One netfriend wrote: I think that one would be very hard pressed to demonstrate that one has to read Genesis “literally” in order for the point of the narrative to be clear. This is particularly so given that the Genesis narrative is firmly located within a literary context which itself has something to say about the sorts of theological issues that Genesis raises.

Nathan responded:

I’m not suggesting that there is no point to the narrative. It is a wonderful and invaluable theological vision. But I am saying that you have to literalise it if you want to start giving authoritative descriptions of what human life was actually like before the fall and to base our approach to ethics on an attempt to legislate our way back to that state. Even if we could know that the fall was a literal event and could know all about what life was like before it, it still can’t be the starting point for our ethics. The eschatological vision is not a return to the garden, it is the appearance of the new Jerusalem. The risen Christ is not a pre-fall figure: he has wounded hands. Salvation and sanctification do not remove the scars, they bring new life out of death, they make even the wounds the source of grace and hope. Christian ethics starts with the reality of our current brokenness and points us, not back to the garden, but forward to the new Jerusalem. The vision of the new Jerusalem is a vision of the reconciliation of all things in Christ, not a vision of the elimination of all evidence that we ever left the garden.

Netfriend:

Personally, I consider it obvious that the primordial narrative in Genesis (ch. 1-12) intends to advance monogomous heterosexual relationships as normative.

Nathan:

And I agree with that. The question is not whether homosexuality deviates from a norm, it is whether such a deviation from the norm is therefore evil and to be sanctioned. Lifelong celibacy is a deviation from the aforementioned norm too, but we don’t declare it sinful. In fact if we take Jesus and Paul seriously, we would probably have to conclude that lifelong celibacy is now normative for Christians and that entering a monogamous heterosexual relationship is now a deviation from the God-given norm. But does that make it evil and justify barring those who engage in it from involvement in the life and ministry of the church? Of course not.

Netfriend:

Incidentally, the same could be said for language difference which comes about as a consequence of human pride and results in fracture of relationship. To the extent that language differences prevent humans from living in harmony they are clearly a bad thing. I notice, incidentaly, that the eschatological vision of Revelation suggests that language difference will, ultimately, be done away with (and again, the narrative doesn’t need to be read literally to make the theological point).

Nathan:

Sure, but the analogy to the church’s traditional prohibition of homosexuality would thereby conclude that we cannot tolerate the speaking of other languages here and now. The quest to recover the “perfect design” would demand that we endorse only one language (perhaps even the one that Adam and Eve spoke) and make abstinence from expressing all other languages a condition of full inclusion in the life and ministry of the church (perhaps the Esperanto people are right!!). If, instead, we conclude that although speaking English was not part of God’s “perfect design”, it is not a morally culpable act and can be allowed to continue, then the analogy would be that faithful committed homosexual relationships, although diverging from the “perfect design”, are not evil and can be affirmed as compatible with the life of discipleship. Needless to say, there is a lot more convincing evidence to say that people can learn a new language, than that people can have their sexual orientation reversed!

Netfriend:

The primary point is that the “perfect design” argument doesn’t require that “imperfect” be equated with “sinful” and although I wouldn’t presume to speak for Diana, I notice that she nowhere stated that it should. Rather, her point was simply that homosexuality is “abnormal” by the standards of the Genesis narrative, therefore contrary to God’s intended order of things, and therefore to be criticised on that basis.

Nathan:

Perhaps, but it is what you then do with that conclusion that is at issue here. Having wounded hands is presumably “abnormal by the standards of the Genesis narrative, therefore contrary to God’s intended order of things, and therefore to be criticised on that basis”, but what sort of criticism are you making and what conclusions are you drawing from your criticism about the demands of Christian discipleship for people with wounded hands?

Surely Christian ethics is done by taking seriously our present realities and working out which direction the demands of love, mercy and justice point us from here. Theories about what life would have been like if we hadn’t fallen are not very relevant to that quest. Unless of course we are going to conclude that the vision in Revelation of the Lamb on the throne who looks like a lamb that has been slain shows that Jesus’s full healing and restoration to his pre-fall perfect state are being blocked by some hidden sin or by insufficient faith!!!

Peace and hope,

Nathan

______________________________________ Nathan Nettleton Pastor, South Yarra Community Baptist Church Melbourne, Australia