sweet, i get the first comment on this amazing post. I dont have anything to profound to start it off with. I mostly just wanted to say thank you for processing this outloud and online. I have really gone through the ringer in the last year over the “moral” vs. the “social” construct. I actually just had a conversation with a friend today about this concept.

I dont know where to fit ill defined morality into the intricate and infinitely complex framework of humanity. This is a kick ass post and im stoked ot read what others have to say about it. I like that you didnt try to do what many folks have done with the “issue” of homosexuality in America: oversimplify.

I know what is being said about social vs. moral, but I think the wording is backwards. I don’t think morality is a bad word, I just think it needs to be redeemed, much like the word religion (James 1:26-27). When I think of the words “socially right” I tend to think of peer pressure.

Considering Jesus did not “fight” for many things (anti-slavery, woman’s rights) I seriously doubt he would have pushed for same-sex marriage. Jesus seemed to let his actions do much of the talking.

Just some thoughts.

I have many thoughts (what a surprise) but I really only want to point to two things in the interest of productive conversation.

I think that Jesus did talk about doctrine, just not in “sermon form” the way that you and I think of a lecture given by a professor or preacher. I think He very clearly expressed many doctrines through His actions and words. Like telling the adulterous woman to go and sin no more (John 8). In that passage He is giving her the opportunity to turn from her adultery (which He is clearly condemning as sin).

Secondly I would just point to the whole of Scripture. If all of Scripture is God inspired and it is all essentially one story about the fall of man and God’s redemptive work through His son Jesus, then shouldn’t we consider the doctrine taught in the rest of the Bible? Paul writes about doctrine frequently and gets very specific with regard to morality.

Is it possible that Jesus (being God in flesh) was simply living out the doctrine and theology set forth in the Old Testament and the doctrine and theology that would come later in the New Testament? And if so, that Jesus was very intentional in everything He did so that He was continually pointing toward good moral doctrine while loving people socially? I’m just throwing out ideas here.

I realize that I am one of those hard line morality guys that many readers will just write off, but I’m just trying to ask good questions while making a point or two from my perspective.

adam,
thanks for your thoughts. you bring up a good point about the whole of scripture. and i almost said some things about it in the post but it was already getting long. just me being honest it’s hard for me to interpret paul differently than jesus. i think that’s one of the great disservices we’ve done to paul. by making him out to be something different than what he is. i just can’t take paul over jesus. to me as i approach scripture. jesus is the apex. for me, everything before simply sets the stage for him. and everything after is simply our best attempt at putting some handles and framework on his teaching as we organize and practice his teachings communally.

i know you probably don’t mean it to sound like this . . . “Is it possible that Jesus (being God in flesh) was simply living out the doctrine and theology set forth in the Old Testament and the doctrine and theology that would come later in the New Testament?” . . . to me sounds like jesus is almost an after thought in god’s epic story of doctrine.

as far as your first point of jesus teaching doctrine. i’ll even use your example with the woman. perhaps jesus primary concern in that moment was the social with no regards for the doctrinal or moral. and later on the church gave that story it’s doctrine. which there is absolutely nothing wrong with the morality of the story and the doctrine assigned to it. but in that very moment when he was drawing in the sand, i struggle to think about jesus trying to find a way to do what is doctrinally/morally right. i have to (want to) believe he was concerned with nothing more than making the situation socially right.

joe r.
good points about slavery and women. could it be though that the reason he left them alone had to do with the fact that they were cultural? thus morally relative to that culture? morally we know that slavery and women are wrong in our culture. i know this opens up pandora’s box about relative morality. but at least i feel it’s more honest to scripture.

cannibalism is wrong in our culture. but is it wrong for a third world tribe who has practiced it for 5000 years? and would consider it a culturally tradition to bury people under the ground in a box?

sorry i never expounded on paul.

for to many preachers their doctrine and teaching starts with paul. they rarely teach on jesus. and when they do it’s usually subtext or even worse proof-texting for the pauline passage they are discussing.

so a sermon begins with paul in romans talking about worship. then 20 minutes of talking (usually information derived from 2000 years of tradition, culture, and creeds – or for former baptists like me – just the last 400 years since the reformation). then jesus gets thrown in for a few minutes as a witty feel good story about feeding the 5,000. but even more times than not he doesn’t even make it to the middle for sermon. he’s just brought out at the end as the loaded gun for the invitation with all the salvation talk about after we die. sermons just aren’t crafted with the social implications of jesus in mind.

in my mind, paul continued on in the subversive work that jesus was doing with empire. plus paul was a tad bit more on the temperamental side so it’s hard not to imagine that his writings would reflect that at times on the social level.

those are my rough thoughts on how we’ve messed up paul.

dude, you so needed to define what you meant by social at the beginning of your post. what would have been socially correct for the woman caught in adultery is for them to stone her. yes that was cultural, too, but it was what was socially acceptable. Jesus did the opposite.

I think what you mean by social, or maybe what I am hoping you mean, or even what I believe to be correct, is connecting with people on a real level. Jesus was connecting on a very real level with this lady he “saved” from being stoned. Jesus was connecting in a very real, personal way with the people he turned water into wine for.

so if you are trying to say, instead of looking at the issue of homosexuality from a doctrinal or culturally moral viewpoint, we should look at it from a “these-are-real-people who simply need the love of Christ revealed to them through our interactions with them” level, I totally agree. I think I am beginning to believe that this is what the kingdom of God is – us, living it out with one another, and being real with everyone we come into contact with.

thank you for getting me to think about this!

The fact is, Jesus’ sense of doctrine was even more strict than what the the religious elite of the time were practicing. Of course, Jesus ignored much of what they considered important, but on the truly important matters of the heart, He required more of them than was common at the time. It wasn’t just that you don’t commit murder, you’re not even supposed to get angry. It wasn’t just that you don’t commit adultery, you’re not even supposed to think lustfully after a woman.

And yes, He rescued the adultress from stoning. But He also redeemed her for a purpose – to “go and sin no more.” He didn’t excuse her sin, He simply forgave her for it.

But Jesus’ standards of behavior, while very different from the cultural standards of His day, were much more strict than anyone at the time, and also we today, could ever hope to attain. But it was still the standard He called us to.

I don’t believe that Christ’s attitude towards homosexuals would have been (or is) different than His attitude towards the “sick” that He spent so much time with – drunks, tax collectors, prostitutes, etc. But He did not associate with them to validate their behavior, He associated with them to love them, to teach them, to redeem them, and to usher in the Kingdom of God through them.

Why is it that you used a ’sexy’ socially accepted picture of homosexuality. . (ie pretty lesbians)? That seems so much like MTV Homosexuality.

out of everything in this post to get upset about you’re going to pick that one?

plus that’s like the most famous homosexual picture of all time. it’s really popular and iconic in some cultures.

josh,

long time listener, first time caller. i’m not sure your contrast with what Jesus taught and lived in the Gospels and what St. Paul’s writes holds up. considering that every thing that we have that Jesus said and did was influenced by the Gospel writers who were writing at the same time as St Paul. the letters we have from Paul are his letters, but the red letters of Jesus are only what the Gospel writers deemed important for the Church to hear.

did i make the point i was trying to? eashh…

Back to my first point: Have you ever played a word association game? This is my response: when I hear “socially right” I think politically correct. Like I said, it reminds me of peer pressure, which can be good or bad. “Morally right” reminds me of character. I have heard that character is who you are (and how you act) when no one is looking. Something like that.

I think Derek made a tremendous point in saying,
“I don’t believe that Christ’s attitude towards homosexuals would have been (or is) different than His attitude towards the “sick” that He spent so much time with – drunks, tax collectors, prostitutes, etc. But He did not associate with them to validate their behavior, He associated with them to love them, to teach them, to redeem them, and to usher in the Kingdom of God through them.”

You make some great points in this post, Josh, but the event that sparked your thoughts (Huck Finn’s story) is one of skewed morality and doctrine, not the “true” religion and spirituality that Joe R. highlighted in the second comment. Huck Finn had been exposed to a twisted, unhealthy religion that was a shadow (in many ways an antithesis) of what following Jesus is meant to be about (breaking down walls, loving unconditionally, etc). So the “hell” he consigned himself to was really not hell, but in reality more closely represented the teachings of Jesus than all the nicely dressed Baptists that would consign him there for his actions.

So I’d caution against taking that twisted situation and immediately making the jump to rejecting morality and doctrinal emphasis. I agree with others that Jesus exuded an incredible commitment to morality and doctrine in his daily life, while simultaneously showing a profound compassion and acceptance that earned him being consigned to the Jewish “hell” for his lifestyle.

I’d simplify my thoughts like this. Quite often when thinking about these issues, we get polemical right quick. We either occupy one end of the spectrum (commitment to morality at expense of compassion) or the other (commitment to compassion at the expense of morality), while tossing around fun phrases like “Love the sinner, hate the sin” or “Jesus was tolerant” while displaying intellectual and spiritual laziness in refusing to see the valid points of both sides. Isn’t it obvious Jesus cared deeply about morality AND compassion? Isn’t it obvious that Jesus lived into the reality of hating sin while loving others radically? I don’t mean this as an indictment of your thoughts, Josh, because I think this post was very thoughtful…I just see conversations shifting into this kind of trench warfare all the time when people start messing with the sacred cows of others.

Hmmm…these comments are still assuming that homosexuality is a sin, a “cancer” to be healed and prayed for. I feel like you, Josh, are trying to process where you stand on homosexuality and its association with sin. Am i correct?

thanks for your comments joe and nathan.

and yes corey, that’s where i’m at. trying to sift through the connection of homosexuality and sin.

i’m all over the place on this one. this post comes out of my creative imagination of a world (that is certainly possible although not necessarily so) where jesus does not care about morality. only the social. i’m not saying that’s the way the text reads. because i think valid points have been made by those who disagree with this. but i also think there is a possible reading of the text that opens up this possibility.

thats even part of the reason i used the picture at the bottom. what is it in us that pushes back or redraws or recoils when we see 2 same sex people kissing? if you feel that at times (when you see something similar) then i think that exposes our biases. cultural or personal. would jesus recoil? would he flinch? think twice? or blow it off and enter into the wild wonderful world of making things socially right?

Yes out of everything in the post and everything in the comments. My only issue is with the picture you decided to post. It’s Hot Hollywood Homosexuality, just kind of cheap for suck a big issue, ehh? There is nothing really that makes most people recoil when we see two cute women kissing, it is socially accepted. Mrs. USA does it for god’s sake.

josh, perhaps for the benefit of the conversation, could you explain a little further with several examples what you mean when you say “but i also think there is a possible reading of the text that opens up this possibility”? i’ve been hanging back and just reading this discussion and trying to get a feel for what the underlying paradigms/roots of your perspective are, instead of just looking at the primary example re:homosexuality (there are certainly other examples). what you are advocating is a departure from the way a lot of people read the bible, and it’s difficult to weigh that type of paradigm shift in the context of such a heated issue. to look at the interpretive paradigm first would allow everyone to first evaluate whether they feel this approach to the text works, and once that’s at least understood, then the application of that paradigm to an example such as homosexuality can be evaluated. otherwise, it seems we’re discussing a symptom and not the root.

good idea ben. give me a little bit and let me work up a response along that lines.

josh, i actually have some thoughts about what you’ve said. so anyway, i wanna offer them, but it’ll probably be on my blog. and who knows when, because i have a workshop next week and i have a few other posts i’ve cornered myself into doing.

but i’ll summarize it… “i disagree.”

[...] The D10 had a good suggestion for me to elaborate a bit more on my idea of the social versus moral rights as discussed in a previous post. He made the helpful suggestion to try to work with some other examples (outside of homosexuality) of what my “reimagining” of some of the other possibilities of the teachings of Jesus could look like. [...]

[...] I suppose, as what should be expected, the best chapters are written by the “professional authors”. Brian McLaren’s chapter on the direct, inseparable ties of colonialism and postmodernity is borderline brilliant. Sally Morgenthaler has an excellent chapter on leadership in a flattened world that was equally insightful. And Tim Keel wrote a beautiful piece about leadership needing to come from the artists at the margins. Rudy Carrasco has a nice chapter on inner-city work and the primacy of social justice. Samir Selmanovic has a chapter on inclusiveness that left me entirely frustrated and yet intrigued to stretch and think wider. My friend Adam Walker Cleaveland shares his thoughts on why he has chosen to stay within the system and structures of the church, which was a challenge for me to think about. And Nanette Sawyer had a very good chapter on Huckleberry Finn and the relational ethics of Jesus (which is very much in the vein of what I wrote here). [...]