:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

After a slight detour into some thoughts on Christianity and war, I’ll be returning to my previously scheduled series of meditations on the book of Romans. They’ve sat in my notebook long enough. It’s time for them to be shared on the intertubes…

In Romans 1 we have a greeting and introduction to the letter where Paul relates that he will be addressing the Jews and Gentiles as one new people made right before God by faith. I hit on the first few verses last week, so now we’ll finish up the rest of the chapter.

According to verse 6 the Gentiles are among those called to belong to Christ, putting them in the same camp now as the Jews in their congregation in Rome. They are part of God’s new people, and Paul is eager to impart a spiritual gift to them even as their faith makes news throughout the world. Paul is obliged to preach to Jews and Gentiles because the Gospel saves them both equally by faith.

However, there are weaknesses both groups have that separate them from God, which have been remedied by faith, but must still be claimed by faith in the death and resurrection of Christ. We’ll get to the appropriation of God’s saving work later in the letter. For now Paul is conducting some house cleaning.

The Gentiles are particularly in view in vv. 18-32. Paul constructs a picture of godlessness and a life enslaved by sin which should not resemble the people of God who live by faith. Some have accused Paul of encouraging salvation by faith but permitting sin so grace may increase. Therefore, before he dives into the particulars of salvation by faith and faithfulness, he paints a stark picture of a life separated from God—one marked by a lack of thankfulness and worship that burns in lust and is given over to various sins.

In describing God’s judgment on sinful humanity both Jews and Gentiles are essentially in the same boat. God has revealed himself clearly to them. People, whether Jew or Gentile, are without excuse before God when they ignore him and turn to worship something else. At the root of this corrupting idolatry is denying to worship the Lord and a lack of thankfulness to the Lord. When we forget God we open ourselves to revere what is less than God. It seems that leaving God and worshipping something else creates a vulnerability to become increasingly depraved by shameful lusts.

We are cautioned here to be mindful of worship and thankfulness in our day to day lives. Are we seeing God’s glory around us, offering our work to him as worship, and thanking him for the ways he’s working around us? If not, we may very well credit ourselves or create some other kind of idol that receives our praise and allegiance—be that a nation, political party, or some kind of organization.

A few last thoughts on homosexuality here…

Romans 1 has one of the most direct bans on homosexual practice in the Bible. This is a very divisive issue in the church today, and so I don’t think I could resolve this in a brief footnote to a blog post. However, I’d like to offer up a few ways that different groups may read this passage, offer them as fair a treatment as I can, and then offer some of my own thoughts on what I believe to be the most likely interpretation.

Here’s the passage in question:

“25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

Here are a few possible views on homosexuality in this particular passage. I will make it clear which one I support, but I do want to be fair to the views I do not hold. We don’t need any straw men around here.

The Over-Arching Narrative View

Some argue that the overarching narrative of scripture is one of acceptance and liberation, and so even if there are bans on homosexual practice at a few points, the Bible is accepting and affirming. When homosexuals are viewed as outcasts, this view is particularly potent, as Jesus reached out to those on the margins of society, and homosexuals have suffered a great deal throughout the years, only reaching accepted status in recent times.

The Cultural Change View

Another aspect to the affirming homosexuality view would argue that Paul never would have understood the complexities of homosexual orientation or had a category of long-term, homosexual commitment in a civil union or marriage. Just as we had to evolve in our understandings about astronomy, slavery, and women in ministry, we need to take into account that our knowledge changes and so we must take the cultural context into account and discern the biblical principles even if we cannot take some passages at face value.

The Linguistic View

This argument isn’t all that relevant here, but in other passages there is a great deal of debate concerning how to translate the world traditionally rendered “homosexual”. It could refer to a much more narrow group of men who had sexual relations with young boys—a practice accepted in Greek society at the time. This is probably the most fertile ground for debating homosexuality and its acceptance within Christianity, but as we get into the final view, I think Romans 1 may throw a wrench into the works.

The Ban View

Many conservatives and moderate evangelicals can’t reconcile this passage with a “high” view of scripture that attempts to take the Bible in the most plain reading possible. While many of us understand the complexities of culture and believe that the Bible does show a trajectory of liberation and equality concerning women and slavery, we believe that homosexuality is one issue where this is not possible. Without desiring to single out any one sin, the few passages that do single out homosexual practice make it difficult to find any way the Bible could permit it. While I’d toss in a host of caveats about not wanting to ban gay marriage or to persecute homosexuals in any way before saying it, I think the most likely reading here is that Paul is banning homosexual practice.

In this passage we need to ask, “Why would Paul single out homosexuals here before his long list of other sins?” It seems that Paul is comparing two unnatural things here. Just as homosexuality is unnatural, it is also unnatural for us to worship idols and things like us. The over-arching command of scripture is to love the Lord your God, and so worship and thankfulness, two key themes in chapter 1, tie right in to this correct relationship with God. When we disconnect ourselves from worship and thankfulness, we leave ourselves open to lust, idolatry, and alienation from God.

The tone of this passage suggests that Paul is using homosexual behavior as one of the more obvious marks of departing from God, even if there are plenty of other sins on his list that mark a divine disconnect. This doesn’t leave Christians in a comfortable position in dealing with popular culture today, and it certainly sounds like bad news for those in the homosexual camp. I for one am committed to constructive debate on this issue, reading scripture with both cultural context and most natural and consistent meaning in mind, and accepting all people because no one is without sin before God.

That last point shall be driven home in the book of Romans soon enough…