Controversy and Inconsistency

Last week controversy erupted over an e-book sold on Amazon by Phillip Greaves, a 42 year old man from Pueblo, CO. The book's title is The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct.

There was such a public outcry, (including a big threat to boycott Amazon) that the book was pulled and is no longer available.

Just the thought of such a book makes me nauseous; I feel queasy just typing it. But the whole story raises some important questions:

In a society that is so open and affirming to people who consider themselves G, L, B or T, I find it interesting that most people are still quick to oppose those whose "orientation" is P. Don't misunderstand me. I'm glad that the vast majority of people decry pedophilia for the evil perversion it is. I just wonder what standard of decency people are appealing to when they do so, and how that standard applies to other types of sexual behavior. I know the first response is that pedophilia is severely damaging to children (which, of course, it is), though there are some advocates who argue that it isn't, and that it is only an "orientation" which is on equal footing with others which are more socially acceptable. I even read a quote from a gay rights activist once in which she referred not to pedophiles, but to those of a "trans-generational orientation," and argued that those who have that orientation are discriminated against just as homosexuals used to be.

All this makes me think of a quote from N.T. Wright:

"Having decreed that almost all sexual activity is good and right and commendable, we are all the more shrill about the one remaining taboo, pedophilia. It is as though all the moral indignation which ought to be spread more evenly and thoughtfully across many other spheres of activity has all been funneled on to this one crime. Child abuse is of course stomach-turninlgy disgusting, but I believe we should beware of the unthinking morlaism which is so eager to condemn it simply because we hate the thought of it rather than on properly thought-out grounds. 'Morality' like that can be, and often is, manipulated. Lashing out at something you simply know by intuition is wrong may be better than tolerating it. But it is hardly the way to build a stable moral society." (Evil and the Justice of God pg. 27)

Like Wright, I see a big inconsistency in opposing one type of sexual immorality and affirming all others. There has to be a higher standard of sexual behavior than the arbitrary criteria of that which takes place among "consenting adults." (as does adultery).

Certainly this is a discussion-worthy topic if ever there was one?

Mike

More thoughts on OT Violence

(I want to cite a long quote and wasn't sure if there'd be room in the comment section)

There's a well-thought-out article on OT violence from a Christian philosopher named Paul Copan. I posted it on my website: thoughtsifter.com. (Just click the "Violence in the OT" tab at the top). Here's a quote form that article I found interesting:

“All that breathes.” I observed in my previous essay that the lan- guage of total obliteration (“all that breathes”) is an ANE rhetorical device, an exaggeration commonly associated with warfare. For example, in Deuteronomy 2:34 (“we captured all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every city. We left no survivor.”) and 3:6

(“. . . utterly destroying the men, women and children of every city”), we come upon what is a standard expression of military bravado in ANE warfare. In 7:2–5, alongside Yahweh’s command to “destroy” the Canaanites is the assumption they would not be obliterated—hence the warnings not to

make political alliances or intermarry with them. That is, we have stock ANE phrases referring to a crushing defeat and utter obliteration in my earlier article, but this is what Goldingay calls “monumental hyperbole.”

Also, I think the Craleys hit on something that is key. We have to consider the radical difference in what we could call mental or cultural climate. We have almost no idea what it was like to live in such a radically different culture so many thousands of years ago. It's my understanding that, in ancient near eastern culture, warfare was often inseparably tied to religion. In many cases victory in war was taken as a sign of the superiority of a nation's God. This was the cultural climate within which God was communicating to people. This doesn't remove all the difficulty of the issue, but the more we consider different factors like this, the more we see how much more complex a thing it is to discern than it sometimes seems upon an initial reading.

Also, Gregory Boyd has a great chapter on this in his book Letters from a Skeptic. One of his main points there is that we should always work from the known to the unknown when trying to understand hard passages like these. We know that Jesus is the full revelation of God, so what ever else God is, his character cannot be contrary to what we see in Jesus. We may not be able to understand God's commands of violence in the OT, but we have more than sufficient grounds for believing God can be trusted in light of what we know in Jesus.

God-Ordained Violence in the OT

Pastor Jim's Monday night Old Testament study discussed the issue of God's commands to kill (apparently entire) gentile populations in certain areas like Jericho, as we read about in the book of Joshua.

Like a lot of people, I have always thought of this as one of the most difficult parts of the Bible to wrestle with, and I was wondering what types of questions came up in the Monday night group, and if any who weren't in that group have some thoughts about this as well.

I had a few thoughts about this, but will wait until a later post.

Any thoughts?