The "Lens of Love" reapplied

A few years ago I wrote a post that was driven by a conversation we had with a friend of ours from church, one where I came to the conclusion that the core of Christianity can be summed up by one directive: Love God (and, in doing so, love your neighbor). Everything else naturally stems from it.

Since I believe that God is love and anything that is of love is of God (and vice versa!), I brought up the concept of a "lens of love" through which your actions can be filtered: do your actions pass the test of love?

At the time, I applied the post mainly to the issue of whether or not homosexuality is a sin. Recently, however, I was engaged in some debate about another part of Scripture that insists that only men can be pastors/elders in the church, and, as an offshoot, that women must submit to their husbands.

Now, either side can pick apart specific verses to make their case. One can point to the creation story of Adam and Eve as evidence of a "created order". Or one can argue that the historical context addresses false teachings (that happened to be done by women who had likewise been taught wrong) and not women themselves as a whole.

I do believe it's important to consider the historical and cultural context in which a verse in question was written. EVERYONE does this to some degree. I don't think there's anyone who really takes the Bible 100% literally, or we'd all be following a bunch of arcane rules about wearing jewelry, mixing fabrics, and dealing with women on the rag.

In this case, for instance, I'd argue that Scripture says masters should treat their slaves well, and that slaves should submit to their masters, but that doesn't mean the Bible condones slavery-- it was just addressing examples of godly living for the circumstances of the day. Circumstances that include not only slavery but a very patriarchal society, one where women had few rights and were fully dependent on their husbands. In those days, "submit to your man" was very much the norm, maybe even a downright survival mechanism for women.

But where do you draw the line? 

After all, one could argue, even applying context is just another form of human (i.e. fallible) interpretation, so when you encounter specific guidance like this, where do you draw the line between applying contextual interpretation, and taking it literally (ignoring, for the moment, that even literal interpretation involves linguistic context)?

Well, that's where the "lens of love" comes into play.

No matter how you slice and dice it, claiming that only men can be pastors and that husbands must be heads of the household says only one glaringly obvious thing: that women are inferior to men. The "best" arguments I've seen in favor of these principles are always quick to defend themselves against this charge, insisting that men and women are indeed equal beings in the eyes of the Lord, they just have different roles to play. Biologically, that may be true-- Schwarzenegger's "Junior" notwithstanding, women are the ones who bear children.

But we're more than just biological beings, aren't we? That's the whole point of having a spirit and a soul, the whole point of being created in God's image.

So if you're saying that men and women are equal in the eyes of the Lord but have different roles to play, you're basically saying that men and women are "separate but equal". Gee-- why does that sound so familiar? That didn't really fly too well during the civil rights movement, and it doesn't really fly too well today. And for good reason:

When you examine this claim, that one fellow human being is inferior to you, through the "lens of love", it is most decidedly NOT a loving claim. By any stretch of the imagination. It fails the "love" test. You cannot claim that men and women have equal worth and yet relegate them to specific roles within the church and family based solely on gender. Therefore, I reject the notion that only men can be pastors or that women should submit to their husbands. Not because I'm part of a culture that promotes feminist ideals, but because those notions are the antithesis to love.

This is also why I continue to circle back to the single, lone directive in the Bible that is completely free of cultural and historical context: Love God, love your neighbor. Everything else just follows. And in this case, loving your neighbor means treating them and valuing them as human beings of equal worth to your own, no more, no less.

N'est-ce-pas?