40 Questions for Rainbow Flag Waving Christians – But Only One Question Matters

40 Questions for Rainbow Flag Waving Christians – But Only One Question Matters July 14, 2015

Photo: Flickr, NathanMack87, Rainbow America, Creative Commons License, some changes made.
Photo: Flickr, NathanMack87, Rainbow America, Creative Commons License, some changes made.

A few weeks ago, Kevin DeYoung of the Gospel Coalition posted an article in response to the Supreme Court’s decision bemoaning the fact that we can no longer discriminate against people who identify as LGBTQ.

The court’s decision has people like DeYoung in a bit of a depression. He writes, “There are many reasons for our lamentations, from fear that religious liberties will be take away to worries about social ostracism and cultural marginalization.”

I sympathize with DeYoung on this point. I mean, social ostracism and cultural marginalization is a painful experience. Just ask the LGBTQ community.

DeYoung goes on to ask 40 questions to Christians who support the Supreme Court’s decision. 40 questions! Surely, with that many questions bombarding us, there must be something wrong with Christians supporting marriage equality for gays and lesbians!

Allow me to simplify things and boil those 40 questions down to one. It’s the question that Jesus asked and it’s the only question that matters when it comes to the Bible.

Jesus was confronted by religious authorities who didn’t like the people he was hanging out with. According to their interpretation of scripture, Jesus was hanging out with sinners, which, in their eyes, made Jesus a sinner, too. Jesus responded to them with a reading instruction. He quoted the prophet Hosea as saying,

“Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’”

This is the key that Jesus provides for interpreting the Bible. Anyone can quote scripture, even the devil can do that. The only question that matters is whether we are going to interpret the Bible through a sacrificial hermeneutic that leads us to exclude others or a merciful hermeneutic that leads us to include others.

Theologian James Alison has emphasized Jesus’ instructions on biblical interpretation in his adult education series Jesus the Forgiving Victim: Listening for the Unheard Voice. James’ approach to the only question that matters in biblical interpretation is so important that I’m going to quote it in full.

Jesus is not saying to them “I think you should go and look up the text of Hosea.” Rather he’s saying “You all know that what God says in the Prophets is ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’ But this is not just a particular commandment. It is a reading instruction, a hermeneutical key. Whenever you interpret anything, you can read it in two ways: in such a way that your interpretation creates mercy, and in such a way that it creates sacrifice. Whenever you interpret anything morally, whenever you engage in any act of religious discrimination, as in your disapproval of the people I hang out with, are you obeying the word ‘I want mercy, and not sacrifice’? It is perfectly possible to interpret the law in such a way that it demands sacrifice, creates a group of the good and casts someone out. As also it is perfectly possible to interpret the law as something always to be made flexible for the benefit of those who need reaching and bringing into richer life, leaving the good to look after themselves and going after the lost sheep. But only one of these two is acting in obedience to the word in Hosea.”

When we understand Jesus’ hermeneutical principle to interpret through God’s mercy, it means that we won’t discriminate against the LGBTQ community for any reason, but especially not for a religious reason. Why? Because Jesus teaches us to interpret the Bible through merciful love that seeks to include, not through the sacrificial mechanism that seeks to exclude.

And so we don’t need to ask or answer 40 questions. When it comes to the Bible, according to Jesus there is only one question we need to answer. Will we interpret with a merciful hermeneutic or a sacrificial hermeneutic?

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