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From: mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: ARSENOKOITAI: NT Meaning of
Message-ID: <May.21.02.43.25.1993.4216@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 21 May 93 06:43:26 GMT
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Meta-exegesis: Conviction of Sin,  part II

Let me return to the question, stipulating that Paul meant his use of
_arseonkoitai_ to refer more or less exactly to the Levitical prohibition
of male-male sex.  In order to bring out the problems most clearly, I'll
also stipulate (what I think is far less plausible) that Paul coined the
term for this usage.  The question I want to turn to is what that would
mean for Paul's readers and for later Christians.  This should be shorter
than my last note, as we will see that this question rapidly confronts us
with some of the major divisions within Christ's body, and I am not trying
to open the gates for flames across any of the terrible chasms that
separate any of us from our fellow Christians.  My own biases (loosely
characterizable as "liberal") will be evident, but I am not grinding an
axe here, so much as trying to get all parties to see that it may be HARD
to reach "closure" when the issues involved strike at the heart of what we
each, in our own different ways, see as crucial to the Gospel of Christ.

So; stipulating Paul's intent, the immediate question is: HOW CAN HIS
READERS UNDERSTAND this intent?  And following on that question, there is
a second one: WHAT IS OUR PROPER ACTION if we *do* manage to understand him?

Since Paul gives not a single clue about his meaning in the text of 1st
Corinthians, there are two "positive" answers and one "negative" to this
question:

+	a.  Paul (or Apollos, or someone) in the apostolic community has
	    conveyed to the Corinthians the then-traditional Jewish condem-
	    nation of homosexual behavior, and Paul expects them to be
	    sufficiently well-tutored by this tradition that he needs no
	    futher explanation.  [I should note that there is no evidence
	    in the letter, or in 2 Corinthians for such a supposition :-)]

+	b.  The Spirit will teach us what Paul means (or, if not Paul,
	    what God means "behind" Paul's inspired word-choice.)

-	c.  We *don't* know, and cannot guess to within any better pre-
	    cision here than, for comparison, in the parallel use by Paul,
	    in the same passage of the word  _pleonektai_ ("those who have
	    more" -- if you think that _areseonkoitai_ is "obvious" from
	    its roots, try cutting your teeth on *this* word!  The NEB
	    translates it as "grabbers") or even _methusoi_ ("drunkards"
	    -- at least this has the advantage of being a common insult,
	    so that at least there is *some* hint as to its meaning!)

The three positions more or less -- if I can be allowed some exaggeration
for the sake of argument -- define a classical Catholic attitude towards
tradition, one form of Protestant _sola scriptura_, and a liberal/critical
demand for evidence.  All three positions have strengths and weaknesses.

_ad_ a:	It is unquestionable that the gospel was preached in and by the
	community of Christ's disciples and their successors, and that
	our NT scripture itself emerges from this communal tradition.
	But it's also the case that we know little or nothing about this
	tradition until almost a century after Paul, which is to say that
	we have access to the tradition only after several generations of
	possibly confused transmission.  The scripture is itself our only
	documentation of the tradition in the critical era.

_ad_ b:	If we are NOT born of water and Spirit [to revert to John in an
	attempt to explain Paul :-)], then we have no more hope of under-
	standing the gospel than Nicodemus had; neither the traditions of
	men nor the vain elevation of our own reason can prevent the Spirit
	from blowing where it will -- the Paraclete is a kamikaze.  But
	the downside of Protestant belief in the efficacy of the Spirit
	as our guide in scripture is that the wing of Protestantism that
	takes this most seriously is also the most fragmented over divergent
	understanding supposedly derived from the "clear" Word of God.

		[Note: classical Lutheran, Calvinist and Anglican thought
		constrains scripture to be read *within* tradition, even
		while reserving judgment against tradition out of scripture;
		the more bizarre forms of "I will read Scripture my way"
		are primarily a fringe aspect of "cultic" Protestantism.]

	The main problem with this approach is that there is apparently no
	means for ONE person to convey to another what that one may feel
	*is* teaching received from the Spirit; and history shows incredible
	conflict between Christians on this point, each in his own mind
	"convinced" that he is led by the Spirit.  No one can seriously
	urge point b without SOME sense of its potential for setting Christian
	against Christian.  To what purpose?

_ad_ c:	The critical approach has the distinct advantage that when it can
	reach a conclusion, it can lay out the data in a way which is open
	to all.  The weakness is an obvious corollary: this is not usually
	possible. :-)

	[If I may say a word here, out of my own already acknowledged bias;
	one complaint against critical methodology is that it "dissolves"
	faith -- but surely a "faith" that cannot honestly face the evalu-
	ation of evidence has problems which mere theology is helpless to
	address.]

Anyway, there is a serious and unfortunate possibility of schism between
"liberal" and "conservative" positions, mostly on the basis of extreme
zealots of positions b and c.  A Catholic sense of authority and tradition
tends to constrain arguments of b contra c to secondary position, so that
despite horrendous strains Rome is NOT as likely to find these issues as
ultimately divisive as the Protestant world will.  And Anglicans will (I
predict) muddle through on the _via media_, attempting to give each position
its due, but no more than its due. 

Second question.  Suppose tradition tells us, and lots of "spiritual"
Christians tell us, and critical thought at least admits as possible,
that Paul is refering to a flat, universal Levitical prohibition against
male-male sex.  What then?  Again, we can abdicate our personal responsi-
bility to tradition, and let it dictate the answer.  But it's precisely
where inherited traditions are NOT questioned that they're most dangerous.

We have EXAMPLES of Christ questioning the Pharisees and THEIR use of
tradition (despite his urging, in Matthew 23:2 that we are to heed them).
We have EXAMPLES of Peter, and more radically still Paul, jettisoning the
traditions that THEY were led by the Spirit to call into question.  Jesus
and Peter and Paul do not so much "throw out" tradition as subject it to
radical criticism, on a couple of very basic grounds:

     "the weightier demands of the law: justice and mercy and good faith"
							(Matthew 23:23)
and  "On these two commandments [love God & neighbor] hand the whole Law,
      and the Prophets, also."
							(Matthew 22:40)

If there is a fundamental (because derived from Christ) validity in the
challenge to *some* traditions, a validity that led the first generation
to go so far as to waive application of the Torah to gentile converts
(vastly beyond anything that is directly deducible from Jesus' reported
words and deeds), it signifies to me a certain failure of the imagination
to *postulate* that *only* the traditions that we have specific challenges
against are in fact open to challenge.

All traditions passed *through* men are traditions *of* men.  That God may
lead us even so, that these traditions are a source of our spiritual
instruction I will freely grant.  But tradition is inherently human, and
inherently corruptible (and given the Fall, corrupt).  Nothing in it is
immune to challenge, when the Spirit shows us a failure in justice, mercy
and good faith.  Nothing may ultimately stand unless it DOES follow from
love of God and love of neighbor.

I am perfectly willing to grant that I could be blind to my own sin.  That
the Spirit may have taught another what She refuses to teach me (or I am
too dense to learn).  That tradition *might* have value here.  But what I
*know* of tradition is that on one occasion, some superstitious Christians
appealed to Justinian after an earthquake in Asia Minor, and scapegoated
"sodomites" as the "cause" of the earthquake, so that legislation was
passed making homosexual behavior a capital offense.  If that is in
accord with the gospel of Christ, then I am no Christian.  That is human
tradition at its most hateful and vicious.  And I see nothing all that much
different in all the unbidden eruptions onto USENET of people who are quick
to condemn but slow to understand.  If that is the leading of the Spirit,
then I want no part of it.  But what I have found in obedience to the Lord
is that I am, myself, TOTALLY dependent on the witness of other Christians,
for the truth that lives in the Body of Christ.

And I say to all who doubt that gay Christianity is from God what Gamaliel
said to doubting Pharisees who would have suppressed the earliest Church:

	"be careful how you deal with these people...  If this enterprise,
	this movement of theirs, is of human origin it will break up of
	its own accord; but if it does in fact come from God you will not
	only be unable to destroy them, but you might find yourselves
	fighting against God."
							[Acts 5:36...39] 

All I ask is that you listen to your traditions, and read your scriptures
with a mind and soul OPEN to the Spirit, and to the past history of our
first Christian witnesses' willingness to challenge tradition and OTHER
readings of scripture -- though read with all the authority of scribes and
rabbis -- and a submission to the declaration that all must depend on the
love of God and neighbor.  Then, study the evidence; learn the history of
Christians oppressing Christians out of their traditions and eagerness to
judge where Jesus and Paul tell us NOT to judge.  And let the witness of
the Spirit in the lives of your fellow Christians -- including those who
are NOT of your preference in theology -- guide you towards God's truth.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		I say "You are gods, sons of the
mls@panix.com			Most High, all of you; nevertheless
    - or -			you shall die like men, and fall
mls@ulysses.att..com		like any prince."   Psalm 82:6-7

[There's a certain ambiguity in your discussion of position (a), as to
whether you're speaking of tradition in Paul's time or ours.  I think
there are two ways to use tradition.  One is to say that when Paul and
his readers share a tradition, it makes sense to interpret his words
in the context of that shared tradition.  That's what makes me think
that these arguments over words turn out to be silly.  We know that
Paul came out of a background that was rather Puritanical on sex.
Everything else he says on sex is consistent with that background.
The tone of his remarks on homosexuality in Rom 1 is consistent with
that background.  Even if the words in the sin lists aren't the most
general terms for homosexual activity (and it seems to me that there's
some evidence that they are not), they are just one more piece of
evidence for something we would probably be willing to believe with no
evidence at all -- that Paul shares the common Jewish rejection of
homosexuality.

But when you identify (a) with the Catholic position, that's rather a
horse of a different color.  The Catholic position involves a
continuing church tradition.  Arguments specific to that tradition
might be (1) we can get guidance on how to interpret Paul's original
meaning from tradition, e.g. the way the Church Fathers interpreted
him, and (2) we gain confidence that his prohibitions still apply in
our time because of the universal judgement of the church between his
time and ours.  I think this is a somewhat different use of tradition.
A radical Protestant might be willing to use known 1st Cent.
tradition to illuminate Paul's original meaning, but not use the
Catholic position to answer the question of what our own attitude to
homosexuality should be.

--clh]
