COMMON GROUND FOR AN UNCOMMON DAY
This talk was the keynote address
at the Witherspoon Society's Orientation Meeting for the 213th
General Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky, on Friday, June 8, 2001.
by The Rev. Charles
D. Myers, Ph.D.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you
tonight. Many of you have come
from the Covenant Network dinner where you heard Freda Gardner and Doug
Oldenberg speak. You can imagine the challenge I face by following the
fine talks of these two former Moderators of our denomination. And all
of you are missing the talk of George Will, who is speaking a few blocks
away at this moment. I commend you on your wise choice of speakers for
this evening!
Let me begin with the obvious. We stand at a critical
juncture in the life of our denomination. We are a church that appears
to be deeply divided. We have tried dialogue and discussion, but rather
than achieving understanding and reconciliation, the two sides seem even
more entrenched. We have overtured and amended and tried to amend and
tried to repeal amendments to The Book of Order, but neither side seems
satisfied with the results. In so many ways we appear to be at an
impasse. But even with all of our disagreements, I wonder if we truly
recognize the considerable similarities that exist between the two sides
of the current theological divide. Let me elaborate.
Surely both sides agree that the issue of homosexual
behavior is a subject that should concern all Christians, heterosexual
as well as homosexual Christians, for this topic gets at the heart of
the mission and the witness of the Church. Will we be an inclusive or an
exclusive church? Will we reach out to embrace those who differ from us
in appearance and in action and in thought or will we associate only
with those who look and act and think as we do? Are we primarily
concerned with the redemption of the world or with saving the souls of a
few? Surely all of us realize what is at stake in the present debate.
Both sides also agree that the nature and authority of
Scripture are central to this debate, that this topic forces us to
consider how we will read the Bible at the dawn of the third millennium.
And surely both sides understand that we in the twenty-first century
stand at a great distance from the writings of the Old and New
Testaments. Of course, we all know that every biblical author assumed
that the world was flat and that we are the center of a three-tiered
universe, with earth in the middle, heaven above, and the underworld
below. And regardless of one's understanding of inspiration, we must all
acknowledge that every biblical author was influenced to some degree by
the cultural assumptions and mores of the day, and that we too, when we
read the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, are influenced by our
modern-day culture. After all, most of us rely on a modern English
translation when we read the Bible, and we all know that the English
language is a cultural convention that shapes our thinking and our
understanding and our interpretation of Scripture. Like fish in clear
water we are all immersed in a modern, post-Enlightenment cultural
milieu that cannot help but influence our thinking and from which we
cannot escape.
Therefore, in light of the true foreignness of the
Scriptures to the present-day reader both sides must also recognize that
we cannot accept as universally applicable the literal meaning of a few
passages of Scripture taken out of context and simply applied to today's
problems, that we must instead seek to understand what those passages
meant in their ancient literary and historical contexts in an effort to
determine what they mean to us today. And both sides must be aware that
the Bible is dangerous literature, that these writings have in years
past been used to enslave as well as to liberate, to exclude as well as
to include, to expel as well as to welcome, and to exterminate as well
as to give life.
Thus how we read and use the Bible is not merely an
academic question. Both sides must know that people's lives and
livelihoods depend on our answer, and that the people most affected by
our answer are not strangers to us. They are Christian brothers and
sisters who sit beside us in worship and in committee meetings and at
church suppers. So you see how much the two sides have in common!
But our similarity runs even deeper, for in reality we
both treat and mistreat the Scriptures in very much the same way. Both
sides give lip-service to the Reformation era slogan sola Scriptura,
for neither side accepts the Scriptures in toto. Neither side pays much
attention to the Old Testament law, because we disregard major Old
Testament injunctions, like the Fourth Commandment to remember the
Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5: 12-15; see also Exodus 31:12-17,
esp. 14, 15). Why, from my experience, I know that few Presbyterians can
tell you what day of the week the Sabbath is! And our current debate
reveals that neither side takes very seriously major New Testament
injunctions, like the ones about loving one another (e.g., John 13:34,
15:12, 17; 1 John 2:10, 3:10, 11, 23) and about not judging others
(e.g., Matthew 7:1, Romans 2:1, James 4:12b).
Why, then, should either side be concerned with minor
biblical prohibitions against homosexual behavior? After all, that is
exactly what the prohibitions against homosexual behavior are-minor
injunctions! Consider that in the Bible there are at most six passages
that treat homosexual relations between consenting adults, at most six
passages in sixty-six books, at most six passages in 1,189 chapters, at
most six passages out of thousands and thousands of verses. Can any camp
claim that it is being true to Scripture, when it makes what is clearly
a minor issue in the Bible into a so-called "wedge issue," one
that divides the Church and threatens its future unity?
And let's be honest. Neither side takes the Bible very
literally, when it comes to those biblical passages that deal with
homosexual relations. For example, the only two Old Testament passages
that refer to homosexual relations between consenting adults label such
behavior a capital offense. According to Leviticus 20:13, both partners
shall "be put to death." Is anyone, even the staunchest
opponent of homosexual behavior, clamoring for the death penalty for
homosexual partners? So those who accept homosexuality as a
"crime," because the Bible says it is, do not accept the
biblically prescribed punishment. Is that being true to the Bible?
And wouldn't all Presbyterians want to be consistent
in their interpretation of the Bible? Note that homosexual behavior is
never singled out in the Bible. In fact, homosexual behavior between
consenting adults, when it is mentioned, is included in a listing of
behaviors. Included in these same listings and condemned with the same
vehemence in Leviticus 18 and 20, for example, is having sex with a
menstruating woman (18:19; 20:18), consulting mediums and wizards
(20:6), and (to use the New Jewish Version translation)
"insulting" mother and father (20:9).
Surely we would all admit that some of these
prohibitions are culture-bound and time-specific, and that the
punishments specified for many of these acts are simply no longer (if
they ever were!) appropriate to suit the "crime." In order to
be consistent in our interpretation perhaps we need to view homosexual
relations between consenting adults as every bit as "heinous"
as consensual heterosexual relations during a woman's menstrual period.
In the New Testament homosexual behavior between consenting adults is
also a minor issue. Jesus never spoke a word about it. Only the Apostle
Paul did. In two verses in Romans 1 (vv. 26-27) for sure and perhaps in
another verse in 1 Corinthians 6 (v. 9) Paul mentions homosexual
relations between consenting adults. Some will add to this list 1
Timothy 1:9-10, but this letter, which is not believed by critical
scholars to be by Paul, contains the same difficult lexical problems
posed by 1 Corinthians 6:9. [See note below.] Therefore, only three or four verses in
the twenty-seven books of the New Testament mention the subject. And
here again homosexual behavior is not singled out. Homosexual behavior
is one among many behaviors listed in these passages.
Are we being true to Scripture, therefore, when we use
Paul's words to argue that homosexual behavior is the single act that
disqualifies one from a position of leadership and authority in the
Presbyterian Church? If Paul does not single out this behavior, do we
who want to be guided by Scripture have a right to? But if we choose to
exclude those who engage in consensual homosexual sex, because of what
Paul writes, then shouldn't we be consistent and also treat in the same
manner those who commit the other behaviors mentioned by Paul? Following
his remarks on homosexuality in Romans 1 Paul condemns those who judge
others (Rom. 2:1f). Perhaps we should work together to adopt an
amendment to the Book of Order that would bar from positions of
leadership and authority in the Church those who judge other people!
Surely neither side of the current debate wants to
distort the life and thought of the Apostle Paul by focusing attention
on a couple of isolated statements that Paul makes in the context of a
30-year ministry. After all, we all owe the Apostle Paul so much. You
may recall that in his former life Paul was a zealous Pharisaic Jew who
by his own admission persecuted early Christians until he was called by
the Risen Christ to be an apostle to the Gentiles. Now understand this.
A righteous Pharisaic Jew, who had devoted his life to the study and
practice of the law, became a proclaimer of the faith that he once
persecuted. And the mission of this Jew-turned-Christian was not
directed to Jews but to Gentiles. Paul might have gone to his own
people, who he understood and with whom he had much in common. But
instead he was directed to the Gentiles. Talk about a paradigm shift!
What Paul did in thirty years of ministry was to make
a place for those who had no place in the people of God. Paul helped to
make a place for all of us! Paul the Pharisaic Jew spent his Christian
ministry working for the inclusion of Gentiles, people unlike himself.
And he argued persuasively that Gentile believers should be accepted
into the people of God as they are, for that is how God accepts them.
The Gentile does not have to become a law-abiding Jew before he or she
is accepted by God. No, Jew and Gentile alike are under the power of sin
and both are put right with God purely by God's grace. It is not what
they have done that is important. Rather, it is what God has done for
them that matters.
Therefore, to use Paul's writings to exclude believers
from the people of God is, what the author of 2 Peter says, to
"twist" Paul's words (2 Peter 3:16b) and fail to acknowledge
that all of us were once outsiders. To a man who argued in 1 Corinthians
for unity not uniformity in the Christian community, who argued in
Romans that all are saved purely by God's grace, who argued in Galatians
that the Gentile as Gentile has a rightful place in the people of God,
we do a great, great, great disservice, if use his words to exclude from
our fellowship those who do not look or act the way we do!
When I consider all the ways in which the two sides in
the current theological debate agree, then I have to conclude that our
current disagreement is deeply rooted in the Bible. Yes, the Bible
reveals God to be a God of justice and judgment and condemnation, a God
who at times seems interested only in a righteous few. But the Bible
also reveals a God of love and of mercy and of grace, who is the God of
all persons, who accepts the righteous and the unrighteous, the Jew and
the Gentile, males and females.
There is no question that the Bible can be used to
exclude. History is full of examples. But the Bible can also be used to
include, to welcome, to embrace. We have to decide how we will read and
understand the message of the Bible. Is the true message of the Bible
one of judgment and exclusion and self-righteous condemnation? Or is the
message of the Bible one of love and acceptance and grace? Our
denomination is divided because ultimately the Bible is divided. Both
strains are present in the text. The real question is which strain shall
we acknowledge and proclaim and live by? That is the issue facing the
Presbyterian Church today. . .and always. Amen.
The author:
The Rev. Dr. Charles (Buz) Myers holds a B.A. degree
from Duke University plus an M.Div. degree and a Ph.D. degree in New
Testament language and literature from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Dr. Myers has taught New Testament courses at Princeton Seminary, at the
Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and at Swarthmore
College. Since 1986 Dr. Myers has taught at Gettysburg College, where he
currently serves as Associate Professor and Chair of the Religion
Department. While at Gettysburg Prof. Myers has twice been honored with
the Student Senate's Faculty Appreciation Award for excellence in
teaching. For the 2000-01 academic year he also chaired the Faculty
Personnel Committee. For ten years Dr. Myers served as Recording
Secretary for the Revised Standard Version Bible Committee whose work
culminated in the 1989 publication of the New Revised Standard Version
of the Bible. His published work appears in scholarly journals and in
the Anchor Bible Dictionary, a multi-volume reference work. He is also
co-editor of and contributor to Biblical Theology: Problems and
Prospects (Atlanta: Abingdon, 1995). Dr. Myers, an ordained Presbyterian
minister, is married to the Rev. Anne Kimrey Myers, Associate Pastor of
the Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, PA. Anne and Buz live
in Camp Hill, PA, with their two teenage daughters, Annabelle and
Charlotte.
Note: The passage in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is generally
believed to be a traditional listing that Paul is citing. Whether this
list comes from early Christian (oral) tradition or Jewish tradition
that Paul knew is uncertain. What is known is that this listing contains
terms that Paul uses nowhere else in his epistles. And, contrary, to
what some interpreters would have you believe, the two terms that are
often translated as some form of homosexual behavior (malakoi and
arsenokoitai) are more ambiguous in the original Greek than many modern
English translations would have you believe. A simple comparison of
English translations will show you the interpretive spectrum. The first
term, malakoi, literally means "soft ones," and is variously
translated as "effeminate" (KJV), "self-indulgent" (NJB),
and "male prostitutes" (NRSV), none of which may refer to
homosexual behavior per se. And the second term, arsenokoitai, which is
not found in any extant text before 1 Corinthians appears to be a term
made up of two Greek terms, arseno- meaning "male" and -koitai
meaning "one who lies with." The King James translators came
up with the rather opaque phrase "abusers of themselves with
mankind," but subsequent translators have removed all ambiguity.
Thus we learn from the New Revised Standard Version that this term
refers to "sodomites" while the NIV tells us that this means
"homosexual offenders."
We've received a
comment by a visitor who was "offended" by this
presentation. [7-2-01]
