The polygamist's Bible and the hard work of modern sexual ethics

In a previous post, I attempted to dispatch with the seven-ish scriptures that deal with some kind of same-gender sexual expression. I argued that, at the very least, the scriptural witness has very little to say about this topic, and probably nothing to say about it when considered in the context of contemporary same-gender families.

Nevertheless, some continue to claim that God’s plan for marriage, according to scripture and binding for all space and time, is the lifelong union of “one man and one woman.”

Of course, no one can actually find this stated explicitly in scripture. Throughout the Bible, all manner of sexual coupling (incest, polygamy, sexual slavery, women as spoils of war, etc.) is passed over in ethical silence. True, the Bible never formally endorses many of these practices – but it also never explicitly prohibits them.

Yet, some still make this claim.

Some go a step further and claim that our response to same-gender sexual expression is somehow essential to the integrity of our confession as Christian people and churches. Recently, I was engaged in a Facebook dialog in which many of my more conservative colleagues made the claim that not only was I wrong about this issue of social ethics, but it also meant that I had a fundamental misunderstanding of the law – and therefore also the gospel; thus, my confession of Christian faith is fundamentally flawed and heretical.  

So here are the two (strangely) related claims:

1.    The Bible offers a consistent sexual ethic that is binding throughout all space and time that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

2.    This is not simply an ethical issue, but it is central to the proclamation of the gospel, because to go against the Word of God is to endanger the souls of those who hear this false confession proclaimed.

When pushed, these friends ground both of these claims not in one of the seven-ish passages we tackled before; it is this one – provided in full context:

          ³Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" ⁴He answered, "Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' ⁵and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? ⁶So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." ⁷They said to him, "Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?" ⁸He said to them, "It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery."
          ¹⁰His disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." ¹¹But he said to them, "Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. ¹²For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can." (Matthew 19:3-12; see also Mark 10:1-12).

A number of remarks can be made about this text, but let’s focus where folks often focus, the highlighted text, where Jesus quotes Genesis (twice) to make his case for the implausibility of divorce in the kingdom of God (Note: Matthew adds, “except for unchastity,” a clear indication that within the first generation of this teaching, it needed to be loosened up a bit for – probably – very practical reasons).

Yes, Moses allowed for divorce because the people were so hard-hearted, but God’s original intent was for the lifelong binding of men and women in marriage. (Note: It is a little hazy to claim that “Moses” made these commandments on his own, and not the God of Israel himself. The giving of the law in the Torah is considered by most to be God’s doing, mediated through Moses. But hey – I’ll give Jesus the benefit of the doubt here. And, of course, I could be wrong.)

One can make some explicit claims from a plain reading of this text:

1.    Jesus believed that divorce is a violation of the created intent for human relationships. As such, he “binds” the law – restraining what the existing legal standards allow. This is the normal work of a rabbi – and the work that Jesus explicitly gives to the church in Matthew 18:15-20 (among other places). The church practices this “binding and loosing” work explicitly in Acts 15 with the issue of circumcision (among other places). There is disagreement among the churches regarding how and when this practice of binding or loosing the law should be continued in the church today.

2.    Jesus assumes marriage to be a hetero-gendered relationship, which follows the scriptural assumptions of his ancestors.

3.    Jesus understands that this teaching is hard – as hard for some as mutilating their own genitals. (Ouch.)

However, these are the claims that some would like to make, but cannot make without reading their own biases and assumptions into the text (what we like to call eisegesis):

1.    Jesus believes that monogamy should be normative and binding for all marriages, for all time.

2.    Jesus is hereby prohibiting any consideration of same-gender sexual expression.

Let’s take the latter first: Some respected (but not quite mainstream) scholars believe that Jesus would actually be perfectly fine with same-gender sexuality, based on an interesting reading of his encounter with the centurion’s slave (or houseboy) in Matthew 8:5-13 (also Luke 7:1-10). Interesting, but I would argue it’s equally eisegetical.

The reality is, Jesus never explicitly argues one way or the other on same-gender sexuality (he never mentions it), but it is not unreasonable to assume that he would find it to be outside the law. And Jesus is very cautious about keeping the laws of Moses – in his own interpretation at times – throughout his ministry. He was a kosher-keeping, law-abiding Jew, from birth to death. It is unlikely that he even spent much time considering same-gender sexuality (this is a fairly modern obsession, as the paucity of scripture on the subject attests). But if he ever considered it, it’s likely that he found it abhorrent. He probably wouldn’t kill people for it, however (as Leviticus commands)… he tended to be against that kind of thing.

But here’s the deal: Just as it is (probably) reaching too far to assume that Jesus would be fine with same-gender sexuality, it is still an assumption that he would disagree with the practice.

More importantly, it is a blatant assumption that Jesus assumed monogamy as normative for sexual ethics. Hetero-gendered, perhaps – but not monogamous.

This is plainly obvious from the sources he draws on to make his argument: the book of Genesis. To ground his argument for lifelong marriage, he reaches back to the very beginning. The book he reaches into, however, makes absolutely no assumption about monogamy. Abraham was not monogamous. Jacob had two wives and two concubines. Women were expected to belong to only one man for their entire sexual lives, but no such expectation was ever applied to men.

Again, it would be reaching too far to say that Jesus affirmed polygamy. But it is also reaching too far to say that Jesus affirmed monogamy as a binding sexual ethic. And if he wanted to do so, this was his chance! He was “binding and loosing” the laws of Moses regarding marriage. He could have “bound” the law to “one man and one woman.” But he didn’t.

It is equally fair to assume that Jesus was perfectly fine with polygamy as it is to assume that he was not. Both are assumptions that cannot be confirmed by a plain sense reading of the text.

Why is this important? Because it illustrates that “one man and one woman” cannot be found in scripture as a binding sexual ethic and norm for all space and time, as some would like to claim.

Which means that in order to do sexual ethics in our contemporary context, one must make assumptions and supply other, extra-biblical norms and values to fill in the blanks. I offer some suggestions about that in another post.

Thus: Since you cannot make the claim that the Bible explicitly commands marriage to be lifelong, monogamous, and hetero-gendered, how exactly do you make the claim that this modern definition of marriage is binding for all Christian people throughout all space and time? (Indeed, monogamy as a norm is a fairly modern notion, and it is by no means universally accepted today, even among Christians.)

And, more importantly, since you cannot claim that one sexual ethic is eternally binding based solely in the scriptures, then how on earth can you claim that we must have a uniform definition of marriage in order to also have a shared confession of the saving grace of Jesus Christ? 

Talk about reaching too far.

On Hillary, Gay Marriage, and Why We Can't Be Human.

Today, Hillary Clinton was obviously rattled by Terry Gross’s persistent attempts to clarify her “evolving” views on gaymarriage (start around minute 24). She wanted to know, essentially, if Hillary had actually changed her mind, or if she had evolved her public stance because the country and the conversation have evolved. It was, well, an awkward moment.

Here’s what I wish she would have said:

“I have always, in my heart of hearts, believed that lgbtq people are children of God, endowed with the same inalienable rights and worthy of the same dignity and protection under the law as everyone else – including the right to marry. I have never changed my mind about the dignity and value of my lgbtq friends or their families.

“I have also, however, always aspired to be a public servant – married to, and being myself, an elected and/or appointed official. I bring to that work a broad set of values and aspirations, and I have done that work in a political climate that forces me to make tough choices about how and what to support and when. In the early days of the movement for marriage equality, I was not prepared to be on the vanguard of that conversation. I believed it would have marginalized me as a political voice and limited my effectiveness as a leader. I did and said what I felt I had to in order to do as much good as possible in a system that is tragically flawed. I may or may not have judged that situation correctly. I will likely never know. These are the things that keep me up at night.

“What I do know without a doubt is that in doing so, my words about gay marriage were deeply hurtful to many people I dearly love as family and friends. For that I am profoundly sorry and I beg forgiveness. Every day. This, too – and much more so – keeps me up at night.

“May God and history judge me with both fairness and grace.”

That would have been refreshing. But, of course, she couldn't have said anything like that. Because we live in a political culture that has (at least) two unforgivable sins:

1. Changing one’s mind is a moral failure. You’re a flip-flopper. You have no backbone. This is the tendency that leads many of our leaders (on both sides of the aisle) to blatantly disregard data, evidence, science, math, reality, in order to “stick to their guns” – touting the party line, because that’s the money that got them elected. Truth be damned.

2. “Politics” is wrong. We expect our leaders to be ideological purists. We do not allow that, in this broken system, one must often make broken choices in order to serve what they understand to be the greater good. Is it wrong to vote for a bill that makes real progress in one direction but also takes us a few steps back on another issue? These are choices our leaders face every day. They are now constantly campaigning. And I’m the first to judge and criticize. I’m an ideological purist at heart. ("I'm watching you!") But I also have lived long enough to know that the world is not so simple as that. Calculations are made. Sins are committed in service of a greater good. I liken it to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s decision to participate in the plot to assassinate Hitler. He knew it is always wrong to kill a human being. He also believed it was the best chance we had to bring the horror of that war to an earlier end - and potentially save millions of lives. He sinned – and he sinned boldly – trusting that God would judge him, and Hitler, and the world with both justice and mercy.

I personally find it inconceivable that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have actually ‘evolved’ on this issue. That’s because I find it difficult to believe that two people who have felt intimately – in their own flesh – the sting of systemic injustice could actually believe that “separate but equal” is ever an intellectually honest or just response to a human being’s yearning to be regarded with dignity and justice. But that's just me.

Which means, of course, that I believe they have both been shrewd and efficacious politicians. They have suppressed some of their inmost convictions for the sake of broader goals.

I have never in my life believed – nor said out loud – that lgbtq people are not worthy of equal protection under the law. I stand by that conviction, and I believe that history will show that I was, and am, absolutely right. But I also have never been – and will likely never be – a politician. 

But they are. And they're good at it. And they suck at it. Because they are human.

And the fact that they cannot be human – truly human – in our presence, while being interviewed by Terry Gross… well, that absolutely reflects poorly on them.

But I believe it reflects far more poorly on us. All of us.