40 Answers (more or less) for Kevin DeYoung

Ss. Sergius and Bacchus, Icon, 7th Century

Click here to read "40 Questions for Christians Now Waving Rainbow Flags."

Dear Kevin,

While I certainly don't expect to change your mind, I thank you for asking these questions. Some of them were very insightful, some I thought were a little patronizing, and, alas, many were redundant. Nevertheless, it was a good exercise, for my own personal growth and post.catholic journey. So I thank you for that. Here it goes...

1. How long have you believed that gay marriage is something to be celebrated?

Like many Christians, my support for the recognition of gay marriage by the state, and eventually even the blessing of same sex unions by the Church, came after a lengthy struggle to accept the fact that some people are innately attracted to members of their own sex while possessing the same God-given need for intimacy and relationship that heterosexual people have. Even after accepting this, it took me years to open myself to the possibility that the moral teachings against homosexual behavior (teachings I had held since childhood) actually placed a greater burden on gay people than most heterosexuals could ever hope to endure. Over time I became more and more convinced that being gay was neither a “call to celibacy” nor a reason for a person to live a life devoid of the intimacy of relationship that most heterosexuals take for granted.

The election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 caused me to study the issue of same sex unions with an added measure of pastoral urgency. I found John Boswell’s Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (1996) to be a helpful resource in this regard. Boswell demonstrates that the status of same sex relationships is not a “new” issue for the Church; indeed, there exists a long, albeit often quiet, history of sanctioning “quasi-marriages” or life-long “holy friendships” between two people of the same sex, complete with corresponding liturgies of blessing. While scholars hotly debate the nature of these pre-modern unions (though all agree that these rites stopped short of condoning sexual activity), it can hardly be doubted that pre-modern cohabiting same-sex couples, if given the opportunity, would have taken advantage of the ecclesiastical cover that these rites afforded. This seemed to be the pastoral model I was moving towards, though it would still take me over a decade to fully embrace.

2. What Bible verses led you to change your mind?

Matthew 19:12 – “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

Comment: This is an implicit acknowledgement, placed on the lips of Jesus, that some people born into this world do not easily fit the gender binary.

Galatians 3:28-29 – “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.”

Comment: While certainly not negating our biology, this passage nonetheless compels us to radically rethink what gender/sex means in Christ in the same way that it challenges us to rethink ethnicity and slavery. In Paul’s day Christians struggled with the question, “What does full inclusion of the Gentiles look like?” Centuries later Christians would be challenged to rethink the morality of slavery and the status of women in society. Perhaps in our day we are being challenged to rethink what the full inclusion of those who do not fit the gender binary looks like (i.e. LGBTQ).

3. How would you make a positive case from Scripture that sexual activity between two persons of the same sex is a blessing to be celebrated?

Genesis 2:18 – “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone’…”

Comment: Human beings are created with a God-given need for intimacy and relationship.

1 Samuel 18:1-3 – “The soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul…Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.”

Comment: Apart from any consideration of sexual activity, love on the deepest level and commitment can and does exist between members of the same sex.

1 Corinthians 7:9 – “But if [unmarried persons] are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.”

Comment: Gay marriage is preferable over insisting on celibacy for those not naturally disposed to it.  (Let’s face it, that’s the overwhelming majority of us.)

Romans 8:1 – “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” 

Comment: Christ has set us free from the Law of Moses (that enslaved and condemned us) to fulfill the law of love (which sets us free and gives us life).

Galatians 3:28 – “There is …no male and female, for you are all one in Christ.” 

Comment: See #2 above.

4. What verses would you use to show that a marriage between two persons of the same sex can adequately depict Christ and the church?

I dare say I would continue to use the same verses that I would for a marriage of two persons of the opposite sex. But I do see your point, particularly with regard to male headship in marriage:

Ephesians 5:20 -- "For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior."

My honest question here would be whether the headship metaphor still carries the same application today in light of our contemporary understandings of the essential equality of the sexes and equal partnership in marriage. Even those who still insist on male headship do not share, at least to the same degree, the same underlying patriarchal values and attitudes that Christians of earlier times had.

Therefore as a preliminary answer (since I’m still working this through), I would offer up the suggestion that marriage as a scriptural metaphor for the self-giving love of Christ to his Church still applies to marriage in contemporary times, though, in light of our understanding of equal partnership in marriage, the application of this metaphor expands to include both partners in reciprocating Christ’s love for each other.

5. Do you think Jesus would have been okay with homosexual behavior between consenting adults in a committed relationship?

A better question to ask would be whether a first-century rabbi or itinerant preacher could ever have imagined such relationships, let alone would have taken time to teach about them or against them. The answer I believe is self-evident.

6. If so, why did he reassert the Genesis definition of marriage as being one man and one woman?

The context of the passage (Matthew 19) makes it clear that Jesus was addressing divorce. His reference to Genesis 2:24 was no more a condemnation of same sex unions than it was a condemnation of polygamy. He addresses neither subject, so it is unfair to twist his argument in this way. Indeed, I have used Genesis 2:24 myself to make the very same point.

7. When Jesus spoke against porneia what sins do you think he was forbidding?

In context Jesus clearly had in mind illicit forms of heterosexual behavior, particularly any willful act on the part of a wife against her husband that constituted a breach of spousal fidelity.

8. If some homosexual behavior is acceptable, how do you understand the sinful “exchange” Paul highlights in Romans 1?

Sexual orientation as a psychological dimension of a human person was not understood in Paul’s day. So it should not surprise us that Paul’s conception of exchanging “natural” for “unnatural” relations was shaped by the sexual taboos of his time, place and culture; reinforced as they were by a few line-item commands within the Mosaic code as well as by the most common and scandalous homoerotic practice in Roman society, namely pederasty (i.e. the sexual exploitation of young males and slaves by older males). Hence, Paul addressed homosexual behavior as he observed it in his day (no doubt from a safe distance).

In light of what we know today, I think it is a gross misapplication of Paul’s words to make them a blanket condemnation of all homosexual expression, particularly in the case of two members of the same gender living together in a covenanted relationship of mutual love and affection.

9. Do you believe that passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Revelation 21:8 teach that sexual immorality can keep you out of heaven?

Sure, if by “heaven” you mean the “kingdom of God.” However, in the final analysis, it is God, not Paul or the author of Revelation, who will judge.

10. What sexual sins do you think they were referring to?

1 Corinthians 6:9 refers to arsenokoitai (literally “man-bedders”), a derogatory term used to describe hedonistic male homoerotic behavior in general. I personally cannot see how this term would apply to those living in life-long covenanted relationships.

Revelation 21:8 refers to pornois, which in most contexts refers to prostitution, but certainly could have the more general meaning of promiscuous behavior, both heterosexual and homosexual.

I do not think it particularly helpful to make an exhaustive itemized list of every activity or behavior that these terms might possibly describe in any given context, nor do I believe the biblical writers intended for us to do so.

11. As you think about the long history of the church and the near universal disapproval of same-sex sexual activity, what do you think you understand about the Bible that Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther failed to grasp?

Augustine felt obliged to allegorize the most embarrassing parts of the Old Testament to accommodate his former-Manichee (dualistic) sensibilities. He also bequeathed to the western theological tradition his own sexual hang-ups, including his belief that original sin is transmitted through heterosexual coitus.

Aquinas relied more on natural law than on biblical exegesis for his understanding human nature and sex. In his taxonomy of sexual sins, he ranked masturbation worse the fornication, incest worse than rape, and consensual sodomy worse than incest or rape. Such a ranking should make us shudder in horror today. Yet it makes perfect sense in a time and context that viewed any sexual act as “unnatural” that did not envisage procreation as its primary end.

Calvin was the subject of a vicious lie and rumor started by the Catholic controversialist, Jerome Bolsec, that, as a young man, Calvin had been convicted of sodomy and sentenced to death in the city of Noyon. After the intervention of a bishop, Calvin was supposedly branded and instructed to flee the city. While I do not believe this rumor for a second, it nonetheless illustrates just how dangerous a sympathetic attitude towards homosexuality would have been in Calvin’s (and Luther’s) day.

12. What arguments would you use to explain to Christians in Africa, Asia, and South America that their understanding of homosexuality is biblically incorrect and your new understanding of homosexuality is not culturally conditioned?

I detect a hint of colonial imperialism in this question. Be that as it may, I would use the same arguments I employed above. I do however wonder what the inquirer thinks of active western evangelical lobby and support for the anti-homosexual legislation recently enacted in countries like Nigeria and Uganda, where gay people can be fined, imprisoned and in some cases executed. I wonder if the inquirer believes that such laws should be enacted here in the US, and if not, why not?

13. Do you think Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were motivated by personal animus and bigotry when they, for almost all of their lives, defined marriage as a covenant relationship between one man and one woman?

I really do not think I could care any less about what motivates either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama on this issue.

14. Do you think children do best with a mother and a father?

Yes, it might surprise you to know that I believe a family where both parents raise their biological children is ideal. I also realize this is not always possible or even for the best in a broken world (e.g. death, divorce, abuse, neglect, etc.). However, lest we turn the biological family unit into some kind idol, we should keep in mind another biblical model of the family – a model that happens to provide the greatest scriptural metaphor for our redemption in Christ: adoption. (It also happens to be a model that I think should be open to gay couples.)

15. If not, what research would you point to in support of that conclusion?

“Extensive data available from more than 30 years of research reveal that children raised by gay and lesbian parents have demonstrated resilience with regard to social, psychological, and sexual health despite economic and legal disparities and social stigma.”
–Perrin & Siegel, “Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents are Gay or Lesbian,” American Academy of Pediatrics, 2013. (Hat tip to Ben Irwin)

16. If yes, does the church or the state have any role to play in promoting or privileging the arrangement that puts children with a mom and a dad?

I think that the state should, if possible, prioritize the placement of children in two-parent families, while recognizing that many single people make wonderful parents as well. Of course, churches are free to promote the kind of family arrangements that they feel most agree with their fundamental beliefs.

17. Does the end and purpose of marriage point to something more than an adult’s emotional and sexual fulfillment?

I believe it is self-evident that the institution of marriage is a great stabilizing factor in society, promoting fidelity and discouraging harmful sexual behavior (behavior that contributes to the spread of HIV, unwanted pregnancies, etc.)

As an Episcopalian, I affirm the purposes of marriage described in The Book of Common Prayer (1979), which states that marriage is intended by God for a couple’s “mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord.” To this I would add the care and nurture of any children entrusted to a couple via adoption.

18. How would you define marriage?

Marriage is a socially recognized, often ritually blessed, legal contract between two persons that establishes certain rights and responsibilities between them, their natural and/or adopted children, and, to a lesser degree, their extended families (e.g. child guardianship).

19. Do you think close family members should be allowed to get married?

No, for two reasons: first, human beings have a natural aversion to incest; second, incest involves the high risk of harmful genetic consequences.

20. Should marriage be limited to only two people?

I do not in any sense advocate state-sanctioned polygamy, even though I believe that ultimately “marriage” should be defined by families within the context of their communities of faith or affinity. So, if Mormons wish to practice plural marriage in a free society, more power to them. However, the state is not in any sense obligated to sanction, endorse or privilege archaic practices like polygamy and/or the taking of concubines, especially given the harmful patriarchal implications involved.

21. On what basis, if any, would you prevent consenting adults of any relation and of any number from getting married?

The state has a compelling interest in both prohibiting marriage between genetically close relatives and discouraging the practice of polygamy (see above).

22. Should there be an age requirement in this country for obtaining a marriage license?

Yes, reasonable societies do not assume minors are mature enough to enter into legal contracts of any nature, let alone marriage licenses.

23. Does equality entail that anyone wanting to be married should be able to have any meaningful relationship defined as marriage?

In the United States of America, people are free to decide for themselves what marriage means within the norms of their faith/affinity communities. However, the state is not obliged to sanction any definition of marriage that conflicts with its compelling interests.

24. If not, why not?

Slippery slope arguments that gay marriage inevitably opens the institution of marriage up to limitless redefinition and any number of possible scenarios and configurations are not logically valid. In civil law, marriage is still defined as the legal union of two people for the purposes of setting up a common household and holding property in common.

25. Should your brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with homosexual practice be allowed to exercise their religious beliefs without fear of punishment, retribution, or coercion?

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America ensures the freedom of faith communities to promote and celebrate the kinds of marriages and family arrangements that they feel most agree with their fundamental beliefs.

26. Will you speak up for your fellow Christians when their jobs, their accreditation, their reputation, and their freedoms are threatened because of this issue?

Absolutely!  But, frankly, I cannot imagine a scenario where a dissenting Christian would actually be forced to conduct, celebrate, witness or participate in a gay marriage.

However, I suspect your question is more about the bakers, photographers, pizza shop owners and state clerks we hear about in the news. To my way of thinking, there is a considerable difference between a baker and, say, a kosher butcher. A baker may have religious scruples against gay marriage, but baking and selling a cake is not a religious obligation or a ritual custom on the part of the baker. It is a transaction of commerce, and to refuse business to a protected class of people is discrimination. Likewise, state clerks tasked with issuing marriage licenses represent the civil government in their capacity, not their church or religion. The First Amendment simply does not apply in these cases.

With regard to accreditation, accrediting bodies are private peer-governed agencies that establish their own criteria for membership. I would hope that dissenting Christian organizations would not be penalized for their beliefs, but that is not my call.

27. Will you speak out against shaming and bullying of all kinds, whether against gays and lesbians or against Evangelicals and Catholics?

I will always speak out against shaming and bullying.

28. Since the evangelical church has often failed to take unbiblical divorces and other sexual sins seriously, what steps will you take to ensure that gay marriages are healthy and accord with Scriptural principles?

Churches in my denomination offer premarital counseling, couples counseling, family counseling, and crisis counseling, among other things. I think churches are obligated to extend the same kinds of support to married gay couples.

29. Should gay couples in open relationships be subject to church discipline?

Fidelity in marriage is the Christian norm.

30. Is it a sin for LGBT persons to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage?

See above (#29).

31. What will open and affirming churches do to speak prophetically against divorce, fornication, pornography, and adultery wherever they are found?

Encourage couples to model healthy marriages and teach accordingly; offer support for relationships, counseling for those trapped in sexual addiction, and guidance for young people as they grow into adulthood.

32. If “love wins,” how would you define love?

As love is defined in John 15:13.

33. What verses would you use to establish that definition?

See above (#32).

34. How should obedience to God’s commands shape our understanding of love?

In light of Matthew 22:36-40 (and John 15:13), the question should have been stated, “How does our understanding of Christ’s love for us shape our obedience to God’s commands.” I’ll leave that for you to ponder.

35. Do you believe it is possible to love someone and disagree with important decisions they make?

Yes, and most happily married people know about this firsthand. :-)

36. If supporting gay marriage is a change for you, has anything else changed in your understanding of faith?

Over the years I have changed much of what I understand about the Christian faith. It’s called growth.

37. As an evangelical, how has your support for gay marriage helped you become more passionate about traditional evangelical distinctives like a focus on being born again, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the total trustworthiness of the Bible, and the urgent need to evangelize the lost?

The challenge of full inclusion in the Church has brought more passion to my faith and more motivation to share the good news of Christ with others than any attempt on my part to protect the Church from “false teaching” or “heresy” ever has.

38. What open and affirming churches would you point to where people are being converted to orthodox Christianity, sinners are being warned of judgment and called to repentance, and missionaries are being sent out to plant churches among unreached peoples?

The Episcopal Church welcomes you…and we actually mean it. :-)

39. Do you hope to be more committed to the church, more committed to Christ, and more committed to the Scriptures in the years ahead?

See # 37.

40. When Paul at the end of Romans 1 rebukes “those who practice such things” and those who “give approval to those who practice them,” what sins do you think he has in mind?

Clearly Paul’s purpose in Romans 1 was to disturb his Jewish audience out of the complacency of their legalistic self-righteousness. In the very next statement he says: “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things” (Romans 2:1). This is a rebuke that every legalist should take to heart.

Again, thank you Kevin. By the way, I don't wave rainbow flags.

Sincerely yours,
Dan

Click here to read my Postscript.

Sound Bite Theology: Summing up Fundamentalism in One Sentence

For Fundamentalism, Jesus' incarnation, life, ministry, death and resurrection serve primarily as the central narrative-core of their true savior, the inerrant Bible.

Imago Dei, Divine Risk & the Freedom to Become

Any attempt to present a coherent theistic-evolutionary understanding of creation must begin with the idea of divine kenosis, or "self-emptying," as the central assumption behind the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. Kenosis not only includes the idea that the Creator has "made room" for the existence of something else -- something other -- it must also include the gift of freedom, i.e., the "freedom-to-become," which is the central assumption behind what Christian theology refers to as creatio continua.

From a physicalist standpoint, this freedom-to-become involves random processes, albeit governed by the innate physical laws instilled by the Creator at the initial point of creation. The initial conditions and innate laws indeed seem to suggest, even from a scientific point of view, that the direction or course of the created order is generally determined -- e.g., from the moment of the "Big Bang" to the formation of the elements, the birth of stars, the coalescence of galaxies and planetary systems, the emergence of life itself and eventually of consciousness.  However, there is no compelling reason, either scientifically or theologically, to suggest that any particular outcome is specifically determined. Theologically speaking, the freedom-to-become is a true freedom; hence, a divine risk, which is the essence of love.

It is here that the honest exegete must acknowledge the anthropocentric perspective of the sacred scriptures and the pre-scientific theologies that have been based upon them. A coherent theistic-evolutionary account can hardly afford to reify the Edenic myth of the earth as a place in the universe specially prepared to await the arrival of our species. Even the doctrine of the imago Dei calls for reappraisal. From the standpoint of physicalism, the earth is such, and we are such, only by natural happenstance. In principle, nothing precludes the emergence of life in other places in the cosmos, even of sentient life with consciousness, intelligence, and an awareness of the imago Dei.

Indeed, that the Creator prompts and directs his creation as a whole towards this general end and goal must be seen as lying at the heart of the Christian message. The goal of theosis is thus no less than the participation of the entire cosmos in the divine life. It stands to reason then that our species' role as a unique instantiation of the imago Dei can no longer be viewed in isolation from the rest of the cosmos of which we are a part. To remain coherent, a theistic-evolutionary account must view the gift of the divine-image not as one imprinted upon a particular species, be it human or another, but rather as a gift instilled upon the cosmos as a whole, in the beginning, as imago Dei in potentia.

The Quest for the Mythistorical Jesus (Part Two): The Witness of the Empty Tomb

Christians do not believe in the empty tomb, but in the living Christ. This does not mean, however, that we can believe in the living Christ without believing in the empty tomb. Is it just a "legend"? What matter? It still refers to the phenomenon ensuing the resurrection, to the presupposition of the appearance of Jesus. It is the sign which obviates all possible misunderstanding. It cannot, therefore, but demand our assent, even as a legend. Rejection of the legend of the empty tomb has always been accompanied by the rejection of the saga of the living Jesus, and necessarily so. Far better, then, to admit that the empty tomb belongs to the Easter event as its sign. (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/2)

(Note: Barth employs the term "legend" in the sense that this article employs "mythistorical." Click HERE to read Part One.)

In 1924, Karl Barth (1886-1968) published a small treatise entitled The Resurrection of the Dead. Little did he realize at the time just how misunderstood this aspect of his overall theology would become and just how tenacious the ensuing controversy would prove to be. This was not helped by the fact that Barth's early writings on the resurrection seemed to diminish the importance of the empty tomb. For Barth, a preoccupation with the empty tomb took the focus away from the true object of our faith: the resurrected Christ.  Yet to his detractors, especially evangelical theologians like Carl F. H. Henry, Barth's position sounded like an outright rejection of the gospel accounts, which in turn sounded suspiciously like a denial of the resurrection itself.

In time, however, Barth's growing concerns with the demythologizing project of Rudolph Bultmann would cause him to change his tune. Bultmann had regarded the resurrection as "a mythical event, pure and simple," grounded not in objective event, but rather in the subjective experience of the disciples. Increasingly alarmed that Bultmann's radical existentialist approach had stripped the resurrection of Christ of any objective significance, Barth in his later writings began to place considerable emphasis on the empty tomb as "the sign which obviates all possible misunderstanding."

This change in emphasis did not represent in Barth a fundamental shift in his theology of the resurrection as much as it did a development in his hermeneutical treatment of the gospel accounts. Barth had never held or insinuated that the resurrection of Christ had been anything but a physical resurrection or that the Church's faith in the resurrection was rooted in anything less than historical event. Barth's earlier statements that seemed to dismiss the "empty tomb" were not about denying the existence of a grave or a sepulcher located somewhere in or around Jerusalem, but rather about the legendary character of the resurrection accounts found in the gospels -- stories that differed greatly from one another in their details. Naturally, a physical resurrection would include an empty grave of some kind in its actualization in time and space.

Yet even if the tomb of Jesus could be located and identified this would in no way constitute historical verification of the resurrection, as there could be many possible explanations as to why the tomb was empty on the first Easter morning. Rather the resurrection of Christ could only be verified through the experience of the disciples and continuing faith of the Church. This is why the legendary character of the gospels posed no difficulty for Barth. Their stories of the empty tomb did not constitute actual eye-witness accounts, nor were they in any other sense historically verifiable, yet they bore witness to the Church's faith in Christ's resurrection in all of its objective significance, and thus the empty tomb stood as an indispensable sign that cannot "but demand our assent."

Naturally, such a nuanced position was bound to be misunderstood by fundamentalists and liberals alike. Generally speaking, in Barth's day there were but two ways of looking at the gospels: either in good literalist fashion as entirely historical accounts or as imaginative stories (more or less) crafted in the minds of the early disciples to explain the significance of their crucified master and/or the continuing experience of the "living Christ" within the early Christian communities. This is where Barth stood out as representing a via media or "middle way." Barth conceded that the gospel accounts of the empty tomb were not historical, per se, but rather were legendary in character. This did not mean that they were entirely fictional, but only that the stories bore the character of  imaginative responses appropriate for their time and culture. However, the living Christ to which they testified was the resurrected Jesus of history, not some otherwise existential figment of faith.

Barth's via media points the way forward in dealing with the gospel accounts as a whole. The true referent of the legendary witness of the empty tomb is the resurrected Christ, not the actual empty tomb itself or any of the other literary details of the different resurrection stories as they unfold in their telling. Hence, it stands to reason that we should not allow ourselves to get bogged down with attempts to explain other differences between the gospels: e.g. discrepancies, contradictions, different emphases, theological assumptions and the like. Such issues would be significant if we were dealing with competing historical accounts. But they do not matter in dealing with "mythistories." All that matters are the stories as stories and what they reveal to us about the Christ of faith. So, for instance, the question of whether Christ was entering or exiting Jericho when he encountered blind Bartimaeus, or whether two blind men met him there or just one (cf. Mark 10, Matthew 20, Luke 18), constitutes an unwarranted diversion away from what the "story-tellers" (i.e. the evangelists) actually want to tell us about Jesus, turning our attention instead towards fruitless considerations about the trustworthiness of texts erroneously regarded as historical accounts; as if to say that our faith was founded on a book (a Christian "Koran" if you will) rather than on the living Christ.

In the final analysis (as this post-catholic thinker sees things), Barth's via media rescues our faith both from the tyranny of textual literalism and from the relativism of radical demythology. The stories of the empty tomb are grounded in the resurrected Christ of faith, not the resurrected Christ of faith in the stories of the empty tomb. Likewise, the gospels are relative to the Church's faith in Christ, not the Church's faith to the gospels. Considered thus, the Bible assumes the nature of a truly revealed word from God en-fleshed in the words of its human authors.

Part One: The Problem Stated
See also: "Mythopoeia: Ancient & Modern"

The Quest for the Mythistorical Jesus (Part One): The Problem Stated

Modern scholars have routinely reinvented Jesus or have routinely rediscovered in Jesus that which they want to find, be it rationalist, liberal Christianity of the nineteenth century, be it apocalyptic miracle workers in the twentieth, be it revolutionaries, or be it whatever it is that they're looking for, scholars have been able to find in Jesus almost anything that they want to find. Even in our own age scholars are still doing this. People are still trying to figure out the authentic sayings of Jesus...All of our middle class liberal Protestant scholars who will take a vote and decide what Jesus should have said, or might have said. And no doubt their votes reflect their own deep seated, very sincere, very authentic Christian values, which I don't gainsay for a moment. But their product is, of course, bedeviled by the problem that we are unable to have any secure criteria by which to distinguish the real from the mythic or what we want to be so from what actually was so. (Samuel Ungerleider, Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University)

Albert Schweitzer could not have said it better himself...

In his 1906 classic work, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, Schweitzer had challenged the foolhardy "Lives of Jesus" movement of the nineteenth century by revealing the scholarly presumption and bias behind all attempts to make up the life of Jesus of Nazareth out of whole cloth. What is now called the "original quest" for the historical Jesus had been going strong since Reimarus's initial investigations into the "historical Jesus" question in the eighteenth century. By Schweitzer's reckoning, the quest had run its course and should now be considered dead, marked his own work (as well as that of William Wrede).

The original quest had been a characteristically Enlightenment project in its dismissal of the miraculous elements of the gospels along with what was considered the "pretentious divinizing" of Jesus by misguided first and second century followers who sought to make sense out of their teacher's tragic demise. The result was a Jesus completely divorced from the New Testament, variously portrayed by nineteenth century liberal theologians along imaginative lines of what a first-century Jewish prophet might look like. Yet, ironically, Schweitzer's critique of this approach did not end the quest as much as it unwittingly anticipated its future course. Schweitzer's attempt to understand the historical Jesus in light of what he saw as the (misguided) apocalyptic nature of Jesus' preaching and mission as revealed in the gospels now paved the way for future "questers," in their respective ways, to take the New Testament seriously as a historical source. The "new quest" would focus its investigation on the continuity between the preaching of Jesus and the preaching about Jesus (kerygma) in the New Testament.

And so the "quest for the historical Jesus" has continued with interesting twists, curves and turns in the road, with only a brief rest-stop or two, right up to our own day. Newer approaches (as different as the works of N.T. Wright are from those of Marcus Borg) seek to understand Jesus and the character of his mission in light of his peculiar context within the Palestinian setting of Second Temple Judaism. But they all work under the same guiding principle: the significance of Jesus is of utmost importance in understanding the course of history, so we had better get it right. By the second century the early Jesus-movement had burst forth on the scene in a major way. By the beginning of the fourth century Jesus himself was well on his way to becoming the most influential figure who ever lived. All this to say that Jesus of Nazareth simply cannot be ignored as a historical figure, even by the most radical of skeptics. Yet as enlightening (and as helpful at times) as these "quests" have been, in the final analysis, every attempt to reconstruct the "historical Jesus" is doomed from the start.

This is true because Jesus is not the kind of person that history typically remembers. Indeed, the shortcoming of "questing" for the historical Jesus is simply that what can be known about Jesus historically, apart from the rare incidental comment by otherwise disinterested observers (like Josephus and Suetonius), is relegated exclusively to the writings of his followers, particularly the gospels. The problem is, however, that the gospels are not "histories," at least not in the sense that we understand that term today; nor are they what we would call "biographies." Rather they are "faith-narratives," i.e., stories about the "Christ of faith."

This is not to suggest that the New Testament is completely mute with respect to the historical Jesus. Indeed, there is every reason to affirm that the New Testament is replete with stories that are rooted in actual events. But rather than giving us straightforward history, the New Testament gives us projections of the "Christ-event" rooted in the faith-encounters of the earliest believing communities. The Jesus presented therein is not merely a figure of firsthand memory (which in any event would have been fading quickly by the time of composition), but rather a Jesus whose life and ministry had been re-imagined in light of post-resurrection theological reflection; a Jesus whose story had been re-told through the pages of Israel's sacred story; a Jesus whose mission had been re-crafted into the personification of Israel's prophetic tradition; a Jesus who was seen as recapitulating the role of hero in Israel's ancient mythos by taking it up into his own mythos (e.g., the "new Moses," the "second Adam," the "High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek," etc.). In light of this, how much of what we read in the gospels can be considered in terms of empirical fact? From the historian's perspective, it is impossible to know.

The difficulties inherent in the historical question become even more acute within literalist or fundamentalist circles, where the canonical gospels are taken to be entirely historical, thus compelling proponents to attempt harmonizing or reconciling contrasting and even contradictory features within them. But how do we reconcile the two very different infancy narratives presented in the Synoptic tradition (i.e. Matthew and Luke)? Which one of their genealogies represents the true lineage of Jesus? Did the Last Supper take place on the night of the Passover (as all three Synoptics testify) or on the night before (as in the Gospel of John)? Did Jesus institute the Lord's Supper at this meal or simply wash his disciples' feet? Which account of the trial is most faithful to actual events? Which account of the crucifixion? Did Jesus carry his own cross to Golgatha or was it Simon the Cyrene who carried it? Which of the four different accounts of what happened at the empty tomb do we take as factual? And what of events that do not normally happen in the physical realm? Miracles? The virgin birth? The resurrection?

In stating the historical problem in this way we can more easily understand the demythologizing project of Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976). Bultmann had regarded the quest for the historical Jesus to be a dead end, and for a brief time he had nearly convinced the entire academy of his day of this as well. Bultmann considered the mythological worldview of the New Testament to be unintelligible and unacceptable to modern people. Hence, for Bultmann, a historical consideration of Jesus from the gospels was simply not relevant to modern Christology, at least not the kind of historical consideration attempted by the "questers." Rather, Bultmann reduced the historical significance of Jesus to a single word: "that." It was important only to believe that (das Dass) Jesus existed. Whereas many were attempting to connect the actual preaching of Jesus to the preaching about Jesus (kerygma), Bultmann saw kerygma as the only event of continuing significance -- the here-and-now divine act of judgment and salvation, confronting the hearer and necessitating a decision. In this way, Bultmann had managed to reduce the historical significance of Jesus to a mere presupposition.

In the final analysis, we are left with a conundrum that even Bultmann, try as he might, could not avoid. The Christian faith is grounded in Jesus of Nazareth, a figure in history whose existence and significance can only be established through the testimony of texts that we cannot entirely regard as historical accounts. In Part Two, we will offer a way forward that was anticipated by the great Karl Barth in coming to terms with the significance of the empty tomb.

Part Two

Mythopoeia Ancient & Modern: Myth, History, and Sacred Text

History is distinguished from all other sciences in that it is also an art. History is a science in collecting, finding, penetrating; it is an art because it recreates and portrays that which it has found and recognised. Other sciences are satisfied simply with recording what has been found; history requires the ability to recreate. (Leopold von Ranke, from The Theory and Practice of History, edited by Georg G. Iggers, 1976)

If we have learned anything from the postmodern critique of modernity it is that history is essentially storytelling and thus a near kin to ancient mythology. Both history and mythology attempt to explain how things got to be the way they are by telling some sort of story. While von Ranke, the 19th century founder of modern source-based history, would have demurred at this comparison, he nonetheless unwittingly exposed his own subjective underbelly by insisting that history was both a science and an "art."

In any case, the task of the storyteller, whether ancient or modern, is to portray and recreate events into a meaningful reality that is both relevant to (while at the same time constitutive of) the storyteller's context. Both ways of storytelling may in this sense by termed "mythic," as postmodernists are keen to point out, yet only one of these ways can properly be called "myth." That's because ancient storytelling is markedly different from modern storytelling. Despite von Ranke's subjective underbelly, we still expect our modern histories to be "rooted" in brute fact. Fantastical tales of gods, demigods, and other imaginative descriptions of forces beyond human grasp could never satisfy the modern mind as faithful descriptions of reality if such tales were composed today, though they might entertain us as fiction.

Indeed, what we have come to expect in our modern stories -- our "histories" -- is empirical accuracy. We expect a high degree of awareness of the universal laws that govern nature. We expect a faithful retelling of events as they actually happened or at least a very close approximation of what happened. We also expect a fair assessment of and appreciation for the social and societal contexts that serve as the all-important interpretive grids through which our storytellers filter their modern tales. Even when persons and events take on "larger-than-life" legendary status, we hold fast to their empirical "rootedness" so that they may continue to have meaning for us as icons of our culture.

In contrast, we afford to the ancients a high degree of imagination in their story-craft, a dabbling in the absurd, a dreaming of innocence. There is little to no expectation that the ancients should have been interested in our conventional ways of looking at the world, or to have had a similar preoccupation with accuracy or brute fact. From our perspective, stories about Osiris and Horus (Egypt), Prometheus and Atlas (Greek), or the Gilgamesh Epic (Ancient Near East), do not count as history in the modern sense, no matter how much they may have served to shape and mold their respective worldviews in the way that histories do today. And we're okay with that.

Yet this is more than just a casual acceptance. We recognize the value of ancient mythologies as "portals" through which we view a "mind-world" that otherwise would be lost and forgotten. Whether explained in terms of the evolution of the brain or the evolution of culture (or no doubt some combination of both physiological and social factors), the fact remains that the ancients thought very differently than we moderns do; they were conscious in a different way -- not just by degree, but in kind. Something has radically changed in human consciousness over the last three milliennia or so. No doubt there have been many such "mind-changes" in the 200,000 years of our existence as a species, but this happens to be one that we can actually see because the stories are still with us.

The most ancient of these stories stem from a period that Henri Frankfort termed mythopoeic thought: a time before philosophy, logic, and rationalism; when human beings did not view the governance of the cosmos in terms of impersonal laws but rather in terms of personal agency. The rise and fall of rivers, the seasons of the year, the occurrences of drought or deluge -- all events controlled as an act of the will by some god or spirit. Simply put, we value ancient myth because instinctively we know that the mythopoeic mind is gone forever, though, paradoxically, the archetypes formed by this mind still haunt our modern psyche and inform our own pursuit of meaning. They stand as shadows of a lost "embeddedness" we once had with the cosmos, communicating the earliest aspirations of our species to realize transcendence, to grasp the divine, and, in so doing, convey to us the earliest realizations of our estrangement from the Ground of Being itself.

Needless to say, the shift from ancient to modern consciousness did not happen overnight. Evolution involves gradual change over time. Standing between the ancient and modern minds -- in the transition -- is the so-called Axial Age, characterized by the emergence of a new sense of self-awareness, "when people began to see themselves as objective, distinct entities" (Mayer). This period also saw the parallel developments of the major religious traditions -- Buddhism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, and, of course, Judaism. Meanwhile the Greeks were imbibing in logos, while vestiges of their old mythologies continued on in local cultus, as old wives' tales, or were re-crafted as quasi-histories (e.g. Homer).

Standing right at the pivot point of the Axial Age are the sacred texts of the biblical tradition, written over the course of some eight centuries, more or less, but certainly preserving stories that are much older; stories of the ancient mythopoeic mind, remembered and re-crafted into Israel's sacred story. It should not surprise us then to find myth, quasi-history, and even early attempts at empirical history within the same corpus, or even within the same book, as in the case of the Book of Genesis. Herein we see ancient cosmologies, descriptions of paradisiacal conditions, talking serpents, life and knowledge giving fruit, angelic unions with humans and the giants they produced, an epoch flood (Israel's version of a common myth of the ANE), and heroes that live incredibly long lifespans. But we also see names, empires, cities and other locales, customs, and events that are consonant with, if not supported by, modern archaeological finds.

In many places Holy Scripture turns out to be a cacophony of ancient folklore mixed with actual historical persons, places and events, making it notoriously difficult at times to tease out the threads of "brute fact" from their mythological embroidery. This is true even for the later portions of the biblical corpus when stronger and stronger urges towards historical "rootedness" (on the part of the human authors) were not necessarily matched with equally strong concerns for empirical precision or with any particular regard to, or consciousness of, cultural bias. Yet, paradoxically, these are the conditions that must exist, and the kind of sacred texts that must emerge, within any religious tradition that would make the audacious claim that God actually and truly discloses the divine-self to humankind by fully assuming and participating in the human condition: "The Word of God en-fleshed in the words of men."

Rehabilitating Marcion (Part Four): Divinizing Our Estrangement

Note: This entry is not intended as an endorsement of Marcionism, Gnosticism, or any other form of mythical or metaphysical dualism. For a brief historical analysis see Rehabilitating Marcion (Part One).

Marcion's Dilemma strikes at the very heart of what Christians believe about their sacred scriptures, not only because it compelled the early church to define its canon and embrace the old-new dichotomy of the testaments, but also because it imposed upon theologians the persistent task of having to reconcile the picture of the capricious God of the Hebrews with the picture of the all-loving God and Father of Jesus Christ. In Part Three, we briefly considered two approaches to this dilemma, namely the theologies of discontinuity and continuity.

Given these options, we were left with a god who either suffers from multiple personality disorder (discontinuity) or bipolar disorder (continuity). In either case, the Cross is viewed as the "means of satisfaction," the purpose of which is to appease the part of the divine personality that we would rather not face, indeed, that we "could not see and live." Perfect justice, we are told, demands divine retribution, whereas divine love seeks to forgive. What to do? The proffered solution sees God the Father as unleashing punitive justice upon the Son, thereby satiating divine wrath and opening up the way of forgiveness for those who believe. It's a tidy system; the problem is, it is not a just system. There is simply no way to uphold the righteousness of a God who would allow -- nay, demand -- the substitution of an innocent party for a guilty one, even if such a substitution were done voluntarily.

Ironically, the only way out of Marcion's dilemma is to acknowledge it. Marcion was right to point out the differences between the God of the Hebrew scriptures and the God and Father of Jesus Christ, because, in general terms, this is where the greatest differences are to be seen. However, a closer examination would reveal that we are not just dealing with one or two portraits of God, but rather with many different portraits of God, and many different kinds of portraits of God, appearing throughout both testaments. For example:

• In Genesis 1, God is pictured as a transcendent being who moves like wind over the primordial, dimensionless seas of heaven and earth; speaking forth from the darkness to call the chaotic abyss to order. 

• By Genesis 2, God appears as a mysterious figure who takes morning walks in a garden, who shapes a man (adam) from the dust of the earth (adamah) and then breathes life into him; later he fashions a woman from the man's rib.

• God is portrayed in the OT both as a tribal deity who occasionally visits his friends and an inapproachable national deity who must be worshiped at a particular mountain in the desert. 

• God is the traveler for whom Abraham plays the host and offers a meal; he is the mysterious angel who wrestles the whole night with Jacob and is defeated! 

• God is the jealous judge who would have destroyed the nation of Israel had it not been for the intercession of Moses, yet relents in the destruction of pagan Ninevah despite Jonah's protestations. 

• God is the capricious deity who strikes down Uzzah, whose only crime was to touch the ark of the covenant with his hands; yet later he declares through his prophets that he is not nearly as concerned with their temple observances as he is with justice for widows, orphans, and the stranger within their gates. 

• Supremely, God is portrayed in his Son, Jesus Christ, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:6-7).

Indeed, such an examination compels us to go further than Marcion's original observation to admit that Scripture simply does not present us with a coherent picture of God at all. Rather the scriptural testimony of God is equivocal, and, if equivocal, then eminently human. The implications of this admission are startling at first, at least to the traditional-minded, for what this means is that we can no longer consider the Bible in terms of direct divine disclosure to humankind. Rather Scripture constitutes a multifaceted witness of distinctly human experiences of, and encounters with, the divine. Such descriptions of God are inextricably woven into the fabric of the human condition, and thus are anthropomorphic rather than theophanic, analogical rather that literal, poetic rather than propositional, dynamic rather than static, progressive rather than fixed, rudimentary rather than complete.

In this sense the biblical portraits of God tell us more about the human condition than they do about divine nature qua nature. They are not pictures of the way God actually is, but rather are projections of how human beings have encountered the divine in history. These are very human portraits, and yet sacred: human, because they ascribe to God human motives and emotions, even reflecting at times the pettiness and darkness of the human heart; sacred, because they are encounters with the divine, and thus "word of God" enfleshed in human condition, wholly and without qualification.

Often glorious, sometimes crude, but always meaningful, these portraits express and "divinize" our deepest sense of estrangement from what Tillich terms the "Ground of our Being."

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Rehabilitating Marcion (Part Three): The Dilemma of the Schizophrenic God

Note: This entry is not intended as an endorsement of Marcionism, Gnosticism, or any other form of mythical or metaphysical dualism. For a brief historical analysis see Rehabilitating Marcion (Part One).

All of the ink put to page against Marcion by writers such as Tertullian and Irenaeus serve only to demonstrate how dangerous Marcion's influence on the early Christian community was. Marcion was a threat because he had made an observation that still troubles Christians today; namely, the picture of God often portrayed in the Hebrew scriptures is very different from the picture portrayed by the Apostle Paul of the all-loving, all-merciful God and Father of Jesus Christ.

Two different portraits of God meant two different ways of dealing with human beings, hence, "Marcion's Dilemma." Given the pervasiveness of Neo-Platonism, it is not difficult to understand why Marcion and his followers had "solved" their dilemma by positing two different gods: the first, a capricious and vengeful demiurge, creator of the material universe; the second, the loving God who had sent his Son into the world to reveal the truth about humanity's existence.

For better or for worse, Marcion's Dilemma had changed the hermeneutical landscape forever. As much as Tertullian protested that Marcion had divided the Holy Scriptures, it was no longer the case that Christians could view the writings of their apostolic forbearers as the simple continuation of the Hebrew scriptural tradition. Where once there had been just one scriptural tradition, now there were two -- two covenants, two testaments, and eventually even two canons.

Moreover the stubborn continued existence of the people of the (now) "Old Testament," i.e. the Jews, only served to emphasize these differences. Marcion's contention that the Jewish scriptures were (in the words of Robert M. Price) "true enough in the Jewish frame of reference" certainly did not sit well with his orthodox detractors. For instance, Marcion had agreed with Jewish exegetes that Isaiah 7:14 (the prophecy of the "young woman" or "virgin") saw its fulfillment in Isaiah's day -- a view that would not be openly admitted in Christian academic circles until the 20th century. Thus Marcion's challenge cut deep into the way Christians had been interpreting the Hebrew prophets, establishing that the Hebrew scriptures stood on their own without any need of Christian elucidation.

Needless to say, Marcion's detractors were compelled to meet the Marcionite challenge head-on and to crush it in the polemical arena of competing ideas. Yet while these early Christian polemicists may have successfully refuted Marcionite dualism, they had not really resolved Marcion's Dilemma as much as they (unwittingly) recast the dilemma in terms of a "schizophrenic deity." For the same God that the Bible presented as commanding genocide, if not committing it himself (e.g. the flood), was also presented in Scripture as the God who "so loved the world" that he gave his only Son, Jesus Christ. Hence, theologians down through the ages would be faced with an equivocal portrait of God, whether or not they had any inkling that Marcion's Dilemma lay at the root of their work.

Accordingly, the history of theology has seen the development of two different approaches to this dilemma. The first approach -- that of discontinuity -- embraces the fundamental divide between the testaments, and, hence, the fundamentally different portraits of God and his dealings with human beings. In this paradigm, God's wrath, jealousy, and essential nature of absolute rectitude or justice stand in stark contrast and opposition to God's desire to show mercy, his love for fallen beings, and his propensity (from time to time) to bestow grace. The two sides of God's "personality" are held in tension, particularly in the Old Testament, until they are reconciled by the Cross of Christ. Lutheranism's dichotomy of "law and gospel" is a prime example of just such a theology of discontinuity, while Anabaptism and Dispensationalism represent extreme forms of this approach.

The alternative approach -- that of continuity -- attempts to blur the divide between the testaments, and, hence, to contend for a univocal portrait of God and his dealings with human beings. Reformed Theology's "Covenant of Grace" is instructive here as an example of a theology of continuity. Simply put, God's disposition towards humankind does not change between the testaments, at least not since the Fall (and its "Covenant of Works"). Rather, the contrast between the "Old" and "New" Testaments is merely one of perspective. In Christ, God demonstrates what his disposition has always been for the elect, while wrath and judgment (on full display in God's dealings with pagan nations in the Old Testament) are reserved for the reprobate. Theonomy (a.k.a. Christian Reconstructionism) represents this approach in the extreme, with its insistence on the application of the Mosaic Law Code in contemporary society.

Paradoxically, both approaches, at least in their western forms, have found common cause in their respective embrace of the satisfaction theory of the atonement (recast later as the "penal-substitution" theory). Satisfaction theory provides a way for both theologies to placate and appease the wrath of the holy and vengeful God portrayed in the Old Testament, by seeing in Christ the innocent victim who was willing to endure the wrath of God on behalf of others; either on behalf of the entire world (as a theology of discontinuity might see it), or else on behalf of the elect only (as a theology of continuity would contend).

But are these the only options open to us? Or can Marcion's Dilemma be resolved in another way? The next article in this series (Part Four - Divinizing Our Estrangement) will explore this question.

Part One
Part Two
Part Four

Rehabilitating Marcion (Part Two): The Gospel of Paul

Michelangelo's Conversion of St. Paul

Note: This entry is not intended as an endorsement of Marcionism, Gnosticism, or any other form of mythical or metaphysical dualism. For a brief historical analysis see Rehabilitating Marcion (Part One).

It is easy to see why Marcion would have been attracted to the writings of Paul. Paul's articulation and eloquence, his mastery of Hellenistic style and rhetoric, if not the universal appeal of his message, are still features that intrigue scholars to this day. Better than any other early Christian writer, Paul had worked through the Jew/Gentile issue in a way that left no doubt as to the possibility of redemption for all, Jew and Gentile alike. Even before the synoptic tradition would attempt to find the right metaphor and language to do justice to the scope and ramifications of Jesus' life and ministry, Paul's impressive body of letters had already convincingly portrayed Christ Jesus as "cosmic Savior" -- the One who had broken down the "dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances" (Eph. 2:14-15). So Paul could easily have been taken as the severest critic of the Mosaic law with its ceremonial prescriptions, dietary restrictions, and requirement of ritual circumcision for full inclusion. Moreover, in the absence of an authorized canon, there would have been no compelling reason for Marcion to have read Paul's writings through the lens of the Book of Acts, and thus no reason to suppose that Paul was allied to or dependent upon the other so-called apostles based in Jerusalem. After all, "those who seemed to be pillars" added nothing to his message; he had even "opposed Cephas to his face" (cf. Gal. 2).

And so a modern-day vindication of Marcion might begin...

But there is a better reason than those given above to suggest that Marcion's instinct to begin with Paul may have been a sound one, even if Marcion was probably unaware of it. Of all the early Christian writings that would eventually be gathered together, canonized, and classified as "New Testament," Paul's letters represent the earliest written witnesses to the Christ-event. Thus, rather than regarding Paul's letters as theological commentary on the four Gospels/Acts (as most Christians are prone to do), would it not be more natural to begin with Paul's letters as foundational? -- that is to say, as primary witnesses to the Christ-event, while the four gospels are at best secondary? This thesis suggests itself for more than just chronological reasons. Rather Paul's claim to be an eyewitness of the risen Christ is the only certain firsthand testimony of the resurrection that we have in the New Testament, and thus, undoubtedly, the most authentic.

It stands to reason then that Paul's letters together constitute mainstream Christianity's "first gospel." Yet, unlike the later gospels, Paul's is not given in narrative form, but rather as practical, theological, and pastoral treatises. For many, this might disqualify Paul as a bona fide "evangelist." But Paul's primary witness to the resurrection over against the secondary witnesses of the canonical gospels should not be overlooked. Indeed, if Christians are compelled to draw their Christology only from canonical sources, then it stands to reason that the most natural place to begin would be with Paul before any consideration of the later stories about Jesus, i.e. the gospels, precisely because they are later stories. This is not to say that Christians are obliged to devalue the witness of the four canonical gospels -- far from it. Rather a "canonical" approach to Christology begins with Paul, the first witness, and then moves on to consider the stories about Jesus as remembered, as passed down, as believed, and, yes, even as embellished by the pious theologizing that inevitably took place in the context of the communities from which they emerged.

Part One
Part Three
Part Four

Rehabilitating Marcion (Part One): Historical Background

Note: This entry is not intended as an endorsement of Marcionism, Gnosticism, or any other form of mythical or metaphysical dualism.

Since Marcion separated the New Testament from the Old, he is necessarily subsequent to that which he separated, inasmuch as it was only in his power to separate what was previously united. Having been united previous to its separation, the fact of its subsequent separation proves the subsequence also of the man who effected the separation. (Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum 30)

Marcion of Sinope (ca. 110-160) has the distinction of being one of the first "heresiarchs" in church history. Born of wealthy parents, Marcion's father was also the bishop of Sinope in Asia Minor. It is probable that Marcion himself had been consecrated a bishop to assist his father. Some accounts suggest that his father had him expelled from Sinope after falling into sin with a consecrated virgin, though this may be slander since Marcion's austerity is well attested. In any case, Marcion had some kind of fallout with his father that motivated him to make his way to Rome around 140 AD, where he sought admission (presumably as a bishop) into the Roman Church after the death of Pope Hyginus (ca. 136-140). Despite the Roman Church's refusal to recognize him, it did not take long for Marcion to become a popular teacher and to generate a large following, particularly during the pontificate of Anicetus (ca. 150-167). Conflict with the bishops of Rome would eventually lead to his excommunication around 144, despite a generous donation of 200,000 sesterces to the church (which was later returned to him). However, Marcion would go on to establish churches of his own that would rival those of catholic Christianity for about two centuries.

Marcion shared many beliefs in common with the Gnostics, including the dualistic notion that the god presented in the Hebrew scriptures and the God who was the Father of Jesus Christ were different gods. Marcion contended that the god presented in the Hebrew scriptures was a lesser god, a "demiurge," who had created the material universe, and was thus de facto the author of sin. In contrast, Jesus was the Son of an otherwise unknown or "alien" God, who, before sending Christ into the world, had no interactions with it. This God had sent Jesus into the world for the purpose of revealing the truth about existence to humankind, thus enabling humankind to escape from the earthly trap of the demiurge.

What sets Marcion apart from the Gnostics was the fact that the latter based their teachings on "secret knowledge" known only to themselves, while Marcion relied solely on the content of the Letters of Paul (minus the Pastorals), along with the Evangelikon, an edited version of the Gospel of Luke devoid of its infancy narrative and all allusions to the Old Testament. To these he compared the Hebrew scriptures, and concluded that many of the teachings of Jesus Christ were in conflict with the character and actions of the capricious and jealous god portrayed in them. He also rejected many Christian writings as hopelessly compromised in their attempts to identify the Father of Jesus Christ with the demiurge of the Hebrews. In so doing, he was the first figure in Christian history to define a recognized group of writings that he regarded as authoritative and faithful to the teachings of Christ, i.e., a "canon."

Reacting to the Marcionite threat, Christians would never view Holy Scripture in the same way again. Not only did this threat compel the official church to define its own list of authorized writings (eventually crystallizing in an official canon or "rule"), but Marcion's observation that Hebrew and Christian writings often presented two radically different portraits of God would also leave its indelible mark in the demarcation that Christians would now begin to make between the "Old" and "New" Testaments. While later generations of Christians would take this division for granted, this was not originally the case. Simply put, Marcion's observation forced the church to bifurcate their emerging list of authorized sacred writings, whereas before they were (in Tertullian's words) "previously united." Needless to say, the hermeneutical challenges and issues that resulted from this radical division would persist in the history of scriptural interpretation right up to our very day.

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four