Trust Your Feelings - Steve Chalke on Inclusion

This  issue will not go away because the gay rights advocates will not let it.

Prominent British Evangelical Steve Chalke has come out in support of gay inclusion.  Of course this follows a predictable trajectory that has been documented on this blog for a number of years, not only in my short-lived experiment with Anglicanism, but also in the steady drift to the theological left of figures such as Brian McLaren and Tony Jones.  More
Interesting the Scot McKnight started his post on the topic with the statement "What a federal government determines to be law is one thing; what the church blesses it endorses".  This, as I recall, was one of the first steps Tony Jones took on his path to full and often belligerent advocacy of gay inclusion, stating that state definitions of marriage should not be tied to sacramental church definitions of marriage - as if civil law and moral thinking cannot overlap.

Chalke is of course the one who caused a stir not all that long ago by comparing the traditional evangelical view of the atonement to "cosmic child abuse".   So perhaps Chalke is not your typical evangelical leader.

What strikes me about Chalke's article is not that another Evangelical leader has chosen to take this view, but how predictable his arguments are, the same ones that have been put forth over and over by professed Christians who wish to endorse some form of gay union and/or full inclusion into the church.  They amount to a full "deconstruction" of the Biblical texts that address the issue, essentially making all scriptural references to the matter ambiguous at best, followed by a passionate plea to feel a certain way about a particular group of people and to determine one's moral stance based on those feelings.  Here's the rundown:

First comes a dismissal of the creation account in Genesis as a story that might teach "faithfulness", but not a passage where "male and female" need to be paid a lot of attention to.  (Of course since Genesis 1-11 has little connection to history in most academic circles, this is not surprising).

Then there is the claim that the sin of Sodom was all about social justice and has nothing at all to do with the planned homosexual rape depicted in Genesis nor the reference to sexual immorality in Jude 7.

Next comes the dismissal of the levitical prohibitions on the basis that there are many Levitical laws that are not observed by Christians.  He does attempt to address the distinction between moral, ceremonial and civil law, which is the primary reason Christinas no longer sacrifice animals nor provide a tithe for Levites, but his statement on that issue is just a dismissal, not much of an argument.

He pulls out Copernicus and the Catholic church.  He references egalitarian concerns about  women in ministry to show that "interpretation" is often a tough nut to crack.  He raises concerns about the influence of "culture" on interpretation and historical context in determining the meaning of words.

But in the end it all comes down to one idea found in two statements.

• The Bible is the account of an ancient and ongoing conversation where various, sometimes harmonious and sometimes discordant, voices contribute to the gradually growing picture of the character of Yahweh; fully revealed only in Jesus.
• Christianity is not about a book, but about a person who is the Word of God made flesh.

In other words, Steve Chalke has reached a point of despair over Christians being able to interpret a text, and instead grounds matters of faith in what can only be, apart from an objective text, a mystical encounter with a "personal" someone.   "The process of understanding the character and will of Yahweh as revealed through Jesus - is an ongoing task for every generation."  What does that mean?

Apparently it means 20 centuries of unambiguous teaching on marriage, based on the biblical texts, can be jettisoned.  Why.  Essentially because he feels compassionate toward the disenfranchised.

His final plea goes along the lines of "Why am I so passionate about this issue? Because people's lives are at stake..."  He cites suicide rates among the gay communitgy and blames that on "anti-gay stigma" (ignoring the possibility that the lifestyle itself may be unfulfilling).

He chastises the church for treating gays as "pariahs", and argues instead for "self-esteem" building attitudes, urging churches to "create an environment for homosexual people where issues of self-esteem and wellbeing can be talked about; where the virtues of loyalty, respect, interdependence and faithfulness can be nurtured, and where exclusive and permanent same-sex relationships can be supported".  Which assumes, predictably, that Christians have never been able to practice both clarity regarding sin and compassion toward the sinner in other settings.  It is as if churches that condemn drunkenness have never supported ministry to addicts, or churches that condemn abortion have never supported ministries to unwed mothers, or churches that condemn pornography have never supported ministries that deal with sex addiction.  Once again the only way to express love is assumed to be support for a particular behavior.

None of this is new.   None of this is surprising.  And it seems to boil down to this in the postmodern era. Truth is seen to be clearly and faithfully determined by feeling and sentiment but texts are determined to be far too open to interpretation to be reliable.    

Yoda would say "trust your feelings, Luke".   The music swells, the blue light floods the screen and we are all supposed to suspend disbelief and enter the story.   Not sure that's how the Apostles, the church fathers and the reformers operated, but it seems to be the trend.