and covenant marriage as its main norm” (p. 119).

The Bible on Sexual Purity

Gushee admits that Paul teaches that for Christians there should be “no sex for no body outside straight marriage.” Jesus’s strict teaching against lust and divorce in the Sermon on the Mount tends in the same direction. In the hands of evangelicals, however, the New Testament texts are made to imply not only that sex “outside straight marriage” is forbidden but that it is dangerous, dirty, and shameful. But the Old Testament book of Song of Solomon celebrates the body and sex in graphic language. “We have tended,” complains Gushee, “toward too much Paul and not enough Song of Solomon, too much “spirit” and not enough “body” (p. 122).

Purity, Gender, and Sex

Drawing on Linda Kay Klein’s book, Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, Gushee argues that the evangelical “purity culture and abstinence-only sex education” movement of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century was a spectacular failure. It made no difference in the sexual activity of evangelical young people as compared to non-evangelical young people. But it did “increase the experience of sexual guilt and anxiety and decrease sexual efficacy and satisfaction, especially among women” (p. 123). Additionally, the patriarchy associated with the purity culture facilitated “male sexual misconduct” and “clergy sexual abuse” (p. 123).

One observation before I leave this section: Gushee leads us to the edge of an inference that he does not explicitly draw: the odd characteristics, failures, and negative effects of the evangelical sexual purity movement in advocating the biblical morality of sex, casts doubt on the workability of the biblical view itself. As we shall see in the next two sections, Gushee actually makes this leap.

At the Intersection of Nature and Culture

Nature urges post-puberty young people to engage in sex as often as possible. But cultures recognize the need for rules to govern sexual activity for the sake of social peace and the welfare of children. Most cultures encourage some form of marriage as the best social arrangement to channel natural sexual desire toward socially productive ends. Marriage works best, however, if the gap between the onset of puberty and marriage is not too long. In contemporary America puberty happens between 10 and 12 years old on average but marriage is not contracted until around 30 years old. This means that there is an 18- to 20-year gap between puberty and marriage. According to Gushee,

Religious and cultural constraints cannot be expected to prevail over nature for twenty years, not even for devout Christians…We need a sexual ethic that makes sense amid today’s cultural circumstances but that still pays attention to the real problems that the Christian sex-in-marriage alone ethic was trying to solve (pp. 126-27).

Evangelicals and LGBTQ People: What Went Wrong

In their resistance to the gay rights movement of the 1960s, 70s, and 80’s, evangelicals used “hateful” and “disgust-producing rhetoric” to paint gay people in the worst possible light. Evangelical leaders seemed oblivious to the trauma and terror their rhetoric caused to the closeted LGBTQ evangelicals in their churches, families, and schools. What went wrong? Gushee answers that evangelicals displayed “an inability to deal with reality because the Bible did not appear to permit it” (p. 128; emphasis original). Evangelicals could not accept the “unassimilable reality” that a certain percentage of the population is attracted sexually to persons of the same sex. Scientists now understand that homosexuality is a “routine variation reported in all times and cultures” (p. 129). The problems that plague LGBTQ people do not derive from their sexual orientation as such but from the “stigma (and persecution) inflicted on this population” (p. 129). What needs to change is “not gay and lesbian people, but the cultural worldviews that stigmatize and harm them” (p. 129). Evangelicals need to change.

For this to happen, however, post-evangelicals must find “new ways of interpreting the Bible, ways that reinterpret the handful of condemnatory passages and elevate the many passages that potentially lead to better treatment and full inclusion” (p. 129). Tradition must be abandoned and replaced by “experience and other sources” as contexts within which to interpret the Bible’s statements concern same-sex activity. We must “adjust faith to the legitimate discoveries of science” (p. 129). The choice of dogma over people is driving believers out of the evangelical fold.

The exiles know that a religion that systematically harms vulnerable groups of people is not a good thing in the world. It is the opposite of Christian humanism; it is inhumanity in the name of Christ (p. 130).

Toward a Post-Evangelical Sexual Ethics

Gushee proposes a two-tiered sexual ethic. Covenant marriage should be the aspirational norm by which every other use of sex is measured. In covenant marriage, people pledge to take care of each other through thick and thin. For all the reasons cultures down through the ages have encouraged it, marriage is still the best place to direct sexual energy toward personal and social wellbeing. Although Gushee does not mention gay marriage in this immediate context, it is clear that he includes these marriages within his category of covenant marriage. He says,

I personally affirm that full acceptance of LGBTQ people is a nonnegotiable dimension of post-evangelical Christianity, and most others in this terrain seem to feel the same way (p. 130).

Covenant marriage may be the ideal, but any workable sexual ethic must articulate a minimum as well as an ideal norm. Young unmarried people will have sex, so we must provide guidance for those not ready for marriage. Gushee offers as a minimum standard this rule: sexual encounters should be conducted with “mutual enthusiastic consent,” because “irresponsible, exploitative, and sadistic sexuality is extremely dangerous. It can deeply harm others and self” (p. 130). Marriage is Gushee’s ideal, but he is willing to make “a concession to reality”: if “legal marriage is unreachable or unwise,” it would nevertheless be “best” for partners “to structure long-term romantic-sexual relationships in a covenantal fashion” (p. 133).

Interestingly, Gushee finds himself defending a more conservative position than fellow post-evangelicals Nadia Bolz-Weber, who recommends “sexual flourishing” as a new norm for sexual behavior, and Brandan Robertson, who considers polyamory (many sexual partners) as an acceptable Christian option. Gushee’s defense of his position, by the way, amounts to a plea not to go to extremes in reacting to the perfectionism of the purity culture. A plea, not an argument.

Three Critical Observations

1. Humanist, Utilitarian, Pragmatic, and Libertarian but Not Christian Ethics

Gushee is a professor of Christian ethics. He has written elsewhere on sex and marriage and other ethical topics. I’ve not read those works, but I am very clear that this chapter is not an exercise in Christian ethics. I am not speaking here merely of the fact that I disagree with his conclusions. Every argument, every observation, and every conclusion is based on avoiding harm and pursuing psychological/sociological wellbeing in this life. None of his conclusions helps us understand what we “ought” to do, none speaks of divine commands, and none roots our obligations in a Christian vision of creation, salvation, or redemption. Instead he uses “science,” psychological and sociological expertise, utilitarian thinking, and personal testimony to determine what are constructive and destructive—not right and wrong!—ways to use sex. The Christian language Gushee uses is ornamental and, without loss to the argument, could be jettisoned. The basic principle of his ethics (in this chapter) is consent. Even his ideal of marriage is derived from human experience of what works for this-worldly ends. Marriage is not “holy.” It’s not a sacrament. It’s not a mystery (Eph. 5:32). It is, rather, a beneficial social construct.

2. Misplaced Appeal to Science

Gushee appeals to facts, reality, and science in a way I find questionable. He takes the statistic about the number of LGBTQ people in the population as possessing moral significance. But it cannot carry such weight, because statistical studies describe what is whereas morality prescribes what ought to be. You cannot move from what is to what ought to be without introducting moral principles derived from sufficient moral grounds. His appeal to science is especially troubling. He implies that the discovery of the universal presence of LGBTQ people in human society parallels the discovery that the Sun, not earth, is the center of observed planetary movement. After Galileo, we had to reinterpret the biblical texts that seem to imply erroneously that the earth does not move and is the center of planetary motion. In the same way we must now reinterpret biblical texts that condemn same-sex activity…because we now know these texts are wrong.

But Gushee’s analogy between biblical references to empirical facts and its moral teaching is misplaced. For the parallel to hold, one would need to discover from some other source the moral knowledge that same-sex activity is good and right. And this source cannot be empirical science, for empirical science produces only empirical knowledge. Gushee does not explicitly admit that he relies on a source of moral knowledge of greater authority than the Bible, but he does so nonetheless. And that moral source is progressive culture as it comes to expression in the self-testimony of LGBTQ people.

3. Psychologically Implausible

Does anyone really believe that telling hormone-intoxicated teenagers that “enthusiastic mutual consent” is the minimum ethical floor for having sex and that “covenant marriage is its main norm” (p. 119), will do anything but clear the way for having sex early and often? What teenager would choose the hard way when their teachers tell them that it is morally acceptable to take the easy path? Can you imagine a responsible Christian parent telling their sixteen year old son or daughter, “Don’t have sex unless you are “enthusiastic and your partner consents”? Our sex-drenched culture has been telling them this for decades!

Shouldn’t Christian ethicists have something better to say?

Next Time: We will examine Gushee’s chapters on politics and race.

The Real Jesus—A Progressive Humanist?

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In the previous three essays I have been addressing the problem of people who claim to be Christians but wittingly or unwittingly use Christian words primarily to celebrate the progressive agenda of liberation of the self from all oppressive structures, political, religious, social, moral, and natural. They give the impression that Jesus would fit right into progressive culture. And if one carefully selects sayings and stories from the Bible and places them in the progressive narrative, such a view seems plausible to people ignorant of the whole story. But things look very different if we reverse the procedure and think about ethics and salvation from within a full biblical picture of Jesus Christ and the nature and destiny of humanity. Context is everything.

The Real Jesus of the New Testament

According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, is Lord, Messiah, and Savior. He is the definitive answer to the questions, “Who is the true God?” (John 1:18, 14:9, 1 John 5:20; 2 Cor 4:6) and “What is the nature and destiny of human beings?” (1 John 3:1-3; Phil 3:21; 1 Cor 15:49). He is the Word of God who is God, who was with God in the beginning, and through whom God created all things (John 1:1-5; Heb 1:1-3; 1 Cor 8:6). He is the Savior, who through his death and resurrection saved us from sin, death, and the devil. In him God reconciled the world to himself “not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:18-19). In the end, everything in heaven and on earth will be unified in Christ (Eph 1:10). In sum, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), the purpose of creation and providence, the means of salvation, and the consummation of all things in which God will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

Unless they are ignorant or are being disingenuous, anyone who claims to be a Christian should be willing to confess the New Testament teaching summarized in the previous paragraph. Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, is the measure of all our knowledge of God and of every dimension of our relation to him. To be a Christian is to be one under authority, to submit one’s mind and heart to the true teacher of what is right and good. Jesus made this clear many times: whoever claims Jesus as their guide must “deny themselves and take up their cross” and follow him (Mark 8:34). They must obey everything he taught (Matt 28:20; Heb 5:9). Already with this step, however, we stand in complete contradiction to progressive humanism, which will admit no other will or external order to which we must conform.

Jesus and the Law

Jesus’s teaching cannot be reduced to a few platitudes about love, tolerance, acceptance and belonging. Jesus showed the typical Old Testament prophetic ethics of care for the poor and the oppressed. But he did not exempt the poor and oppressed from the commandments. Following in the wake of John the Baptist, Jesus also preached “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 4:17). The one whom Jesus called “your father in heaven” is the God of Israel. Jesus fully and without hesitation acknowledged that the Old Testament law embodied God’s will and human righteousness:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:17-20).

In the following chapters, known as the Sermon on the Mount, far from liberalizing the law, Jesus intensified it and demanded internal as well external obedience. The law against adultery was expanded to include lust and divorce. The command not to murder was extended to hatred and harsh speech. Jesus ends with a warning to his audience to build their lives on his teaching or risk calamity in the day of testing (Matt 7:26-27).

Jesus criticized the Pharisees for focusing on externals and extra biblical traditions not because they oppressed our autonomy or made us feel uncomfortable but because they voided the original divine commands. When he spoke of genuine evils he made a very traditional list:

“For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person” (Mark 7:21-23).

Jesus the Obedient Son

Jesus set an example of obedience to his father in heaven and demanded obedience from his disciples. He prayed in the garden for exemption from suffering and death but submitted his will to that of the father (Matt 26:39). Paul holds up Jesus’s attitude toward the will of God as a stance all believers should follow (Phil 2:5-8; cf. Heb 5:8):

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Jesus: Not a Progressive Humanist

I could continue indefinitely with this line of thought showing that Jesus does not fit the image of a modern progressive. Only with great distortion and huge omissions can his teaching and his example be used to support this view. Jesus was a faithful Jew. He affirmed the biblical framework for understanding our duties to God: God, creation, moral law, providence, righteousness, judgment, and salvation. Within this framework, human beings are God’s creatures made in his image. They depend on the Creator for their existence and sustenance. They owe God thanks and worship. God’s wisdom and will are displayed in the created order. Hence human beings should trust, obey, and love God. God is the designer of human nature and therefore the author of the moral law, known in creation by reason, in the law and the prophets, and in the teaching, action, and example of Jesus Christ.

Within the progressive humanist framework, attitudes of worship, faith, humility, trust, confession, obedience, repentance, conformity, and submission are rejected as self-loathing born of internalized oppression. Within the Christian story, however, they are pathways to freedom and wisdom and salvation. They are characteristics of a good person. From a biblical perspective, attitudes of rebellion, defiance, self-indulgence, transgression, and self-assertion are judged to be ungrateful, self-destructive, foolish, and sinful. But within the progressive value system they are celebrated as heroic, virtuous, enlightened, and right. They are evidence of self-respect and authenticity.

Conclusion

These two frameworks are irreconcilable. Jesus’s observation concerning the love of money applies equally to the choice between the biblical and the progressive narratives:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matt 6:24)

Hence it is completely illegitimate to quote Jesus in an argument designed to deny the moral law, efface the order of creation, or nullify the commandments. To reject the biblical framework within which Jesus lived and taught while quoting him in support of the progressive agenda is to reject the real Jesus and invent another.

“Seven Gay Texts”—A Review (Part Two)

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This essay continues my review of Robert K. Gnuse,“Seven Gay Texts: Biblical Passages Used to Condemn Homosexuality” (Biblical Theology Bulletin 45. 2: 68-87). In part one of the review I summarized Gnuse’s take on three Old Testament passages. In this essay I will examine his exegesis and theological interpretation of the New Testament passages that condemn same-sex intercourse.

 Vice Lists (1 Cor 6:9-10 & 1 Tim 1:8-11)

The vice list passages read as follows:

9 Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10; NRSV).

8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. 9 This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, 10 fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching 11 that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me (1 Tim 1:8-11; NRSV).

The Greek words “male prostitutes” (malakoi) and “sodomites” (arsenokoitai) in 1 Corinthians 6:9 perhaps refer to the passive and the active partner in same-sex male intercourse. According to Gnuse, the NRSV translation of “malakoi” implies that these men allow sex to be performed on them for money or perhaps they are slaves who have no choice. And the translation of arsenokoitai as “sodomites” implies that these men are abusers of some type and may imply men who have sex with young boys. Gnuse concludes that when the two words are grouped together

“we have the two words that describe the homosexual relationships that would have been observed most frequently by Paul. These were the master, old man, abusive sexual partner, or pederast on the one hand, and the slave, young boy, or victim on the other hand…Ultimately, I believe both words describe abusive sexual relationships, not loving relationships between two adult, free males” (p. 80).

Gnuse interprets 1 Timothy 1:10 in much the same way as he interpreted 1 Corinthians 6:9. The word arsenokoitais is used in this passage also. Gnuse again concludes that “Homosexual love between two adult, free males or females may not be described here…[the New Testament] is condemning the violent use of sex to degrade and humiliate people, not sexual inclinations” (p. 81).

Romans 1

Romans 1:22-28 is often taken as the most unequivocal condemnation of all homosexual activity, male and female. Gnuse denies this conclusion. I will summarize the main thrust of his extensive argument. The text reads as follows:

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools; 23 and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done.

As with all the other passages he examines, Gnuse argues that Paul in Romans 1:22-28 does not speak “about all homosexuals; he is speaking about a specific group of homosexuals who engage in a particular form of idolatrous worship” (p. 81). Gnuse argues that Paul targets the immoral behavior characteristic of certain religious cults resident in Rome. Gnuse argues that the most likely candidate for Paul’s invective is the Egyptian Isis cult. Paul condemns idolatry as false, dark, and foolish and asserts that this darkness gives birth to gross immorality unbefitting of one made in the image of God. According to Gnuse this passage does not condemn all homosexual behavior, only that performed in idolatrous worship.

Why, then, does Paul call this idolatrous homosexual behavior “unnatural”? Traditional interpreters contend that Paul’s argument makes no sense unless he assumes that homosexual behavior is immoral even apart from its connection to idolatry. Paul’s point is that this syndrome of immorality is what happens when people abandon the true God. Paul knows that the action of men abandoning relations with women and becoming “consumed with passion for one another” (v. 27) is perverse, degrading, and “unnatural” in itself apart from its connection to idol worship. Otherwise, his critique of idolatry would fall flat. For Paul wants his readers to understand that when people abandon God and worship nature instead, they will inevitably abandon the created order and the proper function of nature; bad things will happen.

In opposition to the traditional reading that decouples homosexual behavior from idolatry, Gnuse insists that Paul critiques only those homosexual acts performed in worship to pagan gods. Why, then, does Paul label these acts “unnatural”? Gnuse answers: “What Paul would find offensive about this cultic behavior, besides the obvious worship of other gods, is that the sexual behavior did not bring about procreation, and that is what makes it “unnatural” (p. 83). Gnuse has made a telling admission here. He admits that Paul can disengage homosexual acts from idolatry and view them negatively apart from their connection to pagan worship. They are “unnatural” everywhere and always and for everyone. But Gnuse’s contention that Paul viewed them as “unnatural” only because they do not produce children makes it easy for him to dismiss Paul’s judgment as cultural bias in favor of procreation as the sole purpose of sexual intercourse. It seems to me much more likely that Paul sees homosexual intercourse as “unnatural” because it violates the natural order intended by the creator and witnessed to by the power of procreation and by the obvious physiological complementarity. The foolish “exchange” of the glory of God for images of beasts (vss. 22-23) is mirrored by the degrading “exchange” of “natural intercourse for the unnatural” (v. 26).

What are the women mentioned in verse 26 doing when they “exchange natural intercourse for unnatural”? Gnuse points out correctly that Paul does not explicitly say that these women were having sex with other women, only that they were doing something “unnatural.” Gnuse floats the possibility that Paul has in mind a form of heterosexual intercourse designed to prevent procreation. I think this hypothesis is unlikely given what Paul says about men in the next verse, but in any case, Paul asserts that whatever these women are doing is “unnatural” and therefore wrong and shameful everywhere and always and for everyone.

Gnuse’s Conclusion

Given what he said about each text individually, Gnuse’s overall conclusion will not come as a surprise:

“I believe that there is no passage in the biblical text that truly condemns a sexual relationship between two adult, free people, who truly love each other….[Hence] biblical texts should not be called forth in the condemnation of gay and lesbian people in our society” (p. 83; emphasis mine).

Brief Comments

1. Notice the negative form of Gnuse’s conclusion. He offers many alternative interpretations of these texts, some of which I mentioned. Many of them are tenuous and speculative. Some give the impression of plausibility, but as his conclusion indicates the purpose of the article is not to defend any of these alternative interpretations. The entire discussion serves one purpose: to cast doubt on the untroubled certainty of the traditional view that these passages unambiguously condemn homosexual intercourse. The goal is to make illegitimate any theological use of these texts in the modern debate over homosexuality. It is to “problematize” the interpretation of these texts, to draw traditionalists into interminable debates, which—since we cannot arrive at a conclusion that ends all debate—leave the impression that everyone is free to think whatever they will and do whatever they want. And if you continue to interpret these texts in the traditional way, you can plausibly be accused of homophobia, that is, of irrational animus toward gay and lesbian people.

2. Gnuse turns the tables on traditionalists by shifting the burden of proof onto those who would use “the gay texts” in Christian ethics to condemn all forms of homosexual intercourse. Gnuse writes as if all he needs to do to win the argument is show that the texts do not explicitly address adult, free, and loving same-sex relationships. They may be directed exclusively to homosexual behavior that is abusive, violent, idolatrous, or linked with some other behavior that modern people also find it easy to condemn. If Gnuse can undermine the use of these biblical texts to condemn homosexual relations in general, traditionalists must abandon their strongest arguments and argue with progressives on their own turf—experience, science, psychology, and subjective feelings—on which they are at a disadvantage.

To be Continued…

The Bible and Christian Ethics (Part Two)

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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.

The Creator’s Plan for Safe Sex (Moral Crisis #13)

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A Logic Lesson

To define a word, clarify a concept, or articulate a moral principle we must grasp both what it is and what it isn’t, what it includes and what it excludes. Stating what something isn’t without saying what it is gives us no precise idea of what we are talking about. If I tell you, “It’s not a mouse! It’s not a chair! It’s not a star or a glove or a tree” etc., I have not helped you at all to know what it is. However if I tell you what something is, I’ve implicitly let you know what it is not. If I let you know that I am thinking of a coffee cup, you also know that I am not thinking of a horse, a blade of grass, or my best friend in grade school. I don’t have to list all the things of which I am not thinking. You would never dream of complaining that because I did not list my laptop among the things about which I am not thinking, that I left you in the dark on that issue!

Now let’s apply this logic to the question of the biblical understanding of the place and limits on sexual activity. If your approach to this question consists only of discovering and listing every type of sexual activity forbidden in the Bible, you will never get a clear understanding of sexual morality in the Bible. It’s unreasonable to assume that all excluded behaviors must be named—and perhaps described and differentiated—any more than you should expect that I name everything that is not a coffee cup for you to get a clear idea of what I am thinking! It is unreasonable to argue that because a particular sexual behavior or relationship is not listed in a list of forbidden things, that it is therefore permitted.

The Purpose, Place, and Function of Sex

What, then, according the Bible is the purpose of sex? What is its proper place and function? If we get a clear idea of right use of sex, we won’t have to deliberate over an extensive and ever-growing list of misuses of sex. Let me remind you that this question will make no sense to those outside my target audience, those I described earlier in series as thinking about their identities in psychologized, sexualized, and politicized categories. Those who fit this description acknowledge no overarching moral order to which they should conform. So, for them sex has no objective purpose or place or proper function. Purpose, identity, and meaning derive from the inner self and vary from individual to individual.

But for confessing Christians, who take the Bible seriously, the question of the proper place and function and true purpose of sex makes perfect sense. For God is the creator, sustainer, providential guide, and savior of the human person, body and soul. Our true identity is found in Christ. We know there is a meaningful moral order to which we are obligated to submit. What, then, is the proper place and function and true purpose of sex?

In the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament authors,* the proper place and function and true purpose of sex is realized only within life-long, loving marriage, between one man and one woman. All sexual liaisons outside marriage are by definition are forbidden. You don’t have to list these non-conforming sexual acts or agonize in efforts to prove them wrong or justify them as permitted. I will address these futile efforts in upcoming essays. Now I want to remind you of Jesus’s and the apostles’ teaching on marriage.

Jesus deals with marriage on a few occasions. I will quote from his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3-9:

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

The subject here is divorce. And Jesus makes it clear that divorce is an evil, an evil that Moses tolerated but that he does not. No no-fault divorce here! Hard hearts, unloving and stubborn, are not allowed. In Jesus’s teaching divorce comes under the same condemnation as adultery. Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24, rooting marriage in the creative purpose of God. But Jesus adds an assertion and a command not found in Genesis: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matt 19:6; also in Mark 10:9). Marriage is not merely a human agreement made for human purposes. The involvement of God makes it part of a sacred order, and no one has the right to dissolve it.

Paul also deals with marriage in several places, but I will limit myself to Ephesians 5:28-33:

28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

In this passage Paul also quotes Genesis 2:24. And he also sees marriage as integrated into the sacred order. He calls it a “profound mystery.” The union between husband and wife spoken of in Genesis images the spiritual union between the risen Christ and his people, who are his body. And for those in Christ, it also participates in that mystery. For this reason the union between husband and wife should be a union of self-sacrificial love.

In Hebrews 13:4, we find a short but clear affirmation that marriage is the proper place for sexual intimacy and a severe condemnation of its violation:

4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Conclusion

Knowing the clear biblical teaching that life-long, loving marriage between one man and one woman is the proper place for sexual intimacy to achieve its created and redemptive purpose answers a thousand questions about what is forbidden without agonizing, cynical, or sophistical debates.

*Note: We are speaking in these essays of “Christian” sexual ethics, and Christian sexual ethics cannot be derived from Old Testament texts unless they are filtered through the teaching of Jesus and those whom he taught. This is very clear in the text in Matthew 19, which I quoted above. Jesus abrogates Moses’ teaching on divorce and reasserts the creation ideal.