Daily Archives: June 12, 2009

Christ and Sexuality: Some Consequences

Posted by on June 12, 2009 72 comments

Follow me on this one for a second. Within the Christian tradition, I think its fairly uncontroversial that Jesus Christ is the archetype, the ultimate definition, the mesoform of what it means to be human. I suppose this could be disputed, but within Christian theology this is pretty axiomatic. Jesus’s own historical, contingent, particular human life defines what it means to be human in a way that is more significant than any other determinate factor of human existence.

If this is true, what implications might this have for a theology of marriage and sexuality? In CD III/4 Barth unfortunately defines humanness by sexual differentiation, thereby taking an Adamic definition for humanity rather than approaching the issue Christologically (see p. 158ff for example). In so doing, Barth makes sex and marriage the definition, or at least the full expression of the meaning of humanity. However, this is a decidedly non-Christological approach.

If we take Christology as our starting point, recognizing that (unless Dan Brown turns out to be right) Jesus was unmarried, not sexually active, and produced no children, we come to some very different conclusions. If the One who, in his life, crucifixion, and resurrection defined and actualized for us the very definition of humanness, what does that say about humanness? Clearly it says that marriage, sexual activity, and bearing children do not have any central place in the definition thereof.

Let us be absolutely clear on this point. If Christ is truly the fullness and definition of authentic humanity, we must say categorically that marriage, sex, and parenthood tell us nothing whatsoever of ultimate significance about humanness. If marriage, sex, and parenthood are somehow the fullness of humanity we are forced to say that Christ, far from being the true human as the Christian tradition proclaims, was in fact, sub-human. To grant sexuality any sort of ultimacy with respect to the definition of humanness is to deny that Jesus is the true human being.

So, if we take a Christological defintion for the meaning of humanness, sexuality by definition tells us absolutely nothing about the ultimate meaning of humanness. It may, through the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit be comandeered and become in many and sundry ways a parable of the kingdom, just as many of the trivial aspects of human life are open to God’s interruption and transfiguration. But, insofar as the meaning of authentic human existence, sexuality tells us nothing. Not if we really believe that Jesus defines for us what it means to be be human. And, further to this point, only when we allow sex to be truly and wonderfully insignificant, to be trivial, will it be able to be recived as a gift rather than gulpingly grasped in an idolatrous fit of fetishizing.

Yoder on Just War 3

Posted by on June 12, 2009 8 comments

As Yoder draws his trenchant analysis of just war theory to a close in his essay “Christ, the Light of the World,” he really drives home the all-important point regarding the question-begging nature of the just war tradition. This essay is, to my mind, one of the most logically sharp pieces of writing that Yoder ever produced, and frankly it is quite difficult to argue with. I’ve never seen any argument so thoroughly demolish another position in the space of one paragraph before.

In bringing his case against just war theory to a close, Yoder argues that

the total body of doctrine of the just war is a kind of begging the question. It is assumed that a great number of other moral values are solidly known and accepted, so that they can provide a perspective from which to evaluate a given war or the use of a given kind of weapon. It is said, for instance that war need be waged only by a legitimate authority; but where do we get the definition of legitimacy for political authority? It is said that only such weapons may be used that respect the nature of humans as rational and moral beings; but who is to define just what that nature is and what means of warfare respect it? The evil that is sure to be brought about by war must not be greater than the evil that it seeks to prevent, but how are we to measure the weight of one evil against another? A just war can only be waged when there is a clear offense; but what is an offense? In a host of ways, the total heritage of just war thought turns out to be a majestic construction whereby a case is made, on the grounds of self-evident values that seem to need no definition, for setting aside the examples and instruction of Jesus with regard to how to treat the enemy. In order thus to function, the other values, as well as the logic whereby they operate in the given case, must have a kind of authority for which the best word is ‘revelatory.’ Otherwise they could not be weighed against Jesus. (p. 190)

Here Yoder makes several important points about just war doctrine that are fundamental to understanding his perspective on the matter. First, he makes clear that just war theory itself rests on utterly dubious rational foundations. Its claims for rationality, efficacy, and intelligibility are in fact massive exercises in begging the question. Second, the values that give just war doctrine its shape constitute a competitive revelation claim over against the claims of Jesus with regard to how to treat the enemy. Yoder is clear on this point. Just war doctrine, in so far as it posits a different revelation claim is in fact an alternative messianism to the messianic politics of Jesus and the church.

As my other posts exploring Yoder’s understanding of just war have demonstrated already, all of this militates utterly against the notion that Yoder viewed just war doctrine as an acceptable mode of Christian ethical thought. Rather, in so far as just war doctrine legitimates violence against the enemy it constitutes an alternative messianism to that of Jesus and as such must be seen as a form of unfaithfulness and idolatry that must be rejected.

The Possibility of a Protestant Church

Posted by on June 12, 2009 7 comments

“[T]he struggle regarding the church government is actually the question necessarily emerging from church history regarding the possibility of a Protestant church for us. It is the question whether, following the separation from papal and worldly authority in the church, an ecclesial authority can be erected that is grounded in word and confession alone. If such an authority is not possible, then the final possibility of a Protestant church is gone; then there truly remains only a return to Rome or a state church or the way of isolation, into the ‘protest’ of true Protestantism against false authorities.”

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter to Eberhard Bethge, 23 January 1940, in Conspiracy and Imprisonment, 1940–1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 16, trans. Lisa E. Dahill (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 78.

H/T: Barry Harvey for pointing this quote out on Facebook

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