Fall to
Grace
I enjoy reading the
likes of Pastor Jay Bakker. Our life experiences do change us and his
families journey bearing the brunt of the condemnation from the
Christian right is a reflection of many of the experiences of GLBT
peoples of faith. It is easy as a result to abandon the authority of the
bible and let mainstream churches dictate the terms not only on
homosexuality but on other issues. Why should GLBT people not argue from
scripture?
Often I ask myself, why
am I so angry when responding to others or to insist that my position is
correct! and giving them very little space by winning the argument from
an intellectual and a biblical position. I may win an argument, but I
may lose a friendship or a point of reflection. In those times, we do
need to stand back and ask ourselves which theological position would
result in a right Christian living closer to follow the Christ of the
bible.
Whilst it is more
important not to impose our beliefs on others and give space to others,
we should not be too arrogant and assume that the Mainstream churches
were wrong on most issues just because they may err in one particular
aspect of reading the clobber verses! Coming from the Full Gospel
Assemblies and the City Harvest type churches, a lot of my questions on
the bible were not really answered until I begin to re-read the 6
clobber verses and the entire bible finally made more sense for me.
Often we are no different than the Christians in the mainstream churches
of not being self reflective of asking ourselves questions.
The book review of Jay
Bakker’s “Fall to Grace – a revolution of God, Self and Society” by Rick
Brentlinger’s Gay Christian 101 highlights this tension and often the
labeling we put on others. Whilst Brentlinger was adamant that Jay’s
message of God’s grace and love comes at the expense of the notion of
sin, repentance and salvation, Jay Bakker did have a point that we often
give very little grace to others and often judge others without
listening to what they are saying. His definition of sin of hurting
oneself and universal salvation is more humanistic than justifiably
Christian. However, it has to be understood in the context of hell fire
preachers such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson with their strong
message of condemnation whilst being the hypocrite like the religious
Pharisees Jesus was condemning. I am reminded of Mat 23:15 “Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win
one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of
hell as yourselves.”
Core to the Jay’s
arguments was we can’t get around the notion of the bible condemning say
same sex acts as sin and so we have to look at the bible in a new and
non absolute way taking out all the negatives and focusing on God’s
love.
"The simple Biblical fact is that Old Testament
references in Leviticus (18:22 and 20:13)
do treat homosexuality as a sin... a capital offense, even.",
Page 169, “Fall to Grace”
It is like Jesus
approaching prostitution as a sin but showing grace in not joining in to
stone the woman prostitute. Yet, they did not bring a gay “duckling” to
Jesus for stoning if it was so easy to interpret the book of Leviticus
as against gays! Why? It was obvious that Leviticus only have real
meaning in the context of the pagan religious practices. They knew Jesus
would have known as much as any student today studying the pagan
religious idols and gods of Canaan.
There were also the
inconsistencies and the reasonable doubts in the traditional
interpretation of Lev 18:22 and 20:13. Why would God be so angry with
two gay men having sex together if the rest of 95% were straight! In
Sodom, Abraham was contending with God that even if there were a few
righteous ones, God would forgive! As they were all (95%) straight, they
must be all “righteous”, yet destruction came! And Lot have had to leave
the city in haste in an Angel inspired rescue plan.
Could it be that the
95% of the community which were straight were not motivated by same sex
orientation (which the bible doesn’t really care or talk about) but by
the abomination of the pagan worship and even though straight were
having sex with the priests hence joining themselves as one with the
forces of Satan! God’s moral laws of wrong doings were directed at the
pagan practices!
In order to address
biblically this question, one would have to emphasis the bible views
that many pagan religions have demonic backgrounds. Few Liberals would
ever consider this in the modern pluralistic context. Even conservatives
dare not make this as a rally point after the trials of Rony Tan of
Lighthouse Evangelism criticizing other faiths! Therefore came the
concept of Universal salvation which is the natural conclusion if we
only emphasis the love of God but not God’s righteousness or judgment,
nor the existence of the demonic realm!
Rarely are we
consistent and able to reciprocate our arguments in our interpretation
of the bible, and to give people space in sharing their thoughts and
theological point of view, rather than aggressively imposing our views
and condemning people just because we deemed them wrong. It is more
important to see where others are coming from ie their theological
construction and reasoning rather than affirming and defending one’s
position. Can we be sure we are 100% right? Even if we were 99.9%
right, we have to give space to the 0.1%.
The key is to be
consistent in how you apply theology and test ourselves by reciprocating
our arguments. It is important to listen to others and ask questions
rather than keep talking. We may be perturbed by the theology of
churches such as City Harvest Church and conversely the Metropolitan
Community Church, but are we willing to step out of the closet to visit
them just as we expect them to change and step out of their closet to
visit us. The truth is that the mainstream churches will not change (nor
is there a need to in most issues). They will in time re-read the bible,
and review the context again on homosexuality, and life will move on to
other issues.
In closing, I do like
Jay Bakker’s reply to Gay Christian 101 reminding us of the importance
of civility and grace:-
Jay Bakker here, I find your comments quite interesting and a bit
off putting, The advanced uncorrected proof of my book you reviewed
is a bit different then the final draft and I hope you'll take time
to look it over as well. I do have a View of the Bible that differs
from yours, this much is true. I Hope you can agree that theology is
a complicated issue and none of us get it 100% right. I hope we may
be willing to give grace to the other and realize at the end of the
day none of us no ultimate truth till the day we stand before God.
In Grace, Jay Bakker, January 1, 2011 6:10 PM
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