Thursday Thinking - The Development of Doctrine

Yesterday, on the First Things Blog, Ron Belgau posted a helpful essay on why current questions about homosexuality are a challenge to the thoughtful theologian. He begins with this...

For almost 20 centuries, there was little controversy over Christian teaching about homosexuality. For the last few decades, there has been an extraordinary amount of controversy. How should Christians respond to this changing situation?

He then explains how the theological and cultural questions of Paul's time influenced the amount of attention and depth Paul gave to developing or not developing doctrinal positions. Some of the questions important to the people in Paul's time hold little interest for us today. Some of the questions important to people today would never have occurred to the people in Paul's time, including Paul himself. And so we are left with the challenge to develop and explain doctrines that engage contemporary questions, even when the scripture available to do so is scant. Current questions about homosexuality are in this category.

The core truths of the Gospel never change (Hebrews 13:8). However, each generation of Christians faces its own challenges in sharing the good news of God’s love. Different cultures ask different questions and require different approaches to preaching.

This can be seen even in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul’s approach to spreading the Gospel changed according to the needs of his audience.  Whether he spoke in person or by letter, he did not say the same thing in every situation. When he wrote, he crafted individual letters to each church, praising their unique gifts and addressing the particular challenges that they faced. And when he preached, he adapted his approach to his audience.

Some readers will be uncomfortable with this, afraid that different emphasis for different audiences smacks of relativism and situational ethics. This, however, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of truth. Paul preached the truth because he loved the people he preached to. And because he loved them, and wanted them to understand, he tried to present the truth in ways that responded to their needs and which they would be able to understand (see 1 Corinthians 3:2).

For example, when he spoke with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on the Areopagus in Athens, he spoke of their religious devotion to their many gods, including the temple with an altar dedicated “to an unknown god.” Then he spoke of God as the unknown god whom they worshiped, quoting Greek poets to illustrate his Christian beliefs in words they could understand (see Acts 17:16-34). On the other hand, when he came to Corinth, he used a very different approach. Here, he did not come to philosophers. Not many of those he spoke to were wise by worldly standards, or powerful, or of noble birth (1 Corinthians 1:26). Instead of using the approach he had used on the Areopagus, he focused entirely on preaching about Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:23, 2:2)—a topic that he did not mention at all in his dialogue with the philosophers as it is recorded in the Book of Acts.

Both in his preaching in Athens, and in his preaching in Corinth, Paul explained key elements of the Gospel. In both places, some of his listeners received his message and followed Christ. But he did not take a one-size-fits-all approach to sharing the Gospel. Instead, he tried to make wise choices about how to start where his listeners were ready to listen. When he spoke to the leading intellectuals of his day, he spoke to them of the quest to understand the unknown God who is the creator of all, and quoted their own poets to help illustrate his points. On the other hand, when he spoke to those who were weak and despised by the world, he spoke of the God who had taken on their weakness, and been willing to submit Himself to death on the cross. The good news that he invited his audiences to hear was the same in Athens as it was in Corinth, but the approach he used shifted as the needs and opportunities of his audience shifted.

While it is a challenging task to develop doctrine that adequately addresses twenty-first-century questions while remaining faithful to the whole of scripture, Belgau concludes with this encouragement...

It is easy to become frustrated with contemporary debates about homosexuality. However, I believe that if we seek to understand why Paul saw homosexual acts as radically contrary to God’s design for human sexuality, we will come to understand both the Gospel itself—and that design—much more deeply. In order to do so, however, we must take time to reflect, trying to offer the more in-depth response that Paul would certainly have offered if he had written to an audience, like our own, which was deeply confused about these questions. Although this may seem like an audacious goal, we know that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth (John 16:13).

We should not be afraid to admit that the Bible’s very brief treatment of questions related to homosexuality does not say enough to answer the questions raised by our culture. But we should be confident that if we reflect more deeply on deeper themes connected with the Gospel—creation, providence, marriage, celibacy, sin, redemption, resurrection, etc.—we will find the resources for understanding Paul’s teaching on homosexuality, even though Paul himself does much less than many of us would like to explain the reasons behind the prohibition.

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