In the Synod debates on sexuality and marriage last February, I started playing ‘inclusive Jesus’ bingo. How many times would speeches protesting against our current doctrine and urging change mention that Jesus (or the gospel) was ‘inclusive’? I had to stop, since I ran out of cards because I was marking them so fast.
In reading Andrew Atherstone’s new biography of Sarah Mullally, I was taken by surprise at how consistently, especially during her time in Salisbury and as bishop of Crediton, Sarah used the term ‘inclusive’ as summarising her understanding of the gospel. And of course there is an organisation called Inclusive Church which people can sign up to.
But is the Jesus we meet in the gospels ‘inclusive’ in the way the term is used?
At one level, the obvious answer is ‘yes’, in that the teaching and actions of Jesus appear to cause scandal throughout the gospel narratives because he engages with, speaks to, and heals those whom others regard as beyond the pale. In fact, our phrase ‘beyond the pale’ is a reference to a stake, fence, or boundary marker, and this was highly significant for Jews in the first century.
For many, the major lesson of the biblical narrative was that God had set clear boundaries, to behaviour, worship, ethics, and identity for his people, and it was transgressing those boundaries that had led them into exile—and left them under the oppressive rule of their Roman overlords. Their hope of liberation lay in the restoration of pious observance (something that Luke’s gospel comments on positively at every point), but the problem was that different groups disagreed on where those boundaries should lie. Jesus’ disputes about such boundaries were not about ‘loving Jesus’ against ‘nasty Jews’ but Jesus in an intra-Jewish debate and dispute.
For much of the time, Jesus appears to side with the Jewish ‘liberals’ against Jewish ‘conservatives’, particularly in relation to social boundaries. We can see this happen in a number of directions.
Firstly, Jesus challenges social boundaries in his table fellowship with ‘tax collectors and sinners’ in Mark 2:15–17 (par. Matt 9:10–13; Luke 5:29–32). We need to note that, in contrast to Western practice and values (but in line with assumptions still in many parts of the world today), table fellowship in Second Temple Judaism signalled acceptance and approval. You only ate with those whom you approved of, or who were part of your own in-group. Jesus’ statement “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” frames his mission as directed toward those who were normally excluded.
But Jesus goes further than that. In Luke 7:36–50 Jesus is extravagantly anointed by the “sinful woman”. Note that this episode should not be conflated with the anointing of Jesus at Bethany by Mary in Matt 26 and Mark 14 and John 12; alongside his distinctive emphasis on the importance of Jewish piety, Luke also has a distinctive account of Jesus’ radical ‘inclusion’ in this sense. In response to her actions, Jesus publicly affirms her (“Her sins…are forgiven”) and contrasts her love with the Pharisee’s lack of hospitality. This is not just inclusion, but public vindication.
Again in Luke, Jesus appears to transgress accepted boundaries by picking out Zacchaeus and inviting himself to table fellowship in his home (note that Jesus accepts or creates invitations for others to host him; the only meal at which he is host is the Last Supper). And, shockingly, Jesus’ declaration that “Today salvation has come to this house” affirms Zacchaeus’ belonging before his moral reform is complete (though the reform follows).
These are primarily examples of Jesus transgressing social boundaries. There were very good social and practical reasons for people to dislike and marginalise Zacchaeus, since he was siding with ‘the enemy’ and imposing exploitative taxation. Yet Jesus’ transgression of boundaries extended to questions of ritual purity too.
In John 4:1–42, Jesus engages in conversation with a Samaritan woman (something we have recently explored in the lectionary). In this encounter, Jesus engages a Samaritan (so an ethnic outsider), a woman (thus crossing a gender boundary), and someone with a morally complex past (though note the debates about this). He reveals his identity (“I who speak to you am he”) in what might be called a striking act of dignifying inclusion. And, within the narrative of the Fourth Gospel, she becomes a model of insight and understanding of who Jesus is—and even takes up an ‘apostolic’ role in going and telling her friends and neighbours (who had shunned her?) all about him, in rather stark contrast to pious, Jewish, Nicodemus of the previous chapter.
In Luke 13:10–17, Jesus encounters the woman bent over for 18 years. He heals her on the Sabbath and calls her “a daughter of Abraham”, the only time this term is used in the New Testament, thus creating an explicit restoration of covenant status to someone marginalised. What is striking about this episode is the centrality of Jesus’ initiatives and actions; this is deliberate and intentional, and not merely responsive.
Perhaps the most striking example is of Jesus healing the woman with a haemorrhage in Mark 5:25–34. Because of her bleeding, she is ritually unclean in normal Jewish terms, yet Jesus not only heals her but addresses her as “Daughter.” The “inclusion” here is both physical and relational, and this is emphasised by Mark’s careful storytelling by which he inserts this episode in the narrative of Jesus’ response to the very public request of a known, respected, named leader in the person of Jairus.
(In relation to this, we ought to note how important touch is for Jesus and those he meets. Again, he crosses purity boundaries by touching the man with a skin disease in Mark 1.14–45, and for no obvious reason spits on the ground, makes some mud, and puts it on the eyes of the man born blind in John 9:6. For Jesus, touch matters.)
Alongside challenging boundaries of purity, Jesus challenges the sense of Jewish ethnic superiority by engaging with non-Jewish ethnic groups. Galilee is of course labelled ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’, which already puts Jesus on the ethnic margins of Jewish identity. Mark records Jesus and the disciples ‘crossing’ the Sea of Galilee, which means frequently landing in the non-Jewish territory of the north-east coast. The Gerasene demoniac is in such a place, hence the presence of pigs.
Alongside such implicit boundary-crossing, there is the explicit. In Matthew 8:5–13//Luke 7:1–10, Jesus responds to the likely non-Jewish centurion (though note that this term was used for a senior officer in general, not necessarily of the Roman army). This gentile is commended by Jesus in the most extravagant terms: “I have not found such faith in Israel.” And it leads to an explicit saying about non-Jews “coming from the east and the west” to the Jewish eschatological feast, signalling very clearly an ethnic widening of God’s people.
In Mark 7:24–30//Matt 15:21–28 Jesus encounters the Syrophoenician or Canaanite woman. The conversation appears to be initially framed in exclusivist terms, but ends with Jesus granting her request and praising her faith. (Note that we need to read this account carefully; all too often it is framed as nasty narrow Jewish Jesus having to be taught a lesson in inclusivity by a pagan woman!)
And supremely, in Luke 10:25–37 (parable of the Good Samaritan), in response to a question about the meaning of Torah, Jesus’ parable holds up as the moral exemplar a Samaritan—reversing ethnic expectations.
And all of this fits with Jesus’ own programmatic teaching. In Luke 4:18–19, Jesus sets out what is sometimes called the Nazareth manifesto, citing Book of Isaiah 61—and apparently passing over the references from his source text to judgement. Jesus mission is to offer good news to the poor, freedom for captives, and sight for the blind—what appear to be a mission statement of inclusion and restoration.
So, job done, and case proved. Jesus and the gospel is all about inclusion. Those speakers in Synod were right after all.
Except…
Except that—that is only half the story, and a half that cannot be taken in isolation from its counterpoint.
It turns out that, if we actually read the whole gospel, rather than selecting those bits which fit our agenda and turning them into sound bites, Jesus is rather exclusive.
He makes offensively exclusive claims about his own identity and his unique relationship with God, which is tracked through the conflicts with ‘the Jews’ (meaning either the Jewish leadership, in particular in the south, or Jews who had believed in him and now challenge him) in John 8. It reaches its high point in the Last Supper discourse in John 14:6, where Jesus declares to his disciples: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” surely the clearest and most exclusive claim in all the gospels.
But it is of a piece with what he has said previously and publicly; “I am the resurrection and the life” he tells Martha in John 11.25—claiming not only to be the answer to the human question of mortality, but the one to fulfil Israel’s hope of renewal and restoration (Ezek 37). Or in the preceding chapter, where he states, in his conflict with the Pharisees following the healing of the man born blind: “I am the gate… whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:7–9). All others are thieves! Salvation is defined in relation to him, and him alone.
Within the Synoptics, we find similar language in the so-called ‘Johannine bolt in the Synoptic blue’ in Matthew 11:27//Luke 10:22. Only the Son reveals the Father; knowledge of God is mediated uniquely through Jesus.
These exclusive claims about himself cannot be disconnected from the exclusive and demanding claims Jesus makes for his followers.
Jesus’ rejection by many is indicative of the difficulty of the path to salvation. In his first major block of teaching (the first of five, Moses-like) in Matthew, the climax of his teaching is about how difficult and narrow the path of salvation, and how wide and easy is the path to ‘destruction’:
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matt 7.13–14)
Not very inclusive! Even those who look as though they might be disciples, doing what Jesus commanded, are in danger of being told: ‘Away with you!’ And that might include those who say ‘Lord, I am being inclusive just like you were!’ All this comes after the demanding teach of the previous chapters where, far from being more ‘liberal’, Jesus is emphatically more demanding. Not only must we obey every jot and tittle of the law, outward obedience is not enough. We must be obedient in our hearts, not merely in our hands, so the demands of the law are elevated, not reduced. Here Jesus is very much siding with Jewish ‘conservatives’ against Jewish ‘liberals’. This is most evident in his teaching about divorce in Mark 10 and Matt 19, where he sides with the stricter school of Shammai over against the more liberal school of Hillel.
The reason for this is that the free and gracious invitation of Jesus makes demands on us. That is why I think John Barclay’s formulation of grace in Paul is so vital: grace is unconditioned, in that it is surprisingly offered to all, but it is not unconditional. It makes demands of us, and when we do not respond to those demands, we are in danger of missing out on the offer of life. (This observation is actually nothing new: the popular idea of ‘unconditional love of God’ which makes no demands on us is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace’.)
So, as Jesus bursts onto the scene in Galilee, Mark sums up his message as:
“The time has come, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1.15)
This is good news, since it is God’s just and holy rule in his kingdom which is the only answer to all our hopes and prayers and longings. But it is demanding news, because it calls us to a radical change of life.
And we find these stark warnings all through the teaching of Jesus. In Luke 13:1–5, when Jesus is told about the appalling and abusive slaughter of Galileans by Pilate, far from expressing shock or compassion, Jesus turns it into a startling warning: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish!” Gentle Jesus, meek and mild—as if!
When he heals the man by the pool of Bethesda, he sends him away with a similarly stark warning: “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). Have you tried using that as part of your own prayer ministry counselling?
To the woman caught in adultery, the apparently ‘inclusive’ comment “Is there no-one here to condemn you?…Neither do I” is followed by the demand: “Go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8.11). The manuscript evidence for this narrative being part of John’s gospel is weak, and many think the language is Lukan. But it is included here because it is so characteristic of Jesus—at once boundary breaking and ‘inclusive’, whilst at the same time demanding repentance and moral purity.
For Jesus, acceptance is not moral indifference.
The clearest challenge to the idea of the ‘inclusive’ Jesus actually comes in one of the texts most often cited in its defence.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5.30–32)
Many would say that we engage with the excluded, the outsiders, and the marginalised, because we want to affirm them, we want to value them, and confirm that we see the image of God in all of humanity. (Some would go further, and say that we see the face of Jesus in the poor and outsider, but they do so only by grievous misreading of Matt 25 and the sheep and the goats. Jesus says he is present to others in his disciples, not in the poor in general.)
But Jesus says something startling different: I am spending time with these people on the margin because they are sick and need healing, and I am the spiritual doctor. They are sinners who must repent, and I am the only one who can enable that to happen, to bring them the forgiveness and power to change that they need. Have you ever tried saying that to those on the margins that you encounter? “Welcome to our lunch club. We have invited you because you are sick and are sinners!” I don’t suppose it would go down well!
And, again, all this is entirely consonant with Jesus’ teaching. In the parable about the eschatological wedding banquet in Matthew 22:1–14, there seems to be a broad and inclusive invitation—yet a guest without proper attire is cast out. Inclusion is offered widely—but not unconditionally. In Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43, the parable of the weeds and wheat), there is a final sorting between the righteous and the lawless—as there is in just about all Jesus’ teaching. Similarly, in Matthew 25:1–13, the parable of the ten virgins, fully half are told “I do not know you” and the door is closed shut. Readiness is required; those not ready are shut out.
So in Jesus we are presented with what appears to us to be a paradox. Throughout his ministry, he constantly offers a wide invitation—sinners, outsiders, and the marginalised are welcomed. But at the very same time, he set very narrow terms for acceptance. Entry into the longed-for kingdom requires repentance, allegiance, and transformation. There is real possibility of exclusion, even for the apparently religious and ‘inclusive’!
Jesus is not “exclusive” in the sense of restricting who may come—but he is exclusive about the basis on which people may enter and demanding about the response required. We cannot call on the example of Jesus to support one side or the other; in him the widest of invitations and highest of demands are held together at every point.
The main trouble with the ‘inclusive’ Jesus as mostly presented is that he is a fabrication—something created in our own imagination, often for ‘political’ reasons (in the broadest sense) and imposed on the text of Scripture. Without mention of the exclusion he warns of and the demand he makes, this Jesus bears no relation to the Jesus of the gospels or of Christian theology. And he is all too often used to close down debate, exclude others, and by-pass any theological thinking.
In the ultimate irony, the ‘inclusive’ Jesus is used to exclude those who refuse to ‘get with the programme’ on the basis of what Jesus himself actually taught.
(The title of this piece comes from an excellent essay by Markus Bockmuehl, which I was hoping to cite, but ran out of space!)
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In What Are They Teaching The Children? I list many of the all-important ‘look what they left out’ mantras/buzzwords that omit the crucial element from what is said, and, in so doing, turn transitives into intransitive. As the saying goes, ‘Don’t be so coy – out with it!’.
Inclusive – er, inclusive of what, exactly? If inclusive of everything, then you include opposites, which in fact you don’t. That makes you as exclusive as the next person.
Affirming – affirming of what? Mass bombing?
Consent – two people can, happily and for selfish reasons, consent to do what the rest of the world opposes.
Choice – two people can, happily and for selfish reasons, choose to do what the rest of the world opposes.
Relationship – would that be sexual or nonsexual, and why are you not saying?
Progressive – towards what end? Who says that end constitutes progress?
Tolerance – tolerance of what? (Of your own proclivities, presumably. How convenient.) See under ‘inclusive’.
The fact that they leave out the object each time shows several things:
1. They are, for future reference, dishonest;
2. They must think we are stupid;
3. They are testing the waters for how stupid we are, and in some cases are possibly looking forward to laughing about how they duped us.
4. They possibly think that the topic in question is the only topic that exists in the world. Hence, ‘pro-choice’ – because abortion is the only topic that exists in the world, so no further clarification is needed. (If it is indeed perceived to be the only topic in this world by such people, then it must be of the same black-hole nature that swallows up everything else in its wake as the topic of homosexuality has, as pre-warned, predictably proved to be in the C of E.)
Seeing these large scale patterns is how we can better analyse correctly.
Excellent summary to Ian’s excellent and scholarly article. I can only imagine some of the replies that will be forthcoming.
Presumably “note” (in italics) near the beginning of the article should be “not”! Sorry to nit-pick Ian! Terry.
Where would I be without your nit-picking?!
We do note no.
Salvation in Jesus is exclusively inclusive: inclusively exclusive.
As to the adulteress, the evidence for its being an original part of Luke is to me overwhelming from more than one angle. However, when it was withdrawn it may have been Luke who withdrew it (I argued this in Hawarden 2023).
Chris, is that on the basis of grammar? And why do you think Luke would have withdrawn it?
The argument is convoluted(!).
Essentially:
(1) There actually exists a context which, because of its preamble, fits it like a glove.
(2) That is not the case with almost all other gospel pericopae.
(3) There is precisely one such context, which is streets ahead of any contender.
[[(4) One *could* otherwise wonder why Luke 21.37-38 was there at all. The grand mention of the Mount of Olives leads to the comparative bathos of a generalised summary of a temple-ministry to the people. This is only a minor hypothetical.
(5) It fits especially badly before the Judas bit in 22.1ff. This is only a minor hypothetical.
(6) However, Judas hypothetically reacting badly to the adulteress incident would comport well with Luke 7 and (the preexistent) John 12. This is only a minor hypothetical.]]
(7) I included 4-6 because the adulteress is in the very same context which is the anointing in the other synoptics. It replaces the anointing here. Given its similarity in its theme and ending, can this be coincidence?
(8) Luke’s Patriarch Joseph material is pervasive, especially from the mnai parable till the end.
(9) It covers the whole period from Boy Joseph to the end of Genesis: i.e., Gen 37-50. That includes Tamar in Gen 38. The adulteress is Luke’s Tamar because of its 6 summary-points that cover nicely and comprehensively the whole narrative:
a. A woman is caught in sexual sin;
b. The idea is to condemn her according to the existing law;
c. But then it is found that the condemners are themselves guilty;
d. Particularly those of an older generation;
e. So what transpires is that the woman, while remaining the committer of the sin, is not punished at all (quite a rare scenario);
f. And Judas at the end of the story is confirmed as a deceitful character, not least money-wise.
(10) Look at the Judah/Judas thing in greater detail:
-Judas is ‘ho legomenos Ioudas’ in 22.47 – his name is his nature;
-both are deceitful characters, and both specifically re money;
-Luke 22.5 has argurion as Gen 42.25,27-8, 35bis, 43.12,15,18,22-3, 44.18
-Judah has just 10 verses earlier (Gen 37.26-7) wanted to pass over responsibility for an innocent one to another party, gaining money along the way.
-Both display here: cowardice, disregard for the other’s life, lust for lucre.
It is natural that if Luke was to have Joseph as his main ‘typology’, he would include some capitalisation on Judah/Judas. Gen 38, together with 37.26-7 just a few verses earlier, is where Judah is really shown to be a Judas.
Of course, we have here another reason for later deletion: it is one thing to do this typology, but Christ was of the house of Judah (whereas Judas sometimes reputed to be of Dan), so it contained a problem.
(11) Now, Gen 38 is narratively the only outlier/diversion from the Gen 37-50 narrative. That makes it the first candidate, and only viable candidate, for possible 2nd thoughts and exclusion.
Look at how much of an outlier it is. (a) It is not continuous with the rest of 37-50; (b) it has no mention of Joseph himself at all.
(12) So does its narrative nature. It is one thing for Joseph to make Luke rejig sayings – and that is the main explanation for most of his chs 19-24 redaction, plus sometimes in 1-18. However, a new narrative is pushing it.
(13) Just as Gen 38 is an outlier, a sidetrack interlude, in Genesis/Joseph-story, so is the adulteress a (the most?) notorious outlier story. One factor could have caused the other.
(14) John does not always care much about continuity, and can write in blocks. Cf. many stories e.g. Barabbas. Not that the other evangelists always care more for it. So it could be easier to insert into John than elsewhere. But John is very homogeneous and structured, and the adulteress plays no part in his all-important structure – it stands out like a sore thumb.
(15) Vocab and themes have both long been recognised to be both Lukan and nonJohannine.
(16) The main point is that this already fortuitous glove-like context is precisely the context, out of all possible contexts, where it is actually found in the MS tradition. This argument is not entirely circular.
(17) Luke was in a bind. He wants to include every single part of the Joseph story, and in fact does so, albeit being coy and indirect about Potiphar’s wife and the discarded cloak 22.36. But it is clear that the first thing that *could* be excluded would be the Tamar material, being non-essential (actually irrelevant) to Joseph and non-continuous.
(18) Potiphar’s wife is underplayed and this suggests a preexisting propriety. Exclusion of the adulteress verdict could also suggest the same propriety. (As could other Lukan editorial decisions, e.g. exclusion of cursed figtree.)
(19) Papias knows the story. But he may also know Luke’s ‘I saw Satan fall’. Eusebius in 325 does not know of others who know it. So maybe it fell out extremely early (the impression in Eusebius could be of a floating story). At least, Luke has motivation to exclude it (above). Not that others later would have lacked that.
So – if we have something with Lukan and nonJohannine themes and vocab, which fits ideally into one Lukan context, which is also where it is in MS evidence, and where that Lukan context (re Judah/Judas, and re the anointing) looks by far the best authorial decision, all that within a comprehensive use of Gen 37-50 (and something quite controversial which many evangelists would probably not have included even if they had known it) then several individual portions of that evidence would alone make this theory the clear leader, but the combination of them, and without major counter arguments, even more so.
I think Kenneth Bailey’s comments on this pericope are interesting.
What does he say?
Points to add:
(20) The preamble I referred to was Jn 7.53-8.2. No element is different, and several are the same; but there is no parallel passage elsewhere in the gospels:
-Goes for night to Mount of Olives
-It is early morning where he returns
-The people gather when he returns in early morning
-He teaches them.
(21) The passage is intrinsically controversial legally. So there are a number of reasons why it is a top candidate for exclusion:
-Breaks law of Moses
-Makes a connection of Judah (Jesus’s forbear) with Judas
-Not based on a Joseph story, even though it is within the Joseph story territory of Gen 37-50
-As Luke’s Joseph redactions go, it is as much to the narrative end of the spectrum as it is possible to be; and narrative redactions are bound to be more questionable than sayings redactions
-Luke of all the gospel writers gets closer to the theological line, and maybe this time he or another felt he could have crossed it.
(22) An explanation was needed for the odd relocation and also rewriting of the anointing story. Factors here are:
a. The anointing story can be employed as the female half of Luke’s two carefully positioned female-male Isa 61 debtors (just as he has two carefully positioned female-male Isa 61 oppressed, and two carefully positioned female-male Elijah/Elisha stories in accord with the Nazareth sermon) -and indeed it is the ‘debtor’ portion of this which is one of the most redactional portions: all these three female-male pairs springing from the Nazareth sermon.
b. A Tamar element was needed, and because of the 6fold narrative correspondence, just too large a wrench from the anointing story would have been necessary.
The adulteress forms a great equivalent for the anointing-context because it is the most similar gospel story. Until of course it gets omitted later.
(23) Correspondence by having the same story-outline (main points in sequence) is characteristic of Luke’s Joseph redactions. It is found not only with the adulteress, but also with the mnai; the Cross criminals; the road to EMmaus.
(24) (And John’s block-like sections reach their apogee precisely at 7.52/8.12 than which no transition pays less attention to continuity. The best possible place to insert a floating piece of material that was understood to be from an original gospel.)
Christopher, am I right in thinking that your para 21 together with propriety would be the reasons for Luke *excluding this story?
Also google does not help with your reference Hawarden 2023. Can you give more details please.
They do an annual conference on OR in NT, which is now in Queen’s Foundation Birmingham.
There are not 2 reasons, no – there is a variety of reasons, as listed.
OT in NT
Thank you – illuminating…
‘beyond the pale’ hence I presume palisade fencing?
Yes I think so. I only learnt that today when writing the phrase—but it seemed very apt!
(People often mistype it ‘Beyond the pail’ which makes no sense at all.)
…and I am pleased that is the one thing you picked out!
Just realised—this is also where we get the word ‘impale’!
For ‘Pale’ see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pale
‘The word pale, meaning a fence, is derived from the Latin word pālus, meaning “stake”, specifically a stake used to support a fence.[2] A paling fence is made of pales ganged side by side, and the word palisade is derived from the same root. From this came the figurative meaning of “boundary”. The Oxford English Dictionary is dubious about the popular notion that the phrase beyond the pale, as something outside the boundary—i.e., uncivilised—derives from this specific Irish meaning.[3] Also derived from the “boundary” concept was the idea of a pale as an area within which local laws were valid. The term was used not only for the Pale in Ireland but also for various other English overseas settlements, notably English Calais. The term was also used to refer to specific regions in other nations: the term Pale of Settlement was applied to the area in the west of Imperial Russia where Jews were permitted to reside.’
OED: “The theory that the origin of the phrase relates to any of several specific regions, such as the area of Ireland formerly called the Pale (see sense 4b) or the Pale of Settlement in Russia (see sense 4c), is not supported by the early historical evidence and is likely to be a later rationalization.”
“Inclusive” is one of many words which because they are basically good things tempt us to make them moral absolutes – but deeper thought shows it’s a bit more complex than that. The point can be made by thinking about the word ‘loyal’. Yes, you should be loyal – but loyalty to a Hitler…??
In that case Hitler and his supporters would interpret it as an absolute -approve and do what Hitler wants. But surely a truly loyal person, a person seeking Hitler’s best interests, would in fact stand up against him and challenge his wishes, even though risking that Hitler might not accept such loyalty and they might end up in a concentration camp or dead. Serious discernment is required in such cases; ‘inclusion’ is a case of yes we desire to include everybody, but it is not meaningful if we glibly include the unrepentant….
I think this is a well balanced presrntation which kicks into touch the idea of an inclusive Jesus who is really a political construct. Was the riad to destruction “broad and wide?” If we want to have Jesus in our lives we need the whole Jesus, not a cut and paste one
Matthew 10:35 isn’t very inclusive (although the gospel is). I wonder what Archbishop Sarah’s views on hell are?
But doesn’t God save at an instant in time? Does God not know what He is doing when He saves and thereby includes a person in His kingdom? Was Paul wrong to claim when a person comes to belief, the Spirit is given as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come? When anyone is in the process of becoming a Christian there is only so much they can consider as the ‘cost’ . And according to Jesus they only come to Him in the first place because He enables them.
Two things:
I like the saying used by the vicar of the church I attended during my university vacations 50 years ago: “Forgiveness is free, but it’s never cheap”.
And I understood that “beyond the pale” referred to an area called the Pale of Dublin, within which the Protestant ascendancy could be guaranteed during the time the whole of Ireland was part of the UK, but beyond which it could not.
Thanks.
I don’t think that is true…!
A whiter shade of pale…
Beyond the bucket… list.
A few points:
1) On Jesus and the Samaritan woman, there is nothing in the text that necessitates her sinning and the text acts like an ink blot test if one thinks she did sin, it tells more about the assumptions of the speaker than the text. Saying it is a debate is a bit weak, I think.
2) On divorce, yes, Jesus sides with Shammai by claiming that Hillel’s “Any Matter” divorce is not valid; but he also disagrees with both on their misinterpretations of Torah 7 other times in Matt 19 and Mark 10, per Instone-Brewer. That is, Jesus is correcting both, Shammai 7 times and Hillel 8 times.
3) Yes, Jesus is both inclusive and exclusive. Everyone comes as they are at the time, but they do not stay as they are if they are following Jesus. But that still gets into the discussion of what does Jesus bid one do. It is engaging a bit in a strawman (but one with actual proponents, unfortunately) to point out that Jesus is not just inclusive. What one should want to do is examine the best arguments (steelman, not strawman) of one’s debate opponents. My previous offer stands.
Thanks. Can you remind me of the seven corrections?
Happy to ‘steel man’, but I am not sure what the strong position is. When I have debated with others in the C of E on the issue of the day, the consistent response is ‘Well God made me/them like that, and Jesus is inclusive and affirming, so he cannot be denying me/them what I/they desire’.
For an example of interaction with a ‘strong’ case, see my debate with Tim Goode a couple of weeks ago.
I have some files that have nice formatting that I will send you via FM msgr that are the conclusions from a class I made mainly based on DIB’s divorce books. I do not know how to easily post them here, but if you do, you have my permission.
Thanks–received.
Jesus Corrects Many Torah Interpretations by Rabbis
1. God designed marriage to be monogamous
2. God wants marriage to be lifelong
3. * Divorce for ‘Any Matter’ is invalid
4. Divorce is not mandatory, even for adultery
5. Husband is also able to commit adultery
6. Marriage not required, some are celibate
7. Infertility/repulsiveness divorces are invalid
1. On this, Jesus cites the LXX (‘the two shall be one’) with Jews in the diaspora, over against the MT which is less clear (‘they shall be one’).
2. Is this made *explicit* in Jesus words?
3. Indeed
4.
5. Yes, the language of symmetry, just as Paul uses in eg 1 Cor 7.4
6. This is about the arrival of the kingdom, the future breaking into the present.
7. I think this is just a subset of 3 isn’t it?
In my class, I cover the verses the Torah has, how the Pharisees interpreted them, how the Prophets understood them, then how Jesus and then Paul uses them. These are all mostly according to DIB, I just summarized his masterwork on Divorce.
The Pharisees asked whether Jesus agreed with either Hillel or Shammai on Hillel’s claim of an “Any Matter” divorce for any trivial reason, but Jesus went beyond just answering that question as they had made so many errors, but not everything they taught was a mistake.
These 7 things are all corrections to what the Pharisees taught as recorded in the Mishnah, the first part of the Talmud. That is, they interpreted what we now call verses in ways that seemed correct to them but were mistakes according to Jesus. For example, on 7) they said that if a couple was infertile after 10 years, then they must divorce and marry someone else in order to try to have kids. If your spouse was visually repulsive or had a very smelly job, this was grounds for divorce as sex would not happen as it should. On 4) they taught that if a husband found out his wife had committed adultery and he did not divorce her, then he shared in her sin.
On whether 2) is explicit Mat 19:6b Jesus: “Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Jesus did not say “man cannot separate,” rather that God’s desire was man not break the marriage bond, that marriage be lifelong
No trial marriage, intend it to be for life.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/language/where-does-the-phrase-beyond-the-pale-come-from
Ah, ok. So the Pale of Dublin comes from pale = fencepost. We might call it ‘The Fence of [around] Dublin.’
They want gospel without repentance, Jesus without discipleship, heaven without holiness, salvation without sanctification, belief without bible, freedom without faithfulness. Bonhoeffer called it cheap grace. St Paul cursed those who preached another gospel. St John said nothing unclean will ever enter the heavenly city, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false. Jesus said unless you repent you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. It would hardly be credible if it were not so. How can anyone imagine they have found a backdoor to the kingdom of God? Jesus even told a parable about this. ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness.’
You’ve made a coherent, rich argument for the inclusivity of Jesus. The idea that repentance is required also seems straightforward doctrine. Unless I’ve missed something, it looks like you and the new Archbishop essentially agree on the inclusivity of Jesus, and the need for repentance. Is that right?
(of course, you may disagree on other things!)
Yes Jesus was willing to engage with sinners and try and get them to repent of their sins. He did not just say they were doomed to hell as the Old Testament of traditional Judaism did. He also was more inclusive of say using women to spread his word like Mary Magdalene than the likes of St Paul were
As quick example….Matthew 10:28…
“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ”
Old Testament?
.. what do you think the purpose of repentance is ?… the outcome of not repenting?
Basically an expression to fear the Devil who can destroy body and soul even more than the murderer who can just kill the body on earth but not the soul I would say. Jesus also offered forgiveness of sins and repentance up until death rather more than in the Old Testament, with a few exceptions like Ezekial
Hi David, no, I don’t think we do.
If you read Andrew A’s book, and look at the sermon extracts (which I mention in my review), then I think it is clear that Sarah M believes in *social* inclusion as the heart of the gospel.
And she also believes in a ‘broad church’, meaning that we can agree to disagree—perhaps on almost everything.
I cannot remember the last time I heard a bishop say, in public, that Jesus calls us to repent and change direction and follow him. Can you?
I suspect that the ore evangelical bishops say this fairly often in sermons, which are by law open to the public in the CoE. You’d never hear of it on the BBC though.
Hi Ian, and thanks for the reply.
I can’t claim to know the beliefs and inner thoughts of any Bishop – nor can I claim to listen regularly to the public preaching of Bishops. So you may be right, that a belief that replaces relationship with Jesus (and as you say, a change in direction) with social inclusion is what’s there. If that were the case I wouldn’t agree with that at all.
There are many other things to do with the outworking of our faith in inclusive ways that I would agree with – some of which are reflected in what you said in your post. I wonder if it’s possible to see both interpretations in what you’ve quoted. I doubt the collated comments were intended as a systematic theology.
As far as a broad church goes, I can definitely see that exists as a reality both within the CoE and on a global basis (even if I don’t much care for the phraseology). Throughout my lifetime there have been disputes on theology and ecclesiology – and you’ll know far better than me how that has unfolded over history. It’s a judgement as to what disputes we resolve, live with, or reject. I certainly don’t think we can resolve everything, or should live with everything – some things can and should be rejected. I’m grateful that what falls into which category isn’t something I’m called to answer.
Having read your blog on and off for some years, I find myself confused at times as to how you’re locating your relationship with some of the bishops (for example). Are they brothers and sisters in Christ with whom you have a difference of view that can be debated and lived with? Are they errant infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, who need gentle direction from those more mature in their faith? Or are they the cunning and crafty (heretics?) who have been sent to deceive? The reason I ask is because across Ephesians 4 there are very different expectations as to our response.
In your recent post following a discussion with Tim Goode it seemed to fit in the first category. The way you talk about Sarah Mullaley seems like you’re putting her in that deceptive category.
But I want to sit with the Ephesians 4 question rather than answer it too quickly. Your concern seems to be that ‘inclusive Jesus’ evacuates the gospel of its demanding content – a problem far wider than any disagreement about biblical exegesis on sexuality. An ecclesiology built on holding disagreement together is useless if it removes all meaning. So I’m genuinely asking where you locate these relationships — not to trap you, but because I think your answer would clarify a great deal.
My concern is that in these febrile times it is possible to use the sharp demands of a life following Jesus as a reason to underweight the exhortations of Ephesians 4 – just as it is equally possible to avoid those sharp demands in the name of unity. The Body of Christ theology that is expressed forcefully in Ephesians 4 underpins Anglican ecclesiology. It is as clearly-stated and non-negotiable as the need for repetance. Perhaps this means the role of the bishops as apostles is not the same as evangelists and teachers (even if there is an unspoken – and questionable – expectation that bishops embody everything).
Anyway, as I say, I really appreciate the reply – and thank you for posting this thought-provoking piece.
Jesus “must needs” go through Samaria (John 4:4)
primarily due to a divine appointment—a spiritual necessity to meet the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. While it was the most direct route from Judea to Galilee, most Jews took a longer route to avoid the despised Samaritans; however, Jesus was guided by the Father’s will to offer salvation to her and her village.
Here are the key reasons behind this “necessity”:
A Divine Appointment: Jesus had a specific purpose to meet one woman to offer her “living water”.
A Mission to the Outcasts: Samaritans were a mixed-race group despised by the Jews, and this action broke down social, racial, and religious barriers.
Fulfilling the Father’s Will: The phrase “must needs” (Greek: edei) indicates a divine necessity or spiritual imperative to follow God’s, not human, direction.
Reaching the Lost: This journey demonstrated that the Gospel was for all people—not just for Jews—foreshadowing the commission to reach “Samaria and to the end of the earth”.
Teaching the Disciples: Jesus set an example for his followers to overcome prejudice and evangelize in areas they would typically avoid, as mentioned on BibleRef.com. ”
Why Did Jesus Have to Go Through Samaria? – Iron Rose Sister .Ministries
.” He “had to” go through Samaria because He wanted to reach this one woman, and through her, He would reach her whole village… Samaritans… the people who were half Jew and half Gentile… hated and despised.”
Who is to say that all the personal interactions of Christ were not “divine appointments” i.e. Jesus being in the right place at the right time for His appointments?
From this encounter we learn that cultural or racial prejudices must not affect our decision to teach others, and this command often leads down a path we did not plan.
This reminds me of Jim Packers “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God” book.
Preaching sets the scene for divine appointments to occur.
The big problem with the inclusive errors
Is that some believe that the Church and it’s rituals mean that one is de facto in the kingdom.
I think that John Stott made a fatal error in the 1960s at Nottingham insisting on inclusivity which focused on the Love of God rather than on the Holiness of God as MLJ advocated.
The result being that nowadays “Love is God” is endemic and the church are in declension.
The full gospel “must “be preached for divine appointments with individuals, of any, stripe to happen.
Whereas the kingdom may be present within a church but the church itself may not be in the kingdom.
Notwithstanding, where sin abounds, as in ancient times, Grace can and does Abound.
Can I state a reservation with this? I like what you’ve done here Ian, but I’m a little uncomfortable though that a door for revisionist misunderstanding has been left open that needs explicitly closing.
How “radical” was Jesus? Was He radical in challenging the whole foundation of O.T. Judaism, as revisionists claim, or were his challenges specifically against teaching that had departed from those roots?
Regarding Jesus’ contact with sinners, the purity laws were about fallen people being redeemed and sanctified by God. Gen 31:13
“But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you”
The purity laws apply in reverse to Jesus. He is not made impure or unholy by contact with sinners, but the reverse, they are affected positively by His Holiness.
So far as the Jews’ attitude to strangers, this is much misrepresented. The calling of the Jews was always to be blessing to the Gentiles, not to be totally isolated from them. Strangers being amongst them, and being welcoming to them is taken as read.
Isaiah 49:6:
“He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also make You a light of the nations
So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Exodus 22:21:
“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
But welcoming strangers into their midst is rightly conditional upon their obeying God’s law:
“The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you.”— Exodus 12:49
There’s much for us to learn nowadays in that. Our inclusion must not mean compromise.
Lastly, in Matt 5:17 Jesus, of course, says:
““Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill”.
I get that the first part of your article was there to express the view that you went on to critique. But does your critique need to go further, and show how what Jesus said and did can be understood in the light of His saying this?
If God is the same yesterday, today and forever, don’t we need to ensure that we explicitly consider and understand the life of Jesus in ways that are consonant with the Old(er) Testament, including the Law? (Complex though a full discussion of that is).
Christian teaching can so easily sound Marcionite, as though we think that Jesus came along, told everyone how wrong “the Jews” were, and started a new religion!
My preference is that we constantly demonstrate the falsehood of that.
I recently came across this: “Progressive revelation” is a technical term that can sound like it means the Bible gradually gets things right, which isn’t what we mean at all. What we mean is that the same God, the same Spirit, is doing consistent work — but the theatre of that work changes as redemptive history unfolds.
Thanks Geoffrey. I was not aware of leaving any doors open!
Jesus was a Torah-obedient Jew, and he called people to obedience. I agree with you that I think the idea of ‘Progressive revelation’ is fundamentally mistaken.
Geoffrey; you write
‘“Progressive revelation” is a technical term that can sound like it means the Bible gradually gets things right, …”
And I agree that that is an unsatisfactory way of looking at it. It seems to come from a rather self-congratulary attitude of human progress, leading to what we want hich may not be what God wants. But at the same time yes there are changes during the course of the revelation, and we need a way of understanding that and an approach about following God rather than what humans want.
I broadly use a scheme called “redemptive arc hermeneutics” which essentially says that a practical God condescends to start “where we are”, but then to lead to a better place. A bit like the way Paul says the law is a schoolmaster that we grow out of.
One example of such interpretation would be in relation to slavery – God puts down a major marker against slavery when he frees Israel from Egypt, but at that time in a fallen world it isn’t easy in terms of what we might call ‘infrastructure’ to wholly go over to modern style contractual paid employment. So initially God tells Israel in effect “You may own slaves, but they must be treated humanely”. By the NT period modern employment is more practical though slavery still suits the greed of the world , but we see the church starting to apply a different model at least for Christians…
Food laws and circumcision are another example. They serve a purpose for a time but the coming of Christ renders them obsolete.
The same with Jewish sacrifices: ordered for s season until the Messiah would grant fulfilment of what they mean.
Progressive revelation can mean step by step revelation of God’s perfect will. ‘Revelation’ is not the same as ‘revolution’, the overturning of false ways.
Stephen I don’t understand why you might think that God gradually reveals more of Godself, as opposed to asking the essential question “what did they believe then that made them express themselves as they did?”.
And of course we continue to find that there is yet more light and truth to come forth from God’s word. Our understanding is limited.
Andrew
Between Moses and the Prophets and the biblical history this is about God revealing hmself rather than about what the humans believed ‘off their own bat’. And in this situation God is trying to lead sin-affected humans in a sin-affected world – this can pretty fairly be described by that metaphor of ‘herding cats’ and also has the effect that even if, for example, God would like to ban slavery the infrastructure in terms of things like money supply doesn’t yet adequately exist to make that practical; and so on. And have you onsidered the implications of trying to teach “turning the other cheek” when people have not seen the example of Jesus doing effectively that and it results in resurrection….?
Turning the other cheek….Stephen, if that was what God was trying to do, then history tell us that God was spectacularly useless at it. The current world order, maybe more than any other.
Andrew
One of the many things going on in the crucifixion is God in Jesus ‘turning the other cheek’ in forgiveness; and I would say he was spectacularly good at it – after all, we owe our salvation to it. The present world order – especially DonaldTrump and Vladimir Putin – shows that humans can still be spectacularly useless at seeing the point, especially when they distort Christian faith into a worldly Christian nationalism.
Our understanding is better of the biblical texts than of any other ancient texts, as is obvious, for the reason that they have been studied more intensively.
After all those trillions of hours of intense study, you say that we know very little and are awaiting some bright future when, against the trend, light will break forth.
If the bible texts are so unclear, every ancient text that has been studied less than the bible must be considerably unclearer still. But I don’t hear you complaining about that. Somehow it has to be the most studied which is the unclearest. Right.
Who would listen? You are not one of those who is involved in exegesis or elucidation of the original language texts, but one of those who sits on the sidelines making grand general obfuscatory statements, far too general to have meaning. Why? Because it is in your interests for biblical texts (not so much other texts) to be supposedly universally unclear, even at this late stage of study, so that we don’t need to abide by them but can abide by enlightened cultural norms instead, or indeed do as we please.
“you say that we know very little and are awaiting some bright future when, against the trend, light will break forth.”
Where do I say that? I agree, our understanding of the biblical texts is very good. You clearly didn’t read my comment Christopher. And that’s normal for you. I was addressing the question of progressive revelation. And you ignore the essential question – what did they believe then that made them express themselves in the way they did?
We understand the biblical texts very clearly. We understand that they express a partial understanding of God. The biblical texts are not some magical set of words dictated through robots.
Progressive revelation is progressively finding out what the text says. It has been known for centuries what things the text cannot possibly say. How is the Bible different from other books in that respect?
As for the robots point, you corrected a misapprehension I had long held.
Once again Christopher you don’t seem to actually be able to follow the thread of an argument here.
Can you show your working, to enable us to agree or disagree with that?
Christopher I don’t need to show any working – it’s all in the thread of comments for any reader to follow.
You seem to be talking about something different to Stephen and myself in respect of progressive revelation. Progressive revelation is NOT progressively finding out what the text says.
I didn’t say it was. I said that, insofar as it was not, then it was illegitimate visavis the text.
Christopher you absolutely DID say it was. Let me copy and paste what you said.
“Progressive revelation is progressively finding out what the text says.”
Once again you show that you don’t seem able to follow an argument.
I didn’t know ‘progressive revelation’ was a technical term – perhaps it is, and perhaps that technical term means something different from what one would naturally understand from the phrase. But if so, it looks like that something would be illegitimate and incoherent as a way of reading a text. So I was just sticking with what one would naturally understand from the phrase, and also not venturing beyond the legitimate and coherent.
As I say, you were clearly not following the argument – which is by no means unusual for you.
It cannot be an argument worth its salt if it includes incoherent concepts.
I am sure progressive revelation is much the same as situation ethics – merely a front to get the precise ‘conclusion’ that is in line with one’s desires.
Christopher you are still unable to follow the argument on this thread. How you can claim to be a truth seeker and scholar when you can’t actually follow what goes on in a discussion is beyond me.
I am not at all convinced by progressive revelation and that will be obvious from my interaction with Stephen above. But you obviously haven’t even read the exchanges and where they began, and didn’t even bother to ascertain what progressive revelation was and read even the most basic stuff about it.
In the sexuality disputes in the Episcopal Church USA which brought about the ACNA, I was the recipient of an infamous “mot” from a progressive clergyman after a debate: “I wish you would all leave so we can be inclusive” offered with complete lack of awareness!
Classic!
Have I missed it ? Or has no-one said ‘2 Corinthians 6:1’ yet ?
No-one has.
‘As God’s co–workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.’ 2 Cor 6.1
The subtext here, of course, is that we don’t want the gays, the queers and the lezzers to be included *unless* they vow to forego their intimate relationships. Jesus will exclude them from heaven and they will pollute the church if we let them have a part in things here and now.
Prejudice against gay and lesbian people is nothing new. In fact if you watch the true story of lesbian and gay people helping the striking miners as recently as 1984 in the film Pride, you can see just how prejudiced people were. Things have changed a bit in the last 40 years, but homophobia is still alive and well. Masked here as a theological justification for the exclusive Jesus.
Jesus mostly seemed to want to exclude the self righteous. We all have that tendency of course. It’s human. But religious self righteousness was most unattractive to Jesus, and is most unattractive in the conservative evangelical subset. It’s the reason the CofE continues to shrink – even though – perhaps especially because – conservative evangelicals are taking control.
I’m sure there will be no shortage of self righteous replies!
“Didn’t I tell you this animal is dangerous??? When I kicked it, it ATTACKED me!!!!!”
Have a blessed day, Andrew.
Well, Andrew, my having looked at the teaching of Jesus himself, I am impressed that you can see through all that and find the ‘subtext’!
(Oh, and there are lots of intimate relationships that are not sexual. I think you mean ‘sexual’, but just wanted to smuggle it through.)
Jesus himself calls for holiness (so it is not a matter of what you or I actually want), and Jesus’ teaching on holiness clearly excludes the possibility of same-sex sexual relationships. I think we might even have agreed about that in the past—certainly almost all liberal, critical scholars agree that is the case.
So do you think that Jesus is homophobic?
We’ve had that discussion about Jesus’ attitude to same sex relationships before Ian. I’m not having it again. Your reliance on a single word that Jesus is unlikely to have used is just not convincing.
As I said, Jesus is clear about self righteousness. Many times. But I see you prefer to ignore what I actually posted about.
Andrew, what you actually posted about was your hermeneutic of suspicion about the aim of the post—which ignored what I actually wrote about.
I don’t ‘rely on a single word’. That is your wishful thinking. As all reputable scholars state clearly: Jesus was a first century Jew, and his teaching as well as his context (and his reception by Paul and ALL the fathers) is clear: marriage is between one man and one woman.
In teaching that, do you think Jesus was homophobic? If not, then why are people who follow his teaching ‘homophobic’?
As I said, we have had that discussion before. I’m not going over it again.
Why do you focus on same sex relationships so relentlessly but are happy to ignore the self righteous attitude that Jesus was absolutely crystal clear about?
Have you watched the film Pride? It’s on iplayer at the moment. Worth a watch Ian.
So you won’t answer the central question—because it is inconvenient to your views?
Who is ‘obsessed’ here? You are the one focussing exclusively on sexuality, not me!
Where am I happy to ignore self-righteousness? You are presenting me with a wonderful example of it right now!
I’ve answered it many times before. The bible and the way you present Jesus from a selection of texts is not aware of the concepts of marriage and intimate relationships that we take for granted thousands of years later, especially in the West. It’s just one reason why Judaism has revised its own understanding of same sex relationships.
Have you watched the film Pride Ian?
There is no ‘selection’ of texts—which is why there is scholarship consensus.
Of course they are not ‘aware’ of modernity, but there is really nothing new under the sun. The contemporary notion that sexuality defines our identity, and that you cannot have a fulfilled life without sexual intimacy are not new ideas, and the biblical texts reject these notions.
‘Judaism’ has not ‘revised its own understanding.’ Some strands have colluded with these mistaken modern concepts, just as some strands of Christianity have.
I have lots of other things to think about today—but you do seem obsessed with this one issue…
I think the obsession is the flagstone of conservative evangelicals.
Tomas Halik, Roman Catholic priest and theologian says this much better than me. I commend his work to you.
‘Christ came not to offer a doctrine, but a journey on which we continually learn to transform our humanity, a way of being human, including all our relationships, to ourselves, and others, to society, to nature, and to God. This is his teaching – not a doctrine or theory, or teaching about something, but a process of learning, of learning something. This is Jesus’ educational and therapeutic practice. His new teaching is teaching with authority, and this authority lies in the ability to transform a person, to change their motives and goals, their fundamental orientation in life. Jesus is a teacher of life rather than a rabbi or a philosopher or simply a moral teacher. The faith he teaches, this existential response to the call to conversion, is participation in the ever ongoing event of the resurrection.’
‘I think the obsession is the flagstone of conservative evangelicals.’ Then I think you know them very little. Their obsession is teaching scripture and evangelism.
What a wonderful quotation—thanks. Spot on. Especially this: ‘His new teaching is teaching with authority, and this authority lies in the ability to transform a person, to change their motives and goals, their fundamental orientation in life.’
Indeed, he calls us all to conversion of goals and motives, and fundamental orientation—including from seeing sexual fulfilment as the thing that defines us or is the source of our happiness.
Glad we have found agreement on the Halik quote Ian! That’s progress.
‘Christ came not to offer a doctrine, but a journey on which we continually learn to transform our humanity, a way of being human, including all our relationships, to ourselves, and others, to society, to nature, and to God. This is his teaching – not a doctrine or theory, or teaching about something, but a process of learning‘
Maybe you can drop your other obsession about doctrine now! 😉
Have you watched the film Pride? You seem to not want to answer that question.
‘This is his teaching’. Indeed. A process of learning that we are created male and female in the image of God, which is why sexual intimacy belongs only in male-female marriage. No mere doctrine, but (by the consensus of all) the life-giving teaching of Jesus.
No, I have not watched Pride, and I don’t plan to, as I am not obsessed with sexuality.
Do you believe the teaching of Jesus, given to transform our lives, is homophobic?
No, I don’t believe the teaching of Jesus is homophobic. Sadly, I believe the way that some of the church misrepresents that teaching is homophobic. And is self righteous. Which was the primary point I was making.
The film Pride is not about sexuality. Unless your obsession sees that issue everywhere, which it seems to. The film is about support for the miners strike and social attitudes. But I note that your fear of homosexuality will not allow you to watch it.
‘No, I don’t believe the teaching of Jesus is homophobic.’ Good. So we can agree that teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman is not homophobic.
‘Sadly, I believe the way that some of the church misrepresents that teaching is homophobic.’ Yes, I would agree with you on that.
‘But I note that your fear of homosexuality will not allow you to watch it.’ Again, as often, you are projecting. It is my concern with other issues which means that I won’t watch just any film you suggest. I have other obligations.
As I have said many times before, the teaching about marriage in the bible can not be compared with what we find marriage to be 2000 years later in most of the western world. Apples and oranges. Jesus is not addressing marriage in 20th century Britain. And says nothing about same sex marriage.
Talk about projection….but you don’t actually think you are ever doing it, sadly.
How marriage actually WAS was not Jesus’s concern either then or now, unlike your implication. He was interested in what it is meant to be, and if it is not that way then it should be. And that does not change. Many of the trappings change, but people can be quite bad at confusing trappings and essence. Even the change in the trappings need not be good, and is unlikely to be morally neutral.
Christopher you are simply projecting your western middle class ideas on to Jesus. The evidence is that Jesus didn’t think marriage was all that important. Not married himself so far as we know. And men could leave their wives to follow him. And that there wouldn’t be any marriage in the coming kingdom. No commitment to marriage at all.
Actually Andrew, I think you are projecting your queer theory ideas onto Jesus.
No-one abandoned their wives to follow Jesus; we know that Peter took his wife with him in his apostolic ministry.
And his expectation was very much that people would ‘marry and be given in marriage’ in this age.
And of course no marriage in the age to come means that we can live the life of that age as it breaks into this age *without* sexual intimacy, which rather undercuts the demand for SSM.
You are saying that there is no sex in the age to come? Where is the evidence for that? It’s projection and speculation again. Some theologians have argued that pleasure in the age to come will be even greater – I think C S Lewis even argued for that, though he was no theologian.
‘Where is the evidence for that? It’s projection and speculation again.’
No it’s not. It is the teaching of Jesus…which you just quoted. ‘In the age to come they will be like the angels, there will be no marrying or giving in marriage’.
I’ve written a whole article on it. https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/what-does-it-mean-for-us-to-be-like-the-angels-in-luke-20/
AG, so why did Jesus in Mark 10 jealously guard marriage against (a) adulteration, contemporary trends in Mark 10?
And why is this agreed by scholars to be his best- or equal-best-attested saying/teaching?
And thirdly, why does his mentor John the Baptist have the unsullied marriage vow (vs Antipas and Herodias) as one of his only surviving teachings?
We could note, by the by, that the infernal spiritual investment in adultery/anti-marriage of the Antipas/Herodias kind is, then as now, so very fundamental to the infernal programme (the more fundamental, the more evil) that John was beheaded as a result.
No marriage or giving in marriage doesn’t mean no sex. Angels were notoriously randy.
‘No marriage or giving in marriage doesn’t mean no sex.’ It clearly does in the teaching of Jesus.
Why?
Wild speculation and projection again Ian! Jesus says nothing about there being no sex in heaven. The only way you could claim anything like that is to project a 20th century western understanding on to a 1st century text from a very different tradition. Very far fetched and not at all convincing
It takes a wrench to imagine that ‘sex’ (a word much more rarely used in that sense before 1963) and marriage are somehow not inextricable. But the more heavenly the context, the more inextricable. The common denominator with PCD/AG comments is closeness to the tenets of the sexual revolution – of all things to choose.
It only takes a wrench if you are a bit weird about sex and want to project 20 century peculiarity on to a very different tradition
But we are talking about ancients and swathes of Jewish and Christian history that did not have sex and marriage as separate things within civilisation. Or if you did, then that was what was weird.
Christopher
I too am reflecting on ancient western Asia and not on the present (as you might realise if you weren’t so obsessed with the contemporary sexual revolution).
I too have studied early Judaism and early Christianity and know that first century Jews and Christians would have been familiar with 1 Enoch (and thus with sexy angels). That may, indeed, be the reason, as some scholars have argued, for Paul to advise women prophets to veil themselves: to protect them from randy angels.
I am afraid that your preoccupation with contemporary licence leads you to often misrepresent my views and arguments and, probably, Andrew’s as well.
Which bears no connection to my points. However, the predatory problem you identify sounds like its a front and centre headline issue which needed to be flagged up, so many ladies will be grateful for the heads-up.
[it’s]
Christopher
It only doesn’t respond to your points if you aren’t really the person who posted “we are talking about ancients and swathes of Jewish and Christian history”. If someone is impersonating you, I apologise. If it was you, you will be able to see how my comment on ancient western Asian approaches to religious texts is a response to the comment quoted above.
So your theory is that purity from toevah/bdelugma, which is aligned with the purity of being in God’s presence, is the very reverse of what goes on in God’s presence which is actually adulteration.
Christopher
I’m afraid I’m going to have to echo Andrew’s comments about you not being able to follow an argument. I said nothing about what was considered an abomination. I did not even mention the HB. I said that 1st century Jews and Christians would be familiar with 1 Enoch which has a great section on randy angels (as you must know).
I followed it. Your idea was that heavenly activity is adulteration, because angels copulate but do not marry; their way is the heavenly way; so humans follow them in this modus vivendi once they are in the Presence.
Jesus says angels do not marry (and I am sure no-one ever thought they did).
Many things can be said about angels but (true to form?) you concentrate only on the sexual things which are said, and moreover of some angels only.
The sons of God / daughters of men (Gen 6) and Enoch – though scarcely the Sodom story – may lie behind Paul’s ‘because of the angels’: women should not be negligent of the power of being ‘the glory of man’. Paul is not saying, of course, that the women in church should guard themselves against being ravished by angels, as though that were a widespread problem. He is (assuming that he does have Gen 6 etc in mind, which he may not) appealing back to a scriptural precept.
In fact, radiance increases exponentially among those who wear head coverings, though we are talking only averages and observation here.
This is merely part of the general picture that once one is under another’s deserved authority rather than living only to oneself, one is in a good place.
I don’t know whether Col/Rev/Heb worship of angels is also behind your comment. The former two are Western Asia.
There’s no reason why Isa 6.2 seraphim veiling faces (just as worshippers fall on their faces in the Presence in Rev) should not also be a plausible context for what Paul says.
Thank you Christopher.
But you will note that I nowhere claimed that randiness is the only thing we can say about angels. Merely that ‘being like the angels’ does not necessarily imply chastity. Nor that 1 Enoch was the only reference behind Paul’s admonition. He may not have had this text in mind at all. It’s simply a possibility, pointed out by various scholars. I think that in Genesis they are sons of god(s) rather than angels though, aren’t they? 1 Enoch goes into much more detail with names, if I remember correctly.
It is curious that when Jude which is in the approved canon, refers to the fallen angels and the ‘Watchers’ he is referring to the book of Enoch which is is regarded by most protestant Christians as an apocryphal book. Yet Jude seemed to regard it as authorative.
Chris
Yes. I find it utterly fascinating that texts which good Protestants would regard as definitely deuterocanonical (though not by the earlier Reformers) were very influential on the writers of the NT and on the thinking of the early Church (and early Rabbinic Judaism). Especially apocalyptic influence. We neglect them at our peril!
Might be a bit by-the-by, but you mention that when Jesus gives sight to the man born blind it is unclear why he mixes earth with saliva and applies it to the man’s eyes. I wondered whether this was a parallel to the creation of Adam? In that a man is formed from the dust of the earth and then God breathes into his nostrils. In both cases we have earth being infused with the divine (in Genesis breath, in John’s gospel saliva) and leading then to new life: Adam coming to life in Genesis, and the blind man being able to see in the Gospel account (with all the implications of a new spiritual life too, in the following verses). Might be miles off with it, and would be interested in your thoughts.
Thanks—what an interesting suggestion. I can see some connections theologically, but I cannot see any actual verbal correspondence.
Generally, in his healings of people, stuff matters for Jesus, including touching people’s physical bodies.
Mark 7 (deafness), Mark 8 (blindness) and John 9 (blindness) have use of spittle. Mark came out, I think, shortly after the new emperor Vespasian’s claimed healing of a blind man with spittle, Alexandria 70AD.
And what does that imply? That Mark wrote after Vespasian and made up such details to show Jesus was the real healer or was it a true account of Jesus? Or is it possible that the Romans knew of Jesus’ reported healing and copied this one for Vespasian, thus having no bearing on when Mark was written.
Certainly not the last, as the Roman sources in question were not especially interested in Jesus. What is wrong is the word ‘imply’, because there is no science of implication in the first place; and also anything relevant can be stated, thus making implication pointless.
A really interesting thing is that all 3 main sources relate in some way to the 70s AD, including Pliny the Elder. It is from him that we learn that its association with healing was more widespread.
Mark did not write after Vespasian[‘s life], but did write shortly after these reports of what he had done in Alexandria. But that’s not something implied but something definite supposing one already dates Mark to c72 for other reasons.
May I leave a flier here? Soon after Easter a book is being published on this topic. ‘Evangelical and Inclusive – a future and a hope’ (Canterbury). In it a variety of contributors within the evangelical tradition offer a range of pastoral, biblical and theological reflections, and share their personal and community journeys. I hope it takes this important discussion further.
That sounds very helpful and much needed David. Thank hou for drawing attention to its imminent publication.
Of course you may. Can you send me a review copy? Thanks.
It is hardly remarkable, that the revisionists tails will be with the appointment of the new AbC. Andrew Atherton’s book draws attention to the ‘inclusiveness’ of her approach to church, her calling, as it were, and being the first female appointment will draw a new audience and a wider influence, than Welby did, let alone their differences in methods of working.