Quotes re the Human Sexuality question

"Christians today are probably less inclined than were Paul’s Greek converts to slip into forms of dualism that denigrate the physical body. (If anything, we may be subject to the opposite error of idolizing the body and supposing that only the present physical world matters.) Nonetheless, we may need to remind ourselves and our hearers that our bodily actions stand under the eschatological judgment of God and that we should therefore use our bodies in ways that point towards the wholeness for which we hope in the resurrection. If we could learn to think of our bodies as bodies with a future, we might be more careful about what we do with them now. This would have important implications not only for sexual morality but also for other issues such as health care and ecological responsibility."

Thats from the Commentary by Richard B. Hays. I think his point about wholeness is important in relation to this passage. Perhaps that is where I start with the 'principles' that the tutor is requesting. It is a principle that we need to view our bodies and actions holistically, we can't just do something physically and expect it to have no repercussions on us spiritually and emotionally. I also like Hayes comments about how this passage is in contrast to a common western view that we have 'rights'. Rights to do with our bodies what we want. This ultimately forgets that we are part of a greater cosmology and that Paul at least believes that because we are linked to Christ, our bodies are ultimately not our own.

Paul and "Human Sexuality"

Here is what the tutor wants us to post about next:

What do you think Paul is saying about human sexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20? Try to form some key principles from this passage and share them on the online discussion forum. Please comment on how these biblical principles might instruct modern attitudes toward human sexuality.

And she wants us to write about this in 200 words. Ha! yeah right!

I think what I find difficult about this task is the request to 'formulate principles'. Firstly, I hate the thought of using this document - Paul's letter - to formulate specific principles. This may sound weird, but I really hate it when this collection of writing now called the bible is used as a detailed moral rule book, as in 'do this, don't do that'. People use this stuff so much just to beat other people over the head. As in, 'I have figured out what this actually means and if you don't stick to this you are somehow inferior and best, or going to hell at worst'.

I definately think we should formulate principles from Paul's writing, but just how detailed should we get? And what exactly is sexual imorality? And if we make detailed principles are they normative or contextual? So difficult!

Anyway, the only easy principle from this seems to be 'don't have sex with prostitutes!'.

Look a new post!

I'm posting on here now because I noticed someone linking to my blog and its horribly out of date.

So here is the update on my study. I have just started a new course on First Corinthians. Its not really as exciting as the last couple but very necessary I think. I have avoided Paul's writing at all costs up to this point because I have struggled with his letters so much. Hence instead of just avoiding it for the whole post grad diploma, which I could easily have done, I have decided to confront him head on and grapple with the true wisdom of his words.

I guess I should start by talking about what things I struggle with in relation to Paul's writing.

1. He is soooo quoted in a bits and pieces sort of way by every different demoinational persuasion to back up their own goals.
2. It really looked/looks like he's pretty patriarchal. How you deal with that, and can you deal with that, is a whole different question, but still...pretty patriarchal.
3. I just don't really understand a lot of what he is saying. Its not story, and the letters seem all over the place.
4. Its not very exciting.
5. I just always thought reading about Jesus was much more important.
6. How come this one guy ended up to be so important and his words the words of God when he was just a person like anyone else.

So there you go. I totally believe in having integrity of opinion so you might as well just say what you think. I spend so much of my life having different opinions, or at least talking about my opinions in different ways to different people, so sometimes its just good to say what you really think. I think in the next post I'll start talking about some of what i'm learning and realizing about Paul.

Identity

What role does the issue of identity have in Western Christianity?
I find this question really challenging because I have really struggled with this issue since living in the US. Christianity in the US is increasingly being defined, by the Evangelical Religious Right who are trying very hard to link being a Christian with being a Republican. There has, obviously, been a strong response from other Christians to this, particularly from Jim Wallis and Sojourners who produced the "God is not a Republican...or a Democrat" bumper sticker for the election last year. It is also making identity about particular moral issues, particularly abortion and anti-homosexuality. I think making Christianity about particular moral issues is doing major damage to the issue of identity for Western Christianity. I think that Christians in two thrids world countries are probably in a particularly stong position to point out the damage of such positions, particularly when Christianity becomes linked with Republican foreign policy.

I strongly agree that in Western countries it is much easier to compartmentalize faith into one area of life - job, sex, race and religion. I think that the reason is that we have that luxury. We know that we get our food because of our job so we don't need to pray for food, we know that we have rights as women to do any sort of work we choose, so we do not need to consider the challenges of sexual identity raised in the Bible. We have never been subjected to slavery so we don't even think of racial identity as being part of Christian idenity. I am sure that people in two thirds world countries are much more holistic about identity.

How might this concept of ‘ubuntu’ affect and shape the African worldview so that it is different from a Western worldview?
I'm back writing on this blog because I have to make posts on the class site and I like to use this spot as practice...

I find this concept of 'ubuntu' which has been described as “I am because we are and because we are therefore I am” particularly interesting. I think it probably relates to similar concepts in many indigenous cultures which evolve because they are pratical concepts that ensure the survival of the community.

'Ubuntu' clearly challenges the Western individualistic mindset. Westeners are very focused on 'the path for my life' and 'the decisions I will make for my life' rather than 'how does the education I get effects my community' or 'if I work to get more, does someone else in the community get less?' I think the hardest thing for missionaries must be the idea that a community can be converted all at once, or that it could be a community decision to become Christian not an individual one. I also think it must be hard to deal with the idea that the ancestors are included in this idea of 'ubuntu', and even the earth and natural world around them.

The concepts of individualism and 'ubuntu' do not co-exist very well and Mibiti's writing points out the struggle for African communities living with their traditional understanding of life and introduced Western ideas, and the fact that even those essentially maintaining 'ubuntu' often work in societies that function on the basis of Western individualism.

Stories

I have started developing my initial ideas about 2/3 world feminist theology. The first thing I have read in any depth has a wonderful piece about three things that are necessary to developing a more inclusive theology. 1. "it requires us to shift our attention from the Bible and tradition to peoples stories. 2. "we have to move from a passive reception of the traditions to an active construction of our own theology. " 3. "doing our own theology request moving away from a unified theological discourse to a plurality of voices and a genuine catholicity." - from 'Mothers and Daughters, Writers and Fighters" (unfortunately I left her name off my photocopy! - I will amend that later)

So far this is in line with my initial impressions...

Church discipline

Last night I went to a meeting as a support person for a friend whose husband left her and their three kids. The husband for some reason has agreed to go through the church discipline process and the meeting last night was to decide if my friend had 'biblical grounds for divorce'. The elders did not tell her what 'biblical grounds' were before hand as they did not want to slant her testimony but it became fairly clear what they were looking for. I did not go in the actual meeting as I was not a witness but the process involved my friend's witnesses being interviewed and then the husband asking them questions.

The husband in this case is beligerant and smug and uses his quick wittedness as a weapon. He also learnt the 'Rules of Order' inside out. There is no question of adultery in this case, so it became obvious that the elders were looking for 'abuse', and whether the abuse was bad enough. While he has never been physically violent he has been belittling and intimidating and barely sees the children any more. What seemed to become evident is that the husband is using the process almost as a means of abuse. He will not let the matter rest, and they expect him to appeal, even though he has absolutly nothing to gain from the process. He left her and he has made it clear he does not want to restore the relationship in any way. He has told her though 'I don't believe you will divorce me unless they give you biblical grounds'. My friend knows otherwise.

The elders in the case are all men, per church edict. It is a Presbyterian Church of American church (as opposed to PCUSA) and women are not allowed to be decons, elders or pastors. The thing I kept thinking last night was whether the process would have been different if there were women elders there. I mentioned that to a couple of the witnesses who seemed to agree. They don't think it would have been as prolonged and difficult, or that my friend would have been made to wait until the end, to then get essentially cross examined by her husband. Presuming they had to elicit the information, were there not better ways to do it? It was treated like a legal matter and is it a legal matter? If women were involved in the process would a woman have been more likely to recognise that the husband was using the whole process as a form of abuse? When I think of my church in NZ, in Hamilton I see them dealing with this sort of thing in a more sensitive and appropriate manner. Still thinking about this, but I know that there must be better ways to deal with this sort of thing.

First impressions about 2/3 world feminist theology

I have started researching my big essay on 2/3 world feminist theology. Here are a couple of first impressions:

• A lot of narrative is used. Many of the books or excertps tie in the personal experience of the author and tell stories. This could be because 2/3 world feminist theology is about the stories of women who do not get heard.
• A lot of the books are collaborative or collections of writing from all over the world. This could be because of the importance of not speaking for other people, as men in these cultures have previously done. Again it seems to be about giving voices to new ideas and disempowered women.

More on the Japanese Theology book

Not much else to write about really as I am totally bogged down in my review of this book. Why didn't I pick a book that didn't take so much work to understand???!!!! Having said that I do feel quite rewarded for persisting as it really is just so different to anything I have read a lot of before. The relationship with Buddhism is the most interesting aspect of it, it has forced me to really understand not only some basic tenants of Buddhism, but actually really grasp some of the key ideas of the German theologians, particularly Barth and neo-orthodoxy.

Meontology is the ontology of 'nothing'. Japanese theologians have combined the influence of Barth and Tilich and their discussions that God does not exist as a reality, with the eastern idea of mu (nothing), with the philosophy of Japanese philosophers such as Nashida. This theology “insists that God as totaliter aliter (qualitatively opposite) cannot be other than meontolgoical." To a western reader with 29 years of personal images of God as father, mother, creator and ruler, this is extremely challenging. The writer highlights this challenge when he discusses Yohji Inoue, a Japanese theologian who became aware of the profound difference between Japanese and Western way of thinking. For him the foundation of the Western way of thinking is substance, while the foundation of Japanese thinking is “the field which envelopes substances."