This week sees the publication of a new collection of essays,
Created for Love: Towards a New Teaching on Sex and Marriage, edited by Theo Hobson and John Inge.
I'm delighted to have contributed to this: here's the introduction to my essay, 'Beyond Patriarchy'.
‘If your friend told you to jump off a cliff, would you?’
Most of us can remember being asked this, in exasperated tones, by a parental figure in our lives. It’s a question the Bible asks of us in the dialogue between Jesus and the tempter (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4: 1-13, with a much shorter reference in Mark 1: 12-13). Having been foiled in his first attempts to tempt Jesus by Jesus’s knowledge of and confidence in Scripture, the tempter turns to Scripture itself as a tool of temptation. We’re used to hearing that the devil twists Scripture, so what I find fascinating in this exchange is that the tempter quotes Scripture accurately. In reply, Jesus doesn’t dispute that the quotation is accurate: he simply quotes another verse. In doing so, Jesus - and the compiler of Luke’s gospel – give us a mini masterclass in the use and abuse of Scripture. It is perfectly valid, as Jesus models for us here, to agree that yes, Scripture does say X – but it also says Y, and on balance that seems more helpfully applicable to the particular issue, situation or temptation that we are currently faced with.
I start with this hermeneutical principle because it is a highly important one when it comes to considering how we might look towards a new teaching on sex and marriage. I have no intention, in this brief essay, of rehearsing again the arguments for and against conservative or progressive interpretations of each of the well-known ‘clobber texts’ on sex, sexuality, and gender. Anyone who is interested in this topic will either have already made up their mind on the interpretation of those texts, or can readily find in-depth analyses from a variety of perspectives elsewhere.
Here, I want to suggest much more simply that yes - much of the Bible does indeed assume a hetero-normative, patriarchal world view. It’s a world view in which sex is considered primarily in terms of procreation, women are considered primarily in terms of their relationship to men, and men are valued primarily in terms of how well they measure up to a particular standard of masculinity. However, just because much of the Bible was written within a context where those assumptions went largely unnoticed and unquestioned, does not mean that following the Bible faithfully today means imbibing the socio-cultural norms of the ancient near-East. To paraphrase what Jesus said to the tempter – yes, you’re right, Scripture does indeed say that. But it also says many other things, which are far more healthy and life-giving, and will lead us to sensible, rather than destructive, behaviour.
This is foundational to understanding the way in which our complex historic inheritance of teaching about sex and marriage has developed. One of the criticisms often levied at those of us who dare suggest that a new teaching on sex and marriage might be healthier, is that we are simply ‘succumbing to the spirit of the age’. We all do well to examine closely what is really motivating and inspiring us. But as a ‘gotcha’, where this criticism falls down is it’s denial of the historical reality that our biblical texts themselves are all, inevitably, suffused with the spirit of successive ages. Our faith is incarnational. In being ‘fleshed out’ in dialogue with successive specific contexts and cultures, God’s w/Word has inevitably been shaped in part by each, as well as deeply challenging each.
Women were seen in much of the ancient world, philosophically speaking, as faulty men. They were also seen reproductively, in a context which had only a limited understanding of reproductive science, as not much more than simply receptive ‘land’ into which male seed was planted to grow. Women were, as a result, seen essentially as property. Let’s be honest about the fact that much of what is seen as a ‘traditional sexual ethic’ is in reality about controlling access to women as property; about respecting the property rights of men in respect of ‘their’ women; and about controlling paternity and thus family lines and inheritance patterns. In the 10 commandments, sex is primarily referenced in property terms, rather than as an act in its own right. Coveting your neighbours wife – that is, wishing to take her from him for yourself - is described as sinful in exactly the same terms as coveting his farm animals (ox or ass) or real estate (house).
But women are not property. We are beautifully and wonderfully made, in the image of God. We are not inferior to men, or the possessions of men. So anything biblical which relates to, or derives from an archaic and damaging view that sees us as such, is to be jettisoned. I’d be tempted to say ‘is to be disregarded’ – but we need, in fact, to pay deep regard to such views, given the damage they have caused and continue to cause to so many, and very explicitly and consciously reject them.
