Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Reflect on your response to this lesson. Were there areas of resistance? Were there moments of enlightenment? How will this lesson make a difference in your life and ministry?
This particular lesson was on Biblical Ethics, which can be a very tricky area to navigate, especially when the Bible can seem to be saying two different things. I recall watching a media production against California's Proposition 8 banning Gay Marriage. The production, done in the form of a musical, showed the bigoted Christians fighting against the Gays. In the end, Jesus comes in the scene, with a shrimp cocktail. The justification then becomes, if it wasn't all right to eat shrimp, but now it is, the same logic applies in regard to homosexuality. The issue I have with this logic is the lack of context for those justifications.
I think the one thing that is important in regard to Biblical Ethics is context and consistency. If a message or ethical decision has what appears to be a contradiction in the scriptural canon, I think it is important to look at the historical context in which a moral value was given. Often times, the context is more revealing for a specific instance, and not for a universal value. I believe that you can point in many ways to ethical values that do not change regardless of historical context, such as the notion in regard to Gay Marriage; others can look at the same passages and come to a different conclusion.
Needless to say, this is not an easy task. Interpretation of ethical values are made by individuals with their own notions and biases. Look at all the denominations in the world that claim Christianity, some divided by a single ethical value, like Gay Marriage. Who is right? Who is wrong? It is definitely murky water to tread.
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