Rachel Held Evans's Blog, page 33

Ask Derek Webb…

We continue our “Ask…” series this week with a singer-songwriter who has been back in the headlines recently with the release of his latest album, I Was Wrong, I’m Sorry & I Love You. 

A veteran of the Christian music industry, Derek  first gained prominence as a member of the folk rock band Caedmon’s Call, and then later embarked on a successful solo career. As a member of Caedmon’s Call, Derek saw career sales approaching 1 million records, along with 10 GMA Dove Award nominations, three Dove Award wins, and six #1 Christian radio hits. Since leaving Caedmon’s Call, Derek has released seven studio albums, generating some controversy—particular with Stockholm Syndrome, a more electronic album in which Derek wrestles with tough questions around sexuality, race, and social justice. Derek lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, fellow singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken.

Derek's new album, which releases today, is entitled I Was Wrong, I’m Sorry, & I Love You.  Derek says the themes on the album include battling cynicism (“Everything Will Change”), coming to terms with who God made you to be (“Eye of the Hurricane”), Jesus’ nearness to those who are disenfranchised (“Closer Than You Think”), unity among the divisions of the church (“A Place at Your Table”), the hard work of marriage (“The Vow”), and God’s great love (“Love Part 3”). He says that the album is “easily the most confessional and autobiographical work of my career.” 

You know the drill! If you have a questions for Derek about his life, his music, or his thoughts on the universe, leave it in the comment section. Be sure to utilize the “like” feature so we can get a sense of what questions are of most interest to you. After 24-hours, I'll pose seven of the most popular questions to Derek and post his responses next week. 

Ask away! 

 

Additional Resources for Mutual Submission

To wrap up our weeklong series, “Submit One To Another: Christ and the Household Codes,” I wanted to share some additional resources that might prove helpful as you continue to explore this topic on your own, with your family, or with your church group. (There was just one post I didn’t get around to writing this week—one about decision-making in a marriage of mutual submission—so look for that sometime next week.) I’m especially interested in your feedback after this post, as Christian marriage books based on mutual submission can be hard to come by. This list is based on my own reading and also the top recommendations from readers on Facebook and Twitter. If you have a favorite you don’t see, feel free to add it. 

Also, if you contributed to the synchroblog, please leave a link in the comment section here! That way they are all in one place and we can enjoy them together. I’ll be travelling this weekend, so I’m not sure I’ll have time to include my favorites in Sunday Superlatives, but keep an eye out. 

Thanks so much for your participation in the series! I learned SO MUCH from your blog posts, questions, and comments. Hope to keep the conversation going….

Submit One To Another Series:

4 Interpretive Pitfalls Around the New Testament Household Codes

The Letter to Nympha’s Church

Aristotle vs. Jesus: What Makes the New Testament Household Codes Different

“The Grace of Good Love"' - A Guest Post from Sarah Bessey

Subordination in the Trinity? – A Guest Post from Zack Hunt 

Marriage Books

Families Where Grace Is in Place: Building a Home Free of Manipulation, Legalism, and Shame by Jeff VanVonderen 

Bound and Determined: Christian Men and Women in Partnership by Jeanene Reese

Heirs Together: Applying the Biblical Principle of Mutual Submission in Your Marriage by Patricia Gundry

As For Me and My House: Crafting Your Marriage to Last by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

Online Resources 

Christians for Biblical Equality 

 The Cultural Context of Ephesians 5:18-6:9 by Gordon D. Fee

Mutuality Series 

Gifted for Leadership

*New* – The Junia Project

Additional Resources 

As Christ Submits to the Church: A Biblical Understanding of Leadership and Mutual Submission by Alan G. Padgett

The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible by Scot McKnight

A Woman Called: Piecing Together the Ministry Puzzle by Sara Gaston Barton

Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy edited by Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothius

Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul's Letters by Philip Barton Payne  

The Womens’ Bible Commentary, Expanded Edition, edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe 

Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire by Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat

Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women by Sarah Bessey (available for pre-order)

A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans (NEW: Free Discussion Guide) 

 

Subordination in the Trinity? - a guest post from Zack Hunt

This is the fifth post in a weeklong series entitled  “Submit One To Another: Christ and the Household Codes,” which will focus on those frequently-cited passages of Scripture that instruct wives to submit to their husbands, slaves to obey their masters, children to obey their parents, and Christians to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Colossians 3:12-4:6; 1 Peter 2:11-3:22). You are welcome to join in the conversation via the comment section or by contributing to the synchroblog. Use #onetoanother on Twitter.   Check out the previous posts: "4 Interpretive Pitfalls Around the New Testament Household Codes" and "The Letter to Nympha’s Church" and "Aristotle vs. Jesus: What Makes the New Testament Household Codes Different" and "'The Grace of Good Love"' A Guest Post from Sarah Bessey."

Today's post comes to us from another one of my favorite bloggers, Zack Hunt. Zack is a writer, blogger, and speaker living in Bristol, Connecticut with his wife, Kim. Currently a graduate student studying the history of Christianity at Yale Divinity, he also blogs at The American Jesus, and will be releasing his first book, The Scandal of Holiness, in the very near future. You can find him on Facebook here or follow him on Twitter.

I asked Zack to respond to the notion that the Trinity functions as a hierarchy because Zack has a way of taking complex theological ideas and not only making them understandable but also applicable, which is exactly what he's done here. Enjoy!  

*** 

When Rachel first asked me to write about the Trinity being used to maintain patriarchal household codes, I was like, “That’s a thing?”

Pages and pages and pages of blog posts and articles later I’ve discovered to my great bewilderment that, yes, it is indeed a thing.

If you too were unfamiliar with this repurposing of the Trinity, it goes something like this: Some pastors and theologians hailing from the more conservative side of the Reformed spectrum have argued that classifying women as subordinate to men is justified because the Trinity also operates as a hierarchy, with Christ functioning as eternally subordinate to the Father. 

To be honest, their theological maneuvering is kind of genius. Or at the very least incredibly bold. Taking an ancient heresy of the church and transforming it into the ultimate theological trump card for the subordination of women?  – genius. Un-Christlike and heretical since 325 CE? - absolutely. But taking the most glaring weakness in your case for divinely sanctioned inequality and transforming it into your biggest strength? Genius.

As I said, advocates of this position hold that Jesus is eternally subordinate to the Father, but that that role has nothing to do with his being, who he is or his ontology, because according to them a person’s eternal condition is irrelevant to their existence. From what I have read, the argument for this apparent inconsistency is that Jesus’ subordination to the Father relates to his role in the Godhead, not his ontological status; meaning the Father and Son (and presumably the Spirit) are one and equal because Jesus’ subordination somehow doesn’t affect his being even though it is a position he takes and has taken and will take for all eternity and can do no other.

But there is a difference between a theological paradox and an outright contradiction. 

Either “these three are one,” that is to say equal, or they are not. One cannot be simultaneously subordinate with no choice in the matter, therefore unequal, and yet also equal to the one above them.

Now, to their credit, these purveyors of patriarchy correctly recognize that despite its reputation, the doctrine of the Trinity has profound practical implications for everyday life. Yes, there is a lot of abstract, esoteric speculation going on there about the nature of God, but if we believe we are people made in the image of God, and especially if we also believe we are called to incarnate that image to the world, then that incarnated life will be, or at least should be, defined by the life of the God we claim to image.

In other words, when we talk about the life of God, we’re also talking about how we should live our own lives

So, if the Trinitarian life of God is one of a hierarchy, and we are people whose lives should model the divine life as a light to the world, then we too should live hierarchical lives in which some people are of greater importance than others and should thus be treated accordingly. On the other hand, if God is three different but equal persons in one being, then we should model a life of equality to the world.

If you’re familiar with church history, you know that the latter Trinitarian formula of equality was defined as orthodoxy in the fourth century in what has come to be known as the Nicene Creed. This important confession of the Church rejected as heresy the subordinationist teachings of a man named Arius and defined as orthodox the notion that God is one ousia in three hypostases, fancy Greek words for declaring that God’s nature is one unified essence that has three ways of being in the world or in the universe or wherever God decides to hangout. 

Without getting into a lengthy, technical, and...let’s just be honest..boring to most of us discussion of Trinitarian metaphysics, the important point here is that a hierarchy in the Trinity has been denounced by the church as heresy for centuries. 

Why? 

Because unity and equality are core principles of the Christian faith and subordinationism and hierarchy teach just the opposite.

That’s not to say that you couldn’t find biblical or theological grounds for arguing for a hierarchy in the Trinity. You can. In fact, you can even find some early church fathers who seem to have supported subordinationism before the Nicene Creed was affirmed. But good theology isn’t done by cutting and pasting verses (or quotes) together to support your theological paradigm. That’s proof-texting and if you go that route you can just as easily find biblical support for genocide.

Good biblical theology takes into account the various voices of scripture (and the church) in an attempt to understand the broader trajectory of the biblical narrative. In other words, what is the point of the Bible? What is it trying to tell us? Where is it trying to take us?

As Christians, conservative, liberal, and everything in between, we all agree that the point of the Bible and the story it is trying to tell us is the story of God’s redemptive work in the world in and through the person of Jesus. We also all agree that as part of that story, the Bible gives us a glimpse at how that work will ultimately culminate at the end of all things.

If through the biblical narrative God is trying to reveal God’s self as a hierarchy, then the trajectory of the Bible, our lives, and eternity itself is towards divinely sanctioned more of the same. And in that case, the writer of Revelation was lying when he declared, “the old order of things has passed away…[God is] making all things new.”

But assuming John’s Revelation is not a book of lies, it is this trajectory of the old giving way to the new which must inform both our understanding of the Trinity and ourselves.

Which is why in order to understand the Trinity and household codes we need to talk about the sunrise.

Seriously. 

You know how when get up to watch the sunrise, there are those first beams of light that break across the horizon bringing just a bit of light to the darkness before the sun fully rises and pushes back the night? 

No? Me either. I’m not a morning person, so that’s not something I would ever do, but people I trust tell me that’s what happens.

Anyway, that rising of the sun in the morning is a lot like how the church believes the kingdom of God is breaking into the world around us even though the Son has not yet returned to finally rid the world of darkness.

In theology we call that the eschatological horizon.

It’s the belief that the kingdom of God is a present but not yet fully realized reality. It’s what Paul was talking about in his second letter to the church in Corinth when he said, “…the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

As the Church, we believe we live at the edge of the eschatological horizon, meaning we are a people who live in a tension between what we preach and the broken world around us. One thing is sure about the eschatological horizon - one day that tension will be resolved. 

One day the morning will fully dawn. 

You can fight it all you want. You can try as you might to keep things the way they are. You can even do that in the name of God.

But it’s a losing battle.

In the end, the morning will dawn, the old order of things will pass away and all things will be made new.

That is, if you believe God was serious about all those promises God made in the Bible.

As the people of God we are called to embody that future reality in the here and now. We are called to live as if the resurrection of Jesus actually happened, that it actually had transformative power, and that the process of all things being made new actually did begin when Jesus walked out of the tomb that first Easter morning.  As the people of God living with one eye on the horizon and one eye on the here and now, we are called to live as if there is no longer Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free. We are called to live as if the last are now the first, and the least the greatest.

We are called to help usher in the dawn.

Which means as long as we continue living as if the old order is not passing away, as if nothing is being made new, as if the resurrection of Jesus had no transforming power and the hierarchical structures of this world still reign, then we proclaim with our lives that the gospel is anything but good news.

It’s a lie.

So, to my brothers and sisters in the faith who insist on finding new and, frankly, outlandish ways to justify maintaining the old order of things, I say this.

Stop fighting the transforming power of resurrection.

A new morning is coming and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

In fact, it’s already beginning to dawn.

So start living like it.

*** 

Be sure to visit Zack's blog, The American Jesus.  

If you're interested in learning more about the theory of the eternal subordination of the Son, Ben Witherington has written a very nice summary here.  Fred Sanders also wrote a post for Christianity Today recently, which is related to the topic, and you can see that here. 

"The grace of good love": A Guest Post from Sarah Bessey

This is the fourth post in a weeklong series entitled  “Submit One To Another: Christ and the Household Codes,” which will focus on those frequently-cited passages of Scripture that instruct wives to submit to their husbands, slaves to obey their masters, children to obey their parents, and Christians to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Colossians 3:12-4:6; 1 Peter 2:11-3:22). You are welcome to join in the conversation via the comment section or by contributing to the synchroblog. Use #onetoanother on Twitter.   Check out the previous posts: "4 Interpretive Pitfalls Around the New Testament Household Codes" and "The Letter to Nympha’s Church" and Aristotle vs. Jesus: What Makes the New Testament Household Codes Different. 

As we continue our series today, I am thrilled to welcome the lovely, wise, and talented Sarah Bessey to the blog. Sarah is one of my favorite bloggers and she has a book coming out in November, Jesus Feminist, that is a MUST READ. (Yours truly wrote the foreward.) Sarah is an editor at A Deeper Story, and a contributor at SheLoves Magazine. She is a happy clappy Jesus lover, a joyful subversive, a voracious reader, an unrepentant hashtag abuser, and a social justice wannabe. She lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada with her husband and their three tinies. 

I asked Sarah to write about what it looks like to have a mutually submissive marriage because she always does so in a way that is inspiring, relatable, and personal without being too prescriptive. Enjoy! 

*** 

I know that principles are useful and helpful, I do, but for some reason, they just don’t sum up what it means to love Jesus, do they? When I try to describe the spirit-filled life of living loved, I resort to metaphors and stories: I’ll stumble through the words of John 15 about life in the vine or say phrases like “live and move and have our being” and sometimes I talk about Isaiah or maybe shepherds and sheep who know His voice, but usually  I am left saying “it’s like this…” and then I am only bearing witness to the Spirit’s movement in my own life and the Love who transforms me.  I have a hard time to explaining it because it’s so inherent to my life: this is the way, and I walk in it.

Maybe that is the difference between religious performance and relaxing into a relationship. My faith is now a dance between the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures and my community, it's alive. I’m being changed from the inside out, and I want to prophetically live the ways of Jesus into every corner of my small existence. I know where I belong and I know my true identity at last.

Against my usually-better-than-this judgement, I began to write online about my marriage a few years ago. I never write about how to have a good marriage - there is nary a principle or seven-step plan to be found. Instead, I write about what love looks like for us. In the same way that the longer I know and love our Jesus, then the less I want to write or pontificate about Being a Good Christian, it seems that the longer I'm married, the less I want to write or pontificate about Having A Good Marriage. Now I just want to read dog-eared poetry books and cook his meals, argue with him about theology and then kiss him on the kitchen floor.

And maybe that's the difference between the Principles of a Good Marriage and the real grit of living into a lifelong love affair: principles may be useful and helpful, but this is more than a performance, more than a checklist, more than a carefully negotiated list of behaviours and affirmations and role fulfillment and decisions. Marriage is alive, we're learning to live our love into every corner of our small existence because we know where we belong.

Now when people ask me to describe or even prescribe a marriage of mutuality, I resort to metaphors and stories. I stumble through the words of Scripture and I say phrases like "it's more of a slow dance than a choreographed performance" and sometimes I talk about my parents' nearly forty-year marriage or the ways we have done things differently now and then, but usually I am left saying, "It's like this..." and then I am simply bearing witness to our own marriage. It's so inherent to my life: this is our way, we just walk in it.

I am a storyteller at heart, and right there in the core of my heart is a tall and steady Nebraskan who has loved me as Christ loves the Church since we were teenagers together. He has loved me through our sometimes divergent spiritual awakenings and crashings, the changes in our vocations and careers, the tectonic shifts in our beliefs and politics and locations, right on through the births (and losses) and now raising of our babies. We're grown-ups now with a mortgage and a mini-van filled with carseats and crumbs. There are only six crystal goblets left from the original eight of our wedding set. I think we broke one in the move home to Canada from Texas and another one crashed to the floor after a careless gesture at the dinner table. Not everything survives an entire marriage.

We aren't choreographed. We aren't applied principles. We aren't gender roles. We aren't boundary markers. We're in love with each other and so we practice playing second fiddle, we practice putting the other one first. We would turn our lives upside down for each other's happiness and fulfillment - and sometimes we have had to live out the painful sacrificing truth of that more than we could have dreamed. Yet always seeking to make each other feel more loved has meant that we are both so well loved. 

We want to choose love. We can choose - in each moment - love over fear, abundance over scarcity, vulnerability over false armour, mercy over judgement, mutuality over dominance. We can choose to lay down and surrender our power out of hard-won trust, we can serve another instead of our own self. And trust me, in fifteen years, we have not always chosen well.

Now we just try to love each other as if our lives depend on it (because they sort of do). One of the greatest gifts we have given each other is the room and the grace to change and to grow. We could have, we would have, lost each other, many game-changing moments later, if we hadn’t had the underlying rule of it all: in this moment, in this decision, right now, how can we love and serve each other?  The buck doesn't stop with my husband, it stops with us together, and we wait in the in-between places and pray and learn again the grace of good love and true honour together.

Each marriage is as unique as the image-bearers who entered into a covenant with each other.  Of course the ways that we live out our love stories is going to be unique to our histories, our families, our context, let alone the ways that we can embody the hope of glory and the mystery of power-eschewing, self-sacrificing, you-first-darling sort of love. In a marriage of mutuality, there is room for each of us to follow Jesus, for each of us to heed the Spirit, for each of us to lead and for each of us to follow. I trust my husband hears from God, he trusts that I hear from God, and we trust each other.

*** 

Be sure to check out Sarah's amazing blog and consider pre-ordering Jesus Feminist, which releases in November and is absolutely fantastic. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. 

*** 

So what does your marriage look like? What stories, images, and fragments of poetry best capture the mutually submissive marriage?  

 

Aristotle vs. Jesus: What Makes the New Testament Household Codes Different

This is the third post in a weeklong series entitled  “Submit One To Another: Christ and the Household Codes,” which will focus on those frequently-cited passages of Scripture that instruct wives to submit to their husbands, slaves to obey their masters, children to obey their parents, and Christians to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Colossians 3:12-4:6; 1 Peter 2:11-3:22). You are welcome to join in the conversation via the comment section or by contributing to the synchroblog. Use #onetoanother on Twitter. 

Check out the previous posts: "4 Interpretive Pitfalls Around the New Testament Household Codes" and "The Letter to Nympha’s Church."

***

Let’s imagine I’m standing before a group of my fellow Americans reading from my iPad. (Yes, let’s definitely imagine I have an iPad.) 

“We the people of the United States,” I begin, “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…” 

By this point my audience would be nodding along, the words of the U.S. Constitution familiar from when they memorized them in sixth grade. 

“All legislative powers herin granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States,” I continue, “which shall consist of a Senate of Idiots and a House of Fools.” 

Now it becomes clear that this is no mere recitation of the Constitution. It’s a social commentary (if something of a simplistic one). I’m putting a new spin on a familiar passage in order to make a point. Anyone who would leave the gathering convinced this was simply a celebration of the Constitution will have missed the point. 

It’s an imperfect example, of course, but something quite similar happens when Christians read Peter and Paul’s* household codes from their Bibles, unaware that the apostles were riffing off of common sentiments from the Greco-Roman world in order to make a point. 

Before we proceed, you might want to reread the texts in question in their entirety: 

Ephesians 5:21-6:9

Colossians 3:12-4:6

1 Peter 2:11-3:22

As I mentioned on Monday, the Christians in the churches at Ephesus, Colossea, and Asia Minor who first heard these letters read aloud would instantly recognize Peter and Paul’s version of the household codes as a sort of radical Christian remix of familiar Greco-Roman philosophy regarding household structure. Central to the prevailing philosophy of the day was the idea that a free man ruled over his household as a sovereign, exercising unilateral authority over his subordinate wives, children, and slaves. Preserving this household structure was thought to be critical to preserving society as a whole. Many Roman officials believed the household codes to be such an important part of Pax Romana that they passed laws ensuring its protection. In fact, Christians were finding themselves at odds with some of these laws—particularly those governing widows—which is probably why Peter and Paul address them. 

Contrary to popular belief, Peter and Paul were not creating new systems to impose on Christian households, but rather commenting on systems that had already been in place for many years. Wives were already expected to obey their husbands and slaves were already expected to obey their masters. They weren’t introducing a new order to the household; they were commenting on an order that already existed, largely unchallenged. 

Aristotle 

Perhaps the most familiar the ancient household codes came from the philosopher Aristotle. In his Politics, Aristotle writes: 

Of household management we have seen that there are three parts—one is the rule of a master over slaves… another of a father, and the third of a husband. A husband and father rules over wife and children, both free, but the rule differs, the rule over his children being a royal, over his wife a constitutional rule. For although there may be exceptions to the order of nature, the male is by nature fitter for command than the female, just as the older and full-grown is superior to the younger and more immature…

The freeman rules over the salve after another manner from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in all of them, they are present in different degrees. For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature. So it must necessarily be with the moral virtues also; all may be supposed to partake of them, but only in such manner and degree as is required by each for the fulfillment of his duty. 

These sentiments were echoed by other Greek philosophers, and also by Jewish philosophers like Philo, who wrote: 

Wives must be in servitude to their husbands, a servitude not imposed by violent ill-treatment but promoting obedience in all things. Parents must have power over their children. . . . The same holds for any other persons over whom [the man] has authority. 

And Josephus who said: 

“The woman, says the Law, is in all things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive, not for her humiliation, but that she may be directed; for the authority has been given by God to the man.” 

The consensus in these ancient writings is that a man is justified in ruling over his household because his wives, slaves, and children are by nature his inferiors. The purpose of the codes was to reinforce the goodness and importance of this hierarchal familial structure which held together the very fabric of society. 

The Apostles and the Early Church 

So when Peter and Paul wrote their versions of the household codes, what was their purpose? 

Some say they were simply trying to show how Christianity was compatible with Greco-Roman culture and Roman law. This certainly makes sense, given the precarious position of the early church in the Roman Empire and the priority of welcoming all, including Hellenized gentiles, into the family of God.  

And yet it’s hard to see how Peter and Pauls’ remix of the household codes, when compared to the most popular of the day, could be read as anything but profoundly subversive, given the high value they place on wives, slaves, and children, and the way they hold ruling men accountable to a heavenly Master and a heavenly Father. 

And that’s because the apostles added a new ingredient to the household codes that changed their entire flavor….

Jesus 

The reality with which the early churches at Ephesus, Colossea, and Asia Minor were confronted is the same that confronts us today: 

Jesus changes everything. 

In his ministry, Jesus started not with the wealthy, the politically-connected, or the religious elite, but with the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the uneducated, slaves, women, and ethnic and religious minorities. He broke down social barriers, touching those who had been declared “untouchable,” teaching women as their rabbi, and eating and drinking with “sinners.” He preferred humility to hierarchy, washing his disciples’ feet and appearing after his resurrection to a group of women would not have been considered reliable witnesses at the time.

When his disciples argued amongst themselves about who would be greatest in the kingdom, Jesus told them that “anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all” (Mark 9:35). In speaking to them about authority he said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25–28). 

The early church believed Jesus and followed his example, so much so that even the Roman authorities noted (often with derision) in their letters and journals that the church was made up primarily of women, slaves, and poor, uneducated laborers. 

With Jesus, the social order had changed. As Paul wrote to the Galatians, "So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). 

Paul is not simply talking about equal access to salvation here; he is talking about the creation of a new family where the social and religious lines that once separated men from women, slaves from the free, Jews and Gentiles vanish in the Household of God. 

Growing this new family was so central to the faith of the early Christians it no doubt raised questions about how to operate in a world where hierarchal boundaries were such a big part of the culture’s sociopolitical dynamic.

So when Peter and Paul introduce Jesus to the household, everything changes. Rather than placing the male head-of-house at the sovereign center, Peter and Paul place Jesus Christ at the center. And with Jesus Christ at the center, all the old boundaries break down and the hierarchies begin to blur. 

The Remix 

So what happens to the household codes when they get remixed with Jesus? 

Where typical Greco-Roman household codes required little or nothing of the head of household regarding fair treatment of subordinates, Peter and Paul encouraged men to be kind to their slaves, to be gentle with their children, and, shockingly, to love their wives as much as they love themselves! Unlike Aristotle, Philo, or Josephus, the apostles did not declare the natural superiority of the male head-of-house as the justification for his rule. Instead, they consistently appeal to the shared lordship of Jesus Christ, reminding the male head-of-house that he too has a Master in heaven. 

Those hierarchal lines begin to blur...

Furthermore, the Christian versions of the household codes are the only ones that speak directly to the less powerful members of the household—the slaves, wives, and children—probably because the church at the time consisted of just such powerless people. To dignify their positions, Peter linked the sufferings of slaves to the suffering of Christ and likened the obedience of women to the obedience of Sarah (1 Peter 2:18–25; 3:1–6). Paul encourages slaves and women to submit  to the head of the household as “unto the Lord,” making Christ the final authority to whom they are accountable, not the man or the State. 

Where the typical Greco-Roman household code elevates the superiority of the free man’s very nature, the Jesus remix dignifies those the culture deemed inferior, comparing them to the Church, and to Jesus Christ himself. 

The lines blur even more. 

When put into practice, these Christianized household codes would break down, rather than reinforce, the hierarchal boundaries between husband and wife, master and slave, adult parent and adult child. If wives submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ (Ephesians 5:24),  and if husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25), and if both husbands and wives, slaves and masters  submit one to another (Ephesians 5:21)—who’s really “in charge” here? 

No one. 

Such relationships could only be characterized by humility and respect, with all parties imitating Christ, who time and again voluntarily placed himself in a position of submission.  

It is no accident that Peter introduced his version of the household codes with a riddle—“Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves” (1 Peter 2:16)—or that Paul began his with the general admonition that Christians are to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21; emphasis added). It is hard for us to recognize it now, but Peter and Paul were introducing the first Christian family to an entirely new community, a community that transcends the rigid hierarchy of human institutions, a community in which submission is mutual and all are free. 

What a tragedy that these passages, once meant to challenge hierarchies, have been used throughout history and even today, to reinforce them. 

The Limits of a Metaphor

It is important here to note that Peter and Paul’s use of metaphor (the husband is like Christ; the wife is like the Church; suffering slaves are like the suffering Christ) is not meant to universalize or glorify the hierarchy within the household codes themselves but rather to instruct those within the system to imitate the attitude and posture of Jesus Christ. This tends to get lost in translation when we over-scrutinize and attempt to literally apply these instructions to modern families, assuming that because Paul compares husbands to Christ and wives to the Church then he must be reinforcing some sort of God-ordained hierarchy between the genders there.  But to be consistent in this application, we would have to hold that because Peter compares the suffering of slaves to the suffering of Christ on the cross then slavery should also be preserved to uphold this metaphor.  

This is why I don’t get too caught up in all the debates surrounding the Greek word for “head,” though they are interesting and may prove helpful to some. The word may very well mean something akin to “authority” (which would mean Paul was simply observing a cultural reality at the time), or it may very well mean something akin to “source.” I tend to think debates like these miss the forest for the trees. Given the context, it seems clear that the ultimate purpose of the Christ/Church metaphor is intended to point men and women toward more mutuality, not more hierarchy, particularly when it is already assumed that the male holds all the authority and with these letters is being asked to empty himself of some of it.

To me, we could summarize these metaphors like this: "In the Christian Family, slaves submit to their masters as they would submit to Christ and masters treat their slaves as they would treat a suffering Christ, keeping in mind that ultimately they share a Master in heaven. In the Christian family, wives submit to their husbands as they would submit to Christ and husbands submit to their wives the way Christ submitted to the Church by giving his life for it, keeping in mind that we are all part of one Body. In the Christian family, everyone submits one to another, looking to Christ as the example." The purpose is to point all parties to the example of Jesus and his role as the ultimate Head of Home.  

Kirsten Rosser tackles this well in her post, “Is Marriage Really an Illustration of Christ and the Church?” I highly recommend reading it for more on how we tend to misunderstand the Church/Christ metaphor. 

Us 

So what now? What does this mean for us? 

For centuries, there were Christians who argued that the New Testament household codes provided biblical support for preserving the institution of slavery. Today, there are many Christians who argue that the household codes provide biblical support for preserving patriarchy. 

I hope I have shown that the intent of these passages was not to affirm the Greco-Roman household structure as divinely instituted and inherently holy, but rather to point Christians to the example of Jesus, whose humility and love can be mirrored by his followers in any culture and in any situation. 

The good news is we can ditch Aristotle and keep Jesus.

Most of us no longer live in a cultural context where a male head-of-house rules over his wives, slaves, and grown children with absolute authority. Our culture has changed in that regard, and that’s a good thing.

So the most obvious application is to free modern Christians from this notion that husbands must function as the heads of their homes with their wives as their subordinates. Such a view is based on a reading of the household codes that elevates their cultural context over their gospel message (and sometimes on a misunderstanding of the creation narrative, which I discuss here). 

But another point to keep in mind is that, while pater familias may be fading from our lives, we still live in a culture that is obsessed with power and in which many inequitable power structures—both formal and informal, spoken and unspoken—seek to divide us. In this regard, the household codes should remind us that where we may be advantaged with power or privilege, we are called to humble ourselves, to sacrifice, to love, to listen, to surrender our power, and to treat our fellow human beings as our equals—co-heirs and brothers and sisters in the family of God. Where we may be disadvantaged, and without power, we are reminded that we don’t answer to “The Man” anyway; we answer to Christ, who has been both powerful and powerless. Ultimately, we are all called to heed these words, which can apply in any family and in any culture: 

 “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5–8). 

Have the same mindset of Jesus.  

That's the point of the New Testament household codes.  

It's not about reinforcing power; it's about relinquishing it.  

*** 

* I am aware that Pauline authorship is disputed in some of these texts, but for simplicity, will refer to Paul as the author. (This is a conversation we can have later!)  

***

Sources: 

Discovering Biblical Equality: Complemenatrity Without Hierarchy, edited by Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis; Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire by Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat; The Womens’ Bible Commentary, Expanded Edition, edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe 

See also:

Four Interpretive Pitfalls Around the New Testament Household Codes

Who's Who Among Biblical Women Leaders

Aristotle’s Politics 

On Treating Modern Women as Ancient Greco-Roman Wives by Roy E. Ciampa, Ph.D

Is Marriage Really an Illustration of Christ and the Church? by Kristen Rosser

The Dark Side of Submission by Lee Grady

Submission in Context: Christ and the Greco Roman Household Codes 

Gender & The Creation Narratives

Is Patriarchy Really God’s Dream for the World?

Is the Abolition of Slavery Biblical?

Mutuality Series

A Year of Biblical Womanhood 

The Letter to Nympha’s Church (a creative interpretation of Colossians)

This is the second post in a weeklong series entitled  “Submit One To Another: Christ and the Household Codes,” which will focus on those frequently-cited passages of Scripture that instruct wives to submit to their husbands, slaves to obey their masters, children to obey their parents, and Christians to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Colossians 3:12-4:6; 1 Peter 2:11-3:22). You are welcome to join in the conversation via the comment section or by contributing to the synchroblog. Use #onetoanother on Twitter. 

*** 

“Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house. After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea."

– Colossians 4:15-16

The sun has set over a chilly Laodicea, but Nympha’s home is warm with lamplight and hums with the welcoming sound of stifled laughter whispered conversation. As soon as Drucilla and I slip through the door together, we can sense that something is stirring. There is news. 

My mother-in-law asks her friends, all of them also widows, what has happened. 

Tychicus had arrived from Colossae, they say, with a letter from Paul.*

I am happy because this means I will get to listen to Nympha read. It mesmerizes me every time—the way she enunciates every syllable carefully, gently, sometimes pausing to explain the meaning of the more difficult words or ideas or to laugh forgivingly when one of the children decides to throw a tantrum. We are mostly women, widows, slaves, and poor laborers, unable to read the letters from the apostles on our own, though among us are a few wealthy tradesman, the owners of sprawling households. It is strange to see us all sitting together at the sacred meal—master breaking bread with his slave, a Jew sharing a joke with a former pagan priest, a husband pouring wine for his wife, a zealot debating politics with a tax collector—but this is what makes us different; it’s what makes us Christians. 

Nympha and her husband are wealthy traders, both of them followers of Jesus, but he travels so much she usually manages our ekklesia—our gathering—on her own. We are known to Paul as the church that meets in Nympha’s home. 

Maybe I am a little jealous of Nympha. My husband is a laborer and poor and I think he resents the fact that a girl who came with such a small dowry would give him so much trouble over religion.  He has been harsh with Drucilla too recently, for the government has made it illegal for widows to remain unmarried, but she insists on serving alongside the other widows in the church. There are murmurs that this practice of caring for widows as a community is yet another part of our way of life that bothers the government officials. To them, tampering with the household order is akin to tampering with the created universe and yet another example of Christians challenging the authority of the Empire. You don’t have to be the most educated person in Laodicea to know that the Greek philosophers were rather insistent upon the importance of maintaining a household in which the man maintains unilateral authority over his wives, children, and slaves. 

And yet we have been taught that among us, there should be neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, for we are all one in Christ. And so the most common debate in Nympha’s house is about whether we can accommodate laws like these without compromising our identity. Many Christians have gone to jail, and some have even been killed. The question is: Do we risk our necks over differences with the government regarding household structure? Or do we let things like that go? No one can seem to agree.  Perhaps tonight’s letter will help. 

It is a beautiful letter, and tears run down my face as Paul, through Nympha, speaks of our reputation among the churches. Nympha smiles as her voice carries the words: “We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people.” 

As she continues to read, we hear about Paul’s incarceration and persecution, about how Jesus is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,” about watching out for all those false teachings that circulated through the trade routes, about how we ought to stop judging each other over differences of opinion regarding religious festivals and food (I blush a little at this point and resolved to make peace with some rather opinionated friends before the next sacred meal), about how we should clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, and love, about how we must forgive one another, about how the things that once separated Jew from Greek and slave from free are broken down at the foot of the cross, about how we should sing more hymns. Drucilla smiles wide at that last one. 

But then I find myself catching my breath as Nympha reads—out loud!—that we need not fear the government because Jesus has “disarmed the powers and authorities” and “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” 

A nervous murmur fills the room. What if someone overheard? That quote could certainly be taken out of context by a passing Roman soldier! 

I catch Tychicus glance out the window. 

But then my surprise gives way to revelation. I’ve never thought about it that way: Christ’s death at the hands of the government represented a sort of subversive triumph over it. His obedience in humbling himself, in loving his enemies, caring for the poor, welcoming the marginalized, and turning away from violence made a mockery of this opulent, bloodthirsty, and oppressive Empire. He refused to play by their rules and yet he broke none of their laws. He did not fight them; he disarmed them.

I wonder if that’s what we’re supposed to do too. 

Then I hear Nympha say, “Wives submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord.” 

Immediately I recognize this as something of a recitation of the Household Codes that more educated women like Nympha probably had memorized. Someone named Aristotle had composed the most famous of these, basing them on what he believed was the inherent inferiority of women, children, and slaves. 

But in Paul’s letter, Christ serves as the ultimate authority, not the government. Hmmm…

Then Nympha’s voice grows quieter and I see one of her eyebrows rise. 

“Husbands, love your wives…” 

She trails off and we sit in stunned silence. This is new.  I’ve only heard of very wealthy couples who married because they were in love. Most, like my husband and I, are joined together in a business transaction. (I was twelve-years-old at the time. ) No one expects husbands to love their wives. 

“Children obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” 

Again, this is somewhat familiar. 

“Fathers, do not embitter your children…”

(I have a feeling Aristotle didn’t give instructions like these to fathers.)

Then things get really strange. 

“Slaves obey your earthly masters,” Nympha continues, a little hesitantly. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

“Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.” 

I feel sorry for the few wealthy men among us because suddenly, every eye is on them.  Is Paul suggesting that both slaves and owners share a Master? Is he directly challenging Aristotle by suggesting that the two are equals? 

It takes Nympha a moment to recover, but she reads on, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt…”

At the meal, everyone’s talking about the letter, but I am lost in thought.  Maybe I was on to something: Maybe, like Jesus, we can refuse to play by Rome’s rules without breaking any of Rome’s laws. Maybe we remain faithful to Jesus, not by overturning the household codes, but by transcending them, living in a way that highlights the foolishness of the hierarchies they contain.  

Christ is the Head of this Home—the Church—so here, we submit to one another out of reverence for him. 

One Master. 

One Head. 

One Father. 

Later, Nympha will read other letters, letters that speak of husbands loving their wives as much as Christ loved the church, willing to give their lives for them, and of Christians “submitting to one another” and living as “slaves to one another”! No Greek or Jewish philosopher or Roman legislator had spoken to women, children, and slaves directly like this. None had given us this much agency, this much dignity.  The point, Nympha says with a wry smile, is to imitate Jesus, not Rome. 

The night after the first letter, Drucilla and I creep quietly through the streets together, arm in arm on our way home, I wonder aloud if there will come a day when there will be no more household codes, if Drucilla and I will be treated with as much dignity as my husband and if slaves will no longer have earthly masters. 

“Well, Aelia” Druscilla whispers back, her breath against the cool air. “Hasn’t God promised to make all things new?” 

Then I have a dangerous thought: 

“Maybe this is how it starts.” 

***

Tomorrow we’ll look more closely at how Peter and Paul’s household codes differ from those of Aristotle and other philosophers and what that means for us today. 

***

* I am aware that Pauline authorship is disputed in some of these texts, but for simplicity, will refer to Paul as the author. (This is a conversation we can have later!)  

Sources: 

Discovering Biblical Equality: Complemenatrity Without Hierarchy, edited by Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis; Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire by Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat; The Womens’ Bible Commentary, Expanded Edition, edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe

See also:

Four Interpretive Pitfalls Around the New Testament Household Codes

Who's Who Among Biblical Women Leaders

Aristotle’s Politics 

On Treating Modern Women as Ancient Greco-Roman Wives by Roy E. Ciampa, Ph.D

Is Marriage Really an Illustration of Christ and the Church? by Kristen Rosser

The Dark Side of Submission by Lee Grady

Submission in Context: Christ and the Greco Roman Household Codes 

Gender & The Creation Narratives

Is Patriarchy Really God’s Dream for the World?

Is the Abolition of Slavery Biblical?

Mutuality Series

A Year of Biblical Womanhood 

 

 

Four Interpretive Pitfalls Around the New Testament Household Codes

This is the first post in a weeklong series entitled  “Submit One To Another: Christ and the Household Codes,” which will focus on those frequently-cited passages of Scripture that instruct wives to submit to their husbands, slaves to obey their masters, children to obey their parents, and Christians to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21-6:9, Colossians 3:12-4:6; 1 Peter 2:11-3:22). You are welcome to join in the conversation via the comment section or by contributing to our Synchroblog. Use #onetoanother on Twitter. 

***

Ever heard this before? 

“The Bible says wives are to submit to their husbands, so clearly, Christian men are supposed to be the heard of the household and Christian wives are supposed to defer to the wishes of their husbands when making family decisions.” 

Or this? 

“The Bible teaches husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands because men need respect more than they need love and women need love more than they need respect.” 

Or what about this? 

“The Bible says wives are to submit to their husbands and slaves to their masters, so clearly, it’s an outdated and irrelevant text that oppresses people.” 

Which is typically countered with this… 

“The Bible doesn’t approve slavery. What it says about slaves obeying their masters should be applied to employees and employers. But instructions to wives still stand. 

When it comes to the interpretation and application of the parts of Peter and Paul’s* epistles typically referred to as the household codes, misunderstanding and controversy abound.  Unfortunately, many of our assumptions about these texts emerge without an understanding of their original context or intent, which is what this series aims to address. So to start us off, I’ve identified four common interpretive pitfalls surrounding the New Testament household codes. 

Before we begin, you might want to reread the texts in question in their entirety: 

Ephesians 5:21-6:9

Colossians 3:12-4:6

1 Peter 2:11-3:22

Four common pitfalls:  

1. We assume the instructions found in the Peter and Paul’s Household Codes are totally unique to Scripture. 

A lot of Christians are under the assumption that instructions about wives submitting to their husbands are found exclusively in the pages of Scripture, that these are solely “biblical” concepts. But the Christians in the churches at Ephesus, Colossea, and Asia Minor who first heard these letters read aloud would instantly recognize Peter and Paul’s version of the household codes as a sort of radical Christian remix of familiar Greco-Roman philosophy.  

As far back as the fourth century BC, philosophers considered the household to be a microcosm, designed to reflect the hierarchal structure of the society, the gods, and ultimately the universe. Aristotle wrote that “the smallest and primary parts of the household are master and slave, husband and wife, father and children” and devoted several sections of his Politics to the importance of free men ruling over their wives, children, and slaves. First-century philosophers Philo and Josephus included the household codes in their writings as well, arguing that a man’s authority over his household was critical to the success of a society. 

Many Roman officials believed the household to be such an important part of Pax Romana that they passed laws ensuring its protection. In fact, Christians were finding themselves at odds with some of these laws—particularly those governing widows—which is probably why Peter and Paul address them.  How are people seeking to dismantle the divides between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female supposed to live in a society where these divisions were so central to the culture and where doing so my arouse even more suspicion and persecution? This is what members of the early church were wrestling with when Peter and Paul wrote their household codes. The apostles  weren't imposing a new structure onto marriage. They were addressing a structure that already existed and instructing new believers on how to bring Christ into that structure. These passages do not introduce a new ordering of the household, but rather comment on an existing one.

You will hear me say this several times this week: The most important question we have to ask when reading the New Testament household codes is this—is their purpose to reinforce the importance of preserving the hierarchy of the typical Greco-Roman household or is their purpose to reinforce the importance of imitating Christ in interpersonal relationships, regardless of cultural familial structures? Are these passages meant to point us to Rome or to Jesus, to hierarchy or to humility? 

The best way to answer these questions is to familiarize ourselves not only with the New Testament codes themselves, but also with those of Aristotle, Philo, etc. so we can observe how they are similar and how they are different. We’ll cover this in an upcoming post. But if you want to check out Aristotle’s version of the household codes ahead of time, check out Section III of Politics. 

2. We quote selectively from the household codes without reading them in context (and we ignore or gloss over the parts about slavery).  

In Ephesians, just before Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands, he tells all Christians—male and female—to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” In a radical departure from all the other household codes of the day, he starts with mutual submission! And yet, in many churches, instructions about wives submitting to their husbands are applied literally, but instructions about husbands and wives submitting to one another get left out of the sermon. 

This happens a lot. The New Testament household codes tend to get sliced and diced, not only by well-meaning preachers, but also by the chapters and verses in our Bibles. Rarely are they read, or discussed, in their entirety.  

I suspect a big reason for this is that reading the household codes in their entirety puts us in the awkward position of confronting the parts about slavery.  In fact, it was the issue of slavery—not gender—that first made me question what I’d been taught about how to interpret and apply these passages. Years ago, as I was looking at one of the three Bible verses that instruct wives to submit to their husbands—the one from 1 Peter that says, “Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands” (3:1)—my inductive Bible study skills kicked in, and I dutifully looked back a few verses to see what Peter meant by “in the same way”—you know, to get some context.  To my surprise, the preceding paragraph had nothing to do with the relationship between men and women, but was instead about the relationship between masters and slaves!  A little more research revealed that all three of the passages that instruct wives to submit to their husbands are either preceded or followed by instructions for slaves to submit to their masters. 

The implications of this pattern are astounding. For if Christians are to use these passages to argue that a hierarchal relationship between man and woman is divinely instituted and inherently holy, then, for consistency’s sake, they must also argue the same for the relationship between master and slave, for the two are inextricably linked. 

And while slavery and Greco-Roman times was not the same as the slavery of the American south, don’t for a second think that this meant it was just or good. Peter specifically discusses slavery that involved harsh treatment and beatings because that was a reality for the many slaves who made up the early church. So it will not do to shrug these verses off and casually apply them to employers and their subordinates. To do so is to gloss over the ugly reality of slavery—then and now—which, as we will see, actually takes away from the power of these passages. 

Reality check: The household codes have been debated by American Christians before, but it wasn’t in the context of disagreements regarding gender; it was in the context of disagreements regarding slavery in the buildup to the Civil War. The household codes became go-to texts for those arguing that the ownership of slaves was indeed biblical.  Which brings us back to our central question regarding the New Testament household codes: Is their purpose to reinforce a household structure in which men rule over their wives, children, and slaves, or is their purpose to point us to attitudes that transcend a single household structure? Do these passages leave room for societies to develop beyond hierarchies between men and women, masters and slaves, or do they require that we preserve patriarchy and slavery?

Keep in mind that the same questions that divide us today divided our not-too-distant relatives in the buildup to the Civil War. 

(I wrote more about this in my review of Mark Noll’s fascinating book, “The Civil War as a Theological Crisis.”)

3. We treat the household codes as marriage advice based on pop psychology, gender stereotypes, and modern cultural assumptions. 

A plethora of books and seminars have been built around treating the Household Codes as God-inspired marriage advice for modern couples, often working off the statement that “God tells wives to respect their husbands because men need respect, and God tells husbands to love their wives because women need love.”  

Now, I’m happy to admit that early in our marriage Dan and I benefited from many of these books and found great, applicable advice within their pages. But as helpful as these marriage books can be, they tend to work off of generalizations about men and women that may not apply to everyone (I’m a woman, and I certainly crave respect!) and they tend to gloss over cultural elements to these texts in ways that obscure their true meaning. 

This happens when we impose modern-day marital dynamics onto ancient social constructs. (Like when the biblical Esther is compared by a popular pastor to a contestant on “The Bachelor” when, in reality, she was one of hundreds of women forced into the king’s harem!) As modern, Western readers, we tend to think that when Peter and Paul reference “wives,” they must be thinking of “wife” as we understand that role/ position today (we think Claire from “Modern Family”) or that when they reference “children,” they must be thinking of little kids or teenagers (we think Haley, Alex, and Luke). Roy E. Ciampa refers to this habit as identity mapping. 

But families in Peter and Paul’s world didn’t look like the Dunphys. The familial structure referenced in the household codes was that of pater familias [father of the family], which positioned the man as the ruler and authority over an economic/familial unit which consisted of the ruling patriarch, his wife, children and slaves.

Marriages were typically based on economic considerations, not love, with wives holding a higher position than slaves in the household, but still functioning in many ways as the property of their husbands, who could do with them as they willed. Women were typically married as young teenagers in arrangements made by their fathers. A family in that day might very well include multiple wives, with the male head-of-house free to force slaves to satisfy him sexually as well. As Gordon Fee explains in "The Cultural Context of Ephesians 5:18-6:9": 

"In this kind of household, the idea that men and women might be equal partners in marriage simply did not exist. Evidence for this can be seen in meals, which in all cultures serve as the great equalizer. In the Greek world, a woman scarcely ever joined her husband and his friends at meals; if she did, she did not recline at table (only the courtesans did that), but she sat on a bench at the end. And she was expected to leave after eating, when the conversation took a more public turn."

Not only would the male head-of-house have authority over his younger children, but also his grown children, who were to submit to his will even after they had families of their own. The head of house was free to beat his slaves, or wives and children, into submission. In pater familials, the father truly ruled the household, serving as lord, judge, jury (and sometimes executioner) over his subordinates. 

When read with pater familias, rather than the Dunphys, in mind, we see just how radical Peter and Paul must have sounded when they instructed husbands to love their wives as much as Christ loved the church and to be willing to give their lives for them!  (Or to remember that they too are slaves to Christ and have a master in heaven. Or not to provoke their children, but to be patient with them.) 

How sad that words that would have sounded so liberating to those who first heard them are today so often used to oppress and silence. 

So once again, we confront our central question: Is the point of the household codes to declare pater familias the only godly household structure for all of time, or is the point of the household codes to declare Jesus Christ as the example to be followed no matter societal norms? 

4. We dismiss the household codes out-of-hand as irrelevant and oppressive. 

A lot of readers, upon encountering instructions about wives submitting to their husbands and slaves obeying their masters, decide that since the household codes reflect societal norms unlike our own, they must therefore be irrelevant or possibly oppressive. 

But as important as it is to keep the original culture and audience of the epistles in mind, these passages can still speak to us today in powerful, life-changing ways. 

With the epistles of the New Testament, we are given a glimpse into how the teachings of Jesus transformed the daily lives of his first followers. While the details of instructions regarding things like head coverings, meat sacrificed to idols, slavery, and pater familias may not apply to us today, the attitudes advocated by the authors most certainly do.  We need not adopt the familial structure reflected in the household codes to adopt the posture of humility that is advocated in them. 

The purpose of the household codes is to point to Jesus Christ as the model for interpersonal relationships.  That model transcends culture and can be applied to any household, past or present. And it is a model that, rather than reinforcing hierarchal relationships, should point us in the opposite direction—to the radical humility and servanthood of Jesus, who did not see power as something to grasp, but humbled himself and became submissive to the point of death on a cross. 

From this perspective, there is much we can learn from the household codes about confronting our own privilege, keeping whatever power we may have in check, responding to our feelings of powerlessness, practicing mutual submission in our marriages, and imitating Christ in all of our interpersonal relationships. We apply the Household Codes most faithfully to our own lives, not when we use them to reinforce power structures and hierarchy, but when we use them to break those power structures down at the foot of the cross. 

Ironically, compelmentarians (who believe hierarchal relationships between men and women should be preserved) agree with the hermeneutical premise of those who would discount the New Testament household codes as irrelevant, for they both assume that the point of these passages is to secure the Greco-Roman household structure as divinely instituted and holy, when in reality, their purpose is to point to humility, not hierarchy, as the primary Christian ethic. 

...More on all of this tomorrow!  

In the meantime: What have you been taught about the New Testament household codes? Have your views changed through the years? Why? What do you think a lot of Christians "miss" when reading these passages?  

And if you contributed to the synchroblog, feel free to leave a link in the comment section! 

***

* I am aware that Pauline authorship is disputed in some of these texts, but for simplicity, will refer to Paul as the author. (This is a conversation we can have later!)  

Sources: 

Discovering Biblical Equality: Complemenatrity Without Hierarchy, edited by Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis; Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire by Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat; The Womens’ Bible Commentary, Expanded Edition, edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ring;  The Cultural Context of Ephesians 5:18-6:9 by Gordon D. Fee

See Also:

Christians for Biblical Equality (in particular the articles on submission and headship)

Aristotle’s Politics 

On Treating Modern Women as Ancient Greco-Roman Wives by Roy E. Ciampa, Ph.D

Is Marriage Really an Illustration of Christ and the Church? by Kristen Rosser

The Cultural Context of Ephesians 5:18-6:9 by Gordon D. Fee

The Dark Side of Submission by Lee Grady

Submission in Context: Christ and the Greco Roman Household Codes 

Gender & The Creation Narratives

Is Patriarchy Really God’s Dream for the World?

Is the Abolition of Slavery Biblical?

Mutuality Series

A Year of Biblical Womanhood 

 

Sunday Superlatives 8/25/13

from Theologygrams

Around the Blogosphere…

Wisest: 
Ashleigh Baker at Deeper Story with “What I Won’t Tell You About My Ballet-Dancing Son”

“When you ask my dancing son about this passion he carries and you catch my eye, slightly uncertain how to proceed, I won’t try to convince you this was all his idea or give ten examples of his father’s unwavering pride or waste breath assuring you that my second grader isn’t gay. I’ll simply tell you what he said to us after his first Nutcracker performance last winter: ‘Mama, it feels like my heart is flying when I’m dancing. I think God made ballet because he knew I’d love it.’”

Truest: 
Elizabeth Esther with “Loneliness & Tuna Casseroles” 

“Here’s a truth I’ve realized as I’ve fretted over my oven: it doesn’t matter whether I write a bestselling book. Or cook gourmet meals. Or have a flock of perfectly reared children. Inside me, deep down, there is a lurching loneliness which can’t be filled up with careers, babies or fancy meals cooked on designer Viking ranges.”

Coolest (or Most Likely to Upset Ken Ham): 
“Watching Bacteria Evolve: With Predictable Results” 

Most Beautiful: 
John Blase with “I Want to Live in a World”

“I want to live in a world not prettified
but beautiful, the one that is actually here,
tart as wintergreen and rough as granite.”

Most Fascinating: 
Anna Gunn at The New York Times with “I Have Character Issues”

“I enjoy taking on complex, difficult characters and have always striven to capture the truth of those people, whether or not it’s popular. Vince Gilligan, the creator of “Breaking Bad,” wanted Skyler to be a woman with a backbone of steel who would stand up to whatever came her way, who wouldn’t just collapse in the corner or wring her hands in despair. He and the show’s writers made Skyler multilayered and, in her own way, morally compromised. But at the end of the day, she hasn’t been judged by the same set of standards as Walter.”

Most Eye-Opening (especially on the 50th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech):
Joshua DuBois at Newsweek with “The Fight for Black Men”

“There are more African Americans on probation, parole, or in prison today than were slaves in 1850.” 

....Related: 
Sam Roberts at The New York Times with “Race Equality Is Still a Work in Progress”

“The median net worth of white households is 14 times that of black households, and blacks are nearly three times as likely to be living below the federal poverty threshold. The disparity in homeownership rates is the widest in four decades. As the Pew study noted, those realities are not lost on most Americans, only 1 in 10 of whom said the average black person is better off financially than the average white person (although more than 4 in 10 white and Hispanic respondents said the average black is about as well off as the average white).”

Most Relatable: 
Micha Boyett at Deeper Story with “There are No Trophies Here” 

“Eventually delighting in the Lord doesn’t happen because you tried. Delighting happens because you couldn’t try any more. Because you found the task that could not be checked off. Because you discovered you were needy.”

Most Likely To Make You Cry: 
Michael Gerson at The Washington Post with “Saying Goodbye to My Child, the Youngster” 

“Parenthood offers many lessons in patience and sacrifice. But ultimately, it is a lesson in humility. The very best thing about your life is a short stage in someone else’s story. And it is enough.”

Best List: 
18 Obsolete Words That Should Have Never Gone Out of Style 

Best Analysis: 
Jessica Parks with “In Which I Disagree with Mark Driscoll (And It Has Little To Do with Women)" 

“The truth is all translation involves interpretation, whether you employ a formal equivalency method (which Driscoll assumes is almost completely devoid of interpretation or commentary) or a dynamic equivalency method.  Formal equivalency translation seeks to represent as closely as possible the grammar and syntax of the original Greek or Hebrew while dynamic equivalency is concerned with representing the meaning or intention behind the original Greek or Hebrew as closely as possible.  (It’s interesting to see that both methods were employed by translators of the LXX throughout different books of the Hebrew Bible!).”

Best Graph: 
Theologygrams with “Introduction to Micah” 

Best Question: 
Ed Cyzewski with “Can Christians Be Unified if We Don’t Want the Same Thing?”

“I am not a truth defender first and foremost. I’ve been transformed by the truth, and based on that, I am convicted to reach out to others and welcome them into God’s advancing Kingdom.”

Best Sermon:
The Next Evangelicalism: Appreciating the Multicultural Church by Soong Chan-Rah 

Best Find: 
Rachel Marie Stone with “The Stunningly Illustrated Children’s Bible That Should Still Be In Print But Isn’t” 

Best Reflection: 
Austin Channing Brown with “Hi, my name is Austin…” 

“While all those things are good (and I have every intention of passing these stories on to my future children) when I was in college I had a significant revelation: I invested so much into my own culture that I had closed off any interest or opportunity to explore and understand the histories, cultures, and leaders of any other ethnic group. Though I never would have said it aloud, as I looked at my life, I realized that I was treating my culture as superior to anyone else's. I was only eating "my" soul food, listening to "my" gospel music, attending "my" black church, hanging out with "my" black friends (and the white ones who also loved "my" culture), I only dated black men, only hung posters with black folks represented and devoured books that exclusively discussed the importance of black leaders. My whole world revolved around being black. I was a Christian, and yet my world did not at all reflect the truth of God's love for every nation, tribe and tongue. If you looked at my life, you'd think God only loved black people and tolerated everyone else!”

Most Informative (nominated by Brian LePort)
Marg Mowczko with Kuria ‘Lady’ in Papyri Letters

“While most ministers were men in New Testament times, it was not uncommon for women to be ministers, especially in house church settings.  The chosen lady in 2 John was such a woman.”

Most Powerful: 
Alise Wright with “Your Gagging Isn’t Loving”

“But when your truth degrades people, it’s not loving. When your truth reduces relationships to sex acts, it’s not loving. When your truth makes people want to hurt themselves, it’s not loving. When your truth makes the gospel something that is only available to people who believe like you, it’s not loving. When your truth pushes people away from Jesus instead of toward him, it’s not loving. And if your truth isn’t loving, is it really truth?” 

Most Convicting: 
Katie Axelson with “No Time for Jesus” 

Most Thoughtful:
Jonathan Merritt with "Transgender Issues More Complicated Than Some Christians Portray" 

"The transgender issue is an important one and Christians must grapple with it in all its messiness and complexity. So let’s not pretend that any armchair theologian should be able to figure it out. Kris deserves better. And so do all of our transgender neighbors."

Most Perceptive:
Sarah Bessey with "In Which I Beg Barbie's Pardon" 

"A few months into our tentative Barbie experiment now, I have watched my daughter spend the summer with you. Here is what happened: She’s concocting elaborate and empowering imagination stories, and this makes my heart sing. Her favourite Barbie is her Mars Explorer Barbie because she wants to be an astronaut. At this moment, she’s using her old receiving blankets to create a Mars replica. She’s converted her little Barbie car to a space ship, the Veterinarian Barbie is the controller back at the launch pad. Her Strawberry Shortcake dolls set up a bakery on Mars, the Legos are in use, the telescope is out, too. She plans on teaching school to her classroom of Barbies later. She’s happy, she’s creative, she’s dreaming, she’s having fun. What more could a mother want for her daughter?"

Most Uncomfortable Way to Make a Point
New Yorker rides into obstacles in bike lanes to prove a point

Women of Valor…

Antoinette Tuff talks down school shooter 

Rev. Elizabeth Eaton ready to take the plunge as first female bishop of ELCA

Carolyn Custis James on Preventing Spiritual Abuse

On My Nightstand…

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh 

[It's actually on my Kindle on the treadmill...and has proved excellent incentive! An easy, captivating read.]

The Story of Christianity, Vol. 2: The Reformation to the Present Day by Justo Gonzalez

On the blog…

Most Popular Post: 
Responding to Homophobia in the Christian Community

Most Popular Comment: 
In response to “Responding to Homophobia…”  Tiffany Bridge wrote: 

“Personally I think the "yuck" factor has a good purpose, and it is the OPPOSITE of what the hateful TGC article implies. When the smelly homeless man gets on the Metro car I'm on and I want to gag, I use it as a cue to remind myself that Jesus loves this man and calls me to love him too. When a person has a medical condition that makes me uncomfortable, that is a call to love as Jesus loved. When a person is broken by an addiction that prevents them from even caring for their own body, that is a call for me to love. If I felt squicked-out by someone else's sexuality, why would that not ALSO be a call to love? The yuck factor exists to show me places where I am not loving enough, and to challenge me to move past that to become more like Jesus. It is not to be indulged and coddled.”

This week’s travels…

I’ll be speaking at the Lamb & Lion Festival in Fort Wayne, Indiana this weekend. Learn more here. 

Don’t forget…

If you’re planning a fall book club or discussion group, we recently released a FREE discussion guide for A Year of Biblical Womanhood. There is also one for Evolving in Monkey Town. 

Also, next week begins our series, "One to Another: Christ and the Household Codes."  Been working on it all weekend! I'm excited! 

So, what caught your eye online this week? What’s happening on your blog? 

 

Fall Speaking Schedule

I'm about to embark on a busy travel season, so keep me in your prayers. And if you think we'll be able to connect in one of these places, let me know.  Looking forward to meeting so many of you in person! 

(I don't want to talk about how many Alabama games I'm going to miss.)  

 

Saturday, August 31 – Sunday, September 1, 2013
Lamb & Lion Festival
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Praise Park
More Info

Thursday, September 12 – Friday, September 13, 2013
"Growing Up With Your Faith" 
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of South Carolina
Clemson, South Carolina
More Info

Friday, September 20 – Saturday, September 21, 2013
Grace Pointe Church Women’s Retreat
Franklin, Tennessee
More Info

Tuesday, September 24
Samford University Convocation 
Birmingham, Alabama 
10 a.m., Reid Chapel 
More Info

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Taylor University Honors Conference 
Upland, Indiana
"Vocation: A Call to Faithfulness" 
Keynote, 4:15-5:30 pm. 

More Info

Saturday, September 28, 2013
Gethsemane Episcopal Church
Marion, Indiana
"My Year of Biblical Womanhood" + Q&A, 8pm
More Info

Friday, October 4 – Saturday, October 5
Youth Specialties San Diego
National Youth Workers Convention
Town and Country Resort & Conference Center
More Info

Sunday, October 6, 2013
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church
Dimensions of Faith Conference 
Louisville, Kentucky
10am & 7pm
More Info

Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Asbury United Methodist Church
Prairie Village, Kansas
"My Year of Biblical Womanhood" 
More Info

Monday, October 28, 2013
Belmont University
Nashville, TN
10am convocation; 
More Info

Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Mars Hill College
Asheville, North Carolina
11am Chapel 
More Info

Tuesday, November 5, 2013
First Baptist Church
Asheville, North Carolina
7pm
More Info

Saturday, November 23 – Sunday, November 24, 2013
Youth Specialties Nashville
National Youth Workers Convention
More Info

 

Responding to homophobia in the Christian community

Recently, Thabiti Anyabwile wrote a post entitled “The Importance of Your Gag Reflex When Discussing Homosexuality and ‘Gay Marriage’”, which was posted on his Gospel Coalition-hosted blog. 

I debated whether to engage a post that is just as disturbing as the title suggests, but after speaking with an editor and several writers at The Gospel Coalition, as well as some of my gay and lesbian friends, I’ve decided it’s important to offer an alternative to the attitude presented in this post and, perhaps more importantly, to explore/discuss how Christians ought to respond when we encounter homophobia in our own faith communities. 

Now let me be clear: I believe the post exhibits homophobia, not because of the author’s conservative position on same-sex marriage, and not because the author intended to be hateful, but because the post employs degrading, fear-based language to dehumanize gay and lesbian people. 

Responding to New Zealand’s recent legalization of gay marriage, Anyabwile laments the fact that pro-gay-marriage advocates have effectively argued their case by appealing to civil rights and by emphasizing loving, committed relationships between gay and lesbian people. Confessing with some agitation that he too found one gay advocate to be “ kind, winsome, insightful and reasonable,” Anyabwile concludes that the best way to turn the tide back against gay marriage is to “return the discussion to sexual behavior in all its yuckiest gag-inducing truth.” 

Christians should indulge their “gag reflexes,” he says, and “return to the yuck factor” when they think and talk about gay and lesbian people, particularly in the context of gay marriage.  

He then proceeds to graphically describe gay sex before telling the reader: “That sense of moral outrage you’re now likely feeling…that gut-wrenching, jaw-clenching, hand-over-your-mouth, ‘I feel dirty’ moral outrage is the gag reflex. Your moral sensibilities have been provoked–and rightly so.”

He concludes: “That reflex triggered by an accurate description of homosexual behavior will be the beginning of the recovery of moral sense and sensibility when it comes to the so-called ‘gay marriage’ debate.” 

Obviously, the post fails miserably in the logic department by arguing that because some people have a “gag reflex” when they think about gay sex, then gay sex must therefore be immoral. Let’s think about this. A person might get a bit squirmy at the thought of his parents having sex, but it does not then follow that his parents’ sex is inherently immoral. Furthermore, there are heterosexual acts that can be considered immoral—adultery, for example—but that might not induce Anyabwile’s handy “gag reflex.” (Not to mention the fact that much of what he describes as “gay sex” happens in heterosexual sex as well and that any sort of sex, when described purely biologically, can sound kinda gross; let’s face it.) So positioning “icky” as the barometer for morality is just poor argumentation. If, as Anyabwile suggests, this is really the best argument those opposed to gay marriage have, then the movement is in serious trouble. 

But far more serious than Anyabwile’s logical failings is the failure of this post to extend any sort of grace or dignity to the LGBT people in question. Instead, he invites those who may already have hostile feelings toward gay and lesbian people to indulge their revulsion and anger. 

Concerned that the civility and decorum exhibited by many LGBT rights advocates might make their arguments more persuasive, Anyabwile suggests that the key to “winning” the same-sex marriage debate is speak more graphically about gay sex in order to induce the “gag reflex.” When discussing homosexuality, Christians should seek to create “gut-wrenching, jaw-clenching, hand-over-your-mouth, ‘I feel dirty’ moral outrage” regarding gay and lesbian people seeking to get married. 

This is why the post is so damaging and potentially dangerous. Sensing that the consideration of full personhood might sway the gay marriage debate toward legalization,  he suggests we should deliberately move away from speaking of gay and lesbian people as multi-dimensional human beings and instead reduce them to sex acts in order to make others more repulsed by them. It is an unabashed attempt to single out, stigmatize, and ostracize an entire group of people, which is the exact opposite of what the gospel calls us to do. Anyabwile frequently uses terms like “dirty,” “yucky,” “repulsive,” “disgusting” and “icky” to describe fellow human beings, created in the image of God, and this is unacceptable. 

Can you imagine Jesus reducing those with leprosy to their disease? Or the bleeding woman to her “impurity”? Can you imagine Philip reducing the Ethiopian eunuch to his anatomy or Peter the gentile Christians to the food they ate? Can you imagine God reducing us to our sin? 

And what’s with this idea that our impulses necessarily lead us to truth? Are we justified in indulging our gag reflex when we encounter people who are sick, or homeless, or different from us? What about our violent reflexes? Or our indulgent reflexes? Or our racist reflexes?  Our greedy reflexes? 

Reflex doesn’t make right. And anyone who believes in the pervasiveness of sin within our hearts should agree. 

[For those eager to defend Anyabwile, I recommend reading this post from Richard Beck, in which he anticipates such defenses and responds well to them. Please also consider reading Beck’s book, Unclean, which discusses how disgust is a dehumanizing emotion.]

Responding to Homophobia.... 

Not everyone who opposes same-sex marriage is homophobic, of course. But I do come across what can only be described as homophobia and I suspect I am not alone. I suspect you too may have been in the presence of Christians cracking crude jokes about gay and lesbian people or muttering under their breath about a “disgusting” gay co-worker.  Or perhaps you’ve been in a Bible study where it is suggested that all gay people are pedophiles or watched as kids who bully effeminate classmates are given a free pass. 

(How easy it is to forget that there are gay people sitting in the pews of our churches. This is not an “us-vs.-them” thing; this is an “us” thing, a humanity thing. Many gay people are Christians, and many Christians have children, parents, friends, and loved ones who are gay.) 

So how should we respond when fellow Christians engage in name-calling, bullying, lying, or hateful attitudes like these? 

Four things come to mind: 

1. Call it out.

Ignorance and hateful attitudes thrive when they are normalized and accepted without pushback. Your friends may just assume you agree with them when you don’t speak up about their homophobia.  On more than one occasion, I’ve heard Dan calmly respond to a crude homophobic joke with something simple like, “Hey, man. That’s not funny. You’re talking about real people here. Please don’t say that kind of stuff around me.” It’s awkward for about 10 seconds. But it’s better than replaying that conversation over and over and wishing you had said something. And it sends the signal that not everyone is okay with crude jokes or ugly language at the expense of gay and lesbian people.  More often than not, there will be someone else in the group who is relieved you said something and may even offer support. And sometimes, there will be someone in the group who is relieved to know he or she is not also hated or despised by you. Try thinking ahead of time about a line or two you can use in situations like these so you’re ready. 

(A more personal, and perhaps more effective, response is to talk about the people in your life who are gay. Perhaps your friends will think twice about mouthing off about their “gag reflex” toward gay and lesbian people when they know your brother is gay.) 

In the case of this article, it would be appropriate to leave a comment saying you do not accept gay and lesbian people being spoken of in these terms, especially by those waving the banner of the “gospel,” or by urging editors at The Gospel Coalition to remove the post entirely. Or, if the article is shared by your friends, speak up. It would be especially helpful if more conservative folks would push back a bit. Remember that silence in this regard can often communicate approval. 

2. Be informed.

Hate grows in the soil of ignorance, and when it comes to sexuality, there’s a lot of ignorance to go around. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a well-intentioned Christian say something about how children in gay families suffer (this is not true) or how all gay people are pedophiles (also not true).  We can debate the merits of same-sex marriage, certainly, but let’s do it based on facts, not myths. And we can discuss how the Bible and Christian tradition factor into things as well, but let’s be informed about our convictions. 

Check out 10 anti-gay myths debunked at The Southern Poverty Law Center to get started, and then follow the links to the various studies and scientific research that is cited there. For books, The Marin Foundation has a handy list here that includes perspectives from both conservative and progressive Christians. 

3. Get to know some LGBT people and read their perspectives on things.

One of my gay friends said that Anyabwile’s article was the most overtly hateful thing he has read about homosexuality from a Christian blog.  My guess is Anyabwile probably didn’t intend his post to be hateful, but had he taken a minute to imagine how it would read to a gay or lesbian teen, for example, he might have chosen his words more carefully. 

Deliberately listening to and considering the perspectives of LGBT people can make a huge difference in how we engage conversations around marriage, the Bible, and church. You will learn how phrases like "the gay lifestyle" and "love the sinner, hate the sin" sound to those most impacted by them and your stereotypes will be shattered. (You will also learn why Anyabwile' statement that “'gay' and 'homosexual' are polite terms for an ugly practice" is wrong. Those terms generally refer to sexual orientation.) 

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Torn: Rescuing Christians From the Gays vs. Christians Debate by Justin Lee, my favorite book on the topic from a gay Christian’s perspective. For a more conservative viewpoint, you might like Wesley Hill’s Washed and Waiting. I’d also recommend Does Jesus Really Love Me? by Jeff Chu. Some of my favorite blogs in this regard come from Kimberly Knight, Registered Runaway, and Grace Is Human.

This also might be a good time to connect with (or donate to!) the Gay Christian Network, a wonderful group that provides fellowship and resources to gay Christians, both those who feel they are free in Christ to pursue relationships with the members of the same sex and those who feel they are compelled by Christ to pursue celibacy. 

4. Preach and live the gospel.

Of course, the very best thing we can do in response to any sort of fear or hate or stigmatization is to preach the gospel like crazy, to spread the good new that, through Christ, God is making all things new and the Kingdom of Heaven is open to all who long for it. 

For those who are weary and burdened by religious rules and expectations, Jesus promises rest. For those who hunger for righteousness, Jesus promises satisfaction. For those who are thirsty for refreshing, life-giving, truth, Jesus promises streams of living water. For those who have been marginalized and cast aside, Jesus promises a banquet and a place of high honor. For those who long for reconciliation and forgiveness of sins, Jesus promises mercy and grace. For those deemed “unclean,” Jesus promises embrace.  For those who long for communion, there is bread and wine. And for those who long to be baptized, there is water. 

The good news is that we aren’t welcomed into God’s family based on our merits or our skills. We aren’t welcomed based on which theological beliefs we can check off a list or how well we fit the religious mold. You don’t have to be straight to be part of this family. You don’t have to be a Republican or a Democrat or an American. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to pray just the right words or know all the right answers. You don’t have to be sinless. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to come.  It’s an adoption, not an interview. 

The good news is that God doesn’t reduce us the way we reduce one another. God does not see dirty people and clean people, good people and bad people. God sees beloved people. And nothing can separate us from that. Nothing. 

Now be warned: Some people find this gospel offensive. They don’t like the idea of sharing a table with all these undeserving, messed-up, “icky” people. They don’t like the idea of this grace thing getting out of hand. But for the suffering, for the hurting, and for the ones who have nothing left to lose, this is very good news. 

So preach it like crazy, and if you dare, live it. 

**

Let's try to make this conversation as productive as possible:

What are some other practical ways to respond to homophobia in the Christian community? What sort of assumptions, hurtful language, and hurtful actions do you encounter most often and how have you learned to respond to them well? 

Note: I plan to shut down the comment thread after 24 hrs. 

 **

See also:  

Everyone's a Biblical Literalist Until You Bring Up Gluttony

"All right, then, I'll go to hell" 

Posts on homosexuality