Monday, October 23, 2017

Book Notes: Redeeming Sex by Debra Hirsch

Factions and divisions within the Christian Church used to be based around the content of their creeds and confessions. It is, after all, almost 500 years to the day since Martin Luther nailed up his famous "95 Theses", which started the Reformation in Europe. The early churches argued about Gnosticism, and Arianism, the Middle Ages saw the schisms over ecclessiology and soteriology. In more recent times, eschatology and pneumatology have been the bones of contention. All of these disputes seem to be managed with calmness today compared the bitter and acrimonious disputes about Christianity and Sex. It is a brave writer (or indeed reviewer), who dares to try to walk on such stormy waters. Debra Hirsch is one such courageous person.

Books in this field usually fall into one of thee categories, (1) conservative studies primarily of the biblical text. which seek to re-enforce traditional sexual mores; (2) radical theologies which seek to change traditional Christian teaching and endorse things such as Same-Sex Marriage by arguing either that a) the Bible has been misunderstood, or b) is not authoritative on the subject. The third type of book is the spiritual autobiography of a person who changed their mind and lifestyle on the issue, either from conservative to liberal, or from liberal to conservative. Thinkers as diverse as John Stott, Steve Chalke, Rosaria Butterfield, Rowan Williams, and Vicky Beeching fall into these categories.

Debra Hirsch's Redeeming Sex (IVP, 2015) is a far harder book to classify because it doesn't slot happily into any of the usual categories, but seems to draw on them all! This turns out to the be book's great strength, and also its weakness. Rather than plunging straightforwardly into the contentious 'gay issue', Hirsch tries to draw together a biblical and theological view of sexuality; as an essential part of humanity, as good, and as badly handled by the church. That's all pretty standard stuff; what is more intriguing is Hirsch's distinction between social and genital sexuality and the way in which she begins to weave her personal story, and those of friends and family, into the book.

The great distinctive of this book is this. Many more liberal books claim to respect the Bible and Christian teaching; but in fact undermine it. Many more conservative books claim to only uphold biblical teaching while loving and affirming people; but totally fail to do this in practise. Hirsch seems to plough a lonely furrow of walking with the Bible firmly embraced in one hand, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the other. She herself left the gay lifestyle behind when she became a Christian; but does not endorse sexuality re-orientation programmes which are discredited. Rather she talks about a process of re-awakening her own latent heterosexuality over time. She does, gently affirm that there is a tension between homo-erotic practice and biblical spirituality; but on the other-hand does not seek to make agreement with her point of view on this issue a requirement of joining her church. Rather she speaks about the grace of God bringing us to faith in Christ, requiring a lifetime of sanctification of all of our lives - progress being made faster in different areas, than others; all of us heading in the same direction at different speeds. She reiterates the often overlooked point that almost everyone is in some way sexually disordered, lustful, or selfish; and that we are all fellow-travellers in sanctification regardless of gender or orientation.

Essential to her working this out is her distinctive ecclessiology. She explores two models of church community which she refers to as (a) the bounded set and (b) the centred set. The bounded set describes a legalistic institution in which outward conformity to rules selected to make the group distinct are enforced. This is the old-style church. The centred set is a loose association of people, all of whom are centred on one defining source: in the case Jesus Christ. Everyone seeks to become more like Jesus, but accepts fellow-travellers who may not be positioned as closely to the centre as ourselves; but are nevertheless facing him, and being drawn towards him. Such an open model of church is maybe a missionally helpful one. and one in which biblical ideas can be shared gently, and sensitively over the long term. The old adage about loving sinners but hating sin might actually work in this model, and might apply to all sins, not just ones we have made into boundary markers!

The problem with the promotion of the Centred-Set model, is that while it might well look a bit like the band of disciples in the gospels, or the wider group around Jesus; it might not sit so comfortably alongside the epistles of the New Testament. The Pauline corpus is especially problematic for it, in a number of ways. Firstly. these epistles do seem to have some sense that the boundaries of the early church were to be established around some certain observable behavioural criteria (1Cor5), and that exclusion from the fellowship meal was a significant boundary marker and mode of church discipline. The New Testament looks at the very least, a little more of a bounded set than Hirsch seems to allow. Secondly, there are issues with her assertion that sexual morality is a secondary issues around which Christians can simply agree to disagree; and that sexual conduct should not have any influence on fellowship. However 1 Corinthians seems to be written partly in order to refute such thinking, making sexual ethics a primary issue; not a matter of lesser importance. It is certainly not in the 'new moons and sabbaths' category of issues on which differing views are permitted. Finally Hirsch is insistent that there is an element of hypocrisy in the bounded-set church which selects sexuality as a boundary issue, while allowing all manner of greed and gossipping in under the radar. Of course, she is absolutely right about that. I'm not sure though, that her proposed solution, of abolishing the boundaries is what the New Testament would recommend. It's hard not to see 1 Cor 5&6 as promoting boundaries especially in sexual matters; not because sexual sins are more offensive to God than greed (Jesus makes it clear that greed is utterly abhorrent) but because these relational sins are notably damaging; perhaps because as relational sins, they are most damaging to community. Incidentally Galatians indicates some doctrinal boundaries too - it's not all about sex.

What Hirsch has in her favour is that she is seriously trying to work out what it means to welcome all manner of people into God's kingdom, without judging, without prejudice and without any sense of wanting to control people. She really believes that Jesus loves all, welcomes all and what people need most is His transforming presence in their lives. She is wonderfully able to combine her obvious devotion to Christ, and love of the Bible. with her many gay, lesbian and transgender members of her family and church; with whom she shares her life. No-one could read either Debra Hirsch's biography, or pleas to the church to be inclusive; and then seriously argue that everyone who seeks to follow the Bible's moral code is a hate-filled homophobe. Hirsch is so positively pro-gay in so many ways that conservative readers will be shocked; while radical proponents of queer theory will probably never forgive her personal decision to leave the gay lifestyle for biblical reasons.

Redeeming Sex is a disturbing read, a new angle on a debate which too often has the two sides lining up against one another; determined to shout, never to listen. As I have mentioned, the strength of the book lies in its coupling of serious and genuine discipleship, with open gracious warm-hearted love for all, and in that it is inspiring. Where it maybe stumbles is in squaring its proposals with the practicalities of New Testament instructions about the shape of church life. Either way, this book requires serious consideration by Christians who long to find a way of maintaining biblical fidelity without engaging in some unedifying US style culture-war, with all the nasty "them" and "us" connotations for which the self-righteous Pharisees were so slammed by Jesus. These are complex, and sensitive areas to which Hirsch makes an important contribution. Perhaps finally, it is as much her attitude, as her arguments which are so important.

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