More thoughtless thought

Another gem of a 4thought can be viewed here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4thoughttv/4od#3118646

The Rev James Gracie, a minister in Edinburgh, began by telling us that women should not be allowed to have primary roles in the church, including being preachers. His most sound and well thoughtout reasoning is as follows:

"Because the Bible tells us very clearly the roles that men and women are to have"

I always cringe when I hear statements like this. Two of my least favourite statements are: "Because the Bible tells us" and "The Bible tells us very clearly". As I consider myself a Christian, this fact may be surprising to some.

But the reason I object to such statements as the former is because the assumption is usually that something being in the Bible automatically renders it true - due to Biblical inerrancy and the like. And the reason I object to the latter is because the Bible does not tell us things very clearly - we glean things through our reading and interpretation of the Bible.

Least of all does the Bible tell us very clearly the role of men and women. I was hoping for a half-decent argument with this, but all this supposed minister managed to come up with was the oft-quoted 1 Corinthians 14:34-5

"Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says."

Once again this verse is quoted entirely out of context - both textual and historical. The textual context is actually in maintaining order in the church. Note in particular Paul uses the article here - the churches, not just churches in general. There was a specific problem with disorder and chaos in the Corinthian churches. I'd consider it 99.9% likely that Paul did not intend that women should remain silent in all churches throughout time, but that specific women in the Corinthian church ought not to just shout out randomly.

Progressing further with the historical context - let us also note that Paul was writing in the 1st century CE. Society was still incredibly patriarchal - women were meant to be subordinate and submissive and this was just the way things were. But something being a social norm in the time of the Biblical authors does not make it right! And it most certainly does not make it the will of God!

Yet again someone who has supposedly studied theology has taken the Bible, assumed his literal, and actually rather ignorant (literally, of social and textual context) interpretation is the correct one.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of attitude that has hurt and damaged women and the church for generations. I have had the privilege of knowing both female and male clergy and leaders in the church. And not only do I think that women have just as much to contribute as men - I actually think they have certain qualities which many men lack.

But perhaps the most important reason for accepting women in the church is that, quite simply, all are loved and accepted by God. God calls women and men to various roles - he calls some women and some men to teach, preach, practise law, practise medicine, serve in shops, clean, build...

It's 2010 - isn't it about time we ended this stupid view that men should dominate, and that some things are just for men?

Let us finish with the words of the Apostle himself, words which are often ignored when other words of his are used instead to hurt and destroy women in the church, but which have a great deal of value and upon which he placed no less significance:

"There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

Galatians 3:28

Religious Conscience vs The Rights of the Child

The organisation Catholic Care has lost an appeal to be allowed to discriminate against homosexuals when it comes to finding adoptive parents for children.

Ever since the introduction of the anti-discrimination laws people have been aware of the potential issues of people's legal obligations coming into conflict with their religious consciences. And this is a key example.

There will be many Catholics, particularly those involved in this organisation, who will be saddened or angered by the idea that they cannot exclusively allow heterosexual couples to adopt. Their perspective is that the Bible's passages on homosexuality are sufficient to suggest that God does not approve of it. I have a few thoughts on this.

The first is that there are still many Catholics, and Christians of other denominations, who do not feel this way. They may feel that God's love and acceptance is unconditional, and that the ambiguity of most of the Biblical passages suggests that we cannot assert adamantly that God is anti-gay.

What is also important to note is that the Bible does not mention same-sex couples, and likewise has nothing to say on gay adoption. Admittedly, it would have been unheard of in the times of Paul or the authors of the books of the law, but the fact remains that it is not mentioned.

But it is a fact that opinion is divided on this issue, and one cannot expect everyone to agree on this. For those who do disagree, it is worth remembering that Jesus himself spoke of giving to Caesar what is Caesar's; in this instance, the law demands that organisations do not discriminate, and in this case this has, legally, to be observed.

What may be of comfort to those who struggle is that, irrespective of their views on homosexuality, children from broken homes and living in care have new opportunities to go to a home and be brought up by two people who love them, and love each other.

Furthermore, giving a child to a gay couple would not be suggested by any part of the Bible to be sinful, and it is difficult to conceive of God punishing someone for obeying the law of the land in this instance.

A 'thought'

Meet Wale Babatunde...senior pastor of the World Harvest Christian Centre.

This man delivered this evening's 4thought on Channel 4, which can be viewed here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4thoughttv/4od#3107827

I was left disappointed by this thought. The man seemed to imply that homosexuals were equivalent to thieves. (Perfectly logical I suppose, the one takes people's possessions, destroys their trust in humankind and leaves them in despair; the other is attracted to and falls in love with people of their own gender).

But the main reason I was left so disappointed with this 4thought was that, ironically and unfortunately, there simply wasn't any thought involved in it. Pastor Babatunde made the hideously fallacious statement that:

"The issue...should not be a matter of personal interpretation; the most important think is to look at what the Bible says"

How compelling Pastor Babatunde...how easily one would be inclined to agree with you. After all, who are Christians to consider themselves above the Bible?

Except...looking at what the Bible says is a matter of personal interpretation. Of course it is. Everything one reads, to some extent, one interprets. And there are a plethora of interpretations of scriptural passages: literal, allegorical, historical, purely contextual, universal.

No prizes for guessing how Pastor Babatunde thinks scripture should always be interpreted.

He then goes on to quote 1 Corinthians 6:9, which in his translation says:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites...

So, the uninformed listener may assume from this that the Apostle Paul said homosexuals cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and therefore homosexuality is wrong.

What a depressingly narrow interpretation.

The Apostle Paul, factually speaking, did not say that homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God. Why not? Because the word homosexual, a Greek and Latin hybrid, was first used in 1869. And, unless I am very much mistaken, St Paul was writing in the first, rather than the nineteenth, century of the Common Era.

So, what words did he use? The words, in Greek, were: malakoi and arsenokoitai.

The first, malakoi, is the plural of the adjective 'soft'. (In Greek, as in many other classical languages, adjectives could be used as nouns). So, the literal translation is 'soft ones'. It may seem that Paul is obviously talking about homosexuals, but this is by no means clear. In fact, the term had in the past been used to refer to some heterosexuals. Early church fathers had used the term against masturbation.

The rendering of the term as 'effeminate', as some translations suggest, is closer, but is still very much based on assumptions. There were in fact other terms that were used instead for effeminacy, such as androgune (from man and woman) and thelubrios.

The meaning of the second term is equally by no means clear. It is highly problematic, for the term was first found to be used by Paul, and was not frequently used after him. Some translations render the term to refer to child molesters. If this is the case, it shows that there are grave problems with generalising the term to refer to all who practise sodomy.

So, it seems, that 1 Corinthians 6:9 does not obviously condemn homosexuals at all.

I do not doubt that Mr Babatunde believes he is preaching a message which God wishes him to preach. But I do not for a second believe that he has that message correct. And it's this sort of careless talk that leads to all sorts of assumptions being made and thousands of people being outcast by the church and made to feel dirty, evil and in many cases suicidal.

And those were exactly the sorts of people whom Jesus reached, and reaches, out to in love.