Sola Scriptura

There's been a conversation happening in the comment section of my last post between my friend Mustoe (not Adam. Adam is Adam and Mustoe is Mustoe) and myself. Please feel free to read through this conversation. As you do, keep in mind that Mustoe and I are actually best friends and love each dearly, even dream of serving a congregation together sometime in our lives.

My friend brings up a good point concerning my Ten Most Controversial. (I hear the complaints of the fellas who actually have class with me and hear my backhand comments. Some of my viewpoints are simply not blog-worthy nor blog-appropriate)

How do we come to the conclusions we make? I sometimes wish that the "Jump-to-Conclusions mat" from Office Space actually exsisted. Wouldn't it be great if we could just lay out all the possible answers to all the possible questions on some sort of hopscotch board and whichever one we landed on, that's the one we take. No thinking, no debate, no fuss.

Alas, there is no such product. We are called, and really were created, to make up our own minds. At one point in Monty Python's Life of Brian, Brian-who is being confused with the Messiah and blindly followed by hundreds of crazed disciples-finally addresses the crowd with the thesis of the film. "Don't you see, you don't need to follow ANYBODY, think for yourselves."

Sola Scriptura refers to the belief that Scripture alone is sufficient to guide all moral, social and spiritual actions and decisions. Mustoe is very right to point out that I am adamantly against this view, especially as it is used by the "fundys" (Ryan Delgado has a great post on Facebook about the true nature of fundamentalism, btw). Anyone can, and everyone has, use scripture to support every point of view under the sun. The KKK, the extremist Jihadists, slave traders, Fred Phelps and his hate-mongering family. All say that there actions and viewpoints are guided and defined by Scripture.

I did not mean to give the impression that my interpretation of Scripture is the one and only support for my views on homosexuality, violence, luxury, etc. I don't use Scripture that way; as just another article to support my hypothesis like some holy debate team captain. I don't even like sermons that jump from verse to verse in order to prove the point of the message, usually taking all those verses far out of their original context and meaning.

As a Wesleyan, I believe in four things that must always guide our theology, philosophy, missiology and all the rest. Scripture is absolutely one of the four. The others are reason, experience, and tradition. And, I would add a fifth, conscience.

The views expressed in the last post are guided by my interpretation of scripture, my life experience, the tradition out of which I come, my own personal reflection and reasoning, and how each of those views sit on my conscience. In the case of homosexuality (which I MUST point out is not the conversation mustoe and I are having; we are having a discussion of conclusion making, not the specific conclusion) in my interpretation of scripture: 1. the homosexuality to which the Bible speaks is unequivocally wrong and sinful; it is idolitrous pederasty, having sex with young boys who serve in the Greek and Roman temples. 2. the homosexuality we know now, the loving, committed relationship between two people of the same gender, didn't exist or wasn't discussed when the Bible was written. 3. Jesus does quote the OT in the "man leave his home and take a wife" passage, but he does not say this is how marriage is defined in every case and the only way that it isn't sinful. 4. When it comes to Paul, he thinks we're all wrong for being married, gay or straight, so....5. Even if you consider homosexuality a sin, isn't there a strong message of grace and mercy and forgiveness in Scripture. Isn't there a "take the plank from your own eye" passage.

In my experience, homosexual people are no different than the rest of us. It's even hard for me to talk about homosexual people like another race, another subset of people. All of us are broken, wonderful, sinful, grace-filled people just trying to do the best we can in this life.

In my tradition, the UMC states that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. (the reason i used the same language when referring to a life of luxury). I don't agree, but as a UMC pastor I must uphold this statement in my ministry. I hope to be a part of the church that changes this view in the Book of Discipline. (btw, it says the same thing about violence, war, and gambling) As far as my family tradition, I was raised to uphold, respect, love, serve all people regardless of...well...anything. I was raised to believe that all people should have access to the same rights and priviledges.

In my own reasoning, I think about the arguments against. It is sinful: well, so is smoking and I did that, so is drinking and i do that, so is lusting and I do that...a lot. It is unnatural: while I cannot picture being with another man myself, love and committment and relationship may be the most natural things in this world. It attacks the institution of marriage: marriage isn't doing so great in the hands of the heteros, my friends. I just can't get my mind to a place that thinks, or reasons, that homosexuality is wrong.

And the point I added, conscience: it FEELS wrong to me to say that homosexual people are sinful or wrong or not worthy of marriage or somehow not as worthy as I am to serve God in ministry. It FEELS wrong.

Deep breath.

Well, there you have it. Again, I don't mean to start the be-all-end-all of debates on homosexuality. The point of this post is method: how do we come to the conclusions to which we hold? In order to better understand the views of others, we must understand our own and how we arrive at them. Method is the basis of conversation, or dialogue to use a buzzword. I respect the views of those who have come to their conclusions through a long process of reflection, study, reasoning and discussion. I do not respect the view that this is wrong, that is wrong, I'm for Barack, I'm for Hilary, I'm for McCain, my point is the only acceptable point...but I really don't know why.

Discussion and conversation is the key. Or, we could just stand on either side of the line and scream random Bible verses at each other.

I love you, Mustoe. BB