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Apologia Report 19:9 (1,192)
March 26, 2014
Subject: A "web of misinformation" promoting homosexuality
In this issue:
HOMOSEXUALITY - the error of making personal experience authoritative and then molding Scripture accordingly
LEWIS, C.S. - "the most important Christian intellectual of the 20th century"?
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HOMOSEXUALITY
Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships, by James V. Brownson (Professor of New Testament, Western Theological Seminary) [1] -- Reviewer David M. Crump (Professor of Religion, Calvin College) opens by observing that "If one happens to belong to a religious community ... rooting its understandings of life in the interpretation of a sacred book, the only way to avoid obeying the text (aside from blatant disregard) is to find a new way of reading the inconveniently troublesome passage, a way that lets me off the hook of feeling compelled to do the things I never wanted to do in the first place.
"This age-old hermeneutical temptation is at the heart of Brownson's book [and] leaves the reader with an important question: When is a newer reading a truer reading, and when is it simply more convenient?
"Brownson explains that his goal is to help the church 'to cultivate a wider capacity to read the biblical texts in fresh ways.' To his credit, he reveals that the impetus behind this research was learning that his teenage son was gay. Those difficult family conversations led the author down a path that eventually took him away from his traditional view of homosexuality into affirming same-sex marriage. ...
"Brownson's argument begins with a critique of traditionalist claims that are based on the idea of gender complementarity - the notion that men and women are created in such a way as 'to go together.' Brownson asks, 'Is "anatomical and procreative complementarily" really the basic form of moral logic that the biblical writers have in mind' with prohibiting same-sex relations? ...
"He reads each chapter [of Genesis 1 and 2] as if it were a discrete unit with no literary or theological connection to the other, focusing his interests so narrowly as to guarantee that neither chapter can shed light on the other. ... Consequently, man and woman do not 'need' each other in order to be complete beings. ...
"Continuing his theme, Brownson states that the 'focus of Genesis 2 is not the complementarity of male and female, but on the similarity of male and female.' He argues that becoming 'one flesh' in verse 24 does not refer to sexual intercourse but to the 'kinship bond' existing between family members. ... Heterosexual reproduction is foundational to all other kinship bonds. Only willful blindness can ignore this dimension of 2:24, following as it does the obvious procreative commission in Genesis 1:27-28. ...
Brownson's discussion of Romans 1:24-27, the New Testament *crux interpretum,* is a web of misinformation. He begins by insisting that the New Testament does not address notions of (1) sexual orientation or (2) life-long, committed same-sex relationships because neither concept was known to the ancient world. He then shifts the substance of his argument from this first claim about what was generally known (or unknown) in Paul's day to a second claim about the absence of extant literature written contemporaneously with Paul that offers a positive depiction of long-term, homosexual relationships. On the basis of these claims, Brownson concludes that Paul could never have conceived of such things as same-sex orientation and life-long gay unions. ...
"The Greco-Roman world certainly did know about both same-sex orientation and long-term stable, same-sex relationships. Rather than depending as heavily as he does on the biased treatment of historical evidence in works like M. Nissinen's Homoeroticism in the Biblical World [2], Brownson should also have consulted something like the even-handed presentation of the evidence in L. Crompton's Homosexuality & Civilization [3], which demonstrates that both concepts were known to the ancient Greeks and anyone who was familiar with them. ...
"Exactly how does the absence of contemporaneous literature prove anything about what Paul could or could not have known about homosexuality, especially because the earlier Greek literature remained widely in circulation? ... This is merely another tendentious conclusion based entirely on an argument from silence."
In Brownson's view, "Paul does not condemn homoerotic desire per se in Romans 1:24, but the self-centered, uncontrolled excesses revealed when heterosexuals lust after members of their own gender. Here Brownson is simply wrong in both his lexicography and interpretation. ...
"Brownson's treatment of the way Paul uses the Stoic notions of what is according to nature (*phusis*) and contrary to nature (*para phusis*) in Romans 1:26-27 is also problematic in the way he treats both the origin and the interpretation of the idea of 'nature.' ... Brownson ignores the important Stoic distinction between nature (*phusis*), which is inherent to the unchanging order of creation, and law (*nomos*), which is variable according to human, social conventions. This confusion allows him to misconstrue Romans 2:14, 'When Gentiles ... do by nature things require by the law,' and its relevance to Romans 1:26-28. ... What 'comes naturally' for Paul is the creational norm of heterosexual relations, not the 'whatever comes naturally to me' of our modern, individualistic society. ...
"He insists that the true disagreement between traditionalists and progressives concerns 'how Paul's discussion (and the rest of the biblical witness) speaks to our contemporary experience, particularly the experience of gay and lesbian couples in committed relationships.' Once again Brownson misstates the issue. The disagreement actually turns on the (in)appropriate role given to the claims of modern, gay experience in shaping the church's interpretation of uncomfortable texts. Rather than submitting the gay experience to Scripture's evaluation, Brownson makes personal experience authoritative and then molds Scripture accordingly." Calvin Theological Journal, 48:2 - 2013, pp324-328.
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LEWIS, C.S.
"Inexhaustible Lewis" by Ralph C. Wood -- a joint review discussing eight separate volumes published to mark the 50th anniversary of Lewis's death. However, one book gets by far the most attention. In The C. S. Lewis Phenomenon: Christianity and the Public Sphere [4], Samuel Joeckel (Associate Professor of English, Palm Beach Atlantic University) "makes the revolutionary case that Lewis became the most important Christian intellectual of the 20th century....
"Joeckel is perhaps most incisive when he describes Lewis's fiction ... as apologues. A term with the same root as apologetics, an apologue is a work of narrative art that seeks to argue a thesis by clothing it in plot and character, image and atmosphere. The message doesn't arise out of the matter, therefore, but totally subordinates it. After reading an apologue, we remember the meaning it conveys far more than its central scenes and personages.
"Unlike a genuinely imaginative work of art, an apologue usually has clear and unambiguous import. ...
"'Lewis's fiction,' Joeckel argues, 'almost always gravitates toward the expository mode, eager to flesh out arguments and defend claims that lead readers to . . . the truth of Christianity.' "This is not a weakness, Joeckel adds, for it was precisely Lewis's intention to convey theological truths more than to provide an imaginative experience." Christian Century, Nov 27 '13, pp28-29. <www.bit.ly/1jgEu6v >
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church's Debate on Same-Sex Relationships, by James V. Brownson (Eerdmans, 2013, paperback, 312 pages) <www.ow.ly/uRpPz>
2 - Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective, by Martti Nissinen (Fortress, 2004, paperback, 224 pages) <www.ow.ly/uRs7j>
3 - Homosexuality and Civilization, by Louis Crompton (Belknap, 2006, paperback, 648 pages) <www.ow.ly/uRsfI>
4 - The C. S. Lewis Phenomenon: Christianity and the Public Sphere, by Samuel Joeckel (Mercer Univ Prs, 2013, paperback, 444 pages) <www.ow.ly/uRuAE>
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