Christian Virtue is a Team Sport - What is it about Sex?

Tom Wright laments that when groups of Christians are faced with outside opposition, our tendency is to turn on one another with factional fighting.  In wondering about why moral discussions in the church center on "a few favored issues, especially sex:.." he offers that this discussion might be "a 'displacement activity' when we can't cope with the question of how, why and when a whole family of Christians should (but can't) come together in mutual love and support.  That doesn't mean that sexual ethics are unimportant.  On the contrary, they are symptomatic of the health or unhealth of the wider community."


"Personal morality is enormously important, but over-concentration on it can function as a displacement activity when we don't want to address the larger, equally important issues."


          What these "larger, equally important issues" involve are:  when the "rule" against embezzlement is broken, the "larger issue" is that trust is destroyed.  When the "rule" against adultery is broken, the "larger issue" is that the entire faith community "suffers a kind of moral electric shock" that undermines the moral fabric of their world.


          So (me here) the ongoing struggle within our denomination over sexual ethics - including both the insertion and deletion of the "fidelity and chastity" standard for church officers - is a distraction (a displacement activity) from the larger issues of our lack of unity on a myriad of other matters.  (Insert your list here).

Christian Virtue is a Team Sport - Rumble Strips

Tom Wright again:

There is an old saying: Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day; teach someone to fish and you feed them for life.  Paul's normal practice is the latter:...Give people a command for a particular situation and you help them to live appropriately for a day; teach them to think Christianly about behavior, and they will be able to navigate by themselves into areas where you hadn't given any specific instructions....(199)

Paul gives initial guidelines that only look like the "old rules" to keep people on track while they are learning new habits of the heart.   The illustration that sold me on this interpretation is "rumble strips":   When roads are built, they are built for long distances, with the intent that people should drive in full control of their cars..."ideally, nobody will ever stray from their side of the road into the path of traffic coming in the other direction."  But because of distractions, loss of concentration and mechanical failures, "the wise highway builders construct a central barrier, so that any car drifting toward oncoming traffic will be stopped in its tracks...likewise they build a 'rumble strip' at the outer edge of the highway, short of the ditch."  

          "Those responsible for building roads are not saying, 'There you are, there's a nice crash barrier [for you to bounce off of...they're saying], 'You're supposed to drive down the road without touching the barriers. But if something goes wrong you may  need to know the barrier is there."


          The barriers are still there - they are real and necessary for the unity of the church, for the integrity of the disciple and for moving toward life in the realized Kingdom of God.  But it's better to concentrate on our driving skills than on the quality of our bumpers.

Christian Virtue is a Team Sport

Sometimes I think I don't have an original idea (does anybody?) because I "process" so much of what I'm reading in this blog.   But few people have the luxury of reading as much as pastors do.

I've returned to an interrupted reading of N.T. Wright's After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters.  The best thing about this book (so far) is his rehabilitation of Paul from our black-and-white understanding of him: 

"A large number of Christians have assumed that the foundation of Paul's thinking goes like this: He spent the first part of his life trying to keep the rules of his religion, and then discovered not only that he couldn't but that the rules weren't the point.  God didn't want rule-keeping, he wanted 'spontenaeity.' God had forgiven him all his rule breaking, in and through Jesus Christ, and was now giving him his Spirit, who would produce the "fruit without all that horrible moral striving." (191)

          The correction he offers is that Paul believed that when the church's focus on the meeting of personal moral standards results in "huge fights" within the church (in Galatia), it is a "sign that something has gone wrong" within the community of faith because "Christian virtue is a team sport." 

          When Paul lists the behaviors he associates with "the flesh" in the vice list in  Galatians 5.19-21: 

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;  idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God

          he is giving examples of  "what happens when humankind turns in on itself and away from God...the roads which do not lead in the direction [of the coming kingdom]...the ways people on earth keep the life of heaven at bay...and so declare by their behavior that they want to keep earth just the way it is, in its present corrupt and decaying form."

     He goes on to point out that the fruit of the Spirit does not grow automatically, as though we sit back and wait for the fruit to arrive:  "If self-control was automatic, why would self-control be needed?" (196)  You have to choose to live in the Spirit.