Is openness the highest virtue?
I take but read a really interesting reflection on the larger context of the 'gay fence' past Anna Norman Walker, whom I knew in passing from theological higher, and who is now Diocesan Missioner in Exeter Diocese. In it, she puts her finger on a number of problems which are particularly pertinent for those from evangelical backgrounds who have changed their minds on this subject field.
She talks of her conversion from 'eye of the road Anglican' to enthusiastic evangelical:
I discovered churches where the music was uplifting and modernistic and where week by week someone carefully explained what the Bible taught. So I stubbed out my fag, cleaned up my language and accepted that the religion of my childhood was nothing only heretical nonsense and stepped into a brave new world. It was like being born all over again.
…and and then of her gradual change to a different position:
I reject penal substitution every bit a valid theory of amende, I take that men and women are chosen, without distinction, to every ministry in the church building (including oversight) and I am content that to be a homosexual Christian is not something that excludes y'all from marriage to the person you love….
I was wrong nearly what the Bible teaches near such things. I was incorrect and I am deplorable for the times I have encouraged others to recall wrongly also. I have come to this place considering I have studied scripture and reflected theologically. I have come to this place because I have refused to seek e'er to defend what I thought was right but I have listened to God's spirit at work in and around me. I have also been apprehensive enough to acknowledge the fruit of the Spirit powerfully at work in those who belong to different tribes (especially the ones I was taught to fearfulness, because of their 'heretical' liberal views)…
I think Anna says some important things here, only along the mode also reinforces some worrying trends in the give-and-take. One of these is a hardening of attitudes in the argue to evangelicals; anyone who opposes aforementioned-sex marriage is assumed to be farthermost and reaction. I think Anna hints at it in her summary:
Among those off to hell in a handcart are Steve Chalke, Rob Bell, Brian McClaren, Rachel Held Evans and the most recent improver to the fiery furnace is of course Vicky Beeching.
Some extreme responses might have felt similar this—simply a very good number of evangelicals have engaged thoughtfully and identified the issues with 'progressive' theology, as I have attempted to do in relation to Steve Chalke. But characterising all responses in this manner completely brusque-circuits actual date on the problems. And this is reinforced constantly in the media. On Aqueduct 4 News, guess who Vicky Beeching is put up to debate with? The 'notoriously homophobic Scott Lively' who has just been indicted for crimes confronting humanity for his views. No wonder Beeching came beyond the winner—in every section. Those who don't agree with Beeching are clearly extreme, unreasonable, and bigoted. This is perhaps why, according to Mike Starkey, (who teaches at Church building Regular army in Sheffield) it is now easier to come up out equally gay than as evangelical:
The indifference of the chattering classes towards evangelicalism has become a visceral loathing. Evangelical faith has get the beloved that dare non speak its name; unacceptable, even between consenting adults. (An opinion slice in today'southward Guardian says bluntly that the theology of events such every bit Soul Survivor is across the pale and has to change). Submitting to the [truth well-nigh being gay] is authenticity, submitting to the other [being evangelical] bigotry.
I accept a friend in London who is a loftier-profile, partnered gay man who had an evangelical conversion experience. He remains out and proud nearly his sexuality. But his conversion and love of charismatic worship remains a secret, confided to me behind closed doors. He knows what the public reaction would be.
The 2nd characteristic of Anna's post is the acclamation of openness every bit a virtue. The interesting question that follows is whether openness is ever a trouble. Equally it was one time said: the purpose of an open mouth is to close it on something; the same is true of an open listen. If openness is a virtue, what will exist the next issue on which we should be open-minded? Interfaith relations? Whether Jesus was in fact not much more than a good teacher? Whether there are other 'gospels' which are more than reliable than the approved ones? I am not by whatever means suggesting that one's position on SSM will pb to other developments (though it does appear to exist influential on other sexual ethical questions). But there is a parallel hither with the debate on censorship. Often this is posed as a argue between those who desire censorship, and those who oppose it. Simply in realityeveryone believes in censorship of some sort; the debate is where that censorship line should be draw. The same is true with openness; the question is not whether we should exist open up, but on what issues, and in what way.
OT scholar Peter Enns has been running a series on his weblog for scholars to post about their 'aha' moments, when they realised the narrow view they had held previously equally evangelicals was of a sudden cleaved open. What I find well-nigh fascinating about these stories, besides equally Anna's, is that information technology bears no relation whatever to mine. I've never bought into a monolithic set of beliefs which I have subsequently had to question or abandon. On the things Anna has changed her mind, she has moved to agree with the position I've always held as an evangelical—except the last. And for most of Peter Enns' friends, they accept come up to the position (more than or less) which I would hold with. For that reason, virtually people would classify me as an 'open evangelical', just I have never liked the label precisely because it suggests openness is in itself a virtue.
I am non sure whether I deserve any credit for this. I am temperamentally unsuited to jumping on bandwagons and I am not much of a conformist. I have always been in the habit of asking questions. It's a bit awkward really; even as a regular speaker at New Wine I don't think I have the natural temperament it seems to accept to exist a charismatic at a big gathering, where it often appears that you take to buy into a whole package of theology and ministry. If I am a charismatic, information technology is by confidence rather than nature; it'due south really difficult to read the NT and non see the centrality of the Spirit in its theology and practice. (Information technology may of form merely be that I was taught well from an early on age.)
I wonder, in fact, whether the language of 'openness' is often used as a code: 'Be open to new ideas until you accomplish my position, and and so stop there.' Or perhaps 'openness' is in fact the wrong term altogether.
As usual on questions of interpretation, Paul Ricoeur steps in to help. Ricoeur identifies the demand to translate from his understanding of the nature of humanity as substantially hermeneutic; we construct our own identity through the use of symbol and narrative, both of which call for interpretation. He describes the country that many alive in of pre-critical naivety, and highlights (in all areas of life, and all disciplines) the need to engage in the process of critical reflection. This is needed so that symbols which mislead the states or disguise the truth, which he calls 'idols', tin can be done abroad with, and those symbols which describe things as they truly are tin live. But the problem with the critical process is that it creates a desert—you are left assertive nothing, as in the past many evangelicals have experienced when studying theology in a secular university context. Or mayhap yous are left assertive everything, which amounts to the same. 'Beyond the desert of criticism nosotros wish to exist called once again', says Ricoeur. One time the work of criticism has been done, nosotros need to make a 'wager of organized religion' on what we actually believe. Having opened our minds, and evaluated different views, we demand to 'close' them on one particular position.
And so openness on its own is non plenty. We need to close down too, we need to actually return sentence on what Scripture says, not simply be 'open' to new views. In fact, information technology is less about being 'open' than about being (reflectively) engaged with different viewpoints, with self-awareness and a willingness to genuinely understand unlike viewpoints. I think it is these qualities which have been lacking from the earlier stages of faith that both Anna and Peter Enns describe. And none of this precludes being confident in our own position, even whilst engaging with others. In fact, this conviction is vital if we are not going to be hijacked past the latest trend, feel or new piece of information.
In my observation, 2 central things dissever the nature of the debate we are having about same-sex matrimony and the contend that was had about women and leadership (quite apart from the content of discussion). The showtime is the speed at which things are changing; I have been surprised at how quickly some have been able to change their heed in the lite of not-all-that-persuasive arguments or experience, almost equally if the position they had previously held had not been idea through. The 2nd is the role of experience. In the debate nearly women'southward leadership, new experience made many look again at the text, and see things which were there but which they had missed because of confirmation bias—they previously constitute in the text merely what they had been looking for. Only in the contend well-nigh SSM, new experience is leading people to suppose that there are things in the text which in fact are non there! A classic instance of this is the idea that Lev 18 refers only to male cult prostitution, despite the fact that there is no prove whatever for this in the text itself. This does appear to be a strategy for avoiding the meaning of the text, because it is too inconvenient in the light of our experience.
Despite what yous see in the media, there are in fact a adept number of us who are committed to honest date with different views, and who aim to critically reflect on what we run across too equally our ain assumptions. The effect of this has been to find that the scriptures remain relatively articulate on the matter, and considering of this nosotros hold with the comment fabricated by theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg nearly xx years ago:
Here lies the boundary of a Christian church building that knows itself to be bound by the potency of Scripture. Those who urge the church to alter the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a divergence from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to matrimony, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground only against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to exist the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
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