32: Sexuality within the Biblical Story with Richard and Christopher Hays

Richard Hays:        When the publication of this book was announced, simply with the title and one part about its content, there was a spate of people blurting out critical responses on the Internet. Yep. And, this isn’t the kind of book that can be categorized by, you know, a sound bite. It’s the kind of book that demands to be read from start to finish with the Bible in one hand and this book in the other. 

H:           Hi, everyone. It’s Hannah Black, host of the Leaders Way. And today, we’re talking about the sexual ethics of the Bible. Now, if you’re an Episcopalian listening to this podcast, which comes out of an Episcopal Seminary, you might be thinking, what? Aren’t we done talking about this? The Episcopal church sort of has its stance on this full inclusivity of LGBTQ+ people and leadership of LGBTQ+ people. If you walk into an Episcopal church, that’s what you can expect. 

Well, yes. And, also, the reality is for a lot of our other Christian brothers and sisters in the United States, this is still a live question, and it might be a live question for your neighbors, for your family members, for you. And this book coming out in 8 days from when this episode is released is making waves. So today’s guests are father and son duo, Richard and Christopher Hayes.

Richard Hayes is George Washington Ivy Distinguished Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. Before he retired from being a professor at Duke Divinity School, he was here with us at Yale Divinity School. Christopher Hayes is D. Wilson Moore Professor of Old Testament and Ancient near eastern studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. So this formidable father son duo is also a new testament, old testament duo. And let’s get into why this is a big deal.

Why is this book making such a splash? Well, in 1996, Richard Hays published a book called The Moral Vision of the New Testament, which has about 20 pages in it that has been used and cited for years years by conservative Christians to argue that LGBTQ plus people ought to be celibate, that same sex unions are sinful, sometimes even that homosexuality itself is a sin. And this text is one of, if not the primary texts that conservative Christian institutions like schools, universities, churches have used to justify their faith statements, policies, and practices that fall in line with that kind of belief. Now in 2024, Richard Hays and Christopher Hays have come together, and they’re releasing a book called The Widening of God’s Mercy, sexuality within the biblical story, where they argue for the full inclusion of LGBTQ plus people in the life of the church, including the blessing of covenant union or, in other words, marriage. So now these biblical studies powerhouses are turning around and saying no.

No. No. Not only is LGBTQ plus inclusion permitted by the bible, but the sexual ethics within the bible promote this kind of inclusivity. And if we’re not doing it, we’re getting something deeply wrong and that this is an important issue to the church that people should be taking a stand on. The book comes out this month.

It’s causing a huge stir, and I can’t wait to share this conversation with you. Hi. I’m Brandon Nappy. Hi. I’m Hannah Black, and we’re your hosts on the Leaders Way podcast.

A Yale podcast empowering leaders, cultivating spirituality, and exploring theology. This podcast is brought to you by Berkeley Divinity School, The Episcopal Seminary at Yale. Welcome to the podcast. I’m super excited that you 2 have agreed to join us. And I’m just gonna dive right in.

In the beginning of your book, you talk about the repetitive arguments about the same amount, like, the same exact verses and specific words that have been argued about so much, and we’ve reached an impasse. You talk about having missed the forest for the trees, and you even write, quote, exegetical debates can become red herrings and distract us from the character of God and the fact that in many cases, clear biblical rulings and laws have been set aside by Christians. For example, laws allowing the ownership of slaves or instructions that women should wear head coverings. I would say plainly that whatever the contested biblical passages were envisioning, they were not envisioning LGBTQ Christians in the pews today who abundantly manifest the fruits of the spirit. So let’s talk about hermeneutics.

How what talk about missing the forest for the trees. How do we know, you know, what the difference is between a head covering verse and, like, love your neighbor, that kind of a thing? You wanna tackle that, Chris? Well, I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll have a a I’ll take a start running at it. One of the things that we seek to do in this book is to make the point that the way to read the bible as a source for ethical direction is not simply to pick out individual verses or laws, but to read with the grain of the narrative, to to read the biblical stories as unfolding a picture of who god is, how god works in the world, and how we know who god is.

And so when you do that, you’re not just picking out little proof text, but you’re you’re looking at the overall shape of the story. So that’s that’s at least a place to start an answer to that question. We’re looking to see a pattern of grace that plays itself out in the story of how god is reconciling the world to himself. Again and again, as we follow that story, god expands the community of faith by unexpected surprises. I guess all surprises are unexpected, but by surprises, the pattern of of how god expands the range of inclusivity, the the range of people groups who are included now in the overall story of god’s mercy.

And then from that, we see what the issues we face are in our contemporary experience and ask how that pattern that we see played out in the bible might apply to the questions that we face in our time. So that’s a start and an answer. I would just add that we you know, when we wrote the text that you that you just quoted, I mean, it’s it’s a striking thing for for people like us who spend our entire lives, studying the Bible closely to say, you know, look. This hasn’t led us toward the truth. You know, this hasn’t hasn’t hasn’t led us toward, towards who God is to focus on this small set of of verses, but it’s far from being a a sort of a dismissal of the value of the Bible as a witness and as a moral force in our lives.

It’s it’s actually trying to take it more seriously by taking more of it seriously. So that, you know, we try to really give a a sense of that broader story throughout the whole canon. Mhmm. So what do you do with those verses that are there that aren’t the ones that you’re gonna cherry pick? They still exist in the bible.

I can imagine some conservative readers of the bible thinking, well, it says right here, you know, this, that, and the other. How do you then interpret those verses? I can start and say a few words, Ed, and then you can pick up. I mean, you know, first of all, what what you’ve also just read and shared about the some of the prohibitions that are in the Bible not being aimed at at the sort of LGBTQ people who we find in our faith, communities now is is something that we take very seriously and and is perhaps a little bit of a shift in in thinking from my father’s previous book, the moral vision of the new new testament. He he could speak of that more.

But I would say that this may be even more apparent to someone like me who spends most of their time in in the old testament. There are are so many cases in in which clear laws have been overturned, not simply, between testaments, but but, within the Old Testament. I mean, you you have lots of stories of, you know, for example, Moses going to God to ask, you know, should these daughters in fact get to inherit their father’s land? And God says, you know what? They’re right.

You should do that. Or Ezekiel has God saying that he gave all us that that were not good and and and statutes by which people could not live. And so, you know, we, I think, have to continue to ask, are there things that we have done in the past that are are not God’s will now and there are ways in which we we cannot live now. And that, you know, that kind of process of of challenging and being willing to try to meet God face to face insofar as we can, like Abraham, like Job. You know, shall not the God of all the earth do what is just?

And and at times, God does as as at the end of Job, after Job rails at God for, you know, 40 chapters and and complains about god’s justice. God said, you you have spoken truly of me and and the friends have not. So that’s the kind of process that we see ourselves, trying to still engage in now. And, I would also say that the approach that says, look right here, it says, you shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination.

That’s the the key text, from Leviticus 18 that keeps, you know, being cited repeatedly. There there’s a tremendous selectivity and arbitrariness that’s being employed when people cite that verse as authoritative, but many, many other commandments in Leviticus are dismissed or ignored or flatly rejected as being normative. And it’s not clear to me why one is privileged over the other in that way. Let let me give you one example of this too that I bring up in the book in the chapter about acts 15. So the when there’s the council in Jerusalem to debate the question of the inclusion of gentiles in the community of Jesus’ followers.

And there’s a big argument, and some people say they have to obey the law of Moses and be circumcised, and Peter and Paul stand up and tell stories about their experience of engaging with gentiles who are not circumcised, but who have received the holy spirit and been baptized and are manifesting the presence of the spirit in their lives. And so there’s a a big argument. And finally, the council decides following the suggestion of James that the gentiles should not be compelled to be circumcised, but that there are 4 things that they should that are called essentials that they should abide by. And those 4 things are no eating of blood Mhmm. No eating of animals that have been strangled, No, eating of idol, meat that’s been sacrificed to idols and pornea.

Pornea is a big general umbrella term. Now what has happened in, in in gentile Christianity over the history of the church is that even though those are commandments picked out of the old testament and affirmed by the council at Jerusalem to be essential commandments for Gentiles, we now ignore 3 out of the 4. We pay we pay no attention to eating meat that has blood in it, or most of us. You know, real it’s really only, orthodox Jews who insist on continuing to follow these commandments. So again, even the things that the early church explicitly designated as essentials are selectively ignored.

Mhmm. And and pornea is not really defined by act 15. As as I say, it’s an umbrella term and, you know, what is and isn’t sexual, immorality, there’s there’s a lot of, room for debate about that. So, those are the those are the kinds of things that I think at least cast doubt on sort of picking out single proof text as absolutely norm normative. Yeah.

I, just recorded with Caitlin Sheff about her book, the ballot in the bible. And in that book, she goes through American history and talks about different ways that different preachers of different political persuasions used scripture. So there’s, like, how the loyalists use scripture versus, the revolutionaries, how slaveholders used scripture versus abolitionists. And often there’s this dichotomy, it seems, between people who are wanting to kind of, like, copy and paste versus from the new testament into our context versus people who are trying to do this imaginative work with the old testament and, like, see themselves as part of that story in a significant way. Mhmm.

And it it does seem like there’s a similar thing that we come up against here where you could either cherry pick or view this large story, in this case, that you’re arguing is one of mercy. How does that resonate with you? I would say that’s right. I I think some people have probably wondered about the title of the book, the why he’s Yeah. God’s Mercy.

I think that for for some people, mercy sounds like, you know, pity or it’s it’s someone who who’s guilty but who’s being shown mercy artificially or something, and that’s actually not the point of how we use it in the book. We’re trying to go to a much more classical sense of mercy as God’s love and grace towards us all, and one of the stories that the book tries to tell all the way from creation through the inclusion of the Gentiles in the New Testament is to say that we’re we’re all beneficiaries of of God’s honor and mercy. And so it’s it’s not as if LGBTQ people are are in a special category that way. I mean, they they have been excluded or or the or the church has tried to exclude them from God’s love and and mercy at times, but that’s not the point that we’re trying to make in the book. It’s it’s much more about us all as as in need of it.

So Let me give you another interesting example. Yeah. Please do. If you’re going to be picking out proof texts, Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, you have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer.

If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, etcetera, etcetera. So there’s a passage where Jesus is explicitly citing a proof text and saying, no. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. And then the thing he says that we should do is precisely the sort of thing that probably the majority of Christians would say, well, we can’t we can’t follow that.

Mhmm. I mean, there there’s a deep irony about the this again, the issue of the selectivity of proof texting. But there’s a clear cut example in the new testament where Jesus quotes a passage from the old testament and says, no. Yeah. No.

I I’m offering you something different, a different vision of what it means to live as God’s people. Yeah. That’s an especially interesting example because as conservative as your hermeneutics can possibly get, you have to go with the way that Jesus interprets the Hebrew bible. Oh, sorry, Christopher. What were you gonna say?

I was just gonna add that I’ve been struck in this conversation by the the kind of rhetoric or the kind of ideology of more conservative interpreters on this point, and there’s this strong urge to wanna say, you know, my hands are bound. You know, this is the plain sense of the Bible, but their hands are are not bound on a whole host of other issues where they find that it’s it’s harmful for the church. And and so that’s I think we’re trying to bring that into focus here in this book in part. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I was thinking as I was kind of contemplating this and prepping for this discussion about how there have been only a few times in my life that I have worshiped in a building where some women were wearing head coverings. And even then, it wasn’t this, like, a 100 degree hot topic, you know, like, everybody needs to have a conversation, give it the program, exclude those of us who weren’t covering our heads. Like, that was not the the vibe for lack of a better word. So it does feel like it’s something other than hermeneutics fueling this kind of line of thought. Chris, you talk about how this book is a fresh map, and there are some old testament passages that you’re bringing into the conversation that haven’t traditionally been part of the conversation.

Do you wanna share a little bit about that? The first example is one that I touched on just briefly about the, creation stories and and the fact that, when we first meet god, it’s in this kind of burst of of joy and and love. And, I don’t know how often Christians really step back and ask why does anything exist at all? Like, what if if if god is good and, you know, like, why did God want to create and need to create or etcetera? And I and so I I go back into Jonathan Edwards and and look at this idea that it was simply that that there was a a kind of a logical necessity for for God to to, create and to so that God would have, something to love so that there would be more more of God’s love.

But then I I look harder at Edward’s work and preaching, and I noticed that he actually doesn’t, in my mind, really capture the character of God in in his preaching. And, of course, he he’s the one famous for sinners in the hands of an angry God. And so for for him, humans fall so far short of god’s glory that we are and we are so undeserving, which which may be true, but he he doesn’t capture the fact that god god does does bridge that gap in love in the person of Jesus, and and through his through God’s outreach to the people throughout both testaments, actually. So I’m trying to sort of bring God back into focus as more of a loving, sort of parent figure, and and not as as someone who finds us all so so deeply, disgusting as as as Edwards is going to say. Seriously.

I mean, it Yeah. Yeah. I’m with you. In that chapter. Like, I I didn’t know this until I started to research for this book, but he he actually went through this this, spate of suicides at at his church where he pastored because people felt so unworthy and felt so unloved by God, which is terrible.

It’s like, gosh. I don’t know why why people are all all doing this, and you’re like, it might be you’re preaching. So, you know, that’s that’s one example. I I think that the debate in the prophets over child sacrifice is a is a second example that I haven’t really seen talked about much in this conversation previously, but I touched on the, Ezekiel comment that that, I gave them statutes that were not good, and, that’s how he deals with it. It’s it’s a thing that god said once that and there was not good.

You know, by contrast, Jeremiah says God never said that. He just kind of wants to change the narrative and sort of overwrite what went before. And so you have both of these sort of contrasting voices still preserved in the canon, both agreeing that, you know, the child sacrifice is bad, but not agreeing on what God actually said once upon a time about it. And, of course, the the metaphor of child sacrifice is the powerful one, because that’s what I I think you could talk about our churches possibly sacrificing our our children, because we feel like we, you know, we can’t support them. And, of course, the rates of LGBTQ youth, suicide attempts are are much higher than for non LGBTQ youth.

So there’s a there’s a sort of connection there, I think, in those issues naturally. So, yeah, I think we have to ask, you know, what is God doing now and and make room for the, you know, for the differing voices in in the canon that are in conversation with each other. Yeah. So kind of on that note, you start the book by talking about story, and how it is that you ended up here. One question that I have is what makes it worth it to you each to risk sort of, like, careers possibly or relationships, maybe social status to speak out on this issue?

Chris, you talked about in the book how it wasn’t a deal breaker when you took your job at Fuller. What makes it so important that you need to speak out about it now? And I I’d love to hear from both of you on that. Yeah. I guess I I can start.

I think for me, having been here now for 16 years, as I say in the book, there was a lot that I didn’t understand when I got here about sort of evangelical culture and, you know, having come myself out of, you know, mainline churches in my background. I’m now a ordained Presbyterian Church USA, pastor. So I guess it was watching both the, you know, some of the harms that were done in this sphere here, and also just the process for for me of in my adult life, becoming closer to many LGBTQ friends in in the churches that I’ve attended, who have set, you know, such a great example for the churches in in in many cases. You know, colleagues in the field of of bible who are are my peers, whom I I deeply respect. And so the, you know, the combination of those two vectors, I just got to a certain point, and I asked myself, what what is the fear here, and what is the danger, and and why and I and at the same time I mean, of course, as we talk about also in the book, there’s been a shift in the wider culture, there’s been a shift in my own Presbyterian church towards much greater affirmation of LGBTQ people.

And I guess I might have expected that shift to happen here internally as well. And, I mean, there’s a lot of diversity of views here, so I don’t wanna portray it as as as monolithic at all. And I think that they’re going to make room for that. I I I have a lot of hope, and this is a book that’s that’s offered to Fuller in in love and hope. And but on the whole, like, there have been some troubling events in the last few years where where they have, excluded LGBTQ people or or or allies from, you know, from our school, and I just I think that’s been a problem.

So, that’s been, you know, a piece of my story. If you’re enjoying the Leaders Way podcast, you might like to join us in person as a Leaders Way Fellow. The Leaders Way Yale certificate program combines the best of seminary, retreat, and pilgrimage. Fellows meet in person at Yale for a week in June, then continue their learning in mentor groups online. To learn more, visit our website.

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So is your is your question, Hannah, why have we changed why have I changed my mind or why now? It’s sort of why have you changed your mind and why are you so compelled that you’ve written this book about it? Well, I would say many of the same things Chris said about having experience in the congregations that I’ve been a part of of having gay and lesbian people, in positions of leadership. Even if they weren’t ordained, they were they were key, participants and leaders in the church’s ministry. And thinking, you know, I need to factor that into my Right.

A version of what Peter and Paul said about the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit. You know, I I see a fabulous, leader of the praise and worship team in a church I’m in, who is gay, and I think, well, it seems to me the holy spirit is at work here. So there Right. So there’s that kind of experience that’s fed into it. And I would say, also among students that I have taught both at Yale many years ago and and at Duke for the last 30 years.

And again, I just I have to reckon with that human experience of knowing people for whom their sexual orientation seems to be a fundamental part of their identity, not one that they’ve just chosen as a lifestyle option, but something that is just, deeply part of who they are. So there’s that kind of thing. And of course, my own United Methodist Church fought over this issue for the last quarter century, And, it was the official position of the United Methodist Church up until this year that, people who were, in the language that was used then, in the discipline homosexual were not allowed to be ordained and that they also were not allowed to be married in the church. And finally, this year, the United Methodist Church changed its position on that. And, it’s precipitated a split in the church, in the Methodist Church as it has in several other denominations.

It’s just, watching watching the reality of the human impact of the rigidity and, literalism of that fixation on this issue that disturbed me over time. It actually has disturbed me for quite a long time. And for me, now I’m retired. There’s a sense in which I’m not risking anything at this point by taking this position. But I I’m also very aware of wanting my legacy not to be defined by 20 pages that I wrote on this issue a quarter century ago.

And 20 pages that were intended not as a pronouncement, but as a stimulus to reflection about issues of new testament ethics. There I you know, I I take positions on several contested issues in the last section of that book, and, this was one of them. And I put it out there as my best guess at what seemed right to me in 1996. And my mind has changed, and I just thought I ought to set the record straight about where myself have come down. Yeah.

You know, I’ll share a little bit of my own story, which is that I used to work in entertainment at Disneyland down the street from Chris, and this was while I was an undergraduate biblical and theological studies major at Biola. So I know. So a lot of my Disney colleagues, the entertainment industry just has a very different position, let’s say, on sexual ethics than Biola University does. So I had a lot of friends who would come to me wanting to talk about really painful experiences that they had had being ostracized, not only by their churches, but by their family members because of their sexuality. And, you know, as like an 18 year old studying bible at Biola, I didn’t totally know what to do with that, but I just knew kind of deeply that something was really wrong about that and that the main thing wasn’t the main thing.

But then in spaces like Biola, specific kinds of hermeneutics are king, and, you know, it’s the Bible, Bible, Bible. And so as I’ve kind of been on a journey into experiencing other kinds of Christianity, I was a leader in the Church of England for a while, and now I’m here at an Episcopal Seminary. I’ve sort of wondered, like, well, where are the people doing the hardcore biblical studies arguments for LGBTQ plus inclusion? And part of me just wonders maybe there’s a different theological epistemology at play, maybe experience is more important for some kind of versions of Christianity than others. But I think what you’re offering is really important in that now there’s a book to speak to, you know, the people who want to think sola scriptura, and also I can include all of my neighbors in the church.

That wasn’t a question. I apologize. Do you have any reflections about that, or should I twist it into a question for you? I think the experience you’ve described is the experience of many people, many young people perhaps especially. So it doesn’t have to be a question.

Chris, you have a response to that? I was just gonna say that I I think that your read on the book and what it’s trying to do is is just right. Mhmm. And we’re you know, it’s the kind of book that, we’ll have to see how it speaks to the, you know, the wide audience that I I think it’s going to reach. And I know that we’re gonna hear from some people that, like, I don’t need this book.

Like, I I I knew that I was fine anyway, and, you know Right. You know, I I knew that that god loved me anyway, and and but and I we just wanna say yes. I mean, we we affirm that. And, you know, the but we we think that there is a pretty wide audience out there who who will benefit from this book, who will, you know, will benefit from the serious canonical kind of interpretation of of what God is doing in the world right now. Yeah.

So I did oh, go ahead. I also wanted to say this is what I meant to say a minute ago and and didn’t, come up with it. But I think this book is also because it’s charting a different path through the biblical interpretation, maybe a contribution for those who maybe have been more on the progressive side. They’re they’ve had a tendency to try to explain away those little proof texts. Mhmm.

And especially in my work as a new testament scholar, I know I’m well aware of some quite serious scholarly books that will take the tack of saying, well, when Paul, speaks against homosexuality, he’s he’s talking about only pederasty. Right. Yeah. Or that, we don’t really know, what, means. It it doesn’t mean in the Greek context, what bible translators have translated it to mean, you know, those kinds of Right.

Fine grained arguments about the meanings of particular words or texts. And I I basically still stand by where I was in in the nineties when I wrote the earlier book that those texts those those strategies for explaining away the texts are special pleading. Leviticus means what it says. It doesn’t want men sleeping with one another. And, and Paul in Romans means that he actually thinks that the phenomenon of homosexuality in the Greco Roman world is a a consequence of people being idolaters.

And, it’s it’s idolatry, and that’s what the text say and that’s that’s what they mean. But for the reasons we’ve already discussed in this conversation, I don’t think those arguments work, but I also don’t think they’re determinative of where we have to come out normatively. So I’ve been kind of like phoning friends, and by that I mean texting old Biola professors and people who are kind of still in this world and people there’s a lot of, like, excitement and anticipation for this book, but I think a lot of people are already ready to write it off because it doesn’t comport with their view. So I’m wondering if I can kind of like pass along some challenges and see what you think. So one thing that I think could be a hangup for people is the idea of God changing his mind.

And I wonder for you, is that an issue of the doctrine of God? Is that an issue? Is that a weak position? What’s what’s the deal with God changing his mind? Should we be suspicious?

I mean, so I suppose that from the standpoint of of systematic theology, that that question would fall under the doctrine of immutability. Right? Yeah. Exactly. And that’s a Latin phrase or it’s a Latin it’s a a term of Latin origin.

And anytime that you bump into that, you you know that it’s not actually from the Bible because it’s it’s a translation of of something. And so I you know, in the same vein as we were just talking about with wanting to offer the world a serious biblical analysis of these questions. When you read the whole Bible seriously, you have to reckon with the fact that that, a, god does change god’s mind, and and god says he he’s changed god’s mind, and, b, that that time and time again in the Bible, people don’t like that fact. God’s own spokesman, God’s prophets don’t like the fact that God changed God’s mind. So we start with the story of Samuel who, when God changes his mind about Saul, you know, gets gets so upset and and he’s up all night cursing, and and lies on on god’s behalf.

And if god god is god is not immortal, that he should change his mind. And then and at the end, the the omniscient narrator says again, and then, yeah, god changed god’s mind. Or the story of of Jonah who when when he he goes to speak to, Nineveh and and and and when god changes his mind about the the punishment on the city, Jonah’s still so upset. So, you know, God’s spokesman often want a firm, unchanging word from God, but that doesn’t appear to be who God is in the Bible. Rather, in the Bible, God is a God who who is in conversation and in contact with humanity and who, as the prophet Isaiah says, does new things.

And and so the question is, do do you not perceive it when when Isaiah has God saying that? So that’s the story of god that we’re trying to tell in the Bible. And and if that runs contrary to certain strands of of of theology, then may maybe it’s the theologians who need to rethink their their terminology. And can you kind of untangle for me, the idea of progressive revelation versus god changing his mind? Is that something you’ve been thinking about?

I I so, yeah, I mean, this is a question that I’ve I’ve thought about, and then I I get asked about. I think that my reading of of of the Old Testament is even more radical than that. I because I you know, when I think about the idea of of of a of a progressive, revelation, what I I hear is that, you know, people at first wrote stories about God and didn’t fully understand yet who God was. So as the story went along, then then they had clearer picture of who God was, so things became more clear. That’s not the story of this book at all.

We are actually talking about the character of God and and taking every single story seriously, and it and what is striking is that if if if we had a progressivist reading of the Bible, then we would also be fairly supersessionist so that the New Testament be being later must have a better picture of God than the old. But we’re actually saying that we get one picture of God through the whole story, but a God who changes and a and a God who reacts to to humankind in in grace and mercy. I think that’s a a great point, Chris, about the the we we are not arguing for progressive revelation in that sense in the sense you described. And that the doctrine of divine immutability, again, is a doctrine that’s promoted on the basis of a few proof texts. You know, Hebrews 13, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Well, yes. But the same in what sense? And and we argue that the sense in which god is the same is that he is a god whose character is always to have mercy. Mhmm. It’s it’s it’s if you wanna have this debate at the level of systematic theology, I would urge people to go back and read Carl Bart.

Karl Barth is the great defender of the freedom of god. Yeah. The the freedom of god to speak new things, the the freedom of god to disclose realities that we haven’t yet seen and, as Chris just quoted Isaiah. And, that actually, I would say anybody who wants to defend the divine the doctrine of divine immutability should read page 1 of the book, which is where Chris discusses that, dialogue with the prophet Samuel. Yeah.

And it it I for me, that’s a slam dunk. You know, if if that is part of the authoritative story of who God is, again, we our position is the more biblical position. There you have it. One listener wrote in to ask about some practical points, and I think these aren’t old testament and new testament questions, but they seem to be raised to the same kinds of people who care really deeply about what does it say in the old testament, what does it say in the new testament because that’s what I need to believe. So I think in conservative circles, arguments float around about the practical point of reproduction and that marriage between a man and a woman leads to life.

In the same circles, people are often hearing points about studies of children benefiting from both male and female parents. So again, this is something a listener wrote in to ask about, and I wonder if you wanna respond to those points or reframe them or how do how do those sound to your ears with this new perspective? Well, I’d say first of all, it’s not a new perspective. It’s very much in line with, traditional Catholic teaching actually based on ideas of natural law. And protestants then who are worried, about that might wanna pause a moment and ask whether they want Catholic teaching or natural law to determine their attitudes, about ethical issues.

So that’s the start of a response. On the second topic that you raised about, you know, whether children flourish better having both, you know, parents of both male and and female gender, I mean, this is the kind of thing we we do have a a sort of disclaimer at the start of the book saying that we’re we’re scholars of of the Bible and of of theology, and, we are we are not well studied experts in in issues of of human sexuality itself, and that we we believe that we have a sort of theological word for the church, for for anyone who who wants to know what the Bible says on on this topic, but that we expect the the outworking of of these ideas to, you know, to take time and that we we both believe that God wants human flourishing. I I think that some of the ways that you like, you know, that that question frames it are probably too simplistic. But I I don’t think that that’s the main thing that the book is about. Mhmm.

It’s it’s more about God’s ability to to be with and and for humankind, usually issues of sexuality. And and, to an extent, it it then it’s it’s up to us to, you know, to do more of the homework. Yeah. There was one time I was working at a school where someone who was in charge of me was telling me all about how he and his wife had had 3 biological kids because that’s how he understood the imperative to, like, expand and multiply. You know, so this is kind of like a weird old testament covenant misunderstood.

Therefore, I’ve had 3 kids. And at the time, I was in the middle of, like, a class on the Pentateuch at Biola. We’re talking all about, like, how in the new testament, that’s all about, like, growing the church and, you know, caring for maybe people who already exist and thing things like that. I think there’s just sometimes, like, a real misunderstanding, or maybe a a warping Yeah. Of understanding, like, a a certain type of nuclear family to be, like, very Christian in a way that is maybe more propaganda than biblical.

I was just gonna say that we don’t really go down this road much in the book, but, you know, Paul doesn’t seem to think that having children is the way to Right. To bring the kingdom about. So Not at all. Not at all. Yeah.

He he he said Paul says, he wishes everybody could be like him and not feel Exactly. Married. And, you know, there there’s no sin. It’s it’s okay if you if you wanna be married, but, it’s it’s it’s a second best option as far as policy. Right.

Right. Right. And if I mean, if we wanna proof tags, maybe we should be shaming the people with children. Yeah. Exactly.

You know, one of one of the the very striking things about that is that, the the new testament, is strikingly, if if you just sort of started there and read it, you would think that Christianity’s general position ought to be to favor celibacy and sing over marriage. There’s very little support in the new testament. And and another interesting thing is when when there are positive things said about marriage, procreation is never mentioned in the new testament as a purpose for marriage. It’s very striking. Yeah.

I I work on Gregory of Nyssa, and we think that he kind of had this whole complex of being ashamed of himself for being married, for for these kinds of reasons. One worry I have about the reception of this is how do we know we’re not just kind of like riding the waves of culture and being wishy washy and you know now that different kinds of marriage are legal in the US, we’re just gonna get cool with it. How how do we know that’s not what’s happening? The thing that my take on this is that the this issue is in part so that we can get to what I I think the real core issues are that that the Bible and and the gospel are trying to speak to Christians right now. And I I feel like this has become this sort of, you know, shibboleth, or it’s it’s been built up into this main issue for the church, which it certainly is not in the Bible.

And I I think that there are some really significant ways in which the church is probably not witnessing vis a vis economics or, you know, social justice and a whole whole range of issues that that are major themes through the whole Bible and and not just a half dozen verses. You know? And so I I think, you know, this is kind of, for me, just the opposite. It’s it’s so that we can get real and and and talk about what matters most. That’s such a good answer that I don’t think I’ll or learn to add something to it.

I well, I can say something personal. For me, the easy path, the past path of least resistance would have been not to write this book. It would have been to say, well, I wrote about this, and if you wanna know all about it, read the moral vision of the New Testament published in 1996. And, you know, for me, writing this book was an experience, as I say, in the epilogue of the book of metanoia, repentance in in the fullest biblical sense. It was a a change of mind that I believe, I’ve been led to by studying and reflection, on what I want to teach and preach as a a representative of the gospel.

And, so for me, publishing this book was the hard path, not the easy one. Yeah. So let’s land here. What’s your hope for the book? We hope lots of people will buy it.

But but a more serious answer is we hope it will be widely read. We hope it will be of assistance to congregations, pastors. We’ve tried to write this not as a heavyweight scholarly book, but as a book that’s readable. Mhmm. Folks in the church, folks in the pews who care about these questions, and who would like to start fresh and, to be encouraged that to rethink what they believed about this matter before, might not be what god where god is leading us in the church now.

I think that’s right. I think in in my smaller sphere here, I I hope that it makes room for more serious conversation about these issues. And I I know that there are lots of other institutions out there, be they schools or or churches where the same things are still under discussion even though it may sometimes feel out there in the in the mainstream culture as if it’s over. It’s it’s not over for a lot of people. So that’s one thing.

But I but I I just also have a picture based on friends and and many people I’ve talked to over the years of this book, you know, being handed to, you know, maybe a teenager, you know, maybe the parent of a teenager who who’s going through, you know, this issue in their home, in their in their, you know, family, in their church now or or or a pastor. I mean, you know, we have stories of of, you know, pastors who have have basically been led by their congregations to to think more more, progressively on this issue. And I I think that this kind of book could start a conversation in in that type of community about, you know, what does it mean to be, you know, faithful Christians and to read the Bible faithfully and and might sort of shift the answers on that. So I I think that’s our hope for it. That’s wonderful.

Any last words? No. This has been a great conversation. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you so much. It’s been good. My word would be for people actually to read the book, the whole book before they react. When when the, when the the publication of this book was announced simply with the title and one part about its content, there was a spate of people blurting out critical responses on the Internet. Yep.

And, this isn’t the kind of book that can be categorized by, you know, a sound bite. It’s it’s it’s the kind of book that demands to be read from start to finish with the bible in one hand and this book in the other. And, I I really urge people to give the book a thoughtful reading before they decide whether they are convinced or not. Amen. Wonderful.

Thanks so much for joining me, joining us on the Leaders Way podcast. And, I hope we get to talk again soon. It’s good to talk with you, Hannah. And it’s, just a, hello to everybody at Berkeley and Yale Divinity School. I spent a lot of time there.

Long Thank you. I care very much about, the work and ministry of that of that place. Thanks for listening to the Leaders Way podcast. You can learn more about this episode atberkeleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast. Follow along with us on Instagram at the leadersway.podcast.

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