How do we know what God condemns? That's the question that springs to mind on reading about the investigation by a commission of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland into decisions made by the Rev Dr Katherine Meyer who is critiqued as approving "that which in scripture God condemns".
The council of Christ Church Sandymount in Dublin and its minister are alleged to have "caused scandal injurious to the purity and peace of the church", as quoted by Patsy McGarry in his articles before Christmas.
This dispute about whether to accept a man in a same-sex marriage as a church council member raises several issues: first, on the task of interpreting the Bible with its normative standing as God’s Word; second, the Pauline reading used as a justification; and third, the application of the human right of freedom of religion at the intersection of religious communities, individual believers, and the state.
1. All Christian churches hold the Bible to be the foundational document of their faith tradition, their Holy Scripture. It testifies to God’s self-revelation as Creator, whose presence in history is “both hidden and near” (as the historical Jesus scholar Seán Freyne characterised Israel’s experience of God), and whose self has been revealed as unconditional love in Jesus’s preaching and symbolic actions.
When Jesus’s ministry ended on the cross, God’s new act of resurrection vindicated his proclamation of God as love. Can this brief summary of the faith that unites believers in Christ count as the Gospel shared by all the New Testament authors?
Is the skill of using historical-critical tools to situate the biblical authors in their contexts a denial of God's Word as authoritative?
Not quite. For biblical scholars, it is too global and erases the differences between Paul who does not treat Jesus’ life; John, for whom already the cross belongs to Christ’s glorification; and the accounts of Mark, Matthew and Luke. What have we learned by discovering that the above résumé is a summary specific to the Synoptic gospels and the oral tradition they drew from?
Error of history?
Is the plurality of the New Testament texts really an error of history that we should correct by ignoring the richness of the perspectives of the diverse Christian communities they belonged and spoke to?
Is the skill of using historical-critical tools to situate the biblical authors in their contexts a denial of God’s Word as authoritative? Or does it help in interpreting the actual meaning of biblical verses both in their time and in ours?
2. If one line from Paul, identified as referring to homosexual relations, is made into the key insight into the God proclaimed in the New Testament, what method is being used?
Searching for the meaning of scripture must involve some account of how one verse relates to others and which theological view of the core of its message is guiding the interpretation. In other normative contexts, such as constitutional law, there is a rightful expectation that these principles will be laid open.
Is the starting point of beginning with “what God condemns” adequate, or can such important conclusions as to what God abhors only be reached from identifying the essence of the biblical message first?
Similarly, how can “purity” be defined? The Gospels portray Jesus as critiquing the Pharisees’ division between pure and impure. Contextualising Jesus and Paul within the strands of Second Temple Judaism reveals their discrepancy on this matter.
Literalist stance
Is the authority of the Word of God to be attached to one quote in an unhistorical reading, imposing a literalist stance as a binding interpretation? The alternative to “disciplining”, that is, to hounding blameless, committed followers of Christ is to recapture the space Reformed Christians previously allowed for scholarly research and thoughtful exchange on scripture.
Is the starting point of beginning with "what God condemns" adequate, or can such important conclusions as to what God abhors only be reached from identifying the essence of the biblical message first?
3. Having taught theology, hermeneutics (interpretation of biblical texts) and ethics to students from different backgrounds, I know the high regard young people have for human rights. They are equally attentive to the Christian message of God’s love and recognition for each individual.
In the Roman Catholic Church, their equal dignity is counteracted by the refusal to ordain women. What kind of future does the Presbyterian Church envisage for itself if it loses sight of the core Christian message and of the human right to non-discrimination?
Freedom of religion or belief does include the right of religious communities to order their own affairs. Since members can leave religions which are voluntary associations, the state refrains from imposing its own understanding of equality on them.
The space for the inevitable conflicts of interpretation between individual and communal, and between positive and negative freedom of religion – the right both to profess and to avoid religion in the public sphere – must be kept open by the neutral state in order not to become authoritarian itself.
But human rights, including that of non-discrimination, are a minimum. Surely Christian discipleship sets a higher bar? What about love driving out fear and Paul’s inspired conclusion that across religious, ethnic and sexual differences, we are “one in Christ” (Gal. 3:27)?
Maureen Junker-Kenny is fellow emerita and retired professor in theology of Trinity College Dublin