Category: Culture

The conversation started off with my making the following observation regarding homosexuality seeking to draw some comparisons,

What would people think if Wheaton College invited a pederast or pedophile or someone who likes to bed farm animals to come and declare that these kind of perversions are ‘justice issues.’ Now I think (definitely not sure) that people would freak out over such an invitation precisely because such perversions are clearly beyond the pale. After all, who is nut case enough to actually want to listen to that kind of disgust? Is an invitation, to come speak at a Christian college, extended to somebody who is pro-buggery, indicative of the fact that among Christians Homosexuality is no longer seen as beyond the pale – every bit as detestable as pederasty, pedophilia, or bestiality?

Matt the pro-buggery advocate chimed in,

Bret

If somebody wanted to argue that God smiles upon pedophilia I would be dying of curiosity to know what his argument is so I would be inclined to give him a hearing just to find out what he had to say, even while expecting to disagree with him.

To answer your question, my perception is that among most Christians, even conservative evangelicals, homosexuality no longer is beyond the pale. The conservative church isn’t quite ready to embrace it just yet, but that’s the direction in which things are moving.

And there are two possibilities. One possibility is that the traditional position is true, God hates it, and judgment is coming. The other possibility is that the Holy Spirit is moving and it is a justice issue, and fifty years from now the church will view its previous anti-gay prejudice with shame, much like racism. (The racists had a pretty impressive set of proof-texts too.) Since we can’t predict the future, maybe taking a wait and see approach isn’t a bad idea. The Holy Spirit has surprised us before.

att,

Let’s get this straight… you’re saying that you would be willing to suspend disbelief that it is prima facie true that pedophilia is an abomination before God and you would allow that it is possible that there might be a legitimate Biblical argument that grown men having intercourse with children from the age of 3 and above is perfectly acceptable? You might expect to disagree with him but you are admitting that it is within the realm of possibility that you could agree with him.

Immediately we must hold as suspect everything you will now say in the future on any subject touching morality. If it is the case that your moral compass is so broken on the issue of pedophilia (and presumably pedestry and bestiality as well) why should we entertain what you have to say about buggery?

Second, I would say that Christians are likely apostate Christians if they accept buggery, though unfortunately I have to agree with you that the acceptance of buggery seems to be the direction the Church is moving. Still, you certainly wouldn’t argue that all because the German Church between the years 1933-1945 moved in the direction of seeing Jews as less than human that made the idea that ‘Jews are less than human’ to be true. Counting noses has seldom been shown to be a acceptable way at arriving at truth Matt.

Third, I categorically deny that there exists an equivalence between the issue of civil rights and homosexual rights that you are trying to introduce into the conversation. People are born black but there is not one shred of non-homosexual science anywhere that people are born buggers. Certainly the case can be made that differing amounts of skin melanin alone should not be the determining factor in how people are treated. People didn’t choose to be black, it is the way that God made them. However, people do choose to be buggers and if we start extending civil right to whatever perversion people choose what will happen is that the civil rights of people who don’t choose those perversions will be violated.

Fourthly, all because we can’t predict the future, that doesn’t mean taking a wait and see approach is a good idea. What should we, who oppose buggery, be waiting for? Should we be waiting until it becomes even more widely accepted before we accept it? Are we waiting for a homosexual Church to report a Pentecost experience thus proving the Holy Spirit is surprising us? Should we wait for the ‘Holy Spirit’ to whisper to us that God’s Word is wrong? What are we waiting for?

Good night, Matt, you could drive a Mack Truck through this reasoning. All because we can’t predict the future and all because the Holy Spirit has surprised us before we should therefore take a wait and see attitude towards prostitution, or towards mass murder, or towards pedophilia, etc.

Finally, the Holy Spirit has NEVER surprised us before by bringing into the Church sin. Even with the issue of race, which you are trying to glom on to in order to support this ‘line of reasoning,’ the Church, following the Scriptures and the Spirit, sought to fold the black man into the Christian faith.

Responding to another conversant Matt offered,

The attempted gang rape at Sodom is no more a fair reflection of all gays than Ted Bundy is a fair reflection of all heterosexuals.

But here’s what I see as the issue: If you had been asked to predict, in advance, that the Gospel would be extended to Gentiles, or that Messiah would have two comings, or the Protestant Reformation, I doubt you could have done it. In hindsight there were hints, but absolutely nobody saw any of those coming. How can you be so sure this isn’t yet another example of the same phenomenon?

Remember Gamaliel? When the Pharisees were wondering what to do about the church, he advised them that if it was of God they couldn’t stop it, and if it wasn’t of God it would die of its own accord. That’s not bad advice.

Actually Matt, the attempted gang rape as recorded in Genesis was intended to communicate that it was a fair reflection of all gays in Sodom. Also keep in mind that God’s anger was kindled against Sodom precisely because of the presence of sodomites — whether they were of the gang rape or non gang rape variety (Genesis 13:13). Still, perhaps you are right. Perhaps you can show me from Scripture that God’s disposition towards non-gang raping sodomites is different than His disposition towards gang raping sodomites.

Secondly, it was the Scriptures that were appealed to in order to teach the inclusion of the Gentiles and the two advent appearance of our Lord Christ. It was the Scriptures that were appealed to in order to bring about the Reformation. Are you suggesting that an appeal to Scripture will reveal to us that God is not only not opposed to Buggery but quite to the contrary, the Church having been wrong from Genesis onward, that God approves of Buggery? Is that what you are arguing? In short the way we can know that God being pro Buggery is not an example of another phenomenon like inclusion of the Gentiles is that Scripture doesn’t teach it.

Finally that God used Gamaliel’s advice to help the cause of His people doesn’t suggest that should be our response towards evil.

Here’s why I think it’s at least possible that Wallis may be right: the clear, unmistakable Biblical and historical trend is to include people who had previously been excluded. I know of no case in which God limits grace more narrowly than it had previously been understood; he always expands it and finds a way to bring people in. Wallis’s theology certainly fits that pattern.

What you’re missing here is repentance from Sin Matt. God always expands grace and determines to bring repentant people in. You are advocating a Gospel that has a God without wrath bringing people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross (HT — Richard Niebuhr). Both you and Wallis are fitting into that pattern Matt.

Here’s what I think it will ultimately come down to: Is homosexuality something a person IS (like being a Gentile) that they have no control over, or is it something a person DOES (like fornicating). What exactly are we talking about here? Because if it turns out that we are talking about a fundamental part of a person’s identity – like being a Gentile – then I think it’s all over for the traditionalist position.

Well I will have to agree here Matt. If it comes down to finding a Buggery gene the Homosexuals will have won, temporarily. I say temporarily because if homosexuality is genetic and if homosexuals don’t breed then I’m not sure how they reproduce both themselves and their position. This is one reason I don’t believe that homosexuality is genetic because if it were genetic it would have largely died out and whatever presence it might have would be of such a minuscule report we wouldn’t be having this conversation. No, Buggery is either chosen or learned Matt. Ontologically speaking God did not constitute Man perverted though with the fall Man may certainly have predispositions to certain varying besetting sins.

Recently I posted a link to an article on Wheaton College inviting pro-buggery Champion Jim Wallis to speak on their campus. After posting that link I entered into some conversation with a ‘Christian Homosexual’ advocate on the issue of Buggery in the Church. This is important because this issue has already torn apart the Episcopalian and Methodist Churches in the West and threatens to make serious inroads into other denominations. It is also important as it is being pushed in Government schools as I mention below. If pro-buggery arguments end up being successful in the Church and in the Schools and in the media then there will be no resisting a pro-buggery Church or a pro-buggery culture.

Now, I want to say at the beginning that an apologetic against these pro-buggery advocates on this issues isn’t going to make them go away, just as an apologetic against pro-Women in office advocates didn’t make that issue go away. I don’t make the arguments here with this gentleman (Matt) because I think that he is will see the light of day, though I certainly pray that he would. I make this argument because I think that it is possible that many Christians will end up accepting as reasonable some of the ridiculous arguments that Matt is making.

I also want to say that I believe sexuality is closely tied to the image of God in man. God made man male and yet as only male man wasn’t complete. In order to complete man as man God made woman. Together Adam and Eve were man and reflected fully the image of God, especially as that image reflected God’s intra-trinitarian communion. God made man and woman to correspond to one another in every way just as the members of the Trinity correspond to one another in every way. When we strike out at our sexuality we are striking at the way God constituted us. In my estimation when we attempt to crush and reorient our sexuality we are attempting to crush and reorient, in the most physical and tangible way possible both God and the image of God upon us. Sexual perversion then may be rebellion against God in its most thorough, highest, and complete expression.

This is why Buggery should be so adamantly opposed. We don’t oppose it primarily because it is ‘yucky’ (though it certainly is). We oppose it primarily because it may very well be the apex expression of the highest rebellion against God.

It is necessary for God’s people to familiarize themselves with this issue of socially accepted buggery, if only because it is being pushed on us from all quarters. Just today I came across the following news report,

Homosexual activists are making significant inroads in US schools, as a booklet titled, “Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth,” is set to be distributed to all 16,000 school districts in the country.

The 24-page booklet by the National Education Association and American Psychological Association, tells students that homosexuality is a “normal expression of human sexuality”.

The booklet particularly targets the idea that homosexuality is a condition that can be changed. It instructs educators, ‘Schools should be careful to avoid discussions of transformational ministry in their curriculum.’

Now of course the readers here the immediate fallacy of anything that begins it’s title with ‘Just the Facts…’ Readers here know that it is impossible to have ‘Just the Facts’ without a philosophy of fact and in the quote above we see that ‘Just the Facts’ is biased by the philosophy of fact that Buggery is acceptable.

With all that as introduction we move to the conversation that is coming to your Church just down the block, or from the college where your children are attending, or from your neighbor across the street.

The format here is what is called ‘fisking,’ which is a kind of point, counterpoint moving dialouge.

But apologetic confrontation with unbelieving thought is not the only kind of interaction that Christians have with unbelievers. Christians are called not only to break down every pretension that sets itself up against Christ (2 Cor. 10:5) but also to live lives in common with unbelievers in a range of cultural activities. Christians may and even should make music, build bridges, do medical research, and play baseball with unbelievers. Believers are called to live in peace with all men as far as it lies with them (Rom. 12:18), to pray for the peace of the (mostly pagan) city in which they live (Jer. 29:7; 1 Tim. 2:1-2), and to interact in the world with people whom they would not admit to membership in the church (1 Cor. 5:9-11). There is a place for a believing musician to explain to an unbelieving musician that music is meaningless unless the triune God exists, but when they are rehearsing together in the community orchestra such a Van Tillian apologetic confrontation would be highly inappropriate—the task at that time is cooperation at a common cultural task. The same thing is true in regard to working on a construction site with non-Christians or grilling burgers with an unbelieving friend at a neighborhood cook-out or thousands of other ordinary endeavors. To try to put it briefly, we have different sorts of encounters with unbelievers at different times. Sometimes we have opportunity to engage in apologetic discussions, in which our modus operandi is confrontation and exposure of the futility of unbelief (though always in love). Other times (and probably most of the time for the ordinary Christian who is not a professional apologist) we have common tasks in which to engage alongside unbelievers, in which our modus operandi is trying to find agreement and consensus so that shared cultural tasks can be accomplished as well as possible in a sinful world.

Dr. David VanDrunen

Here VD offers as an appeal to Natural law the fact that it provides a means by which Christians and non-Christians can live their lives together. I’m not sure I understand how this serves as an argument for Natural law given that Christians who believe that Biblical law is to be the standard still manage to successfully engage in the kind of activities that VD mentions without embracing Natural law. Biblical law Christians understand that there is a time and a place for playing one’s flute in the local symphonic band and for invoking the law of anti-thesis when discussing how music has genuine meaning only if one presupposes the God of the Bible. I am not sure how believing in Natural law helps one to co-operate in common cultural task over and above believing that Biblical law helps one to co-operate in the common cultural task. Christians need to be salt and light and they cannot be salt and light unless they are positioned in places that are putrid and dark.

There is something else though that we need to mention here. The agenda of Westminster West teaches that the Scriptures do not speak to Musicology, Bridge building, Medical research, or playing baseball. According to the radical two Kingdomists the anti-thesis doesn’t exist in these areas and as such it is not possible to take captive thoughts in these areas to make them obedient to Christ because Christ doesn’t give biblically revealed thoughts on these disciplines. I am not sure that according to radical two Kingdomists that it is true that music doesn’t make sense apart the reality of the Triune God since the Scriptures are not about music.

As to VD’s statement that, ‘Christian modus operandi (must) try to find agreement and consensus so that shared cultural tasks can be accomplished as well as possible in a sinful world,’ we must emphasize that the agreement and consensus that we can find is only where the non-Christian is being inconsistent with their otherwise God hating Worldview. In other words, the fact that we can play beautiful music together with non-Christians in a local symphonic band is because the non-Christians, being gifted with common grace, have not yet worked out their God hating convictions to their inevitable conclusions. It is at least an open question if it would be biblically right, before God, to play in a symphonic band that was committed to preforming pieces and concerts that were dedicated in communicating that music was meaningless, just as it would be disobedience before God to support an art gallery that was committed to anti-art or stocked with works like Andrew Serrano’s Piss Christ.

“‘To which of the two kingdoms, worldly or spiritual, must we assign marriage and the family?’ (Kloosterman) apparently thinks that he has me locked on the horns of a hopeless dilemma, but I reply unambiguously: to the “worldly” kingdom. Marriage and family are part of the original creation order, they have been sustained by common grace, and my unbelieving neighbors’ marriage is just as valid in the sight of God and society as mine. Christ’s redemptive work is not the origin of marriage. The church did not establish the bearing of children. Marriage and family are institutions common to believers and unbelievers alike. The church recognizes these institutions, commends them, and gives some general instructions about them, but it does not create them.”

Dr. David VanDrunen
Response to a critique of a Natural Law article

Out in Escondido California at Westminster West Seminary there is an attempt to resurrect out of the ashes of irrelevancy, in concert with Roman Catholic think tanks like the ‘Acton Institute’ the long discredited idea of Natural law. The purpose of such attempted resurrection of Natural Law is that men might be delivered from being ruled directly by God’s Law as revealed in Scripture in favor of being indirectly ruled by God’s law as set forth in Natural Law.

The thinking of VanDrunen (hereafter VD) and other luminaries at Westminster West (R. Scott Clark, M. Scott Horton) is that the Scripture is God’s Redemptive book and it pertains to and rules over the Spiritual Kingdom which is located in the Church. According to Radical Two Kingdom theory God’s book for Creation comes from Natural Revelation which yields to us, in the realm of ethics, ‘Natural Law.’ If we desire to know Redemptive Truths we look to the Scriptures. If we desire to know Creation truths we look to Natural Law. The Redemptive realm over which the Scriptures rule are uniquely inhabited by the covenant community. The Created realm is inhabited by both Christian and non Christian alike where they meet and mingle and together, in this ‘common realm,’ build culture. So, Christ is Lord over the Spiritual Kingdom of His Redemptive realm, located in the Church, through the Scriptures and He is Lord over the Creation Kingdom (common realm) through Natural Law.

These two realms are hermetically sealed off from one another and are often referred to as God’s Right Hand (Redemptive realm) and God’s left hand (Creation realm). Notice in the quote above that marriage belongs to the Creation realm. One implication of this is that there is no such thing as a ‘Christian marriage.’ Marriage belongs to the created realm and the created realm by definition is common and is not to be characterized as ‘Christian.’ All Christians who enter into marriage are entering into something that Christ isn’t Lord over by way of Biblical prescript but rather His Lordship over all marriages (Muslim, Hindu, Polygamist, and Christian, etc.) is through and by Natural law. If marriages excel it is not because they submit to Biblical precept but rather it is because they submit to Natural Law precept. A marriage with two Hindus, theoretically, might be expected to be better than a marriage with two Christians if the two Hindus better submit to Natural Law. (We won’t even consider yet how a bunch of Hindus living together in a geographic area might come to substantially different conclusions regarding what Natural Law is as opposed to a bunch of Christians living together in a geographic area.)

In the quote above VD slips a bit of a mickey into his statement by saying that the Church ‘does not create marriage.’ Now the problem with this is that it assumes what it must first prove, and that is that before the Church can speak God’s word to various realms and institutions it is required to have created that something to which it can speak. I know of nowhere in Scripture where such a notion is explicitly stated. The Church isn’t to speak to marriages because they created them but the Church is to speak to marriages because God ordained marriage in His Word and the Church, speaking God’s mind as recorded in Scripture, is to speak to whatever it is that God speaks to.

Also note that VD seems to imply that the Church can only speak to that which finds its origins in Christ’s redemptive work. This assumes that Christ’s redemption is only personal and individual. It assumes that because Christ came to redeem people the Church can only speak to the redeemed in the context of redemption. It fails to consider that the kind of marriages that redeemed people enter into may, by virtue of those people being redeemed, bring the effects of redemption to their marriage so that it indeed is the case that their marriage is a uniquely ‘Christian marriage.’ According to VD redemption applies to individuals who are Christian but it never applies to the kind of institutions or cultures that those redeemed people build.

VD says that the Church can give some general instructions about marriage but he fails to say just exactly what that instruction is. Can the Church into Tibet forbid polyandry among its members or must it wait for Natural law to teach such a thing? Remember, marriage is not a Redemption institution and as such the Church should not speak to it according to VD. Can the Church speak against homosexual marriages? Using this very kind of reasoning a minister in VD’s denomination at one time said, ‘no.’ Since marriage belongs to the God’s left hand could the Church as the Church speak out against polygamy? Just what kind of general instructions can be given and on what basis? If Marriage and family are in the common realm then isn’t it a bit of going beyond ones portfolio for VD to suggest that even ‘general instructions’ can be given?

When VD says that all of these marriages are just as valid in the sight of God as Christian marriages what does he mean by that? Does he mean that because non-Christians might submit to Natural law when it comes to marriage that God blesses those marriages as much as he would the marriage of two Christians? Does VD mean that homosexual marriage is just as valid in the sight of God as Christian marriages? I mean marriage is marriage and who is the Church to say that homosexual marriages aren’t valid? No doubt VD would suddenly discover that general instructions begin to get a little more precise as problems are uncovered with his theory.

I hope in the next few days to have more posts on the problems of Natural Law theory. Suffice it to say that already it is beginning to look a little shaky.

Galatians 3:26-29

26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

We pause this morning to give brief consideration to vs. 28, if only because this text has become the center of a firestorm in the life of the contemporary Western Church.

In the last few decades vs. 28 has been appealed to in order to legitimize the understanding that traditional, and heretofore thought to be Biblical role distinctions between men and women, both in the home and in the Church, are invalid, improper and wrong.

Vs. 28 is appealed to as being the text that informs us that as Christians a new social order has dawned that sloughs off the consequences of the fall, which includes the sinful consequence of Male headship in the home and in the Church. Those who make this appeal reason backwards from Galatians 3:28 to suggest that in the creation order and before the fall there was no notion of male headship and it is only with the fall and sin coming into the created order that we find male headship. Put concisely, this ‘evangelical’ feminism argues that male headship is a consequence of sin that is reversed in Church and home (and culture where Christ’s rule sways) with the coming of Christ’s Kingdom. Galatians 3:28 is seen as a hermeneutical North star for many in the ‘Evangelical’ feminist camp. This text becomes the healing astringent that all other texts that deal with male and female relationships must be read through since it provides the constant that corrects all the other cultural relative situations with which all other New Testament texts are putatively infected.

We want to note that while this is an interesting and even innovative argument it hopelessly shipwrecks and splinters upon several significant boulders of reality.

First there is the boulder that up until recently in Church history, no known major Church Theologian read Galatians 3:28 in such a way as to suggest that because of the advent of Christ and the arrival of His Kingdom what arrives is this idea of a egalitarian social order that flattens out of all authority (Male and Female), labor (Slave and Free), and ethnic (Jew and Gentile) distinctions. What we see then is that the recent hailing of Galatians 3:28 as the text of social egalitarianism is unique and has no historical legs upon which to stand.

Now, we must admit that it is possible that 2000 years of Church history got this text all wrong and further missed the egalitarian New Testament theology that it teaches. Further we must concede that there may yet be found some Church Theologian in history who read Galatians 3:28 the way that it is being read today. Still, one would think that this lack of precedent would cause people to go slow on embracing Galatians 3:28 in a way that no Church Theologian in history that we know of has ever embraced it.

Second, there is the boulder of the rest of the New Testament Scripture. If it were the case that the Kingdom of Christ eliminates the idea of gender roles, labor roles, and ethnic roles we would expect to find a consistent testimony to that end in the NT record and yet quite to the contrary we find the opposite testimony. The New Testament retains distinction between male and female in Godly homes in passages like I Cor. 11:1-16, 14:34, I Tim. 2:11-14, Ephesians 5:22f, and I Pt. 3:1f. The New Testament retains distinctions between Jew and Gentile in passages like Romans 9-11 where the discussion centers on how Israel will be saved vis-à-vis the Gentiles. The New Testament retains distinctions between Slave and Free in passages like Philemon, Ephesians 6:5-9, Colossians 3:22-4:1, and I Timothy 6:1-2. There is simply no way that a fair minded person can read the New Testament and conclude that it teaches some kind of social egalitarianism. Everywhere on the New Testament pages is the reality of gender, ethnic, and labor distinctions and not in the sense that these distinction are automatically evil.

Third, there is the boulder of the whole context of Galatians 3. From what we have seen as we have together worked through Galatians 3 the labor of the Apostle in this book is in no way connected to the issue of gender, labor or ethnic roles. Rather the issue in Galatians is how it is that Gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to become Christians. The issue is the freedom that the Gentiles have in Christ quite apart from the desire of the Judaizers to foist upon the Galatians covenantal boundary markers that are obsolete because of the finished work of Christ. Galatians speaks up the completely gracious character of God’s salvation. To suddenly come upon vs. 28 and insist that it is the interpretive key that unlocks the revolutionary egalitarian nature of the Kingdom of God is to egregious violence to the whole text of Galatians. Interpretively, such an action is really quite criminal.

Context is central in this matter. If I walk into a closed room and see and a 55 year old man hugging and kissing an 18 year old I need context in order to understand what is happening. It may be the case that this is a pervert that is forcing himself upon some young lady in which case I have need to come to her rescue. It may be the case that this is a May — December Marriage in which case I may need to tell them to get a room. And it may be the case that he is her grandfather and he is trying to console her over some kind of loss in which case I should shut the door and mind my own business. Context means everything.

What egalitarians do with Galatians 3:28 in order to support the idea that with the advent of the Gospel role distinctions are eliminated is the same as happening upon a May December Marriage and concluding that the gentlemen needs to be hauled off to jail. ‘Evangelical’ feminists in appealing to Galatians 3:28 in order to support their agenda are contextually challenged. Context means everything and the context of Galatians 3:28 has nothing to do with the elimination of gender, labor, or ethnic distinctions that continue to exist in the Kingdom.

John Piper offers here that ,

The context of Galatians 3:28 makes abundantly clear the sense in which men and women are equal in Christ: they are equally justified by faith (v. 24), equally free from the bondage of legalism (v. 25), equally children of God (v. 26), equally clothed with Christ (v. 27), equally possessed by Christ (v. 29), and equally heirs of the promises to Abraham (v. 29).

I would only add that the same is true of Masters and Slaves and Jews and Gentiles.

Galatians 3:28 does nothing to overturn the Historical and Biblical categories that maintain social differences between different people. Now, to be sure Galatians 3:28 does eliminate things like hatred of the brethren that are different from us, precisely because we are all in Christ and are all children of God. The historical hatred of Jew for Gentile, the historical maltreatment of Master over slave, the historical abuse of men upon women was never God’s design but with the advent of Christ and with the bringing in of all these differences relationships into the Church the former animosity between these groups is vanquished. BUT saying that former animosity is vanquished and saying that all are now equal in role is to say very different things.

With the advent of Christ and the presence of His Kingdom what the leaven of the Gospel works through home, church, and culture is not the elimination and flattening out of the richness of the varied social tapestry that constitutes life but rather the putting right of the social tapestry that was rent by the fall. With the extension of the Kingdom of Christ what we should expect to find is neither a gender blender society, nor a society where labor and capital distinctions are gathered up into some kind of socialistic nirvana, nor a society where ethnic distinctions are effaced. With the extension of the Kingdom of Christ we should anticipate the restoration of true masculinity and femininity is on display in marriages where incredibly intelligent wives eagerly submit to incredibly humble husbands, who are in a haste to love their wives sacrificially. With the extension of the Kingdom of Christ we should anticipate a renewed harmony of interests between Master and Slave where each realizes that their own interests are best served by looking out for the interest of the other. With the extension of the Kingdom of Christ we should anticipate the different nations (ethnos) being brought into the Kingdom so that on that last day they will enter in to the new Jerusalem nation by nation so that what is heard is the beautiful harmony of multi part Choir where every still distinct tribe, tongue and nation render praise unto the King of Kings. The extension of the Kingdom of Christ does not result in a situation where all the ‘colors bleed into one.’ That is a socialistic humanistic vision. The extension of the Kingdom of Christ results in the old Puritan notion of the ‘harmony of interests.’

Returning to our boulders we must mention one last boulder that the ship of hermeneutical feminism crashes against as it seeks to twist Galatians 3:28 to its end. The last boulder is that the reading that ‘Evangelical’ Feminism is trying to use for Galatians 3:28 proves too much. If it really is the case that social order distinctions are eliminated in Christ, including that of maleness and femaleness then the Church has little room left to oppose homosexuality in the Church. If Galatians 3:28 teaches that there is no longer male or female in Christ, and if that means that traditional distinctions between men and women no longer exist because of Christ’s Kingdom, then how can we maintain that sexual distinctions are an exception? More then that if the presence of Christ’s Kingdom provides the kind of egalitarianism that these hermeneutical wizards insist upon then where is the room for parental authority over children? If children are equal to parents because they are all in Christ then on what basis can parents require obedience? If that reductio sounds stupid it is supposed to. The only reason that otherwise normal people no longer find the reasoning of ‘Evangelical’ feminists to be equally stupid when it comes to their egalitarian appeals is because we have slowly been conditioned to accept it. In this culture and in the Western Church I may have to live with it but I don’t accept it.

There remain functional differences between gender, labor and ethnic categories. We all are ontologically human but functionally speaking there remains God honoring differences. We all have the same value before God, all being made in God’s image, but just as in a choir both the mezzo Soprano and the Alto are ontologically human, they remain functionally separated. Both of their functions are needed for a good choir and are to be esteemed in their place. A good choir doesn’t get better by making every one sing the same bland part. The same kind of thing is true when it comes to the insipid blandness that is being reached for in terms of male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile by the egalitarians among us.

Now returning to Galatians 3:28 we may ask ourselves why the Apostle chooses the three couplets of ‘male – female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile?

Of course we can’t say authoritatively because the text doesn’t authoritatively say but we perhaps can make a pretty good guess. The answer may be very much in keeping with the context that is going on here.

In vs. 29 the Church is reminded that they are ‘heirs according to the promise.’ Now in order to be an heir their must be an inheritance and quite obviously that inheritance is all the blessings that we have in Christ Jesus. In choosing the couplets that he chooses the Holy Spirit may be intimating the superior character of the new and better covenant as opposed to the old and worse covenant. Under the Old Testament law, Greeks, slaves, and females could not inherit land and property directly. These were restricted in the life of the old covenant. However in the New and better covenant the anti-type inheritance has come to which the inheritance of land and property in the OT was only a type, and it comes in such a way that people from every tribe, tongue, nation, class, gender, and economic strata can directly inherit. The inheritance cocoon that was the Old covenant produces a butterfly inheritance that is beyond and above what anybody in the Old covenant could have anticipated. No boundaries are erected to the inheritance of salvation. All may inherit. All may become sons of God.

And the effect of the fullness of that inheritance coming to more and more people including the renewal that is part of it is not an ugly egalitarianism where all distinction and diversity is crushed. That can only be some kind of Unitarian vision where the singleness and unitary character of God produces a bland and unitary character of culture. No, the Trinitarian Christian vision is that the effect of the inheritance coming to more and more people makes for a renewal where people in their different God honoring roles and places work increasingly together to advance the Glory of God by honoring God in the places and roles to which they have been placed and called.