Responding to Keller
Following Tim Keller's broad-brush review of Matthew Vines and Ken Wilson, it is probably no surprise that both have responded to his comments, Vines here and Wilson here. I hadn't planned on continuing this word—except that I recollect the responses illustrate some important things about the nature of the debate that is going on. At starting time sight, both responses await laudable, in that they both offer a gracious tone (in response to Keller'due south), and offer detailed engagement. But in fact I recall there is a different dynamic at work, and one which had led us to something of a deadlocked position.
The commencement thing to note is the (understandable) fashion that the argue generates words. Keller's piece was 2,800 words; Vines' and Wilson's responses are 3,200 and 2,600 respectively. And I've added another 1,400—that's nearly a Grove booklet on ane conversation! Apart from exhausting anyone who is not absolutely committed to the discussion, information technology raises an important question: is it non possible to express the issues in a more concise way? This isn't an invitation to 'impaired downwards' the debate, but all these words tin can mean the existent issues are obscured. We are losing sight of the wood for the sake of look at each of the trees.
Vines gives almost infinite to the consequence of historical context, and what information technology was that Paul was prohibiting in Romans i and 1 Cor half dozen.9. Vines corrects Keller on the shape of his statement, which is more than nuanced than Keller has given him credit for. His position is that Paul is arguing against 'backlog' rather than exploitation, based on his reading of Romans ane and his belief that this was the dominant view in antiquity.
I argue instead that "same-sex relations in the first century…were widely understood to be the product of excessive sexual want in general" (103-04), and I adduce dozens of texts throughout my book to back up this assertion.
Simply in fact the shape of his argument remains the same: because Paul was not criticising the phenomenon we know, and so his critique has no purchase on our situation. This is highlighted in Vines' citing of Kirk Ormand:
"None of the so-called orientations described previously are exactly similar ours, and more important, none of them would be considered normal past Plato'due south Athenian audience…"
This statement rests on iii assumptions, andall three must hold for Vines' case to stand. The first is that we can say, with certainty, that there was no equivalent to stable, life-long same-sexual practice relations in the aboriginal earth; as Ormand goes on (in relation to Plato):
"The category of homosexual male person, in which two men of the same age would exist attracted to each other, and either at whatsoever given time could be thought of equally lover or beloved, simply seems not to be thinkable."
This sits oddly with the claim that aforementioned-sex allure of the kind nosotros are aware of is a human universal beyond history and culture, if only we know where to wait.
The second assumption, which is more implicit than explicit, is that if Paul (along with Jesus) had known of such relations, then he would have withdrawn his condemnation of same-sexual practice sexual relations. Apart from beingness historically implausible, this appears to ignore the nature of the texts nosotros are looking at. There can exist little uncertainty that there was a variety of views of same-sex relations in the ancient world, being seen past some equally repugnant, only by others equally adequate. What is striking about the NT texts is that they are negativewithout any qualification.This feature is consistently noticed by all commentators of every persuasion. Vines argues (unpersuasively) that 'excess' is Paul's theme in Romans ane; but is not present in one Cor 6.nine, and forms no office of the texts in Genesis or Leviticus that Paul is alluding to. (I had a brief exchange with Vines on Twitter about this, but he did not reply to this question—and I don't know how to interpret this.)
The tertiary, even more deeply hidden, assumption, is that modern notions of sexual orientation change everything. This is evident in the first Ormand quotation: 'None of the then-called orientations described previously are [sic] exactly similar ours…' but it is a recurring theme. Andre du Toit comments that
any ancient sensation of what moderns phone call same-sexual activity orientation was "so rudimentary that a sympathetic insight into its seriousness and complicated nature would non have been role of the conceptual framework fifty-fifty of the well-informed" (324, north. 129).
Bernadette Brooten's assay is dismissed because
Marking D. Smith concludes that "none" of Brooten'southward sources "adequately parallels the modern concept of sexual orientation" (quoted by Loader, p. 324, n. 129).
This focus goes beyond a simple ascertainment that the social dynamics and understanding of aforementioned-sexual activity relations has changed over the centuries. Vines appears to be claiming that ourprimal understanding of what information technology ways to be human has changed with our understanding of sexuality.
I practice argue that what we today call sexual orientation is core to who we are as human being beings made in God's image, but sexual orientation is a far broader category than "sexual desires," a distinction that Keller elides.
This highlights what is at pale here; do we (in consequence) need to re-write the Genesis narratives, and so that information technology is non just male and female which are fundamental categories, but too 'straight' and 'gay'? That is (I think) why Vines' organisation is called 'The Reformation Project.' This view of sexual orientation is as primal to the renewal of the church, and the discovery of the kingdom of God, as was the rediscovery of the grace of God in the atoning death of Jesus. (I call back this is also the issue at stake in civilisation; our gimmicky understanding of sexuality does hateful re-writingeverything we take inherited in culture.) To this extent, Vines is pursuing a 'reader response' approach to Scripture, and operating a kind of liberation theology for gay Christians, parallel to philosophical feminism. Where, in (radical) feminism, the experience of women is taken as prior, and everything must exist interpreted in the light of that, for Vines the experience of gay Christians (and probably non-Christians?) is prior, and the Bible must exist read in light of the extent to which it true-blue describes (or fails to describe) their experience.
On the other points, Vines is articulate that Keller has misrepresented him.
In the side by side department, Keller misrepresents my argument most the Leviticus prohibitions. He writes, "Vines argues that while the Levitical lawmaking forbids homosexuality (Leviticus eighteen:22) it also forbids eating shellfish (Leviticus 11:9-12)."
I went back and re-read Vines chapter on Leviticus, and in fact this is an of import part of his argument:
Deuteronomy 14.3–21 contains an extensive list of abominations, including the eating of pork, rabbit, shellfish and animals that are already expressionless. So whileabomination is a negative word, it does;t necessarily stand for to Christian views of sin.
I am sure that there are better, detailed critiques of Vines than Keller has offered. Merely I recall Keller still does something valuable in looking at the bigger pic. And it is this bigger picture which is so easily lost in the detailed exchanges.
I ought also to add that this particular part of the fence does not address the pressing pastoral issues which are at stake here. Over again, Vines criticises Keller for non attending to this sufficiently. Ken Wilson'southward view is worth comparison here. Where Vines passes over Keller's opening point most discrimination, Wilson picks up on it, and agrees, yep, in the by he was a bigot.
My own acceptance of the exclusionary polices aimed at gay people, policies which I implemented as a pastor for decades, was fueled in function by this bigotry. And I don't think I'm alone in this or unusual…Equally someone of Keller'southward historic period, I was raised in a culture of rank and largely unquestioned bigotry. I recollect this afflicted me insidiously… Keller'due south acknowledgement of discrimination is something we should all sit with for a while. How does i separate such pervasive discrimination from the interpretations of Scripture that are forged inside this context?
This comes quite shut to Steve Chalke's view (expressed to me in conversation) that whatsoever traditional understanding of marriage must be 'hateful to gay people.' Information technology seems to me that the detailed, relatively fruitless to-and-fro on the texts does not help with addressing this issue. The texts arerelativelyclear. The next question is, are they plausible, and what does obedience to them look like in responsible pastoral practice?
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