Exodus International Apologizes to LGBT Community

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https://www.glaad.org/blog/closing-time-ex-gay-group-realizes-theyre-wrong

An Exodus From the 'Ex-Gay' Movement?

http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2013/06/20/breaking-exodus-international-shuts-down-end-ex-gay-movement?page=full

The movement, which suffered the latest blow on Wednesday as Exodus International's board voted to shut down, is the subject of a new installment of Our America With Lisa Ling.

 

by Trudy Ring

June 20, 2013

Art (left) and Sean are two of the ex-gay survivors appearing on Our America With Lisa Ling.

 

The nation’s most prominent ex-gay group, Exodus International, announced on its website late Wednesday that it will shut down and reemerge as a new ministry.

 

The group had for most of its existence insisted gay people can be turned straight. Exactly what its newest iteration will become is unclear from the announcement, and a new website called "Reduce Fear" hasn't even been completed.

 

Decades after leading U.S. mental health organizations agreed that being gay is not a disorder, a small segment of American society, driven largely by religion, has persisted in saying homosexuality is something that can and should be “cured.” While there has always been ample skepticism about the “ex-gay” movement, recent developments indicate the movement is becoming more marginal than ever — it’s not dead, but it’s certainly in critical condition.

 

Stories are legion of those who’ve gone through so-called reparative therapy, seeking to turn from gay to straight, only to find the therapy is not only ineffective but downright harmful. Mainstream mental health professionals have condemned it. One state has outlawed it, and others are likely to follow. Even the president of Exodus International has renounced such therapy and says Exodus is no longer part of the ex-gay movement.

 

That man, Alan Chambers, appears Thursday night on Our America With Lisa Ling, on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network, delivering an apology (of sorts) to LGBT people who’ve been harmed by ex-gay efforts. It's timed with a written apology issued this week via the Exodus website. The shift by Chambers and Exodus, however, raises the question of just what the movement is about now — if it doesn’t profess to make gay people straight, is it offering only celibacy or the closet?

A year ago, at Exodus’s annual conference, Chambers announced that the organization was renouncing reparative therapy, saying it offered false hope to those who undergo it and even harms them, while treating homosexuality differently than other “sins.” But he continues to believe that sex should be confined only to monogamous heterosexual marriages.

 

Recently, Chambers, who had been interviewed for Our America’s “Pray the Gay Away?” episode in 2011, contacted Ling to say he wanted to make a return appearance to issue an apology for the hurt caused by ex-gay therapy. She suggested that people who had left ex-gay groups be present. “I was really surprised that Alan agreed,” she tells The Advocate.

 

It resulted in a three-hour meeting that “was exhausting emotionally,” Ling says, and that is readily apparent in the portions featured in the new Our America episode, “God and Gays.” Chambers and his wife, Leslie, met with 10 survivors of ex-gay programs, including Michael Bussee, an Exodus founder who eventually left the group and became an out and proud gay man; Jerry, a former pastor who came out of the closet after a 26-year marriage; Catherine, who was a counselor with an ex-gay ministry and calls it “the greatest regret of my life”; Art, who believes his bipolar disorder was brought on by ex-gay therapy; and Christian, whose experience attests to the gender stereotyping and misconceptions about gays that permeate such therapy efforts — he was urged to give up his found-object art projects and pursue more “masculine” activities such as sports and gym workouts. They and the others were enlisted from an online support group run by Bussee.

 

They gathered in the basement of Hollywood Lutheran Church in Los Angeles, a congregation affiliated with the LGBT-affirming Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ex-gay movement is largely a phenomenon of fundamentalist Christianity, with mainline Protestant Christian denominations accepting gay people as they are. There is also at least one Jewish ex-gay group, and the Roman Catholic Church has a ministry that seeks to help gay people lead celibate lives.

 

Chambers says of Exodus, “Today we cease to be an ex-gay organization.” He apologizes for the hurt it has caused by promoting efforts to change sexual orientation, and he tells the survivors of ex-gay therapy, “You haven’t ever been my enemy, and I’m sorry I’ve been yours.” He says he recognizes the right of LGBT people to campaign for equality. But he also says he will not apologize for his beliefs about biblical constraints on sexual behavior.

 

The others in the room confront him about just what Exodus is. “My cynical side would say it’s the recloseting ministry,” says Jerry. He sees Exodus’s new message as “We cannot change you, we cannot give you a happy life, but we can help you get back into the closet more comfortably.”

 

“No matter what you change, you’re still selling that lie [about changing sexual orientation], and you know it, that’s the worst thing,” says another, Sean, who had been told he was demon-possessed and contemplated suicide because of the pain caused by ex-gay therapy. “You know, deep down inside, Alan, that it is still a bald-faced lie.”

Alan Chambers and his wife, Leslie, respond to survivors of ex-gay therapy.



Chambers responds that Exodus remains “a Christian ministry” that will serve a demographic in need — Christians with same-sex desires who nonetheless want to adhere to biblical teachings about sexuality by being celibate, and the small number, like himself, who will enter a heterosexual marriage.

 

But that demographic, it appears, is diminishing. Exodus’s annual conference, which is going on now, was expected to draw fewer than half the attendees it had three years ago. Some other ex-gay groups have split off from it, finding Chambers’s position too conciliatory.

 

“As long as there’s prejudice and discrimination, there will be some form of these groups,” says Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, an organization that seeks to combat the ex-gay movement. But Besen (who is not involved in the Our America episode) sees the movement as being significantly weakened, at least in the United States.

 

In addition to Exodus’s renunciation of reparative therapy, Besen points out, other blows to the movement include psychiatrist Robert Spitzer’s apology last year for a study he did that was used to justify such therapy, research he now says was scientifically unsound; onetime ex-gay spokesman John Paulk’s recent announcement that he is no longer ex-gay; a law enacted last year in California to bar state-licensed professionals from performing reparative therapy on minors (it is currently being challenged in court); and a similar law under consideration in New Jersey. More states will approve such legislation, he says: “I guarantee it.”

 

Besen, who says the ex-gay movement is now being run by a mix of “charlatans” and “true believers,” spoke with The Advocate as he was on his way to join other LGBT activists to counter an ex-gay conference in Oklahoma City, sponsored by the Restored Hope Network, which broke off from Exodus. Restored Hope Network’s leader is Anne Paulk, the estranged ex-lesbian wife of John Paulk.

 

“We are winning this battle, indisputably,” Besen says. “We have discredited them.” He adds, however, that the ex-gay movement is gaining strength overseas, particularly in Russia and in many nations of Africa. In Brazil, evangelical lawmakers are pressing to overturn a ban on so-called conversion therapy.

 

But stateside, he says, “our opposition is weak.”

 

Ling, a straight woman who has been an LGBT ally since she saw a gay friend bullied and beaten in middle school, says the ex-gay movement “is in the midst of an identity crisis.” She’s not sure what its future holds, but with even onetime advocates like Chambers acknowledging the ineffectiveness of reparative therapy, the movement could fade away.

 

She calls the “God and Gays” episode “one of the most important shows I’ve ever done” and says she “was honored to be in the room” with the survivors. “I want people who are watching this to understand what these survivors have gone through,” she says. She found them inspiring, and she’s impressed with how some have even strengthened their religious faith after accepting their gay identity. “Watching this episode,” she says, “you’ll have no doubt that people can be gay and Christian at the same time.”

Sneak Peek: Lisa Ling's Special Report - God & Gays 

 

  

Exodus International Apologizes to LGBT Community 

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/alan-chambers-apology

 

by Rachael Held Evans

June 19, 2013

    

It takes a lot of guts to issue an apology as honest and as public as this one from Alan Chambers of Exodus International. 

An excerpt:

Recently, I have begun thinking again about how to apologize to the people that have been hurt by Exodus International through an experience or by a message. I have heard many firsthand stories from people called ex-gay survivors. Stories of people who went to Exodus affiliated ministries or ministers for help only to experience more trauma. I have heard stories of shame, sexual misconduct, and false hope. In every case that has been brought to my attention, there has been swift action resulting in the removal of these leaders and/or their organizations. But rarely was there an apology or a public acknowledgement by me. 

And then there is the trauma that I have caused. There were several years that I conveniently omitted my ongoing same-sex attractions. I was afraid to share them as readily and easily as I do today. They brought me tremendous shame and I hid them in the hopes they would go away. Looking back, it seems so odd that I thought I could do something to make them stop. Today, however, I accept these feelings as parts of my life that will likely always be there. The days of feeling shame over being human in that way are long over, and I feel free simply accepting myself as my wife and family does. As my friends do. As God does.

Never in a million years would I intentionally hurt another person. Yet, here I sit having hurt so many by failing to acknowledge the pain some affiliated with Exodus International caused, and by failing to share the whole truth about my own story. My good intentions matter very little and fail to diminish the pain and hurt others have experienced on my watch. The good that we have done at Exodus is overshadowed by all of this.

Friends and critics alike have said it’s not enough to simply change our message or website. I agree. I cannot simply move on and pretend that I have always been the friend that I long to be today. I understand why I am distrusted and why Exodus is hated. 

Please know that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn’t stand up to people publicly “on my side” who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry that I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine. 

More than anything, I am sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection by Christians as God’s rejection.  I am profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith and that some have chosen to end their lives. For the rest of my life I will proclaim nothing but the whole truth of the Gospel, one of grace, mercy and open invitation to all to enter into an inseverable relationship with almighty God.

I cannot apologize for my deeply held biblical beliefs about the boundaries I see in scripture surrounding sex, but I will exercise my beliefs with great care and respect for those who do not share them.  I cannot apologize for my beliefs about marriage. But I do not have any desire to fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek. My beliefs about these things will never again interfere with God’s command to love my neighbor as I love myself.   

You have never been my enemy. I am very sorry that I have been yours. I hope the changes in my own life, as well as the ones we announce tonight regarding Exodus International, will bring resolution, and show that I am serious in both my regret and my offer of friendship. I pledge that future endeavors will be focused on peace and common good.

You can read the letter in its entirety here.

It sounds as though Exodus International will be making a big announcement tonight regarding its future. My prayer is that this will be a turning point in bringing an end to the evangelical “ex gay” movement, which I know from conversations with many of you, and with many other gay friends and their parents, has created a lot of trauma and pain.

Much of this seems to have been prompted by a special report by Lisa Ling for OWN called “God & Gays,” which based on this clip, is going to be difficult to watch. (Hey, remember when Lisa was a reporter for Channel One – like the program you watched in high school in the morning?) [There just is] so much pain here.

May this apology be a step toward justice and reconciliation.

 

- Rachael

 

 

Michael Bussee and his Fight Against Exodus International

 

Michael Bussee was the co-founder of Exodus International in 1976, but he left and renounced the group two years later announcing his intentions to live as an openly gay man. Hear Michael's powerful story, and learn why he has decided to bring a group of "ex-gay" survivors together in a powerful confrontation of Alan Chambers in hopes of closing Exodus once and for all.

 

To view a scrolling, historical timeline of events since the first Our America episode of "Pray the Gay Away?" click here.

 

Read more:

http://www.oprah.com/own-our-america-lisa-ling/Michael-Bussee-and-his-Fight-Against-Exodus-International-Video#ixzz2WqkQtmwY

 

 

The Church's Struggle Today, Not Unlike Paul's Struggle Then, with Inflexible, Dying Traditionalism

Presented here today are two articles by Peter Enns reflecting on American orthodoxy's need to embrace today's youth and multi-ethnic, global cultures of postmodernism in theologically relevant ways as respecting Jesus' personage and ministry. For the past two years Relevancy22 has struggled to revitalize a Jesus-first theology held in check by the church's more conservative attitudes towards postmodern movement and cultural expression. In continuing effort we have recently reviewed talks and articles these past 2-1/2 weeks related to the pressures put on today's twenty-somethings (curiously, my wife and I's single-adult ministry's were entitled the "Roaring Twenties"); posted an interview with NT Wright reflecting on hot-button theological issues; spoke to God's loving rule as different from the more popular (but errant) view expressed by meticulous sovereignty; reflected on our role in the universe when helped by God's guidance and partnership; presented several views of homosexuality that asked today's Christ-followers important questions of bigotry and openness; we shared how Christians might present a win-win discussion with today's postmodern generations using the more positive findings of game theory; spoke to an evolutionary understanding of tool=making even now being observed in today's contemporary cultures; suggested another way of presenting the Gospel of Christ differently from today's more popular approach of penal-substitution; explored some theological approaches to evolution through Wesleyan theologians; presented a couple of articles on sexual abuse ("You Are Safe Now"), and recited elements that destroy a marriage ("16 Ways I Blew My Marriage"); we've thought through issues of transformance art, supercessionism, and process theology in politics and religion; expressed the developmental stages of faith over a lifetime of spiritual growth and observation; dwelt on being amazed by God's weakness as against God's strength and power; and asked importantly what theology is, and what it should be doing, in today's faith communities.

 

The Apostle Paul could be found doing the same thing with his churches as he struggled with updating Israel's OT faith in Yahweh which had been held for over 2000 years (its final 1000 years saw Israel's faith ritualized by religious laws, institutions, and dogmas). We read of Paul's struggle to uplift the faith of the Jews in culturally relevant ways when confronted with the revelation of God through His Incarnation in Jesus. Initially, Paul himself failed to understand the radical nature of Jesus' Incarnation, believing "christians" to be a new kind of cultic sect needing suppression and eradication. But soon, God confronted Paul in his own religious life of rites and rituals, telling him in very clear terms that he needed a radical change of heart and life.... That his theological beliefs and unloving faith were bankrupt and in deep need of godly burial. That his religious zeal to persecute Jesus would be fruitless. That his personal misbeliefs refusing to embrace God's atoning message and work of salvation were ill-spent and like kicking rocks down the road as he rebelled against God's authority and made life even harder on himself (Acts 9.5). That the life of resurrection must infill his previous life of death-and-religion so that God's Son might be hailed as Paul's own Lord and Savior. At that moment, upon realizing his deep error, Paul went from believing Jesus as a deluded mistake to God's wondrous mystery and paradox. He discovered that he had Yahweh's revelation all wrong-and-backwards. And from that moment forward strove to serve His Risen Lord and Savior to the end of his natural, human life with all the power and resources he had and could muster.

This same Jesus even today is doing the same in the life of the church and its many lives of servants and participants. Each are being asked if whether the faith and beliefs that they hold conforms with the love of God and the sacrifice that He has demonstrated to all of humanity through His Incarnation and Resurrection. To question if whether orthodoxy proper is not orthodoxy updated and in action; or if whether it lingers on the tree of death holding each believer upon similar crosses of shame and contamination. To the Galatians, Paul repeated time-and-again that they must let go of their OT faith, and allow that faith to transform in the NT love and service of Christ their Lord. And through the ages of the church, from her earliest church fathers until now, pastors and theologians have encouraged each follower of Christ to examine the Scriptures, listen to historical testimony, and be transformed by the relevancy of God's revelation in Christ Jesus. Placing orthodoxy in its proper place of uplift and movement, and not on the dusty bookshelves of irrelevance and death.

 

As Christ-bearers we each must step forward and be willing to be confronted by God on our own roads to Damascus. To allow the burdens of our past to be rolled off our backs just as "Little Christian" found in John Bunyan's 17th Century "Pilgrim's Progress" when thrown in jail and physically separated from his congregants. That our stories of faith must demand our questioning of ourselves - and our previously constructed faith - that our faith in Jesus match up with Jesus' words and actions towards others. That we do not find ourselves gathered around our Lord whilst throwing a harlot at his feet demanding judgment and recourse - to then find to our horror our own names being written in the sands of time detailing the "logs in our own eyes" as we slink away unrepentant and angrier than ever at the God who is our life and faith. Let this not happen. Be wise. Learn to doubt yourself. To doubt what you think you know about God. To be guided by the Spirit of God to the enlivening truths that is still God's holy Word. To know how to read it and properly interpret it, whilst discerning the more impolitic speeches of pulpit or theolog. To not hold the Bible in culturally moribund causes, bombastic refrains, and ungracious arguments. But to learn to read the Bible in its unrestrictive, redemptive terms of divine freedom and love. A freedom and love that would stake the meanest religious unrepentant upon the cross of Christ releasing God's fullness and majesty. A Biblical word of revelation that would cause the sincerest "Paul's" of our Postmodern age to fall on their knees proclaiming a truer Gospel sight than ever thought possible before the commanding voice of heaven speaking our earthly name. Let this be our God. Our faith. Our Bible. Not man's moiling words and moth-eaten commands of inflexible tradition and short-sighted death in the name of Jesus who never was according to the words of ill-discerning men.

 

R.E. Slater

June 18, 2013

 

 

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Tradition: It’s not an anchor to weigh you down,

but a sail to move you forward

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/tradition-its-not-an-anchor-to-weigh-you-down-but-a-sail-to-move-you-forward/

 

by Peter Enns

June 16, 2013

Comments

 

I came across this blog post, now over 3 years old, while meandering through the internet this morning. The point is made so succinctly  and expresses so well my own thinking, I wanted to post it to see what you think.

 

The author is Fr. Ted Bobosh, a priest at St. Paul the Apostle Church, Dayton, OH (Orthodox Church in America). He has degrees from the Ohio State University, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and Fordham University, and was for 12 years an adjunct professor at the University of Dayton, Religious Studies Department.

 

The title of the post is “Tradition: The Ship of Salvation’s Sail Not Its Anchor.” Bobosh makes a point that is vital for adherents to any Christian tradition.

 

Tradition, like Scripture, is not made holy by being carved into stone, but rather by being interpreted within a community, by being the heart of the community’s relationship to God and the world.  Tradition is thus alive and constantly relating to the world, not written in stone and frozen in some past understanding.

 

His basis for this claim is how the New Testament writers transformed their own tradition–what we call the Old Testament. Paul use of the Old Testament, for example, shows how tradition is “dynamic, creative, vivifying and renewing and keeps people focused on the goal – where God is leading us to, not the past and where we were.”

 

Bobosh cites New Testament scholar Sylvia C. Keesmaat, and I can’t resist reproducing the entire quote.

 

When a tradition is handed on unchanged it loses its potency and has little meaning for the present. Some would go so far as to say that an unchanged tradition is dead, it has been killed…a vibrant tradition must be not only a conserving (conservative) force, but also an innovative one.

 

The past tradition needs to be revivified for a new cultural and historical context….The only hope for survival lies in a tradition’s ability to provide a fresh word of hope in a new situation…this dynamic can be described as the interpretation of tradition; what gives a tradition its life is an effective interpretation for a new time and context. The success or failure of such interpretation (or re-interpretation) can result in either the life-giving continuation of the tradition, or its lifeless end…

 

In addition, in a situation of crisis, fraught with uncertainty, entrenchment seems a safe path to walk… To those in the Galatian community, who would revert to the tradition unchanged, Paul emphasizes that this tradition must not be merely mimicked. It cannot be simply passed on unchanged, the community in Galatia needs to hear the word of God’s radically new thing, of God’s revelation in Jesus, of the end of order. For this community Paul ‘defines and defends the radically new in terms drawn from the old’… That is why abandoning the tradition is not an option for him. However, that importance is evident partly in the ability of the tradition to provide a fresh word of hope for a new situation…. Paul transforms tradition so that it continues in the living world.

 

Expecting the Bible to maintain the type of precisionistic, propositional, consistency–that all of Scripture speaks with one voice as required in some conservative Protestant views of Scripture (i.e., inerrancy, etc.)–fails to embrace Scripture’s own necessary dynamic quality, a quality the New Testament authors were so diligent in expressing.

 

A very new thing happened in the Gospel that previous iterations of God’s word were not able to grasp–namely a Messiah who was executed by the Romans rather than defeating them and then raised from the dead. The tradition had to be transformed to account for this.

 

To miss this dynamic sells not only the Bible short, but the Gospel and God himself.

 

At least that’s what I think.

 

 

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What I’ve Learned about Reading the Bible from Reading the

Church Fathers: One Pilgrim’s Perspective (guest post)

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-ive-learned-about-reading-the-bible-from-reading-the-church-fathers-one-pilgrims-perspective-guest-post/

 

by Peter Enns

June 17, 2013

Comments

 

Today’s guest post is by David W. Opderbeck, professor of law at Seton Hall University Law School, and Ph.D. Candidate, Systematic and Philosophical Theology, University of Nottingham.

 

One of Opderbeck’s area’s of interest is science and faith, and he likes to bring into the evangelical discussion the often neglected work of the Church Fathers. While studying at an evangelical seminary, Opderbeck was introduced to the notion of the “theological interpretation” and did some basic reading in the Church Fathers. He then began to study the Fathers more closely.

 

He came to appreciate how the practices of biblical interpretation from the early Church can help Protestants recover a more robust understanding of the scriptures, which can absorb new challenges and insights from the natural sciences without becoming defensive, and which also can help build bridges between diverse church traditions.

 

Opderbeck writes on complex matters in an accessible manner at his blog Through a Glass Darkly, and has also blogged on theology, law, and scripture at Jesus Creed (for example, here).

 

Over the past few years, I’ve had an opportunity to read some of the writings of the Church Fathers. I was particularly blessed to audit an introductory Patristics course at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (Yonker, N.Y.) with one of the world’s leading authorities on their writings, Rev. John Behr, which covered Patristic writings prior to Augustine.  I still consider myself very much a student and not an expert on Patristic writings, but here are some key things I’ve learned about theology and scripture from reading the Fathers.

 

The Fathers read the scriptures and constructed their theologies through the lens of the Church’s living experience of Christ.  They did not use the scriptures to prove Christ.  They used their experience of Christ to authenticate the scriptures and then used the scriptures to clarify their experience of Christ.

 

In fact, the Fathers began to define the canon of scripture from among a wide variety of early Christian writings based in large part on what they understood to be the central “story” of the universe (referred to by some of them as the “Rule of Faith”):  the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

 

The Fathers knew that the scriptures are confusing, messy, and even self-contradictory.  They did not impose upon the scriptures an expectation of rigorous systematic analytic logic.  They understood very well that there is a finality to truth that inheres in the simplicity, unity and rationality of God’s own person as Father, Son, and Spirit, so that the scriptures ought to be interpreted to speak with a kind of polyphonic harmony.

 

The doctrines of the Trinity and Christology that were developing – and much debated – leading up to (and after!) the First Council of Nicea (AD 325) and the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) also dealt with this same theme of unity-in-plurality.

 

The fulcrum for the Fathers concerning the doctrines of the Trinity and Christology was the same as for their interpretation of scripture: the Church’s living experience of and witness to Christ.

 

The Fathers knew that the doctrines of the Trinity and Christology they were attempting to articulate finally are mysteries.  Nevertheless, they were rigorously philosophical in their efforts to articulate those doctrines.  These were erudite, highly educated and sophisticated men (yes, the writers I’m referencing today were all men – but that is a subject for another day).

 

In fact, without some background in Greek philosophy, it’s impossible to understand much of what they were saying.  Theologians today continue to debate the Greek thought categories the Fathers employed in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition.

 

Yet even with all their philosophical rigor, the Fathers themselves knew that their linguistic and philosophical categories were approximations or analogies for truths that finally lay beyond human comprehension.  Their efforts to define these doctrines carefully were not so much attempts to state final truths as efforts to avoid idolatry and blasphemy – to avoid saying too much, and to avoid inaccuracy as much as is humanly possible.  They knew this was necessary not only for formal doctrinal creeds and definitions, but also for the scriptures.

 

Just as the Trinity and the divine-human natures of Christ are mystical truths that defy the bounds of human capabilities, so the scriptures, for them, were mystical texts that point to something beyond the words on the page – that is, to the mystery of Christ.

 

Given their approach to theology and scripture, the Fathers were not univocal concerning how to read many of the Biblical narratives, including the creation texts.  Many of them thought the Genesis 1 and 2 narratives were in some sense mystical rather than “literal.”  Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395 AD), for example, puzzled over the mention of two trees in the middle of the Garden of Eden:

 

There was only one paradise.  How, then, does that text say that each tree is to be considered separately while both are in the middle?  And the text, which reveals that all of God’s works are exceedingly beautiful, implies the deadly tree is different from God’s.  How is this so?  Unless a person contemplates that truth through philosophy, what the text says here will be either inconsistent or a fable.” (Gregory of Nyssa, Sixth Homily on the Song of Songs).

 

It was common for the Fathers to take this sort of approach based on the nature of the text itself.  As theologian Michael Hanby notes in his difficult but fascinating book No God, No Science: Theology, Cosmology, Biology,  although we often think of John 1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” – as a commentary on Genesis 1, “we must recognize that in the theological mindset of the early church and the Fathers, it is more appropriate to regard the opening verses of Genesis as a kind of commentary on the Prologue to John’s Gospel….”

 

That is, for them, the interpretive principle for scripture, theology, and indeed all of history and creation, was the living, [erudite] Christ.

 

 

Meg Jay, "Why 30 Is Not the New 20"

 

 

In her book "The Defining Decade," Meg Jay suggests that many

twentysomethings feel trivialized during what is actually the most

transformative - and defining - period of our adult lives."

 

 

 

Meg Jay: Why 30 is not the new 20

 

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20.html

 

 

Meg's Bio - http://www.ted.com/speakers/meg_jay.html

 

FaceBook Link - https://www.facebook.com/thedefiningdecade

 

 

 

 

Amazon.com

 

 

 

Claim Your Adulthood

 

Identity Capital overcomes Identity Crisis

 

Weak Ties break old, static bonds

 

Act Now on picking your family

 

Be Intentional with your time and relationships

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Interview with N.T. Wright: The New Ecology, the God of the OT v. NT, Open Theism, Sexuality, Biblical Interpretation, and More

Ask N.T. Wright... (response)

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/ask-nt-wright-response

 

by Rachael Held Evans

June 11, 2013

 

This afternoon I am thrilled to host one of today’s best known and respected New Testament scholars, N.T. Wright, as a guest in our ongoing reader-conducted interview series.  Last week you submitted over 300 questions for Wright, but we could only pick 6 as our esteemed guest is busy wrapping up work on the much-anticipated Paul and the Faithfulness of God and its two companion volumes, Pauline Perspectives and Paul and His Recent Interpreters. (You can pre-order all on Amazon.)

 

Wright is the author of over 100 books, including the popular Surprised by Hope and Simply Christian. His full-scale works—The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God,  The Resurrection of the Son of God, and the forthcoming Paul and the Faithfulness of God—are part of a projected six-volume series entitled Christian Origins and the Question of God. He is also the author of multiple articles, essays, and sermons, many of which you can access here. (Wright usually publishes as N.T. Wright when writing academic work, or Tom Wright when writing for a more popular readership.) Wright was the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England from 2003 until his retirement in 2010. He is currently Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

 

Like a lot of you, I’ve been hugely impacted by Wright’s work and am so grateful for the ways in which he has helped me love Scripture, and the Christ to whom it points, better. One thing I have always appreciated about him is his commitment to teaching God's people, not just the intellectual elite, but all who want to know and follow Jesus.

 

Thank you for your many excellent questions.

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From S. Kyle: Dr. Wright: You have argued, particularly in Surprised by Hope, that the bodily resurrection and the physical nature of the coming consummation of the Kingdom opens up to us a legitimate basis for physical action in the world: the things we do in the body and on this planet for good, really do matter. How exactly do these things 'last' into the eschaton? How seamless is the relationship between the now and the not-yet? What seems especially tricky to me here is doing things that have implications outside of the Church. Do the parts of the physical world we preserve through our ecological work literally remain into the eschaton? What about securing justice for non-believers who will ultimately, we would posit, be judged eternally? Most fundamentally: how exactly do your eschatological views, particularly in teasing out these details, provide a well-supported basis for a Christian social ethic?

 

The continuity between our present now/not yet time and the ultimate eschaton is deeply mysterious, since the only model we have for it is the resurrection of Jesus himself – with the wounds of the nails and the spear evidence of that continuity.

 

There is much about which we must say we do not know and we quite possibly cannot know at the moment. What we can know and do know is that we are called to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God, and I don’t see that as e.g. doing something wrong if those for whom we do justice and mercy turn out to spurn God’s love for themselves. The point of justice and mercy anyway is not ‘they deserve it’ but ‘this is the way God’s world should be’, and we are called to do those things that truly anticipate the way God’s world WILL be.

 

The fact that God has promised to put the world right in the end, the fact that he has raised Jesus from the dead having defeated the power of evil on the cross, and the fact that he has called us to participate in that death and resurrection and, by the spirit, to be agents of his blessing in the world (see the Beatitudes!) indicates clearly enough that our ‘social ethic’ (what a lot of muddles are contained in the background to that truncated phrase!) is rooted in God’s act in Jesus, aiming for his final completion of his restorative justice, implemented in part by us here and now. Part of gospel obedience is precisely that we do NOT know in the present the answer to questions like this. See Matthew 25: “‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you…?”

 

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From Jessica: A struggle of mine recently has been reconciling (or rather trying to reconcile), the seemingly violent and vindictive God of the Old Testament with the non-violent, "love your enemies," Jesus. How would you put those two radically different views of God, together?

 

An old question but best answered by a fresh reading of Isaiah 40-55 on the one hand – the greatest outpouring of divine love and mercy you can imagine – and of, say, John’s gospel on the other, in which when the spirit comes he will convict the world of sin in righteousness and judgment.

 

Beware of false either/or divisions. Of course there is a problem in, for example, the book of Judges. My view is that when God called Abraham he knew he was going to work through flawed human beings to bring about redemption . . . and that the fault lines run forward then all the way to the cross, the most wicked thing humans ever did and the most loving thing God ever did. Once we figure out how all that works (probably never!) we will understand the rest. Part of the problem the way the question is posed is by assuming that we can abstract an ethical ideal from one part of scripture and use it to judge the actions of God in another part of scripture, as though scripture were given us so we could form such dehistoricized abstract ethical judgments! Life just isn’t like that.

 

For more, see my response to a similar question posed by Andrew Wilson.

 

 

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From Kurt: Hi Dr. Wright, First, allow me to admit that your writing and speaking has been the most influential thing in my theological, missional, and spiritual journey in the last 10 years. Before I was introduced to your work, I was convinced that Christianity was all about pie in the sky and leaving this world - not redeeming it. Discovering Romans 8 and a God who groans with creation for its ultimate redemption - [re]new[ed] creation - changes everything! For showing me this - along with various other things about the historical Jesus, the apostle Paul, and theology in general - I am truly grateful.

 

I do have a question for you: I am wondering if you would be willing to "show your cards" when it comes to open theism? Most of my friends who are open theists, Greg Boyd and others, are very influenced by your work. Certainly, nothing you have said seems to contradict such a God of possibilities. In fact, your reading of Abraham and Israel as God's "plan B" actually helps give us a framework for thinking about such things. Even so, what would your thoughts be on open theism? I realize that you may not agree with this position of mine, but I would be intrigued to hear some your observations. Thanks for your continued ministry to the church!

 

Open theism is not something I have done a lot with and to be honest (and it’s late at night and I’m busy). I strongly suspect this is one of those classic American either/or questions that is forcing theology into a box. I never use the language of ‘Plan B’, certainly not about Abraham and Israel; in fact I often quote the Rabbi who envisaged God having Abraham in mind from the start. I don’t want to sign a blank check (or cheque as we spell it), especially when it’s written in dollars not pounds. Go figure!

 

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From Steve: What is sexuality like in the kingdom of God? Is everyone in Heaven going to be heterosexual? And if NOT, what are the implications of that for how we live here and now?

 

Freud said sex was laughing in the face of death. Jesus said that in the new world, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; having passed beyond death into resurrection, with no prospect of death, there will be no need for reproduction and hence we may assume no desire for it, just as now as a 64-year old I no longer have a desire to play rugby though there was a time when I lived for it. (Not a good analogy but never mind.) Also, be careful of equating ‘kingdom of God’ with ‘in Heaven.’ Read 1 Corinthians 13 and figure out what Paul is saying about that which lasts into the resurrection life and that which doesn’t.

 

The key thing of course is that throughout the New Testament it is assumed that what God has done in Jesus is new CREATION in which the original plan of Genesis 1 and 2 is gloriously fulfilled. (See Mark 10 and elsewhere.) And beware of language that assumes categories like ‘heterosexual’ and similar terms are now solid and fixed entities which are somehow established. They are modernist constructs which already many postmoderns are rapidly deconstructing. Don’t build houses on sand. ["I assume Wright is referring to modernistic sand." - r.e. slater]

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From Heidi: Because Rachel is such a voice for women in the blogosphere, I would love for you to address gender inequality in the church and bring a better reading to the passages that have been used as weapons on women for generations.

 

I’ve done this in various writings some of which are available on the web. The best place to start is with this article, “Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis.”

 

An excerpt, regarding Mary of Bethany:

"I think in particular of the woman who anointed Jesus (without here going in to the question of who it was and whether it happened more than once); as some have pointed out, this was a priestly action which Jesus accepted as such. And I think, too, of the remarkable story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10."

"Most of us grew up with the line that Martha was the active type and Mary the passive or contemplative type, and that Jesus is simply affirming the importance of both and even the priority of devotion to him. That devotion is undoubtedly part of the importance of the story, but far more obvious to any first-century reader, and to many readers in Turkey, the Middle East and many other parts of the world to this day would be the fact that Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet within the male part of the house rather than being kept in the back rooms with the other women. This, I am pretty sure, is what really bothered Martha; no doubt she was cross at being left to do all the work, but the real problem behind that was that Mary had cut clean across one of the most basic social conventions. It is as though, in today’s world, you were to invite me to stay in your house and, when it came to bedtime, I were to put up a camp bed in your bedroom. We have our own clear but unstated rules about whose space is which; so did they. And Mary has just flouted them. And Jesus declares that she is right to do so. 

She is ‘sitting at his feet’; a phrase which doesn’t mean what it would mean today, the adoring student gazing up in admiration and love at the wonderful teacher. As is clear from the use of the phrase elsewhere in the NT (for instance, Paul with Gamaliel), to sit at the teacher’s feet is a way of saying you are being a student, picking up the teacher’s wisdom and learning; and in that very practical world you wouldn’t do this just for the sake of informing your own mind and heart, but in order to be a teacher, a rabbi, yourself. Like much in the gospels, this story is left cryptic as far as we at least are concerned, but I doubt if any first-century reader would have missed the point. That, no doubt, is part at least of the reason why we find so many women in positions of leadership, initiative and responsibility in the early church; I used to think Romans 16 was the most boring chapter in the letter, and now, as I study the names and think about them, I am struck by how powerfully they indicate the way in which the teaching both of Jesus and of Paul was being worked out in practice…."

An excerpt, regarding 1 Timothy 2

“When people say that the Bible enshrines patriarchal ideas and attitudes, this passage, particularly verse 12, is often held up as the prime example. Women mustn’t be teachers, the verse seems to say; they mustn’t hold any authority over men; they must keep silent. That, at least, is how many translations put it. This, as I say, is the main passage that people quote when they want to suggest that the New Testament forbids the ordination of women. I was once reading these verses in a church service and a woman near the front exploded in anger, to the consternation of the rest of the congregation (even though some agreed with her). The whole passage seems to be saying that women are second-class citizens at every level. They aren’t even allowed to dress prettily. They are the daughters of Eve, and she was the original troublemaker. The best thing for them to do is to get on and have children, and to behave themselves and keep quiet."

"Well, that’s how most people read the passage in our culture until quite recently. I fully acknowledge that the very different reading I’m going to suggest may sound to begin with as though I’m simply trying to make things easier, to tailor this bit of Paul to fit our culture. But there is good, solid scholarship behind what I’m going to say, and I genuinely believe it may be the right interpretation."

"When you look at strip cartoons, ‘B’ grade movies, and ‘Z’ grade novels and [classical] poems, you pick up a standard view of how ‘everyone imagines’ men and women behave. Men are macho, loud-mouthed, arrogant thugs, always fighting and wanting their own way. Women are simpering, empty-headed creatures, with nothing to think about except clothes and jewelry. There are ‘Christian’ versions of this, too: the men must make the decisions, run the show, always be in the lead, telling everyone what to do; women must stay at home and bring up the children. If you start looking for a biblical back-up for this view, well, what about Genesis 3? Adam would never have sinned if Eve hadn’t given in first. Eve has her punishment, and it’s pain in childbearing (Genesis 3.16)."

"Well, you don’t have to embrace every aspect of the women’s liberation movement to find that interpretation hard to swallow. Not only does it stick in our throat as a way of treating half the human race; it doesn’t fit with what we see in the rest of the New Testament, in the passages we’ve already glanced at."

"The key to the present passage, then, is to recognise that it is commanding that women, too, should be allowed to study and learn, and should not be restrained from doing so (verse 11). They are to be ‘in full submission’; this is often taken to mean ‘to the men’, or ‘to their husbands’, but it is equally likely that it refers to their attitude, as learners, of submission to God or to the gospel – which of course would be true for men as well. Then the crucial verse 12 need not be read as ‘I do not allow a woman to teach or hold authority over a man’ – the translation which has caused so much difficulty in recent years. It can equally mean (and in context this makes much more sense): ‘I don’t mean to imply that I’m now setting up women as the new authority over men in the same way that previously men held authority over women.’ Why might Paul need to say this?"

"There are some signs in the letter that it was originally sent to Timothy while he was in Ephesus. And one of the main things we know about religion in Ephesus is that the main religion – the biggest Temple, the most famous shrine – was a female-only cult. The Temple of Artemis (that’s her Greek name; the Romans called her Diana) was a massive structure which dominated the area; and, as befitted worshippers of a female deity, the priests were all women. They ruled the show and kept the men in their place."

"Now if you were writing a letter to someone in a small, new religious movement with a base in Ephesus, and wanted to say that because of the gospel of Jesus the old ways of organising male and female roles had to be rethought from top to bottom, with one feature of that being that the women were to be encouraged to study and learn and take a leadership role, you might well want to avoid giving the wrong impression. Was the apostle saying, people might wonder, that women should be trained up so that Christianity would gradually become a cult like that of Artemis, where women did the leading and kept the men in line? That, it seems to me, is what verse 12 is denying. The word I’ve translated ‘try to dictate to them’ is unusual, but seems to have the overtones of ‘being bossy’ or ‘seizing control’. Paul is saying, like Jesus in Luke 10, that women must have the space and leisure to study and learn in their own way, not in order that they may muscle in and take over the leadership as in the Artemis-cult, but so that men and women alike can develop whatever gifts of learning, teaching and leadership God is giving them."

"What’s the point of the other bits of the passage, then? The first verse (8) is clear: the men must give themselves to devout prayer, and must not follow the normal stereotypes of ‘male’ behaviour: no anger or arguing. Then verses 9 and 10 follow, making the same point about the women. They must be set free from their stereotype, that of fussing all the time about hair-dos, jewellry, and fancy clothes – but they must be set free, not in order that they can be dowdy, unobtrusive little mice, but so that they can make a creative contribution to the wider society. The phrase ‘good works’ in verse 10 sounds pretty bland to us, but it’s one of the regular ways people used to refer to the social obligation to spend time and money on people less fortunate than oneself, to be a benefactor of the town through helping public works, the arts, and so on."

Read the rest here, and see also this video related to Romans 16: 

 

N.T. Wright on Women in Ministry 5

 

 

 

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From Mark: In these theological/political times, where it seems so important to be in the right "camp" lest we be cast out from fellowship with others because we do not hold the "correct" views, how do you suggest moving forward toward greater unity, rather than greater division?

 

Beware of ‘camps’.

 

In the U.S. especially these are usually and worryingly tied in to the various political either/or positions WHICH THE REST OF THE WORLD DOES NOT RECOGNISE. Anyone with their wits about them who reads scripture and prays and is genuinely humble will see that many of the issues which push people into ‘camps’ - especially but not only in the U.S. - are distortions in both directions caused by trying to get a quick fix on a doctrinal or ethical issue, squashing it into the small categories of one particular culture. Read Philippians 2.1-11 again and again. And Ephesians 4.1-16 as well.

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From Laura: Can you and Francis Collins write more awesome songs together? Pretty please!

 

You never know!  The two we’ve written so far happened more or less by accident.

 

 

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Thanks for the questions and sorry these answers are brief! Good wishes to one and all. And say a prayer for all the final editing and production of the big book on Paul!

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Thanks again for your questions! You can check out every installment of our interview series—which includes “Ask an atheist,” “Ask a nun,” “Ask a pacifist,” “Ask a Calvinist,” “Ask a Muslim,” “Ask a gay Christian,” “Ask a Pentecostal” “Ask an environmentalist,” “Ask a funeral director,” "Ask a Liberation Theologian,"  "Ask Shane Claiborne," "Ask Jennifer Knapp," and  many more— here.