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.”