Evangelical and affirming: re-reading Genesis 2?
Andrew Goddard writes: As set out in my shorter summary, I believe the three articles entitled "Same Sex Matrimony & Scripture: Affirming Evangelical Response" which were commissioned by Jayne Ozanne for her Via Media web log are pregnant and helpful responses to the Oct 2022 letter from the Bishop of Blackburn and 10 other evangelical Church building of England bishops. This seeks to explore each response in plow.
David Gillett: Scripture, Hermeneutics, Creation and Logical Reasoning
The opening article, by Bishop David Gillett, highlights the deeper consequence of how we read the Bible and what information technology means for Scripture to be administrative. He writes that he still holds "wholeheartedly to the central importance and authority of Scripture". His disagreement with the bishops and their traditional reading of the Bible is, he says, considering he wishes "to expand our understanding of marriage in the light of the questions asked of those Scriptures by our agreement of sexuality and gender today ". He helpfully illustrates what he means by this with reference not to the interpretation of "the half dozen or so verses in the Bible, which in some manner or some other refer to same-sexual activity activeness" but to Genesis ii. In so doing he implicitly acknowledges that it is these more foundational biblical texts and the biblical doctrine of cosmos – peculiarly God'due south cosmos of human creatures and the institution of spousal relationship – which are more fundamentally at pale in at least some of our disagreements.
Understanding cosmos and interpreting Genesis 2
David Gillett offers a response to Genesis 2 in which a gay man imagines himself as Adam, being offered diverse potential partners past God. Like Adam, this gay human being finds many proposals unsuitable but then "after a while a human is presented to him who evokes a totally different level of recognition and response. This for him is what he has been longing for and he exclaims, 'This at last is os of my bone and flesh of my flesh!' They can go one".
There can be no doubting that this indeed describes the experience of many gay men. The kickoff person commenting on Thinking Anglicans testifies to being "moved to tears" with "the very strange feel of recognising myself, in the telling of a story about a man recognising himself, in the story of Adam and his search for a helpmeet". Offering a theological estimation of this experience in the light of Scripture is one of the challenging questions for those of united states of america who share the views expressed in the bishops' letter. It is, however, important to analyse what is being claimed here in David Gillett's theological estimation and reading of Genesis.
This is an arroyo to this affiliate which – in exegetical substance, hermeneutical method, and theological conclusions – has no basis in the long Christian (or I believe Jewish) tradition which has devoted great attention to the opening capacity of Genesis over thousands of years. In relation to exegesis, Ian Paul's comment on the original blog posting highlights three main elements of the text that highlight the importance of the difference between male and female person in the text itself: the importance of the unusual Hebrew phrase ezer kenegdoto refer to a helper who is different, opposite or matching; the shape of the narrative in which something other than some other adamis sought; the goal of the narrative as an explanation specifically of the male-female person course of attraction and union in marriage.
In relation to hermeneutical method, the article'south approach is highly individualistic and self-centred. This is evident from the say-so of get-go-person references in David Gillett's initial reading of Genesis 2 which forms the basis for his proposed re-reading from the perspective of a gay man:
As I read this story for myself, I am presented with a range of possible partners – equally was Adam – and I am unsatisfied until I see the other human being – the i who became my wife – and I exclaim, 'this at last is bone of my basic and flesh of my flesh!' For me, and for most others whom I know this encounter has been one of the almost thrilling of all life's discoveries.
The deeper trouble lies here – in the method which initially presents itself as leading to a traditional heterosexual reading – not in the reading suggested on behalf of a gay man or the theological conclusion drawn in relation to Scripture and aforementioned-sexual activity marriage. It is a method which does not pay attention to the text in its firsthand (encounter in a higher place) or wider canonical context (discussed below). It assumes the text is a description of how any human finds a life-partner and takes as a given my own experience of this quest, hence specially my pattern of sexual attraction and desire. Information technology so finds that personal experience present in and hence authorised by the biblical text. The commodity so further argues that others with a similar experience only a different pattern of sexual attraction and want can legitimately follow the aforementioned procedure in response to the text. They will legitimately "inhabit the story" and so equally to find it affirming their personal experience and thus leading to different theological and ethical conclusions from those traditionally drawn from Genesis and wider Scripture.
The hermeneutical logic of the example for same-sex spousal relationship from Genesis 2
The argument seems to exist
(1) that because a gay man (or lesbian) can truly experience what Genesis 2 describes as Adam'due south response to Eve just they do so for someone of the same-sex therefore
(2) what they feel is besides biblically sanctioned and approved by God in the Genesis 2 creation narrative. The claim may exist even stronger –
(2b) that this passage teaches u.s.a. that, as regards our desire for an intimate relationship to rectify the fact that is non good to be alone, God's purpose equally revealed here is to give each of us what we believe fulfils our need non to be lone; therefore when we experience with someone what Adam experienced with Eve this as well is God's provision for us.
Whether in its weaker or stronger form this 2nd merits clearly needs more than careful articulation and qualification. I am confident that David Gillett, while he accepts the line of argument when expressed by a gay man, would not have either of these claims in relation to a man experiencing Adam'south response to a woman who is already married to another human being or to a person who claimed they were experiencing what Adam did in relation to more than one person, both of which are claims that have at times been fabricated by Christians to justify their deportment.
Furthermore,
(3) considering Genesis 2 is a description of matrimony as created by God, that experienced design of honey for someone of the same sex must also be recognised as marriage. As a result,
(4) "we volition now be able to run into the tradition in a fully inclusive mode – or, at the very least, promise that others who disagree volition allow blessings of same sex marriages – thus leaving a variety of ways of living God's story that recognizes the full humanity and equality of our LGBTI+ brothers and sisters".
That terminal claim actually goes even further and shows why our differences here are and so difficult to concord together within a single coherent and united witnessing Christian customs: David Gillett's statement implies
(5) that those, like the bishops, who cannot accept this hermeneutic and and so allow blessings of same-sex marriages are thereby denying some people'southward "full humanity and equality".
Disagreement and the limits of logic
This in plow makes articulate that David Gillett does non really believe what he writes under the guise of "a greater generosity – in line with our all-generous God": "I may be wrong, or they may be wrong, nevertheless we need to concur in religion the fact that we may both be right!". That he does not really believe this is non surprising considering it is logically incoherent to say 2 indisputably mutually exclusive truth claims tin can both be correct. The elementary fact is that eitherthose who, similar David Gillett, say union equally God intends it in creation requires "a commitment to a faithful, life-long and intimate relationship between two people" are right or those who, like the bishops, say marriage equally God intends information technology in creation is a human relationship which requires (among other qualities) that those 2 people exist of the opposite sex are right. If David Gillet is correct so the more specified definition of the bishops, in line with Christian tradition, cannot besides exist correct. We may say we are not sure what we believe merely if we truly believe 1 of these views is right and then nosotros must of necessity as well believe the other is wrong. Nosotros cannot "concur in faith" that we may both be right unless that faith abandons reason.
The problems with David Gillett'due south approach therefore include its novelty in which what is claimed to be "our understanding of sexuality and gender today" (emphasis original) is ultimately formative of how we interpret Scripture and also its appeal, in line with our gimmicky cultural context, to a highly individualistic reading which treats the passage as concerned simply almost how each person finds their right partner. There is, though, a farther and even more serious trouble theologically.
Reading canonically and Christo-centrically
Despite his claim to be concerned with the Bible as narrative, David Gillett shows no involvement in how Genesis 2 fits inside Scripture as a whole. Whatever genuine reading of this or whatsoever other text – certainly any that claims to be evangelical – is going to be concerned with such a canonical perspective (e.g., is the male-female structure of nuptial imagery from Genesis to Revelation really so secondary?). In particular careful attending must be given to Jesus' appeal to the text in Matthew 19 and Mark 10. In that location, the text is not understood as to be interpreted in the calorie-free of each individual's way of inhabiting the story by reference to whatsoever way their ain, unchallengeable subjective experience mirrors that of Adam when presented with Eve. Rather, explaining the focus in the Christian tradition'due south reading of Genesis, for Jesus the narrative of Genesis 2 is set alongside and seen as tied to, maybe even rooted in, the objective, bi-polar ordering and structure of God'due south human animal every bit male and female set out previously in Genesis 1. In short, according to Jesus, the social practice of marriage is non to be rooted in our personal blueprint of desires. Nor in how we believe we find them to be fulfilled. The social practice of marriage is to exist rooted in the created nature of human beings. Given this teaching of Christ it should therefore possibly not surprise us that redefining our doctrine of marriage in the way that David Gillett advocates is now then frequently also correlated with redefining the nature and significance of human sexual differentiation in our doctrine of humanity as created and redeemed by God.
(Responses to the other two articles can be found in successive posts, and volition be linked here.)
Revd Dr Andrew Goddard is Associate Director of the Kirby Laing Constitute for Christian Ideals (KLICE), Cambridge and Offshoot Assistant Professor of Anglican Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
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