I’d like to offer the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8 as a model for a Christian approach to those practicing sexual sins. I think this story models Christ’s approach to fallen humanity:
- Jesus did not freak out when confronted with a “terrible” sinner.
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Whatever a person’s past crimes, our clear statement to them should be, “Jesus loves you. And I love you, too.”
- Jesus did not pass judgment on past sin.
- Everyone comes into the kingdom with baggage. There are no small sins and big sins. The church should be a rescue mission not a parade of stars.
- Jesus commanded the person to stop sinning.
- The cease-and-desist takes place within a supporting fellowship. We need to gently disciple people as part of our family of faith, rather than bar them from entrance until they’ve passed the membership requirements.
I know that some of my friends will disagree with quite a lot of this since they don’t consider homosexuality a sin. But I’m just trying to offer a rubric for churches and faith communities that do consider homosexuality, adultery, fornication and the like to be sins.
A number of times commenters have said that we should not judge. I think in this story, Jesus shows the parameters for judgment. Those within the church should not judge those outside the church. But those within the church most certainly should judge the behavior of those within the church. In extreme cases, 1 Corinthians 5 actually models the expulsion of those who live unrepentantly in sin despite confessing an allegiance to Christ. I think that what Paul is saying is that “handing them over to Satan” in essence is turning them out of the church so that they can remember what life was like without the support of the body of Christ. One of the great failings of our churches in this area is divorce. If people knew that their decision to divorce their spouse would result in them being kicked out of the church, they might think twice about it and work within the church’s systems to heal and strengthen their marriages.
Your “rubric” has this backstory:
sexist men are condemners of the adulteress (where’s the man caught in adultery?)
and they’re would-be excommunicators of Jesus (or, as John puts it, they’re the ones trying to put him on trial).
Before Jesus deals with her, he gets them to deal with themselves, and adds something in writing (in the sand, which remains a secret to you and me).
Once he deals with this “faith community,” this insider-board of excommunication, then he can meet the woman at her own level (isn’t he still stooped down, now looking her in the eye, encouraging her not to be judged by the hypocrites but to get up?)
Does he then say to John the gospel writer: “Make sure you get this one down right, because yall will need a rubric one day to deal with everyone else who practices sex sins?” (Then he winks at Paul, who’s returned watching from the shadows, and whispers: “When the scales come off your eyes, I’ll get you cleaning up the dirtiest of Greeks, turning them over to Satan if you have to. Now, git along, every one of you: go and sin no more.”)
Your 1, 2, and 3 really are very good and very helpful!!! I myself really like #2.
wait a minute. isn’t this text added much later? what if it’s written and included in the john taxt delberately by a woman redactionist? what does this do to the meaning of the text? what if the woman redactionist is a lesbian? what is the text saying then?
1 Corinthians 5 might apply but I doubt it – we have too little information. In any case, the ‘cease and desist’ does not come from the all-knowing ’supportive’ (i.e. condemning in this case) faith community – it comes from the Spirit – as Paul says ‘When I am present with you in the Spirit’. Clearly this situation has had a long history (if the sequence of Matthew 18 is also to be considered with respect to polity) – see particularly this note.
You write: those within the church most certainly should judge the behavior of those within the church. What! Where do you get this from? Certainly not from Romans – who are you that judges your brother? Or from James – or Jesus – or do their words not apply? Yes, Paul says the spiritual man (or woman) judges everyone and is himself judged by no-one. But am I so Spiritual that I can do such? Or is Paul? Perhaps he is referring to Christ. Maybe he is referring to the ultimate state of the church.
In some religious assemblies, the best thing for a homosexual to do is to keep quiet. He or she is not going to be able to deal with this particular gift from God in public. The public face of some religious assemblies can only support dishonest and incomplete disclosure. We had this for a long time with the criminalizing of homosexuality up until the 1960s or thereabouts. The results of this deliberate suppression was far worse in my opinion. The depravity and unreconciled conflict appeared in North America in the abuse scandals everywhere.
Perhaps it is that those who don’t have this problem don’t know how God deals with it in Christ. There are lots of problems I don’t have. If a brother or sister tells me about them needing pastoral support, I hope I will not judge them according to what they cannot support. My advice, incidentally, would not support sexual sins. To my mind these include but are not limited to exploitation of another’s weakness, violence, an inequality in power, buying and selling sex itself a form of Simony. These sins can all occur inside marriage. Social covenants are no guarantee of love.
I have said what I think is required of one who comes into Christ – Romans spells it out with great power leading us to the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It is entered by considering ourselves as having died to the law that we might be married to the one who is risen from the dead. What happens then in a life is more than conforming it to what we think God ought to do.
I see many places where we are instructed to judge also – so we must judge what and where to judge. That means in this case we need to consider new information from science and experience. It questions of course how we read the Bible and determine our law and policy based on it.
Bob, “those within the church most certainly should judge the behavior of those within the church” comes from the 1 Corinthians 5 you seem to reject, verse 12. It is a general principle, not restricted to the specific case of verse 1. But on what basis do you reject this passage while appealing to Romans?
David, I can’t agree with you that those who get divorced are covered by the rules of this chapter. Read on to 7:11 for Paul’s teaching about what should happen to a wife or husband who gets divorced. Then see 7:15 for teaching about those who are deserted by their spouses. Of course the church should work to strengthen marriage, but not by condemning those whose marriages fall apart often through no fault of their own.
I don’t reject it. I don’t think it applies in this instance. But perhaps Paul himself was growing in his understanding of the implications of the death of Christ between this epistle on pragmatics and the letter to Rome. Paul and I may well disagree on this. We are still in conversation though.
Thanks all for comments and also for reading the spirit of my words when the words themselves were rather sloppy (Writing in a hurry this morning).
I keep thinking about Africa with regard to this topic where homosexuality is not on the radar but adultery is. There are social practices, such as no sexual relations between couples during the first two years of a child’s life, that create an environment leading to unfaithfulness which in addition to the social ills (strife, lying, marital breakdown) there are also physical ramifications STDs, especially AIDS.
A congregation in Africa does not fulfill the law of Christ by refraining from judgment. In fact, their failure to judge only multiplies the problems experienced by that congregation (hypocrisy, blackmail, and more).
Bob, your failure to judge simply sounds like permissiveness or passivity. If one of the members of your congregation were stealing from the church or from a member of the church it would not be amiss to call this person on the carpet and expose their deeds. That’s what we must do with a pattern of unrepentant sexual sin. For the sake of our congregation and the families and individuals that will be scarred if we do not.
Well, homosexuality is a sin according to orthodox opinions in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but do you regard it as a secular offense? For example, I think we can all agree that pedophilia is a secular offense and society has a strong interest in imposing severe punishment to deter it. What about homosexuality? If a person declares himself or herself to be an atheist, is homosexuality an offense? Or should we use the power of the state to make homosexuality a punishable offense?
As a youth, I would refer to some one as a “queer” in a derogatory manner. My disgust with that life style carried on into adulthood.
Only recently have I reconsidered my predudices and tried to determine why I am that way and how I should behave.
Iyov has pointed out that maybe we shouldn’t apply our Christian standards to non-christians. I agree. We should be able to have rational conversations to express our opinions and hear others.
With Christians, I agree with David that we need to hold Christians accountable to God’s laws and confront behavior that is contrary. This would also include divorce, adualtry, and other behaviors that are flagrant violations of God’s laws. This needs to be done in love, even if it isn’t always accepted in love.
I have been married, and divorced, and remarried, and have always questioned if it was right for me to do that. We consulted our pastor before marrying and he gave us his blessing. Even though things have worked out well in this second marriage, I still question if it was right.
David,
Just a small quibble.
> Jesus did not pass judgment on past sin
Jesus certainly did condemn the woman to death by stoning. The woman must have been terrified when the words came out of Jesus’ mouth that the stoning was to begin immediately. People forget that little detail too often, but it’s there in the text. He has obviously decided she should not die, but that doesn’t revoke the sentence.
…
Steve, if you’re looking for scriptures that say you were right to remarry, I’d be happy to help.
scott gray,
> wait a minute. isn’t this text added much later?
Yes, the text is added later according to many respectable authorities. Most of these same authorities consider the text to be a highly reliable addition made during the lifetime of the author and accepted by him – not “much later.” It is, to all appearances, historically accurate and worthy of a discussion like this.
codepoke–
what authorities are you talking about? name two, as my daddy used to say.
david–
since several of you have decided that christian moral standards may not be applicable to outsiders (those outside your intentional community), in the case of homosexuality, if a constituional amendment came up for popular vote to legislate nationwide that marriage be defined as a man and a woman, and that no other legal unions would be accepted, would you vote for it, or against it? or as members of an intentional community, would you abstain, courteously?
peace–
scott
Hey Scott, I’m uncomfortable with the aggressive advocacy by FOTF and others but I think that has more to do with my non-confrontational style rather than thinking that what they are doing is incorrect. But in general as you’ve picked up from my terminology I think an intentional community is a better place to work on hearing the Spirit and living the Gospel since the application of Jesus’ commands tends to be very culture-specific (Yes, I just said that… )
codepoke–
let me ask the question differently and less abruptly.
in version a, an eyewitness john saw the event described, and wrote it down. in version b, a moral story was told as part of a faith community’s understanding of jesus, written first in a gospel that isn’t part of the canon in the late first c. ce, and later copyed, with some changes, in the third c. ce into what we now know as the gospel of john.
would the meaning of the story be different for you if one were historically true and the other not?
peace–
scott
p.s. i’ve had trouble remembering the word ‘pericope’ in the past, so at some point, i’ve placed an observer in the back of the crowd with one of those hand held periscopes. now i always seem to hear the story with that person in the mix, and it’s often me. does this change the meaning of the story?
Was the man who was committing adultery with the woman also in the crowd with a stone in his hand? Or was he being stoned somewhere else?? Or does judgement only apply to women???
Jesus dares the crowd to stone the woman, to judge and punish her for what they deem to be a (sexual) sin, but he adds a key rider – throw a stone only if you are without sin. for me this says something really important about judging and our judgment – humility rather than crowing certainty about how right we are need to the starting point. I too am not perfect – yet I dare perhpas to point to perfection for you too.
I don’t want a God who does not judge – without judgement there is now justice – I also do not want a God who does not welcome and forgive and is not filled with grace.
Christ writes in the dust and reminds us all that this is the element to which we will return – the dust is also where the crowd’s stones end up.
When a marriage breaks down there are nearly always issues of justice there are also nearly always issues of forgiveness; both need to be addressed – is God big enough to deal with that? is our faith great enough to deal with that?
And on homosexuality I would ask why we focus on this. Do we really believe that 10% or 15% of the world’s population who may be homosexual are responsible for more of the world’s sin than the majority 85%? It is so much easier to see the speck in our sister or brother’s eye – meanwhile we call the beam in our own “the correct hermeneutical perspective”.
Thanks for the thoughtful contributions here.
Ed. note: Corrected per Jane’s request.
Back to David’s point about the text in question…
It is clear from the evidence gathered going back to Metzger and supporting detail since that John 8 is highly suspect as an actual tale of Jesus. But no matter, the teaching itself is consistent with various traditions in the early Christian community and deserves ample respect which is why it’s there.
However, the problem with placing all forms of homosexual relationship in the same category as adultery is inaccurate in the multiple ways that homosexual relations are experienced today. Surely, there are discordant homosexual relationships as there are discordant heterosexual relationships lest supporters of homosexual equanimity place it on a pedestal above any reproach. However, it is simply not true that all homosexual relationships have the same set of effects and variances in relationality that adultery does. That is to say, homosexual relations are not by necessity destructive to one’s primary relationship to another, but can actually be that primary relationship. The only reason why homosexuality is not under the same rubric of adultery is because they cannot marry in most Christian communities.
I think a better place to look might be in polygamy. As David will attest, this is a source of discord among missionaries in Africa and has been for a long time. Thus, why again is polygamy forbidden in later Scriptures since it was heartily endorsed in the Hebrew bible? I think that it is more constructive to understand the reasoning for a given ethical rule or abolition of that rule that even understanding what the rule itself directs one to do or not do. The reasoning for the rule is where we can find a decent set of analogues for the Gospel’s unique cultural incarnations that have been developing since the time of Jesus himself.
Concerning Scott’s question about a constitutional amendment, I think I would favour a position in which marriage is defined as a religious matter which the state has no right to interfere in, while allowing the state to define civil partnerships as it wishes as long as it doesn’t use terms like “marriage”, “matrimony” and “wedding”. Discuss!
“But what should the Christian posture be toward the gay community?” one evangelical demanded of me [i.e., Brennan Manning, see pg. 70 Abba's Child]
“In one of Jesus’ parables,” I [Brennan Manning] replied, “He enjoined us to let the wheat and the weeds grow together. Paul caught this spirit when he wrote in 1 Corinthians, ‘Stop passing judgment and wait upon the Lord’s return.’ The sons and daughters of Abba are the most nonjudgmental people. They get along famously with sinners. Remember the passage in Matthew where Jesus says, ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’? In Luke, the same verse is translated, ‘Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.’ Biblical scholars say that the two words, perfect and compassionate, can be reduced to the same reality. Conclusion: To follow Jesus in His ministry of compassion precisely defines the biblical meaning of being perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect.
Besides,” I [B.Manning] continued, “I am reluctant to push God off His judgment seat and take my place there to pronounce on others when I have neither the knowledge nor the authority to judge anyone…Remember Paul’s words after his discourse on homosexuality in Romans 1. He begins chapter 2, ‘So no matter who you are, if you pass judgment you have no excuse. In judging others you condemn yourself, since you behave no differently from those you judge.’ I am reminded of a statement by the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy: ‘If the sexual fantasies of the average person were exposed to view, the world would be horrified.’
Homophobia ranks among the most shameful scandals of my lifetime. In this closing decade of the twentieth century, it is frightening to see the intolerance, moral absolutism, and unbending dogmatism that prevail when people insist upon taking the religious high ground….”