Rachel Held Evans

Picking and Choosing, and Letting the Bible Interpret Us

In his second letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes, “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” (I Timothy 2:12) This little verse has made big waves in the evangelical culture, and all my life I’ve heard it used to enforce restrictions on the positions women can hold in church leadership. And yet, just three verses before this one, Paul says, “I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works…” (I Timothy 2:9)

When I was a little girl, I was told I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up, except for a pastor. However, I was never discouraged from braiding my hair or wearing nice clothes to church. Why was Paul speaking specifically to the first century church at Ephesus in one breath and then to all women at all times throughout all cultures in the next?

This is just one illustration of many that reveal our tendency to pick and choose which passages of scripture we interpret as being culturally specific and which passages we interpret as being trans-cultural, applying to all people at all times. Another that comes to mind is Paul’s suggestion that Christians avoid getting married.

I bring this up in order to introduce our next book club selection for the month of July: Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals, by William Webb. This is a pretty comprehensive book on the subject of cultural hermeneutics. Although I disagree with some of Webb’s reasoning, I think he really raises some interesting issues, and does so in a very humble and accessible manner. In the book, Webb seeks to employ what he calls a redemptive-movement hermeneutic to help distinguish between cultural and trans-cultural biblical values, specifically applying this method to slavery, gender issues, and homosexuality. (I’ll let you remain on the edge of your seat wondering what his position is on each.)

As I was looking through some of the biblical passages analyzed in the book, I was surprised by how verses generally deemed culturally specific often appeared in close proximity to verses generally deemed trans-cultural.

For example, Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” You hear this one quoted all the time. And yet just three verses before we find the command, “You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity.” You don’t hear that one as often. Then, just a few verses later we find the strange command, “You shall not breed together two kinds of cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.” This is followed  by a strict warning against getting tattoos, which is followed by the admonition to care for foreign immigrants as neighbors.

Within just a few paragraphs are warnings against homosexuality, bestiality, mixed fibers, and tattoos, followed by clear instructions to revere the elderly, care for immigrants, and sacrifice animals.

I also noticed that right after Paul talks about homosexuality in Romans 1:26, he refers to greed, envy, arrogance, and gossip as sins punishable by spiritual death. It is quite appropriate that Chapter 2  begins with the statement, “Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself.”

As we discuss passages like these over the next few weeks, I think it’s helpful to focus some attention on letting the Bible interpret us a bit. What does it say about us when we make much ado about gay marriage, but neglect the needs of the immigrant population? And what does is say when we “discipline” church members who commit sexual sins, but not the ones who gossip? Too often the passages we choose to apply literally or universally…(or at least the ones that we emphasize most passionately)…are the ones that do not require us to change our behavior, but require other people to change their behavior.

I’ve often marveled at the fact that Jesus’ instructions to the rich young ruler to sell all of his belongings and give to the poor are rarely applied universally (because we interpret them as being spoken to a specific person in a unique circumstance), while Paul’s instructions to Timothy are often applied to all women at all times, (despite being written to a specific person in a unique circumstance.) I think it may have more to do with not wanting to sell stuff than most of us would care to admit.

Let’s keep that in mid as we discuss Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals.

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P.S. Webb does a great job of grabbing his readers’ interest at the beginning of the book by asking them to look through a list of a few dozen verses and mark which biblical instructions are “still in force for us today exactly as they are articulated ‘on the page.’” The following caught my eye. Let me know if you have any thoughts on them or if you would like to discuss certain ones further.

1. “God…said to [Adam and Eve], ‘Be fruitful and increase in number.’” (Genesis 1:28)
2. “Women should remain silent in the churches.” (I Corinthians 14:34)
3. “Heal the sick, raise the dead,…drive out demons.” (Matthew 10:8)
4. “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” (Luke 12:33)
5. “A woman should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head.’ (1 Cor. 11:6)
6. “If a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him.” (1 Cor. 11:14)
7. “Do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5;42)
8. “Slaves, submit to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.” (1 Peter 2:18)

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When a theology just doesn't feel right...

This week’s posts challenge the fundamentalists position of exclusivism-the theology that salvation is available only to those who explicitly confess faith in Jesus Christ, leaving out the billions of people throughout history who either never heard of Jesus or who were raised in religious traditions other than Christianity.

Having been taught my whole life that exclusivism was the only truly biblical position, I nearly gave up on the Christian faith altogether when my moral objections to it became too overwhelming for me to ignore. At the heart of the issue was the fact that exclusivism just didn’t feel right to me, it didn’t fit with my very core sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, of good and evil.

I shared the reservations of Elton Trueblood, who wrote of exclusivism: “Such a scheme is neat and simple, but it is morally shocking…A God who would thus play favorites with his children, condemning some to eternal separation from himself while admitting others, and distinguishing them wholly or chiefly on the basis of the accidents of history or geography, over which they had no control, would be more devil than God.”

But whenever I worked up the courage to question exclusivism,  someone inevitably fired back, “who are you to question your Creator? If you have a problem with people going to hell, then take it up with Him.” Believing Calvin’s theology to be God’s theology, any moral or emotional reservations are rendered moot. As one of my friends put it in an e-mail recently,  “If God says that the moon is made of green cheese, then the moon is made of green cheese despite what the scientists and my own senses might say. Everything God does is right, so if He condemns millions of men, women, and children to eternal torment, then I have to be okay with that. It’s got nothing to do with how I feel.” 

If I had a penny for every time I was told that my reservations on this matter were the result of my accommodating to a humanistic culture,  I could afford the ACLU membership fees apparently needed to support my habit. Such “sentimentalism,” I’ve been told, comes from the misguided assumption that human beings deserve mercy. The reason I have a problem with the idea of people suffering eternally without the chance to be saved is because my sense of justice is perverted by my sin nature. This is a common argument, and one set forth by  David George Moore in his book entitled The Battle for Hell. “It must be stated quite emphatically that our sense of justice is perverted, twisted, and distorted,” he writes. “What we as humans deem to be fair can many times be far removed from what God says.” (p. 29)

I can accept this idea to an extent, but it raises another serious question: If my sin nature perverts my sense of right and wrong to the point that I should not listen to my conscience, should I refrain from making judgment calls altogether? Is it not, dare I say, a bit of an argument in support of moral relativism?

C.S. Lewis describes the sense of right and wrong that exist in every person’s conscience as the Moral Law written on our hearts. Although our hearts and minds are corrupted by our sin nature, this sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, of love and hate, remains an important part of who we are and deserves our attention. I believe that, if my conscience tells me it is unjust for someone who never heard the gospel to suffer eternal torture for being born at the wrong place at the wrong time, I should listen to that conscience. If my heart tells me something is wrong, I’m not going to ignore it because Calvin says it isn’t real.

Now, someone will probably post an angry comment saying that the authority of Scripture should supercede any moral objections to exclusivism, that God’s Word trumps those gut feelings that there might be a problem.

But what if Scripture doesn’t necessarily support exclusivism?

While I have a great deal of respect for the many godly people I know  who subscribe to the theology of exclusivism, I no longer believe that it is the only biblical view. In fact, I would argue that the Bible actually has more support for an inclusive view of salvation than it has for an exclusive view of salvation. (See the previous post for references.)

Also encouraging is the diversity of scholarship on the subject found within the Christian tradition. Christian history is full of theologians who struggled with the problem of the unevangelized and who posed a wide variety of ideas about it. From Origen’s hope that salvation will eventually be received by all, to Karl Rahner’s assertion that other religions can serve as pointers to Christ, to Clark Pinnock’s biblical case for a more optimistic view of salvation, I’ve found that tucked away in the dusty corners of Christian libraries is a wealth of scholarship on the subject.

All my life I’ve  been taught that the Church is at its best when the theology is consistent and everyone agrees with one another, but when my very faith was on the line, it was the diversity of the Christian tradition that offered me so much hope.

As I’ve worked my way through Scripture, I’ve come to realize how horribly I misjudged God when I assumed that certain theological interpretations of Him defined Him. Doubting what I thought was a core tenant of Christianity was an incredibly difficult experience, and I confess that the anger and frustration I felt often led to sinful challenges to God’s authority and insensitive remarks to other people. There’s no excuse for it.

And  yet, I’m glad I listened to my conscience and questioned a theology that simply didn’t feel right to me. Doing so has brought me down a path of spiritual exploration that has renewed my sense of awe for God’s love and mercy and for the universal reach of His redemption.

My hope is that, as more people listen to their intuition, the conservative evangelical community will reassess its position on the destiny of the un-evangelized.

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