Theology for the Masses

I’m a member of a local community of Christians who reject eschatologies that posit a rapture, an antichrist, all that jazz.  We read the Apocalypse of John along with other ancient Christian, Jewish, and Roman apocalypses and find that it points to a veiled (read: symbolic) critique of the Roman empire and about the Christian’s place in that context. [1]

We see one full and final 2nd coming of Jesus, no half-coming where the good are raptured.   [2]

We perceive ourselves as a minority in the larger local church, Columbia, Missouri, and Midwestern Christian Communities.  Also, many of us personally used to buy into a rapture view, myself included. 

I bring all of this background information up because I see a disturbing trend in my community and I am not sure how exactly to constructively confront it.  We have a tendency to belittle Christians who stand within a raptural pale with a disturbing frequency.  And our group disdain is not limited to those that differ from us in terms of eschatology.  Among others, we belittle those who think violence can be justified, those who think that the republicans are a good voting option, and those that hold the myths in the Old Testament as literal history. 

We are not merely stating our disagreement.  With our internal rhetoric, we bemoan their ignorance, laugh at their theologies, and demean and ridicule behind their backs. [3] You see, we consider ourselves holders of the secret flame, as wise women in the midst of fools.  That is how we carry ourselves.  And that is wrong of us to do.

I am sure some of this comes from coping methods.  Some of us feel as though we have awoken from a lie (or series of lies) and we therefore project our feelings of past foolishness onto those similar to our past selves.  Additionally, since we perceive ourselves as a minority, our actions function as defense mechanisms. However, this is not a good way to deal with either our past theologies nor our perceived minority position.

What we need is a helpful and constructive way to engage these Christian others. Now, I agree completely that our interpretations are better interpretations. [4]   What we need to avoid is criticizing the people instead of their viewpoints. Also, we need to remember that these viewpoints help create and maintain our sisters’ and brothers’ identity. When we flippantly disregard their viewpoints, we are flippantly disregarding their identity.

What we need to do is to engage and dialogue with the Christian other instead of demonizing them. They have good reasons for thinking what they think, whether it be past experiences or past interpretive histories, etcetera.

I don’t know how to do that effectively nor how to help my community to do the same. Any suggestions? [5]

1. See the following:

   · Borgen, Peder. “Moses, Jesus, and the Roman Emperor Observations in Philo’s Writings and the Revelation of John.” Novum Testamentum 38, no. 2 (April 1996): 145-159.

   · Callahan, Allen Dwight. “The Language of Apocalypse.” The Harvard Theological Review 88, no. 4 (October 1995): 453-470.

   · Clemen, Lic. Carl. “The Jewish Apocalypses.” The Biblical World 34, no. 1 (July 1909): 33-44.

   · Frankfurter, David. “Apocalypses Real and Alleged in the Mani Codex.” Numen 44, no. 1 (January 1997): 60-73.

   · Maier, Harry O. “Staging the Gaze: Early Christian Apocalypses and Narrative Self-Representation.” The Harvard Theological Review 90, no. 2 (April 1997): 131-154.

   · Porter, Frank C. “The Place of Apocalyptical Conceptions in the Thought of Paul.” Journal of Biblical Literature 41, no. 1/2 (1922): 183-204.

   · Shodde, George H. “The Jewish Apocalypses.” The Biblical World 6, no. 2 (August 1895): 97-104.

   · Smith, Marian W. “The Apocalypse of John.” College Art Journal 9, no. 3 (Spring 1950): 295-307.

   · Votaw, Clyde Weber. “The Apocalypse of John: I. Jewish Apocalyptic Literature.” The Biblical World 31, no. 1 (January 1908): 32-40. [↩]

2. For instance, we explain two classical rapture passages, 1Thess 4:15-17 and Matthew 24:32-44, as follows. 

   · 1Thess: When a king would come into one of his cities in ancient times, he would ride up and stop just outside.  Then the leaders of the city would come out to greet him and then they would all go into the city together.  The King was always escorted into a city.  This is the imagery the readers would have recognized and we should pattern our interpretation of the text after. 

   · Matthew:  Notice a) the reference to the Flood and b) who is taken and who is left.  Who was taken away in the flood of Noah?  The unfaithful.  If it is to be the same as then, then those left behind when the son of man returns will be the righteous instead of them being raptured away!  This also fits well with Jesus’ imagery of the weeds being thrown into the fire and the wheat being left. [↩]

3. I am not just pointing the finger at everyone else in my community.  I am sometimes an active participant in this. [↩]
4. or I would hold other ones [↩]
5. If you are a part of my community, let me know if you think I am being fair here or not. This is how I perceive things currently. I am not trying to attack any one person. I just want us to grow ourselves and the Kingdom of God. [↩]

A few Mondays ago we completed our analysis of the two major story arcs in the Acts of Thecla.  Today we’ll take some time to recap the two previous posts.

The first arc of the Acts of Thecla serves to introduce Paul and Thecla and to begin the critique of the opponents of the writer’s community. The ideals of the state, of the family, and of Paul himself are being questioned. The second arc repeats this process and intensifies it, demonstrating the victory of Thecla and what she represents. The interesting thing here is what the Acts of Thecla does with gender roles of the day. Interpreters have often said that Thecla moves into maleness to overcome her opponents, thereby subverting the male under the female. [1]   In reality, something much more subtle is occurring than a mere gender critique.

Acts of Thecla is not equating the feminine with the masculine, nor lifting the one above the other. Instead, the Acts of Thecla is critiquing the very notion of gender itself! Notice that Thecla attacks male dominated society at almost every turn, but also uses the category of feminity to critique Paul. [2]   Paul increasingly become feminized and his feminine passivity is being critiqued! 

By doing so, the Acts of Thecla argues that neither construction of gender categories is adequate. Friday we will conclude this post series on the Thecla tradition by traveling farther back in time and look at what created the ideological hole that Thecla was trying to fill.

1. Ibid., 271. [↩]
2. Ibid., 272. [↩]

Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural (παρα φύσιν), and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. Romans 1:26-27

Perhaps no two verses have played a larger role in modern Christian discourse over sex and (homo)sexuality than Romans 1:26-27. Certainly, with the recent events in California, many are certainly turning to these verses for support of their angered positions…while others read them with disdain. I come to them now asking what role these verses really should play in our modern Christian constructions of what constitutes “proper” sex and sexuality (according to nature?). To begin, I’ll take a peak into the world of Paul…to see what (homo)sex(uality) meant for his contemporaries…to see how Paul’s words would work within antiquity’s discourse over such things. As it turns out, sex(uality) in antiquity was a performance that reflected and reinforced social hierarchy, which has startling (potential) ramifications for our reading of Romans 1:26-27.

To begin, many studies have shown that Greco-Roman conceptions of sex(uality) are quite different from our own. As Stephen Moore states, “the ‘logics of sexuality’ that underpin Romans 1.26-27, on the one hand, and the modern logics or sexuality, on the other, are so drastically different as to preclude any paraphrase of this passage that would attempt to assimilate it to the modern concept of homosexuality.” [1]

Greco-Roman notions of sex(uality) did not run strictly along the male/female dichotomy as many see it today.** While such a divide was strong, when it came to sex(uality), that line was quite permeable. Much more defined is the division between “active” and “passive,” between “hard” and “soft,” between “penetrator” and “penetrated,” and most importantly: between “superior” and “inferior.” While men were always the proper actors of the former categories…not all men could perform those roles. Those of the former categories are “honored,” while those of the latter categories are “shamed.” Here is where “sex” and “gender” become very different things in antiquity, and here is where we see their stark difference from modern times.

In antiquity, not all males were men: youths, slaves, eunuchs, and “sexually passive” males were something else. The highest status one could have was that of a free adult male (esp. rulers, magistrates, heads of elite households, patrons, etc.), everything/one else was considered “unmen” or at least “not fully men,” something less (women, youths, slaves, ‘effeminate’ males, eunuchs, ‘barbarians,’ etc.).

These lines of demarcation brought forth notions of “proper” behavior…behavior that was “according to nature.” While ancient writers often made appeals to “nature” for proper sexual behavior…they were really appealing to the reinforcement of their society’s hierarchical structures. Case in Point: Dio Chrysostom (2^nd c. CE) castigates “the man who is never satiated,” who through repeated sexual indulgences ultimately seduces young men of good families who are destined to hold public office. Dio deems this most offensive deed as “against nature” (Greek: παρα φύσιν) (Oration 7.151). For Dio, this crime “against nature,” is actually the treating of the city’s future leaders as if they were common slaves. It is a crime against class, against social hierarchy, for the young man is dishonored. He is dishonored not because he is damaged goods for his future marriage, but for his future standing in society. The crime here is treating upcoming “men” as “unmen,” making those who should be “active” actors into “passive” actors. Such deeds damage the integrity of the Greco-Roman social hierarchy, and are thus deemed “unnatural.”

Furthering these notions is the Oneirokritika of Artemidoros of Daldis (2^nd c. CE), an itinerant dream analyst who interacted with much more “common” people. It reflects relatively general understandings accepted by the public (free males that is) at large, and is called by some “a kind of ancient Kinsey report.”

The Oneirokritika separates sexual acts into different categories, most important of which are those that are “according to nature” (κατα φύσιν) and those “against nature” (παρα φύσιν). Intercourse “according to nature” is sex with a social inferior, which includes women, prostitutes, and slaves. The prostitutes and slaves can be male so long as they are the passive partner, for “to be penetrated by one’s house slave is not good” (1.78). This is not because of the sexual act itself, or even because of the slave’s maleness…the problem is that a social inferior is represented as a sexual superior.

Intercourse “against nature” in the Oneirokritika encompasses many activities, including (but not limited to) the penetration of a woman by another woman, bestiality, and necrophilia. Since sodomy of prostitutes/slaves/boys was ok, the dividing line of “according to/against nature” certainly is not reproductive potential. Rather, unnatural acts either do not reproduce social hierarchy or run counter to it. Bestiality and necrophilia are not “perversions” in the modern sense, but rather are outside conventional fields of social signification. If a man gains advantage over a sheep or a dead body…so what? Perhaps most telling is the prohibition of women “penetrating” other women. This is not simply “lesbian sex” in the modern notion, but rather a woman (a social inferior) performing the work of a man (a social superior). “Let not women imitate the sexual role of men” warns the Hellenistic Jewish author known as Pseudo-Phocylides (192).

Sex “according to nature” thus becomes a game of active/passive, penetrator/penetrated, and most importantly: social superior/social inferior. The act of penetration “reproduced” the societal notions of honor and shame, of status and class. To be the penetrator was to be the social/sexual superior (adult free males in all cases), and to be penetrated was to be the social/sexual inferior (women, prostitutes, boys, slaves, etc.). Any sexual activity that violated this social hierarchy could thus be categorized as “against nature.

So What?
What does this mean for Romans 1:26-27? Well, being that we can never truly lock down “authorial intent,” we can see how one’s language would fit into the discourses of their day. Given the very specific language of Paul, especially in comparison with his near contemporaries (esp. παρα φύσιν)…it seems that Romans 1:26-27 reflects/participates in particular notions of superior vs. inferior, of penetrator vs. penetrated. The “sexual logic” of Romans 1:26-27 thus comes from a societal hierarchy entirely different from our own. With this in mind, Stephen Moore offers an “amplified” version of these verses (based on the RSV with his own notes in parentheses):

Their women exchanged natural relations (of domination versus submission, designed to display social hierarchy, they themselves assuming the inferior position by accepting male penetration) for unnatural relations (in which no display of domination or submission occurred and consequently no social hierarchy was exhibited, because no penile penetration took place), and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women (the male assuming the dominant position, penetrating the woman and thereby exhibiting and reaffirming his social superiority over her) and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men (in which one partner would necessarily end up the loser in the zero-sum game of honor versus shame, passively accepting penetration and thus defeat at the hands of another). [2]

So, what does all of this mean? It means that Paul’s condemnation of these acts comes from a cultural logic that simply does not work for us. Sex and sexuality in Paul’s world was based on a very particular social hierarchy (free adult males “on top” with women, slaves, boys, etc. below). The question becomes, if we have a very different notion of society and what sex(uality) represents…how do we read Paul? Can we simply adopt his prohibitions wholeheartedly, despite the fact that the Greco-Roman societal/sexual logic behind them contradicts and offends our own? Should we, as Christians, uncritically conform ourselves to a 1^st c. CE worldview? What role, if any, should verses such as this play in our own formations of proper sex(uality)?

1. “the notion of homosexuality is plainly inadequate as a means of referring to an experience, forms of valuation, and a system of categorization so different from ours. The Greeks did not see love for one’s own sex and loves for the other sex as opposite, as two exclusive choices, two radically different types of behavior. The dividing lines did not follow that kind of boundary.” – Michel Foucault. The Use of Pleasure. [↩]
2. From Moore’s article “Que(e)rying Paul: Preliminary Questions” in: Auguries: The Sheffield Jubilee Volume. Much of the references and the argumentation here comes from this article (in an admittedly abbreviated form), which is an excellent read and comes highly recommended. Moore gives far more examples and presents them in a much more eloquent way than I ever could. [↩]

One of the themes in my Sunday school class is justice. We have looked at God’s desire for material justice [1] in the world. We have looked at such verses as Isaiah 61:8, Zech 7:8-10, and James 1:27; all of which make it crystal clear that one of our functions in this world is to work towards material justice as well as the spiritual redemption of humankind.

I get the small scale application of this issue. Well, I am lying, I kinda get it. I know how to act justly towards the individual people in my life. I might not be overly good at it, but it is something I am working towards.

I μέν see individual Christians working towards peace and material justice in individual lives as the answer to Ivan’s moral problem with God in “Rebellion,” what δέ I can’t see is how this works on a large scale. I am of the firm understanding that throwing money at the problem (and here I am most specifically thinking about aid to Africa here) only at best perpetuates the problem and quite possibly makes things worse.

Also, I am not a big fan of certain statistics used in showing the gap in material possessions between our world and the developing world. Statistics such as “X people only make $1 a day” assume that the base model for human life is a capitalistic, consumeristic model, as if to say the problem won’t be fixed until They make as much money as Us. Now, at the same time, I see the usefulness of these stats, they help shatter certain conceptions about the material conditions in which these peoples find themselves and help to highlight the need for justice in their lives. What I don’t want to do is bring the God of materialism along with the God of Christianity to the Other.

Whenever I go a thinking about a widespread, “big picture” plan of action, I keep coming the conclusion that a political solution is needed. Given the nature of certain countries’ leaders, a political solution must be predicated by a military solution. Yet, all of this seems to go against my “Kingdom of God” theology. As such, I am at a loss. I know how I would go about trying to fix the problem apart from Christian values, but when I factor those in, I am left with a myriad of contradictions.

And yet, God still demands that we help those in need, and I am to do what God demands. What I need here in an infusion of creativity and ideas. How can we help those in need in the concrete?

I get the need, I need a plan.

1. By material justice, I don’t mean equal possessions. I am talking about real and tangible justice in this world, as contrasted with waiting around for the just situation we will find in the next. [↩]