Biblicism approaches the Bible as an unquestionable authority, presumably on account of its divine inspiration or authorship. I say this is idolatry because it treats the Bible as though it weren’t really a human document at all but a compendium of the divine opinions. Hence, to disagree with the biblical writers in any way is to oppose the very Word of God. But I call this form of idolatry distinctively Protestant since it differs from the forms of idolatry that characterize the other major forms of Christianity. Whereas Eastern Orthodoxy claims to have an unbroken tradition going back to the apostles that can never be revised, Roman Catholicism identifies the true church with an institution headed by the Roman pontiff who claims the authority to speak infallibly as Christ’s vicar on earth. It may be easier for Protestants to see the idolatry in these other forms of Christianity while failing to recognize idolatry in our own midst.

Let me illustrate this from my experience at the special meeting of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area convened on January 26, 2008 to vote upon my request to be restored to ordained status while declaring a scruple against a vow of celibacy. One of the things that struck me was that there were no actual ethical arguments put forward by conservatives as to why we should rationally consider homosexuality to be immoral. No one argued a traditional Roman Catholic argument about the natural law or appealed to modern psychology and science to suggest that these sources lead one to treat homosexuality as some sort of pathology.

All we were given was a simple appeal to the Bible, which is to say nothing but an appeal to authority. That’s what Biblicism is, a sheer appeal to biblical authority that is designed to shut down the possibility of rational theological and ethical debate. Now, if our denomination were a fundamentalist denomination that took this line with respect to every issue facing it, such Biblicism would at least be consistent with standard practice. But this is not how we have historically used the Bible. (Jack Rogers’ historical studies of the use of both the Bible and the Confessions are superb in this respect and deserve more attention than they have yet received.)

What most astonished me was to see how many ordained women voted against my restoration on the grounds of biblical authority alone. Do these women not remember the argument of those who opposed the ordination of women? It was exactly the same as that put forward against accepting the moral legitimacy of homosexuality: "But the Bible says…." When I raised this inconsistency with one woman, who is a recent graduate of Princeton Seminary and now a minister in this presbytery, she denied that the statements found in the Pauline epistles had any bearing on the question of women’s ordination and even hazarded the statement: "If I thought Paul would be opposed to me being a minister, I would give up my ordination." Aside from the fact that this is such an obviously self-serving reading of the passages in scripture dealing with women, I was dumbfounded that she would grant to the apostle Paul – a finite, historically conditioned, and even sinful human being like the rest of us – the ultimate authority to determine whether it was good and right for the church to ordain women. Her statement is an utter denial of the fact that in deciding for the ordination of women, the church set aside those passages used by opponents of women’s ordination as no longer having binding authority on us anymore. Paul’s opinions are not the views of God!

A hypothetical example crossed my mind. Let’s imagine that a pastor, opposed to homosexuality on biblical grounds, has a woman in his congregation whose husband beats her up every night. This woman confides to her pastor that she is seeking a divorce in order to escape the abuse. Now what is this biblically-based pastor going to say to his parishioner? "No, you can’t divorce your abusive husband because the only exception admitted by Jesus to his absolute prohibition of divorce is the sexual infidelity of your spouse." I seriously doubt that any conservative or evangelical pastor in our denomination would take that stand today, and yet it is "the clear teaching of scripture" (Matt. 19:9).

When I was accused of not taking scripture seriously, I read a statement made by an Episcopal bishop who defended his advocacy of slavery with these words: "If it were a matter to be determined by personal sympathies, tastes, or feelings, I should be as ready as any man to condemn the institution of slavery, for all my prejudices of education, habit, and social position stand entirely opposed to it. But as a Christian … I am compelled to submit my weak and erring intellect to the authority of the Almighty." If ever there were an argument against Biblicism, this is it. God gave this bishop a mind and a conscience to determine what is right and wrong, good and evil. He knew that slavery was wrong but, instead of following his conscience, he abandoned it for the sake of an uncritical, indeed idolatrous use of the Bible. After reading this passage, I wondered aloud how God will judge this man on the Last Day.

Biblicism is the distinctive form of idolatry in Protestantism because, while it purports to be a continuation of the Reformers’ sola scriptura (scripture alone), it actually fails to attend to the nuances of the Reformers’ own use of the Bible in the sixteenth century. The Reformers frequently called the Bible "the Word of God," not because they had abandoned their intellects or reasoning capacities when approaching it, but rather because the Bible is the original, and hence classic, witness to the gospel – and the gospel alone is the Word of God in the strict and proper sense. For them, it was not the Bible per se that is the Word of God but the gospel to which the Bible bears testimony and that bestows on scripture its normative status. Furthermore, careful study of the Reformers more than amply illustrates that their commitment to biblical authority was no anti-intellectual Biblicism but, instead, represented a serious commitment to a theological wrestling with the message of the gospel to be found therein, precisely so that they might reshape (i.e. reform) both the practice and the doctrine of their contemporary churches.

Ironically, the rhetoric of the conservative opponents of homosexuality in these past thirty years has only served to obscure and falsify the true heritage of the very Reformed tradition they so badly want to claim for themselves. For if Luther and Calvin appealed to the Bible to criticize the forms of idolatry they claimed to find in medieval Catholicism, they certainly had no intention of setting up a new form of idolatry in its place based on the Bible. It is sad when a church loses touch with the proper use and purpose of the Bible in its own tradition. It is now up to those of us who are progressives or liberals to see if we can help the church recover its authentic heritage, including how the Bible is supposed to be used in contemporary theology and ethics. God alone is to be worshipped, not the Bible.

The over-arching themes of Scripture: A major theme of the Old Testament is exodus - liberation from bondage and oppression. The prophets continually called for justice. The story of the early church is a history of breaking down barriers that divide people from each other and give some people status over others. Paul insisted that faith in Jesus Christ, not adherence to a set of legal requirements, constitutes membership in the Christian community.

The witness of Jesus Christ: Jesus consistently welcomed, indeed sought out, persons who were labeled outcast by his society. Criticized himself as a lawbreaker, he challenged self-righteousness, judgmentalism, and legalism, making it clear that the purpose of the Law is the protection of human welfare; human beings are not made to keep the Law regardless of its detrimental effects on the well-being of people (Mark 2:23-3:6). Jesus summarized the Law as loving God with one’s whole being, and loving one’s neighbor as oneself.

The rule of love: Even though it is not intended as such by Christians of goodwill, the presumption that homosexual behavior is always wrong does great damage to many, including some who have never engaged in it: young people unable to will or pray away the attraction they’ve been taught is evil (even if they don’t act on their feelings, they may still grow up with self-loathing); parents despairing about where they "went wrong," when the explanation for anyone’s sexual orientation is still a mystery; relationships torn apart by rejection; families which are not whole due to the dishonesty of remaining hidden in the closet. The taboo against homosexuality can lead to loneliness, both overt and subtle discrimination, and even verbal and physical violence.

"Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." Romans 13:10

The New Testament abolition of categories of "clean" and "unclean": In the Torah’s Holiness Code, homosexual practice is a matter of uncleanness, along with eating blood and other dietary restrictions, contact with bodily discharges, wearing certain fabrics, and other prohibitions. Jesus challenged his culture and religion’s focus on ritual cleanness by associating with women, lepers, "outcasts and sinners" (see also Mark 7). Jesus laid the foundation for the distinction between moral law - that which pertains to the rule of love - and purity law - which is culturally conditioned. The Book of Acts relates the early church’s struggle to appropriate this principle. A good example is in Acts 10-11: Peter learns through a vision and an encounter with a Gentile, Cornelius, that "what God has called clean, you must not call profane." Witnessing the gift of the Holy Spirit to those his tradition has considered unclean, Peter concludes: "If then God gave them the same gift that God gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?"

An understanding of celibacy as a spiritual gift: The biblical witness reflects a variety of acceptable patterns of relationship outside of "marriage between one man and one woman," including polygamy and concubinage. In the New Testament, Paul asserts that celibacy is preferred to marriage, but acknowledges it as a particular kind of gift from God, not given to all (I Corinthians 7:7-9). Churches which require life-long celibacy consider it a special vocation, and endeavor to provide support for those who freely choose such a course. The Reformed tradition, following Luther and Calvin, affirms the goodness of human sexual intimacy and repudiates the requirement of celibate clergy. Requiring celibacy of gays and lesbians does not deprive them of sexual expression alone, but of the opportunity for relationships which are emotionally and spiritually intimate as well.

Valuing relationship and community: The creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 are descriptions of the predominant pattern of male-female relationships, and affirmations of it; it is an unnecessary leap to insist that an affirmation of one pattern is a prohibition of all others. A person can be fully male or female, and made in God’s image, without relating sexually to someone of the other sex. The values being honored in Genesis 1-2 are relationship and community, not a specific form of relationship. Condemning persons to loneliness because they cannot fit into the predominant pattern is a violation of the spirit of the Scripture. It is ironic that Jesus’ quotation of Genesis in Matthew 19 is often used to justify a continued prohibition of homosexual relationships, when Jesus used Genesis to prohibit divorce - a heterosexual practice for which the church has changed its policies and biblical interpretations.

The use of experience: The church has changed its understanding of God’s will many times over the centuries, as knowledge and experience and the working of the Holy Spirit have provided new perspectives. In so doing, the church has been following in the tradition of Scripture itself, which reflects the changing understandings of God’s people as they experienced God in their lives in a variety of circumstances. Because of his experience of the Risen Christ, Saul fundamentally changed his understanding of what it meant to be related to God. The Jerusalem Council listened to the experience of Peter and of Barnabas and Paul in deciding on new standards of Christian faithfulness (Acts 15). When the church listens to the witness of its gay and lesbian members, and observes the evidence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, it is continuing the process that is demonstrated in Scripture itself.

Salvation by grace: All persons stand before God equally in need of forgiveness and reconciliation. We are loved and accepted by God not on our own merits, but because of God’s free decision in Christ.

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39
 

The Rev. Tricia Dykers Koenig is National Organizer for the Covenant Network.