Do NOT welcome everyone in the name of Jesus.
The recent homosexual debate on my blog has led me to think through many issues. One in particular is the idea of inclusion. A fellow blogger (see comments) suggests that INCLUSION is a core teaching of Jesus. While i would agree, inclusion when understood holistically must always be paired with TRUTH. This debate, once again, is not a new one.
The writer of 2 John discusses this issues at length. A key question is ‘ Is it ever o.k. to exclude some one from the universal community of Jesus?’
The writer of John carefully explains that although the earliest believers were known and praised for their hospitatlity there was an instance in which a neighbour could be excluded and rejected. John writes.
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; or the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.
Maybe another important reminder to a world who seems to believe that inclusivity is the mother of all virtues.
Inclusivity has become an orthodoxy which, ironically, necessarily excludes and implodes on itself like a black hole.
There are some arenas where inclusivity has to be the norm for the SAKE of Christ-like charity. The Church is not one of them. Next, we’ll hear that God is exclusive for delimiting the Trinity. He could not be more INclusive, but both the Trinity and the Church are defined ontologically and not behaviourally.
while there def is reason to exclude “those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh”, well i would argue in most instances they have excluded themselves because they are living a paradox of trying to be part of something they don’t believe in.
I don’t see how this argument helps us understand the homosexual debate at all (on other side). Are we supposed to exclude homosexuals? Are we supposed to exclude those that would marry or ordain homosexuals? I not a good argument as to why we should include homosexuals, but its certainly not a good argument of why we should exclude them either.
I hope we can all agree that we would never exclude based on sexual orientation per se. We might exclude based on rejection of authority, but not on a specific behavioural or genetic pattern.
Beside that, we need to overcome the democratic notion that all levels of leadership and all areas of ministry are, by rights, accessible to all the baptized. The Church is not a democracy.
Dom the issue that the text is addressing has to do with particular teachers in the Johannine community denying the Incarnation, which for John’s community is essential. The teaching of Christ that John may be referring to is John 1: 14ff “…the Word became flesh” if you take Raymond Brown’s view that the Johanine Epistles are a commentary and application of the Gospel of John’s teachings. With regard to inclusion, the Gospel of John’s purpose is as one writer has posited “…is personified in John’s testimony, ’so that all might believe through him’.
One’s postition in society does not has no bearing on John’s invitation to believe in Jesus. In the Gospel Jesus followers include Jewish leaders, a royal official, to social outcasts like the Samaritan women who is living with a man out of wedlock. This said, the text is describing debate within the Chritian Community between teachers who have confilicting understandings of Jesus and his ministry. This said John calling his community to “exclude” these teachers is for the protection of his small, excluded and persecuted community, and is not a universal ethic that should be readily applied to contemporary situations and the homosexuality debate in particular.
Nobody’s call to conversion is stronger than John’s in my mind. This is the promulgator of “No man comes to the Father…”, “whoever believes in Him shall not perish”, “He who continues to sin has neither seen Him or known Him”, “this is written so you might believe”, and other strong statements about the translation from darkness to light.
John’s desire to protect his small community is based in a concern for their souls and the preservation of the boundaries of the community. He’s not just protecting his people against rival christian teachers – he’s calling those opponents “deceiver” and “antichrist”, and he says that they “do not have God”. That’s not how one christian teacher refers to another. He means what he says: stay away – far away, because there are people who will say they are teaching Christ but are not.
I agree with you that social standing does not impact the call to conversion. But from the highways and byways, many are called and few are chosen to join the Way. That means you abandon your previous path and start down a new narrow road, following Jesus. It’s not easy, and you can’t do it without self denial and cross bearing. Nobody is excluded from that process, but you can’t have your wafer and eat it, too.
All i’m talking about is the idea of inclusion.. not so much that homosexuality perfectly fits into the Johanine framework. Sorry for any confusion.
Having said that, John Mass, this is not only a Johanine problem. Many today still don’t believe in the incarnation or the authority of the church on this manner. Having said that, i still think that in a world that has demoncratized church leadership this text is applicable to more than just a select few who were once called bishops and teachers. I think Joey Goodwin does a great job at adding to Brown’s thoughts.
Dom to help in my response could you define and give examples of “democratized church leadership”? I ask because being in an Anglican Church our leadership is very much hierarchical. Joey I do agree with you, and one also needs to recognize that when speaking about early Christianity it is best to recognize that there were Christianities present. I think John was protecting his brand over another, something that occurs today. An example from the Anglican Network’s Blog illustrates this:
As in previous statements made by Rowan Williams he definitely places the “institution” ahead of the Gospel and either fails to realize or willingly ignores the fact that orthodoxy and apostasy cannot live in the same house. There is no “middle of the road” position. A church that claims to be Christian MUST be true to the gospel and there is no doubt that the apostates within both the TEC and the ACoC have no regard for the truth of God’s word or His authority. I could say that the Anglican Church will, if it has not already done so, split but the truth is that the apostates have abandoned any claim to be Anglican.
In the above fellow Christians/Anglicans are called apostates because they disagree on a particular issue, as was the case in the Epistle. Also, do I sense a hint of Calvinist thought creeping into your response Joey (lol)? “many are called and few are chosen to join the Way”
Are you from San Diego?
http://www.domruso.com – cool!!!!
@ Nathan. I think you have the core of it here. There may be reason to exclude people who do not accept Christ (or, for example, the tenants of the only councils of the church that are truly ecumenical and truly core to the faith), but that isn’t even remotely a justification for exclusion of homosexuals who are earnestly Christian and (as far as I can see) who are insisting on following the direct and immediate commandments of Christ. The entire issue of exclusion on the basis of non-core differences is a red herring.
@JG – “Beside that, we need to overcome the democratic notion that all levels of leadership and all areas of ministry are, by rights, accessible to all the baptized. The Church is not a democracy.”
No one disagrees with this: see, for example, the PB of TEC’s statements on the subject. She expressly says that “there is no right to ordination.” If the subject at hand is that we are to exclude homosexuals in a long-term, loving monogamous relationship, then we do need to show why that should legitimately be the case. There is, of course, no legitimate scriptural justification for such an exclusion at all. If a vocation is genuine, obeys the canons of the church, and meets a genuine need, and the individual under-consideration is holy and qualified, they should reasonably be elected. The fact that it upsets people in distant lands and under other local synods is a factor that can and should be taken into consideration. But it is certainly NOT the final word on the subject (either).
@Dom –
1.”Many today still don’t believe in the incarnation or the authority of the church on this manner.”
If that is the case than they are clearly not Catholics in the sense of the discussion here. Certainly TEC has made their belief in the incarnation abundantly clear. No one questions that, as far as I can see.
2. “Having said that, I still think that in a world that has democratized church leadership this text is applicable to more than just a select few who were once called bishops and teachers.”
I should not need to teach you that church history shows that it is actually the lack of democracy (autocracy) that is the recent development and that the active participation of all orders (Bishops, ordained, AND lay) is an essential part of catholic church polity. Those who would exclude the lay portion of this participation do so at the peril of loosing legitimacy. This does not, of course, deny the Bishops their special role in teaching and maintaining orthodoxy and the apostolic succession in the church – as anyone in TEC would emphatically agree.
@ JM – I and others deeply resent the apostasy accusation. We hold tight to our catholic faith as defined by the scriptures, and the tradition of our church as defined in the only seven councils that are ecumenical, including the creeds. It is unjust and unchristian of you to accuse us of apostasy for being willing to listen to and address the legitimate pastoral needs of our fellow Catholics who happen to be homosexual. It is particularly unchristian of you to charge apostasy when you have utterly failed to demonstrate how TEC or anyone has diverged in even so much as one iota from the catholic faith as received in the creeds.
The core of what is happening here is that a disagreement about a small and non-core interpretation of scripture by SOME in history is being elevated to a core doctrine, when it is, in fact not core doctrine at all. The difference between this and the episode in John is that the incarnation that the false teachers were denying was and is core doctrine for the church. This is not the case in the current debate at all.
When slavery was justified by “Christians” on what they claimed was scriptural grounds, they could and did accuse those who opposed slavery of “apostasy.” Those who opposed slavery were pointing out that the reading of scripture that justified slavery was inherently flawed. The same is true today for those who would try to use scripture to justify hate/exclusion of homosexuals. And yet, if one actually looks at scripture for oneself, there are absolutely no legitimate grounds for their position.
By contrast, there are MANY MANY examples in scripture and church history wherein non-core interpretations of both scripture and historic attitudes have been changed; Circumcision, the justification of slavery, the justification of the oppression of women, the justification of the oppression of left-handed people are just a few examples of these changes.
This accusation of “apostasy” seems to be a particularly hateful bad habit of some Christians. Indeed, many in the past have (I believe falsely) accused the Roman catholic portion of our faith of “apostasy” for their adaptation of some pagan rituals as expressions of their Christian faith (despite the complete lack of scriptural justification for those adaptations). Local adaptations of specific practices with the goal of evangelizing the faith and ministering to the legitimate pastoral needs of local peoples has a long and honorable tradition in the catholic faith.
Frankly, I am deeply disappointed that this kind of hate speech (”apostasy”) would be allowed on this blog. There is room for members of the orthodox faith to discuss and even debate the most effective way of addressing these legitimate pastoral needs. Unless you can show a specific core doctrine (the creeds, the councils, the scriptures interpreted in light of Christ’s core message) of the faith that has been abandoned, then this accusation needs to be dropped now, once, for all and forever.
@ bookguy I think you have misread my post. I was quoting the Anglican Network blog in order to show that much like the early Church there is a variety of Christian expressions. In the Epistle of John the writer is calling the other “antichrist” and I wanted to show Joey that Christians still, regretfully, use the same language today in order to promote a “brand” of Christianity. This said, “apostasy” was a quote to prove a point and not my own words. I am sorry.
@ JM. Sorry, you are quite correct, I misunderstood your citation as a statement. My resentment of that sort of rehtoric is hereby re-directed to the “Anglican Network Blog.”
Nonetheless, I would still maintain that the language was more appropriate for the writer of John since he was defending what we would all regard as a core doctrine of the faith, while those who use it today in the homosexuality debate are using it to elevate their own doubtful personal and political views to doctrine when and where that elevation is simply not justified. There are times when such language might be justified (see my own rather milder notation above that those who do not accept the incarnation are not catholics). This is clearly not one of those instances.
Sorry but I don’t share most of these ideas.
@ bookguy – Apology accepted. I agree with you, and let’s not fool ourselves politicking is also part of the Church’s Tradition even though I am not comfortable with it.
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