Judging God

There are particular reasons that we are having this dispute about this particular topic. Certainly the dispute does indeed involve “how one regards Scripture,” and more importantly, I’d suggest, it involves how the Church as a whole regards Scripture. But let’s not delude ourselves. This is primarily about sexuality and love.

The current dispute among Episcopalians, indeed among many Western Christians of any stripe, has not been piqued by someone rising up at General Convention to ask ratification of a particular view of Scripture. Similarly, we’re not arguing here about the washing of hands, the eating of shellfish, the consuming of milk with meat at the same meal, or any of a large number of other scriptural commandments. We are not arguing about Moses’ edict that we “must neither add anything to what I command you nor take anything from it.” Nor are we arguing about the fact that Jesus himself violates this Mosaic command when he says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you l have love for one another.” We will do well to admit to one another and to ourselves that this dispute is about sexuality and love; more specifically, it is about same-sex sexuality, and love.


To claim that the debate is between a view on the one hand that sees General Convention as having contradicted “the written Word of God,” and a view on the other hand that holds that “It doesn’t matter what the Bible says…” is purely a false argument. This characterization is so overly simplistic that it is specious, if not deceptive. It implies that Christians who are in favor of fuller inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in the life and leadership of the Church have blithely dismissed the authoritative role of Scripture. It would be just as inaccurate to say of folks who are arguing to the contrary that they are worshipping the Bible (or a translation thereof) instead of God, and so are guilty of blithely committing the sin of idolatry.

Were it as simple as the Bible or not the Bible, there would hardly be a skirmish at all. The very existence of the current controversy demonstrates that Christians from virtually all perspectives on this issue do in fact recognize the authority of Scripture, or more accurately, the authority of the God to whom Scripture directs us. It seems clear to me that a part of the controversy is not over the Bible as a whole, but over what parts of it an individual or group wishes to emphasize.

Others have referred to a choice between a God of judgment and a God of grace. I think this is a most unfortunate choice to present folks, and an unnecessary one. As a fan and follower of the God of grace embodied and revealed Jesus Christ, I believe deeply in the God of judgment. I rejoice that true justice shall someday be done. At the same time, my joy is tempered by the promise that Jesus made to his adversaries, and which I think is applicable to us all, namely: that the measure we use toward others is precisely the measure God will use to render judgment upon us. The Pharisees put a great deal of stock in the Law of Moses, in their knowledge of it, and in their fidelity to it. It was this upon which they based their righteousness before God. And being the Son of Grace, Jesus had no problem with this. He promised them that Moses, i.e. the Law, would ultimately be their judge.

Finally, though, I suspect that with all this judging of one another, holding one another accountable to the Word of God, and especially when we arrogantly equate our own understanding thereof with the genuine article itself, it boils down to something that is both profoundly serious and wildly absurd. When we are trying to impose God’s Word upon another, instead of upon ourselves, we are ultimately judging God. Either God measures up to our requirements of justice, truth, mercy, love, etc., or God fails to measure up. And if God fails to measure up, then either we’re going to continue to pass judgment on God for failing to punish the heretic, or for daring to allow fags and queers into fellowship, or for refusing to silence the malcontent, or for allowing walls and boundaries to remain in place; and we’ll tell God where He has screwed up, and tell god how to fix it; or, Job-like, we’re going to shut up, and simply offer God praise that God is God, and we are not.

Jim +