Sexual Ethics Stand or Fall Upon Our Doctrine of God
Nowhere is that truer than in sexual ethics at this specific time in history
Many moral or ethical issues in Christianity today stand or fall upon our doctrine of God and Christ.
Nowhere is that truer than in sexual ethics.
In 2024, Christopher and Richard Hays co-wrote a book called The Widening of God’s Mercy in which they argue that because God by nature changes his mind, so we must do the same thing too (Widening, 205). And since God, they believe, changes his mind to widen his mercy, we should change our mind to include all sexual identities in the church
More formally, their argument proceeds like this (2–4):
God changes his mind (thus is mutable)
God’s rules in the Bible change (thus his rules are changeable)
God’s Spirit gives new and surprising revelation (thus acts in ways we don’t expect)
The Bible is about grace (thus includes more and more people)
So now we extend mercy to wider sexual orientations in light of #1–4.
Based on this doctrine of God, this reading of the Bible, and this view of the Spirit, Christopher and Richard Hays conclude:
We believe that sexual minorities who seek to follow Jesus should be welcomed gladly in the church and offered full access to the means of grace available to all God’s people: baptism, the Lord’s Supper, ordination, and the blessing of covenant unions (216).
For the purposes of this short article, I’ll focus on the first bit: how the doctrine of God is a key battleground for sexual ethics. In theological terms, Christopher and Richard Hays deny God’s immutability in order to show that while the Bible does discourage gay sexual activity, the God of the Bible changes in a trajectory towards mercy, including more and more people within his grace.
For example, they believe slavery in the Bible illustrates the point. The Bible assumes slavery, and it does not forbid it. But we do today. The Spirit led us to say that slavery is sinful on the basis of the text, but not the exact words of the text. The church did so because the Spirit led them to do so. Likewise, we can now affirm LBGTQ+ sexuality and marriage because, even though the Bible forbids same-sex activity, God changes his mind; and the Spirit leads us to see where God changes his mind to. And the arc of God’s changeability always tilts towards mercy.
Christopher Hays and Richard Hays show how this arc tilts towards a widening of God’s mercy through specific studies of the Old Testament (Christopher’s chapters) and the New Testament (Richard’s chapters).
Lest I seem like I am overreading the evidence, let me quote in full the very first page of The Widening of God’s Mercy, since the introductory page aims to catch our attention and state a main theme of the book, namely, that God does change—he is mutable.
In 1 Samuel, the great prophet Samuel comes to announce to King Saul that the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from him and given it to David. Saul begs him to reconsider and to pardon him, to which Samuel thunders: “the Glory of Israel does not recant or change his mind! He is not a mortal, that he should change his mind!” (1 Sam 15:29).
This is a satisfying and important-sounding thing to say. If there were red-letter Hebrew Bibles, it would probably be printed in red. If it were posted on an internet chat board, it would likely appear as ALL CAPS.
It's also a lie. How do we know? Because God said so, earlier in the same chapter: "I regret that I made Saul king" (Sam 15:11). And if that weren't clear enough, the omniscient narrator summarizes at the end of the chapter, "And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel" (15:35)?
English translations obscure the connection, but the Hebrew verb translated "change his mind" twice in 15:29 (nacham) is the same one translated "regret" in the surrounding verses. It's a challenging term to translate consistently, but it's also possible that English translators aren't much more comfortable with the contradiction than Samuel was. (Widening, 1; bold text added).
Later in the book, Christopher Hays will again return to this story to note that Samuel “misrepresents God by saying that God does not change his mind” (55). The point remains the same. Because God changes his mind, he will widen his mercy to include sexual minorities (their preferred language for LGBTQ+).
A key contention of Christopher and Richard Hays is that biblical conservatives “are wrong about the most essential point of theology: the character of God” (2). While they agree that a set of texts do forbid same-sex sexual activity, their contention is that the whole Bible teaches us that God’s mercy widens progressively throughout Scripture (2).
What is fascinating about their argument is that they concede the key battleground texts do in fact forbid same-sex sexual activity. They simply think that it does not matter given the whole scope of what the Bible says. In their own words:
We believe that this debate should no longer focus on the endlessly repeated exegetical arguments about half a dozen isolated texts that forbid or disapprove of same-sex relations (The regularly cited texts are Gen 19:1-9, Lev 18:22, 20:13,1 Cor 6:9-11, 1 Tim 1:10, and Rom 1:18-32.) In this book, we have not revisited them. It is relatively clear that these texts view homosexual sex negatively, even if they do not envisage covenanted same-sex partnerships as we know them today?' (Widening, 206)
And:
The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and the New trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as “strangers and aliens” but as “fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.” (Widening, 206; italics original)
So why do I say that many moral or ethical issues in Christianity today stand or fall upon our doctrine of God and Christ? Well, this is part of my answer. If God changes, so does his will for us. And given that sexual identity has become the issue du jour, it follows that nowhere is it truer that Christian moral teaching stands or falls on the doctrine of God than in sexual ethics at this specific time in history
I agree that our doctrine of God heavily influences how we interpret this argument about God’s expanding grace, but my stumbling block with the affirming church lies elsewhere. I’ve articulated this repeatedly to those who inquire:
If you are convinced that God affirms and includes what some call sexual minorities, then provide an updated sexual ethic that doesn’t reduce every biblical author to a classical antiquity bumpkin. Surely, it cannot be distilled to simply avoiding the sexual exploitation of children. Without engaging in constructive deconstruction of the Scriptures and their context, the argument is a non-starter for me.
I really liked the way you presented the argument and the represented the opposing view point. I was excited to see how your answer or solution to resolve the progressive doctrine of God. I feel you may have left the conclusion too open ended. I would love to hear your direct response, and even your doctrine of God.
In any case, thank you for this great article, can't wait to see more.