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Saturday, January 01, 2005
A Striking Observation
Thanks to Desultory Thoughts, your Curmudgeon has just stumbled over this exposition on whether homosexuality is sinful:
The final Biblical text that deals with homosexual behavior is found in Paul’s letter to the Romans, in which he unequivocally condemns homosexual behavior. The background for his understanding was the common Roman practice of older males ‘keeping’ young boys for sexual exploitation, which he was right to condemn.
But even if this were not the case, even if Paul knew about and condemned all forms of homosexual behavior, even the most loving, what then? Paul also told women not to teach, not to cut their hair, not to speak in church. Do we follow his teaching? He told slaves to obey their masters not once, but five times—are we prepared to say today, as Southern slave owners argued 150 years ago, that slavery is God’s will?
The fact is, I am not a disciple of Paul. I am an admirer of Paul, but a disciple of Jesus Christ. Paul himself says that we should not follow him, but Christ alone. So I come back, again to the life and teaching of Jesus as the center of my faith. In that light all other biblical teaching must be critiqued. There are seven passages about homosexual behavior in the Bible, all of which are debatable as to their meaning for us today. There are thousands of references in the Bible that call us, as Jesus commands, to love our neighbor, to work for peace and reconciliation among all people, and to leave judgment to God.
This comes at a most appropriate time, when your Curmudgeon has become intensely interested in the gulf between the teachings of Christ and the Pauline theology supposedly erected upon and around them.
The fundamentals of the matter are these: No matter what any of His disciples said later, and no matter what any body of doctrine assembled by men might promulgate, for a Christian, what Christ said goes. Christ explicitly re-ratified the Commandments. He did not endorse Leviticus, and in point of fact used His influence to prevent the Levitical execution of Mary Magdalene for adultery. If Christ’s words and deeds in these matters are to be taken as normative, then homosexual conduct, absent any abuse of the weak or other infliction of damage on an innocent, cannot be called sinful under His authority.
Paul had a lot in common with Moses, the author of the Book of Leviticus. To borrow historian Paul Johnson’s words, he was a “totalitarian of the spirit,” who sought to prescribe or proscribe as much as he possibly could under a cloak of derived Divine authority. It is quite possible that, to re-energize Christianity, it will be necessary to cleanse it of many of the doctrines of Paul.
And none of that should be taken as an endorsement of homosexual conduct. The facts of the matter as they currently stand are that even between consenting adults, homosex courts grave and substantially elevated dangers to both the body and the mind. But Christians should argue against it strictly on these pragmatic grounds, rather than theological ones for which we have no word of support from the one true Authority of our faith.
Comments
It is quite possible that, to re-energize Christianity, it will be necessary to cleanse it of many of the doctrines of Paul.
I wish that it wasn’t so dificult for me to type on a key board. I feel we could have quite a discussion about Mr. Johnson’s views if they are shared by yourself.
-greg-
PS The fiction is enthralling. I have read it all and am hooked. Thank you for publishing it....
Posted by on 01/02/2005 at 12:21 PMDidn’t Jesus say he was maintaining the Law (Matthew 5:17-19, 23:1-3)?
Posted by Joseph Hertzlinger on 01/02/2005 at 03:46 PM"The fundamentals of the matter are these: No matter what any of His disciples said later, and no matter what any body of doctrine assembled by men might promulgate, for a Christian, what Christ said goes.”
This comment, unfortunately, begs the entire question. The worldview embodied in that comment excludes Catholics completely. For the Church does not now and has never relied solely on “what Christ said.” This (obviously) was a cause of the Protestant revolution started by Luther (and others). And, if I can add a dollop to the apologetics side, it is not sustainable. For Christ Himself engaged in allegory. Remember the imprecation to the rich man? That it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to Heaven? Well, if “what Christ said” is to guide us in this regard, then NO rich man will get to heaven because NO camel can pass through the eye of a needle. Spinning forward in time, it is difficult to see how wealthy contributors to good works have become ineligible for heaven in providing funds to the Church simply as a result of this saying by Jesus. It is much more likely (not to mention comforting) to believe that what he meant was something else: that it is very hard to resist temptation when one is rich, that riches can blind us to the plight of our brethren and therefore great care must be taken, etc., etc.
But once one passes over the breach from “what Jesus said” to “what Jesus meant” then we’re in a completely different ballpark. One recognized by the Church Which Jesus clothed with interpretative authority ("whatsoever you bindeth on earth it is bound in Heaven,” etc.)
Luther, of course, tried the “what Jesus said” approach. It can be persuasively argued that it is on account of Luther that the world now contains thousands of Christian sects. For if one is confronted with the rule that the Bible controls, and no superior interpretative authority is recognized, then all are free to interpret and to exalt their interpretation to the exclusion of all others.
Applying this to the question at hand, it is the Church’s teachings on the matter of homosexuality that are mandatory; not the interpretation one may glean from a reading of the Bible.
Thanks for listening.
Posted by Mr. Commissar on 01/09/2005 at 10:08 AMOrdinarily, I wouldn’t disassemble a comment from a reader, as I consider the Comments section to belong to the readers, subject to a few implicit rules of good behavior. But Commissar’s comment above is both important and seriously wrongheaded, so I’m going to set aside my usual constraint and pick it apart.
1.—For the Church does not now and has never relied solely on “what Christ said.” --
This eludes the fundamental matter of Churchly authority: whence does it derive? For if it does not derive from the teachings of Christ, it does not exist; the papacy’s claim to respect as Christ’s Vicar on Earth is all it has.
2.—For Christ Himself engaged in allegory. Remember the imprecation to the rich man? That it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to Heaven? Well, if “what Christ said” is to guide us in this regard, then NO rich man will get to heaven because NO camel can pass through the eye of a needle. --
But this is not allegory; it is hyperbole. More, it is not a command or normative statement. Finally, serious Biblical scholars have questioned the conventional record of the statement itself, alleging that “camel” is likely to have been originally “camel-hair,” and that “rich man” could be a mistranslation of something less savory, perhaps “publican” or “usurer.” If these substitutions took place long enough ago, the simple passage of time would have “privileged” them, such that few today would question their authenticity.
3.—One recognized by the Church Which Jesus clothed with interpretative authority ("whatsoever you bindeth on earth it is bound in Heaven,” etc.)… --
There are always limits to interpretive authority; there must be, if words are to have meaning. No interpretive authority would license the Church to proclaim that murder or theft are really okay after all. No interpretive authority would permit the Church to contravene Christ’s implicit nullification of Levitical punishments. As for the quotation in parentheses from Matthew, that was ripped entirely free of its context; interested persons should read the entirety of Chapter 18 of the Gospel According To Matthew and form their own conclusions.
4.—For if one is confronted with the rule that the Bible controls, and no superior interpretative authority is recognized, then all are free to interpret and to exalt their interpretation to the exclusion of all others. --
But this would free the “superior interpretive authority” from all constraint, including the constraints of language and internal consistency. The Church has not, to my knowledge, ever alleged that its authority extends that far.
5.—Applying this to the question at hand, it is the Church’s teachings on the matter of homosexuality that are mandatory; not the interpretation one may glean from a reading of the Bible. --
In the end, this amounts to a claim that “It’s so because I say it’s so,” and may be dismissed as a special pleading unless it can be anchored in some defensibly Divine source.
No subject deserves to be settled on the basis of “because I say so.” Certainly not one as serious as this.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 01/09/2005 at 11:42 AMThank you for your thoughtful response. Some rejoinder:
1. I never said that the Church’s authority did not “derive” from the teachings of Christ. Therefore, to criticize my comment on this basis is raising a straw-man argument.
2. Your distinction between “allegory” (my characterization of the “Eye of the Needle” story) and “hyperbole” (your characterization) seem to be a distinction without a difference. After all, assuming your point of view for a moment, the question remains exactly HOW MUCH hyperbole Christ intended to be read in this story. Was it a camel (as St. Jerome stated)? A camel’s hair (as you suggest)? Who has the authority to declare what the answer to this question of interpretation is? You suggested (through the idea of removing St. Paul from the canon) that anyone may make that decision. My response is that the Church is the only earthly body that has the grant of divine authority to do so. I am not inventing arguments here; these points have been well-known ever since the Counterreformation. I favor biblical/historical scholarship and believe that the state of Biblical exegesis is the better for it. However, that (again) begs the question of who is authorized to promulgate the mandatory interpretation of these things. The traditional Catholic answer to this question is: the Church, not each and every Christian.
3. Re “limits to interpretive authority.” Is that really what we are talking about? The Church not only hasn’t declared that “murder or theft are really okay after all”; the Church is MORALLY unable to do so. The Deposit of Faith, those beliefs that have come to us from Saint Peter, the Apostles and their Successors, may not be altered or decreased. Murder may never be “interpreted” as “okay.” You argue an impossibility here.
4. As for “implicit nullification of Levitical punishments,” I find no such nullification. Even assuming that one could read such “implicit nullification” in Matthew, how would that matter of interpretation be different from the interpretative problem you raised concerning “murder and theft”? Who decides among “competing” interpretations (yours and mine)? According to the Protestant revolutionaries, any man can interpret as he will. According to traditional Catholic doctrine, only the Church may.
5. For a Christian to claim (a) that Scripture is the sole source of Christianity and (b) that each Christian is authorized to interpret without Church mediation is to make claims that are themselves not authorized by Scripture. See, e.g., Matthew 28:18-20; Matthew 16:18; John 14, 15, and 16; I Timothy 3:14-15; and Acts 15:28 et seq. See, more generally the Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/ These questions, of course, ultimately rely on authority (“because [I] say so”). That is because all of these questions, ultimately, are matters of faith.
Posted by Mr. Commissar on 01/10/2005 at 12:42 PM
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