Religion and Sex in the Bible when Viewed Through the Lenses of Liberal Presuppositions, Or, Nick Kristof Needs to Read More than One Book on This Controverted Topic

I have long enjoyed reading about the globe-trotting adventures of Nick Kristof, arch-liberal and New York Times columnist. Whatever his political ideology, he has literally given his own blood to save lives and shelled out his own cash to buy two girls out of sexual slavery. Sure, he did all this in front of the cameras… but I’m not that cynical. I think he has a heart of real compassion for oppressed people, a heart that conservatives should have, too.

But Kristof is indeed driven by an ideology, and it is nowhere more clear than in a recent column, a “Religion and Sex Quiz.” He buys all of the liberal arguments on sexuality in Scripture—and even some ugly innuendos against Bible characters like David and Ruth. This is simply irresponsible coming from an internationally renowned journalist writing for the “newspaper of record.” His regurgitation of liberal theology (he cites this book by Jennifer Wright Knust as his source) was not fit to print.

I’ll quote each of his points and then provide some brief evaluation. Note that I make no public policy recommendations in this particular blog post; my argument is about faithful interpretation of the Bible.

One

“The Bible’s position on abortion is…never mentioned as such.”

The “as such” reveals the problem with Kristof’s argument here. Identity theft is never mentioned as such, but theft is. Aborting unborn babies is never mentioned as such, but unjustified killing of humans is. The Bible at times makes general statements meant to apply to the always changing human situation. This is not a surprise to any mature Christian.

Two

“The Bible suggests ‘marriage’ is… a.) The lifelong union of one man and one woman. b.) The union of one man and up to 700 wives. c.) Often undesirable, because it distracts from service to the Lord.” Kristof says it’s all three, A, B, and C. He points to the example of Solomon (1 Kings 11:3) and, of course, Paul’s words encouraging singleness in 1 Cor 7 and Jesus’ words about men who are eunuchs for the kingdom in Matt 19:12.

Narratives don’t have to come out and say explicitly what their morals are; the results of Solomon’s choices will show the moral of the story. In this case, however, the Bible does give the moral explicitly. And all Kristof had to do was read to the end of the very verse he cites: “And his wives turned away his heart” (1 Kgs 11:3b). And this is exactly what Deuteronomy 17:17 warns against: “[The king] shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away” (Deut 17:17).

As for Jesus’ and Paul’s praise of singleness, there are difficulties, but there are answers. Liberals often criticize conservatives for using “gotcha” arguments from Scripture without being more aware of context. And sometimes conservatives are indeed guilty of this sin! But here Kristof is the one who fails to read sympathetically. He wants to find contradictions; he wants to find confirmation of his worldview. It’s no surprise when his Bible-trotting journey ends where he always planned for it to go.

Three

“The Bible says of homosexuality…. a.) Leviticus describes male sexual pairing as an abomination. [&] c.) There’s plenty of ambiguity and no indication of physical intimacy, but some readers point to Ruth and Naomi’s love as suspiciously close, or to King David declaring to Jonathan: ‘Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women’ (II Samuel 1:23-26).”

If there’s plenty of ambiguity and no indication of physical intimacy, why imprint on ancient Jewish culture our culture’s suspicion that same-sex friendship has to be erotic (at least in a repressed way)? Are resolutely heterosexual male friends allowed to love one another in some respect surpassing their love for their wives? The words of Anthony Esolen in his article “A Requiem for Friendship” have rung in my ears ever since I read them:

“What do the [homosexual] paraders achieve, with their public promotion of homosexuality? They come out of the closet, and hustle a lot of good and natural feelings back in. They indulge in garrulity, and consequently tie the tongues and chill the hearts of men, who can no longer feel what they ought, or speak what they feel.”

Four

“In the Bible, erotic writing is… exemplified by ‘Song of Songs,’ which celebrates sex for its own sake.”

Amen! God created sex to be enjoyed. And I’ll admit something Kristof seems to imply, that the Song of Songs does not specifically say that sex is reserved for married couples—even though other parts of the Bible do say this. As someone who presupposes by faith that the Bible is a unified document I see no contradiction here. As someone who presupposes by faith that adults should be allowed to do in their bedrooms whatever they mutually want to do—and that no god should be allowed to intrude—of course Kristof will read the evidence differently. But it’s our presuppositions that determine our respective perspectives (!) on the Song of Songs, not merely the text itself.

Five

“Jesus says that divorce is permitted… [both] b.) Never. and c.) Only to men whose wives have been unfaithful.” He explains that “Jesus in Mark 10:11-12 condemns divorce generally, but in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 suggests that a man can divorce his wife if she is guilty of sexual immorality.”

I would say that these passages are complementary, not contradictory. Again, I’ll admit that we have some difficulties here. But again I’ll say that Kristof presupposes that harmonization is impossible—and, for him, undesirable.

Six

“Among sexual behavior that is forbidden is… a.) Adultery. b.) Incest. c.) Sex with angels.”

Kristof is trading on our culture’s materialism: the enlightened people who read the Times don’t believe in supernatural beings like angels. But I will say that C. is obscure. It isn’t even clear that the two passages Kristof cites, Genesis 6 and Jude 6, are talking about the same thing. Genesis 6 doesn’t say “angels” but “sons of God.” As a Bible believer, I am not committed to saying that all of God’s word is equally clear to everyone; the Bible itself says that parts of it are difficult to understand (2 Pet 3:16)—and that some people, even if they do understand, won’t accept what they read until they are enlightened by God’s Spirit (1 Cor 2:14).

Seven

“The people of Sodom were condemned principally for… lack of compassion for the poor and needy [not homosexuality].”

Kristof cites Ezekiel 16:49, which indeed indicts Sodom for sins other than homosexuality. But the very next verse, 16:50, says that they also committed “an abomination” before God. A straightforward reading of the Genesis text (Gen 19:4-5) leaves no doubt that the men surrounding Lot’s house were driven by homosexual desire. Just because Ezekiel does not make this explicit does not mean that God (or later Jews) had a change of mind about homosexuality. Kristof again fails to make genre distinctions: narratives make their points implicitly, prophetic passages explicitly.

Summary

Kristof writes of the book from which he drew his column,

Professor Knust’s point is that the Bible’s teachings about sexuality are murky and inconsistent and prone to being hijacked by ideologues (this quiz involves some cherry-picking of my own). There’s also lots we just don’t understand: What exactly is the offense of “arsenokoitai” or “man beds” that St. Paul proscribes? It is often translated as a reference to homosexuality, but it more plausibly relates to male prostitution or pimping. Ambiguity is everywhere, which is why some of you will surely harrumph at my quiz answers.

I could say that these arguments have been answered again and again. And they certainly have (try this scholar, for starters). But Kristof is an opinion writer; he’s not required to read the other side—even if on a hot-button issue like this it would behoove him to do so.

Conclusion

But there’s a deeper issue here. Kristof has an agenda, and so do you and I. Each of us is going to read Scripture in line with that agenda. Kristof’s presuppositions turn the Bible into a rhetorical tool for him to unsettle Christian conservatives. He has a pragmatic goal he wants to achieve. He doesn’t personally care what the Bible says. Holy writ is, for him, only a bludgeon to be picked up only when needed.

God forbid that Christians would use it the same way. We should not wield Scripture as merely a tool to help us do things we want; instead, through Scripture God stands over us with absolute authority. If the Bible really does not condemn homosexual behavior, it would be best for Christians to admit it now. Many American Christians were wrong about issues of race and only too late repented of their sin.

But if the God of the universe says homosexuality is morally wrong—just like all other forms of sexual activity outside monogamous heterosexual marriage (and just like gossip, lying, and numbers of other sins; cf. Rom 1)—then we will have to endure and patiently answer Religion and Sex quizzes at the New York Times.

A Sword that Cuts Off Liberals’ and Conservatives’ Heads

Sometimes the principled reasons people give for taking a position are just window dressing, good for public display but only incidental to the heart of the matter, which is the state of their hearts.

—Stanley Fish, The Trouble with Principle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 33.

Zeal-of-the-Land Busy

I’m still reading God’s Secretaries, and I’ve arrived at a section in which Nicolson details the umpteen rules the KJV translators were supposed to follow. The second is this:

2. The names of the Profyts and the holie Wryters, with the other Names in the text to be retayned, as near as may be, according as they are vulgarly used.

I agree with that, but it would seem hardly worth saying. Why translate “John” or “Timothy” or, for that matter, “Jesus” with “Ioann,” “Timotheus,” or “Yeshua”?

Well, apparently there was a reason:

Some Puritans maintained that the names of the great figures in the scriptures, all of which signify something—Adam meant “Red Earth,” Timothy “Fear-God”—should be translated. The Geneva Bible, which was an encyclopedia of Calvinist thought, including maps and diagrams, had a list of those meanings at the back and, in imitation of those signifying names, Puritans, particularly in the heartlands of Northamptonshire and the Sussex Weald, had taken to naming their children after moral qualities. Ben Jonson included characters called Tribulation Wholesome, Zeal-of-the-Land Busy and Win-the-fight Littlewit in The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614), and Bancroft himself [Archbishop of Canterbury, in charge of the translation effort] had written about the absurdity of calling your children “The Lord-is-near, More-trial, Reformation, More-fruit, Dust and many other such-like.” These were not invented. Puritan children at Warbleton in Sussex, the heartland of the practice, laboured under the names of Eschew-evil, Lament, No-merit, Sorry-for-sin, Learn-wisdom, Faint-not, Give-thanks, and, the most popular, Sin-deny, which was landed on ten children baptized in the parish between 1586 and 1596.

Adam Nicolson, God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (HarperCollins, 2003), 74.

Eschewing the culture’s accepted canon of names is a way of rejecting that culture and, to some degree, setting up one’s own. In a 17th century England that valued passing on its ways from generation to generation, this was a “half-mad denial of tradition” (p. 74).

Kevin Bauder on Anti-Intellectualism

Years ago, Kevin Bauder’s address “A Fundamentalism Worth Saving” was helpful and influential for me.

Recently, I found my mind going back to some of the points in a Nick of Time article he just put out. I have a feeling these thoughts will stick with me, too:

Admittedly, high culture—and especially academic culture—can provide an occasion for arrogance. People who invest years of their lives perfecting their mastery of an art or a learned discipline tend to become a bit testy when critiqued by dilettantes. Furthermore, they sometimes assume that their study grants them authority outside their areas of expertise. Even within those areas their competence may actually be less than they imagine.

Yet avoidance of high culture is not exactly a prophylactic against pride. Ugly as pride of intellect may be, it is not noticeably less sinful than pride of ignorance. Who, after all, is more arrogant: people who believe that they have a right to express an opinion because they have invested years of effort in the study and mastery of their subject, or those who believe that they have a right to express an opinion simply because they occupy space?

As for the objection that one had better spend his time winning souls, it supposes that those who spurn high culture will actually employ a comparable amount of time in witnessing or other spiritual pursuits. The fact is that they rarely do. People who refuse go to the concert hall or the art gallery do not simply go to church. They also go to the ball game. Those who reject education rarely give themselves only to evangelism. They also watch television or go fishing. That is not necessarily a problem: ball games and fishing are enjoyable and legitimate activities, but they are hardly more spiritual than hearing Mozart or looking at a Rembrandt.

Tips and Links for Studying Jewish Documents

David Instone-Brewer of Tyndale House offers some resources for studying Jewish documents.

I have found it frustrating a few times to locate and translate Jewish documents relevant to NT study. Looks like this page will be a help.

Be sure to submit your e-mail address at the bottom of the page—or subscribe to the blog, or both. Instone-Brewer’s posts are always worth being aware of.

May 21, 2011

It’s not clear to me exactly what Harold Camping is predicting, but it is very, very sad. And wrong—though I wish he were right.

Mark 13 admonishes readers against attempts at constructing timetables and deciphering signs of the Parousia. Disciples are admonished to be alert and watchful (vv. 5, 9, 23, 33, 35, 37), reminded that they do not know the time of the end (vv. 33, 35), and warned not to be led astray by even the most obvious signs (vv. 5, 6, 21, 22), for the end is not yet (vv. 7, 13). No one is either encouraged or commended for attempting to be an eschatological code-cracker. That is folly, for even the Son of Man is ignorant of the End (v. 32). The premium of discipleship is placed not on predicting the future but on faithfulness in the present, especially in trials, adversity, and suffering.

James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, PNTC, (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 2002), 386.

Save the Date: May 5, 2012—PhD Graduation

As I announced previously, I successfully defended my dissertation for a PhD in New Testament on May 2. I have some corrections to make, but I’m basically done. I’m a doctor—though not the kind that anyone really cares about! Finishing five days before the 2011 commencement, however, means 1) it was too late for me to participate in the ceremony and 2) I confused a lot of people!

So I’m announcing a save-the-date now: I plan to walk in the May 5, 2012, commencement. Both of you are, of course, welcome to come down to Greenville for that occasion. There will probably be some sort of reception at that time.

Here are the acknowledgments from the opening pages of my dissertation:

I would like to express profound gratitude to Dr. Mark Minnick for modeling God-centered affections and correct hermeneutics and to Dr. Randy Leedy for supplementing the latter with Greek and linguistic tools. The institutions those two men represent, Mount Calvary Baptist Church and Bob Jones University, have been the greatest formative influences on my life beyond my parents, and for that I thank the Lord. I also thank my father for teaching me to read and write even before I began the Christian education he subsequently paid for; Brian Collins for being a multi-year theological conversation partner, mentor, and friend; and Bryan Smith for the many hours he spent as my unofficial committee chair. I also thank Greg Baker for his judicious comments on the first half of the dissertation, Joseph Bartosch for his counsel, and my godly in-laws, Jeffery and Janine Vrotsos, for making their basement available to me for uninterrupted work at two key times in the dissertation process.

I asked my church and others to pray that my dissertation would benefit Christ’s body in some way, even if no one ever reads it! Many people prayed for my work and let me know it, but if I started naming people beyond my family—Donna Ward, Todd and Laura Glass—I would forget some, so I merely say thank you.

Lastly, I thank my beautiful wife, Laura, for her support and insight, and for being even more excited about finishing dissertation chapters than I was (and not merely because she got ice cream out of it). I love her with the true love of delight.

Why I Think the New Age is the Truly Hot Issue for the Christian Church, Or, Keeping Up with the Carsons

The crop of new theological books for 2011 is huge. The problem is that the cool people seem to read each one while I’ve only caught up to 1987 (Emergent what?—the New Age is the most pressing issue facing the Christian Church!). The cool people also seem to read all the old books I still haven’t gotten around to—Augustine, Calvin, Aquinas, Baxter, Ryle. I feel woefully behind.

And that woe of mine sometimes keeps me from fully enjoying and profiting from what I’m reading. There’s a nagging thought at the back of my mind while I read (nagging a little more loudly than the one that reminds me to check my e-mail) that there is so much more to read if I want to be viewed as "up" on things. I feel hurried as I try to read the book in front of me. No time to process; gotta make another notch in the book belt!

But I have come to think recently that I simply must trust God’s organization of my schedule. Who can say why I pick up certain books and not others? I do have a general plan, but even that plan isn’t and can’t be very specific. Who knows when I’ll have time to read a given book? I might plan for it to be this year, but I have to admit, only “if the Lord wills will I read this or that” (Jas 4:15). Ultimately, God ordains when I’ll read certain books. He knows what influences I need and when. I have a responsibility to be diligent, to redeem the time, but I don’t have to read it all. A husband, father, and preacher like me can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t.

God orders my steps. He even gave me the reading speed and mental capacity I have. He didn’t give me someone else’s. Like one of the cool people’s, you know.

Three Answers to the Application Question

I am reading Putting the Truth to Work: The Theory and Practice of Biblical Application by Dan Doriani. After just the introduction and first chapter, I am impressed. He has put his finger on questions I have asked; he then asked and answered them better than I ever could.

Here’s a summary of one of his key sections. He outlines three views on whether a theory of application–the subject of his book–is truly necessary.

View 1. Application is Subjective, Expressing Our Spirituality

This view assumes that application comes immediately from the preacher’s heart. When he realizes that the text of Scripture applies to him or his congregation, he repeats it to others. He listens for the voice of the Spirit.

“This approach,” Doriani says, “rightly gives prominence to the Master’s voice in Bible interpretation. Too much technique can crowd God out of the study.” We don’t want to have a theory which removes the necessity for the illumination of the Spirit.

But this approach forgets that uncontrolled meditation has few safeguards. Those who meditate hear many voices, not all of them divine. Recent readings and events weigh heavily. Worse, our hearts deceive us. Sinful desires and petty grudges contaminate our meditations. We are too blind to our ego, too ignorant of others’ needs, too prone to legalism, too dedicated to our own agendas to justify trusting our subjective impulses. The prowling mind can find evidence in almost every passage that what it wants, God ordains. (p.28)

View 2. Application Is Problematic, Encouraging Legalism

This view opposes application on the grounds that sanctification is the Spirit’s work. Making application is making extrabiblical rules for people to follow. “To define rules and set priorities (can one lie to save a life?) is to enter the Pharisees’ world and to betray Christian freedom for a code.” Doriani is perceptive again:

This view rightly fingers the danger of legalistic uses of Scripture. It knows that application must lead to a relationship with God, not with a legal code. It knows that eloquent talk can persuade people to change their behavior, but no human can change the heart. But it suffers from an unnecessarily negative view of the law [Rom 7:12] and forgets that it takes work to apply biblical principles to new issues, such as technology-driven change or life in blended families. Further, few speakers truly leave application to God. If they spurn preparation, they will probably fall back on clichés and shirk the difficult questions. (p.29)

View 3. Application Is a Gift and an Art, yet It Encourages Theory

View 3 is always the best in any good book, avoiding the Scylla of view 1 and the Charybdis of that awful view 2. Doriani does not disappoint. He shows that views 1 and 2 aren’t awful; they’re included in the right view. Application is both an art and a science. We need to think it through even if some people do it well without being able to say why.

I starred the first paragraph in this section; this is the kind of wisdom that comes from someone who knows how to view Scripture as a theological whole:

Application is certainly a divine gift, but not all divine gifts are unmediated. We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” yet we are also commanded to work for it (Matt. 6:11; Prov. 6:6-11; 28:19; 2 Thess.3:6-12). Similarly, we both pray for wisdom and search it out (Prov. 2:1-8; James 1:5; 3:13). So too with application. It is a gift when God makes words strike their targets, yet he takes our words for his arrows. (p.29)

The “compatibilism” which honors both God’s claims to control everything (Isa 46:8-11) and the importance of man’s responsibility to choose goes to the heart of all our theologizing and theorizing. God uses means, and our choices to cooperate (or not) with His plan are significant.

Salvation at Yale

Last summer I took a course at Yale Divinity School’s Jonathan Edwards Center on Edwards’ Religious Affections. I enjoyed it very much. This summer I’m considering taking another course there. I was looking through the course offerings, and I came across this:

I gather that the instructor takes a position somewhat different from my own, which wouldn’t be all bad. I’m sure I would have much to learn from him. But what struck me was a little word in the middle of the last paragraph, a brand new coinage, I think. Can you find it?

Instructor: Fred Simmons is assistant professor of ethics at Yale Divinity School. His research and teaching examine the moral implications of Christian theological commitments and the relationships between philosophical and theological ethics. He is completing a book on the ethical and potential esoteriological significance of ecology for contemporary Christians, and is co-editing a volume on love and Christian ethics.

What is “esoteriological significance”? This caught my fancy. It’s apparently some truth about salvation (hence, soteriological) that is available only to the elite few (hence, esoteric). I am not surprised that the predominantly liberal Yale Divinity School would claim knowledge of such truth—or that it would be related to ecology. I’m guessing that salvation, in the liberal view, now comes primarily through reducing your carbon footprint.

Should a Minister Be a “dumme dogge”?

When James I of Scotland acceded to the throne of England in 1603, the Puritans saw their chance to start anew. Ossified Queen Elizabeth was dead; perhaps James would complete the Reformation she did not allow to be finished. Perhaps Catholic accretions could finally be rooted out of the English church. Adam Nicolson tells what happened and makes an interesting observation:

A sudden electric current ran through the English shires. The Puritans arranged public debates on the question of the wearing of the surplice, and on the use of the cross, on the bishop’s’ laying on of hands at confirmation, and on the all-important question of whether ministers should be learned or not. In a Catholic or sub-Catholic church, where the visual and the ceremonial dominated the verbal and the intellectual, it scarcely mattered if the priest was well qualified; he was simply the conduit for divine meaning. But in a proper, pure reformed church, the minister needed to be, more than anything else, an effective preacher of the word, not a mere “dumme dogge,” as the phrase went at the time—it came from Isaiah—who would go through the motions and convey nothing of the intellectual spirit of reformed Christianity.

Adam Nicolson, God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (HarperCollins, 2003), 35.

English-speaking Baptists are heirs of those Puritans and, before that, of the Protestant Reformation. Anti-intellectualism sells our birthright.

Beautiful Royal Wedding Music, Contemporary Choral

I very much enjoyed this part of the wedding.

Free Greenville-Area Accordance Seminar May 14

An unpaid advertisement for some quality Bible software:

Accordance Bible Software is a unique tool used by scholars, pastors, teachers, students and laypeople all over the world to enhance their studies of Scripture in a time saving, efficient manner.  We want to invite you and any of your associates to a FREE training seminar being held in your area. Would you mind spreading the word about this great event?

Saturday, May 14th
9am to 10pm (3 sessions)

Our new extended hours schedule of 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. will consist of three sessions with breaks for lunch and dinner. You are welcome to attend any part of the seminar.

Hosted By:

Greenville Nazarene Church
1201 Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29615
The Bridge Student Building

The seminar will be suitable for users of Accordance or individuals who would like to observe and learn more about the Bible software.  It will be beneficial to anyone who is interested in studying the Bible, leading others in study, researching original languages or preparing for pastoral ministries.

Accordance has been developed as a Macintosh application, and runs natively under Mac OS X including Intel processors, as well as the classic Mac OS (System 7.5 or above). If you do not own Accordance and would like to use the demo version during the seminar, you will find it here.

Accordance can also be run on a Windows PC using an emulator. The emulator is fast and free, and all but one of Accordance’s powerful features are supported. Find out more about using Accordance on a PC.

Please visit our website for more information about Accordance or for a list of our upcoming training seminars.

We would be pleased to have anyone from your community join us. For registration information, please email us at seminars@accordancebible.com.