The Covenant Network seeking unity

10-A, the overture that has allowed some to ordain LGBT persons, has passed; what is coming next?[1] The Covenant Network, an affinity group connected to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has agreed that it is too divisive to endorse overtures asking that the Book of Order be changed to allow same sex marriage. They will not support such overtures at the 2012 General Assembly.

The group, whose main focus has been to change the constitution to allow for LGBT ordination, states, “Given that there are many in the PC (USA) who are troubled by the change in ordination standards, the Board of Directors lifts up this effort mindful of its commitment to tend to the unity of the denomination.” Instead they will lift up and endorse overtures, “seeking Authoritative Interpretation to protect pastoral discretion to celebrate same-gender marriages where they are sanctioned by the civil authorities.”

Two troubling issues arise with this decision. The first is the issue of unity; the second is the issue of aligning morality with the prevailing culture. Both are, however, alike; they put aside biblical teaching in order to pull the cultural milieu within the denomination. The world seeks for unity as well as diversity but not a unity founded on Holy Scripture and the Lordship of Christ.

But unity has already been broken; it cannot be so easily fixed by withholding support from overtures seeking to change the Book of Order. The truth is the Covenant Network, surely unintentionally, is seeking a worldly kind of unity which has nothing to do with the faith. Instead it is seeking after a unity that would mix biblical authority with experience, sin with righteousness and cultural norms with biblical mandates. It isn’t real. There is no such unity. But the seeking has taken a different turn.

The decision to uphold Authoritative Interpretations that would allow ministers to marry same gender couples in a state where it is legal is an attempt at alignment with a worldly culture. And this is where we must remember that the Kingdom of God is not the kingdoms of this world.

Some are standing in the wilderness with Jesus and Satan is pleading worship me and I will give you the kingdoms of the world. Jesus quoted God’s word back to him and Satan, the Scripture text states, “left him until an opportune time.” And Satan did come back. And he keeps coming back to the Church. This is not the first time that the Church has been tempted to lift up sexual immorality for the sake of its life in the world.

I am reading a book mentioned by Dr. Richard Mouw, The Lord as Their Portion: The Story of the Religious Orders and How They Shaped Our World by Elizabeth Rapley. Over and over the Church and the monasteries became a part of the world by choosing worldly riches, power and sexual immorality. Over and over they needed reformation. And still today, the same temptations involve the Church in seeking to conform to the sinful positions and laws of secular governments. And it is in many ways as much a temptation for power as it is for conformity.

This places the faithful in a dire position which has nothing at all to do with unity and everything to do with submitting to the Lord of the Church and his written word. There will be no unity when those in the PCUSA align with secular power while their brothers and sisters take the more humbling seat of refusing to walk with the culture.

[1] This is still to be settled in a court appeals case- see- An Appeal Will Be Filed

Tricia Dykers Koenig,"Because of Scripture and Theology": The soul of the Church at risk-part 2

My last posting, Tricia Dykers Koenig, "Because of Scripture and Theology": The soul of the Church at risk, covered the first section of Koenig’s second article in the Covenant Network’s series “Why We Repeatedly Revisit G-6.0106b (and Will Continue to Do So Until It’s Amended). Koenig writing about scripture and theology, has listed what she sees as nine “overarching themes that lead us away from a conclusion that results in treating LGBT persons as defective or less-than.”

With this posting I will address five of the themes. In my next posting I will look at the last four and Koenig’s conclusion. But first I want to address the suggestion that we are treating LGBT persons as defective because they are not allowed ordination.

The church, through centuries has considered all unrepentant sin as a barrier to ordination. This is not to say that it hasn’t happened over and over, but it has never happened because the Church as a whole gave approval to sin, but rather because the church failed to discipline and/or correct biblically the unrepentant sinner. And clearly such discipline and correction has nothing to do with defective persons but instead with sinners who wish to have their sin approved.

The first overarching theme that would help the church ordain LGBT persons is:

1. Exodus, liberation from bondage and oppression.

This is certainly a grand theme of the Bible beginning with the Israelites release from their bondage as slaves in Egypt. And in scriptures the theme can be seen in both the physical release of captives by other peoples and nations and the spiritual release of those who are captive to sin. One of the more terrifying pictures in scriptures of someone in bondage is the demoniac of the New Testament. “Constantly, night and day he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones.” (Mark 5:5) Luke reports that later he was healed and sitting at the feet of Jesus, a beautiful picture of a captive’s release from bondage.

But the greedy, the intellectual or religious unbeliever, the sexual sinner are all released from bondage by Jesus. Such a theme covers all of us, including those who are in bondage to their homosexuality.

2. The prophetic call for justice against domination

I am not sure I would call this an overarching theme, but it is certainly a biblical theme. God sometimes uses nations and peoples to judge and try his people. But he in turn chastises them for their domination of others. And in the context of the gospel and the New Testament God is concerned about leadership abuse.

Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the suffering of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. (1 Peter 5:1-3)

And yet this same New Testament letter admonishes believers to not “be conformed to their former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy one who called you be holy yourself also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘you shall be holy for I am holy.’ (1:14-16)”Calvin, in his commentary, clarifies this sense of holiness that God calls believers to when he writes:

In bidding us to be holy like himself, the proportion is not that of equals; but we ought to advance in this direction as far as our condition will bear. And as even the most perfect are always very far from coming up to the mark, we ought daily to strive more and more. And we ought to remember that we are not only told what our duty is, but that God also adds, “I am he who sanctify you.”

It is added, In all manner of conversation, or, in your whole conduct. There is then no part of our life which is not to be redolent with this good odour of holiness.

It is God who has the authority and it is he who calls the believer to holiness. But it is also God who sanctifies. Christ is the Chief Shepherd and redeemer; his grace and mercy is full of pleading for the sinner to repent. Those who refuse to repent have to do with him and his authority. While domination may be a sin among humanity it is God’s right to rule. It is his right to demand repentance.

3. Jesus’ insistence on associating with women, lepers, “outcasts and sinners.”

There is an implication in this third theme that those who agree with the biblical teaching that homosexuality is sin are not friends with the marginalized and sinners. That is a particularly obnoxious view held by too many progressives. First, we are all sinners, some have claimed the righteousness of Christ others have rejected his gift. But nonetheless Jesus calls us to be friends to those who need his love and forgiveness. And I find that most Christians who are orthodox and evangelical are deeply involved with the outcast and sinners.

Koenig forgets that there is also love in discipline and truth telling. Jesus loved and forgave the sinner. He also told them to go and sin no more.

4. Paul’s insistence that faith in Jesus, not adhererence to a set of legal requirements, is the constituting factor for membership in the covenant people.

Certainly we are saved by grace. We do not enter the community of Jesus, the Church, without the righteousness of Christ. He calls us, redeems us and places us in his Church. As Paul writes in Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as result of works, so that no one may boast.” (2:8-9)Yet, Paul goes on to write that we were made new in order to walk in the good works that God has laid out for us. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (2:10)

And in 1 Corinthians, Paul after listing the sins of the unconverted, including homosexuality and coveting, writes, “Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (6:11) Note that the believers were such sinners but now they are washed, sanctified and justified.

Leon Morris, in the Tyndale Commentary, writes of verse 11;

The tremendous revolution brought about by the preaching of the gospel comes out in the quiet words, And that is what some of you were. It was no promising material [none of us are] that confronted the early preachers, but people whose standards were of the lowest. It had required the mighty power of the Spirit of God to turn people like that away from their sins, and to make them members of Christ’s church. Three times Paul uses the strong adversative alla, but, to stress the contrast between the old life that they had left and the new life in Christ.

Justification by Christ brings us into the community of believers but we are transformed and begin growing away from our former life as we walk united to Jesus Christ.

5. The systematic extension of the gospel to those previously considered outsiders in Acts

One cannot be certain it was a ‘systematic’ extension, but it was an extension planned for before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4; 3) It was a part of God’s promise to Abraham. His seed would bless the nations. (Genesis 12:3)In Acts the first time the Jewish church welcomes the Gentiles they praised God with some rather unique words. “When they heard this [that God had received the Gentiles] they quieted and glorified God, saying, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to salvation.” (Acts 11:18)

Calvin comments on Luke’s use of the word repentance, “The word repentance alone is expressed in this place, but when he addeth unto life, it appeareth plainly that it is not separated from faith. Therefore, whosoever will rightly profit in the gospel, let him put off the old man, and think upon newness of life, (Ephesians 4:22) that done, let him know for a certainty that he is not called in vain unto repentance, but that there is salvation prepared for him in Christ.” So the two, faith and repentance, are not separated; salvation by faith is as Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it “costly.” The sinner sheds his skin, so to speak, and with the help of the Holy Spirit keeps shedding. Go and sin no more is always Jesus’ command to us.

Tricia Dykers Koenig, "Because of Scripture and Theology": The soul of the Church at risk

Tricia Dykers Koenig, National Organizer for the Covenant Network, has written three articles under the series title, “Why We Repeatedly Revisit G-6.0106b (and Will Continue to Do So Until It’s Amended).” The second article is entitled “Because of Scripture and Theology.”

Koenig explains how she interprets the Bible’s commandments against homosexual sex. She also addresses theological views about God’s nature and grace and how her views affect her understanding of homosexual activity. As the debate is not new her points are not new. However, they should be taken seriously. The soul of the Church is at risk because some of Koenig's ideas have significant meaning since both mainline denominations and the nation are turning towards an unbiblical morality.

I also write that Koenig’s views are significant because I believe there is some truth in what she writes. I explain below. As usual, among those who advocate for the ordination of practicing LGBT persons, Koenig believes that the homosexuality condemned in the scriptures is either exploitative sexuality or cultic sexuality. She mentions the actions in Sodom as an example of exploitive and sees laws on what is unclean as well as idol worship involving sexuality as cultic.

She also goes on to assert that the Bible simply reflects the cultural attitudes of its time, and then points to the tenth commandment to suggest that in that commandment women are seen as property. Koenig believes such a view should change the reader’s viewpoint about how to see scripture. One tosses out the idea that women are property (since that is cultural) but keeps the timeless principle that people should not covet. As Koenig puts it:

Our guidelines for biblical interpretation involve figuring out which timeless principles underlie particular biblical provisions, then applying those principles to our circumstances.

But the Bible is not about timeless principles but rather it is the story of God and his amazing redemption of his people through the eternal Son, Jesus Christ. Within that story the commandments of God are important. They bring us to God by showing that we are unable to live up to them. A school master, Paul calls them. They also guide us in our walk as those redeemed, as does the entire Bible. So looking at that last commandment it is coveting that is addressed with a very definite “Thou shall not.”

Therefore, property or not, a man’s wife and a woman’s husband should not be coveted. The commandments of God bring us to God and guide us as we walk with Jesus.

In the same manner, in Leviticus 18:22 a man lying with another man is also a “shall not.” And both Lev 18: 22 and Lev 20:13 are set in the midst of texts that deal with sexual immorality within family relationships and also murderous idolatry that involves families. The truth is, Koenig is partly right, all of the sexual sins are exploitive simply in the sense that families, individuals and communities are brought to ruin.

And just as in the same passages, sacrificing children to the idol Molech is forbidden and is cultic in nature (a part of religious ritual and devotion) although it has to do with parents and families, so homosexual sex in this text may be cultic with out changing the fact that it is between consenting adults. To clarify, it is cultic in the sense that life among those communities which do such things takes on a cultic nature in that all that is unnatural is lifted up and seen as a sacred part of daily living.[1]

And this is easily seen in Romans chapter 1 where God, because of idolatry, gives humanity over to their degrading passions, which includes gay and lesbian sex. The text goes on to list many, many sins which are not sexual in nature. They are all a sign of the rejection of God and his word. However, homosexual sex is listed first and connected to the worship of that which is not God.

Koenig next gives some rather illogical thoughts concerning intimate relationships. She suggests that because the Bible tells of marriages among the ancient patriarchs which consisted of more than one wife and/or concubines God’s plan for marriage did not center on only monogamous relationships between one man and one woman. But Jesus bypasses the sinfulness of humanity and when speaking of marriage goes back to creation.

Although Jesus is speaking about divorce he nonetheless is speaking of marriage:

And he answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate(Matt 19:4-6).

Koenig attempts to reverse the words of Jesus by suggesting that when Adam exclaimed about Eve “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken,” he meant Eve was his kin. And Koenig uses the words of Laban to his nephew Jacob as proof. (Genesis 29:14) But to insist on Koenig’s interpretation is to ignore the words of Jesus. Jacob and Laban did not become one flesh.

And further, we know that when God states that he is giving Adam a helpmate the word is the same one used of God when he is a helper to us. And while this elevates Eve’s job description it does not elevate her to Godhood. Neither was Eve ever able to help Adam in the same way God was able. Laban’s exclamation to Jacob does not, in the context of the passage, carry the same meaning that Adam’s does.

At the end of this particular section Koenig attempts to negate God’s commands with the use of God’s grace. She writes that “even if one believes that the order of creation is proscriptive, Christ’s grace supersedes that order:” and then she quotes Galatians 3:24-28.

Here she is implying that because of God’s grace given as forgiveness and reconciliation, even if one believes that marriage between a man and a woman is God’s order, still it is alright to be in a same gender sexual relationship. In other words, because Christ has died for us we can go on living in habitual sin without repenting.

But Paul in another place in Galatians answers such an absurdity. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. (5:16)” The problem is that Koenig is mixing up attempting to be made righteous by following the law, an impossible position, with a refusal to be transformed by the Holy Spirit through the life of Christ. Paul lists the deeds of the flesh which includes sexual immorality. And he lists the fruits of the Spirit which include self control and faithfulness. Biblically we are all called to walk by the Spirit.

Koenig lists nine “overarching themes” which she believes leads the Christian away from “treating LGBT persons as defective or less-than.” I will look at them in my next posting.



[1] In this context I suggest the book, Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love, ed. Marvin M. Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith. I am thinking of such chapters as “Gay Erotic Spirituality and the Recovery of Sexual Pleasure,” or “Receptivity and Revelation: A Spirituality of Gay Male Sex,” and “Embracing God as Goddess: Exploring Connections between Female Sexuality, Naming the Divine.”

The Covenant Network's eleven affirmations and the Lordship of Jesus Christ

The Covenant Network, one of the organizations working for ordination of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has put up three articles related to the coming vote on Amendment 10-A. In this posting I want to address the one entitled “10-A Affirmations.” These are affirmations that the author of the article believes all Presbyterians can agree on. The gist of the article is that Amendment 10-A does not negate any of the tenets of faith that all agree on therefore it should be passed with this additional thought:

Presbyterians will continue to disagree about the ethics of same-sex relationships – the Holy Spirit has not yet brought us to consensus on that, and the discernment will go on as we study Scripture together. But we can move on beyond the conflict over this paragraph by approving 10-A, which lifts up principles upon which we can all agree.

I wish to address several errors the Covenant Network is maintaining with their article. (1) That the 11 affirmations are agreed on by all Presbyterians. (2)That we are moving toward a time when the Holy Spirit will move us to a consensus about the ethics of same-sex relationships. (3)That it is possible to move beyond conflict by removing G-6.0106b.

It is possible to take the first affirmation and subsume most of the other affirmations within or under it. That is the affirmation that “Jesus Christ is Lord.” The very act of ordaining unrepentant LGBT persons would be a clear rejection of the affirmation that Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus is Lord of the church for two reasons each reason negates violating biblical standards on sexuality.

First of all, to say Jesus is Lord is to recognize him as God, the eternal Son of the Father. That means that the words of Scripture are his words. They are not to be rejected, twisted or ignored. When Jesus speaks of marriage being between a man and a woman as he does in Matthew 19:3-6 it is his words, but it is also his words in Leviticus 20: 13 and Romans 1, etc. So if his Church calls Jesus Lord, and she must, she will obey his word.

Second, to recognize Jesus as Lord is to understand that the Church was birthed from his redeeming work on the cross and because of that its members, through his power, strive to live a holy life. As 1 Peter puts it:

If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from the futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. (1 Peter 1:17-20)

John H. Elliot, in his commentary on 1 Peter explains that this passage, and the whole epistle, with its admonition to live with awe towards God by good conduct is not implying that believers are living as aliens in the sense that their home is heaven rather than earth. But instead they are aliens because of the unrighteous culture in which they live. And the text emphasizes that the church’s ethics belong to a tradition that reaches beyond all ancient cultural traditions and belongs to the eternal Son who was before the “foundations of the earth.”

Explaining the reason for 1 Peter’s call to holiness, Elliot enumerates the need for blood sacrifice in the Old Testament and then lists the references to the sacrifice of Jesus in the New Testament such as “the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, (John 1:29)” and “the one whose blood confers life and effects a new and everlasting covenant between God and humanity (Mark 14:24 par; John 6:53-56; 1Cor 11:25; Heb 9=10; 13:20).”Concluding he writes, “The Petrine author draws on this Christological tradition and its OT roots to provide a Christological as well as a theological (vv 15-16) warrant for his exhortation to holiness.”[1]

In both of these understandings of Jesus as Lord those on the progressive side of the Church are not in agreement with the orthodox. On the far left of the progressive movement within the PCUSA, are those who do not believe that Jesus is God or that Jesus’ death on the cross is redemptive. Therefore they reject the Lordship of Christ. But even those who are more moderate in their views, yet are striving to change the church’s biblical ethics, are refusing to obey the word of God, which is Jesus’ word. They too are, by their actions, rejecting the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Yet the second error I have listed “That we are moving toward a time when the Holy Spirit will move us to a consensus about the ethics of same-sex relationships,” is also a rejection of Christ’s Lordship. The word of God, the words of Jesus Christ are illuminated within our heart and mind by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would glorify him. That the Holy Spirit would take what is Christ’s and disclose it to his disciples. (John 16: 14-15) He also stated that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. (John17:8)

In the midst of a culture so totally given over to deviant sexuality, to resist the convicting work of the Holy Spirit as he opens the words of scripture to the hearts of this generation is to reject the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is not moving us toward any consensus that would contradict the word of God; the Holy Spirit does not wait for consensus but pleads, convicts and promises judgment on a church that will not listen to the word of God.

The third error, “That it is possible to move beyond conflict by removing G-6.0106b,” also involves rejecting the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And with this error the Covenant Network is actually asking the orthodox in the church to join them in rejecting Christ’s Lordship. The church is troubled by those who are insisting, even haranguing the church to ordain unrepentant sinners. The church is troubled by those who, while calling for unity, are willing to fragment the church in order to allow friends and family, brothers and sisters, to continue on in sin.

It would be unreasonable for those who call Jesus Lord to throw away a defense that God has surely given for that very place where one of the intense and significant spiritual battles of the day is being fought. Moving beyond conflict is not particularly biblical, standing firm while loving brothers and sisters is biblical. And sometimes the love of Christ requires that we stand firm, in the midst of conflict, for the sake of erring believers. As Jude puts it, “…on some have mercy with fear hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.”

The affirmation of Jesus’ Lordship entails an affirmation of his eternal Sonship, the authority of his word, the Bible, and his redeeming life, death and resurrection. Affirming the Lordship of Jesus the church must be willing to live a life unpolluted by the sinful aspect of contemporary culture. Jesus Christ is still Lord; may the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) continue as his church.

[1] John H. Elliot, 1Peter, A New Translation with Commentary, The Anchor Series, (New York: Doubleday 2000).