Natural and unnatural relations between text and context: a canonical reading of Romans 1:26-27.

One common thread amid the wide variety of approaches applied to the biblical texts over the last century has been a concern for context. The choice of context determines the lens through which an interpreter views a text. This common thread also tends to separate one method from another, as each selects a particular context (historical, literary, narrative, rhetorical, canonical, or ideological) within or from which to examine Scripture. Indeed, many interpreters combine multiple methods in the readings of texts, and thus the lens becomes more like a prism as various contexts are brought into play. At its core, however, the question of biblical hermeneutics is the question of the context or contexts engaged in the reading of Scripture.

With controversial passages such as Romans 1:26-27, the importance of context becomes all the more apparent as various attempts are made to understand this text and its relevance for believing communities. At the heart of the debate over this text is the struggle to determine what are the most appropriate or faithful contexts within which to view it and how those contexts are to be employed.

In this essay I offer a proposal of what might be one faithful way of reading or contextualizing Rom 1:26-27 in conversation with other attempts to do so. I begin by investigating how some revisionist interpretations have sought to reshape the purview and force of Paul's comments on homoerotic activity by appealing to prevalent notions of sexuality in the wider Greco-Roman milieu. I argue that in some of these interpretations the construal of the historical context leads to a contextualization that subverts the basic logic of these verses. In response, I present another option: an approach that seeks to understand Paul's statement concerning same-sex relations in its historical and literary context, but also in its wider canonical context--a context in which God's instruction to God's people is portrayed as dynamic and ongoing, not fixed and unchanging.

Analysis of Romans 1:26-27

A number of biblical texts are commonly brought to bear on the issue of homoerotic relations. For the purposes of this essay, however, a discussion of Rom 1:26-27 will be sufficient to illustrate the approach to Scripture and view of homosexual relationships advocated here. (1) Traditionally, and by many if not most interpreters today, these verses have been understood as expressing Paul's perspective that homosexual activity is an illegitimate, and unnatural, form of human sexuality.

However, a number of revisionist interpretations of Rom 1:26-27 in recent years have argued that a careful examination of the wider Greco-Roman context leads us to see that the traditional reading of the passage is in need of significant qualification. (2) One of the more well known treatments of the passage along these lines has been offered by Robin Scroggs, (3) who attempts to demonstrate that in the Greco-Roman world pederasty was "the one, basic model of male homosexuality." (4) To support his argument, he cites numerous Greco-Roman authors addressing the issue of same-gender sexual contact and claims that nearly all Greco-Roman discussions of homosexual relations focus on the particular practice of pederasty. Consequently, it was this specific, oppressive form of homosexuality that Paul and the writer of 1 Timothy (and most of the Greco-Roman world) had in view when addressing homosexual activity. Therefore, Scroggs concludes, it is problematic for interpreters to apply Paul's condemnation of this particular form of homosexuality to present-day homosexual relationships involving committed adult partners.

At least two objections can be raised to Scroggs' argument. First, his claim that pederasty was the one dominant model of homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world during the time of the NT writers does not square with the evidence surviving from this era. Several of the Hellenistic writers cited by Scroggs who argue against homosexuality, including Plato, Daphnaeus, Plutarch, and Pseudo-Phocylides, also make reference to female homosexuality. (5) These and additional references to female homosexuality and nonpederastic types of homosexual relationships between men by Greco-Roman writers and artists, including Xenophon, Aristotle, Dio Cassius, Suetonius, Xenophon of Ephesus, and Cicero, have been explored by Mark Smith. (6) Smith points out that "the extant sources for Greco-Roman homosexual practices demonstrate many exceptions to pederasty and a decline in the prominence of pederasty in the last three centuries immediately preceding Paul." (7) Based on these findings, Smith concludes:

The picture [of Greco-Roman homosexual practice] that emerges is
characterized by great diversity. If we could take the time to include
evidence for heterosexual activity, it would become clear that if there
was any sexual "model" in ancient Greece and Rome, it can be best
described as bisexual.... My primary conclusion is that the bisexual
"model" that characterizes the Greco-Roman world admitted of a plethora
of sexual practices and attitudes, as different as human desires and the
potential for human creativity, from multi-party orgies to platonic
love, from pure heterosexuality to true bisexuality to committed adult
homosexual marriage. (8)

In sum, pederasty was not the only, or even the primary, form of homosexuality practiced in the Greco-Roman world in the centuries leading up to Paul. It is therefore problematic to conclude that Paul or other NT writers would have only this form of homosexual activity in mind when addressing same-gender sexual relations.

Second, several features of Rom 1:26-27 reflect a more general view of homosexuality and not simply the practice of pederasty.

(26) For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women
exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, (27) and in the same way
also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed
with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and
received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

The parallelism of v. 27b ("the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another") and the reciprocal pronoun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("one another"), does not fit with a pederastic-type relationship. What is portrayed by Paul's phrasing and terminology is males giving up natural sexual relations with women and turning to one another for mutual sexual gratification. Second, the comparative parallelism signaled by v. 27a ("and in the same way also the men"), in which the homosexual activity of men is held alongside the homosexual activity of women earlier noted in v. 26, also does not cohere with a pederastic conception of homosexuality; one is at pains to see how homosexual activity by women (among whom the practice of pederasty was unknown) is illustrative of or synonymous to the specific practice of pederasty among men.

Scroggs anticipates this objection and argues that Paul was not interested in such a specific comparison between the men and women in terms of homosexual practice. Instead, he intended the parallel to function on a more general level:

Since there are no Old Testament Laws prohibiting female homosexuality,
why does Paul include it here?... But why Paul included it may well be
his insistence that the false world is lived in equally by women as well
as men (just as there is equality between the sexes in the world of the
new creation). Hence his illustrations must be inclusive of both
sexes. (9)

In other words, Scroggs argues that Paul includes the reference to homosexual activity among females only to show that both men and women are living lives in contrast to what God intends for humanity.

I do not believe this adequately accounts for the parallelism that Paul is careful to construct in these verses. Even if one accepts Scroggs' generalized reading of the parallelism, it still fails to account for the fact that the mere reference to female homosexuality indicates that Paul does not simply have pederasty in view. Yet, Scroggs simply goes on to focus on the male element of the parallelism while maintaining that Paul's injunctions apply only to pederasty. In contrast, Smith rightly argues:

Paul probably did know of at least several different types of homosexual
practices among both men and women. He used the general language in Rom
1, because he intended his proscription to apply in a general way to all
homosexual behavior, as he understood it. (10)

More recently, David E. Fredrickson has argued that Rom 1:26-27 is about the condemnation not of homosexuality but of excessive sexual passion. Fredrickson's proposal hinges on the claim that in the ancient world sexual activity was often conceived not in relational terms but as the "use" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) of another person for gratification. In other words, the Greek [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "emphasizes the instrumentality of the object of sexual desire." In addition, the Greek term "does not draw particular attention to the gender of the persons involved." (11) What this means for understanding Rom 1:26-27 is that [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in both these verses should not be translated as "relations" or "intercourse" (as in the NRSV above) but rather, when paired with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], as "unnatural use." Fredrickson points out that unnatural use in Paul's ancient context, as indicated in the writings of several Greco-Roman philosophers, was characterized by excessive, erotic appetites for pleasure, while "natural use is characterized by an avoidance of luxury and the control of passion." (12) Accordingly, the real issue that Paul was concerned to address, according to Fredrickson, was not homosexual relations per se but the "unnatural use" (lustful use) of others as sexual objects. Summing up his position, Fredrickson proposes:

Our investigation of the philosophic background of Paul's term
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] leads us to consider the possibility
that Romans 1:24-27 highlights the problem of passion and its
consequences rather than the violation of a divinely instituted norm of
male and female intercourse. Additionally, we have seen that although
"the natural" has a range of meaning in ancient writers, the most likely
parallel to Paul's usage is the philosophic interest in the problem of
self-control in the face of erotic love. Unnatural use, from this
perspective, has less to do with the gender of the persons having sex
and more with the loss of self-control experienced by the user of
another's body. (13)

Fredrickson's essay offers a helpful discussion of the philosophic background to the use of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. However, his conclusions that the "sexual activity between males is not portrayed as the violation of the male-female norm given with creation" and that "the immediate problem is passion, not the gender of the persons having sex" are difficult to sustain in light of what Paul actually says in Rom 1:26-27. First, while the concept of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] with respect to unnatural sexual activity does not, by itself, draw attention to the gender of the persons involved, there is no reason that Paul could not have used [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] along with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] to denounce homosexual activity. In fact, a common argument against homosexual relations (or "use") offered by Greco-Roman writers, as Scroggs points out, was that it is "against nature." (14) Fredrickson, however, overlooks these references and instead suggests that the use of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] along with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] has such a specialized meaning that in the case of Rom 1:26-27 it can refer only to excessive passion and somehow not also to the activity to which that passion led.

A second problem I see in Fredrickson's analysis is that it ignores the Jewish background to Paul's thought in Rom 1:26-27, assigning an intent to the passage that would be quite remarkable for a first-century Jew steeped in Jewish tradition. Both Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism consistently denounced homosexual activity as contrary to what God intended for human sexuality. (15) Yet Fredrickson's proposal would have us read Rom 1:26-27 and conclude that Paul had little or no interest in saying anything about homosexuality per se but only about the unbridled passion that was evident in these illustrations he happened to choose. To believe that the example of males and females engaged in same-sex relations is, according to Fredrickson, of no particular relevance for Paul would be to remove Paul completely from his Jewish heritage. The more likely assessment of Paul's intent is that he chose the example of homosexuality because he believed it to be one of several effective illustrations of the unnatural depravity (vv. 24, 26, 28-31) that humanity has so frequently embraced.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Finally, and most important, Fredrickson's proposal fails to address the basic logical development of the passage that occurs in v. 27ab: "and in the same way also the men, giving up natural use of women, were consumed with passion for one another."

Even with Fredrickson's translation of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] as "use" inserted into the NRSV, the problems with his reading are clear. As noted earlier, two parallelisms are evident in v. 27ab. The first, signaled by the Greek [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("in the same way") in v. 27a, draws a comparison back to the topic of v. 26: women engaging in "unnatural use" with one another. Thus, what Paul is going to discuss in the remainder of v. 27 is in some sense similar to the illustration of women engaging in same-sex usage. The point of that comparison becomes clear in v. 27b as the "unnatural usage" is specified by the second parallelism that Paul employs: the men give up natural use of women and instead are consumed with passion for one another. It is the exchange of women for men in their sexual relations--just as women exchanged men for women--that is the breach of what is natural. It is to this unnatural act of exchange that the illicit lust is assigned ("consumed with passion for one another"). For Paul, the unnatural actions and the unnatural desire are one and the same, and they consist of both men and women engaging in same-gender sexual relations rather than heterosexual relations. Defining the exchange that takes place as simply going from sexual nondesire (the philosophic view of what is "natural") to illicit sexual desire, separate from any notion of homoerotic relations as unnatural, simply does not provide an adequate assessment of the basic point of the passage.

With both Scroggs' and Fredrickson's treatments of the passage, and others like them, one gets the impression that the text has be "templated" with a particular notion of the historical milieu. In Scroggs' case, the historical context will allow Paul to be speaking only of pederasty. In Fredrickson's case, only illicit passion can be the problem in view. The result is that their contextualization of the passage unnaturally forces the text to read against the grain of its own semantic logic. In contrast, the traditional interpretation of the passage provides a reading that maintains a mutually informing balance between the semantics of the text and what can be discerned from its literary and historical contexts.

Within the broader argument of Rom 1:18-32, Paul presents same-gender sexual practice as one among many manifestations and consequences of humanity straying from God's intentions for humanity, including also idolatry, envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossiping, conniving, backbiting, and disobedience to parents. To be sure, Paul's main concern in this section of Romans is not homosexuality per se but the depravity of all humankind (not simply Gentiles, in my view), hence the expansive list of depraved activities. Nor do his comments on homoerotic activity present a view distinct from first-century Judaism. Thus, to argue that homosexuality was of special concern for Paul or seen by him as an especially egregious violation of the created order grossly overstates the evidence. Nevertheless, Paul's assessment of same-gender sexual activity is clear: It is not what God intended for human sexuality--it is unnatural--and it represents a breakdown in the relationship between God and humanity, and humanity with one another.

Now, it is always perilous, if not dubious, to guess at the motivations underlying a scholar's reading of a passage; but I'm going to do it anyway. My guess is that both Scroggs and Fredrickson, like many readers of these verses in Romans, are trying to find a way to understand the passage that both honors it as Scripture and allows for the possibility that committed, consensual, homosexual relationships may not be contrary to the will of God. On the one hand, I applaud the effort, for I share the motivation. On the other hand, if one is seeking to understand these verses in a manner that still leaves room open for the acceptance of homosexual relationships among biblically minded Christians, I think that there is a better, more natural, way to do it. Better, because it does not lead one to template the text into saying something that Paul most likely did not intend it to say. More natural, because in seeking to discern how we are to embrace these verses as Scripture, we are directed to read and reread the text within its own literary and theological home: the canon itself.

Romans 1:26-27 in its canonical context

The reading of Rom 1:26-27 presented here pursues elements similar to the canonical approach introduced by Brevard Childs. (16) It shares with him the claim that, while knowledge about the processes and dynamics leading to the creation of the canon often provides information relevant to the interpretation of the biblical texts, "it is only in the final form of the biblical text, in which the normative history has reached an end, that the full effect of this revelatory history can be perceived." (17)

Moreover, Childs speaks of "canon" not only in terms of a fixed body of sacred literature but also with respect to a "particular theological construal of the tradition." (18) This construal is recognized as individual passages are read and reflected upon in close connection with the whole of the biblical tradition; the whole contextualizes its constituent elements and provides them with possibilities of meaning they would not possess if read in isolation.

The approach I offer here is similarly interested in how the canonical context provides a construal of particular biblical texts. However, in exploring how individual texts are contextualized by the whole of the canon, I also investigate certain tendencies in the way the canon shapes and presents its constituent elements. I further entertain the notion that these tendencies, or "hermeneutical moves," employed by Scripture may be instructive--even normative--for us as well. (19)

As a starting point for discerning how certain tendencies of Scripture might guide our reflection on Rom 1:26-27, it may be helpful to begin with what I see to be an important dilemma in the church's struggle over homosexuality. Many Christians hold to the conviction that the Holy Spirit continues to deepen our understanding of God's will in new times and places, through Scripture, prayer, and shared reflection upon our experiences as people of faith. Such continuing instruction is needed because--to use Paul's words--"we now see as in a mirror, dimly" and "know only in part" (1 Cor 13:12). The notion of God's continuing instruction through the ministry of the Holy Spirit is firmly rooted in the New Testament (John 14:15-17; 16:13-14; Rom 8:1-11; 1 Cor 2:12; 7:25-40; Gal 5:16-26) and holds a central place in Christian tradition. Commonly referred to as "illumination by the Spirit," it is seen as God's gift of helping believers to embrace within their own lives of faith the good news of God's grace as revealed in Scripture. At the same time, many Christians who believe this about the ongoing testimony of the Spirit also believe that the same Spirit is leading them to understand that the best of homosexual relationships, like the best of heterosexual relationships, can bear witness to the mutuality, care, respect, and love that is to characterize all of our relationships with one another. Herein lies the dilemma. What are we to do when particular insights that some believers perceive God is revealing to them are in direct contradiction to what the Bible itself appears to teach?

For some, the notion that God's Spirit would reveal an understanding of sexuality (or of any other matter) that contradicts what is found in Scripture is simply a non sequitur. For them, the dilemma described above results not from a new word spoken by God's Spirit but from the failure of some to faithfully "test the spirits" in their eagerness to find approval of an illegitimate sexual lifestyle. Indeed, the Spirit certainly helps believers to understand and live out more faithfully the proclamation of the Bible, but to lead believers in a way that is in opposition to them? Never.

Scripture itself, however, suggests that this might actually be the case. In the remainder of this essay, I briefly explore the canon's own portrayal of God's instruction as ongoing and dynamic and the implications that tendency poses for the way we might engage the Bible's teachings and regard them as canonical.

Scripture and the dynamic character of God's instruction

On the whole, the Bible is dominated by narrative. Woven together into a canonical tapestry, most of Scripture's many elements tell the story of Yahweh seeking to redeem a fallen humanity. Extending from the genesis of our world to its climax in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and beyond time, it recounts the accomplishment of God's will to reach out to God's human creatures and call them back into right relationship with God, one another, and creation. Set within the context of this unfolding narrative disclosing God's plan for humanity and manner of accomplishing it are other genres of literature, such as the law codes, psalms, and other wisdom traditions that instruct believers on what it means to be God's faithful people. In the laws of the OT, we encounter a dimension of revelation that is nearly as dynamic and in flux as the narrative in which they reside. (20) From book to book, and testament to testament, a number of these laws are recast or even superseded by new ones.

The fact that these laws develop or are even set aside, however, does not lessen their revelatory significance. Rather, in addition to providing helpful insights on what it has meant to be God's people in various times and places, an equally important revelation they offer is that God's Torah, or instruction, changes over time. Terrence Fretheim offers the following assessment of the dynamic character of Israel's law.

The integration of law and narrative throughout the Pentateuch ... is a
key consideration. God's gift of the law is not drawn into a code, but
remains integrated with the story of God's gracious activity in the
ever-changing history of God's people. Law is always intersecting with
life as it is, filled with contingency and change, with complexity and
ambiguity.... This means that new laws will be needed and older laws
will need to be recast or set aside. (21)

After illustrating this point by noting the recasting of specific legal codes contained in Exodus by Deuteronomy, Fretheim adds.

Internal tensions and inconsistencies between these laws, however, are
not ironed out or considered a threat to the law's integrity. Rather,
old and new remain side by side as a canonical witness to the process of
unfolding law. Hence, development of the law is just as canonical as
individual laws or the body of law as a whole. (22)

For Christians, perhaps the most revealing examples of the law's development appear in NT texts such as the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1-7:28), Mark 7, Acts 15, and Paul's letter to the Galatians. In Matthew 5, for instance, after announcing that he has not come to abolish "the law and the prophets" (likely a reference to the Jewish Scriptures as a whole) but to fulfill them (v. 17), Jesus goes on to offer his own recasting of several Torah commands: "You have heard it was said ... but I tell you ..." (5:21-48). Some of Jesus' reinterpretations are simply intended to get to the heart of the underlying spirit of the law (e.g., the laws on murder, adultery [vv. 21-30], and loving one's neighbor [vv. 43-48; see Lev 19:18]). Others offer quite radical departures from the original meaning and intent of the law in view, even to the degree that the previous laws given by God are essentially set aside: e.g., the laws on divorce (vv. 31-32 [see Deut 24:1-4]); taking oaths (vv. 33-37 [see Lev 19:12; Num 30:2; Deut 23:21]); compensation/retaliation (vv. 38-42 [see Exod 21:24; Lev 24:20]).

In the controversy dialogue of Mark 7, Jesus responds to the challenge of the Pharisees ("his disciples were eating with defiled hands") by noting their own inconsistency in following Torah (vv. 9-13). Then, in his instruction to the crowd, Jesus teaches that "there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile" (v. 15). When elaborating on this extraordinary teaching with his disciples, Jesus repeats the statement (using gastrointestinal illustrations to drive home the point!), and the Gospel writer parenthetically proclaims, "Thus he declared all foods clean" (v. 19). What served for Jesus and his fellow Jews as an important, daily reminder of their distinct identity as Yahweh's own and their sense of duty to God's Torah is pushed to the periphery. Scores of dietary restrictions rooted in Torah provisions are no longer viewed as relevant to the vocation of God's people (see Leviticus 11, 17; Deuteronomy 14). All foods, in Mark's words, are now clean.

How then are we to understand Jesus' statement in the Sermon on the Mount that "until heaven and earth will pass away, not one letter, not stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished" (Matt 5:18)? Scholars have struggled to discern Jesus' (or Matthew's) intention here. On the one hand, Jesus seems to be upholding the sacred and permanent nature of the law in all its detail: not one part of it is to be displaced. On the other hand, Jesus so radically recasts portions of the Mosaic Law that he essentially sets them aside.

In my view, the answer to this conundrum lies in recognizing that for Jesus the whole of Torah, the whole of God's instruction, is contained in what he sees as its irreducible essence.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest
commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
(Matt 22:37-40)

This, for Jesus, is what constitutes the law in both its particularity and totality: right relationship with God and one another. "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." These two commandments are the root, stem, and branches that give every twig and leaf of the law its meaning and purpose. Thus, if there is any particular law which in a new time and place no longer bears witness to what it means to be rightly related to God and one another (such as the purity codes and dietary restrictions), it is to be pruned away, for it no longer belongs. It is no longer Torah. New twigs and leaves will take its place.

Paul's letters and Acts provide additional examples of the dynamic development of God's instruction to the degree that elements of God's Torah are recast or set aside. Galatians and the Jerusalem conference reported in Acts 15 make it clear that circumcision is no longer required of Gentile converts, despite the clear injunction given to Abraham in Gen 17:9-14 that any male member of his extended household, including any foreigners, was to be circumcised. The compromise worked out at the Jerusalem conference, namely, that Gentile Christians simply "abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood" (Acts 15:20) represents a far less rigorous attitude regarding adherence to law codes than that found in the Penta-teuchal traditions. Not surprisingly, Paul seems to set aside the necessity of even this limited call to dietary restrictions in his discussion of the "weak" and the "strong" in Romans 14 (see also 1 Corinthians 10). (23)

While Paul's understanding of the role of the law is complicated (and highly debated), it seems to me that the reason he came to adopt such

leniency toward numerous elements of the written law is that he considered the Spirit, coupled with Jesus' love command (Mark 12:30-31; Matthew 22:37-40), to be first and foremost the sources of God's instruction of what it means to live as God's people (see, e.g., Galatians 3-5 [esp. 5:13-14]; Rom 7:1-8:17; 1 Cor 6:12-20; Phil 3:2-11). This did not mean for Paul (or Jesus) an abrogation of the law but rather an understanding of Torah that allowed for a recasting, even a setting aside, of particular Torah stipulations in order that the purpose of God's law might now be more fully realized among God's people. (24)

Jesus' and Paul's recasting of God's Torah mark dramatic examples of what Fretheim calls "a canonical witness to the process of unfolding law." Within Scripture's narrative revealing the history of the relationship between God and God's people, climaxing in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, how humanity is to live out its calling as God's people changes. That such change is to help believers become more and more the people whom they are called to be is indicated by two factors. First, the placement of God's commands within the narrative of Scripture construes the ongoing development of the law as part of God's unfolding plan to bring humanity back into right relationship with God, one another, and creation. One of the ways God accomplishes God's saving purpose is through such continuing and developing instruction. Second, the Gospel writers repeatedly announce that such instruction now reaches its culmination in Jesus, whose teachings far transcend those of his contemporaries (Matt 5:20; 7:28-29; Mark 1: 21-28; Luke 2:46-47; John 7:14-52; 8:12-20) and even the stipulations of old (Matt 5:27-48; Luke 7:27-42; John 12:44-50; 15:1-17).

Implications: Redefining "canonical"

For the vast majority of Christians, the belief that God's instruction to God's people develops over time--at least with respect to the development between the OT and NT--is basic to their practice of faith. Christian liturgy, mission, requirements for church membership, and ethics are all shaped by the conviction that in Jesus, God does something so radical that many of the "former ways" no longer apply, that the rules--many of them, at least--have changed. However, the crux of the issue for the present discussion lies in whether or not the development of God's instruction portrayed in Scripture can extend beyond the confines of the canon itself. This raises the question of what exactly is canonical about Scripture. Is it simply its content? Or can the development of God's instruction on how we are to be God's people--as revealed in Scripture's shaping of these traditions--also be received as authoritative and paradigmatic? To what extent is the ongoing development of the law canonical, as Fretheim suggests?

Paul Achtemeier, while emphasizing the dynamic development of the biblical traditions, argues that the canonization of the scriptural texts serves an important limiting function that effectively puts a hold on their further development. (25) Thus, the canon establishes a stable witness to God's work in history, culminating in Jesus, which faithfully proclaims the significance of those events. In Achtemeier's view, this limiting role of the canon also preserves as abidingly normative the New Testament writers' specific injunctions against certain behaviors, including homosexuality.

The attempt to legitimate homoerotic sexual contact as an acceptable
Christian "lifestyle" is another such attempt [to circumvent the
limiting function of the canon], this time within the confessing
Christian community.... In this instance, the limitations imposed by the
canonical witness on certain ways of conducting a life in accord with
the foundational Christian witness are themselves negated, and in that
way actions can be declared acceptable which do in fact fall outside the
hermeneutical limitation imposed by the canon. (26)

One wonders how this "hermeneutical limitation" is to be applied to other specific actions prescribed and prohibited by Scripture, such as slavery, the role of women in the Christian community, divorce, head-coverings in worship, and greeting one another with a holy kiss, all of which are activities regarded by Scripture in a way that many if not most Christians now see much differently.

Indeed, supporters of homosexual relationships have pointed to changed perceptions among Christians on slavery and the role of women in the Christian community as analogies of how the church could be led to an understanding of an issue that differs from that of the New Testament writers. (27) They argue that, if many Christian believers today can be rightly led to understand the role of women in the church community and the institution of slavery differently than by some NT texts, perhaps we should not rule out the possibility that the same might also rightly take place with respect to our understanding of homosexual relationships.

Critics of this view counter that the issues of slavery and the role of women in the church community are different from homosexuality in at least two crucial respects. (28) First, the Bible does not speak with one voice on slavery and the involvement of women in ministry but represents a diversity of perspectives on these issues. Some texts affirm the important role of women in the history of God's relationship with Israel (Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Esther), in Jesus' ministry (e.g., Luke 8:1-3), and in the early church (e.g., Romans 16), while others call for the subordination of women to men, deny them authority within the faith community, and require them to learn in silence with full submission (1 Tim 2:8-15; 1 Cor 14:34-35; see also 1 Cor 11: 2-16). Similarly, texts in the NT may seem to legitimate or tolerate the practice of slavery in the Greco-Roman world (Eph 6:5-8; Col 3:22-4:1; 1 Tim 6:1-2), while others in both testaments appear to challenge this institution (Exod 21:1-11; Deut 15:12-18; Philemon; Gal 3:28). (29) Such is not the case with the Bible's response to homosexual practice, which unambiguously proscribes same-gender sex.

Second, with the issues of slavery and women's involvement in ministry, one can find a "trajectory of tradition within the Bible itself that justifies a critique or moderation" of biblical statements on these issues. (30) That is, the critique of slavery and the limitation of women's roles in ministry comes from within Scripture, not simply outside of it. The numerous passages, noted above, offering a positive portrayal of women involved in ministry and possibly in leadership positions, and others seeming to move us to a view of human relations beyond patriarchy and institutionalized slavery, provide the cue for our own development of thought on these issues. In contrast, such a cue or trajectory of positive views on homosexuality simply does not exist in the biblical tradition.

This line of argument presents a seemingly formidable challenge to the use of the issues of slavery and the role of women in ministry as analogies for how we might understand changing views on homosexual relationships. I grant that the canon is unambiguous in its prohibition of homosexual practice and likewise does not provide a trajectory of tradition offering a positive assessment of homoerotic activity. At the same time, for reasons I outline below, I believe that the argument ultimately fails to be compelling and that the changing perceptions on the role of women in ministry and slavery can serve as helpful analogies for assessing changing perceptions on homosexuality within the Christian community today.

To begin, it is important to take note of how this line of argument I am challenging contextualizes the relevant passages and the canon as a whole. This view operates according to a hermeneutic that (1) looks to Scripture to provide a normative, binding guide for behavior, including proscriptions against particular behaviors; (31) (2) admits that in some limited cases Scripture may provide instruction on a particular issue that needs to be modified, including statements found in the NT; and (3) appeals to ambiguities in the way Scripture treats these matters as well as trajectories of more favorably regarded expressions to justify the modification of the biblical teaching.

This is an attractive way of dealing with problem issues such as slavery and the role of women in the Christian community. It would seem to safeguard the canon's role of providing binding norms for behavior while at the same time allowing for at least some development of thought on certain issues beyond the canon. But this way of construing the biblical tradition when dealing with problem issues is neither logically necessary nor self-evident.

Instead, one could argue that a hermeneutic more in line with the claim that Scripture provides normative, fixed instructions for specific behaviors would be to seek a harmony out of the various statements on a particular issue (at least of those offered in the NT given our location in the biblical story) rather than allowing some passages to be muted or set aside. Thus, for instance, instead of focusing exclusively on passages such as Paul's commendation of women in the early church, or the role of women in Jesus' ministry, and downplaying the significance of 1 Tim 2:8-15 or 1 Cor 14:34-35, one who looks to the canon to provide static, binding norms for behavior should weigh each one of these passages addressing the issue equally. The (still common) interpretation resulting from such deliberation would likely be that, indeed, women can play an active, important role in the church's ministry, as long as they are subordinate to men, silent in worship, do not ask questions of anyone (except their husbands in the quiet and comfort their own patriarchal homes), and make a lot of babies! Similarly, it was such a hermeneutic that led Richard Furman, president of the Baptist State Convention, in his reading of the relevant NT texts (1 Tim 6:1-2; Eph 6:5-6), to claim that Scripture does uphold as lawful and just the practice of slavery:

The powerful Romans had succeeded, in empire, the polished Greeks; and
under both empires, the countries they possessed were full of slaves.
Many of these with their masters, were converted to the Christian Faith,
and received, together with them into the Christian Church, while it was
still under the ministry of the inspired Apostles. In things purely
spiritual, they appear to have enjoyed equal privileges; but their
relationship, as masters and slaves, was not dissolved. Their respective
duties are strictly enjoined. The masters are not required to emancipate
their slaves; but to give them the things that are just and equal,
forbearing threatening; and to remember that they also have a master in
heaven.... Had the holding of slaves been a moral evil, it cannot be
supposed that the inspired Apostles, who feared not the faces of men,
and were ready to lay down their lives in the cause of their God, would
have tolerated it, for a moment, in the Christian Church.
[They might have] done so on a principle of accommodation, in cases
where the masters remained heathen, to avoid offenses and civil
commotion; yet surely, where both master and servant were Christian, as
in the case before us, they would have enforced the law of Christ, and
required that the master should liberate his slave in the first
instance. But, instead of this, they let the relationship remain
untouched, as being lawful and right, and insist on the relative
duties.
  In proving this subject justifiable by Scriptural authority, its
morality is also proved; for the Divine Law never sanctions immoral
actions. (32)

I would not commend such a hermeneutic or the above interpretations to which it would likely lead. But if the canon is to provide static and unchanging norms for behavior, as the view I am challenging holds, the age-old approach that weighs all of the relevant material concerning women in ministry and the institution of slavery equally when seeking to discern the voice of Scripture on these issues would seem more consistent. (33) Otherwise, the supposedly fixed and normative commands the canon collectively provides on these issues are actually composed by a particular scholar's (or community's) construal of the relevant passages as some are given greater weight and others are deemphasized or set aside. What then prevents readers from simply picking and choosing the trajectories (or handful of passages) that better accord with their own sensibilities and that of their faith communities? (34) In what sense is Scripture serving as the norm when we address these issues and come to understand them differently than the biblical writers? What is the real norm that underlies such construal of the text?

The real norm, it seems to me, is the continuing ministry of the Spirit that leads us--when we allow it--to understand more deeply what it means to be God's people and to embrace God's reign among us. The Spirit has led us to grasp the dehumanizing and dispiriting consequences of slavery and patriarchy and has called us instead to adopt ways of relating to one another that reap blessing rather than cursing. Such did not occur apart from our reading of Scripture; instead, our experience of the Spirit led us to delve all the more deeply into Scripture and closer to the heart of its witness. The biblical text, with our gaze rightly adjusted and ears properly tuned, now proclaimed in bold strokes and powerful tones the dignity of every human being and the equality of women as partners in ministry. Biblical teachings that did not fit this new way of reading were qualified or set aside. This marginalization of the now problem texts seemed a small price to pay. So much more had been gained. The gospel, God's saving reign--the Word--was being lived more fully.

The position I have been challenging holds that without the ambiguities in Scripture's treatment of slavery and the role of women in ministry we would not be justified in allowing our experience of the Spirit's prompting to lead us to a new understanding of those issues. I argue that a more natural way to regard these and other inconsistencies is not simply to see them as legitimating our development of thought only on the particular issues concerning which Scripture seems unclear. Rather, such questioning and revising within the biblical tradition are to be seen as paradigmatic of our ongoing struggle to discern--in dialogue with Scripture, the Spirit, and one another--what it means to be God's people. (35) These ambiguities in the text suggest not only the appropriateness of rethinking the Bible's stance on slavery and patriarchy; they also invite us to consider how God's Word may be among us still, calling us to discern the ways in which God's reign can be more faithfully embraced and lived.

The confluence of two observations we have already discussed suggests that this way of reading Scripture better appreciates its witness and canonical function within the life of the Christian community. First, there is Scripture's own testimony to the ongoing revision of God's instruction concerning what it means to be God's faithful people. The dynamic nature of this instruction reveals that God does not simply want our adherence to a fixed set of laws. Instead, God desires that we continually open ourselves to discerning how the essential purpose of God's instruction as defined by Jesus--to love God and one another--can be more fully lived out among us.

Second, while the unfolding drama of salvation history reaches its culmination in Jesus, the New Testament texts themselves indicate that Jesus' instruction of believers will continue through the ongoing ministry of the Spirit (John 14:15-17; 16:13-14; Rom 8:1-11; 1 Cor 2:12; 7:25-40; Gal 5:16-26). Again, the reason this must be so is because we yet "see as in amirror, dimly" and "know only in part" (1 Cor 13:12). The improving yet still deeply troubled human characters of the unfolding drama of God's salvation necessitate a continuing path of illumination, apath that was also treaded--and magnificently so--by Paul and the other inspired writers of the NT.

In light of this, the fact that Scripture itself provides no indication that the dynamic nature of God's instruction is to suddenly cease is crucial. To insist, as do Achtemeier and others, that all of the specific injunctions of the NT concerning particular behaviors must stand for all time is to assign to this dimension of biblical tradition a role it had never before performed. According to this view, the canonization of the Scriptures fundamentally--and problematically, I think--changed the function of the sacred tradition that it preserved.

In contrast, the approach to Scripture presented here understands "canon" and "canonical" to refer not only to the content of its witness but also to a way of reading sacred tradition that Scripture itself embodies. The hermeneutic to which Scripture bears witness is first of all one in which the sacred stories of God's people are continually retold and celebrated as one great overarching history culminating in God's act of salvation in Jesus. Second, it bears witness to the need for those who embrace this great story as their own to continually reflect upon, together with other believers, what it means to live as those who are shaped by this story. For this ongoing discernment, God's instruction as presented in the Old and the New Testaments, including its specific commands, is an indispensable resource for our lives of faith. The instructions governing behavior given in both testaments, when viewed within their narrative context and especially through the lens of Jesus' own instruction, are the starting point for discerning how we are to live as Christ's disciples. But in some cases, it may just be that through the Spirit, Jesus--the living Word--comes to us and once again says, "You have heard it was said ..., but I tell you ..." and so calls us to discover even more deeply what it means to be God's people.

Many individuals and faith communities believe that they are sensing Jesus' persistent voice. It is a voice revealing to them that those living in committed, same-sex relationships may also bear witness to the mutuality, care, respect, and love that is to characterize all of our relationships with one another. It is a voice disclosing that the best of these relationships, like the best of their heterosexual counterparts, proclaim and give glory to the ways of God. Many of our fellow believers disagree. But as others of us do the best we can to "discern the spirits," our strong sense is that it is the one Spirit at work in these relationships to reveal what it means to be the people of God.

Karl A. Kuhn

Lakeland College, Sheboygan, Wisconsin

[e-mail]

1. Beyond space limitations, several additional reasons commend this limited treatment. First, Levitical prohibitions against homosexuality (Lev 18:22; 20:13) in the Holiness Code (Lev 17:1-26:46) appear among injunctions against all sorts of behavior that Christians no longer view as contrary to God's will in light of Jesus' recasting of the Torah. Consequently, many argue that these texts, at least by themselves, do not speak decisively against homosexual relationships. For a thoughtful representation of this perspective, see Phyllis A. Bird, "The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation concerning Homosexuality: Old Testament Contributions," in Homosexuality, Science, and the "Plain Sense" of Scripture, ed. David L. Balch (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 149-73. Second, 1 Cor 6:9-10 and 1 Tim 1:9-10 are perceived by many, including myself, as most likely referring to homoerotic activity. Yet there is some credence to the claim that we just do not know for sure whether the decisive term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("those lying with a male") in both passages refers to male homosexuality in general, a pederastic type of relationship (along with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in 1 Cor 6:9) or more specifically to male prostitution. For a detailed discussion of these passages and the terms [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], see Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 303-39. Third, some have also pointed to Jesus' teaching on divorce and marriage in Mark 10:2-9, in which Jesus affirms the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, as relevant to the discussion (see, e.g., Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 194; Christopher Seitz, "Sexuality and Scripture's Plain Sense: The Christian Community and the Law of God," in Homosexuality, Science, and the "Plain Sense" of Scripture, 191). Yet the morphing of this passage into a condemnation of homosexuality faces the problem that an affirmation of the sanctity and permanence of heterosexual marriage--in response to a question regarding divorce--does not necessitate a particular view of homosexual relationships. The issue at hand is whether the dissolution of heterosexual marriages is to be allowed, and it is on that basis that Jesus appeals to the etiology of the creation narratives in order to demonstrate God's intention that marriage be a permanent union: "what therefore God has joined together, let no one put asunder" (Mark 10:9). Thus, it appears that in Rom 1:26-27 we have the most concrete and relevant statement within the biblical canon concerning homosexuality.

2. In addition to those cited below, see, e.g., Victor Paul Furnish, The Moral Teachings of Paul: Selected Issues (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), 52-83, and more recently "The Bible and Homosexuality: Reading the Texts in Context," in Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate, ed. Jeffrey S. Siker (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 18-35; John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Robert Jewett, "The Social Context and Implications of Homoerotic References in Romans 1:24-27," in Homosexuality, Science, and the "Plain Sense" of Scripture, 223-41.

3. Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).

4. In the ancient world, the practice of pederasty consisted of an adult male using a male minor for sexual gratification.

5. See Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 59-60, 130-33.

6. Mark Smith, "Ancient Bisexuality and the Interpretation of Romans 1:26-27," JAAR 64 (1996): 233-44.

7. Smith, "Ancient Bisexuality," 237.

8. Smith, "Ancient Bisexuality," 244.

9. Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 115.

10. Smith, "Ancient Bisexuality, 246.

11. David E. Fredrickson, "Natural and Unnatural Use," in Homosexuality, Science, and the "Plain Sense" of Scripture, ed. Balch, 202.

12. Fredrickson, "Natural and Unnatural Use," 204; see also 205-7.

13. Fredrickson, "Natural and Unnatural Use," 207.

14. See Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 59-60.

15. See Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 66-98; Donald J. Wold, Out of Order: Homosexuality in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 62-148.

16. Childs's work on the topic marked (and is likely, in part, responsible for) a turning point about two and a half decades ago when many interpreters began to read texts in relation to their larger literary contexts and the whole canon (commonly referred to as a "theological" or "canonical" reading of a biblical passage or book). For a helpful example of how Childs's ideas have influenced biblical scholarship, see Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation, ed. Gene M. Tucker, David L. Petersen, and Robert R. Wilson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). In recent years, a growing number of interpreters have similarly approached the biblical texts as an overarching narrative and have focused on the "storied" nature of Scripture as way of discerning its significance and meaning for Christian communities. See, e.g., Narrative Reading, Narrative Preaching, ed. Joel B. Green and Michael Pasquarello III (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003); The Art of Reading Scripture, ed. Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003); Garrett Green, Theology, Hermeneutics and Imagination: The Crisis of Interpretation at the End of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), esp. 185-86; Allen Verhey, Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), esp. 3-13.

17. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 76. Thus, while also sharing with James A. Sanders (From Sacred Story to Sacred Text: Canon as Paradigm [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987]) the interest to discern the hermeneutics reflected in the biblical text and the sense that such should serve as models for reading Scripture in our own time and place (see below), the canonical approach advocated here differs from that of Sanders in one crucial respect: its scope of investigation for discerning the hermeneutics at work in Scripture consists of the biblical text in its final form and not (as with Sanders) the historical processes that gave rise to the biblical traditions.

18. Childs, The New Testament as Canon: A Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 41.

19. A similar approach to Scripture is advocated by Ellen F. Davis in "Critical Traditioning: Seeking an Inner Biblical Hermeneutic," ATR 82 (2000): 733-52, and Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Feminist Interpretation: A Method of Correlation," in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 111-24. Both scholars argue that Scripture itself bears witness to a process of both preserving and yet critically revising traditions that the biblical writers (or Jesus) found difficult and in need of modification.

20. For example, compare statements between Exod 22:21-24 and Deut 24:17-22 (treatment of alien, widow, orphan); Exod 23:1 and Deut 19:16-21 (injunctions against giving false testimony); Exod 21:2-6, 23:10-11 and Deut 15:1-18 and Leviticus 25 (seventh-year release of slaves, remission of debts); Deut 7:1-6, 23:1 and Isa 56:3-8 (foreigners and genitally deformed).

21. Terrence E. Fretheim, The Pentateuch (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 169.

22. Fretheim, Pentateuch, 169. Similarly, Phyllis Bird states, "Thus the OT legal tradition contains efforts to formulate general norms, as in the Decalogue, together with specific cases that are both expressions and tests of general norms. Both are essential and both are subject to change as they are brought into new interpretive contexts. The successive, and in part competing, law codes contained in the Hebrew Bible testify to an ongoing process of community deliberation concerning the rules that will govern its life, a process that continues today" ("The Bible in Christian Ethical Deliberation," 163).

23. Concerning Romans 14, James D. G. Dunn states: "Paul would no doubt have recognized how considerable was the challenge he was putting before the Roman congregations. On the one hand, the challenge to recognize that traditions rooted in Scripture and hallowed by history need not be determinative for acceptance by God. On the other, the challenge to go as far as possible in accommodating the different views of the other without compromising the most basic foundation of all--faith in God and in his Christ" (The Theology of Paul the Apostle [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998] 688).

24. As Dunn states, "Faith operating through love is how the commandments are to be kept--including the necessity or otherwise of circumcision! In other words, the love command fulfills the whole law because it fulfills the spirit of the law and, in the given situation of loving the neighbour, indicates what things really matter and what can be treated as non-essentials (adiaphora)" (Paul the Apostle, 657).

25. Paul J. Achtemeier, Inspiration and Authority: Nature and Function of Christian Scripture (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 152-56.

26. Achtemeier, Inspiration, 155.

27. See David Bartlett, "A Biblical Perspective on Homosexuality," Foundations 20 (1977): 142; Gerald Sheppard, "The Use of Scripture within the Christian Ethical Debate concerning Same-Sex Oriented Persons," USQR 40 (1985): 19, 30-31; and Walter Wink, "Homosexuality and the Bible," in Homosexuality and Christian Faith, ed. Walter Wink (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999).

28. Because Gagnon provides such a thorough and cogent representation of this position (The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 441-52), I focus my discussion in response to his comments.

29. Gagnon (The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 443), argues that the NT "nowhere affirms slavery as an institution; the best that can be said is that it tolerates slavery and regulates it even in Christian households." So also Greene-McCreight, "The Logic of the Interpretation of Scripture," in Homosexuality, Science, and the "Plain Sense" of Scripture, ed. Balch, 258. I do not wish to nitpick over precise differences in denotation between "tolerate," "legitimate," or "affirm." But it seems to me that the NT household codes addressing the slave-master relationship reflect an attitude toward slavery that goes well beyond resigned toleration (see Eph 6:5-6; 1 Tim 6:1-2). To be sure, the writers of these texts are not simply echoing the dominant Greco-Roman sentiments toward slavery but seek to shape the practice of the institution in a way that is consistent with the core Christian ethic of love. Yet in doing so they urge that the slave-master relationship be maintained with a degree of devotion beyond what would otherwise be typical: "obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart" (Eph 6: 5). In fact, a Christian slave's service of his or her earthly master is considered as part of his or her service and devotion to God (Eph 6:5-6). The eschatological claim that the distinction between master and slave will ultimately vanish is also in view (Eph 6:8-9). Yet, remarkably, this hope is cited as motivation for the proper exercise of the practice of slavery by both master and slave, not the cessation of it. Again, the tone of these passages goes beyond simple toleration. The institution is fastidiously maintained and treated--even affirmed--as consistent with the Christian life. One wonders how many sermons based on these texts were preached against the underground railroad and other attempts to liberate run-away slaves in the nineteenth century. Were such sermons exegetically inconsistent, even if tragically wrongheaded?

30. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 442.

31. In addition to the quote from Achtemeier above, see Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 346, and Wold, Out of Order, 9.

32. University of Furman Web site: http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/rcd-fmnl.htm. Transcribed by T. Lloyd Benson from the original text in the South Carolina Baptist Historical Collection, Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina. The original letter is dated May 28, 1823.

33. Note that with respect to slavery and the role of women, such a balanced reading of the relevant passages has informed the church's position on these issues for most of its history and until relatively recently.

34. With such problem texts such as I Timothy, many interpreters simply abstract out some underlying "principle" (such as "we should all be orderly and respectful in worship") in order to soften the force of the statements contained in those passages. Yet the hermeneutical maneuvering that such a rereading entails is certainly quite different than seeking the "plain sense" of the text. It is difficult to see how such an approach treats these texts with the authority these interpreters otherwise accord to Scripture.

35. A similar understanding of Scripture as bearing witness to God's ongoing revelation and the application of this concept to the issue of homosexuality is offered by Dan O. Via in a text coauthored with Robert Gagnon: Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 38-39. See also Brian K. Blount, "The Last Word on Biblical Authority," in Struggling with Scripture, ed. Walter Brueggemann, William C. Placher, and Brian K. Blount (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 61-69, and Karl A. Kuhn, "Discerning the Word: Scripture and the Ongoing Witness of the Spirit," in In Essentials Unity: Reflections on the Nature and Purpose of the Church (Minneapolis: Kirkhouse, 2001), 197-205.