Scripture and Culture
5 THE BIBLE AND BEHAVIOUR
Christian Morality Today
How is a Christian supposed to get guidance from the Bible about the perplexing or agonising problems of daily life, personal and social? It is not an easy question to answer, for the sixty-six books of the Scriptures were written in a world very different from the one we see when we open the front door or look at the news on TV - and the moral instruction which they give, although plentiful, is very varied and often seems to be inclined to be either disturbingly ideal (rather than practical) or else disturbingly primitive (rather than modem). The answers supplied by countless church leaders, preachers, priests, theologians and lay people such as parents and teachers have often seemed unsatisfactory to the Christian who, often in an emergency and under confusing pressures, has to decide whether or not 'to do if. But the answers given by John Stott are among the best that I know. He was chairman of the drafting committee which produced the report of the 1982 international consultation of Evangelical leaders on Evangelism and Social Responsibility. In it I read this key sentence: 'Because mankind is made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, colour, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he should be respected and served, not exploited' (ESR, p. 17). And he has summed up his own mature teaching on social and moral questions in two recent books.
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, first published in 1978, has already had many editions. Originally it was called Christian Counter-Culture because it arose out of a great desire to present the teaching of Jesus to those seeking an 'alternative society' - a search which Theodore Roszak described in his book of 1969, The Making of a Counter-Culture. Particularly Dr Stott had in mind students who were anti-war ('make love not war'), 'repudiating the greedy affluence of the West which seems to grow ever fatter either by the spoliation of the natural environment or by the exploitation of developing nations or by both at once'. He wanted to present a Christian alternative and he did so with such authority that his book survived with a new title when the talk of a 'counter-culture' had died down.
In Issues Facing Christians Today, first published in 1984, he achieved another success by exploring at some depth the issues which would not go away. These were not only the global issues which had preoccupied the would-be makers of a counter-culture - the nuclear threat, the environment, North-South economic inequality, human rights, employment, industrial relations, apartheid and other forms of racial prejudice, and the liberation of women. The book also dealt with moral questions which the radical protesters of the 1960s had tended to brush aside - divorce, abortion, homosexual relationships. And it carefully considered issues which trouble those who seriously try to form a 'Christian mind' about social and moral questions - but which to that minority certainly are troublesome. Many earnest Christians have been 'solafideists', believing that faith not behaviour is essential to salvation, or they have belonged to various 'holiness' movements whether Catholic or Protestant, believing that the individual's behaviour ought to be a perfect imitation of Christ but that politics is too dirty to be touched. Or they have committed themselves wholeheartedly to one or other political crusade that turned out to be mistaken in one way or another. So successive chapters in Dr Stott's survey asked: Is it our concern, can we think straight amid the complexity, should we try to impose our views, do we have any influence, what is needed for Christian leadership? The book was a powerful plea for a specifically Christian involvement and the title of its American edition was Involvement.
These two books by John Stott are full of wisdom. Whether they study the text of Matthew's gospel or the facts of a social problem belonging to a world very different from Matthew's, the study is always done in enough detail to feed the mind but also with enough clarity to enlighten it. Always Christians are urged to be 'salt' in the world. They are warned against reducing the gospel and abandoning the identity of the followers of Jesus: their message must not be the mere endorsement of some fashionable contemporary ideas. But they are also warned against the temptation to be 'pure' by being detached from contemporary perplexities and agonies: salt, light and yeast work by being used. Although the authority with which John Stott writes seems effortless, in fact his decisiveness must have been achieved by great intellectual labour including not only research but also the work of thinking things through to the point of clarity. And as I stressed in my first chapter, his own willingness to be publicly involved in these complicated and contentious discussions represents a courageous departure from the pietistic atmosphere of the student group to which he belonged in the 1940s. At many points it also differs bravely from the political and moral positions characteristic of American fundamentalism, still vocal and powerful in the 1980s.
There would be no point in my attempting to follow him in every step of his journey through a large minefield of problems. Here it will be enough to offer a few comments on the points he makes and on the reasons for which he makes them.
It does not worry me to think that the Sermon on the Mount as we have it - which would have taken no more than ten minutes to preach - has been edited quite substantially by Matthew or the community behind him. Jesus is said to have given instructions about 'when you fast' at 6:16 although later in the gospel, at 9:14, we are told that in his lifetime the disciples of Jesus did not fast. It is no accident that within the gospels the Greek word ekklesia, in English 'church', occurs only twice, at Matthew 16:18 and 18:17. The latter instance seems a clear example of an instruction which is unlikely to have come from the historical Jesus: 'if your brother sins against you. . . tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector'. So I am sure that the Sermon on the Mount as we have it is an edited document.
I welcome the far more important point that it presents with unforgettable force teaching which is characteristic of the Teacher. This teaching combines depth and simplicity. It fascinates because it challenges us to be content with nothing short of the divine perfection, yet its feet are on the ground of village life in Galilee, where people are as prone to be angry, vindictive, lustful, dishonest, hypocritical, materialistic, arrogant, unforgiving, anxious, gullible, and so forth, as humanity normally is. This sermon gives us 'impossible possibilities', as Reinhold Niebuhr quipped. And its force is not lost in John Stott's exposition, which could only have been done by a Christian who is both holy in himself and pastorally experienced in the difficulties of sinners. It is an exposition which brings before us the essence of what Jesus commands about a distinctive righteousness and piety, and about new attitudes to material needs and to other people. 'That is to say,' John Stott stuns up, 'our supreme ambition must be the glory of God' (CCC, P· 25).
Rightly he corrects those who are so superficial in their praise of this sermon that one wonders whether they have read it. The sermon is not meant to encourage easy optimism about the human capacity to be good in a conventional style. On the contrary, the person who really hears its challenges will be tempted to a hopeless despair. So the sermon is addressed not to the crowds who have come to see Jesus heal the sick but to 'his disciples' (Matthew 5:1). It is 'on the mount' because it is high above the heads of the crowds. 'Jesus spoke the sermon to those who were already . . .the citizens of God's kingdom and the children of God's family/ John Stott explains.
The high standards he set are appropriate only to such. We do not, indeed we could not, achieve this privileged status by attaining Christ's standards. Rather by attaining Christ's standards, or at least approximating to them, we give evidence of what by God's free grace and gift we already are. (CCC, p. 29)
Many sermons are unhelpful because they hold aloof from the journey which is necessary if the Christian is to move from the Sermon on the Mount to everyday problems. As a preacher, I do not find this surprising. We who stand in the pulpit are often immobilised by our sense of inadequacy as we contemplate humanity's distresses. There is a bewildering and terrifying descent from the mountain peak and its visions to the valley, desert or abyss in which the crowds are trapped. No doubt that has always been the case but the descent is particularly frightening in an age well characterised by two words prominent in Dr Stott's books - disillusionment and complexity.
That is what makes so much that is said in Issues Facing Christians Today so helpful. Having spoken out of his own tradition by reminding us of the great Evangelical heritage of social concern, and having confessed honestly that Evangelicals retracted from that involvement ('the great reversal'), Dr Stott does more than lament the decline. He provides answers to social and moral problems which do far more than merely repeat pleas for involvement - pleas which have come from many publications and conferences. He clearly urges not only 'social service' (relieving human need) but what a conference over which he presided called 'social action' (removing the causes of human need). God's children must care about God's whole creation and supremely about these 'human but godlike' creatures whose evil passions have caused most of the trouble. Obedient faith must be shown in active love and practical action must be guided by informed thought. 'What is needed', John Stott writes,
is more conscientious group study in which (1) we learn to pray together, (2) we listen attentively to each other's positions, and to the deep concerns which lie behind them, and (3) we help each other to discern the cultural prejudices which make us reluctant and even unable to open our minds to alternative viewpoints. This kind of discipline is painful, but Christian integrity demands it. As a result, we shall refuse to acquiesce in superficial polarizations, for the truth is always more subtle and sophisticated than that. (IFCT, p. 34)
The agreements that emerge out of such Christian thought should not be imposed on others, but it is rightly hoped that they will have influence as they are contributed to the public welfare.
Most of the policies which Dr Stott suggests as the result of his own research, reflection and discussion seem to me to deserve influence. Indeed, although they will not be accepted by everyone they seem almost always wise. Having stated the nuclear threat, he totally condemns the use of nuclear weapons but very reluctantly accepts the need to keep some of them temporarily in order to deter aggression by uncertainty until disarmament can be negotiated. That may well be less dangerous than a total renunciation by one side unilaterally. Having outlined the threats to the environment through population growth, resource depletion, industrial pollution and runaway technology's hunger for fuel, he advocates practical steps. 'We learn to think ecologically. We repent of extravagance, pollution and wanton destruction. We recognise that man finds it easier to subdue the earth than he does to subdue himself' (IFCT, pp. 119-20). Having repeated the Brandt Commission's analysis of the global North-South divide and its dangers, and having also accepted that the commission was too hesitant to criticise some cultures of the South which keep their peoples in poverty by discouraging development, he emphatically supports the principle of global economic co-operation while saying that he lacks the expertise to comment on detailed proposals. Having lamented the violations of human rights in so many countries, he urges that we should keep ourselves informed and take what action we can - for here, too, we are responsible; 'we are our brother's keeper7. Having argued that work is intended for the fulfilment of the worker, he protests vigorously against the acceptance of widespread unemployment and against the lack of participation in decision-making at work. Similarly he protests against the racism or 'cultural imperialism' which denies mankind's essential unity in diversity. He ends this section by pleading for a simple lifestyle and a growing generosity as two signs of protest against the division of humanity into gross affluence and dehumanising poverty.
In his guidance on sexual issues, he welcomes much in the rise of feminism but rightly ponders the obvious truth that 'although men and women are equal they are not the same'. The traditional 'headship' of the husband is interpreted as being 'more of care than of control, more of responsibility than of authority7. Divorce for serious sexual immorality, or on the desertion of an unbelieving partner, is permissible and in those two cases (only) a Christian is 'not bound' to remain unmarried; but all divorce is contrary to God's purpose, which is the permanence of marriage. All abortions are contrary to the norm of the inviolability of the foetus and 'human life ought not to be taken except in cases of urgent necessity' which must be specifically and rigorously argued. The risk, however substantial, of a handicap, however severe, is not enough to justify the foetus that will become a child being killed in the womb. Dr Stott agrees with a fellow-Evangelical that 'the destruction of the unborn on this massive, deliberate scale is the greatest single offence regularly perpetrated in Britain today' - and could have noted that the position is far worse in some other countries (women in the Soviet Union have, on average, more than six abortions). He concludes with a condemnation of all relationships which involve homosexual practices, combined with a plea for the loving support of homosexuals who courageously practise self-restraint.
It would not be very interesting to any reader if I were to explain at length why I disagree with a few of these judgements on pragmatic grounds. There may be more profit in a discussion of the biblical basis which Dr Stott offers for all his policies. Inevitably my criticism of his use of the Bible is sharpened when I do not like its practical consequences, but I want to attempt a fairminded analysis of his method of arguing even when I welcome the result of the argument. I ask three questions.
The Old Testament's Relevance
My first is whether his appeals to the authority of the Old Testament are entirely convincing. On the one hand, it is admirable that he discerns in the Hebrew Scriptures some principles which are permanently valid. He expounds a biblical basis for social concern in general. God is the God of nature as well as religion, the God of creation as well as of the covenant, the God of social justice as well as of personal justification - and man is a 'body-soul in community'', endowed with conscience to discern between alternatives and freedom to choose between them. These are all great Old Testament themes and they are all, I believe, profoundly true and important. And other Old Testament principles are expounded rightly by being related to specific issues of our own period. Thus the horror over the shedding of innocent blood is related to nuclear weapons and abortions. The truths that God gave man 'dominion' over nature but that it must be a co-operative, responsible and laborious control are related to the practical problems of conserving natural resources and obtaining full employment. The truth that the human race was created to be a single people on a single planet is contrasted with the injustices of North-South inequality and with racial discrimination. The true dignity of human beings, created by God 'male and female' and 'in his own image', is contrasted with the denial of human rights, the exclusion from decision-making and the oppression of women. The Creator's blessing on heterosexuality, permanent marriage and loving companionship is contrasted with the contemporary realities of easy divorce and the 'gay' lifestyle.
On the other hand, Dr Stott's style of citing Scripture reduces the value of these appeals to permanent principles by sometimes appearing to depend on a naive understanding of stories which are in fact mythological. In the society to which Issues Facing Christians Today is addressed, Adam, Eve and the snake are usually treated as comic characters. It therefore lessens the seriousness of Dr Stott's account of the human tragedy when he claims that 'all our human alienation, disorientation and sense of meaninglessness stem ultimately' from the fact that Adam and Eve 'listened to Satan's lies, instead of to God's truth' (IFCT, p.34). The creation of Adam from dust, and of Eve from one of Adam's ribs, is also often treated humorously. It therefore reduces the impact of Dr Stott's accounts of man's place in nature, and of the equality of male and female, when he quotes the first two chapters of Genesis without a word about evolution (IFCT, pp. 111-12, 242-3). And the serious assertion of the unity of mankind, amid tensions caused partly by population growth, is not strengthened when he writes too simply: 'God said, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it"' (IFCT, p. 128).
Sometimes Dr Stott seems to be reluctant to admit that some of the moral teaching given in the Old Testament falls far below the heights to which he rightly directs our attention. In the Old Testament
the Lord said to Moses, Take vengeance on the Midianites' . . . Moses was angry with the officers of the army . . . who returned from the battle.
'Have you allowed all the women to live?' he asked them. They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord ... so that a plague struck the Lord's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.' (Numbers 31:1-18)
Dr Stott only glances at the fact that genocide is repeatedly urged in the Old Testament as God's will in the punishment of the Canaanites. The Canaanites, like the Midianites, are said to have been especially wicked, but it is hard to feel that this justifies the idea that God wanted a whole people to be massacred. It gives the wrong answer to the question which Abraham asks on one of the moral peaks of the Old Testament, before he suggests that there may be ten righteous people in Sodom and therefore the city does not deserve to be destroyed: 'Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?' (Genesis 18:25). And it ignores the vision of God's compassion conveyed in the lovely story of Jonah, where the city of Nineveh, which God refuses to destroy, includes more than 120,000 innocents and many cattle (4:11). Still less does humanity's wickedness at an earlier stage seem to merit being drowned by the flood, apart from the few refugees in Noah's ark, together with all but a small fraction of the animal kingdom. And the Hebrew penal code, although humane in comparison with many contemporary codes, does not strike the modem conscience as being wholly civilised. To see this one has only to reckon how many offences incur the death penalty. Not everything in the Old Testament is morally speaking the permanent word of God.
Jesus the Legislator?
My second question is whether Dr Stott is entirely convincing when he quotes the teaching of Jesus as if it were a religious law. On the one hand, he is very impressive when he appeals to the authority of Jesus in advocating the defence and service of the poor. As he reminds us, Jesus himself taught that 'our attitude to him will be revealed in, and so judged by, our good works of love to the least of his brothers and sisters' (IFCT, p. 23). He is equally impressive when he quotes Jesus on other issues - for example, when he repeats that husband and wife should be 'one flesh'.
On the other hand, he seems not to take full account of the fact that the moral teaching of Jesus was often clothed in deliberate exaggeration (hyperbole is the technical term) in order to provoke a repentance, an aspiration, a resolve and a whole life which would be more than conventionally righteous. An example is the challenge to 'hate' parents, wife, children, brothers, sisters and even one's own life as the cost of discipleship (Luke 14:26). Experts have reconstructed the teaching in the styles and the very language which were original, Palestinian and Aramaic-the kind of work which Joachim Jeremias brought to a climax in his treatment of The Proclamation of Jesus which formed the first volume of his New Testament Theology (in English, 1971). Jeremias understood Jesus's teaching as nothing less than 'the call of God'. I find it curious that not all scholars whose tendency is conservative see the real differences between this call and other voices heard in Palestine at that time. It is, for example, very curious that Dr Stott gets the contrast between Jesus and the Pharisees wrong. He claims that the Pharisees 'made the law's demands less demanding and the law's permissions more permissive' (CCC, p. 79) although their very name almost certainly means 'the Separated'. Elsewhere, as I have already noted, he alleges that the Pharisees 'thought an external comformity to the law would be righteousness enough' (CMMW, p. 75) - which scarcely suggests permissiveness. In the gospels Jesus repeatedly attacks them for a harshly inhumane legalism and Paul's letters (for example Philippians 3:5-6) record the memory that while a Pharisee he had kept the Jewish religious law zealously. And the truth about the Pharisees, as it has emerged from modem scholarly debate, seems to be that they were groups of laymen so devout that they felt themselves obliged to live at the standard of ritual purity normally expected only of priests on duty in the temple.
There is a tendency in Dr Stott's exposition to suggest that Jesus, too, was a legislator, different from the Pharisees in that he was less 'permissive'. Thus the saying of Jesus that 'whoever says, ''You fool!" will be in danger of the fire of hell' is treated as if it implied that God is a judge unable to discriminate between minor and major crimes, since 'angry thoughts and insulting words are tantamount to murder in God's sight' (CCC, p. 85). In his Basic Christianity (BC1, pp. 65-9) Dr Stott expounds the ten commandments of the Old Testament in the light of the teaching of Jesus. Much of this exposition would be accepted by most Christians. But he states, as if it were a law made by Jesus, that 'every loss of temper, every outburst of uncontrolled passion, every stirring of sullen rage, every bitter resentment and thirsting for revenge - all these things are mturder'. He claims that the seventh commandment 'has a far wider application than just to unfaithfulness in marriage. It includes any sort of sex outside the marriage relationship for which it was designed. It includes flirting, experimenting, and solitary sexual experience'. Such teaching surely does not reflect the real intention of Jesus. The purpose was not to blur the distinction between anger and murder, or masturbation and adultery. It was by the use of hyperbole to challenge the disciples to T»e perfect... as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). One of the differences between Jesus and the Pharisees was that Jesus was not a legislator but a poet.
Here is, I suggest, a failure to see that Jesus taught by stating a vision not a law, and by exaggerating rather than modifying the practical consequences of that vision. And this failure seems to lead Dr Stott into some interpretations of the teaching which are probably wrong - although these interpretations do not come down on the side of the rigorists.
In both the books we have been considering he insists that the version of the teaching on divorce given twice by Matthew (5:31-32; 19:1-9) is authentic and that therefore divorce after sexual immorality is permitted to the Christian. But most scholars take the more probable view that this 'Matthean exception' to the general condemnation of divorce derives from Matthew or the community behind him, not from Jesus, who is elsewhere reported to have made no such exception (1 Corinthians 7:10-11; Mark 10:11; Luke 16:18). If Jesus taught what Matthew says, it is hard to understand why his disciples exclaimed: 'If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry' (Matthew 19:10). He would have done no more than to repeat the interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 already given by the stricter rabbis such as the famous Shammai. The declaration that all divorce is against God's will was evidently remembered widely as one of the most surprising things in the teaching of Jesus. Many scholars believe that Matthew took one of his passages about this problem from the collection of sayings called Q (Luke has a parallel passage) and the other from Mark's gospel, before amending them to reflect the teaching given in his own community.
However, it does not necessarily follow that Jesus intended his own absolutely simple vision of permanent marriage to be legislation. Paul evidently thought not, for he makes the exception about desertion by an unbelieving spouse. And the two contexts of the teaching in Matthew's gospel do not suggest that legislation is being enacted. In the Sermon on the Mount the teaching is given after a passage of hyperbole about lust: 'If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away... If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away . . .' (5:29-30). In the second passage the teaching about divorce is admitted to be hard and therefore acceptable only to those 'to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were bom that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it' (19:11-12). Such talk about the people who accept the total condemnation of divorce as being sexless ('eunuchs') sounds like another example of hyperbole. The probability seems to be that the Matthean community, like Paul, had found it pastorally essential not to treat the vision of Jesus as a legal prohibition of all divorces. Some Christians after some tragedies, which certainly were not what God willed, should be allowed second marriages, for 'a believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace' (1 Corinthians 7:15).
At times Dr Stott does see that Jesus used hyperbole, getting a message across by what everyone knows to be exaggeration rather than by an attempt to be precisely accurate. Thus he does not interpret 'do not judge' (7:1) as the prohibition of all moral judgements or 'ask and it will be given to you' (7:7) as a promise that all petitions to God will be granted, and when he considers the agonising moral problems posed by nuclear weapons he does not treat the Sermon on the Mount as legislation. I happen to agree with his views on nuclear weapons (as well as with his views on divorce). I also agree with his non-pacifist insistence that the state has a role - employing the minimum necessary force, or the threat of it, where necessary for the sake of justice - which is different from the duty of a private individual. But as pacifists healthily remind all Christians, there remains an enormous contrast between the Sermon on the Mount and the possession of nuclear weapons; for the possession would be pointless if it did not imply some threat of use. This contrast between the world of the cross and the world of the Bomb is a special challenge to Christians in government or the armed forces who control nuclear weapons. They cannot plead that they leave religion and morality behind at the door when they enlist in the service of the state. That plea did not save Nazi war criminals - a fact which ought to have made Dr Stott pause longer before praising the theory of an earlier German, Martin Luther, that there are two realms, the kingdom of Christ and the realm of the emperor. The solution which argues that 'the duties and factions of the state are quite different from those of the individual' (CCC, p. Ill) is not a perfect solution, for individuals consent to serve as officers of the state. We have also to remember that in a democracy individual voters accept some responsibility for the defence policy of a country. If wrong, they incur some guilt. I mention such familiar problems in order to make the point that the moral dilemmas associated with the possession of nuclear weapons would be totally intolerable if Jesus had been legislating either for states or for individuals when he taught: 'Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also . . (Matthew 5:39).
One of the many merits of Issues Facing Christians Today is that it treats with equal seriousness the question of nuclear weapons and the question of abortion. It is not always that these two large-scale contemporary insults to the sanctity of human life are considered together. Dr Stott states with the right passion an absolute rejection of the extreme 'liberal· position on abortion: 'we reject as totally false and utterly abhorrent the notion that the foetus is merely a lump of jelly or blob of tissue, or a growth in the mother's womb, which may therefore be extracted and destroyed like teeth, tumours or tonsils' (IFCT, p. 284). But his own position is (I think, sensibly) not completely absolutist. It would disappoint many Catholic or Evangelical 'prolife' campaigners in the USA and elsewhere. 'Is abortion, then, never justified?' he asks. 'To answer this question in a way that is both faithful and realistic theologians and doctors need each other' - for, he says, 'the most exceptional cases' do exist (IFCT, pp. 294-5). And of course some of the doctors and nurses who may rightly perform abortions in these rare cases are Christians.
The Bible and the Cultures
My third question is whether it is right to take as authoritative teaching in the Bible which, as I read it, reflects the surrounding society and its culture. Such teaching, I believe, ought not to be decisive in the discussion of modem problems.
In the nineteenth century it was extremely important to establish that the Bible's consistent acceptance of slavery reflected the surrounding culture and did not reveal the will of God. William Wilberforce and other Evangelical campaigners against the slave trade, and the later Evangelical crusaders against slavery in the USA, had to face and overcome much argumentation which defended that iniquitous institution as 'biblical'. I ask whether one lesson to be learned from that controversy is not this: whether we like it or not, the Bible often is culture-bound. Behind this question is my inability to accept the tendency of the 1982 report on Evangelism and Social Responsibility to see faults in us but never in the Bible. 'It is not that God's Word is unclear in itself,' this report assures us, 'nor that its meaning is captive to any culture. The problem lies rather within our minds as we read. The assumptions we bring with us, which are often insufficiently examined and converted in the light of God's Word, distort our understanding of it' (ESR, p. 10). I do not wish to repeat my discussion of the authority of the Scriptures, but that statement seems to me true only if 'God's Word' is understood as what the Bible taken as a whole affirms - which may be only loosely connected with, or may contradict, the natural, original meaning of a particular passage in the Bible. If 'God's Word' means the Bible, then I have to say that it is sometimes unclear and sometimes culture-bound. Indeed, the 1982 report appears to admit this. 'When the teaching of Scripture seems unclear, and human reason has to seek to develop a position out of biblical principles, then the Church should make a pronouncement only after thorough study and consultation' (ESR, p. 52).
The question about a culture-bound Bible is, of course, raised whenever the Bible is quoted in the debate about nuclear weapons. The idea that a state governed by Christians would possess a weapon capable of destroying a whole city if a button was pressed, and would threaten the possible use of it if only to deter aggression by creating uncertainty, was inconceivable in an age when the most powerful weapon was the sword. The question must also, I believe, be asked whenever the Bible is quoted in the debate about Christian responses to the situation created by modem attitudes to marriage and divorce. So I return to that subject.
In modem societies marriage is a relationship between equal partners who are lovers. It does not need the consent of parents except in the rare cases where the lovers are not adults. It does need registration by the state. It may be dissolved by the state if the relationship has broken down in the eyes of either partner. If a woman and a man have intercourse before or after an engagement to marry (which is not legally binding), but before marriage, most people do not disapprove. In fact many people think it is a good idea because if the emotional relationship is made legal before it has been thoroughly tested it may end in the tragedy and trauma of divorce. In a society which contains many citizens who do not guide their lives by Christian convictions, it is generally held (by Christians among others) that the state is right to legislate on the basis of this widely accepted understanding of the partnership between the sexes. But the attitude of society to marriage in biblical times was almost entirely different. It was customary for almost everyone to be married and the plight of widows and orphans was so pitiful that the married were often exhorted to be charitable towards such unfortunates. The prostitutes' profession seems to have been recruited from widows and divorced women who could not find hus-bainds. It was, it seems, assumed that after divorce a woman would remarry if she found a man. When a woman without children lost her husband by death she was thought to be lucky if her brother-in-law would agree to do his duty by marrying her, and it was not impossible to imagine that in this way seven brothers might marry the same woman (Mark 12:18-23). The custom was for a girl to be betrothed by the gift of a bride-price of her father. This occurred after puberty, often between the ages of twelve and thirteen but sometimes as late as seventeen. The man betrothed to her, but no other man, might then have intercourse with her. A girl not found to be a virgin on betrothal was to be stoned to death according to the Law of Moses, as was any adulteress or any man committing adultery with another man's wife (Deuteronomy22:13-22;
Ezekiel 23:43-47; John 8:1-5). The betrothal usually lasted for a year but it might be longer. Then the woman was taken to the groom's house amid the many festivities of the 'wedding feast'. These customs make it clear that although affection and love may become normal between the partners, the arrangement is made between the man and the girl's parents. The state is not involved in it. It is made partly because of the man's needs for sex and companionship, partly because of society's needs for many children, some of whom will survive infancy, and partly because the woman is needed to work in the house and the fields. All this is implied when we are told in the Adam and Eve story that 'it is not good for the man to be alone', so that he needs a suitable 'helper' (Genesis 2:18). The only question about divorce was in what circumstances, if any, the husband might end this relationship with the approval of those around him and without consulting any officer of the state. Although Mark's gospel has been edited so as to reflect the Roman law by considering the possibility that a woman might divorce her husband (10:12), such a possibility was very rare among the Jews. In the Jewish tradition the subordination of the wife to the husband was such that polygamy was never censured when practised by patriarchs such as Abraham and heroes such as David and Solomon -and disappeared only slowly and without any great moral protest that is on record. It is also significant that the Greek word for sexual love, eros, does not occur in the New Testament.
The teaching of Jesus was addressed to this situation in which marriage was a male-dominated, sexual, procreative and economic relationship which might or might not be supported by love but which was not registered by the state. And Jesus and his followers seem to have accepted this practical basis of marriage although they gave the relationship a new spiritual depth and therefore permanence. The first letter of Peter (3:7) typically instructs husbands to treat their wives' with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers'. Paul's letters show that he, too, assumed that the wife was 'weaker'. In the letter to the Ephesians (CCC, pp. 22-32) 'wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord' comes before 'husbands, love your wives'. An acceptance up to a point of the ancient understanding of marriage is also the impression left by the evidence about Jesus. Although he taught that according to the will of the Creator 'a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' (Mark 10:7-8), he is not on record as saying that any of the men whom he told to 'sell all' and 'follow me' must first ask the permission of their wives. And Christian women and men have, like their neighbours, often accepted this understanding of marriage, or something very like it, in the course of history and around the worldwide Church in our own time. But in a society which understands marriage very differently, very few Christians advocate a return to the biblical situation. Here, the cultural context of the Bible is separated from what is held to be its permanently valid 'doctrine of marriage' and the problem about divorce is how to relate this doctrine to the new situation where marriage is essentially love between equals.
I now want to ask other questions about the authority of biblical teachings which reflect the surrounding society and its culture. I want to ask them in relation to two moral problems to which I think Dr Stott gives the wrong answers.
He considers the question: 'What form should women's ministry take in a Church guided by the Bible?' (IFCT, pp. 249-54). Ά strong prima facie biblical case can be made for active female leadership in the Church, including a teaching ministry', he writes, citing the prophetesses of the Old Testament, the reports that Jesus entrusted the good news of his resurrection to women, the gift of the Holy Spirit to women as well as men (Acts 2:17-18), and the many references to women speakers and workers in the rest of the New Testament. But he feels obliged to treat commands to women to be silent in the public assembly as coming from apostles whom Jesus 'chose, appointed and inspired as the infallible teachers of his Church'. Paul's first letter to Corinth is taken as authoritative when it says that 'as in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says' (14:33-34). Dr Stott has to reconcile this passage (which some scholars think is not authentically Pauline, having been added at a later date) with a passage in which Paul does recognise the practice of women talking in the congregation. For Paul tells the Corinthians that 'every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head - it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off (11:5-6). Dr Stott agrees that this is a warning to Christian prophetesses, who do speak in public. His solution to this puzzle is that Paul meant that 'too talkative women should remain silent in the churches'. The first letter to Timothy also has to be respected when it says:
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing - if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. (2:12-15)
Here as elsewhere, Dr Stott suggests that the requirement of silence, like that of head covering, was a 'first-century cultural application' of the requirement of submission, which alone is of 'permanent and universal validity'.
The practical conclusion which he draws after considering these passages is that women may be ordained but not appointed to positions of authority over men. However, I question his logic. None of these passages gives any hint that its teaching is not thought to be of permanent and universal validity. If Paul had meant his instruction to be applicable only to talkative women, or only to Corinthians, he would have said so. But in the churches to which Dr Stott and I mostly address ourselves, women are not expected to remain silent or to cover their heads. I cannot see why in such churches some women should not be appointed to positions where they lead men. If it is never right for a woman to have authority over a man, the whole of a modem society is in rebellion against the revealed will of God. For example, it must be wrong for the United Kingdom to have a woman as its Sovereign and a woman as its Prime Minister (voted for by many Christians). If female 'headship' is right in society as a whole, the only reason why it cannot be right in the Church is that it has not yet been approved by the Pope or a Council of the Church (or so it seems to me). But Dr Stott writes: 'since I do not believe the pastoral ministry to be "priestly" in the "Catholic" sense, that is not my problem'. Yet he hesitates to say that the Church should be a model to society in giving women leadership roles. What is his problem, as I see it, is that he has been misled by treating the story of Adam and Eve as a story from which legislation about women's ministry in the Church can be deduced. To my mind, it would be just as sensible to try to prevent snakes from eating anything except dust. Or we might try to keep pains in childbearing undiminished on the ground that according to Genesis 3:16 they were increased as a punishment for Eve's fault and according to 2 Timothy they are able to 'save' if accepted submissively. The story of Adam and Eve is a myth. Many lessons which are of permanent and universal validity should be drawn from it, but the subjection of women to men should not be based on this myth. It is far better to be guided in church and society by Paul's most profound insight, which is that 'all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus' (Galatians 3:27-28).
In Issues Facing Christians Today (IFCT, pp. 301-2) Dr Stott also considers the problem of homosexual relationships, concluding that 'in the light of the whole biblical revelation we should call homosexually oriented people to abstain from homosexual practices and partnerships'. He quotes and examines the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities which are said to have been entirely destroyed because at least some of their inhabitants had displayed a special wickedness by asking to have homosexual intercourse with two angels (Genesis 13:13; 18:20-21; 19:1-5); the story of Gibeah, where 'some of the wicked men of the dty' demanded to have intercourse with a man on a journey before raping and killing that man's concubine and the dty was massacred and burned down in punishment (Judges 19:22); the punishment of death for breaches of the law 'do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman' (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13); the denundation by Paul of pagans who show that they worship and serve created things rather than the Creator by being filled with perverted homosexual lust and 'every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity' (Romans 1:24-32); the teaching that 'neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ( arsenokoita)nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God' (1 Corinthians 6:10); and the teaching that law is made not for the righteous but for law-breakers . . .; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers for adulterers and perverts ( arsenokoita). . (1 Timothy 1:9-10). But what is the significance of these passages for homosexually oriented people who wish to have stable relationships expressed in physical practices?
Dr Stott's exegesis shows that he has read and thought about the relevance of this material with careful attention to the now extensive scholarly discussion, summarised in (for example) Bishop Peter Coleman's Christian Attitudes to Homosexuality (1980). What the Bible shows (if I may be brief) is that practices such as raping strangers and perverted lust were roundly condemned. But the Greek word arsenokoitai commonly referred to men thought to be by nature heterosexual who were promiscuously active in seeking homosexual intercourse, often with post-pubertal boys and often for money, out of perverted lust; such men 'abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another' (Romans 1:27). Dr Stott rightly says that 'the very notion that two men or two women could fall in love with each other and develop a deeply loving, stable relationship comparable to marriage seriously' never entered the heads of Paul and the Old Testament authors. He accepts that 'we all have a particular sexual orientation'. He quotes, without disagreeing with, the finding of Dr Kinsey that
4% of men (or at least of white American men) are exclusively homosexual throughout their lives, that 10% are for up to three years, and that as many as 37% have some kind of homosexual experience between adolescence and old age. The percentage of homosexual women Kinsey found to be lower, although it rises to 4% between the ages of 20 and 30. (p. 301)
These were figures in the late 1940s, when it was far less safe to admit the same-sex eroticism than it is now, and are usually reckoned to be underestimates. The question for Christians who accept that some people are exclusively homosexual throughout their lives (whether because of their genes or because of early influences on them) is therefore: Is every instance when a man lies 'with a man as one lies with a woman', or every instance of lesbian practice, to be condemned?
Obviously Christians (and almost all others) do not want to see it punished by death as the law in Leviticus laid down. But is it always to be condemned morally even within a deeply loving, stable relationship, because as Dr Stott says it is 'incompatible with God's created order'?
Dr Stott finds it 'disturbing' when it is suggested that the 'Christian rejection of homosexual practices' rests on 'a few isolated and obscure proof texts'; and I am sure that he is right to argue for his own rejection by appealingto what the Bible taken as a whole affirms about God's purposes in creation, rather than texts of doubtful relevance and sometimes of doubtful meaning. But I am equally sure that John Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality,
1980, p. 117) was correct in claiming that 'the New Testament takes no demonstrable position on homosexuality' if 'homosexuality' is understood in a modem sense; and so we must ask again what it is that the Bible would have us say now. The revelation of the creation by modem science, including medical science, must be taken into conscientious and prayerful consideration by a modem Christian. From that God-given source of truth we learn that for some people to be exclusively homosexual for a lifetime is natural. They were, as is commonly said, 'made that way'. If this is the case, then I believe that the Creator's purpose in making them that way (or in allowing them to be so made by the forces of nature as permitted by him) may be fulfilled in an adult, consenting, discreet, loving, stable partnership, within which some physical expressions of love are likely to be psychologically necessary.
I have reached this conclusion - but not because I believe that such a partnership is a fully satisfactory alternative to marriage. It seems to me inevitable that there will always be strong feelings against the relationship which is wrongly called 'gay marriage', for only the bonding of a man and a woman can produce the children who are vital to society's future and the biological make-up of the bulk of the human race obviously prepares them for procreation, childbearing and child-rearing. Nor do I believe that to be homosexual is to be gay. That minority is for ever excluded from the joys of married life and will always seem strange to the majority, particularly through the fear that children and young people will be 'corrupted' by homosexuals. (Although most homosexuals behave in such a way as to make this fear seem unreasonable, it is inevitable that the fear should be felt since many children are both innocently beautiful and bisexual in their awakening instincts.) Tragically, there seems to me no possible escape from some of the emotional problems of homosexuals, even when society does not reject them. Nor do I believe that the many people whose orientation is bisexual, even if only in adolescence or for a later period in their lives, should be encouraged to think that homosexuality and heterosexuality are equally right for them. If they fall into homosexual habits, perhaps because the prospect of forming a permanent relationship with a woman frightens them, they become the 'perverts' who are criticised in the Bible and by any philosophy which seeks the happiness of humanity. Still less am I advocating any kind of promiscuity, which is similarly condemned by the Bible and by common sense. On the contrary, the Christian acceptance of some loving, stable partnerships between homosexuals - an acceptance which does not speak of such a relationship as 'marriage' and which may apply to no more than two adult men in a hundred, and to one adult woman in every two hundred -is advocated partly in order to reduce the temptation of homosexuals to have more than one partner, incurring great psychological damage in many cases and increasing the risk of appalling diseases such as aids.
I hope it will be clear that the reason why I ask these questions is that I believe that Dr Stott's profoundly Christian and humane approach to social and moral problems would be strengthened, rather than weakened, if he completely renounced the fundamentalists' tendency to treat the Bible as legislation on modem issues.
JOHN STOTT'S RESPONSE TO CHAPTER 5
My dear David,
During the first half of this century, as you well know, Evangelicals (in spite of their forefathers' outstanding record in the nineteenth century, and with some honourable exceptions) temporarily mislaid their social conscience. We, their children and grandchildren, have only begun since the Second World War to recover it. The 1982 'Consultation on the Relationship between Evangelism and Social Responsibility', to which you several times refer, was a landmark for the world-wide Evangelical constituency since, alongside some residual differences, we agreed that Christians should be committed to both evangelism and social action, and suggested some models for their integration. But Evangelicals have fallen so far behind in this area, that we have a lot of catching up to do. Some of us (myself included) are only now taking our first, faltering steps in the unfamiliar field of social ethics. It is partly because of this that there is still a lack of Evangelical consensus on a number of complex issues. But at least we recognise the need for more study and dialogue, so that, avoiding naive and artificial polarisations, we may map out the growing areas of our agreement as well as identifying continuing places of tension and disagreement.
Because of this situation in which we find ourselves, I was particularly grateful for (and encouraged by) your generally positive response to, and complimentary remarks about, both Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount and Issues Facing Christians Today. Thank you! I am glad that you and I have come to adopt similar positions on such topics as the nuclear deterrent, abortion and human rights. For the development of a thought-out stance on these and other questions poses particular problems for those of us who look to the Bible for guidance. We know both that the Bible addresses some issues which do not particularly concern us (like idol meats), while other issues over which we agonise (like abortion) it hardly touches, or not directly. Yet Evangelicals still believe that God intends his word to be 'a lamp to our feet and a light for our path' (Psalm 119:105), and that we need 'to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place' (2 Peter 1:19). I am not surprised, therefore, that the three questions you raise with me all relate to the use of the Bible in ethics.5
The Relevance of the Old Testament
I feel the strength of your criticisms here, and am not sure how to respond to them. But it may help if I relate my comments to three different parts of the Old Testament, namely the first chapters of Genesis, the Law of Moses, and the prophetic and wisdom literature.
The early chapters of Genesis (in God's providence, I believe) lay some large and solid foundations for all Christian social ethics. I have in mind at least the following eight truths.
(1) God's creation is good, and is to be enjoyed by everybody with thanksgiving (Genesis 1:31; cf. 1 Timothy 4:1-5).
(2) God made human beings in his own image and likeness, which includes our distinctive rational, moral, social and spiritual faculties (Genesis 1:26-27).
(3) Human beings are invited to participate in the care of creation, to cultivate the earth and to harness its resources to the common good (Genesis 1:28-29; 2:15).
(4) Men and women share equally both in the divine image and in the earthly dominion (Genesis 1:27).
(5) The climax of the creation was not human work but human worship, together with the hallowing of one day in seven for this purpose (Genesis 2:2-3).
(6) Marriage and sex are the good gifts of a good Creator. Men and women are complementary to each other and need each other for their human fulfilment (Genesis 2:18-25).
(7) Human beings have fallen from their exalted origins, and in consequence all their relationships - to God, to each other and to the good earth - are now skewed (Genesis 3).
(8) But God has not abandoned his beloved creation. He continues to help us in his 'common grace' (Genesis 4:1). He has even planned sacrificially for our salvation, if Genesis 3:15 may still be read (as it has been traditionally) as the protevangelium.
I am sorry that you think my continuing belief in the historicity of Adam and Eve 'lessens the seriousness of my account of the human tragedy', for I could argue the opposite, namely that what really undermines serious discussion about our human predicament is the treating of either the sin of Adam or the salvation of Christ as mythical instead of historical. The reason I did not mention evolution is not that I do not believe in it, at least in the sub-human world. (Being myself an enthusiastic bird-watcher, I have visited two of the earth's living museums of minievolution, and have wondered at the thirteen species of Darwin's finch on the Galapagos Islands and at the endemic family of Hawaiian Honey creepers, for in both cases each species occupies a special ecological niche.) But I am convinced that evolution does not and cannot account for man. The gap between humans and hominids is too wide. So, whatever may be said about our anatomy and physiology being linked to the animal world, the radical discontinuity of our humanness in all its uniqueness as the image of God must be affirmed in terms of creation.
I turn from the early chapters of Genesis to the Law of Moses. It is well known that the Reformers divided the law into three parts - civil, ceremonial and moral (see Article VII Of the Old Testament'). The division is not watertight, and it is being criticised today because of the overlap. Nevertheless the distinction between the three is vital. The ceremonial laws are now obsolete, the dietary laws having been abolished by Jesus and the sacrifices fulfilled in his death. The civil laws are not necessarily appropriate to other nations. Some were humane, and others severe. They seem to have been necessary for the earlier stages of Israel's history, but I agree with you that they are not all of permanent or universal validity. In any case, many fell into desuetude, like stoning for adultery, and Jesus obviously approved of its discontinuance. At the same time, there is a growing Evangelical emphasis on the permanent value (whether in 'principle' or in 'pattern' is being debated) of Mosaic legislation about the land and the family. The moral law, especially as expanded and deepened by Jesus, and as illustrated in the apostolic letters (especially in their positive parallels to the law's prohibitions), is still in force as a revelation of God's will for his people (e.g. Romans 8:4).
You then press me on moral peaks versus troughs, and in particular on the slaughter of the Canaanites. Certainly I believe in progressive revelation and am a New Testament Christian. I agree with Luther who said that, although we read the Bible forwards, we can only understand it backwards. Certainly too, much of the behaviour of Old Testament characters is recorded as a warning rather than an example (e.g. 1 Corinthians 10:6-11). The activities of some of the judges, for instance, even if not specifically condemned in the text, were scandalous, not least Jepthah's reckless oath which led to his appalling deed of sacrificing his own daughter as a burnt offering. That moral standards were abysmally low in those days is hinted at by the repeated refrain that 'Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit' (e.g. Judges 21:25). What, then, about the Canaan-ite genocide? It was a ghastly business; one shrinks from it in horror. Nevertheless, the biblical text plainly attributes it to the specific command of God. What then can be said to justify it? Three things have helped me in my thinking.
First, God's command to dispossess the Canaanites was the necessary corollary to his promise that the Israelites would possess the land of Canaan. The latter could not have taken place without the former. So, if the Canaanites were not dispossessed, God's promise to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants could not have been fulfilled, and the recurring Old Testament themes of election, covenant and promise would be undermined.
Secondly, possession of the land was postponed until 'the sin of the Amorites' had 'reached its full measure' (Genesis 15:16). The Bible views 'their detestable practices', that is, their idolatry, child sacrifice and immorality (including ritual prostitution) with such loathing that it says 'the land vomited out its inhabitants' (Leviticus 18:25). In this the righteous Judge was not guilty of discrimination. He warned Israel that if they violated the covenant, and imitated the vile practices of the nations, they themselves would be destroyed from the good land which he had given them (e.g. Joshua 23:14-16).
Thirdly, it was essential to protect God's people, who were the recipients of his special revelation, though still at a stage of immaturity (Galatians 4:1-11), from being corrupted by heathen idolatry and immorality: 'Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices ... Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods' (Exodus 23:24,32).
Even if this threefold case were granted, however, we must add that the annihilation of the Canaanites was sui generis. It was the only 'holy war7 which God has ever commanded. It can provide no possible justification for war or genocide today (not least because no other nation has been a 'nation-church' or theocracy like Israel); nor, I think, does it justify Israel's later wars, some of which at least were due to their failure to take thorough possession of the land in the first place. And indeed you are right to balance the judgement of the Canaanites with other biblical teaching which reveals God's compassion and mercy to the nations.
I have left myself little room for the prophetic and wisdom literature. Both took the law for granted - the prophets appealing for the faithful observance of its moral and social requirements (e.g. 'To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God' Micah 6:8) and denouncing their neglect, and the wise men reflecting on the application of the law to everyday life. The obligation to secure justice for the powerless (especially the alien, the widow and the orphan) shines brightly from these books, and I have already mentioned Jesus' use of the principle Ί desire mercy not sacrifice' (Hosea 6:6) to teach the paramount importance of persons, even if, in order to serve them, it means breaking the letter of the sabbath law and the convention of avoiding contact with social outcasts (Matthew 9:13; 12:7).
Was Jesus a Legislator?
I begin my response to your second question by agreeing with you about Jesus' use of hyperbole. By no means all his teaching is meant to be read au pied de la lettre. On the contrary, he seems often to have taught by the surprises and shocks caused by overstatement, and by vividly dramatic imagery. Thus the command to gouge out offending eyes, and chop off offending hands and feet, was not an invitation to self-mutilation, as Origen mistakenly supposed. Nor is it conceivable that he who told us to honour our parents should later command us literally to 'hate' them. Similarly, in the same passage, the renunciation of all our possessions as a condition of discipleship must be understood as a radical inward detachment from material things, and not as a summons to give everything away (Luke 14:33).
You chide me for getting wrong 'the contrast between Jesus and the Pharisees'. But I want to plead 'not guilty'. I know the Pharisees were separatists, devout laymen who practised ritual purity. But did Jesus not criticise them because their preoccupation with purity was ceremonial rather than moral (Mark 7:1-13)? And did they not, with the scribes, reduce the law to 613 rules and regulations (248 commands and 365 prohibitions), and then sometimes claim to have kept them all? As for legalistic righteousness, 'faultless' was Paul's own description of himself during his career as a Pharisee (Philippians 3:6). Such a claim would have been impossible unless the Pharisees were referring only to an external conformity. Is that not why Jesus spoke about the heart? By their emphasis on the ritual rather than the moral, and on externals rather than the heart, they were in effect 'making the demands of the law less demanding', although, to be sure, they may not have realised it. We must therefore avoid like the plague any tendency to a Christian 'Pharisaism'. Christian righteousness is 'greater' than Pharisaic righteousness (Matthew 5:20) because it is deeper, a righteousness of the heart. I am sorry, therefore, that in Basic Christianity my exposition of the ten commandments bordered on Pharisaism. I was trying to help the reader grasp that the prohibition of murder also prohibits unrighteous anger, and that the prohibition of adultery includes the positive virtues of sexual self-control and married fidelity. I did not mean to equate anger with murder, and lust with adultery, for obviously they are not equally serious, but rather to highlight Jesus' teaching that it is possible to commit murder and adultery in the heart.
Thus, the call to heart-holiness in the kingdom of God is far more radical than the Pharisees' rules and regulations.
I know that most commentators reject Matthew's 'exceptive clause' about divorce (because it is in neither Mark nor Luke), and attribute it either to Matthew himself or to his community, and not to Jesus. Yet, in spite of the editorial emendations of Mark which Matthew undoubtedly made, I find it hard to believe that he would have deliberately contradicted Mark on so serious a matter; it still seems to me more likely that Mark and Luke omitted the clause because they took it for granted (adultery being punishable by death according to the law), and that Matthew preserved it in order to make sure that his readers had not overlooked it. The disciples' exclamation of dismay could well have been their reaction to Jesus' reminder that divorce was not practised or permitted 'from the beginning', and to his statement that anybody who divorces his wife (except for marital unfaithfulness) and marries another woman actually thereby commits adultery himself. Even if the stricter Rabbi Shammai had already stated this in theory, it was the more liberal policy of Hillel which seems to have controlled Jewish practice at that time.
Your other example relates to pacifism. We are agreed that the state has a responsibility to enforce the law, punish the wrongdoer and promote justice, and may use minimum necessary force in order to do so, whereas the Christian individual is forbidden to use force or take revenge. But you evidently disagree with my semi-support for Luther's notion of 'two kingdoms'. In The Cross of Christ, however, I elaborate this and opt not for 'two entities' (Church and state, i.e. Luther's two kingdoms), nor for 'two spheres' (private and public, which would promote a double standard of morality), but for 'two roles', personal and official. I write: 'Christians are always Christians (in church and state, in public and private), under the same moral authority of Christ, but are given different roles (at home, at work and in the community) which make different actions appropriate' (CoC, p. 303). I agree that 'not resisting evil' and 'turning the other cheek' are not absolute or legislative commands. Their fulfilment is governed by the overriding duty 'love your enemies'. Of course all personal retaliation is still forbidden us, but there maybe times when the way of true love is not to turn the other cheek but to resist the evildoer, lest by not opposing evil we condone and even encourage it.
So I am agreeing with you that Jesus was not a legislator in the sense of laying down rules and sanctions. What he did was to unite the two commandments to love God and neighbour, and to add the golden rule in its positive form (Matthew 7:12), thus making sacrificial love the essence of the ethic of the kingdom. Yet love is not the only absolute; for love needs law to direct it (Romans 13:8-9). Further, we must interpret the moral teaching of Jesus in such a way as to retain the word 'obedience' in our Christian vocabulary. Jesus is recorded as having said 'If you love me, you will obey what I command' (John 14:15,21). Not superficially, but in our heart. Not in slavish conformity to an external code, but in the radical demands of the kingdom. Not with wooden literalism, but with the sensitivity of love. Nevertheless, he does call us to assume his yoke, as the Jews assumed the yoke of Torah, to learn from him as our Teacher and to obey him as our Lord (Matthew 11:29; John 13:13).
Scripture and Culture
I remember reading a remark you made a few years ago in one of your Church Times book reviews. You wrote: Ί admit that a lot in the Bible ... is culturally conditioned and therefore out of date'. I also remember thinking to myself, Ί agree with the first half of that sentence, but not with the second.' That is, all the biblical authors were culture-creatures. This being so, the Bible is not just 'often culture-bound', as you put it, but always so. One of the glories of revelation, and of the dual authorship of Scripture, is that when God wished to communicate with human beings, he condescended to speak to them in their own languages and cultural contexts. We should marvel at his humility, and not resent the problems it causes us. Because the Bible is culturally conditioned, however, having been written within the cultures of the Ancient Near East, Palestinian Judaism and the Graeco-Roman world, must we conclude that it is 'therefore out of date'? I think not. Let me try to clarify two senses in which Scripture has been called 'culture-bound', the one right and the other (I think) wrong.
The first is that Scripture includes references to many cultural practices and social customs which are now obsolete, e.g. foot-washing, greeting one another with a holy kiss, men lifting up holy hands in prayer, and women wearing veils, braiding their hair and (perhaps) keeping silence in church. In these contexts we have to learn the art of 'cultural transposition', identifying and preserving the essence of the teaching, but transposing it into contemporary cultural terms. Thus, we are still to love and serve one another even in menial ways, but, instead of washing feet, we could clean shoes or wash dishes. We can greet one another with a handshake, instead of a holy kiss, and so on. Cultural transposition is appropriate only when there are two levels of discourse - the essential teaching (which is permanent) and its cultural expression (which is transitory).
But the Bible is also said by some to be 'culture-bound' in another sense, namely that its essential doctrinal and ethical teaching is itself only a reflection of the culture within which it was written, and is therefore transient. This is an extremely serious charge. If true, it would mean that we can reject whole portions of Scripture on the ground that 'that is what they thought in those days, but we know better'. This attitude I cannot accept. It seems to me clearly in conflict with the inspiration of Scripture, that is, the process by which God himself spoke through the human authors. It also overlooks the fact that God's people were called to be different from others, not to conform to this world, but to challenge their own culture in the name of Christ.
Did the Old Testament not follow the whole ancient world, however, and condone slavery? This seems to be your position, because you write of 'the Bible's consistent acceptance of slavery7.1 venture to dissent. To permit its continuance (like divorce) because of the hardness of your hearts' is not the same as to condone it. No. The nineteenth-century campaigners opposed slavery not on the ground that the Bible's tolerant attitude was a temporary cultural lapse, but on the ground that slavery conflicted with biblical teaching on the dignity of human beings made in the image of God. For the same reason the Old Testament law carefully regulated it, making it more humane and providing for manumission, while the New Testament went further, demanding 'justice' for slaves (Colossians 4:1) and declaring that Christian slave and slave-owner are 'brothers' (Philemon 16; 1 Timothy 6:2). Thus, principles were laid down in Scripture with which slavery was perceived with steadily increasing clarity to be incompatible.
Your second example of cultural conditioning is marriage. You set in contrast two sets of marriage customs. On the one hand, you describe what is now commonly accepted in 'modern societies' - marriage without parental consent but by state registration, based on mutual love, and often preceded by a trial period of intercourse. On the other hand, you describe marriage customs in biblical times - an arrangement between the parents, the payment of the bride price, betrothal, intercourse, wedding festivities, and no state participation. But I am not clear how you think we should relate these two sets of marriage customs to one another. My position is that both are cultural and neither is scriptural. Are we not called as Christians to confront our culture with biblical norms? So some customs should be regarded as neutral (e.g. engagement and betrothal traditions, the role of the state, wedding festivities), since the Bible makes no pronouncement about them. But the Bible does teach that marriage is God's idea rather than ours, and his general loving provision for human beings; that it involves leaving parents (still of great importance psychologically, even if young people have physically 'left home' years previously); that it is a heterosexual, monogamous and ideally lifelong partnership, expressing love and companionship; and that it is the God-given context for sexual enjoyment and the procreation and nurture of children. These aspects of marriage are creational, not cultural.
With your third example, which concerns women's ministry, I confess that I have much more difficulty. Evangelicals are deeply divided on this issue. You think I give the wrong answer, and you question my logic, and on both counts you may well be right! At the same time, I am not sure that you have altogether followed my argument, or at least that you have adequately presented it. The role and ministry of women in the Church seems to be a clear case for cultural transposition, since the two levels of discourse are apparent. Part of the essence of Paul's teaching concerns masculine 'headship', to be redefined (as you say) in terms of care rather than control, but still rooted in our created sexuality (even if we have difficulties with Paul's detailed exegesis of Genesis 2). The first-century cultural expression of this headship, however, related to such practices as veiling, coiffure, jewellery and (in my view) the requirement of silence or not teaching men. My struggle (which I have not yet resolved) is how to give women the fullest opportunities to exerdse their God-given gifts, and to enable both sexes to enjoy their 'neither male nor female' equality (whose context relates to relationships not roles, to justification not ministry), without infringing the creational truths of masculinity, femininity and 'headship'.
Your fourth and last example relates to homosexual partnerships. The question here is whether our knowledge in relation to sexual inversion, the average percentages of men and women who are constitutionally homosexual or bisexual, and the possibility of stable, loving same-sex partnerships, overrides the teaching of the biblical authors who lacked this knowledge. My answer is 'no'. To say 'yes' would mean that the more knowledge we have, the less we need and can trust the Bible. You quote John Boswell's statement that 'the New Testament takes no demonstrable position on homosexuality'. I challenge this. Jesus himself endorsed the Genesis 2:24 definition of marriage as a heterosexual partnership and the only relationship to which the 'one-flesh' experience belongs. And Paul describes both men and women, who give up 'natural relations' with the opposite sex and exchange them for relations with their own sex, as acting 'against nature' (para phusin, Romans 1:26-27). Now whatever is 'against nature', thatis, 'contrarytotheintentionof theCreator' (C. E. B. Cranfield on Romans 1:26), is rightly called a 'disorder'. But you appeal to creation in another way, as being itself a 'revelation' by modem science, and as teaching that for some people the unnatural is natural, because they are 'made that way7. Consequently, you believe that 'the Creator's purpose in making them that way (or in allowing them to be so made . . .) may be fulfilled in an adult, consenting, discreet, loving, stable partnership, within which some physical expressions of love are likely to be psychologically necessary'. In response, I must honestly say that I think you develop a strange doctrine of creation and of what is 'natural'. Congenitally (i.e. 'creationally') we are all made with a variety of disorders, including many sinful and selfish tendencies. We have no liberty, however, to attribute our evil propensities to the good Creator. Nor should we declare what is 'unnatural' according to his original purpose to be 'natural' because it seems so to us.
The real motive behind your position, I feel sure, is compassion. You feel deeply for homosexual people. Although you know that a homosexual partnership cannot be 'a fully satisfactory alternative to marriage', you are haunted by the tragedy that there is 'no possible escape' from some of the emotional problems which homosexuals experience. So at least, you argue, they should be permitted the nearest equivalent to marriage that is open to them. There seem to me to be two flaws in this argument. First, if a homosexual partnership is 'against nature', and therefore creationally disordered behaviour, then to encourage people to form one is not an expression of true compassion. Secondly, your acceptance or tolerance of a same-sex partnership rests on the assumption that sexual intercourse is 'psychologically necessary'. That is certainly what our sex-obsessed contemporary culture says. But is it true? Christians must surely reply that it is a lie. There is such a thing as the call to singleness, in which authentic human fulfilment is possible without sexual experience. Our Christian witness is that Jesus himself, though unmarried, was perfect in his humanness. Same-sex friendships should of course be encouraged, which may be close, deep and affectionate. But sexual union, the 'one flesh' mystery, belongs to heterosexual marriage alone.
This is not 'fundamentalism'. Nor is it 'proof-texting' or 'random-dipping', two follies of which I repented long ago. For the Bible is not an anthology of unrelated sentences, but rather a coherent and comprehensive revelation from God. It is only by absorbing the totality of biblical teaching that we can develop a Christian mind and learn to think Chris-tianly about the complex issues of our day. For the Christian mind is a renewed mind which refuses to be conformed to the pattern of contemporary culture, and seeks instead conscientiously to discern God's will from Scripture and then by his grace to do it (Romans 12:2).
To be continued!
Yours ever,
John