Being ‘Traditioned’ in the Faith: Congregational Singing, the Psalms, and Biblical Literacy

Biblical illiteracy is partly due to changes to the worship service over the years.  Take the average church forty or fifty years ago.  There would have been a morning and evening service on Sunday and a Wednesday night service.  There would have been Sunday School, youth group meetings, and Bible studies.  To one extent or another, most churches are doing less than they used to during the week, and many people only experience ‘church’ in terms of one Sunday morning service a week.  Also, worship services and sermons are, typically, shorter than they used to be, and the latter may well be less Biblically focussed.  (Mainline denominations have moved increasingly away from orthodoxy since the 1960s, and many Evangelical churches have opted for topical sermons that fail to explore the Biblical text with the congregation.)  Finally, the music in the worship service is less conducive to Biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical literacy.  This last point will be considered here.

Fifty years ago, the church’s music would have come from the hymnal.  Having words put up on a screen allows the song leader to pick songs outside a ‘canon’ of music that has been carefully assessed and chosen by a particular tradition.  It also allows an ongoing variety of new songs to be chosen for the worship service, such that many songs sung are often unknown or only briefly used in the congregation.  This means that people know far fewer songs over time.  The problem this poses is exacerbated greatly by the quality of modern songs, which often lack theological depth.  Moreover, many churches, particularly large churches, opt to have bands lead the worship part of the service, which is largely reduced only to singing.  (There is far more to worship than singing.)  In other words, the person with a good voice and who can play a guitar is made the worship leader, even though there is not necessarily any relationship between leading in worship and singing.  Finally, the more the worship band sees itself as leading in worship rather than aiding in worship, the more worship can become mere performance.  How often one sees people trying to sing along to songs they do not know with a worship band performing on a stage.  These worship bands do not always know the difference between congregational singing and band music.

How does this dismal situation relate to Biblical illiteracy?  Music is an aid to memorization—memorization of Scripture and the Church’s theology.  The hymns of a theological tradition help to educate members in the tradition, such as when songs from 150 years ago are sung today.  This is not to say that new songs should not be written, but they should not overwhelm the congregation or change every few months.  Most significantly, the words of songs need to be Biblically based and even come from Scripture.  Indeed, we do have a few contemporary hymn writers who are doing just that, such as Keith and Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend.  But, if and when we do introduce their music into our worship, we should repeat the music over many years so that the congregation and different generations can memorize it and be formed into a community of faith and tradition through it.

Consider the following observations from Gordon Wenham’s excellent study of the psalms, Psalms as Torah.  He observes that hymns and songs teach theology and ethics (p. 3).  Too often, the music during a worship service is understood simply as music and worship, not also as teaching.  But lay theology is learned largely from the music of the church, and a church that fails to sing Biblically grounded songs, theologically deep songs, and songs that incorporate the worshipers into the church tradition will also struggle to keep its members Biblically, theologically, and ecclesiastically literate.

Wenham’s focus in this book is the Psalms—Israel’s songbook.  He argues that ‘the psalms were and are vehicles not only of worship but also of instruction’ (p. 7).  Thus, second, the Psalms should be much in use in the worship of the Church.  The Psalms are not only Israel’s songbook but also the Church’s book of worship, and, as such, it instructs people in the faith.  More quotations in the New Testament come from the Psalms than any other Old Testament book, and it would have been a psalm that Jesus and the disciples sang before going to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, that Paul and Silas sang in prison in Philippi, and that believers sang in their meetings when filled with the Holy Spirit.

Third, Wenham notes that the Psalms were memorized (ch. 3).  Indeed, the cultures of the Middle East and the Roman Empire in the centuries during which the Scriptures were written spent considerable time on memorization.  Even if some people were literate and could write, they tended to use literature as an aid to memorization.  That is, argues Wenham, the predominantly oral culture highly valued memorization, and even the literate thought of much of the literature available in terms of an aid to that end.  This was especially so of poetry and anthologies, of which the book of Psalms is an excellent example.  Memorization of the Psalms was aided by poetry, music, and the organization of the psalms.  Thus, the content of the Psalms was the key and music was an aid to learning.  Several points emerge from these observations for contemporary worship.  First, the message, not the music, is primary (even if the quality of the music is important).  All too often, the music gets in the way of the message, let alone the memorization of the message.  Second, the Psalms are significant to deliver the content of worship for the Church, and the more the Psalms are used in worship, the more Biblically literate the Church will be.  Third, memorization is important because it means that the worshiper can take away the words of God from the service, having internalised them and therefore being able to meditate on them day and night.  Fourth, the goal of memorization and the focus on a particular collection of worship, the Psalms (or the Church’s hymnbook), means that music is not going to be changed every few months to keep up with the latest hits on the local Christian radio.  Only in this way can we internalize and meditate on Scripture and our faith throughout the week when we are not sitting down to read Scripture.

Wenham also points out that the Psalms are more than what is said (locution); they are also a performance of certain acts of worship (illocution).  Examples can help illustrate the point.  One might read theology and learn something important, but when one prays and sings a psalm, one is performing certain acts, such as declaring, confessing, committing oneself to do something, expressing something, and so forth (cf. p. 66).  In the same way, listening to a sermon might involve learning something important about Scripture and the Church’s theology and ethics, but reading the Psalms out loud and singing the words of a song or Psalm involve performances of the faith.  Wenham points out that the Psalms were actually not meant to be read silently, and we can follow this practice by either reading Psalms in the worship service out loud as a congregation or singing songs based on the Psalms.  In this way, we perform the Scriptures—perform our theology and faith.  This is like the difference between signing a marriage certificate in a judge’s office and saying ‘I do’ before a community of faith.  The wedding is a performance of marriage that involves the acts of oath taking and covenant making.  The worship band performing during worship and ever introducing new songs leaves many people behind the performance of worship, and they become observers instead.

Thus, positively, it might be said in conclusion that the congregation can become increasingly literate in Scripture and the Church’s theology and ethics through its worship in song.  This will be aided greatly the more what is sung is Biblically based and expresses the Church’s theology.  Further aiding this will be singing from a body of known and well-chosen songs, singing songs written for congregational worship, not the performance of a worship band, memorizing the songs, and using the Psalter in worship (whether singing or reading from it out loud).  Such an approach to worship in the local church will aid the memorization, internalization, and meditation on the Scriptures.

A simple self-test might illustrate the points made here.  Imagine yourself imprisoned for your faith—rather like Paul and Silas in Philippi.  Or, imagine yourself imprisoned for several years, with no access to Scripture or to other believers.  Will you have internalized and memorized a large number of songs with a Biblical and theological depth that your faith will be sustained and you will be encouraged despite your circumstances?  Or will you groan as you barely remember more than a line of a few songs, and ones that were not very deep or Biblical, because your worship leader was really only a musician with a fairly shallow faith himself who liked to change the music as often as he could?  Without a doubt, hardly any of us today have memorized Scripture as the average believer, including illiterate ones, would have back in Biblical times.  That is a result of not being an oral but a literary culture.  (And the problem continues as our literature culture becomes a visual culture with television, CDs, and computers.)  However, we can make several changes that will help us to know the Scriptures better in our day, and one of the changes we should make is how we approach worship music in many of our churches.


Have you met this Jesus, a first century Jew from Nazareth in the Galilee?

Let’s see.  You want to change the world?  You’re tired of the tired old news on television every day—nations behaving badly, governments that are incompetent, Hollywood stars who celebrate unfaithfulness, the local murder statistics.  Maybe you just won the Miss Universe contest and stated on live television that you wish for world peace.  Or perhaps you are 22 and looking for your first job after having your head filled with fine ideas in university, struggling with the reality of working in a bank instead of being an agent of justice in the world.  If you could make a mark on the world, how would you go about doing it?  No doubt, you have been wondering how to get the right training, live in the right place, land the right job, get access to money and power, and really change the world—right?

Money and power seem essential to change the world, even if they are often the source of all evil!  Can a presidential candidate without millions of dollars really have any hope of winning the White House?  Can a person without a public platform really get a hearing?  Can a person without a powerful position or friends in high places hope to bring about change?  Change—for good or ill—typically comes through persons with money, publicity, and power (political or military).

Jesus was altogether different.  In the world of his day, the Romans were in power, but he was from the feisty little land of Israel in the east.  He was from an in-between land, in between the greater powers of Syria to the north and Egypt to the south.  In Israel, he was not from the great city of Jerusalem or the great territory of Judea.  He was from the more country-bumpkin region of the Galilee.  He was not from the up-and-coming cities of Tiberias or Sepphoris in the Galilee but from the village of Nazareth and, later, from the border town of Capernaum.  He could sit on a hillside in Nazareth and see the international road in the distance down in the plain of Megiddo, but his village was not on the road.  As one of his future disciples said when he first heard that Jesus was from Nazareth, of all places, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’

Jesus was a Jew, moreover.  Roman authors disparaged the Jews.  They seemed to have some very odd laws.  They circumcised males.  They would not eat with other ethnic groups.  They did not eat great food, like pork or shrimp.  They rejected the gods of the Roman world.  They did not serve in the military.  They tended to live together rather than integrate with others in foreign cities.  They had a host of laws for righteous living and considered those who did not follow these to be unrighteous.  This does not seem to be a very good way to make friends and influence people, let alone get a following and change the world!  They rejected the sexual practices of all the surrounding cultures.  A twenty-first century commentator might say (wrongly, of course) that this peculiar people was full of phobias—food phobias, ethnicity phobias, religious pluralism phobias, sex phobias, and the like.  If you were God and wanted to send your man to the world to bring about some major change, surely you would have chosen a person who fit in better, someone from a more respectable group, like a Roman or a Greek.  But Jesus was a Jew.

Jesus’ adopted father, Joseph, was a carpenter.  Granted, this was a step up from being a day labourer, but carpenters were not the social elite and never have been.  They weren’t politically powerful.  They weren’t military heroes.  They weren’t associated in any way with religious authority.  They weren’t wealthy.  Jesus had no pathway opened into a world of power through his family.  He had a proud heritage, to be sure, being from the line of King David.  But David lived a thousand years earlier, and even though his line might be traced through other Davidic kings, this all came to an end nearly six hundred years before Jesus was born.  How many thousands of persons could claim the same heritage?  Having ‘from a Davidic family’ on the resume would hardly get you a job, let alone launch your political career.

So, ‘What of it?’, you might ask.  After all, world leaders have emerged from humble beginnings.  Politicians, generals, archbishops, tycoons, philosophers and the like have often come from humble beginnings.  Yes, but that is not the point of Jesus’ story, or the Biblical story, for that matter.  His is not the story of an Abraham Lincoln born on the emerging frontiers of a young nation, borrowing books to read by candlelight at night to educate himself.  This is neither the story of rags to riches, nor the story of a self-made man.  Rather, Jesus’ story is the story of God—of how God has chosen to work because of who He is.

Scripture tells a story of how righteousness came to the world through a repeatedly sinful humanity.  It tells of how blessing came to the nations through a wandering Aramean, Abraham.  It tells of how God’s Law came through a slave people liberated from Egypt.  It tells of how God’s rule came through the repeatedly sinful kings of Israel.  It tells of how God’s choice for the kings of Israel came through a younger son and shepherd of a minor family instead of through the impressive figure of King Saul.  And the prophet, Isaiah, foretold that God’s redemption would come through a suffering servant. 


God’s change did not come by a sword but by a cross.  It did not come by power but through suffering.  It did not come through a governor, a military hero, or a priest, but through Jesus the carpenter from the village of Nazareth in the Galilee of Israel.  That is not simply a story of how God chose to work.  It is more profoundly a story of who God is.  God steps into the situation that needs to be redeemed, suffers in it, and transforms it.  His power is made perfect in weakness.  He identifies with the lowly.  He wants a religion that champions the cause of the widow and the orphan.  The cross of Jesus Christ, while a sacrifice for sin, is also the way of God in the world.  That the redeemer of the world came from the humble village of Nazareth is part of the story of such a God.  And such a God can forgive the vilest of sinners, transform the hardest hearts, and reconcile the wayward to himself.

Have you met this Jesus from Nazareth, who embodies the story of God?  You can make a difference in the world if you let Him make a difference in your own life.  He is gentle and humble, rejecting the power of this world.  He is righteous and holy, but he comes to the sinner first.  He did not consider equality with God to be something he needed to hold onto but, instead, poured himself out for others, took on human flesh, and suffered a painful and humiliating death on a cross for sinners such as us.  We want our gods up in heaven wielding divine power like our rulers on earth wielding earthly power, but we meet, instead, God's suffering servant, Jesus on a cross.  The God who said, 'My power is made perfect in weakness,' and 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,' meets us there, on the cross.  Have you met this Jesus?

What is the Local Church?

There must be a myriad of definitions of the local church on offer.  Rather than be intimidated by this, I might as well offer yet another definition and, in doing so, attempt to create good discussion on the subject.  Ecclesiology (our understanding of the ‘Church’ universal and the local church) is a crucial subject for our day, not least because churches in the west are turning away from denominational structures, have made ‘church growth’ the goal and mega-churches the model of successful ministry in the city (thanks to motor cars and technology), witnessed traditional ‘mainline’ denominations in free-fall since the 1960s, and have become minority groups in a post-Christendom era.

In the light of such shifting conditions, let alone a Biblical understanding of the church, just what is and what should be the local church?  My definition of the local church is as follows.  The local church is:
  • a community
  • that is defined by the Christian virtues of faith, love, and hope,
  • that is connected with other Christian communities in accountable and missional relationships,
  • and that is made up of believers in Jesus Christ
  • who live under the authority of God’s holy Word, the Scriptures,
  • and who are equipped and formed in Christ and by the power of the Spirit of God
    • to live just and holy lives before God,
    • to engage in mission and ministry as servants of Christ Jesus,
    • and to render God due praise and worship.
Such a definition is (1) multi-faceted and will, therefore, render (2) different expressions of ‘church.’  The (3) various emphases placed on one aspect or another in such a definition of church will also lead to different understandings and practices of the local church.  Furthermore, (4) the various ways in which dimensions of the church are pursued by a Christian community will also lead churches to different expressions at the local level.

Having ventured to provide a definition of the local church, I should like to suggest that churches in the west are facing a challenge in how they understand and how they need to reform themselves.  We seem to be facing a shift in our thinking of the local church as firstly a centre of worship (that also offers community and discipleship) to a particular kind of community (that also worships).  Of course, most people still think of their church firstly in terms of the style of music and the effective communication of the minister in sermons.  This understanding of the local church as a worship centre is precisely what needs reforming in our day.  The pressure is growing to define the church firstly as a community because the more society at large becomes post-Christian the more the church needs a clearer understanding of itself as a distinct community.  Mega-churches (which have often intentionally blurred any sharp distinction of being a Christian community) struggle to develop meaningful community through their small (cell) groups, and they are also challenged to provide adequate discipleship in either their large group or small group settings.  They recognise that these are concerns to address, but they do so while keeping their primary identity wrapped up in the large, worship service with its popular preacher.  The challenge, then, is to recover meaningful community in a very individualistic culture where the church is increasingly a minority group and when the mega-church is often the model for the successful local church, at least in urban settings.

Moreover, churches have increasingly become disconnected to one another in the non-denominational environment, and this has had a detrimental effect on missions and ministry.  Local churches need to form a network of one sort or another in order to fulfill an agreed (Biblically based) mission and to offer proper accountability, without duplicating one another’s efforts.  The non-denominational church typically (there are some exceptions) undermines missions, even if it is active in short-term mission opportunities and supports missionaries because it often reduces missions to mission exposure trips for its members and lacks a clear understanding of what the mission should be (as also do several of the Evangelical mission societies that exist mostly to place missionaries overseas rather than fulfill a clear mission).

Thus, the definition of ‘local church,’ above, can be fleshed out in very different ways, depending on where the emphasis is placed.  Even mega-churches can explain their efforts at developing community—and their efforts to this end are, admittedly, sometimes effective for some persons in their inner circles (perhaps especially for young singles out of college).  Yet a new vision of church seems necessary these 30 or 40 years after the mega-church movement.  The solution to issues that mega-churches have encountered does not, in my view, involve creating small groups for community and discipleship but a radically different paradigm for church—though one not unfamiliar in different contexts and periods of church history.  What is needed is the creation of a Christian community, not a worship centre that tries to develop community.

More needs to be said about the Christian community, as not any community will do.  ‘Community’ (unity, inclusiveness, fellowship) needs to be nuanced in light of the fact that the local church is a Christian community.  (Thus, e.g., it should practice discipline and even exclusion of recalcitrant sinners rather than pursue the goal of inclusion at all costs—so 1 Corinthians 5.) The definition offered above will help people explore dimensions of the community that we need to see developed, even if these will be developed in different ways.  In particular, the local church needs to be established as a community (a Christian community), as a learning community (a Biblically and ecclesiastically literate, disciple-forming community), and as a missional community (active in local ministry inside and outside the community and in sending others out with the Gospel to the world).  Such a community will also, of course, pray and worship together, but its worship will not be its defining characteristic even if this is an essential aspect of being a Christian community.

I stated earlier that there have been examples of ‘church as community’ in previous times.  This is in part because, until the beginning of the 20th century, most people lived in rural situations, the motor car had just been invented, and much of our technology was yet to be developed.  With the increased clustering of people in the cities and with greater mobility, people were no longer thrust into a community, whether they liked it or not, but faced the option and challenge of forming their own community with select others out of a larger population.  This is also why the problem addressed here is largely a western—or perhaps, better, an urban—challenge.  Moreover, the more a church defines itself in terms of its Sunday worship and preaching, as opposed to its mission and discipleship making, the more likely it will form community around homogeneous clusters of race and socio-economic groups.  A missional, discipleship making community that also worships is more likely to draw in greater diversity than will a worship service that also supports discipleship and missions.  Of course, diversity is never an end in itself, but it is a result of a well-defined mission.

While I should like to explore each line of the definition of the local church offered above (and perhaps in the process of such an exercise also sharpen the definition further), my main purpose here has been to emphasise the need to move our thinking of the local church from its being primarily a worship service to its being primarily a learning community under the guidance of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Ephesians 4.12-13).  Notice the emphasis on the work of ministry and the maturity of discipleship in this passage.  And, to be sure, such a Christian community will also be filled with the Spirit and address ‘one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Ephesians 5.19-20).

"Doesn’t the Bible Have Very Little to Say about Homosexuality?"--Answers to David Lamb

Introduction

Phrased in this way—‘Doesn’t the Bible have very little to say about homosexuality?'—the question is meant to downplay the importance of Biblical texts addressing homosexuality.  David Lamb, for example, says:

However, despite some Christians’ preoccupation with the topic, homosexuality is not a major biblical issue.  The Ten Commandments are focused on the big sins (idolatry, murder, adultery, and coveting), and homosexuality isn’t one of them.  Leviticus doesn’t even mention lesbian behavior or sexual orientation.  Only a few verses in the Old Testament and New Testament mention homosexual behavior….  The Old Testament is much more concerned about adultery, rape, incest, and even more concerned about goat-boiling [Exod. 23:19; 34:26; Deut. 14:21], than homosexuality.[1]

The following offers a critical response to Lamb and others who attempt to downplay Biblical teaching on homosexuality in such ways.  First, I will outline what would need to be argued successfully if one were to accept Lamb’s argument.  Second, I will expand the discussion by countering the errors in Lamb’s statement.  The purpose of this response to Lamb (and others) is to show the inadequacy of his reasoning and interpretation of Scripture.  Readers are referred to my expansion of a number of these points, with ample reference to primary source literature, for more developed arguments.[2]

What Needs to be Argued if One is to Argue This View

The suggestion that the Bible has only a little to say about homosexuality, if anything at all, is often stated rather than argued in any depth.  In the book cited, Lamb has very little to say on the topic apart from referring readers to other sources and arguing (incorrectly) that Genesis 19 is not about homosexuality.  If one were to explore a thesis such as that in the quotation from Lamb, above, one would need to argue the following:

  1. That Christian theology and practice depend on the frequency that a topic is mentioned in Scripture.
  2. That only specific references to homosexuality count, not general proscriptions of sexual immorality.  For example, Scripture is not to be read in terms of a sexual ethic but only in terms of specific sexual sins.
  3. That we in our day know more than they did in antiquity or throughout Church history, whether about sexuality or about the interpretation of specific texts.
  4. That the Ten Commandments are limited to the specific proscriptions mentioned and are not to be understood as topical (such as ‘adultery’ and ‘coveting’ not being used with reference to sexual immorality in general and homosexuality in particular).
  5. That Scripture does not see homosexuality as a serious sin, compared to other sins.
  6. That the New Testament does not reaffirm Old Testament sexual regulations: there is no intertextual ‘force’ or interpretation that heightens certain Old Testament texts, such as homosexuality.
Expanded Comments

Of the arguments that need to be presented, Lamb only pursues the sixth argument noted above and fails to do so adequately.  The most generous way to put this is to say that he rushes over a few points rather than tackles issues with scholarly interest.  Alternatively, one might suspect that the lack of in-depth study is required for his thesis, which would not survive more in-depth study.

Point 1: The ‘Frequency’ Error

We might compare Biblical texts on homosexuality to texts on bestiality.  The Old Testament proscribes bestiality on four occasions: Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 18:23; 20:15-16; Deuteronomy 27:21.  In fact, we could reduce this to three times since Leviticus 20 repeats Leviticus 18.  Perhaps we could even reduce this further to two times, since Deuteronomy entails a covenant renewal of the laws given at Sinai.  Maybe we should even reduce this to 1 proscription in the Old Testament if we are to understand the Pentateuch as a unified work.  Even so, bestiality is only mentioned four times at most, and this is either once more than homosexuality (if the story of Sodom is taken to entail homosexual sin, which Lamb does not) or twice more than homosexuality.

Moreover, the New Testament reaffirms Old Testament teaching on sexuality and homosexuality in particular, but it does not once mention bestiality.  Just how far will the hermeneutic of Lamb take him in new directions for sexual ethics?  Since bestiality is listed as a sin so infrequently in the Bible, and since no New Testament text reaffirms the Old Testament on this sexual practice, are we to follow Lamb’s logic and allow not only homosexuality but also bestiality in Christian sexual ethics? Hopefully, this example reduces Lamb’s hermeneutic of counting texts to absurdity rather than leads someone to affirm bestiality as well!  Of course, the hermeneutic of counting texts is seriously flawed. The Christian world has long affirmed that All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).  In Romans 1.32, Paul simply states that people know both the sin and the punishment from God’s decree—a statement that not only follows after a list of sins but also his specific elaborations on the sins of idolatry and homosexual practice and orientation.

Point 2: The ‘Specificity’ Error

Scripture needs to be read not simply exegetically (interpreting specific verses) but also Biblically (as a canonical text).  Thus, we need to look for the wider understanding within Scripture.  So, for example, Scripture does have a sexual ethic: the only appropriate place for sex is within marriage between a man and a woman.  Therefore, any sex outside this union is sinful—including homosexuality.  Marital practices, laws dealing with pre-marital sex, unique cultural practices in antiquity (concubinage, levirate marriage, polygamy), and laws against prostitution, cross-gender, or same-sex practices can all be explained with regard to this simple ethical conviction that is offered in Genesis 2.24.  The New Testament affirms the Old Testament’s sexual ethic.

Also, the fact that Scripture has a consistent sexual ethic is clear from the New Testament’s reaffirmation of the Old Testament’s ethic.  This explains why New Testament authors can use general terms for sexual immorality without explaining what is in view in particular.  New Testament words such as porneia (sexual immorality), aselgeia (licentiousness or debauchery), koitai (sexual excesses), akatharsia (uncleanness), and so forth are only understood with reference to teaching in the Old Testament.

Point 3: The ‘Ignorant Ancestors’ Error

Protestants, in particular, are susceptible to this error, although they should not be.  The error is often seen in theological argument, however.  Most Protestants seem happy with an argument that makes no mention of Church history.  They either forget that 2,000 years of the Church’s teaching is relevant to Biblical study and Church teaching, or they are so in the habit of being critical of Church history that they do not listen carefully enough to it.  Instead of being guided by what the Church has taught, they either ignore its teaching or are critical of it (and often without giving it adequate study in the first place).

The same sort of error occurs fairly regularly when reading Scripture in context.  Modern scholarship has rightly emphasized the need to read Scripture in its original context, and most people are willing to see what light this sheds on the meaning of ancient texts, including Scripture.  However, this work is scholarly work: average people do not know the original languages, history, and customs of the Bible.  Thus, people are dependent on scholars.  If scholars do not do adequate work, or if they hide their uncertainties, people can easily be misled.  What has happened regularly in recent years is that a handful of rather loud scholars have misrepresented the primary source data in order to affirm a conclusion people wanted to hold in any case.  In a word, well-known scholars have pulled the wool over people’s eyes.  Such scholars claim that the text was really referring to something else, that the word means something else, or that the text no longer applies to a new context.  While scholarship should be valued, the problem with this issue in particular is that poor scholarship abounds.  As an example, consider all the contradictory interpretations suggested for the reinterpretation of a particular verse.  For example, while the Church has always held that Paul was speaking against homosexual practice in Romans 1.26-27, now one scholar suggests he was speaking about idolatry, another about temple prostitution, another about unclean sex, another about the exploitation of slaves for sexual gratification, another about being lustful or oversexed, and so forth.  So, which is it to be?  The revisionist scholars are happy with any argument, as long as it is not the one that the Church has always taught: it simply does not fit their agenda.

Another version of this error is that antiquity was not as sophisticated as we are today.  We now know about homosexual orientation, the argument goes, whereas they did not know about this in antiquity.  This ‘orientation’ argument is deeply flawed, as some such scholars have had to acknowledge once they started to read ancient sources more seriously (as, e.g., Plato’s Symposium).  In fact, the Graeco-Roman world explored a variety of theories about homosexual orientation.  The ancients may have held some unpopular ideas about orientation, such as that it was due to astrological matters, but it also entertained the same sort of issues we do today about nurture and nature.  Our culture, including our academic culture, assumes evolutionary development and is ready to believe that ancients lacked our sophistication.  Of course, we do know some things better than they did in antiquity, but not on the issue of sexual immorality, including homosexuality, transgenderism, bisexuality, intersex, bestiality, and the like.

Point 4: The ‘Literalist’ Interpretation of the Ten Commandments Error

The Ten Commandments are not limited to the specific proscriptions mentioned and are to be understood as topical.  Paul himself applies the commandment not to commit adultery to sexual immorality in general and homosexuality in particular 1 Timothy 1:10.  (Paul intentionally expands several of the Ten Commandments in 1 Timothy 1.8-10.)  The Jewish author, Philo, writing nearly at the same time as Paul, applies the commandment not to commit adultery to various sexual sins, including homosexuality.

Point 5: The ‘Interpreter’s Weighing of Sins’ Error

One often hears people say something like ‘Sin is sin.’  By this, they mean to argue against the notion that one sin is worse than another.  The intention behind this argument is to deflate any argument in regard to a particular sin.  Sometimes people will say, ‘Why are you so hung up about that sin when there are other sins too?’  Such a person may have an agenda to press his or her own concern, such as the concern for social justice, over against a focus on a sexual sin, such as homosexuality.  There are several issues to unpack in this sort of argument.

First, Scripture does differentiate between various sins.  Some acts are not sinful in themselves but become sinful because of their implications, such as eating food offered to idols (1 Corinthians 8-10).  Some sins in the Old Testament require a sacrifice as a sin offering or a purification offering, whereas other sins require ostracism from the community or the death penalty.  Some sins are against other people, whereas some sins are against God himself.  Some acts are described ritually, others legally, and others as sins in the Old Testament.  While we might affirm that all sin misses the mark of God’s intention for us, the Bible is full of examples of some sins being more serious than others.  In the case of homosexual practice, the sin is very serious, indeed.  It is a sin against creation, a sin against God’s revealed Law, a sin calling for the death penalty in Leviticus, and a sin that Paul says will keep one from the Kingdom of God.

Second, the weighing of sin is a matter of interpreting what Scripture says about such matters; it is not some agenda that the interpreter brings to the text.  In fact, this was one of Jesus’ concerns in regard to the Pharisees.  The issue was not that they were trying to live Biblically according to the regulations of God in the Old Testament, the issue was rather that they constantly misread Scripture because of the agendas that they brought to the text.  They obscured the meaning of a text, weighted a minor matter more than a weightier matter, and, in general, came up with ways to protect their sins while pointing out the sins of others.  In other words, they rather than Scripture played the role of the scales by which various sins were weighed.

In the case of sexual immorality, including homosexuality, the New Testament regularly reaffirms Old Testament sexual regulations.  There is no ‘re-weighing’ of Old Testament sexual ethics, such as saying that one should pay more attention to an ethic of care for the poor and outcast than for sexual rules and regulations.  Instead, the seriousness of sexual ethics is reaffirmed by the Jewish New Testament authors as the Church encountered the Gentile world, with its different and very loose sexual ethic.  Scripture’s teaching on sexual ethics had to be taught to the Gentile converts (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4.1-8) rather than Christian missionaries re-weighing Scripture’s teaching on sexuality to make the faith more palatable to Gentile culture. 

Point 6: The ‘Each Text on Its Own’ Error

This issue has already been brought up: Biblical texts do not stand on their own but are interrelated.  This is so not only because we speak of a ‘canonical text’ of Scripture but also because various authors also make reference to other Biblical texts.  That is, there is an intertextual relationship to consider in Scripture.

Leviticus 18.22 is reaffirmed in Leviticus 20.13.  The restatement within the same Biblical book (indeed, within the Holiness Code in Leviticus) has to do with Leviticus 18 ordering sins according to their type and Leviticus 20 according to the punishment to be meted out.  The two texts together offer a strong, intertextual affirmation that homosexuality is a grievous sin.  Moreover, these texts rest on an earlier Pentateuchal understanding of marriage in the creation text of Genesis 1.26-28 and Genesis 2.24: marriage has to do with the male and female forming a kinship relation in accordance with God’s design so that children may come.

Leviticus 18.22 also has Genesis 19 in view, since the former text is introduced at the beginning of the chapter as a proscription against practices of the Canaanites.  Genesis 19, together with its echo in Judges 19—another intertextual relationship—illustrate Canaanite sexual practice that Israelites are told not to do—homosexual unions in particular.

While some scholars have attempted to read Genesis 19 as anything but a reference to homosexuality, the fact of the matter is the text is a story about how many and how extreme were the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Various texts pick out this or that sin of Sodom, but this should not lead one to think that no mention of other sins means that there were no other sins in the authors’ minds.  More importantly, both Jude 7 and 2 Peter 2.6-10 understand Sodom’s sin as sexual, not as a sin about showing hospitality (as some have argued in reference to Genesis).

Romans 1.26-27 is in the context of an argument about what is revealed in creation about God and his purposes.  This, together with the language of man, birds, animals, and reptiles in Rom. 1.23, shows us that Paul is thinking in terms of the creation texts in Genesis.  Also, Paul’s conclusion in Rom. 1.32 that people should know that those who practice ‘such things’ ‘deserve to die’ likely involves thinking about Leviticus 20.13, which says the same thing about men who engage in sexual acts with one another.

Already mentioned, Paul’s sin list in 1 Timothy 1.8-10 reflects and expands the Ten Commandments.  Paul is ‘thinking Biblically,’ and in so doing he expands the commandment not to commit adultery to include homosexual practice.  Not only so, but Paul’s use of a term that he apparently coined—a compound of two words that appear side by side in Leviticus 20.13—suggests that his reference to homosexuality derives from his interpretation of the Mosaic Law.  The unique term is arsensenokoitai, men who lie together, and it is also found in Paul’s sin list in 1 Corinthians 6.9.
Thus, the Biblical texts on homosexuality engage one another and help to interpret one another canonically.  Together, they stand as a consistent teaching against homosexuality, based on both an understanding of God’s purposes for sexuality and marriage and God’s revealed Law to Moses.  The New Testament reaffirms both.

Beyond this specific reading of the texts on homosexuality, one should also note that Jesus, too, interpreted the same Genesis texts on ‘male and female’ and ‘one flesh’ (Gen. 1.26-28; 2.24) with respect to a marriage ethic.  In his case, the application of the text was to the matter of marriage and divorce (Matthew 19.4-6).  First, it should be noted that Gen. 1.26-28 is related to 2.24: one cannot, as some have recently attempted to do, separate the ‘kinship’ of ‘one flesh’ unity from ‘male and female’.  Genesis is speaking about gender, procreation, and marriage in ways the Church has always understood until very recently some have come along and tried to find new meaning in the text to suit their new agendas.  Homosexuality was not an issue for Jews, who had a consistent and Biblical teaching on the subject.  Thus, Jesus would not have been asked about homosexuality by the Pharisees, as early Christians were asked once the faith spread to non-Jewish, Gentile contexts.  Had Jesus been asked about homosexuality, however, he would have developed his teaching in the same way that Paul did: from the relevant Old Testament texts on God’s creation of male and female for marital procreation and on God’s teaching in the commandments of God that he came to affirm.

Conclusion

Despite claims that Scripture has little to say on the subject of homosexuality, we see that, in fact, it addresses the topic significantly.  Various authors writing in various cultures affirm the same perspective: homosexuality is a grievous sin.  They do so as part of a larger sexual ethic that shows theological consistency, and they do so intertextually (one text referencing another), thus affirming a Biblical perspective on the subject.  On inspection, the argument that Scripture has little to say on the subject fails miserably.




[1] David Lamb’s Prostitutes and Polygamists: A Look at Love, Old Testament Style (Zondervan, 2015), p. 164.
[2] S. Donald Fortson and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2016).

Requiem for the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Hope of Mission and Orthodoxy for the Future

Yesterday’s (8 June, 2017) news that the Scottish Episcopal Church has voted to become the first Anglican Church in the United Kingdom to affirm same-sex marriage may appear shocking.  This vote, however, has been expected for a year.  Moreover, the state of the Church has been such that a further descent into error has been predictable enough.  Of course, the vote will have certain ripple effects--both negative and positive--in the UK as well as throughout the Anglican Communion.  Indeed, all this sad heresy comes with a silver lining: it finally requires fence-sitters to jump to one side or the other and exposes the erroneous narrative of ecclesiastical unity on this issue as an heretical doctrine.

This moment in the life of the Anglican Communion overall is rather like hearing that Toad Hall has been taken over by weasels and stoats from the Wild Wood and are holding a calamitous and destructive party within its walls.  Shocking news, to be sure, but not very significant.[1]  The agonising smokescreen of Archbishop Justin Welby's ‘shared conversations’ in the Church of England—agonising because they involved talking about what has been perfectly clear to Christians in the first place all along—finally came to an end in 2016.  The Church of England’s synod subsequently (February 2017) rejected a measure to affirm what the Scottish Episcopal Church has now affirmed--not because of a commitment to truth but because of a poorly worded 'middle-of-the-fence' measure that too few were willing to accept.  The orthodox in the Church of England have been saddled with further co-existence with the significant number of heretical elements in the Church.  But the SEC’s clear vote for heresy now allows everyone to move on, as both groups need to do.

Several positive consequences of SEC’s vote are already apparent:

*    GAFCON has appointed a missionary bishop, Canon Andy Lines, to bring oversight to orthodox congregations that have laboured under heretical bishops;
*   GAFCON and the Anglican Church of North America’s Archbishop Foley Beach are playing a significant role in the appointment of a missionary bishop, finally stepping into a more active role beyond simply expressing concerns over the direction of heresy-leaning, western provinces in the Anglican Communion;
*   It brings into focus the need for both missions and orthodoxy in defining the Anglican Communion—not least because this missionary bishop has chaired and directed the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE).

The luke-warm sludge in which all Anglicans in the UK have had to swim has had dire consequences for the various Churches.  Cold heresy helps the true Church to turn up the heat of orthodoxy and get active in mission activity.  Moreover, there is no use in evangelising and planting churches only to have them influenced and directed by heretics.  There is no Biblical basis for co-existence with heresy, and pursuing such a policy cannot be understood as 'Church unity' precisely because heretics are not part of the true Church by definition.  As Paul clearly and helpfully says, 'But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler- not even to eat with such a one' (1 Cor. 5.11, ESV).  Indeed, it is theologically and practically important for the far greater number of orthodox Anglicans to avoid table fellowship with the Scottish Episcopal Church and other heretical groups, like the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada--for reasons Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 5.  And it is now necessary to baptise converts from those Churches when they come to true faith, just as much as orthodox Churches would baptise converts from cults such as the Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Unitarian Universalist, or Christian Science heretical Churches. (Indeed, John the Baptist and Jesus saw it necessary for fellow Jews to be baptised--to receive a cleansing apart from the heretical Temple in Jerusalem that no longer served the purposes for which it was established by God.)

The slow decline of an already terminal SEC can be seen in the statistics.  The number of members in SEC for 2014 was 32,646 and for 2016 was 31,656.[2]  The average Sunday attendance for the entire province in the Scottish Episcopal Church for 2016 was 12,511, and Edinburgh alone accounts for 1/3 of that number (4,571).[3]  In 2014, the numbers in attendance totalled 13,611.  This denomination, like all mainline denominations in the west, is declining every year, and, at this rate, it will disappear in a generation.  Moreover, Scotland’s population is 5,373,000,[4] which means we are presently commenting on only a little over 0.002% of the population.  Actually, since 19.4% of the laity voted against SEC’s pro-homosexual measure, the number is 1/5 lower still of the general population.  It is difficult to find this a very significant population on which to comment, except for the fact that it is about an historic institution.

The Scottish Episcopal Church is not the largest denomination in Scotland.  In 2011, 36% of the population declared themselves to have ‘no religion’ (and an additional 7% left the question unanswered), followed by 32.4% in the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), 15.9% Roman Catholic, and 5.5% ‘other Christian’.[5]  The same government report noted that there was a 10.6% drop in the number of people reporting that they had a religion between 2001 and 2011.  This allows one to reflect on the Scottish Episcopal Church’s vote for a position held by the culture on sexuality to be interpreted not as a theological enlightenment but as an example of an increasingly irreligious nation.  Indeed, older institutions are dissolving into the larger culture, and this would explain their decrease in size as well: why join a group that is catching up to what you believe in any case rather than that offers something different?

With a diminishing membership one might naturally suspect there would be a diminishing income.  This is not the case.  A long established church with many assets does not need to rely all that much on contributions so much as the management of properties and investments.  In 2014, the incoming revenue of SEC totalled £2,230,528;[6] in 2015 it totalled £2,265,924; and in 2016, it totaled £2,278,512. Thirty-one percent came from diocesan quotas.  Sixty-two percent of this amount came from investments.  Despite the falling numbers of communicants, the annual income for SEC is rising.  In 2014, the received quotas from Scottish dioceses was £658,837, whereas the figure for 2016 was £698,960, and funds requested for 2017 are £719,929. The loss of membership and communicants only increases the per capita financial worth in the denomination as well.  The weasels and the stoats will have a fantastic party with the assets of Toad Hall.

As with any dying patient, everyone is better off focusing on the legacy of the individual rather than worrisome medical updates, even though these need to be monitored.  It is helpful, even if emotional, to get clarity rather than wait around for the inevitable news of an impending demise.  With that can come planning and remembrance of former days, when times were good.  Indeed, with SEC’s clear affirmation of a heretical teaching on marriage, the time has come to say goodbye and plan for the future.  It is time to remember the contribution that the Scottish Episcopal Church made in better days.  Its history includes that of Celtic Christianity, the relationships of Scotland with England, and the Reformation in the 16th century, with preachers like John Knox—a history shared by all Scots.  It was officially incorporated in 1712, however.  Its Protestant history entails an historical relationship with the presbyterian Church of Scotland.  An online historical overview of the history of the Scottish Episcopal Church follows the institutional and political story of the Church—a rather disheartening read if one is searching for some actual story of Christian witness and ministry, a contribution to the mission of Christ’s Church in the world.[7]  Yet such a history rather well illustrates this denomination’s problem as a national Church: it is too much entangled in the intrigues of power and culture.  What might prove to be more fruitful is to explore the biographies of faithful ministers and missionaries, celebrating the Church’s past support of Christian mission in foreign lands through Anglican mission societies.  After all, it is not the institution that has any eternal value—none whatsoever.  Unlike the story of Toad Hall, there will be no recovery of the Scottish Episcopal Church.  However, out of its ashes now rises the hope of a godly people under an orthodox bishop who can let their light shine brightly in a land that desperately needs to hear the radical, challenging Gospel of Jesus Christ instead of an echo of its own, post-Christian, neo-pagan ways.




[1] The reference is to a climactic scene in Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows.
[2] See the Scottish Episcopal Church 34th Annual Report, p. 63; online at: http://www.scotland.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/34th-Annual-Report-and-Accounts-for-the-year-ended-31-December-2016.pdf (accessed 9 June, 2017).
[4] As per the Country Digest, online at: http://countrydigest.org/population-of-scotland/ (accessed 9 June, 2017).
[7] See ‘Steps on the Way: Scottish Episcopal Church History,’ online: http://www.episcopalhistory.org/ (accessed 9 June, 2017).

Book Review Notice for "Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church," ed. P. Sprinkle

BookSprinkle, Preston, ed.  Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016.

Reviewed by S. Donald Fortson and Rollin G. Grams iReformed Faith & Practice 2.1 (May, 2017)

Online: http://journal.rts.edu/review/two-views-homosexuality-bible-church/


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