Dear Anonymous

A BELATED REPLY TO MY FIRST NEGATIVE COMMENTER

When I started this blog I decided that I would post any and all comments, whether they sided with me or not, as long as they were stated respectfully. Personal attacks, bad language or name-calling are not allowed, but pretty much anything else goes. I also decided that I would not reply to every comment that I received. I did not want to get caught up in a back-and-forth of endless argumentation that would consume my time and energy and deflect the planned trajectory of this blog. So when this post received my first negative comment, I posted it, but said nothing in reply. I would like to revisit it now. It may be a bit after the fact, but my anonymous commenter made some points that I feel I should have addressed. Let me quote the comment in full:

Anonymous said...

Yet, in our current society there is a "cultural conditioning" to view incest as unacceptable. Should we learn to understand this differently as well?

Concerning judging, there are numerous examples throughout Scripture showing God's clear judgment against homosexual *behavior* (while still loving of those with same-sex attraction difficulties). The ELCA, however, views its own politically-correct interpretations of Scripture as higher authority than the Scriptures themselves-and therein lies the problem.

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for your comment. It is nice to know that someone is reading my work.

I think that you invoke a variation on the Slippery Slope argument. If we allow for gay marriage or homosexual clergy, what is to prevent us from approving of incest? (Some of the more histrionic versions of this argument suggest that the Churchwide Assembly Decisions will open the floodgates to pedophilia and bestiality). There is no reason to think that allowing for consensual same-sex relations will lead to any of these things.

I have actually encountered arguments favoring ethical, consensual incest. I disagree with them for three reasons. First, is the genetic danger of inbreeding. Second, and more important, is my experience working as chaplain to a home for troubled children. Many of the young people I met there had been sexually abused by members of their own families. While ethical, consensual incestuous relationships may exist in theory, in the real world I have only encountered examples of abusive, coercive incest. Third, an important function of marriage is establishing a legal family relationship for the purposes of inheritance, property rights, etc. In the case of blood relations, this already exists.

As for the “numerous examples” of God’s judgment on homosexual behavior in Scripture, there are, in fact, five passages that deal with the subject. I have treated all of them in various posts.

Finally, as regards the ELCA’s “politically-correct” interpretation of Scripture, I would point out that everyone who reads the Bible interprets it. Even the most abject literalism is a form of interpretation. What you call “the Scriptures themselves” is, in fact, your interpretation of the Scriptures. As I have tried to establish by blogging here, the ELCA reads Scripture according to sound Lutheran principles. Understanding the Bible as not only God’s word, but also the product of a particular culture and time, we are not bound to perpetuate homophobic interpretations today. Sometimes, dear Anonymous, political correctness is political, but sometimes it is correct.

God bless you,

Brant

Worth Reading

Back on January 28, Obie Holmen blogged on the question "Is Lutheran CORE Fundamentalist?" He does a nice job of refuting CORE's attitude toward the Bible. Click here to read about it.

Hesitant? Here is a teaser:

There are smart and educated persons in CORE, and they ought to know better than to spout such unscholarly and fossilized views of the canon coupled with accusations that the rest of us are unbiblical. It is not that we don’t take the Bible seriously, as CORE alleges, it is that we take it too seriously to avoid challenging questions informed by reason, experience, and the lessons of scholarship, both traditional and modern.

Questions about Patriarchy, Slavery, Racism, Sexism...

...GENOCIDE, SUPERCESSIONISM, HOMOPHOBIA AND THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SCRIPTURE

If the Bible is patriarchal, does that mean God is patriarchal?
Does it mean that Christians should be patriarchal?

If the Bible is pro-slavery, does that mean God is pro-slavery?
Does it mean that Christians should be pro-slavery?

If the Bible is racist, does that mean God is a racist?
Does it mean that Christians should be racists?

If the Bible is sexist, does that mean God is a sexist?
Does it mean that Christians should be sexist?

If the Bible advocates genocide, does that mean God is genocidal?
Does it mean that Christians should be genocidal?

If the Bible is anti-Jewish, does that mean God is anti-Jewish?
Does it mean that Christians should be anti-Jewish?

And of course, if the Bible is homophobic, does that mean God is homophobic?
Does it mean that Christians should be homophobic?

Arguably the Bible is, at least in some parts, patriarchal, pro-slavery, racist, sexist, genocidal, anti-Jewish and homophobic. Also arguably, the Bible, at least in some parts, teaches us that God is not patriarchal, pro-slavery, etc. What does this mean for Christians and our use of Scripture?

Poor Old Galileo...

SO LONG, GALILEO

Until the sixteenth century, the prevailing view of the universe held that the sun revolved around the earth. This is clearly the cosmology held by the writers of the Bible. In 1543, the year of his death, a Polish mathematician and astronomer named Nicolaus Copernicus published his theory that the earth, in fact, revolved around the sun.

Four years earlier, in 1539, Copernicus’s unpublished theory became a topic of conversation at Martin Luther’s dinner table. As Anthony Lauterbach told it:

There was mention of a certain astrologer who wanted to prove that the earth moves and not the sky, the sun, and the moon. This would be as if somebody were riding on a cart or in a ship and imagined that he was standing still while the earth and the trees were moving. [Luther remarked] “So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth.” Source.

Other accounts of the conversation have Luther branding Copernicus as an “upstart” and a “fool.” Unfortunately for Luther, Copernicus was right.

It was almost 100 years later that an Italian astronomer named Galileo Galilei, with the aid of his telescope, proved Copernicus’s theory by empirical observation. When he published his findings in 1632, Galileo was found to be “vehemently suspected of heresy.” He was imprisoned by the Inquisition, and made to “abjure, curse and detest” his findings. He remained under house arrest until his death at age 77 in 1642.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II acknowledged the errors that the Church tribunal made in the trial of Galileo. Source.

Luther and the seventeenth century Roman Catholic Church were not the only ones to mistakenly condemn Copernicus and Galileo. I present them here as typical of what happens when the content of the special revelation is mistaken for the general revelation.

In my next post, I will explain what I mean by special and general Revelation.




The image of Galileo is, to the best of my knowledge, in the public domain.