By: Joe Ness

The Wesleyan tradition I grew up and was educated in accepts the authority of scripture but humbly subjects interpretations to the filters of reason (does this make logical sense?), tradition (is it consistent with the historical tenets of the faith, embodied in the creeds?), and experience (is there evidence for this in human experience?). When we subject our biblical interpretation to external questions, as a person of faith inevitably does, these factors help shape our conclusions. It’s what makes those in the Wesleyan tradition evangelical.

I have a working definition for evangelical (the theological category, not the political one): one who believes the Bible to be authoritative and historically reliable, but also believes that biblical interpretation should be done in conversation with extra-biblical sources such as archaeology, linguistics, ancient literature, and sometimes even the physical sciences. In contrast to the Fundamentalist, for whom the biblical text trumps any external source, and is to be literally believed and interpreted.

My favorite example of the distinction between evangelical and Fundamentalist is dating the Exodus. The fundamentalist interpreter starts with the various chronologies in the OT and counts backward, usually arriving at a date of around 1450 BC. The evangelical interpreter believes the biblical account to be reliable and so assumes the historicity of the Exodus but notices that a couple of place names mentioned in the account were not built, according to extra-biblical evidence, until much later. So they tend to date the event around 1286 BC. (There are other categories of biblical interpreters that discount the historicity of the event entirely. They are outside the scope of this discussion.)

Thus, evangelical interpreters occasionally challenge us to change our understanding of a passage from its literal reading. The fundamentalist leaning interpreter throws up big red flags at such notions, concerned about the slippery slope such a change might lead to. ‘If we change our understanding on this passage, what’s to stop us from throwing out all the parts we don’t like?’ An important question for all who take the Bible seriously. The evangelical replies that we should interpret with great humility, that if the evidence points strongly to a re-understanding of a passage and we refuse to consider it, we risk being guilty of forcing our understanding onto scripture rather than letting scripture shape our understanding.

Is it a safe thing to rethink one’s understanding of certain passages of scripture? The first consideration is whether such a rethinking occurs internally, in scripture itself. Do later passages revise the original meaning of earlier ones? This is an easy yes. The NT quotes the OT entirely through a Christ-centered lens: the covenant becomes the new covenant, the sacrificial system is set aside for the once for all sacrifice of the Messiah, the levitical worship protocols and moral codes are replaced by the internal access to the character of God through the Holy Spirit. When covering the NT in my prison study group, it was standard practice to read the original context of every OT quote.

There are other, perhaps less obvious, interpretive changes between the testaments. In the OT, there is almost zero reference to an afterlife (the typical reference in the Psalms is to ‘the grave’ as an endpoint) or to a spiritual realm populated by demons capable of inhabiting humans. Both ideas arose from cultural and theological shifts in Jewish thinking in the inter-testamental period. While these shifts broadened the understanding of the OT they were incorporated into the NT without question. Within the NT itself development of ideas occurred. The picture of what form the church should take evolved. Early in Acts the description is of an unstructured group meeting in homes and sharing resources. A few chapters on, people are appointed to manage the distribution. The later epistles give instruction regarding specific ecclesiastical roles like elders and bishops.

Rethinking a biblical passage is a biblical idea.

Such shifts have likewise occurred in church history. One prominent example is how we understand the structure of space. In the OT, the earth is depicted as a plate, set upon columns, covered by a celestial bowl that held back the ‘waters above’. Cosmology is not even alluded to in the NT. Presumably, some of the the articulate Greek speaking writers of the NT were familiar with, or had even adopted, the Greek concept of a geocentric system, in which the stars revolved around the earth. This was certainly the church’s interpretation of scripture by the time of Galileo and Copernicus, as Galileo was disciplined harshly for questioning the heliocentric view. Yet what modern church leader would defend the OT or the heliocentric cosmologies?

A second example is slavery. Scripture tacitly approves slavery. But the redemptive arc of the NT, in which all souls are equal in Christ, makes the idea of keeping such a soul as property seem ridiculous. Is there a contemporary believer anywhere on the theological spectrum who would advocate its return?

In recent generations, evangelicals have faced new questions. How should our understanding of the creation narratives change in light of a preponderance of scientific data that the universe is 14 billion years old, life on earth emerged gradually over the last billion or so years, and there is no geologic evidence of a global flood? A significant minority (probably a majority among evangelical scholars) believe that the theology of the creation narratives remains unchanged and to force an interpretation on those narratives (that they must contain scientific information) is unnecessary and unreasonable.

Likewise, following our culture’s relaxation of divorce laws, how stringent should the church be in its adherence to the NT’s specific connection between divorce and adultery? Do we shut out those whose divorces may not fit the narrow biblical criteria? Or do we fall back on the broader redemptive arc and offer grace and fellowship to the divorced and their sometimes complicated families, acknowledging that the biblical sexual ideal can be difficult to achieve and maintain? Evangelical churches have largely taken the latter path.

The question this generation faces is not much different than divorce. I have half dozen close relatives who come under the label LGBTQ+. How do I extend grace? What is my responsibility as a follower of Christ? Extending them the courtesy of assuming they are telling the truth, the question can be refined: ‘What does it mean for my understanding of scripture if a person’s sexual identity is intrinsic, not something chosen?’ Unlike the cosmology question, where there is a preponderance of data, there is no scientific consensus pointing to a genetic or other physical determinant of sexual identity. But there is overwhelming personal witness pointing to the intrinsic nature of sexual identity.

What are the theological implications? If sexuality is an intrinsic component of personality, how do I understand passages that appear to explicitly condemn homosexuality? In the Wesleyan theological tradition salvation is understood as offered freely to all. My only role is accepting by faith the offered gift. Is it biblically possible that those whose sexuality is ostensibly condemned are excluded from that gift? If one answers affirmatively, the entire redemptive arc of scripture, at least from a Wesleyan perspective, has to be rethought. There would be a substantial portion of humanity (3-20%, depending on which data one uses) ineligible for salvation.

One could argue that God could ‘change’ anyone called to salvation. But why would alteration of an intrinsic attribute be a requirement of salvation? Salvation is ‘by faith alone’. It is roughly analogous to making being right-handed a requirement of salvation. (After all, Jesus sits on the right hand of God. Too bad for us lefties.)

It seems more reasonable to understand that an intrinsic component of identity, something one is rather than chose, should not be an obstacle to salvation, at least from a Wesleyan perspective, in which free will and reason play large roles.

Taking this position would require a rethinking of the traditional understanding of certain scriptures. But as described above, such an undertaking is a biblical action with much precedence. Letting scripture comment on itself, some of the most prominent passages are not as hard as they appear. The ‘sin of Sodom’ (from the story of Lot, Gen. 19), where it is referred to elsewhere, focuses on failure to: offer hospitality, meet the needs of the poor (Ez. 16), and recognize God’s anointed (Lk. 10, Is. 1). The implied sexual behavior in the Genesis narrative goes unmentioned.

In Romans 1, Paul picks same sex behavior as an example of the outcome of a failure to acknowledge God’s authority. But then he gives a long list of other actions about all of which he says those who practice them ‘deserve to die’. One wonders if his audience was so numb to ‘envy, murder, strife, and deceit’ that he had to pull one of the less common indulgences to get their attention. The point of the passage is calling out radical godlessness in human behavior, not specifically to condemn same sex behavior.

What impact would this revision have on the historical biblical sexual ethic? In that view, sex is understood to be properly exercised only in the context of a heterosexual covenant relationship; even the act of thinking about sex outside that context borders on sinful. It is so tightly proscribed due to its sacred role as a tangible metaphor for the kind of intimacy God seeks with his people. The language scripture uses to mark God’s people is frequently sexual: the ‘bride of Christ’, circumcision as a covenant ritual and an uncircumcised heart as one unable to hear from God. Any broadening of the historical understanding has to bear that in mind. If we allow that LGBTQ persons are not automatically excluded from the body of Christ, because their sexual identity is essentially something imposed on them, their experience of the sacred nature of sex should remain in the context of a covenant relationship. To be LGBTQ affirming while not addressing the sacredness of sex itself would miss the point of salvation: we are drawn into communion with God, an intimate and deeply personal communion. The OT prophets so frequently railed against Israel about idolatry because it was understood as misplaced affection, sometimes equating Israel to prostitutes betraying a faithful spouse. There is no biblical room to be sexually libertine.

I can think of a couple of categories of objections to this process. The first would be that scripture needs to be taken as a whole. Disciples cannot edit God’s authoritative revelation. We can’t start picking which parts we don’t like and ‘rethink’ them. A problem with that thinking, as I’ve already described, is that adjusting our understanding of passages has been a part of being a follower of Christ even from within the narrative of scripture itself. If we hold too firmly to our understanding of what scripture means we risk being inflexible in its interpretation, potentially resulting in essentially forcing it to say what we’ve always believed it to say, even if that belief is in opposition to reason and the redemptive arc of the broader narrative – and hinders loving those in need.

A second category of objections could be made around the argument that rethinking one category previously thought to be sinful opens the floodgates to applying that logic to other sins. For example, it can be argued that some are born with a greater vulnerability to alcoholism, an intrinsic part of their physical makeup. Should their alcoholism be excused? If not, what is the difference? This is difficult. But consider that sex in the right context can be understood as a sacred act. Alcoholism, as a disease left untreated, is an extreme act of self-indulgence.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a denomination like mine (Nazarene) coming around to an affirming stance toward LGBTQ persons is that doing so would be a significant admission of error. To have any chance of being perceived as an act of integrity would require a corporate acknowledgment not only of theological and hermeneutical error, but an explicit apology for the harm done by generations of Nazarenes in their treatment of their LGBTQ loved ones. Such a public obeisance, while painful and humiliating, would hopefully create opportunities to converse, to interact, to subvert old prejudices on one side begin to heal old hurts on the other. For a group of people used to issuing calls for repentance to actually repent themselves would set an example seldom seen and maybe, for that reason, not soon forgotten; such a comprehensive unity in humility is perhaps the best possible evidence of a divine movement.