“Well, the biblical authors could not have possibly understood what we now understand today so the way in which they state this must be looked at through enlightened goggles of modernity.�
However, what if that assumption is wrong. What if they were more than aware of what homosexuality is as we currently define it (though perhaps understood through different terminology). What if the biblical authors were well aware of this alternative lifestyle. What if, instead of the point being framed as it is above, a more helpful way to look at the question is;
“Us modern readers are so removed from the context that these texts were written in that we cannot possibly speak to their understanding of being faithful followers of Christ?�
Now obviously, being someone with opinions on what the bible says, I do not believe that sentence to be 100% true... But is it possible that there is more truth in that second sentence than the one I started this thread talking about?
Let me articulate what I mean by bringing up a bit more of a sociological argument than a theological one. And, as always, bear with me here as I tend to use these threads as testing grounds to grapple with and strengthen ideas I’m toying with in my mind. So at the moment this may not be the most fleshed out argument.
The concept I want to bring to mind is that of technique. This often misunderstood sociological idea speaks to the radically new environment that we have found ourselves in within the past century or so. Those who wrote about it were pretty accurate in speculating where we might end up were we not to recognize the dangers associated with technique. But I’m getting off topic here. Essentially technique is best described in the following way;
Essentially, all this technological innovation has created a shift in how we engage with our reality, and that shift has been towards things like utility and efficiency. So when we speak about what these texts mean we are speaking from a perspective tied with efficiency, and integrally linked with ‘the best way to do the most right thing in this moment’...“The term technique, as I use it, does not mean machines, technology, or this or that procedure for attaining an end. In our technological society, technique is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity. Its characteristics are new; the technique of the present has no common measure with that of the past . . . We are conditioned by something new: technological civilization. I make no reference to a past period of history in which men were allegedly free, happy, and independent. The determinism’s of the past no longer concern us; they are finished and done with.�
Ellul, J. (1964). The Technological Society. New York: Knopf.
Hypothetical example: For whatever reason you find yourself no longer in possession of a phone with no means or desire of acquiring a new one. Do you think you could find a new way of engaging with this world? Or has the notion of efficiency been so ingrained within your being that you’d merely fill that void with something to facilitate the same efficient means (be it email, or facebook or skype or some other hypothetical communication tool)? I certainly don’t think I could, and I think that’s a problem when efficiency dictates our lives instead of whatever that end is for us (I’m going to assume God for the most of us, but lets just keep it nice and generic by saying our relationships)
Now, that being said, what if all this efficiency was not a concern with either the biblical authors or those reading their letters in the early Christian church? What if, instead of efficiency, their concern was simply how to live a Christ like life. When we don’t treat the biblical texts like a manual of efficiency they takes on a whole different connotation because, now, what we are concerned about is merely doing the best we can to exemplify God and not desperately trying to check all the right boxes on our ‘get into heaven’ checklist.
I would suggest that when we read the scriptures in this, much less efficient way, that we begin to see that what all of the biblical authors really saw as important were our relationships. And when read in this way contradictions seem to become less obvious. Sin seems to take on the light of a turning away or a falling short instead of a moral wrong. What leads to broken relationships in one person or one congregation might not in another. What we’re left with is an understanding of morality that is far more grey than we seem to be comfortable with, which is a direct result of our technique influenced brains thriving on efficiency pushing us constantly towards terms of black and white. I’ve quoted this fellow before on this thread, but it’s just such a great quote, so to drive this point of a more relationally understood morality home, here’s Ivan Illich.
“People now tend to understand sin in the light of its "criminalization" by the Church during the Middle Ages and afterwards . . . It was this criminalization which generated the modern idea of conscience as an inward formation by moral rules or norms. It made possible the isolation and anguish which drive the modern individual, and it also obscured the fact that what the New Testament calls sin is not a moral wrong but a turning away or a falling short. Sin, as the New Testament understands it, is something that is revealed only in the light of its possible forgiveness. To believe in sin, therefore, is to celebrate, as a gift beyond full understanding, the fact that one is being forgiven. Contrition is a sweet glorification of the new relationship for which the Samaritan stands, a relationship which is free, and therefore vulnerable and fragile, but always capable of healing, just as nature was then conceived as always in the process of healing.�
Illich, I., & Cayley, D. (2005). The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich as told to David Cayley. (pp. 53-54). Toronto: Anansi.
So... Thoughts? Am I crazy, or might we need to reconsider how we treat this time gap argument? Perhaps shifting it from a ‘they couldn’t possibly understand our reality’ point of view to ‘we couldn’t possibly understand theirs’?
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