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Modern Marriage

11/15/2018

 
I appreciate Carol Mutch’s recent engagement with the Great Lakes Catechism on the Outsights blog of Room for All. Her brief response was very helpful in elucidating her view of marriage, which I think is probably the dominant view of marriage in our culture today. It just makes sense to most people. And to be fair, there are probably a good number of people who would call themselves theological conservatives who actually share—in practice if not in theory—the key assumptions of Mutch’s argument. My response is probably going to be longer than her original article, but I really appreciate her engagement because it highlights what seems obvious about marriage and sexuality to most people in American culture today. As far as I can tell, three key assumptions are:

1.Marriage is the solution to loneliness and/or the need to walk through life with other people.
Marriage isn’t the solution to loneliness—ask any married person! But I wholeheartedly agree with what Mutch says here: “To be a human being is to want and need others to walk through life with.” And Mutch’s solution to this need—marriage—is exactly the mistake that most conservative evangelicals have been making for years, idolizing marriage as the only solution to loneliness. (I’ve written more on this faulty view of marriage as the solution to loneliness here).

Why do so many conservatives and progressives alike make this move? I think it’s worth noting that part of the nature of our current culture is that we have effectively dissolved any other relational commitments and obligations to one another that provided community and connection. So we might ask: what obligations do adult children have to their parents, and vice versa? To siblings? To extended family? To church family? To a particular place, neighborhood, or community? To a particular employer or employee? As sociologist Anthony Giddens points out, we don’t see any inherent obligations in any of those relationships anymore. If there are obligations, it’s because we’ve negotiated levels of personal and emotional commitment. The only tie that binds, including marriage, are those we decide to commit ourselves to. This being the case, though, it makes it hard to tell what makes marriage different from any other kind of commitment. 

2.The idolatry of marriage and dismissal of bodies.

Note the great shift that’s currently happening between Christians who hold to the historic Christian view of marriage and the affirming folks represented by Mutch and Room for All. Thinkers and leaders like Nate Collins, Laurie Krieg, Wesley Hill, Ed Shaw, Greg Coles, David Bennett, Kutter Callaway, Preston Sprinkle, Rosario Butterfield and many others are leading the way in calling the church to truly be the church, repent of the way we’ve idolized marriage and reinvigorate true Christian friendship and community in a way that actually aligns with New Testament teaching on the church. What’s so strange about this development is that you have conservative Christians deconstructing the idolatry of marriage in a way that aligns with some non-Christian queer theorists, whereas affirming Christians end up sounding like Focus on the Family in their holding up of marriage as the only possible path to attain a “physical understanding of God’s love” (to quote Mutch) in the world! Again, to be fair, many affirming Christians were trained in the idolatry of marriage in their good conservative upbringings; they’re simply extending that principle further.

Furthermore, by defining sexual morality completely in terms of “commitment and spiritual love,” Mutch makes sexual morality completely determined by the subjective state of the parties involved. It has nothing to do with bodies (male or female) or, likely, the number of bodies or persons in relationship. She does seem to assume monogamy, but never explains or defends it, especially given the fact that her core definition of sexual morality (“commitment and spiritual love”) could certainly apply to polyamorous or polygamous relationships.


3. Marriage (and sex) have nothing to do with procreation/children.
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Up until the last century, the Christian theology and practice of marriage saw procreation as an essential (though not the only) purpose of marriage. Mutch classifies this as unchristian, though she doesn’t provide any biblical or theological justification for doing so. In doing so, she follows the basic pattern that most Protestant churches have undergone; that is, we have simply abandoned procreation as an essential purpose of marriage with no biblical, theological, or ethical rationale for doing so. Though some theological conservatives might find her rationale unconvincing, I personally have found that the best way to get a bunch of conservative Christians to start sounding like sexual revolutionaries is to bring up the theological and bioethical issues surrounding procreation, contraception, sterilization, and artificial reproductive technologies (“But it’s my body!” “But if I do this/don’t do this, it will lead to suffering!” “It’s my choice!” “I can do what I want with my body and my life!”)

What Mutch and many conservatives share in common is the belief that bodies, and conjugal union, don’t actually MEAN anything. Our bodies (and what we do with them sexually) are meaningless biological bundles that we can use to express meaning, but they don’t mean anything inherently. Pope John Paul II, the foremost theologian of sexuality of our time, speaks of the “body language” of sexual union, such that in giving our bodies completely to one another, we are symbolically giving our lives to one another. And God has designed our bodies such that, as husband and wife give themselves completely to one another, the result is new life. Life-giving love produces new life. That’s a powerful image of Christ and the church, and one that depends on husband and wife, male and female.

But for most in our culture, our bodies, including their procreative capacities, are completely subject to our will. If we want to alter or interfere with properly functioning bodies/organs, that’s our prerogative. It really is scandalous to claim that procreation has something to do with sex in our culture, because we’ve reduced our bodies to nothing more than material expressions of our internal, immaterial self. To imply that the body is more than that would lead us to conclude that we are not self-created, immaterial selves, but material creatures created with a purpose and limits that we should not transgress.  

One final question
Finally, I want to speak to the final question raised by Mutch: can those living in same-sex marriages be disciples of Jesus? As best as I understand Scripture, here’s how I’d answer at this point. Being a disciple of Jesus means understanding the depth of God’s love for you, shown in Jesus. Our union with Christ means that we are united with Jesus and thus have right standing before God because Jesus has clothed us with his righteousness. It’s not based on what I do or my performance. Our union with Christ has a double grace: grace that forgives AND grace that empowers us to follow Jesus and bear fruit by his Spirit in us. From Scripture, it’s clear that being God’s “holy ones,” set apart, doesn’t mean that our brokenness—which we all have, whether straight, gay, cisgender, transgender, etc.—automatically goes away. We will struggle. In 1 Corinthians, there is some serious sexual sin going on, and yet Paul writes to them as God’s “holy ones,” saints, because of their union with Christ (1:2).

So am I saying that someone in a same-sex marriage can still be a Christian, a saint, a set-apart one? Scripture leads me to say, yes, certainly that’s possible. Committing sexual sin and being a Christian are not mutually exclusive (thank God, or we’d all be in trouble!) But this set-apartness, this holiness, is not merely a positional standing but a call to be a light in the world. According to 1 Corinthians, God’s Spirit dwells in our physical bodies and has a mission for us: to be a light to the surrounding world. If we don’t embrace the difference God calls us to, we won’t be a light and we won’t be on mission. And if we’re not on mission, we do have to ask ourselves: have I really embraced God’s kingdom?

So I personally have no ability to say “who’s in” and “who’s out” in some kind of ultimate, eternal way. Everything in Scripture (and good Reformed theology!) speaks against doing that. But Scripture does speak clearly to whether we’re on mission or not. There are certain ways of life, certain ways of using money, sex, and power, that display God’s kingdom to a watching world. And there are ways that are not. To be clear, I believe that Scripture teaches that there’s a very narrow window of expression for sexuality and marriage that embodies this missional focus: as a celibate member of the body of Christ joined with other members of Christ’s body in pursuit of mission together or as husband and wife joined in lifelong faithfulness to one another and as faithful members of the body of Christ in pursuit of mission together.

Being a disciple of Jesus is not about sinless perfection in this life, but it is about embracing repentance as a way of life, engaging in the ongoing putting to death of our sin and coming to life in the Spirit so that our gratitude leads us deeper into communion with God and mission in the world.   

Again, I am grateful to Room for All and for Carol Mutch for her willingness to engage the Great Lakes Catechism and reflect on her own view of marriage in light of it. 

A Christian Philosophy of Education

8/28/2018

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One of my summer projects was to re-write Kuyper College's Philosophy of Education. This is one of my areas of passion--not just teaching, but thinking about what, how, and why we learn and teach. So here's the finished product, which is the result of numerous revisions and feedback from fellow faculty and administrators. I think it represents Kuyper accurately, and as I read it, on the verge of the new school year, it reminds me again how thankful I am to teach at this place! Here it is: 

Learning is rooted in love. We believe that the root of learning is love of God and neighbor, not simply the desire for good grades, achievement, or mere accumulation of knowledge. As we come to understand God’s love for us, expressed most fully in Christ Jesus, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to love and serve him in return and to love others with the same love that Jesus showed us. As people who have encountered the living God, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God and neighbor in clear, practical actions. To love our neighbor well means acquiring knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will allow us to communicate God’s love in a variety of ways, both in words and in deeds. Thus, as students go through the programs, courses, and other learning opportunities at Kuyper College, they will be equipped with the skills needed in their chosen field of service so that they may show God’s love in the spheres in which they live, work, and minister.

Learning is holistic. Many people separate academic “learning” from everyday life. Kuyper College believes that all of life involves learning. What we do in the classroom serves and strengthens students’ ability to serve beyond the classroom. Similarly, we encourage students to bring their real-life experience into the class in order to enhance the learning that takes place in that environment.   

This holistic approach to learning affects our view of how and where learning happens. Learning happens in a variety of co-curricular activities and events. Learning happens in chapel—in times of worship, preaching, prayer, and praise.  Learning happens in formal and informal conversations among students, staff, and faculty. Learning happens as students volunteer, work, travel, go on field trips, and engage in practicums and/or internships. And learning happens in the classroom and while completing assignments--readings, exams, papers, and projects all working together to enable students to learn.This big-picture approach to learning cultivates students who are lifelong learners and therefore always open to how they can grow in their effective service to Christ’s church and world.

Learning happens in community. Learning is not an individual endeavor but a communal one. The call to love God, to pursue truth, and to do justice cannot be sustained apart from a community that sees the beauty of God, delights in the truth of God, and tastes the goodness of God. Professors do not merely dispense knowledge, but have a love for their students and approach their subject matter and learning with joy. This love and joy plays a key role in helping students desire to learn and grow themselves. Further, the Kuyper community functions as an academic, social, and spiritual community, encouraging each other in the process of learning. This community oriented around worship and love of God is necessary to sustain the kind of work it takes to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to serve Christ’s church and world.

The end goal of education is living faithfully for Jesus Christ in God’s good world. A Kuyper College education requires students to examine and critically reflect on the world around them, so that they are ready to engage with its diverse ideas, individuals, groups, and cultures. Rooted  in Scripture and a biblical, Reformed worldview, our character and life is shaped so that we can fulfill the specific callings God has given us to serve Christ’s church and world.

May God empower all of us at Kuyper to live out this vision in our life together this year! 

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Why Protestants Should Embrace Humanae Vitae

7/25/2018

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Today is the 50th anniversary of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, in which Pope Paul VI surprisingly upheld the teaching that any action intended to prevent procreation (in other words, contraception) is morally wrong. If you haven’t read it, it’s short and readable; you can find it here. This surprising position is virtually incomprehensible to modern Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike, because it rejects a core modern value: that our bodies, as matter, are fundamentally meaningless and thus we should be able to use and/or adapt our bodies in any way we see fit to conform to our wishes and desires. Furthermore, Humanae Vitae’s focus on procreation stems from the conviction that our sexual actions and bodies actually mean something, again a view that is foreign to the modern mindset (including many modern Christians).
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As an academic theologian, I’ve found that most Protestant theologians and ethicists are well aware of the fact that questions regarding contraception and artificial reproductive technologies (ART) are extremely important. However, when I ask my students, many of whom have been raised in Christian homes and churches, whether they’ve ever heard these matters discussed as moral issues, I get mostly blank stares. So my concern is that there’s a disconnect between people like me, who serve the church by reading and studying and teaching this material for a living, and most people in the pew. So, if nothing else, hopefully this piece puts contraception and ART on your radar as key moral and theological issues. You’ll probably think most of this sounds crazy and have a ton of questions (I know I did when I first started investigating this). To that end, here are a few reasons why Protestants should embrace the core teaching of Humanae Vitae (henceforth HV), which I am convinced represents sound biblical reasoning on this matter.  


1. Sex and procreation are linked from the beginning.

What’s the point and purpose of sex? Throughout Christian history, one essential element has been procreation. To be clear, that doesn’t mean the only purpose of sexual union is procreation. After all, sexual union is a marital act, an act which promises and gives one self fully to one’s spouse. As such, it unifies two people who give themselves completely to one another. The text of Genesis makes this very clear. The first command/blessing given to the husband and wife is “Be fruitful and multiply.” Children are not just a nice add-on to the meaning of sex and marriage, but are at the heart of what marriage and sex are all about.

In our world, however, we’ve successfully de-linked sex and procreation. Through contraception and sterilization, we’ve successfully rendered sex mostly inhospitable to new life, although we also have abortion as a backup plan. On the flip side, we can produce new life outside of the marital act (the fertility “industry,” aptly so-called), and never stop to consider the emotional, psychological, or theological dimensions of producing children with three parents or question whether we should unite ourselves with anonymous sperm donors or surrogates. We have successfully torn asunder what God intended to be together.


2. Scripture sees children as a good thing.

From Genesis 1 on, Scripture sees children as a good thing. Some might argue that this is merely the result of an ancient emphasis on the centrality of family, patriarchal passing-on of one’s name, the shame associated with barrenness, or the necessity of children in more agricultural societies. I would grant that those elements may play a role. However, Scripture repeatedly sees children as a blessing woven into the very fabric of our lives. Husband and wife play a role participating the mystery of life, and we are not the masters of our own destinies or bodies. Rather, as relational selves, we’re called to be open to one another and open to new life that comes as a result of our love.

3. Humanae Vitae recognizes there are limits to our use of medicine and technology. 

The Pill ushered in what Bernard Asbell has called The Age of BioIntervention. In other words, it’s the first medicine to be developed not to heal something that’s sick, but to alter a biological process that’s healthy. In short, this view of medicine and the world doesn’t just look at sickness as something to be cured, it looks at human limits, being human, as something to be cured. In other words, there’s a direct connection from the view that I can alter my healthy reproductive organs to the view that I can make other significant alterations to my body and reproductive organs, including hormone treatments and surgical procedures. Protestants who affirm the former without affirming the latter are simply inconsistent.


4. Humanae Vitae shows solidarity with celibate gay Christians.

How so? I believe that Scripture’s view of sex and marriage are for a man and woman, in large part because of how central procreation is to both sex and marriage. If I am going to have the nerve to say that gay Christians should not engage in same-sex sexual activity, then I better be willing to embrace the same consistent ethic in my own life. I have been thoroughly convicted by the life of discipleship and suffering that I see Christians like Wesley Hill, Ed Shaw, and Greg Coles, who have been publicly vulnerable about what it means to be gay and Christian. If I can, in some small way, learn what it means to grow through suffering (whether that’s through more children than I might want or times of abstinence within my own marriage), then that is a good thing.

5. Humanae Vitae embraces hospitality.

Hospitality is a key Christian virtue. By affirming the good of procreation, HV shows that even the most intimate of spaces—the marriage bed—is still a place to be open to the ultimate stranger in the form of a baby. When we only had 1 or 2 kids, my wife Sarah and I tried to exercise hospitality by having college students live with us. With 5 kids now, we don’t have as much extra space for others, but I’d like to think that there’s just a natural extension there. Our conviction about hospitality and openness to children went together; they’re not mutually exclusive. Perhaps this is why I find that families with more children can often be as hospitable (if not more so) than families with few.

6. Humanae Vitae cultivates discipline that produces spiritual fruit in our lives.

Humans are holistic creatures, so developing a virtue in one area will inevitably affect our whole lives. HV speaks of the self-denial needed to practice natural family planning, with some periods of abstinence and other periods devoted to welcoming children. It turns out, self-denial is a very helpful virtue when trying to navigate marriage well. As noted above, when we practice hospitality in the marriage bed, we in turn become more hospitable people overall. When we persevere in the midst of difficulty (whether in welcoming children or in periodic abstinence), we grow. By taking responsibility for our actions in sexual union, we become more responsible for our children, instilling in them the fruits of loving, self-sacrificial action.

7. Sexual union actually means something. This is last, because I think this is at the core of why so many reject Humanae Vitae. In this modern mindset, our bodies are mere “nature.” Matter in motion. There’s no meaning inherent in reality; it only has what meaning we give to it. This is a key tenet of the sexual revolution. By definition, sex means nothing. If it means something to you, great. But there’s no universal meaning to sex, which means if you’re into lifelong monogamy, okay, and if you’re into hooking up via Tinder, okay. Just don’t try to say that there’s a meaning to it.

In contrast, Humanae Vitae follows Scripture in upholding the view that sex really means something because our bodies really mean something. There’s no such thing, especially when it comes to human beings, as mere “matter in motion.” Matter matters. So Humanae Vitae highlights that sexual union means something because it involves human beings. As Christopher West puts it, our “body language” in sexual union says something. In giving our bodies, we give our whole selves; it’s not merely a biological act. In sexual union, we promise faithfulness; sex is a kind of constant renewal of wedding vows. Sexual union is also free; it recognizes the dignity of the other person, which cannot be coerced. Finally, sexual union is fruitful; it points beyond itself to the possibility of new life as a result of this act.

So here’s the question: can we change the “body language” of sex and still have it be a truthful act, so to speak? Does adulterous, unfaithful sex speak the truth of what sex and marriage are about? Does assault, sexual activity without consent, speak the truth of what sex and marriage are about? And I know this sounds TOTALLY out of line to good modern Christians, but can we intentionally block the fruitfulness of sex and still speak, with our bodies, the truth of what sex and marriage are about? Or think of it this way: in the recent movie The Greatest Showman, two lovebirds croon to each other: “Just give me all of you.” If you withhold part of you, part of your body (that part which leads to fertility), are you really giving all of you to your spouse? Do we really want all of each other?

I know you’re probably thinking: that sounds like trouble. It sounds like kids, maybe…no DEFINITELY more kids than I want. It sounds like a world I can’t control. It sounds like suffering.

So now you’re starting to understand. Fully embracing your spouse might mean embracing the cross. 

I know this post leaves A TON of questions still unanswered. If you have one, leave it below. I’d love to think through this with you. If you’re curious about Natural Family Planning, here’s a place to start: https://ccli.org/what-is-nfp/. 
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A high view of Scripture and same-sex marriage

5/15/2018

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Does holding an affirming view of same-sex marriage mean that someone has a low view of Scripture and Scripture’s authority? Conservative Christians often accuse more progressive Christians of this. But is it accurate? Is it fair? Furthermore, does it obscure the real debate and possibly only breed further confusion?

To be clear, there are Christians on both sides of the debate about marriage who don’t really appeal to Scripture as the ultimate basis of their view. On the one hand, some conservative Christians sometimes rely on tradition and the power of traditional marriage as its’ own kind of validation rather than careful and sustained biblical exegesis that deals head-on with the real questions raised by revisionists like James Brownson or Matthew Vines. On the other hand, some revisionists try to make their argument by appealing to cultural shifts or the suffering of LGBT+ persons without really articulating how their view fits (or not) with Scripture. So there are people in both camps who don’t functionally treat Scripture as the authoritative basis for their views.

Is it true that—at the popular level—the affirming view doesn’t always present a clear exegetical case? I think so. When I hear educated laypeople make a case for affirming same-sex marriage, they’re typically not doing so on an exegetical basis. And when they do engage Scripture, it’s more to raise questions than to give answers [what about slavery? What about heliocentric views of the universe? What about how the Bible views women?]. Highlighting past interpretive flaws of some Christians does helpfully reinforce the need for us to reexamine our views. But affirming folks often raise these questions as a rhetorical device meant to introduce uncertainty (which I certainly approve of—I do this all the time in my teaching) without actually introducing a clear, coherent hermeneutic that would explain the flaws in these past interpretations and offer a constructive hermeneutic of how and why we should interpret Scripture. In other words, the goal of raising these questions is to question the traditional interpretation of marriage. But if your point is that sometimes Christians interpret the Bible wrong, how do you prevent this from being unleashed into complete uncertainty and skepticism about any interpretation or anything the Bible says? For example, in my denominational context in the Reformed Church in America, I’ve been part of numerous conversations around this issue. And while those who are affirming often raise the questions noted above, they don’t often outline how, for example, their own constructive hermeneutic would stand against something like polyamory or polygamy. That is, if you make the kinds of hermeneutic moves they make--
  • Genesis 1-2 is normative, but not exclusively normative.
  • The Bible’s not talking about loving, covenantal relationships when it criticizes same-sex relationships.
  • Cultures in Bible times didn’t have the scientific data we do around orientation, and so now we need to adapt our views.
  • The Bible’s focus on male-female marriage stems from problematic patriarchy.
                --then it’s not clear what’s to stop you from making those same moves about, for example, polyamory.

In short, the average hermeneutic and rhetorical moves of those who affirm same-sex marriage are aimed at loosening the historic view of marriage, but they don’t often outline a more constructive hermeneutic that explains why you would stop at the notion of monogamous marriage.

So I can understand why the average conservative Christian in my own denomination would feel like they never actually hear an exegetical case for the affirming position. (This is part of why I’ve tried to explain fairly and charitably and clearly what I understand to be the affirming position in my series of videos on the Bible and human sexuality). I think that is a key part why they accuse affirming folks of “not taking the Bible seriously” or “undermining biblical authority.”

Nevertheless, I think it’s inaccurate to say that raising any of the above questions necessarily implies a low view of Scripture. They are valid interpretive questions about the context of the original author and audience, questions about what the author means to communicate, and questions related to how we’re called to live that out today. In that sense, I would defend the general hermeneutic project of the affirming folks insofar as they’re trying to ask valid interpretive questions which often arise around a variety of biblical texts and issues.

Furthermore, I think the repeated accusation of having a low view of Scripture can actually do a disservice to the conversation in the long run. Here’s why. I hear a lot of affirming folks—including scholars like Jim Brownson and Matthew Vines, as well as the average affirming pastor—repeatedly reiterating that they have a high view of Scripture as though that places this question in the category of things where we can ‘agree to disagree.’ My simple observation is this: having a high view of Scripture doesn’t insure that you will avoid false teaching on matters essential to the faith. For example, you can have a high view of Scripture and still have an Arian Christology and argue, from a high view of Scripture, that the Son is not fully divine in the way that the Father is. Orthodox Christology is not merely a product of having a high view of Scripture, but the result of being able to articulate in a clear and coherent manner the entire canon of Scripture as it speaks to the person and work of Jesus. Heresy like Arianism focuses on a few verses out of context and reads them through the cultural and philosophical lens of Arius’ day, rather than letting the totality of Scripture’s witness speak to the question of who Jesus is and letting that witness refashion the cultural and philosophical lenses we might otherwise use.

So what?  The point is simply this: by leading with the charge of a “low view of Scripture,” conservative Christians have created an environment where affirming Christians believe that, merely by emphasizing their high view of Scripture, the question of marriage is thereby placed into the category of adiaphora, matters where Christians must agree to disagree. But having a high view of Scripture is no guarantee for anyone—conservative or liberal—that they’re avoiding false teaching or betraying matters essential to the faith.

So how do we move the conversation forward? We do need to reiterate a high view of Scripture. As I’ve said above, I think it is true that some affirming folks do have a low view of Scripture, at least functionally if not theoretically. But that’s not entailed in the affirming position, although it does add to the gravity of the concern I have with this conversation. Christians who hold to the historic view, then, need to focus not merely on the doctrine of Scripture in play, but in whether, how, and why matters of marriage and sexuality are essential to biblical teaching in general and Jesus’ command to make disciples in particular.   

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"I don't have time for that."

4/10/2018

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We're busy. And we like to let others know that we're busy. 

We've got jobs. Families. Spouses. Friends. Church. Responsibilities to maintain. Netflix to binge. Social media to keep up. Households to maintain. Volunteer opportunities to fulfill. Sleep. Repeat.

Even our kids are busy. School. Sports. Music. Sports. Friends. Spring break. Sports. Repeat. 

So it's not surprising to hear people frequently say, "I don't have time for that." 

But I wonder. I wonder. 

I wonder what our grammar hides. I wonder what our word choice hides. We all, after all, have a finite amount of time. We're all working with a 24/7 loop that we can't escape, so it seems normal, human, to just not have time. 

But I wonder. I wonder what would happen if we started saying, "I don't value that." We do, after all, have a finite amount of time, but we also have some measure of control over how and where we spend our time.

For many people, even our constant busyness is a product of our choices, so when we say we don't have time, there's a sense in which we're right. We don't. But it's because we've chosen to structure our lives in such a way that we don't. We cleverly hide this from ourselves, though, by blaming our finitude, our lack of time. 

Worse, we often don't have time because we're trying to fit an idolatrous paradigm of the good life. More money. Moving up the ladder. More power. More influence to do good. To be the change, to make the change we all want. To be clear, this is a reality just as much in church and ministry circles as anywhere else. So when we say, "I don't have time for that," it's just the tip of the iceberg. Often, what we're saying is, "I have to be God. I have to be sure everything turns out right. I have to impact the culture for Christ, to redeem and transform the world." 

How would I change if I had to say, "I don't value that"? For me at least, it would make me more aware of the constant choices I'm making. Too often, we live life half-consciously, going through the motions of what our culture, or even our Christian subculture, says is most valuable. Saying "I don't value that" would force me to fess up to my unthinking conformity to the values that are embedded in the time-sucking forces at play in my daily life.

So what do we do?

Stop. Rest. Reconfigure. Be conscious of God's priorities and our own priorities--how they align, and how they don't. 

In one sense, we're right--we don't have the time. We have to make time, or rather, to accept and properly value the time we're given. To say "yes" to God's kingdom, to say "yes" to living out the "one anothers" of the New Testament, we have to make time. We have to say "no" to the good things so that we can say "yes" to the best thing. In other words, we have to accept that we're not God and we're not responsible for everything.

Or, to say it more positively, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you." That's something worth making time for. That's something worth valuing. 



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Death of Socrates, Death of Jesus

4/2/2018

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The death of Socrates and death of Jesus reveal two very different views of what it means to be human and how we know truth. 

For the famous philosopher, death is preferable. While trapped in the prison of the body, the soul can't really seek truth in a pure way. We're always contaminated by the need for food, by sickness, by love and lust, strife and war. Philosophers, then, are constantly trying to detach from their bodies and all the things we might prioritize in this material world. 

Whereas Socrates goes to his death peacefully, reminding his followers (who just don't get it) that death is a friend, Jesus goes to his death in agony, recognizing that death is not the way it's supposed to be. Moreover, far from seeing his body as a prison to be escaped, it's precisely in and through the body of Jesus that redemption comes. This is a whole different view of the material world, a world that is saturated with signs of the goodness of God. For Christians like Aquinas and Calvin, it's precisely in and through the material world that we gain full human knowledge of who God is and what he's done. A good meal, a beautiful sunset, even the 'distraction' of human love--all these are signs and pointers of the goodness of God. 

So while Socrates points to another higher, immaterial realm as he drinks the cup that leads to his death, Jesus takes the cup and the bread and points to himself, saying, "This is my body, broken for your body. This is my blood, shed for your life." That's the embodied gospel, good news that comes in the flesh for the redemption of our bodies. In fact, that's the whole point of receiving the Lord's Supper: it's not merely words into your brain, but food into your body. Against Socrates, there's a kind of bodily knowing that cannot just be translated into an intellectual proposition. That's why God often instructs his people to undertake bodily actions and physical remembrances. It's how we learn. It's how we get it. 

So next time you celebrate the Lord's Supper, pay attention to this sequence of actions: take, eat, remember, believe--the body of Christ broken for you. We don't have to rid ourselves of our bodies to believe; instead, we need our bodies to really get to the truth, to really get to the meaning of Jesus' body for us. 

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Does "family-friendly" = "Christian"?

3/8/2018

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I recently had the chance to connect in a couple ways with Laurie and Matt Krieg from Hole in My Heart Ministries. If you're not familiar with their work, you should check out ​https://www.himhministries.com/!

First, I had the chance to be a guest on an episode of their podcast, "Marriage: What is it good for?" You can check it out here. It was a ton of fun and a great discussion. 

Second, I wrote a blog post elaborating a bit more on some of the themes we touched on in the podcast. I raise the question: how do we think about our marriages and families in light of Jesus' work to make his people into a new family? You can find it here. 



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What do our weddings say about marriage?

11/22/2017

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If it's true that a biblical view of marriage is at odds with the broader American culture's view of marriage, then how should our weddings display that? I've started a series of blogs over at the Center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender on the topic of what our weddings say about our view of marriage. 

The first one, which you can find here, suggests that putting our wedding ceremonies on Sunday morning would helpfully focus on marriages on the kingdom of God. 

The second one, which you can find here, asks how having a low-cost wedding can be a sign and pointer to the fact that our marriages are sustained by community and authenticity. 

​Stay tuned for further blogs in the series! 

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Worlds Apart? James Brownson and the Sexual Diversity of the Greco-Roman World

10/5/2017

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As part of Kuyper College's annual Faculty and Alumni Scholar Day, I'm giving a presentation based on my forthcoming article in the Trinity Journal on James Brownson's Bible Gender Sexuality. You can click on the images below to access the PowerPoint that accompanies the presentation. 
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Questions for the Nashville Statement

8/31/2017

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The recent Nashville Statement has provoked a lot of responses, including questions about whether I affirm it or not. My own position on marriage as between a man and woman is clear, and I’ve explained it in a variety of posts, both on this blog and other places. But as I read the statement, here are the questions I feel like I need clarified regarding the actual text of the document (there are other bigger questions worth asking as well, but I want to focus on the text of the articles of the statement here). These are not questions asked in hostility or out of the desire to be contrary but out of the desire for biblical and theological clarity and pastoral sensitivity. I realize that, for a lot of people, they support this Statement because they hear it saying "marriage is between a man and woman, and there is a difference between male and female." I get that, but I think it doesn't represent a close reading of the text. So here goes. 

Article 1 states marriage is “lifelong.” How do evangelical churches currently approach divorce in theological and pastoral perspective, since the Statement declares that marriage is a covenant, not a contract? Does this statement allow for divorce? Under what conditions? Is that up for each church or pastor to decide? Does the church recognize the state’s granting of divorces, or does the church itself have to grant a divorce? If the former, why? If the latter, what’s the process for doing so?

Article 1 states marriage is “procreative.” What about couples who struggle with infertility or who are past the time of fertility? If marriage is “procreative,” what does this say about the use of contraception and voluntary sterilization? Does any use of these measures go against the statement, or not? If not, why not, when the purpose of marriage is at least partly procreative?

Article 4 talks about “divinely ordained differences” between male and female. What are those differences? Article 5 highlights different reproductive systems, but what else is meant by these differences? The main difference highlighted in the Danvers Statement, issued by the CBMW 30 years ago, sees the difference primarily as one of authority and leadership: men are leaders in the church and home, and women are meant to support and follow them. For someone like me, who DOES want to affirm male-female difference, but does not want to locate that difference in terms of leader/follower, head/subordinate, the Nashville Statement needs more clarity on what the male/female difference means once we get beyond biology. I think many who support a traditional view of marriage and gender distinction should be cautious about signing onto a statement that references difference without clarifying what is entailed or meant by that.

Article 5 affirms that differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God’s design for us as male and female. So any voluntary surgeries such as vasectomies and tubal ligation is out, right? Their goal is to close down and therefore distort those structures, so it would seem they are. How exactly are those kinds of surgeries different from gender reassignment surgeries? Are they different in kind or just degree? I’d like to hear an explanation of that.

Article 6 seems aimed at intersex people. But part of being intersex is that sex is often ambiguous, so what do you mean “they should embrace their biological sex insofar as it is known?” Known by whom? A doctor? A psychologist? A theology professor? Is it valid to push people to one end of the spectrum or another? Given the close link the Statement draws between biological sex and self-conception, wouldn’t it be more consistent to say that intersex people, especially those who don’t feel comfortable identifying strictly as male or female, should indeed identify as intersex, with the ambiguity that may entail, precisely because it is consistent with their biology?

Article 7 uses language of “self-conception.” Why doesn’t the statement use more common language, such as “identify as”? I’m not sure what is gained by this, and it leaves me asking more questions about what precisely is meant here. And again, what are “God’s holy purposes” for us as male and female? Does this mean, as in previous CBMW work, that men = leaders and women = supportive followers? (And, if that model is about men and women, not just husbands and wives, why doesn’t it apply to all of society, not just church and home?)

Article 7 seems to say that if you identify as same-sex attracted or transgender, you are out of line with God’s will. The issue here is complicated. There are plenty of Christians who identify as gay but are also committed to celibacy. Does identifying as “gay” entail an approval of same-sex marriage? It would seem not. Even for those who would see enduring same-sex attraction as a result of the fall, not part of God’s creational purposes, what is gained by refusing to acknowledge and name the reality of enduring, non-volitional same-sex attraction? Would that paradigm also refuse to use a term like “alcoholic,” claiming that alcoholism is not part of God’s creational or redemptive design, and therefore should be rejected as a self-identifier? Relatedly, I would like to know when the signers of the Nashville Statement officially embraced a “self-conception” of themselves as male or female. The dynamic of personal identity and sexuality seems far more complicated than this article makes out.

Article 9 basically says you can’t move from what is (“an enduring pattern of desire for sexual immorality”) to what ought to be (“justifies sexually immoral behavior”). How is that different from moving from what is (“biologically male or female”) to what ought to be (“a self-conception as male or female”)? I have my own answer, but the articles as written don’t really explain this, and it seems inconsistent as written.

Article 10 mentions “transgenderism.” What does that mean? Is this saying that gender dysphoria is not a real thing? Is this claiming that the Bible speaks as directly to the questions surrounding transgender persons as it does to same-sex sexual activity?

Is Article 11 aimed at pronoun usage? Does “speaking the truth in love” mean that I refuse someone’s pronoun request? Really? Can theological truth be pastorally nullified through insensitivity and being a jerk?

Does Article 13 represent an overly realized eschatology? In other words, is it realistic or right to assume that gender dysphoria will be increasingly “healed” in the present time? Having realized that a simplistic “pray the gay away” is not helpful for Christians who are same-sex attracted, are we now doing back to square one with those who are gender dysphoric?

A larger question about this document is: why are same-sex attraction/same-sex marriage, gender dysphoria, and intersex persons all lumped together and treated under largely the same rubric? I realize that this is common in our culture, as we speak of LGBTQI+. But it’s not biblically faithful, theologically astute, or pastorally helpful to assume that all of these questions about sexual identity, gender identity, and sexual behavior are equivalent.
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Finally: WHY DIDN’T YOU LEAD WITH ARTICLES 12 AND 14? For people who want to be gospel-centered, it makes more sense to highlight God’s grace, which leads to a grateful, Spirit-empowered life. Jesus did not come to condemn the world, because it was already condemned, but to bring life. I’m sure it was not the intent, but this document feels more like legalism that divides into us and them than a testimony to the life-giving love (and sexual ethic!) of those who embrace a Jesus-following, Spirit-filled life. For me, it lacks the beauty and winsomeness that any explanation of Christian sexual ethics should have and therefore, even if it were completely clear and accurate in content, I wonder if it would fail in terms of form, or medium, and therefore fail to be a proper witness to Jesus.  

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    About the blog

    My thoughts on how following Jesus calls us to go with the grain of the universe and against the grain of the world. I love the Bible, theology, and philosophy and how they intersect with just about anything else. 

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