St. John Studies

In this blog I could not ignore the fact that Israel is now very much in the news.  The whole Israel-Hamas war [if that is the proper name for the conflict] has been on the minds of many around the world.  I felt I should acknowledge this war in my last post* and caution any reader who runs across my ideas that the situation there is not simple.  It is certainly not easy to comprehend.  It may also not be easy to “pick sides” as war often kills innocent civilians.  Some would say that this current conflict is rooted in the long-standing hatred for the Jewish state that was created in 1948 when Israel was declared a nation by the United Nations.  The “losers” in 1948 were the Palestinians who had to give up part of their territory when Israel was created.  At that time, the Palestinians were under the control of Great Britain and when British troops withdrew in 1948, the first Palestinian-Israeli war began.  The Palestinian state was never an independent country, but has been designated a “non-member observer state” by the United Nations in 2012.  However, the hatred began in 1948 and is ongoing.

Some would say that this is completely understandable; no one would be happy if their land was taken away and given to someone else, but Peter Gomes is not really focusing on the ongoing wars of Israel in his Chapter Six, “The Bible and Anti-Semitism: Christianity’s Original Sin”.**   He is discussing a topic much harder to deal with: the history of Christian hatred for the Jewish people.

I tend to socialize with Christians and since the recent conflict broke out, support for Israel among most Christians has been very common.  Gomes writes that this has not always been the case.  What I will be commenting on in this post and the next one will not be popular among today’s Christians.  It is a look into the past, a past when the Christian did not hold the Jew in high regard.  Most would rather not acknowledge this history; it can be seen as painful by the Christian community, but it was real.  We live in a time when denial of history is at an all-time high.   Some Americans would rather act like the travesty of slavery in America did not occur rather than admit that it did.  In the frenzy of fear in World War Two, a large group of Japanese Americans suffered in American internment camps because of concern about their collusion with the Japanese navy off the shores of the west coast. The indigenous people of America have suffered throughout American history because the “white man” wanted their land. 

And yes, American Christians hated Jews.  Gomes cites a representative letter from Pastor Bailey Smith [former president of the Southern Baptist Convention] who writes that other gods beside Jehovah and His Son Jesus are strange gods.  “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of the Jew.  For how in the world can God hear the prayer of a man who says that Jesus is not the true Messiah?”  This letter was written in August 22, 1980 and was reproduced in every major newspaper in the United States.  It ignited a firestorm. 

Gomes comments on the critical question this letter raises: “Is it possible to believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and to believe the New Testament as the living and true word of God in which Jesus is revealed, and to not be anti-Semitic?…must the Good News for Christians always be bad news for the Jews?” [Gomes, 107].  Sadly, that’s the way many Christians have always felt.

What does the New Testament say about the Jews?  Of course, Jesus was a Jew but he suffered at the hands of his own people.  Jesus was sent to the cross by Jews who begged that Pilate release the common criminal Barabbas.  The Jewish people were deemed responsible for the death of Jesus: “His blood be on us and on our children” [Matthw 27:25].  This sets up what Gomes calls a “blood curse” upon all Jews down through the centuries.  This curse shows up in Latin homilies, is “enshrined in the great passion music of Christian composers” and has influenced Christian biblical scholars for centuries.   As it says in Numbers 35: 33-34 “You shall not thus pollute the land in which you live and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of him who shed it.”  For violent Christians in the past, there has been a license to kill Jews to revenge the death of Jesus.  It is hard to read of medieval Christians on their way to the crusades killing any Jews they encountered on the way.  It is incomprehensible to consider the massacres of the Jews in European countries and the creation of ghettos to house Jews away from Christians.   

What is the Christian attitude toward solving this problem?  Jews just need to accept Christ as the Messiah and become Christians. 

Now before we go too far, is this discussion saying that all Christians are inherently anti-Semitic?  Gomes would say no to that, but his words about anti-Semitism are chilling:  “The virus of anti-Semitism is in the bloodstream of inherited Christianity” [109].

We must never lose sight on Gomes’ perspective.  His view is that God has room in the church for the LGBTQ+ community, that Christian hatred for the Jews just shows how wrong Christianity can be, how the Bible can be twisted and how Christians must own up to their past and take responsibility for past hateful acts. 

I recently watched a painful Public Broadcasting show called “The U.S. and the Holocaust” by Ken Burns.  That documentary was a harsh look at the pathetic attempts that the U.S. made to help the Jewish people escape the concentration camps of Hitler’s Third Reich.  Some of the American leaders of that time enacted legislation and government regulation based on their “justified” dislike for the Jews.  They made it harder for Jews to immigrate. The facts were obvious; Hitler was rounding up Jewish people and killing them because they were blamed for all kinds of ills within the German homeland.  The spilling of their blood was a way to purify Germany.  The Jew became Hitler’s scapegoat.

As I stated earlier, some Americans would rather act like unpleasant acts of history never occurred. It is better to ignore the past or deny that it ever occurred; maybe that will make it better.  Maybe that will even make the problem go away.  Maybe that will make us feel sin free.  I will use an oft-quoted wise statement to close this post.  George Santayana said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  A current revision would be those who choose to ignore the past are condemned to repeat it.

Is Anti-Semitism alive in the world today?  Yes it is.

Is Anti-Semitism alive in America today?  Yes it is.

I will explore this topic more in the next post; the next section of Chapter 6 in Gomes’ book is entitled “After Auschwitz.”

*”Acknowledging the Contemporary Context”… November 17, 2023.  St. John Studies.

**From Gomes’ book entitled The Good Book

Peter Gomes’ chapter is entitled “The Bible and Anti-Semitism.”  Gomes was a homosexual pastor of Harvard’s Memorial Church where he served from 1974 to 2011.  Harvard was struggling with recognizing the LGBTQ+ community on their campus at the time that Gomes ministered at Memorial and he grabbed national headlines by announcing his sexual preference and also his celibacy.

His book entitled The Good Book is his argument for the acceptance of gay people by the church and so far he has built his case that the Bible does not have it “right” 100% of the time.  When it comes to the prohibition of hard drink, that was not really based on actual Biblical prohibition; it was human interpretation.  When it comes to justifying slavery in the antebellum South, the slave-owners’ justification of slavery as Biblical falls flat on its face.  Now he turns to the topic of Anti-Semitism.  This would be hard to comment on in ordinary times but in November of 2023 we are living in extraordinary times.  We are living through another war being conducted by Israel against Palestinian terrorists. 

Before we get into the main idea that Gomes discusses, we have to try to provide some perspective on this issue today.  Perspective for many is something that is sorely lacking.  There is too much grandstanding for or against Israel based on extremely shallow information.  I won’t be able to provide “expert” commentary but maybe I can attempt to shed some light. 

Let’s provide examples.  Many Americans of younger generations have been very concerned by horror stories of the suffering of the people of Gaza.  That is understandable.  This is a densely populated urban strip of land next to Israel [between Israel and the Mediterranean].  It is located right above the country of Egypt [a border crossing that has not been always open].  When missile strikes slam into buildings there, it is inevitable that civilian casualties will occur.  Many citizens of Gaza are too poor to leave their homes and it has been difficult to get aid from the world into the area.  Hamas is a Palestinian terrorist organization that launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing many innocent Israeli citizens [men, women and children].  That action began the current conflict.  The citizens of Gaza are Palestinian but they are not all members of Hamas.  They are caught in the crossfire of a hot war.

“The attacks began in the early morning of October 7, 2023 with a rocket barrage of at least 3,000 rockets launched against Israel and vehicle-transported and powered paraglider incursions into its territory.  Hamas fighters breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, killing civilians in neighboring Israeli communities and attacking Israeli military bases. In a single day, 859 Israeli civilians and at least 345 Israeli soldiers and policemen were killed in nearby towns, kibbutzim, military bases and at a music festival near Re’im.  Around 200 Israeli civilians and soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip, of which the number of kidnapped children is about 30.” *

Pictures of dead people will cause viewers to react, especially if those dead are women and children.  There has been real concern for the amount of negative news about Israel that has been generated on a daily basis because Israel has retaliated,  but let’s not forget who started this: Hamas.  The first dead women and children we saw were Israeli; Hamas has 30 Israeli children captive.  Forty-four nations have condemned Hamas for conducting a terrorist act against Israel. 

But to provide more context, not all nations have condemned this attack on Israel as terrorism.   Arab and Muslim countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Iran and Iraq have blamed Israel for the attack.  Since the United Nations created the Jewish homeland in 1948, the country has been in several wars with its surrounding neighbors [eleven to be exact].  The Jewish homeland was given to the Jews with Palestine paying a territorial price and this has never been accepted by many in the middle-eastern Arab-Muslim world.

Let’s provide some more history to understanding this tense part of the world.  Since the 1960’s the United States has been a strong supporter of Israel.  According to Wikipedia, Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid [the U.S. providing $150 billion dollars in assistance since the 60’s, an average of around 3.5 billion dollars per year].  To avoid going into too much detail, let’s say the U.S. has provided financial aid, military aid and political support for the Jewish state for many years. **

One must ask why? 

The short and very inadequate answer to this question is that support for Israel is in the best interest of the U.S.  The middle-east is a tinder box and Israel is a stabilizing force, even though it may not appear that way right now.  Russia is very interested in its ties to middle-eastern countries and is actively trying to support terrorist actions in the area.  Will Israel ever be truly stable?  This will always be a hard situation, a Jewish country surrounded by Muslim countries that don’t like the Jewish state, hounded by terrorist groups that try to kill its citizens and viewed as a people who have stolen territory from Palestine.  These factors don’t lead to stability, much less long-lasting peace.

Why is the situation in the Gaza strip so hard to understand?  It takes study, cultural appreciation, knowledge of history and practical experience with the region to understand this part of the world. 

Sadly, many don’t have any of this but they do have the ability to react. 

As I considered what to write on this first post about Anti-Semitism, I knew I had to address recent news.  Only people who are living “off the grid” are unaware of the current scary world situation.  I also know that many in our world today don’t have any interest in attempting to understand anything that is complex.  They just react.  A political commentator commenting on recent events and the extreme reactions among younger people said “younger people today see some TikTok video and they have a visceral response.  They don’t employ research skills in order to understand what they are watching.  They don’t employ critical thinking skills to understand what they are watching.  They just react in the moment.”  This can lead to some outrageous comments that are really based on almost nothing, yet we are shocked and concerned.

Should we be?

No.

People should study a situation before they comment; they should listen to and read experts who know about the complexity of this area, but they don’t. 

Gomes is not addressing the situation in Gaza in his book, but he is trying to apply his faith to the attitude that many have against the Jew in this world.  His discussion is complex and it requires thoughtfulness.  As I have written, the U.S. has provided financial aid, military aid and political support for the Jewish state for many years.  What has the Christian community done?

Very little…

And that’s a problem…

*from Wikipedia  “2023 Attacks on Israel” accessed on 11/17/2023.

**from Wikipedia “Israel-United States Relations”  accessed on 11/17/2023.

Yes it is time for me to explain the direction of this blog.

It is confusing at times, even for me.

I am discussing three books, representing three views on LGBTQ+ participation in the church.

Preston Sprinkle has just tackled what he called the “clobber passages” of the Bible, you know those passages that Christians use to beat up the LGBTQ+ community: the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and verses from Leviticus 18 and 20.* As I studied his words, he tried to find a way around the negative attacks. However in the end, the Scripture was not affirming for people who engage in same-sex behavior.

What is his next direction?

He will do a “deep dive” into the Greek and Roman culture of the day. He is hoping to provide context for the “clobber passages.” He is hoping to enlarge our understanding of the idea of homosexuality in Bible times. We will see where he goes.

But before we get there, it is time to return to Peter Gomes who will extend his argument about groups that have not been accepted in the Christian church. His discussion will center on Anti-Semitism. As today’s headlines discuss this topic in reference to the current Israeli-Hamas war, being fought in the Gaza strip, it will be enlightening to hear what Gomes says about Anti-Semitism in his book entitled The Good Book.

My next post will be on his chapter “The Bible and Anti-Semitism.”

His subtitle is “Christianity’s Original Sin.”

*See St. John Studies, October 24, 2023 and November 1, 2023.

Here we are again, switching from one book to another. In this case we are moving from Peter Gomes’ The Good Book to Kevin DeYoung What does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality. Again, two diametrically opposed views.

Gomes has a plan in place it seems, to discuss all the instances when The Bible has not provided solid guard rails for human behavior, so far a discussion of how Christians have felt about indulging in hard drink and how southern Christians have justified the owning of slaves. When we return to Gomes again, we will comment on his discussion of anti-semitism.

Hard texts: places in God’s word where man struggles to find his way.

Hard texts: places in God’s word where differing views emerge.

Hard texts: places where God shows man how to exercise His grace in the process of loving fellow man.

Can the LGBTQ+ community be included in the church, as leaders? Can LGBTQ+ people be accepted, approved and absolved of their sin?* Is this a place where God’s loving grace can be applied?

DeYoung says “no” and to make his case, he turns to Leviticus.

Leviticus speaks directly to the issue of homosexuality; his chapter is entitled “Taking a Strange Book Seriously.”

I majored in history in college.  I have always had a love for history, especially history of the American civil war.  I had an aunt [Anna Carter Revel] who was our family genealogist.  I once asked her for information about my relatives on my Father’s side of the family who fought in the war and I found out I had three great, great uncles who served.  That fueled my interest as I began to see that I had some tangible ancestral contact with this turning point in American history.

The war was devastating for the America. The breakdown of deaths by side is uncertain, but one common figure is that the Union suffered 360,222 casualties and the Confederacy suffered 258,000 casualties. However, these numbers may not include all the deaths from disease, captivity, suicide, murder and other causes.

The southern economy was wrecked.  The war essentially destroyed the infrastructure of the south; railroads, bridges, factories, farms and plantations.  The Union Army had a “scorched earth” policy where vast areas of the south were totally destroyed as Union soldiers marched all the way to southern coastal cities.   Of course slave labor was no longer legal so workers were not available to tend crops on southern plantations.   

The losses mounted as the way of life in one large part of the United States suddenly changed.

What is amazing is the statement by Peter Gomes in his book The Good Book when he says, “The chief victim of the Civil War was not the vanquished south, but the Bible” [Gomes, 96].

Why would he say that?

In my previous post [“The Hard Text of Slavery in the Bible,” St. John Studies, Sept 19, 2023], I discussed the justification for slavery that many southern slave owners proposed.  In short, they felt that Biblical Scripture allowed them to own slaves and still be Christians.  With the conclusion of the war, the righteousness of the southern case for slavery was dealt a blow.  It seemed like the whole southern Biblical worldview was defeated with the fall of the confederacy.

Gomes points out that the Bible suffered because so many people relied on it for guidance in morality.  With the war, the authority of Scripture was challenged.  How could northern abolitionists read the Bible one way and southern slave owners read it another?

Slavery was approved of in both the Old Testament and the New Testament so how could it be overturned on moral grounds?  However anti-slavery adherents felt they had the moral high ground: humans should not own other humans.  Chattel slavery was even more horrible; humans could be bought, sold and owned like objects.

Still at the end of the Civil War, southern minds were not totally changed.  Racism did not go away.  Segregation was born as a way to preserve the southern way of life.  Southerners still felt that the Bible supported their desire to keep African-americans from having the full rights of American citizenship.  It was there in the black and white type of the Bible.

One has to still ask, how did anti-slavery Bible readers enact change that resulted in slavery being overturned?  Gomes says it all came about by changing hearts and minds.  The text remained fixed but people changed their attitudes toward slavery.  “Scripture…may be the same yesterday, today and forever, but our capacity to read Scripture and to appropriate Jesus Christ and His teachings is not.  No one in contemporary America, except perhaps the most hard-bitten white supremacist would read Scripture with regard to race in the same way it was read a century ago” [Gomes, 99].  Antebellum slave owners saw Paul as the apostle of the status quo [slavery is ok].  Today Christians read the same Scripture and see Paul as the apostle of liberation.

Gomes thinks that Scripture has not changed as much as the “moral imagination” of America has changed.  What is this moral imagination that he speaks of?

This requires a complex explanation and we should not lose sight that Gomes is building a case for acceptance of the LGBTQ+ Christian to be accepted in the church.  It is all about context.  In the context of the ancient world, slavery was accepted as a basic part of life.  No one actually questioned its existence.  Gomes feels the Holy Spirit had a lot to do with changing attitudes.  He references the book of Hebrews citing the Scriptures as a two-edged sword.  He references the idea that Scripture is referred to as the “lively oracles of God,” the notion that God’s words are not dead letters, but living and powerful.

How can we explain the Southern Baptist clergymen who wrote Dr. Martin Luther King to explain that his actions to end racism and segregation were “unbiblical”?  How can we explain that a few years later another pastor named Floyd Bryant wrote an article in the Southern Baptist Review and Expositor that “God makes no distinctions in people whatever their race.  Segregation is not the work of man.  If it occurs at all, God does that in the final judgement.” Bryant admits that he has come to grasp the meaning of the Apostle Paul’s plea “Be not conformed to the world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.”

The renewing of the mind is at the heart of many southern people changing their attitudes toward African-American citizens.

Billy Graham, a proud southerner from North Carolina pens the following thoughts:  “Our consciences should be stirred to repentance by how we have fallen short of what God asks us to be as agents of reconciliation….Of all people, Christians should be the most active in reaching out to those of different races, instead of accepting the status quo of division and animosity.”

Changing hearts and minds is hard to do, especially when Scripture supports institutions that uphold the owning of human beings.

Can hearts and minds be changed regarding the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ people in the church?  Can the acceptance of African-american people by southern white people signal that the same thing can happen for this group that Gomes refers to as “the last prejudice”?

He says yes, “it is about how we read the Bible, and about the creation of the moral imagination that allows us to do so.  In that same moral imagination, is it never too late to be right or to be good.”

Before we get to another chapter from Gomes regarding the need to change our minds about Scripture, let’s revisit Kevin DeYoung, a pastor who says “not too fast!”  What does the Bible really teach about homosexuality?  That is his focus and he is not ready to accept the idea that homosexuality is “the last prejudice.”  To him, homosexuality was and always will be a mortal sin.

Obviously, DeYoung does not have “moral imagination.”

What does Peter Gomes mean when he says about the Bible, “there are hard texts.”

Are certain rules within the Bible hard to follow?  Are certain parts of the Bible hard to understand?  Are certain parts of the Bible no longer relevant?  Within today’s culture, they are “hard?”

We have already seen in his discussion on the use of strong drink, America went through a period of nineteen years of prohibition.  What happened during that period?  Some Americans did not drink.  They felt that strong drink was harmful or sinful and they liked prohibition.  Some Americans found ways to drink that were illegal.  They liked alcohol and wanted it; no one could tell them not to drink, even their government.  Other Americans made untold riches providing the alcohol that the American people craved.  Did the ban on strong drink work?  I guess not; it only lasted nineteen years.

How did the ban work?  Even though the Bible did not provide “rock solid” Scriptural support for banning alcohol, anti-alcohol forces got legislation passed with a “Bible-based foundation” anyhow.

Gomes next turns to the hard text of racial injustice.  Surely the institution of slavery had no Bible basis.

Sadly, it did.  American slave-owners felt within God’s good graces as they owned other human beings.  Yes, one could even say they felt justified.

There are Biblical allusions to slavery throughout the Biblical text, one of the earliest being the story of Hagar, the slave girl who bore Abraham’s first child Ishmael.  When Abraham had a legitimate child by Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael were banished from the household and sent to the desert.

The Canaanites were put into slavery by Joshua after they were defeated, to “always be slaves, hewers of wood and drawers of water” [Joshua 9].

The Old Testament story of Noah had multiple references to slavery as some say there were references that introduced not only slavery but also segregation and even apartheid.  Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually Joseph was put in charge of Pharaoh’s production of crops.  Part of his responsibility was the enslavement of a workforce to supply Egypt with food. 

Is the New Testament any better regarding slavery?

Even though Paul condemns the practice of slavery in places, it was widely accepted in the society of his day.  Gomes says this of New Testament Scripture: “Not only did New Testament morality fail to liberate the slaves or even to mitigate their lot in this life, but it required of the slaves obedience to their masters, even those masters who were not Christian, as a part of their duty to Christ” [Gomes, 89].

With all this as a background, it would seem that making a case for slavery would be easy.  The Bible does not condemn slavery, and everywhere in the Bible the practice of slavery is common.   The curse of Ham [Noah’s son] provided southerners justification for slavery.  Noah curses Ham’s descendants as slaves forever.

American large property owners in the south needed slaves to put crop on their sprawling properties because there was no machinery to do this and certainly they were needed to harvest that crop.  America’s revered leaders like George Washington owned slaves as well as Thomas Jefferson.  Instead of being condemned by Biblical Scripture, Southern slave-owners actually took solace in the comfort of their Bibles.  They felt their “peculiar institution” rested on Biblical grounds. 

Northern ideas about slaveholding were vastly different.  In essence, they saw the idea of a Christian owning slaves as sinful.   It was not enough to point to Noah, Abraham and Joseph.  When Paul said that slaves should be obedient to their masters as they should obey Christ, that was not enough to justify owning human beings.  They felt that  moral principles were in play here.  God’s people should not own God’s people.  Social practices like slavery might be evident in the Bible but moral principles outweigh the social norm or the need for some human solution for the production of crops.  Abolitionists  said Jesus preached love and charity and in most slave-holding situations, love and charity did not abound. 

Methodists [my denomination] like John Wesley and George Whitfield argued that the slave trade should be stopped since it was based on English maritime power.  “The holding of slaves, although permitted in Scripture was inconsistent with an understanding of the New Testament’s paramount teachings on spiritual rebirth, sanctification and evangelism” [Gomes, 94].   In sum, slave owners were guilty of “gross materialism and greed” because they regarded human beings [God’s children] as property for gain and loss.  Wesley and Whitefield knew that Scripture supported slaveholding, but also they felt that New Testament teaching supports the idea that slaveholders should release their slaves and make Christians of them, as an act of evangelism.

Like the shaky theology of prohibition, antislavery sentiment grew based on social reform not found in Scripture.  Abolitionists felt that the need to change this institution was there and it was a moral need. 

Would southerners budge?  Slavery supporter James Boswell wrote “to abolish a status which in all ages God has sanctioned…would not only be robbery…but it would be an extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saved from massacre and introduced to a happier life.”  Most did not want to change their practice of slaveholding at all.

Abolitionists argued that “chattel slavery” was more cruel that slavery in the Bible.* Comparing Biblical forms of slavery to chattel slavery is incorrect.  Chattel slavery is much more dehumanizing.  Abolitionists were compelled to use the moral principles of the Bible, applying the idea that injustice was being done to human beings.  Citing Revelation 22: 11-12 “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.  Behold, I am coming soon, bring recompense, to repay every one for what he has done.”  Abolitionists felt that there was no doubt; slaveholders would be held accountable for their acts on judgement day.

“Abolitionists had no patience with the…niceties of their Christian slaveholding opponents, and thought of them as Pharisees, who, while straining a gnat from their soup, would willingly swallow a camel” [Gomes, 96].

Abolitionists knew the devil could quote scripture for his own purposes and they felt their efforts to abolish slavery would not only free human beings but redeem Scripture itself.

They were serious in their task; in my next post on the hard text of race, we will see they are serious enough to fight a war. 

A war over the “hard text” of race…

*Chattel slavery. In this system, enslaved people were the personal property of their owners for life, a source of labor or a commodity that could be willed, traded or sold like livestock or furniture.  Biblical slavery was oppressive but human beings were not seen as a commodity?  [I use a question mark because I am not sure about the strength of this opinion, generally.]