MetaCatholic

(This post is one of a series exploring the Scripture texts dealing with same-sex sexual activity. Earlier posts are listed at the end of this article.)

And so we come to Romans, which has increasingly become the key text in the ongoing quarrel. I think there are two reasons for this. The primary one is that it does appear to relate the question to a broader theological canvas than any of the other references. The secondary one, I suspect, has something to do with the iconic status of Romans as Paul’s gospel within traditional evangelical circles (of the sort that get very upset with Tom Wright and the New Perspective).

Exactly how one assesses this particular reference in Romans, then, will probably have some significance for one’s understanding. Those who continue to hold to Romans as a comprehensive Pauline theology of salvation, the Bible’s own book of systematic theology, will be inclined to give more weight to this as a major piece of teaching on homosexuality. Those who see Romans in the same way as all Paul’s other letters, responding to a particular situation, may or may not consider this a major piece of teaching, but will at least want to consider it in the overall context of the letter and it’s argument.

I place myself among the latter group, a conclusion I came to a long time ago, and entirely without reference to this particular passage. I was considering the very different chapter 13 initially, and later chapters 9-11. Those latter passages have a far greater complicity in any history of oppression and violence, especially against Jewish people, than the brief remarks in Romans have ever had against gay people, but it is a reminder that people use texts, and indeed abuse them, often as a means of using and abusing people. It is why I ask commenters to be careful in what they say here. In the end, we are talking about God and people, not texts, even when the text is our primary conversation partner.

There are quite a few competing arguments about Romans, its situation, reasons, and the exact pattern of its argument. I think Romans is written to a very specific situation in Rome, where there are significant divisions between Jew and Gentile Christians. I think Paul both wants to secure a welcome for himself as a character some saw as divisive, and to encourage them to mend the breach. In the opening chapters he is keen to get both sides to agree that in fact all, Gentile and Jew alike, have sinned. He first expounds a common view of Gentile sinfulness from a Jewish perspective, then a typical Gentile criticism of Jewish hypocrisy. Both of these are examples of a rhetorical device – speech-in-character (prosopopeia). They serve to get heads nodding in agreement first on one side, then on the other, until both have been led together to the conclusion that “there is no-one righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10). From this point Paul is able to introduce Jesus as the pattern of faithfulness to death which both reverses this sinful pattern and provides the means of atonement for it. (Rom 3:25)

On this analysis, Paul’s words on homosexuality are part of what is presented as a typical Jewish attack on Gentile morality.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 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. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die– yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. (Romans 1:18-32)

This is certainly painted on a larger canvas than previous denunciations we’ve looked at, yet its nature as speech-in-character, and its place in the argument of the letter means that it must be recognisable as commonplace, not as startlingly original Pauline theology. There is, however, nothing to show that Paul wouldn’t share this prosopopeic critique; indeed, there is good reason to suppose that he would hold pretty much the same view as his rhetorical Jewish character.

The passage (and this is one good reason for assuming Paul chose his speech-in-character carefully and to mesh with his broader theological picture) locates itself in a narrative of creation and rebellion, at the heart of which lies idolatry. There are many recognisable parallels between what Paul writes here and Wisdom 13-14 and this is the core of the shared analysis: idolatry, which leads to degrading, unnatural and wicked behaviour. One possibility is that Paul may be alluding to two stories in his treatment of what is unnatural (Rom 1:26 “against nature” = τὴν παρὰ φύσιν). I suspect that behind the accusation against the women is the story of the Nephilim in Genesis 6 where there is a mingling of angels and women. Likewise, I wonder whether the story of Sodom is behind what Paul says about men: otherwise it is a little hard to see what he means in context by “the due penalty for their error”. This would, unlike OT interpretations of the Sodom story, align Paul with Jude 6-7, which also seems to combine the two stories in close proximity. Paul is more explicit than Jude in linking this behaviour to a disordering of God’s creation, presumably a part of what he later refers to as its having been made subject to futility (Rom 8:20). The sexual disordering, however, is a consequence of the primary disordering, which is worshipping the created (idols) instead of the Creator (God). It is as much as anything a sign of human estrangement from God.

I enter a note of caution about Paul’s terminology of natural and unnatural, because I think we assume too readily that he means what we mean, and that what we mean is obvious. But perceptions about what is natural are often quite strongly cultural in their shape. Paul is not simply mounting an argument from biology. Note the way he can say, for example, “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him?” (1 Cor 11:14). But long hair is biologically normal, even if men lose it more easily than women. It takes cultural intervention to provide men with short hair. “Nature” is quite a complex word, and we need to be very cautious in assuming we know exactly what Paul means by it. I am not convinced it adds anything significant to his more theological perspective on the disordering of creation.

Perhaps one of the oddest things about the passage (and another reason for thinking Paul has these “past events” in mind is that the sexually unnatural behaviour, symptomatic of the disordering of creation, seems to fall between the primal sin of idolatry, and the everyday sins of humanity, where Paul’s list, oddly, includes no sexual sins. “They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” If you haven’t ever committed even one of those sins, please leave your name in the comments.

Where then does this leave us?

• Paul’s treatment of same-sex activity doesn’t belong in any straightforward way to his list of sins, It belongs primarily to his narrative of how creation became disordered.
• Paul’s whole argument in the first half of Romans, into which this speech-in-character fits well, is that the whole of creation is disordered, and is being re-ordered in and through Christ.
• Exploring that context of order and disorder, creation and recreation in Christ, offers perhaps the most fruitful way forward, and picks up on a concern I’ve noted in looking at some of the other texts.
• Whatever else Paul is saying, he has influenced the whole Christian tradition in ways which are generally supported by our perceptions of life. The way the world is is not the way it is meant to be. It is deeply problematic simply to read off from where we are or what we are, and say “this is how God made me”.
• Given that Paul sees same-sex behaviour as a consequence of idolatry, it is hard to imagine how he might respond to the idea of same-sex activity between those who on every other index except this one appear to be faithful Christians.
• Despite the fact that there is more theological context here, it is not a context dealing with same-sex behaviour, which is part of the argument, not the point of the argument. Thus this is not Paul’s creative and considered pastoral theology. It is, if you like, part of his theological hinterland, which as his missionary and pastoral context calls for, he can either draw upon, and drastically reshape around the Christocentric core of his gospel. It is, I suggest, more a case of “Paul thinks” than “Paul teaches”.
• Paul’s oft quoted words in the context of this discussion “those who practice such things deserve to die – yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them”are in fact applicable only by implication to the sexual behaviours he references, and directly to a wide range of sins including being gossips, slanderers, haughty, boastful, heartless, ruthless and many more. See why I told you to be nice in the comments!

I will attempt in a subsequent post to pull some threads together and see where we go next, but in my view this text does offer a more significant contribution towards exploring what it means to be caught up in a disordered creation which God is drawing into a new Christ-ordered one. Nonetheless, I find it poses more questions than answers, and we need to consider further some of the biblical, theological and pastoral themes that might help us explore those questions.

Previous posts in this series are:

• Gay questions to straight answers
• Texts of Queer Terror (1)
• The stranger angel: texts of queer terror (2)
• Queerly unclear vice lists.

The more I look at translations of Romans 3:25, the more I feel that you would need a fairly full understanding of Reformation teaching to make much sense of the English. (I’m only focusing on the initial part of the verse.) But consider first the very literal (not optimal) HCSB:

God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood

This is echoed by others:

[Jesus] whom God set forth as an expiation, through faith, by his blood (NAB)
God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.(NIV)

I submit that this doesn’t make sense as English: grammatically faith here can either refer back to God or to Jesus (hold on to that thought), yet the translators of these versions would be clear it was the faith of those who believed in Jesus. Some translations decide to spell it out a little further.

[Jesus] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (ESV)
[Jesus] whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. (NRSV)
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith (TNIV)

These are slightly clearer in English, but have achieved that at the cost of loading a single preposition – διὰ (dia) – with a theological theory. I say slightly clearer, but ESV could unfortunately be easily read out of context as us, recognising what God has done, receiving his propitiation of us! I’m also not at all sure of the NRSV implication that God’s work only becomes “effective” through faith, though supporters of limited atonement will no doubt rejoice that this liberal translation is so Calvinist.

With all these difficulties the NET plumps for one particular theory and some very specific translation choices, and paraphrases completely:

God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith

This (and it has several footnotes) has the merit of being clear English. It does depend on buying in to a particular theory of the meaning of ἱλαστήριον (hilasterion), which while it has arguments in its favour, is by no means assured of full acceptance.

I would note, however, that this is one of those places where (at least if you don’t buy the NET theories, and even to some extent if you do) there is a fairly clear argument  for going with the idea that here we are actually talking about Christ’s faithfulness rather than human faith. Then, instead of all these contortions with English we have a relatively clear meaning:

ὃν προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι
[Jesus] whom God put forward as a means of atonement on account of his being faithful to death.

The thought is not a million miles away from that embedded in Philippians 2:6-11.

It is always risky and possibly arrogant to disagree with almost everyone, but I have become increasingly convinced that our Bible translations are generally wrong about Romans 13:6, here quoted from the NRSV.

For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing.
(διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ καὶ φόρους τελεῖτε· λειτουργοὶ γὰρ θεοῦ εἰσιν εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο προσκαρτεροῦντες.)

First I don’t think it’s helpful to translate διάκονός (diakonos) in 13:4 and λειτουργοὶ (leitourgoi) here both as “servant(s)” when the words are significantly different. Second, this translation implies, as some have suggested¹ that there is some kind of non-payment of taxes going on. On the contrary: “Paul takes it for granted that the Christians of Rome have been paying their taxes”². Much more significantly, I’m not at all sure that λειτουργοὶ can actually refer to someone who takes money from you.

Paul uses the word twice elsewhere. In Romans 15:16, he uses it to describe himself as a “minister (λειτουργὸν ) of Christ Jesus” and ties this to the “offering of the Gentiles” which in context is far less likely to be any reference to Paul’s collection, but the Gentiles themselves as Paul’s ministerial offering to God. In Philippians 2:25 he uses it to describe Epaphroditus as “your messenger and minister (λειτουργὸν ) to my need”. In this case it would seem that Epaphroditus is offering material comfort to Paul. In both these cases Paul’s use of the word fits the more general sense. As Cranfield notes: “it means characteristically a public service of work in the ordinary secular sense (specially a public service carried out by a private citizen at his own expense).”³ In both religious and public service (to use a more modern distinction) liturgists – λειτουργοὶ – are those who make an offering, not those who collect it. A secular liturgy is a public benefaction. Those who make conspicuous benefactions (and that meant virtually any wealthy benefactor) could expect a form of public recognition as the authorities give praise to those who do good. (Romans 13:3).

Our translations, however, persist in using this word to describe the authorities, and by implication the tax-collectors, sometimes to almost exaggerated effect.

for the authorities are God’s servants devoted to governing. (NET)
the authorities are all serving God as his agents, even while they are busily occupied with that particular task. (NJB)
the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing (NIV)

Given that I am about propose an idea that may seem anachronistic, I should note first that these translations are also somewhat anachronistic in their view of tax-revenue as supporting the government’s public service of keeping law and order. But also let’s be clear that there is no explicit reference to the authorities in this verse. The translations read it back in. What happens if we take it out altogether, and divide the sentence differently:

Because this is the real reason you pay your taxes: those who keep on doing this very thing (i.e. paying taxes) are offering service to God.

The second clause then keeps close to the normal range of meaning of “liturgy makers” by referring to those who make the offering, and shell out the cash, rather than those who collect it. By implication (and this is the seeming anachronism) taxes become the benefaction of the poor, who cannot afford the conspicuous benefactions of the wealthy, and so can only receive their praise from God. No state will erect a tablet in their honour.

We then have an argument that is all of a piece in a slightly different way from that which has normally been suggested. Romans 13 flows effortlessly from the preceding injunctions: “Be patient in tribulation (12:12) …. Bless your persecutors (12:14) … Do not repay evil for evil (12:17) … As far as possible for you, live in peace with everyone (12:18) … Do not avenge yourselves (12:19)

Paul makes four arguments in Romans 13 to support these injunctions for a non-violent inter-communal life.

• Those who seek vengeance for themselves go against the appointed role of the state to bear the sword. If you do not live at peace, the state will enforce peace against you (13:1-2, 4).
• Those who have wealth should use it to do works of public good (13:3).
• Those wealthy and prominent people may either act out of fear (of the state’s punishment) or conscience (being rightly thought well of by others) (13:5).
• Those who are poor also make benefactions through taxes (13:6) and by calling them God’s benefactors Paul stresses the way they serve the public good, and God’s purposes.

Joining in some sort of communal violence is not only wrong, because it fails to give the state its due role under God, but it’s a waste of your own money, which has gone to support communal peace, which should be ordered appropriately. I need hardly say that this, of course, is also arguing for some very specific situation at Rome as part of the reason the letter takes the shape and content it does.

1. e.g. Jeremy Moiser ‘Rethinking Romans 12 –15’ in NTS (1990) vol 36 pp 571 – 582, John Ziesler Paul’s Letter to the Romans London: SCM, 1989 ad loc [↩]
2. J A Fitzmyer, Romans London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1993 [↩]
3. A critical and exegetical Commentary on The Epistle to the Romans (Vol 2) Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1979 ad loc [↩]

Jim West has what seems to me a rather odd Biblical Answer(s) to the Question of Theodicy post. Perhaps he has more to come, though his post implies its own completeness.

Apart from the fact that I would adduce a rather wider range of OT texts than he does, I feel I have to take issue with this comment:

In Christian tradition the question is answered at ‘the last judgment’ where the good are saved and the wicked are punished (sort of an extension into eternity of the solution provided in time by Psalm 73). See in particular the book of Revelation. (His emphasis)

Missing entirely, but surely a mildly important theme in the New Testament, to say nothing of Christian tradition, is the cross of Christ. As Paul says:

[Jesus] whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:25-26 NRSV – my emphasis)

The apparent lack of divine judgement of evil deeds and people, and the apparently endlessly delayed divine vindication of the righteous, receive a non-philosophical and enfleshed answer. The most complete and stimulating (though flawed) modern presentation of this theologia crucis as theodicy is Moltmann’s The Crucified God which is not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea. But it can hardly be denied that Paul appeals to the cross here not only as atonement but also as theodicy. By it God proves that his is righteous, something which daily circumstances always call into question.

Then, of course, West’s over-speedy leap to last judgement receives a divine question mark, and the book of Revelation with its complex interplay between lion and lamb can be given the due weight of its ambiguity.