Defending the Biblical Doctrine of Marriage as Binding for the Church Today – Part 2

on April 29, 2021

An earlier article reviewed Mennonite theologian and philosopher Darrin W. Snyder Belousek’s argument that same sex marriage is contrary to the uniform witness of Scripture and Christian tradition. This article will review his analysis of attempts to justify same-sex marriage by appeal to ideals set forth in Scripture, or by new revelation from the Holy Spirit.

An excellent distinction that Snyder Belousek makes, and one that is strongly denied today in the legal sphere, is the belonging/behaving distinction. Innovationists appeal to the inclusion of Gentile believers in the church as evidence that LGBT identifying persons should be included, their behavior accepted, and same-sex marriage sanctioned. But Synder Belousek points out that the decree of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:24-29), which sanctioned the inclusion of Gentile believers, also issued behavioral restrictions for Gentiles. Among them was abstaining from “fornication,” (porneia) which was understood to cover all non-marital intercourse, including same-sex intercourse. This, he believes, is in line with the provisions for aliens living in ancient Israel. They were not bound by the performative requirements applying to the Israelites (“must do” commandments, such as circumcision), but were bound by prohibitive commandments (“must never do” commandments, such as same-sex intercourse).

This writer would add that this performative/prohibitive distinction is of great importance in the liberty of conscience debate in our modern society. It is sometimes said that religious freedom has no support in the Bible, and much Biblical text against it. However, the command to take no action that does not proceed from faith (Rom. 14:29), would seem to be a Biblical right to liberty for religious conscience. Aliens in Israel were not required to adhere to the performative requirements of the religion given to Israel by Moses, but they could not engage in idolatry, worshipping their own gods. Similarly, our government cannot give freedom to all religious action (performative commandments) such as human sacrifice or polygamy. But there does seem to be an absolute right of conscience recognized in the Bible, to which common sense agrees. This is a right to decline action believed sinful or immoral, as new natural lawyer Christopher Tollefsen argued more than a decade ago.

Possibly the most effective strategy used by LGBT liberation against the gospel has been an appeal to Jesus’ message of love. Jesus’s love, Snyder Belousek observes, indeed “crisscrossed social boundaries, contravened cultural conditions, upended structural hierarchies, and offended religious sensibilities, earning himself the epithet ‘friend of tax collectors and sinners.’” But this appeal ignores that that “Jesus called people to a changed life.”  Jesus commanded everyone who would follow him to “enter through the narrow gate” (Lk. 13:22-30). He examines cases in which Jesus extended friendship to sexual sinners. In each case (the sinful woman who kissed Jesus’s feet, the Samaritan woman at the well with five past marriages and current cohabitation, and the woman taken in adultery) he finds repentance from sin part of the encounter. Similarly, Jesus’s parables not uncommonly end with impenitent sinners condemned (the foolish bridesmaids unprepared for the bridegroom, the worthless servant who earned no talents for his master, and those who neglect the poor and needy who are consigned to “eternal punishment”). Snyder Belousek observes that Jesus’s invitation to rest, “come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden” (Matt. 11:28-30) is preceded by his warning to the unrepentant cities, “woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida” (Matt 11:20-24).

He goes on to note that the “twin emphases” in Jesus’s ministry, “inclusion and restriction,” and “invitation and exhortation” apply to the Gentiles as well as the Jews who became believers. This is in line with the point made earlier, that the performative commands of the law of Moses are binding only on those in the covenant of ancient Israel, whereas the prohibitive commands were (and are) binding on all humanity (and thus on Gentile believers).

Snyder Belousek further observes that including same-sex couples in the church’s definition of marriage in the name of inclusivity leaves no apparent reason not to include non-monogamist persons (e.g., practitioners of polygamy, polyamory, or incestuous couples). Polygamy and incestuous marriages (by the standard of the Mosaic law) were present among the Hebrew patriarchs, and never explicitly condemned in the New Testament. Snyder Belousek observes a difference here among innovationists. Some would want to retain the requirement of monogamy for sexual intercourse, others would dispense with it.

Snyder Belousek finds a serious problem with contemporary traditionalist congregations that are prepared to receive into fellowship divorced and remarried persons, but not same-sex couples. Why should same sex attracted people be required to practice celibacy, but opposite sex attracted persons who deviate from Biblical standards (divorced and remarried, or never married parents) be accepted? (Especially, this writer would add, in view of Jesus’ strong condemnations in the synoptic gospels against divorce and remarriage). The situation is complicated by the fact that orthodox Protestants differ on the question of divorce and remarriage, some appealing to Jesus’ exception clause (Matt. 19:9), and Paul’s permission to believers whose unbelieving spouses have deserted them (I Cor. 7:15). Yet the situation in even Evangelical Protestant churches seems to be moving toward increasing acceptance of divorce and remarriage, and even by traditional theologians.  

Another innovationist proposal, which might be said to proceed from a “judge not” posture, is to analyze what the parable of the wheat and the tares means for the church today. It is proposed to regard all persons in the church as “wheat,” not distinguishing “tares.” Jesus certainly commands that both wheat and tares be left in the field. But as Snyder Belousek notes, the householder in the parable of the wheat and tares did not say that his servants were wrong in identifying tares among the wheat, only that they should not be uprooted. Since tares can indeed be identified, the church is not wrong to refuse to bless same-sex or other unions which do not meet the Biblical standard. This writer would add that the Biblical text clearly identifies the field as the world (Matt. 13:38), not the Kingdom of God. And so persons who clearly seem to be “tares” may indeed be disciplined by the church; they are not thereby “uprooted” from the world. Indeed, if tares cannot be identified, church discipline in general could not be practiced. And there is no apparent Biblical reason to exclude sexual morality from the identification of tares.

A large part of Snyder Belousek’s work deals with innovationist attempts to show that same-sex marriage is consistent with Biblical statements and theology, and he ably shows that these are unsuccessful. In the final part of his book, he deals with attempts to sanction same-sex marriage that go beyond Scripture, and which frankly contradict consistent Biblical doctrine, but yet appeal to Biblical ideals, such as redemption and reconciliation. These may be classed under a category of claims that the Holy Spirit is “doing a new thing” in the contemporary world. This would appear to really be a claim of new revelation from God.

Snyder Belousek says that the church must be open to God “doing a new thing,” but is bound to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” He observes that Jesus said in the Gospel of John that while the Holy Spirit would “teach you all things” and “guide you into all the truth,” he would only “take what is mine and declare it to you.” The only teaching we may accept as authoritative is the teaching of Jesus we receive from the apostolic witness. “Any teaching that contradicts Jesus’s teaching or his apostles’ testimony is not from God.”

Thus, there is no way to discern a new revelation from the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the full and final revelation from God; we cannot discern any new truth which might supersede the witness found in Scripture. Scripture, including words of Jesus, specify only opposite sex marriage, and the New Testament reiterates the Old Testament condemnation of same sex intercourse as sinful. There is thus no way to formulate a Christian doctrine of same sex marriage, a marriage which the church could bless.

Snyder Belousek acknowledges that celibate same sex attracted persons “are living faithfully and serving fruitfully as followers of Jesus.” But he makes clear that this experience, the public acknowledgment of which is a “new thing,” does not change the “old thing” of defining marriage as the union of opposite sexes which provides the only legitimate venue for sexual intercourse.

The book’s afterword by Wesley Hill focuses on the need to spell out more clearly what the Christian vocation of a perennially same sex attracted believer might be in light of Snyder Belousek’s reading of Scripture. It seems to this writer that he doesn’t go any distance in that direction, but in light of Scripture, neither he nor any other same sex attracted believer needs to. It is enough to trust and obey Jesus.

  1. Comment by Joe Cogan on April 29, 2021 at 11:18 am

    “This is in line with the point made earlier, that the performative commands of the law of Moses are binding only on those in the covenant of ancient Israel, whereas the prohibitive commands were (and are) binding on all humanity (and thus on Gentile believers).”

    Debatable at best: would the author seriously claim that Gentile believers are prohibited from, say, wearing blended fabrics, or mixing meat and dairy in a dish?

  2. Comment by Rick Plasterer on April 29, 2021 at 4:18 pm

    Mr. Cogan,

    The performative/prohibitive distinction is made by Synder Belousek on p. 228-229 of his book. Particularly, there is the statement:

    “While the Torah makes performative commandments binding only on Israelites, the Torah makes prohibitive commandments binding also on non-Israelite residents of Israel.”

    He cites Biblical and scholarly sources in support, and says that violation of performative commandments brought consequences only for the individual sinner, but violation of the prohibitive commandments brought consequences for the whole community. He notes Leviticus chapter 4 in support of the latter claim.

    My statement you quoted may be an overbroad reading of what his book says, but I don’t see that it is. Christians normally divide Old Testament law into moral, ceremonial, and judicial case law components. It seems to me that Snyder Belousek is at least generally correct that moral law is prohibitive in nature, and ceremonial and judicial law is performative. Everyone understands the Ten Commandments as moral law, and they are certainly prohibitive. The commands to circumcise, observe Passover and the other prescribed festivals, sacrifices, and temple ceremonies are certainly commands to do something, although in commanding them, one is implicitly forbidding other things (only the High Priest might enter the Holy of Holies, no one else, only prescribed foods might be eaten, not forbidden food). Judicial penalties naturally involve a prohibition against what they penalize.

    My understanding of the command to make clothing of only one kind of fabric or sow only one kind of seed (Lev. 19:19) is that it distinguished the Israelites from their pagan neighbors (whose fertility religion involved mixing things of different kinds), and could be understood as what one does, rather than refrain from doing. Not eating meat and dairy products together is an extrapolation from the command not to seethe a kid in its mother’s milk (Ex. 23:19, 34:26, Deut. 14:21), which latter command could be understood as a moral command. Commands against magic and witchcraft are reasonably commands against consorting with spirits (i.e., other gods) and thus are extensions of moral commands against idolatry. Again, I may be misreading Synder Belousek, but if my reading is correct, I think in general it holds for the difference between moral law on the one hand and ceremonial and judicial law on the other.

    I do think that my claim about the applicability of his performative/prohibitive distinction to the contemporary liberty of conscience debate holds. Obviously, a state which grants religious freedom may have to prohibit some religious practice;
    religious action could involve anything at all. But so can human law say anything at all, and it is obviously morally repugnant to take action one understands to be evil. As I said in my article, there is a Biblical command not to do so (Rom. 14:29).

    Rick

  3. Comment by David on April 30, 2021 at 9:45 am

    The idea that revelation ended with Jesus is not supported by the story of Peter’s vision where unclean animals were declared to be clean. (Acts 10:9-16) As some denominations have it, “God is still speaking.”

  4. Comment by td on April 30, 2021 at 12:56 pm

    David- i am not sure you understand what revelation.

    In any case, jesus declared all things clean when he said that it is not what comes into a person that defiles the person; it is what comes out of a person that defiles a person. I.e. words and actions.

  5. Comment by Rick Plasterer on May 1, 2021 at 9:07 pm

    David,

    Jesus is indeed the final revelation from God. In him is the “fullness of deity bodily” (Col. 2:9), and he holds “all treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). We know of Jesus Christ through the testimony of the apostles (II Thess. 2:15), and are to receive no other gospel (Gal. 1:8).

    Peter was an apostle. He indeed received a revelation from the Holy Spirit, which was an explication of what Christ said. We do not receive new revelation that could bind the conscience of the Christian church today.

    Rick

  6. Comment by Kevin on August 31, 2021 at 5:33 pm

    The article claims that, according to Belousek, the Samaritan woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery both repented. Actually, the woman caught in adultery did not repent. Jesus commanded, “Go and sin no more,” but we have no evidence of repentance. In the story of the woman at the well, not only did the woman not repent but Jesus did not call her to repent. Yet, the village comes to faith in Christ initially by the word of her testimony. Perhaps Belousek created his own truth and then interpreted scripture to suit his preferences. It’s a danger when you assume you know the truth before beginning your research.

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