The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Homosexuality

I have some discomfort about the future of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is the formerly moderate/progressive contingent in the Southern Baptist Convention. The CBF was established about 20 years ago. The leaders who formed the CBF are now retiring and so the next generation of leaders is beginning to emerge. The new leaders tend to be quite progressive on social issues. My discomfort rests specifically with regards to the hot button issue of how the church is to address the issue of same-sex relationships. I think how the issue is addressed reveals how durable this fellowship will be. There are a number of issues raised at the denominational level. I realize that a concern people have is to find ways to be welcoming and caring for people who feel alienated from the church. However, it concerns me that there is little reflection given to maintaining an ethic that is shaped by scripture. I attended a session described as an open discussion about the issue. There were by far more people in this session than any of the others I attended. In addition to the room being packed the constituency was significantly younger than the other sessions. In the discussion there was very little attention given to the Bible. I realize that Biblical ethics can sometimes become an exercise in proof texting, and I realize that the “families” of the Bible tend to exhibit an ethic no one wants to imitate….but I do feel there is need for reflection on the implications of revelation for our ethics when it comes to human sexuality. For example there was no attention given to defining chastity at all. It seems to me that if one is to take an approach that the Biblical injunctions against homosexuality were really directed towards pederasty (this was asserted in the session this was about the extent of the references made to scripture)…or were simply cultural conventions of the day (this too was asserted)…such interpretive decisions do not obviate the need for some reflection on what constitutes chastity. Instead what is offered is vague language about embracing the wide ranging “journeys” that people are on in the Christian life. This vague approach concerns me because I think there is a need to address in a more substantive way a distinct sexual ethic especially since a permissive attitude to sexuality tends not to take very seriously the dynamics of power that are present to abuse the other.

Education

Anyone who has spent time with students has heard the common lament, “I’m just ready to be done with school.” There are a number of reasons students feel this way. They want to enter the work force and receive some compensation that enables them to act on desires that they otherwise are constrained from doing…at least independent of the largesse of another. Students are ready to be done with school because they do not see what their time in the classroom accomplishes. They can feel like the time they have spent studying is simply a form of babysitting. It is not usually the case that you point to an hour in class and say now…I know this. The fruit of learning is something that appears over time. There occasionally might be some skill taught at one setting. I think of learning a language. At one sitting you might learn the Cyrillic Alphabet. But it takes time to learn grammar and vocabulary. It takes time, repetition, many of the same kinds of activity that we might in another context call work. The fruit of this labor may bring monetary compensation, but it may not. If we judge the value of work only by the monetary compensation or even primarily we realize there are many things that require attention…that don’t pay. Learning does provide an opportunity one of many to mature as an individual. This maturation enables one to enjoy the fullness of life…and face the difficulties of life by drawing on the resources of the wider experiences of human life.

Evolution

Evolution is often identified as troubling because of the common ancestry of humans with all other life. Such an account of Human origin is felt to be an assault which potentially undermines the uniqueness of humanity. I appreciate some elements raised by this concern. The more substantive theological challenge to Christian theology lies in the idea of natural selection. This theory interesting enough is embraced by those who reject evolution. What are the implications of this judgment? I think this face should dampen at least be acknowledged at least caution criticism of evolution.

Journey

The recognition that new experiences force us at times to revisit previous judgments is a natural development of…age. I think this is a reason for the development of the fashionable use of the term journey to describe the Christian life. This is not an entirely new development. In fact John Bunyan wrote the famous of devotional classics using the setting of a journey the Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan’s work continues to be instructive and illuminating to my Christian experience. And yet the way in which the term “journey” is employed raises for me some misgivings. My reservations come from the way this term seems to be used as a trump card to avoid or simply to dismiss dissenting judgments within the life of the Christian community. One need not consider a differing opinion if one simply relegates it to the circumstances of another’s journey.

If You CouldLive Anywhere...Where Would You Want To Live?

I had a student some years ago mention that as soon as she graduated high school she was getting as far from her hometown as possible. She wanted to escape the boredom of a small town in North Carolina. Head out to the big city. This comment came after the students had asked me a bit about where I was from. I find this question to be quite difficult to answer. If I could live anywhere in the world where would I want to be? I’ve lived enough places to find this question difficult. I can remember being quite bored in all of the places I have lived. I can remember being most definitely unhappy. You can’t live everywhere. And all places have their unique delights what makes life most enjoyable most satisfying is found in relationships. I don’t just mean personal relationships though these certainly are among the most significant of our relationships, but the way we relate to the place in which we live. Our work, our community involvement, our friendships, our family, our hobbies, our relationships shape life far more definitively than the weather and the view. This reality confronts us with a further challenge. We are not entirely in control of these relationships. We do not have the ability to simply construct them in the way we can choose to move somewhere. This is where the difficulty in this question rests at least for me. Where would I choose to live? I don’t find the question helpful because such choice points one after a disconnection from the very relationships that make life most satisfying.

Why Read Poetry?

When was the last time you sat down to read from a collection of poems? I find that in my experience most people don’t read poetry. This goes for English teachers as well. We can draw from our lack of interest in poetry…that this has been the generally held attitude towards poetry by most people at most times...i.e. the only reason people read poetry is because it is assigned reading... But such an assumption is challenged as one surveys the kinds of material that have been preserved throughout the centuries. There is a lot of poetry. One may see this by simply flipping through the pages of the Old Testament in a modern translation. The different way the text is set on the page reveals that the translators recognize a significant portion as poetry. Poetry is not only found in the Bible but in cultural heritages around the world. From Homer…to the Quran…to the Ramayana…and one could go on. Poetry represents a significant bulk of the literary achievement of civilizations. While most people do not regularly read poetry today, this does not mean that people do not encounter ideas that are expressed in the way ideas are expressed in poetry. When I ask a room full of people whether they read poetry, the answer is almost always that most people do not. When I ask the same group whether they regularly listen to music the answer is almost one hundred percent response in the affirmative. But what does it matter? One may consider this question how many times have you watched your favorite television show? One may have on DVD their favorite series they may have watched their favorite episode ten or fifteen times, but there is a limit to the number of times one watches their favorite television show. When you think about how many times you listen to your favorite song one finds that this number is quite different. One might listen to their favorite song over one hundred times. The reason for the difference helps us understand the different way in which poetry functions. The song isn’t just about someone else but it invites us to hear words that give voice to our situation. So what does this mean for our reading of the Bible? More to come….

Sabbath

The practice of the Sabbath offers us the reminder that we can trust God. The first observance of the Sabbath is actually before this passage in Exodus 20 it is found in Exodus 16. Here is where the people have just entered the wilderness. They have escaped from their captors in Egypt. They have been delivered from the army of Pharaoh. They have made it into the Sinai and there is no food. How are we going to live? You recall how they survived. God provided for the people Manna. The word Manna in Hebrew actually means, “What is it?” They were to gather enough each day for the needs of their family. When they gathered too much it would rot over night. Each family was able to gather enough for that day except on the sixth day they were told to gather enough for the Sabbath. Some were not sure that it would be enough and so they went out the next day but there was no manna on the seventh day. The manna they collected on the sixth day was enough.

One of the reasons it is easy for athletes to live as if they will be able to play forever and the same reasons we live our lives often times as if there will always be more time, is because it is very difficult to face the fact that our lives are limited. There are a number of popular songs that have as a premise a person coming to realize how precious life is. In the song someone realizes through the death of a friend or through bad news at the doctor’s office that they are facing the reality of their mortality. But the response is something that is really not possible to imitate. How am I supposed to live as if I were dying? I would want to spend every moment with my children, or my parents. I would want to ring pleasure from every moment of life. This of course is not possible because of our obligations to others. The sustaining answer for us is found in the practice of Sabbath. It is in recognizing that we place our dependence not in our retirement accounts. It is not that we have saved up enough vacation days that at some point we will catch up. We weekly stop from our works to worship God in whom we place our trust.