Economic sins, sexual sins, and conservative Christian culture warrior blindness

I totally missed something when it happened that is ancient history in blog years.

This is a totally brilliant post.

Steve has some disagreements, and I like some of his observations. The sexual and the economic are one in an important way.

But I still think Doug’s arguments can stand even if we account for this. I also think in the context of the culture war that the difference between us and the Bible is stark.

Of course, Romans 1.18ff can explain why we might make sexual sins the focus of analyzing our culture, but that hardly covers the distance between our ethos and the Bible’s. The other reason for the discrepancy might be that, in the Pentateuch, when one looks at severe penalties imposed, sexual sins stand out.

But in confronting the nations we have to look at the places where the Bible directly confronts the nations. And I think Jones is quite right that economic sins are paramount.

Like I said, this is all ancient history. Sorry for the distraction.

15 thoughts on “Economic sins, sexual sins, and conservative Christian culture warrior blindness

  1. Steven Wedgeworth

    My criticisms mainly had to do with his Trinitarian reference, which I thought was shaky.

    I’m not sure about ontological priority, but certainly the Church today could do more practically about economic issues than sexual ones.

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  2. pduggan

    “They focus on symptom sins and assume that economics is peripheral to goodness. They often believe that if you fix the sexual sins of some country, then it will become prosperous.”

    I think if the country has such sexual sins that they need fixing, then the point is that its so far gone we can expect God to bring wrath even further. Dealing with the sexual sins is an attempt to avert wrath: stop the gays and God won’t destroy.

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  3. garver

    Isn’t the prevalence of sexual sins itself the manifestation of God’s displeasure? Why should we think there is something more to avert? “Destruction” isn’t some additional extrinsic punishment but the outworking of these self-destructive tendencies themselves.

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  4. Manlius

    I agree with Joel. As I’ve preached to my parishioners, the prevalence of sexual immorality ALREADY IS the judgment. This is important because it changes how we approach those who willingly deviate from biblical sexual norms. If they are seen as people who might bring more judgment on all of us, we’ll be inclined to regard them as our enemies. If they are people who are already experiencing the judgment their sin has wrought, we’ll be inclined to love and rescue them with the good news of Jesus.

    As an important aside, we must insist also that God’s love is an eternal attribute whereas his wrath is temporally contingent on the presence of sin, death and Satan. The good news is that the presence of those enemies has already been defeated by Jesus on the cross, and so his wrath is ever more giving way to his divine mercy and love. Thanks be to God!

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  5. Steven W

    God’s wrath is not another “thing” among attributes, but rather the negative experience of God’s holiness and justice that a sinner as sinner encounters.

    The same “thing” is quite good when we are eschatologically perfected.

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  6. Manlius

    Well, I would say that his wrath is not eternal in that it is not part of the trinitarian relationship. It arises only in the presence of sin and its consequences. As for the eschatological ramifications, I don’t know if I would say that it will completely disappear, especially considering the possibilities of eternal punishment. Still, it is definitely subservient to the eternal attribute of God’s love. After all, God is Love, but he is not wrath. Wrath is only part of the equation because of the paradox of evil.

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  7. Steven W

    Manlius,

    Do you realize that such a presentation of God’s attributes being in a hierarchical order is in contradiction with the classic Christian definition of God? Surely he doesn’t add a new attribute unto Himself. Surely it is not in competition with God’s love. Surely there is not contradiction of forces in the infinite.

    Is there a better solution to our quandary?

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  8. Manlius

    Actually, Steven W, I have no problem with how you expressed it in the comment just before my last one, so I don’t think we’re in radically different places

    To be clearer, I would say that wrath is not a divine attribute at all, but an outward manifestation of his attributes (of justice, holiness, love etc.) in the presence and circumstance of evil. I was pretty unclear with how I expressed it; sorry about that.

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  9. Jim

    All this time after N.T. Wright, and we still argue as though Jesus is teaching timeless, eternal truths as he interacts with the New-Testament era Israel?

    How about this hypothesis: The Israel of Jesus’ day had a bigger problem caring for the poor and the outcast than she did with God’s teaching about sexual sins. That’s why Jesus talked about those relationships in Mt 25 (a passage which should be read starting with Jesus entry into Jerusalem in Mt 21).

    Why should we think that God cares less about any sin, whether a sin against our own body (1 Co 6.18) or against another’s?

    It seems that conservatives wink at “economic” sins, and liberals wink at sexual sins. Why not recognize that we’re called to holiness in all areas?

    Also, isn’t it sort of weird to talk about visiting sick and imprisoned people as though the failure to do so were an “economic sin”?

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  10. Zan

    I wonder why Judas and Silas didn’t adress economic concerns in the below:

    Acts 15:27Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.
    30The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter.

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  11. pduggie

    “Why should we think there is something more to avert?”

    Leviticus 18 and 20 would lead one to possibly believe that.

    There are two models for judgement. Israel got hers for doing like the Canaanites. Is it a COMPLETE dead letter for political entities today? (sure it has first priority to the church).

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  12. Kevin James Bywater

    I appears to me that Steven’s thoughts balance Doug’s. As someone who’s spent ample time in Romans 1:18ff, I don’t think it best to read the passage as simply chronological. I would argue that Romans 1:18ff echoes with Israel’s fall at Sinai (Israel knew God from his mighty deeds, exchanged his glory, suppressed his truth), where idolatry and immorality and injustice are in tight constellation. This may be seen in 1 Corinthians 10 (and 1 Cor more broadly). The trinity of sins — idolatry, immorality and injustice — are interlocking. Paul does not prioritize they way Jones does. For Paul, as for the prophets, greed is idolatry and idolatry is adulterous. Jones’s mistake appears to me to be located in hermeneutical isolationism, prioritizing texts that emphasize some sins and fail to mention others. When we abstract from such texts, we often produce thoughts that appear economic and profound when they actually are less than properly robust. Limited biblical condemnations should be seen as occasional and not merely philosophical. So it appears to me.

    Reply

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