Q & R: “I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but…”

Here’s the Q:

Brian, I recently read A New Kind of Christianity, as did my friend. My friend and I walked away with two totally opposite views of what you were trying to say. His comment was, “it was like we were reading two different books.”
I would love to give you the benefit of the doubt, but at this point I am deeply troubled by what you seem to say, or at least what I think you seem to say. I wish it were not so.
I have several direct questions that I would like simple answers to. This should settle a few issues for me.
Do you personally think that all of the bible is inspired by God and a source of authority as is, or do you think that it is a library of man inspired books that reveal progressive human understanding about God?
What do you do with sin. You obviously left out the entire issue of Moses, morality and God’s judgment. Is sin an issue, will God still judge sinners and who decides what is sin?
You seem to marginalize Paul and relegate him to a “western mindset” and therefore not worth of consideration. Do you think the writings of Paul are God inspired or man inspired?
Very plainly, do you think the Bible says homosexuality is a sin? A simple yes or no will do, not a paragraph about a more human sexuality. (That is a pretty ambiguous term that doesn’t say anything.)
Thank you for your time and consideration.

Here’s the R:

Thanks for your note. My guess is that you disagree with me on several points, but based on your questions, I suspect that you haven’t really grasped what I’m trying to get at in the book. I’m actually questioning some of the deeper assumptions that lie beneath your questions … which will probably be even more disconcerting to you than if I just took a different position based on the same assumptions!
But if you’re interested in understanding where I’m coming from and thinking through the issues as honestly as possible, I’ll try to be helpful: You ask …

Do you personally think that all of the bible is inspired by God and a source of authority as is, or do you think that it is a library of man inspired books that reveal progressive human understanding about God?

— The whole point of the sections of the book dealing with the Bible is that this is a false dichotomy. I think of the Bible as inspired by God (inspired for a specific purpose, according to 2 Tim 3 – which is important!). I think it is both a source of authority, and a library of inspired books that reveal a progressive human understanding about God. I am convinced, based on the Bible that I love and read and teach, that the kind of revelation we have in the Bible is not a constitution-style revelation. The choice for me isn’t between an inspired constitution and a non-inspired library. There are actually four choices: a) Inspired constitution, b) Non-inspired constitution, c) Inspired library, D. Non-inspired library. My hunch is that you’d stand for A, and I for C. You ask …

What do you do with sin. You obviously left out the entire issue of Moses, morality and God’s judgment. Is sin an issue, will God still judge sinners and who decides what is sin?

— First, I didn’t leave out Moses – I said that Exodus is the primary narrative of the Old Testament. Quite significant, and I can’t see how you would miss that if you read the book. I shared my view that in Exodus, we have God getting the people out of Egypt through 10 plagues, and then God getting Egypt out of the people through 10 commands. I don’t see the Mosaic Law as God’s requirements for going to heaven … that’s an idea that you never find in the Bible. The Law is God’s gift, to help a group of people who have lived in slavery for hundreds of years to build a society where they will neither be slaves nor make others their slaves. So yes, sin is an issue for me. It’s a huge issue! God is working to free us from sin – which makes us either slaves or slave-masters, in many harmful ways. How could that not be an issue?
And on the issue of God judging sinners and deciding what sin is … who else would do this other than God? I sure don’t want that responsibility. But my guess is that you’re working with definitions more or less like these:
Sin: That which qualifies a person for God’s judgment.
God’s Judgment: God’s punitive action whereby sinners are sent to hell.
I used to read the Bible with these kinds of definitions in mind, but I have become convinced that these definitions are not … Biblical!
I would define these two key words quite differently.
Sin: That which opposes God’s loving desire for all creation.
God’s Judgment: God’s restorative justice in action – which includes exposing and naming sin as sin, calling people to repentance and transformation, and setting things right. (This is why, for example, in Psalm 98, people are called to rejoice because God is coming to judge the earth. “Judge the earth” doesn’t simply mean “punish all sinners by sending them to eternal conscious torment,” but more – it means “restore justice in the earth.”)
You may not agree with these perspectives, but I hope you’ll at least consider them. You ask …

You seem to marginalize Paul and relegate him to a “western mindset” and therefore not worth of consideration. Do you think the writings of Paul are God inspired or man inspired?

Here, I’m sorry to say, it seems that you haven’t read carefully at all; perhaps you skipped or skimmed several chapters when you read the book? I actually say the very opposite of what you say. I say, through a reading of Romans, that Paul is a true follower of Jesus – that he is affirming Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom of God. I use the term “Greco-Roman mindset” to describe the mindset of – among others – Caesar, and I talk about how Paul, like Jesus, is proclaiming a radical alternative to the “kingdom of Caesar.” It’s hard for me to imagine how you could have reached a conclusion like the one you ask about!
What I do try to marginalize is a misreading of Paul (which is promoted by people who would be seen as both conservative and liberal) which pits Paul against Jesus, as in, “Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God, but Paul proclaims a different gospel – the gospel of penal substitutionary atonement for salvation from hell.” I see Paul as completely in synch with Jesus, not opposing or twisting him. You ask …

Very plainly, do you think the Bible says homosexuality is a sin? A simple yes or no will do, not a paragraph about a more human sexuality. (That is a pretty ambiguous term that doesn’t say anything.)

Very plainly, I do not not think that what we mean by “homosexuality” (an inborn or innate same sex attraction) would have even been a category in the minds of ancient people, any more than they would have a category called “democratic republic” or “capitalism” or “aspergers syndrome” or “biodegradable products” or “upward mobility.”
My sense is that you would like me to say whether I follow the traditional approach that applies Leviticus 18:22 and five or six other verses to conclude that homosexuality is wrong. I do not. I think the whole point of the New Testament is that the kingdom of God initiated by Jesus breaks down old dividing walls – of religion (Jew/Gentile), economics and class (slave/free), and gender (male/female). And I hope you read the chapter in my book which includes a lengthy reading of Acts (especially Acts 8) … where I show the incredible courage of the early church in crossing those boundaries to include what had been excluded previously. That’s why I am for full inclusion of LGBTQ people, without stigma or second-class-citizen status. I believe this is in harmony with the deepest moral teaching of the Bible, which is expressed most powerfully not in the ten commandments but in the great commandment, and not in words on a page but in Christ himself, Word made flesh. Again, I imagine you’ll disagree with some if not most of what I’ve said here … but I share it in hopes that you’ll maybe go back and read the book a little more carefully, and that you’ll better understand what I’m saying and why. That way you can disagree both intelligently and charitably.