Why Adultery and Fornication are wrong: My perspective on Presiding Bishop C.E. Blake's message Concluding the 64th COGIC Womens International Convention Crusade

Bishop C.E. Blake's address "Why adultery and fornication are wrong" text John 8:3-11, to the 64th Women's International Convention Crusade in Louisville, KY, is still resonating with me. It was a very real and relevant word for the times. It was very relevant as our culture is in the midst of moral revolution with sexual immorality leading the insurrection against the Judeo-Christian idea of family, marriage, and sex in general. It was a very real and relevant message because Bishop Blake drew a solid, scriptural moral line between the Biblical sexual ethic and culture’s fuzzy conceptions of sexual morality. What especially stood out was that his message dealt with two topics that were discussed in a preaching conference that I attended last month. The first one was the topic of preaching in a blurred lines culture. Preaching in a blurred lines culture is to embrace the Bible as authority and the authority of scripture. The debates over the issue homosexuality/same sex marriage, which have caused church organizational splits, are, in essence, due to a basic abdication of the authority of scripture and orthodoxy with result being those holding to the authority of scripture and orthodoxy being known as fundamentalist or conservatives and those on the other side taking the labels of progressive and liberal. Now, let me clarify that the deeper complexity of the issue does involve varying theological commitments and starting points in terms hermeneutics and methods of interpretation of the text. The reason I mention this is because ultimate pre-commitments will determine hermeneutical method and final exegetical conclusions. For example, if one is pre-committed to Biblical revelation then outcome will be the affirmation of the truth of scripture; however, if one is committed to justifying same sex eroticism and behavior, or any other immoral behavior with scripture, the result is a custom tailored interpretation of the text in which context has been chopped off and the truth “stretched” by a “reading into it.”

The Second topic was the issue of relevance and preaching. There’s the proposition that the church has become irrelevant; to an extent, this is largely true. The reason is that the church has failed to address the deeper issues of life and people’s existence by dealing with petty ones. Also, the church has become irrelevant in sense that controversial issues have often been glossed over to avoid confronting the ugliness of the realities of the fallen world in which we live. Yes, the ugly realities of sex misused and abused in the forms of clergy sexual abuse, pedophilia, pornography, homosexuality, adultery, and etc. Truth is, has, and will always be relevant. As, Dr. Frank Thomas mentioned during a plenary session of the Voice of Prophet preaching conference, “for truth to be relevant it has to be dealing with the real deep pervasive issues in people’s lives and of our times, truth has to push deeper into the basic questions of life, that’s how truth is relevant and the church relevant with preaching that accomplishes this.” One problem is that relevance has been misconstrued as an end rather than a means. If relevance is an end, then the result is weak and watered down messages that conform to culture rather than being counter cultural. Relevance as a means is simply that it is like a vehicle to take truth to where people live; it simply means understanding the life situations and contexts where people are and speaking truth to them. An example of the timely relevance of Bishop Blake’s message was that he referred to UCSB mass killer Elliot Rodgers in saying that he didn’t “deserve” sex just because he felt entitled to it.

Lastly, Bishop Blake scripturally dealt with the sin of sexual immorality as an ethical and moral issue; he did not invoke any non-biblical explanations for sexual immorality. In his text he pointed out that the woman caught in adultery whom Jesus forgave and did not condemn, was told to go and sin no more. The point here is that Jesus placed and ethical imperative upon her life to live in grace. The imperative was “go” and “sin no more”. The literal translation from the Greek renders Jesus’ words as “go and from now no longer sin.” It was now up to the woman from that point on to live a sexually moral and ethical life. Today, people who have problems with disengaging themselves from fornication, illicit affairs, pornography, “shaking up”, and down low creepin, for example, are said to have a “soul tie” problem. Their souls are “tied” together and become intertwined with one another to the point that they just can’t stop their sexually immoral behavior. This heretical fringe teaching has been used to explain the inability, or unwillingness to repent of sexual sins, mostly among hyper spiritual Charismatics who claim ministries of spiritual warfare and deliverance that are grounded more in Gnosticism rather than Biblical knowledge. The problems with this teaching are manifold, but the two primary ones are the following: it presents sin as a metaphysical problem rather than an ethical one, for example, it presents sin as a problem only of soul and spirit rather than a rebellion against the revealed knowledge of right and wrong. Remember, Adam and Eve’s alienation from God was not because of a deficient spiritual nature or defect, they were made perfect; their problem was ethical in that they disobeyed the commands that were made plain to them to know God’s provision and restriction of trees in the garden. Secondly, and succinctly, the soul tie teaching is non-Biblical because it’s a form of spiritual pantheism. The Bible is clear on maintaining sexual morality, it is a matter of doing the right thing based on principle; for example, Joseph ran from Potiphar’s wife’s grip on him to fornicate and Paul tells the Corinthians to flee sexual immorality. Finally, on a homilectical note, preaching-wise, Bishop Blake started off his message discussing the regrettable realities, the sorrowful consequences, and the lamentable logical conclusions of sex outside of the covenant relationship of marriage. However, when the message concluded, he didn’t leave us with a simple description of the problem, but imparted to the audience a prescription of hope and affirmation that living holy and sexually pure is very possible with the power of Holy Spirit for all. This message from our presiding Bishop speaking penetrating truth to a prevalent issue of the times has imparted a new degree of relevance for the Grand ‘ol Church of God in Christ and the church at large.

TWB

The Abortion of Emily Letts: The Exaltation of Human Autonomy, Moral Relativism and its Moral contradictions

The filmed abortion of Emily Letts was made to show that abortion is a “cool” harmless procedure in which there is nothing to fear or feel guilty about, and that the termination of a pregnancy is just a simply routine procedure without consequence. The issue of abortion has always had clear moral lines of demarcation ever since it was made legal 41 years ago in the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade. The issue of abortion is a main battle front in the culture war with both opposing sides of pro-life and pro choice trading volleys in what seems to be tantamount to the intractability of WWI trench warfare. The pro-choice camp’s battle standard is women’s/reproductive rights and the pro-life’s banner is the protection of life for the unborn child. The positions of both sides do have more depth, but I make these generalizations for the purpose of providing overview. The questions for both pro-choice advocates and pro-lifers are the following: what ultimately defines human life and personhood? Does life begin at conception or does life begin when an infant cranium passes out of the birth canal followed by the rest of its body attached to its umbilical cord? Or, is there a difference between a fetus and newborn? How any of these questions are addressed carries inevitable moral implications regardless of being pro-choice or pro-life. The filmed abortion of Emily Letts is about really human autonomy, moral relativism, and the moral contradictions that flow from it.

The source of the Emily Letts abortion controversy is a 3 min You Tube video in which she states that she is a patient advocate for a Cherry Hill NJ Women’s clinic and she comes up pregnant herself and has to make a choice about what course of action to take. She states prior to the abortion clinic scene that “she just wants to share her story to show a positive abortion story.” She goes on to say that she’s “lucky” because she has support and “feels” comfortable with her decision. So, she makes the autonomous decision to casually terminate her pregnancy based on how she “felt.” It is out of her emotions that she decides upon the life inside her and becomes her own subjective authority concerning the issue life thus objectifying that which would become a living viable person in nine months given a healthy pregnancy. In our culture Individual autonomy is typically exalted over and above social and corporate concerns for others. This individual autonomy radically emphasizes personal freedom, and the ability of the individual to live according to their own rules without any external or objective reference points for ethics or morality.  The starting point for it all with Ms. Letts was her sexual behavior morally rooted in hedonism. She states in her interview with the online version of Cosmopolitan magazine “I didn’t have any long-term partners. I thought I was OK. But, you know, things happen. I wound up pregnant." Yes, Ms. Letts, your right, things happen; things that could’ve been prevented, like pregnancy which will interfere with your personal happiness and pleasure, so now you exercise your “choice” that makes you the decision maker of life and death based upon yourself as the sole autonomous authority.

In the tail end of the video, which was a month and half after her procedure, she goes on to explain, or rather to rationalize, the consequence of guilt that logically flows from the hard inescapable moral realities of having an abortion. She said that she talks to women all the time and states “of course everyone’s going to feel bad about this, of course everyone’s going to feel guilty as if…, it’s a given how people should feel about this that what they’re doing is wrong. I don’t feel like a bad person; I don’t feel sad; I feel in awe of the fact that I can make a baby; I can make a life, [and] I knew what I was going to do was right because it was right for me.” Ms. Lett’s response exemplifies the moral relativism of our times in which the determining of right and wrong ultimately rests with the individual as their own moral law maker and personal code of life creator that denies transcendent objective moral truths.

An analysis of the above reveals the inconsistencies of moral relativism. She states that “it’s a given that people should feel guilty about this that what they’re doing is wrong”, she acknowledges that abortion is wrong which is what produces the feelings of guilt. But, if abortion is wrong then by what criteria is abortion wrong? I would have to reason that the women she counsels about the “given” feelings of guilt afterwards arises out of the fact they made the decision to abort only after struggling with some external objective moral criteria i.e. the Bible, faith tradition, the value of human life, that affirms and explicitly states that to take any life is morally wrong, and lastly, that they were inwardly convinced and believed that such was true. This is the reason for the guilt and shame. Ms. Letts relativized her personal outcome with her statement of “I knew what I was going to do was right because it was right for me.” The question is on what basis was it right for her? And if it was right for her, then why go through the trouble film her abortion to convince others that they shouldn’t feel guilty?

The moral contradiction of Emily’s view of her abortion is baffling. What is baffling is that she states “I feel in awe of the fact that I can make a baby; I can make a life”, but yet aborts it. She feels in awe that she can make a baby and a life, but terminates it. However, what is stranger is that she states that her abortion is like giving birth. How could a process that is death dealing be described as life giving? This is the absurdity that flows out of her line of reasoning. This absurdity is rooted in the fact that we are in a time where meaning can be subjectively attributed to something regardless of what the object or entity really is. For example, the notion that just simply renaming something changes the essence of what it really is. I can call my dog a cat, refer to it in feline terms, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a dog and will remain as such because of its nature, and won’t change because of new label. This is what happens when up is called down, down up, right wrong, wrong right. Sadly, there are many of those who live their lives within these systemic contradictions, moral, and ethical incongruities every day, but expect coherence from everybody else and the world in which they live. The heart of Ms. Emily’s morally incoherent statement of being in awe of making baby and making a life and then deciding to terminate that life is an issue of sovereignty. Sovereignty is an inescapable part of reality. We’ll either be subject to a higher power that is the source of objective morality and ethics, or rebel against it. In rebelling against it, that sovereignty is assumed by us to become Gods unto ourselves to decide right and wrong, good and evil, and ultimately life and death. Ms. Emily’s “awe” of her life creating ability was really the worship of her own ‘divinization’ as a goddess with the power to create and to destroy.

Lastly, Ms. Emily’s abortion experience in an upper middle class locale like Cherry Hill, NJ is vastly different from the experiences that women of color and poor women would more than likely experience. Her abortion was in what appeared to be a nice, neat, well lit sterile room with an amicable doctor and staff tending to her procedure. However what would Ms. Lett’s video say to the survivors of Kermit Gosnell who were in most cases young, poor, minority and immigrant women who didn’t have the means to terminate their pregnancies in a place like the Cherry Hill Women’s Clinic? What would she say to Robyn Reid, Nicole Gaither, and the family of Karnamay Monger who live with the horror of surviving the hands Gosnell whose clinic basically had the same sanitary conditions as a slaughter house, and a staff that could’ve been considered minions of death for their assistance with his horrific actions? What would she say to those women who were dangerously overdosed with drugs, VD infected due to unsterilized instruments, and had fetal remains left inside of them that could’ve ended their lives? Yes, Dr. Gosnell was convicted of killing live aborted full term babies; however, abortion’s denial of full personhood and the intrinsic value of life to the most vulnerable among us, really amount to him being convicted of not having a nice, neat, tidy clinic like the Cherry Hill Women’s center. Ms. Lett’s public display of her abortion was not about making abortion look not so bad and dispelling bad perceptions. It was really about her looking to expiate her own guilt and the guilt of her clients for their choice. As long as guilt is an issue with her clients, then so is the question of what they’ve done being ultimately wrong. If it is wrong, then that presupposes a moral law; a moral law ultimately presupposes a moral law giver. This is the inescapable reality of humanity being the contingent creatures of a sovereign creator who’s also the source of objective morality. The only way to deny this is to assume an autonomous self sovereignty from which one creates their moral law that is ultimately relative, and presents a life of systemic moral and ethical inconsistencies.

TWB

video URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn-GL0ZD1Tg

Avoid Spiritualizing the Texts

Whenever preachers and teachers of the gospel go forth in proclaiming the Word of God, the objective is always say what God has spoken. This involves interpreting the Biblical text so that what was revealed to its 40 authors over approximately a 1500 year period speaks faithfully to audiences and hearers today far removed the original social, historical, political, and religious contexts as it did to those long ago. In short, the continual hermeneutical (process of interpretation) challenge is to connect the Biblical author's theological intent and message to a modern, or rather post-modern audience of today. This connection is meaningful if the preacher/teacher of the word "exegetes" or leads out of the text a few key concepts: where is God in the text, what is God doing in the text/story and what is shared, or held in common between the human situation of the Biblical characters in the text and the modern listening audience and reader. This is what makes for real and relevant preaching/teaching as opposed to spiritualizing the Biblical text.

What is meant by spiritualizing the text? Spiritualizing the text is a shoddy short cut to application that "reads into the text" or eisegetes something that would not have been led out by a careful examination of the grammatical, historical, cultural situation, and setting of the Biblical text or passage. A common example is artificially attaching a modern day situation or problem to a Biblical situation. Let’s take a well know biblical character like King David as an example. It's pretty common knowledge that David's greatest exploit was slaying the giant Goliath. The basic narrative of the story is that Goliath, the Philistine’s champion warrior has been taunting Israel for some time and no one from King Saul's army is willing to face Goliath. David, a shepherd, is sent by Jesse his father to check on his brothers and bring back a report as to how they are doing. When David arrives at the camp he hears about the situation and it comes to Saul's attention, he accepts Saul's offer to challenge Goliath. David goes against Goliath with just a sling and a stone killing him in spite of the fact that the giant Goliath has advanced weaponry and protection for the age. David is the new national hero of Israel. Now, in "spiritualizing" this text, Goliath becomes a metaphor for whatever struggle, sin, or shortcoming that someone has faced, but eventually conquers and David personifies whoever has slain a "giant" of anger, internet porn, depression, smoking, drugs, or whatever.

A sermon or message snippet on the above would sound something like this, "In facing Goliath, David faced a giant in his life. What are some of the giants in your life? Is it anger, smoking, relationships, or maybe your giant is internet porn...." Now, it is clear that this was not what the narrative of David and Goliath is about. The listed issues that are representative of Goliath have been clearly "read in" to the narrative and not led or exegeted out. They've been "read in" to make the text applicable in child like Sunday school manner, but fail to bring out the theology of text which focuses on what God is doing in relation to David and Israel. In doing a basic exegesis of the text, one would observe that the nation of Israel is facing a real and existential threat from its enemy the Philistines, the Army is at an impasse as to what to do in the face of the challenge of being fearful and being taunted by Goliath. The Philistines are a much stronger Army than the rag tag Israel Army, and if they accept the challenge of Goliath, and lose, they will be in bondage to their enemy. What is at stake is the salvation of Israel and their inability to overcome their oppressors; the theological theme here is salvation or deliverance from enemies, and physical danger. 

 In asking the basic interpretive question of "How does God allow salvation to come to Israel in this situation?", one sees how God used David for deliverance in spite of the odds of the differences of weaponry, armor, and qualifications: David a shepherd with no prior military experience and Goliath a trained battle hardened combat vet. Another basic interpretive question "What is God doing in the text?" draws out of the text that God will deliver if there's a dependence upon Him to fight our battles. Notice that these two basic exegetical interpretive questions focus on what God is doing as opposed to "spiritualizing" which points to an anthropocentric (man-centered) individualistic focus that is common today.

The question of proper application of what hopefully has been prayerfully exegeted out of the text using good hermeneutics, deals with connecting this to the current situation in life and the times we live in now. One of the ways to properly handle application without “spiritualizing” is to ask, for example, what is common with David and the situation he faced and the present day reader of the text? Common to the David and Goliath narrative and a modern day reader would be facing a real and physical threat of danger which seems insurmountable if viewed through our own abilities, but when viewed through the lens of God ability to deliver we can be victorious when God fights our battles as we face the opposition. Now notice how easily God’s historical salvific event of David delivering Israel in slaying Goliath is connected to our situation without “spiritualizing” the present day listener or reader as the hero David, and artificially tacking on modern sin and discrepancies to Goliath that aren’t there to begin with. The reason for this is that the emphasis is on what God is doing in the text. If what God is doing in the text is lifted up and exalted, then the authority of the text, teaching, or sermon carries a greater weight because a declarative proposition is put forth about God as opposed to a self-centered, self help message devoid of how the power of God makes a difference instead of “personal steps” to improvement.

Avoiding “spiritualization of the text” means that the historical reality of the biblical narrative must be taken seriously. This means the “stories” of the bible must be understood as how the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob broke into human history to affect His salvific redemption mission to a fallen world, and how he has, and is continuing to bring human history to its conclusion. In short, this means understanding, preaching, and teaching the Biblical narrative as a worldview or view of reality. In my next post I'll discuss our next “spiritualized” biblical figure Joseph of the book of Genesis.

TWB