Jettisoning Scriptural Authority for Contemporary Sensibilities
The Executive leadership team of Vineyard USA early on summarizes a lynch pin of their argument against any type of third way by contending that Ken Wilson arrived at his conclusions in A Letter to My Congregation because: “In place of the authority of Scripture, Ken has reconstructed Christian sexual ethics to accommodate contemporary sensibilities.” [i] There is an insistent tone throughout the paper that the only way to arrive at a third way is to jettison Biblical authority.[ii] According to the Executive Team jettisoning Biblical authority is in fact what anyone who is for a third way must have done, and this charge is repeated and hammered home in a variety of ways.[iii]
The way the Executive team has formulated their argument maybe a textbook example of begging of the question. The Executive team formulates their argument of jettisoning Biblical authority to give more weight to contemporary culture in this way:
1. There is one and only one faithful Biblical position on the question of Pastoring LGBT persons and that is that they can’t marry.
2. To arrive at a “third way” one must have given more weight to contemporary sensibilities.
3. There are people in the Vineyard who are for a third way, not the one and only faithful Biblical way of Pastoring LGBT Persons.
4. Therefore, these people have given more weight to current sensibilities than Biblical Authority.
The Analogy of Divorce
Executive team piles on regarding Ken Wilson's and those sympathetic to his views Biblical unfaithfulness. The executive team for a moment (a very brief moment), acknowledges that there is something to Ken Wilson's analogy of divorce in A Letter to My Congregation. But, ultimately the Executive Team summarizes Ken’s analogy regarding divorce this way: “Ken’s argument is: ‘We've been willing to be unfaithful to biblical teaching regarding divorced people so why don't we bend the rules on gays?’This is like saying: “The American church has had a racist past. The
only logical response to our racism would be to add anti-Semitism to our catalogue of sins for
consistency's sake.”” Truly I tell you, this is verbatim how the Executive Team summarizes Ken's questions about divorce on page 37 of Pastoring LGBT Persons. The Executive Team acts as if (or maybe actually believes) this is Ken’s actual argument – which it obviously and emphatically is not. But, framing Ken's analogy in this way furthers the Executive Team's narrative of Biblical unfaithfulness. Ken’s point is obviously that a different hermeneutic (interpretation process) seems to be at play regarding divorce and remarriage, than the one being applied to pastoring people within the LGBT community.[iv] Even a cursory reading of Ken’s book would make this clear, but the Executive Team seems bent on pinning on anyone sympathetic to a third way the charge of not being faithful to the Bible and caving to culture.
Naivete about the workings of tribal culture
The Executive Team appeals to some odd arguments to pin the charge of Biblical unfaithfulness on anyone in the Vineyard proposing a third way (see above and their summary of Ken’s divorce argument). But, in furthering the narrative of jettisoning Biblical authority to “accommodate contemporary sensibilities,”perhaps the greatest flaw in a flawed argument is how the Executive team either ignores, or displays a significant degree of naivete about how culture(s) and tribes actually work.
The Vineyard has often described itself as a tribe, and tribes have powerful cultures. Tribes often have a significantly more powerful cultural effect on their members than the “contemporary sensibilities” out there. At a minimum I can say as former local Vineyard pastor there was no great pay-off within the Vineyard tribe of articulating disagreement with the Vineyard “foul lines,” – mind you, not playing outside of them, but merely disagreeing with them. For the people I know there has been no great pay off from the culture “out there” but there has been significant social loss which has included for each of us the loss of the Vineyard tribe.[v]
The executive team seems to imagine people (particularly pastors) closing their Bibles, holding up their finger to find out where the winds of "cultural sensibilities" were blowing and then simply setting the sails of their churches to run with the winds of culture. This narrative that the Executive Team puts forward basically ignores the on the ground pastoral experience that Ken describes in A Letter to my Congregation - the actual experience of knowing actual people and seeing the work of the Holy Spirit. The Executive Team out of hand dismisses any narrative that would say: we met actual people; we saw the the wind of the Spirit; we reread and reread our Scriptures; and we prayed and prayed; and we repeated. The only wind blowing in the mind of the executive team was the shifting wind of culture. It is understandable that the Executive Team would want to formulate an argument in this manner, because it does seem heroic to stand firm for Biblical faithfulness against the shifting winds of culture. However, I am not convinced this is how cultural pressure actually works.
I am convinced that there were many cultural factors at play as Pastoring LGBT Persons was written, but I am not convinced that the primary (or only) factor was the “contemporary sensibilities” out there. Instead think it might be fair to posit that a significant part of the cultural pressure was tribal pressure from within the Vineyard tribe, to deal with Ken Wilson and anyone sympathetic to his views. I have been told twice by a member of the Executive Team that before and as the Pastoring LGBT Persons was being written there were hundred(s) of churches threatening to withdraw if Ken and his views were not dealt with. Let me repeat that: there were hundreds of churches threatening withdrawal from the Vineyard. [vi] My Regional Leader told me that the feeling in the National Leadership was that maybe between 5-10 churches might be lost or disaffiliated after the paper. If one wanted to talk about cultural pressures it is perhaps not impossible to imagine the calculus involved in weighing 8-10 churches against hundred(s). The assertion that a third way simply gives more weight to contemporary sensibilities looks particularly odd when juxtaposed against the reality at the time in the Vineyard, and in the light of how cultural pressure actually works.
I am convinced that there were many cultural factors at play as Pastoring LGBT Persons was written, but I am not convinced that the primary (or only) factor was the “contemporary sensibilities” out there. Instead think it might be fair to posit that a significant part of the cultural pressure was tribal pressure from within the Vineyard tribe, to deal with Ken Wilson and anyone sympathetic to his views. I have been told twice by a member of the Executive Team that before and as the Pastoring LGBT Persons was being written there were hundred(s) of churches threatening to withdraw if Ken and his views were not dealt with. Let me repeat that: there were hundreds of churches threatening withdrawal from the Vineyard. [vi] My Regional Leader told me that the feeling in the National Leadership was that maybe between 5-10 churches might be lost or disaffiliated after the paper. If one wanted to talk about cultural pressures it is perhaps not impossible to imagine the calculus involved in weighing 8-10 churches against hundred(s). The assertion that a third way simply gives more weight to contemporary sensibilities looks particularly odd when juxtaposed against the reality at the time in the Vineyard, and in the light of how cultural pressure actually works.
In sum, I find less than satisfying and less than solid, the argument that a third way is only arrived at by jettisoning the Bible for cultural approval. The charge: 1.Begs the question as it begins with only one acceptable Biblical outcome. 2. Posits bad faith on the part of anyone reaching a different conclusion. 3. Ignores on the ground pastoral experience. 4. Is naive about the actual workins cultural pressure.
But this argument is not the only argument that the Executive team marshals, so next I will turn to one that may have been a surprise to any number of people – that people reach a third way by route of that ancient heresy, Gnosticism.
[i] Pastoring LGBT Persons. P. 9
[ii] Let me take a moment to clarify the Executive Team’s position – there is actually no third way – it is only a rhetorical device – Ken’s third way is really the “open and affirming” wolf dressed in the sheep’s clothes of third way.
[iii] “Capitulation to the moral, religious and spiritual sensibilities of the culture has always been a grave temptation for the church.” P. 12 Continuing the theme of capitulation - that Ken and those sympathetic to Ken are in the view of the executive team guilty of. On a related note there is this rhetorical question: “But this does not explain the way certain very obvious intertextual connections are ignored by affirmative scholars. Is this not also an evasion tactic to avoid the biblical position?” p. 23. “One cannot read Ken Wilson’s paper without hearing either intentional or unintentional echoes of liberal Protestantism’s method of beginning with human experience, rather than Scripture and tradition. His book starts with his experience of people in his church and then adjusts the meaning of Scripture from any consensus understanding to his own highly eccentric reading of Romans 14. It’s as if Ken has predetermined what Scripture must say to fit his limited experience, rather than allowing Scripture and the universal church’s historic interpretation of Scripture to determine his beliefs.” p. 44. Also these rhetorical questions: “The obvious question arises: are the affirming arguments really derived from a careful exegesis of Romans 1, or are they merely an indication that Paul’s statements are entirely at odds with current liberal sensibilities regarding sex? Again, for those who are committed to an affirming position, would it not be better to transparently disagree with Paul and admit that one has decided to elevate contemporary values over biblical norms, than to attempt a revisionist reading of Paul? And one final example a comparison between Peter Fitch and Ken Wilson and pagan writers of the Greco-Roman world: “For all these reasons, it is simply not credible to read the stipulations in Leviticus 17-18 without reference to the creation narrative, the clash of two different views of deity and the rule of Yahweh in the covenant relationship. All of these are inextricably connected through obvious intertextual links. The clash of these two worldviews continues in the contrast between the New Testament writers and the Greco-Roman world, and continues today in the clash between the church’s traditional perspective regarding homosexuality and the entirely new affirming position taken by, among others, Ken Wilson and Peter Fitch.” p. 26-27 Yikes! Ken and Peter are aligning with the equivalent of Greco-Roman pagan writers?! That seems bad. I guess the implication is I should disagree with Ken and Peter. This theme of caving to culture has also been expressed in other settings. At the Great Lakes North Regional conference of 2014 Phil Strout the National Director of the Vineyard speaking about questions around pastoring people in the LGBT warned pastors against the dangers of becoming the contemporary culture’s “lapdog.” (My AP’s notes from the gathering). Fair enough warning, but I have not heard anyone from a third-way perspective asking “How can we be culture’s lapdog?” Warning a tribe about the dangers “out there,” is fair, but from my perspective the warning carries little actual risk within the tribe. It is, if you will, red meat for the tribe and fuels tribal imagination of the godless culture out there beyond the pale.
[iv] The paper goes to lengths explaining the nuances of divorce and remarriage while simultaneously citing various scholars and chiding Ken for being unaware of the scholarship. It strikes me that the executive team has employed some hermeneutic other than the main and the plain (and to be clear I think this appropriate – and well Biblical- for example I think maybe Paul is engaging in something other than the main and the plain in his reading of Hagar). I do not think it would be fair to accuse the executive team of giving more weight to “contemporary sensibilities” than Biblical authority regarding divorce. I do think it is fair to ask: Why does the hermeneutic and pastoral approach on divorce and remarriage feel strikingly different to the hermeneutic and pastoral approach applied when it comes to pastoring people within the LGBT community?
[v] The World Vision debacle of April 2014 is perhaps the best illustration of the principle that culture is primarily tribal. Within 3 days of the decision to merely employ followers of Jesus (these would be people who in good conscience confess the Apostles Creed) in covenanted same-sex relations, 17,000 donors had withdrawn their pledges made to children around the globe. World Vision reversed its decision after three days. In short, there was only a negative payoff within the broader evangelical tribe of the initial World Vision move – and if there was a decisive pressure in the ultimate decision it seems to have been from within the tribe, not “contemporary sensibilities” out there.
[vi] Two direct conversations with a member of the Executive Team.
[i] Pastoring LGBT Persons. P. 9
[ii] Let me take a moment to clarify the Executive Team’s position – there is actually no third way – it is only a rhetorical device – Ken’s third way is really the “open and affirming” wolf dressed in the sheep’s clothes of third way.
[iii] “Capitulation to the moral, religious and spiritual sensibilities of the culture has always been a grave temptation for the church.” P. 12 Continuing the theme of capitulation - that Ken and those sympathetic to Ken are in the view of the executive team guilty of. On a related note there is this rhetorical question: “But this does not explain the way certain very obvious intertextual connections are ignored by affirmative scholars. Is this not also an evasion tactic to avoid the biblical position?” p. 23. “One cannot read Ken Wilson’s paper without hearing either intentional or unintentional echoes of liberal Protestantism’s method of beginning with human experience, rather than Scripture and tradition. His book starts with his experience of people in his church and then adjusts the meaning of Scripture from any consensus understanding to his own highly eccentric reading of Romans 14. It’s as if Ken has predetermined what Scripture must say to fit his limited experience, rather than allowing Scripture and the universal church’s historic interpretation of Scripture to determine his beliefs.” p. 44. Also these rhetorical questions: “The obvious question arises: are the affirming arguments really derived from a careful exegesis of Romans 1, or are they merely an indication that Paul’s statements are entirely at odds with current liberal sensibilities regarding sex? Again, for those who are committed to an affirming position, would it not be better to transparently disagree with Paul and admit that one has decided to elevate contemporary values over biblical norms, than to attempt a revisionist reading of Paul? And one final example a comparison between Peter Fitch and Ken Wilson and pagan writers of the Greco-Roman world: “For all these reasons, it is simply not credible to read the stipulations in Leviticus 17-18 without reference to the creation narrative, the clash of two different views of deity and the rule of Yahweh in the covenant relationship. All of these are inextricably connected through obvious intertextual links. The clash of these two worldviews continues in the contrast between the New Testament writers and the Greco-Roman world, and continues today in the clash between the church’s traditional perspective regarding homosexuality and the entirely new affirming position taken by, among others, Ken Wilson and Peter Fitch.” p. 26-27 Yikes! Ken and Peter are aligning with the equivalent of Greco-Roman pagan writers?! That seems bad. I guess the implication is I should disagree with Ken and Peter. This theme of caving to culture has also been expressed in other settings. At the Great Lakes North Regional conference of 2014 Phil Strout the National Director of the Vineyard speaking about questions around pastoring people in the LGBT warned pastors against the dangers of becoming the contemporary culture’s “lapdog.” (My AP’s notes from the gathering). Fair enough warning, but I have not heard anyone from a third-way perspective asking “How can we be culture’s lapdog?” Warning a tribe about the dangers “out there,” is fair, but from my perspective the warning carries little actual risk within the tribe. It is, if you will, red meat for the tribe and fuels tribal imagination of the godless culture out there beyond the pale.
[iv] The paper goes to lengths explaining the nuances of divorce and remarriage while simultaneously citing various scholars and chiding Ken for being unaware of the scholarship. It strikes me that the executive team has employed some hermeneutic other than the main and the plain (and to be clear I think this appropriate – and well Biblical- for example I think maybe Paul is engaging in something other than the main and the plain in his reading of Hagar). I do not think it would be fair to accuse the executive team of giving more weight to “contemporary sensibilities” than Biblical authority regarding divorce. I do think it is fair to ask: Why does the hermeneutic and pastoral approach on divorce and remarriage feel strikingly different to the hermeneutic and pastoral approach applied when it comes to pastoring people within the LGBT community?
[v] The World Vision debacle of April 2014 is perhaps the best illustration of the principle that culture is primarily tribal. Within 3 days of the decision to merely employ followers of Jesus (these would be people who in good conscience confess the Apostles Creed) in covenanted same-sex relations, 17,000 donors had withdrawn their pledges made to children around the globe. World Vision reversed its decision after three days. In short, there was only a negative payoff within the broader evangelical tribe of the initial World Vision move – and if there was a decisive pressure in the ultimate decision it seems to have been from within the tribe, not “contemporary sensibilities” out there.
[vi] Two direct conversations with a member of the Executive Team.
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