from Calvin College's student paper -- The Chimes  --  http://clubs.calvin.edu/chimes/article.php?id=2242

Volume 101, Issue 24

March 30, 2007

Theological rutters

By Dale Cooper
College Chaplain

I could probably use this entire article to disagree with what Don Weck wrote last week in Chimes in his "A Theological Defense of Homosexuality."

Indeed, while I found it to be disingenuous at times (an example of what New Testament scholar Richard Hays calls "wishful interpretation on the biblical passages"), I do wish to commend Don for one thing: his piece serves as a reminder to all Christians of the important truth that when it comes to talking about and determining right Christian beliefs and appropriate behaviors, God’s Word does matter. It matters a lot.

Though I believe the piece manipulates God’s Word in such a way as to beguile readers toward falsehood, and though I am tempted to put on my fighting gloves and get into the ring, I hope this piece will not demonstrate such a spirit. I have little stomach for confrontation, nor do I wish to add more fuel to an explosive fire that is now threatening the western Christian church.

Rather, let me underscore that which Don and I agree upon: the high importance of taking God’s Word as authoritative over our life and conduct, and of giving it its due high status over our life and conversation in the future.

Although I am willing, at a different time and in a setting more suitable for careful reflection together, to discuss further what I believe is the clear and unmixed (Hays calls it "univocal") witness of the Bible against homosexual practice, allow me instead to turn my attention to a way forward.

It was a common practice of early explorers, after they had discovered a region and navigated its waters, to write out course directions—rutters, they called them—which future explorers could use to chart their course safely.

I believe it is inevitable that we’re going to have more — and more extensive — conversations within our college community about the issue of sexual orientation and sexual practice. We should. To engage in them belongs to our prophetic Christian task and calling. They can become part of our Christian witness at a time and within a culture that prizes self-gratification, elevates sexual expression to an entitlement level and makes sex into a goddess worth panting after.

If I may, I’d like to set forth a few theological rudders which our college’s ancestors have given us and by which they themselves were guided. These central and deep affirmations helped them to be both faithful to God and also to speak in Christ’s name to the age in which they lived. I believe they can help us, too, as we enter uncharted territory. I think we serve ourselves — and our Lord’s cause — well by taking them out again and recommitting ourselves afresh to being guided by them.

I present five.

First of all, we are not our own; we belong to Jesus Christ, our college community’s Teacher and Lord. Since we are under his instruction, we are allowed no independent ideas; since we are under his authority, we are allowed no independent action. Willingness to submit our entire thinking and our entire action to him is a mark of Christian faithfulness.

Secondly, God’s Word has privileged — final — authority in our thinking and action. Nothing — not our thinking, not our tradition, not our experience, nor even "my story" — may trump the arduously-studied and prayerfully-discerned promises and commands of scripture.

Thirdly, an appeal to "what’s natural to me" in a fallen world proves nothing. Our enemy is a clever deceiver, and by its very nature sin seduces and beguiles. It is folly, therefore, to trust one’s own instincts — one’s nature — to try to discern what is right. God’s Word alone provides a sure guide to the path of right obedience.

Also, God’s Word and God’s Spirit agree — always. As history progresses, the Spirit promises to lead people into fresh and new truth. Never, however, will He guide them into teachings and behaviors which contradict what He spoke earlier in his Word.

Finally, handling God’s Word aright — and then trying to follow its precepts unswervingly — has immense consequences. So does disregarding them. Our task, therefore, is serious, and must be undertaken humbly, communally and prayerfully.

I read recently an advertisement for another college: "Never has the future needed the past more than it does today." The older I become, the more I become convinced that’s true about us, too.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading. I count it a privilege to be a small member of a Christian academic community which is courageously intent on entering new territory — and is willing, therefore, to talk and to pray and to learn together about what we believe ought to be our next steps of faithful obedience. I am eager to offer my voice — and my ear — to the conversation. No doubt about it: we’re in for "rare adventure" in the days ahead. Our Lord is placing before us immense questions and large challenges. But I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way. Nor would I prefer to live at any different time, no matter how great the present challenges and complexities. He promises to be with us. And, therefore, as Thomas Merton once put it, we may trust that He "will never leave [us] to face [our] circumstances alone."