If Christ is King . . .

This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. Pope Pius XI instituted the feast in 1925 in response to the

rise of secularization, atheism, and communism. The Soviet Union had been founded recently in 1917. It

Window above the High Altar
of St. Paul Cathedral,
Fond du Lac, WI

is significant that 1925 was also the year that Benito Mussolini established a Fascist dictatorship in Italy. Both Communism and Fascism expected people to give their highest allegiance to their nation and its government. Pope Pius rightly recognized this as antithetical to Christianity. For Christians, citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). Jesus Christ is the only king or ruler to whom allegiance is owed. Anglicans and others adopted the feast as a regular reminder of that allegiance.

Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom "was not of this world" (John 18:36). By that he did not mean that his kingdom was simply 'otherworldly' having no earthly or political implications. He meant it was 'other than the way of this world' and its kingdoms and nations which rule through coercion and violence with the threat of pain and death. Otherwise, his followers would have fought to keep him from being handed over. But, Pilate recognized Jesus as a threat to the political system and had him executed as one claiming to be "King of the Jews" (Mark 15:26, Matthew 27:37, Luke 23:38, John 19:19).

The earliest Christian affirmation was, "Jesus is Lord" (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:3, Romans 10:9-13, Philippians 2:11). It was a politically charged assertion. Jesus was Lord/King. The Emperor, who also claimed that title, was not. Neither was Rome nor the idea of Rome. And neither was any other god or gods. Jesus alone was Lord/King. The refusal by early Christians to pledge allegiance to the Emperor got them into trouble.

Claiming that Jesus Christ is Lord or King remains a radical claim. And it continues to raise questions about where our true loyalties lie. While Communist and Fascist regimes overtly demanded that their citizens give their highest allegiance to the nation, all nations in the modern era (since about 1650) have more or less encouraged, cultivated, and trained their citizens to adopt such allegiance as primary. Other allegiances – like allegiance to Jesus Christ and the Church – have been minimized, side-lined, subjected, or co-opted. And many Christians have a difficult time distinguishing one allegiance from the other. This is true in the United States of America as much as anywhere else.

I once saw a woman wearing a disturbing t-shirt that illustrated the confusion many Christians seem to have concerning their loyalty and emotional attachment to their nation and their loyalty and emotional attachment to Jesus Christ. It was a white t-shirt that had JESUSAVES written across the front. I believe he does. But that was not the only message on the shirt. All the letters were blue except for those in the middle – USA – which were red. So, it looked like this: JESUSAVES. It was a telling icon of the confused syncretism of many Christians in America. Who saves? Jesus? The USA? Or, are the two so emotionally entwined in our imaginations that we can't tell the difference? It is an illustration of Stanley Hauerwas' assertion that for many Americans, the nation is their true church. For many Americans, America is the social body to which their ultimate allegiance is pledged regardless of what religious affiliation they formally claim (see The End of American Protestantism). This confusion of loyalties is not just an American thing. It is a danger in most, if not all, nations. Christians would do well to disentangle this confusion in their hearts and guard against it.

Patriotism is not necessarily idolatrous. A distinction must be made, however, between holding dear and celebrating the particular culture and history of a place/people on the one hand and the sort of nationalistic exceptionalism on the other hand. 'Christian nationalist' is an oxymoron. Christians should be wary of appeals to patriotism and suspicious of those who use its appeal to shepherd them in one direction or another that compromises their first loyalty to the way of Jesus. If Jesus Christ is the King, our citizenship and loyalty is elsewhere (Philippians 3:20). We are always and everywhere strangers and foreigners on the earth seeking a homeland, the City God has prepared for us (Hebrews 11:13-16). Though we live under the temporal authority of governments of earthy nations, our allegiance is to that City and the coming kingdom of God. We seek to not be conformed to this world (see Do Not Conform Any Longer to the Pattern of This World), but rather to live according the the shape of that kingdom. We live, now, in anticipation of God's will being done on earth as in heaven (Matthew 6:9-13). We get some indication of Jesus' kingdom priorities in in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Gospel Lesson appointed for the Feast of Christ the King (Matthew 25:31-46). 

Christians need to beware of the temptation to confuse loyalty to King Jesus with loyalty to other entities – including Uncle Sam – who would claim the kind of emotional attachment that belongs to Christ alone. Our allegiance is to Christ the King. We pledge allegiance to that king every time we recite the Nicene or Apostles' Creed. All other allegiances are secondary and should be held lightly. Jesus alone is our hope and security. 

The Feast of Christ the King is a helpful reminder to Christians that their allegiances lie not with any government, nation, party, ideology, leader, or flag. Rather, it lies with Jesus Christ and his Church. It also reminds us that no area of human life, private or political, lies outside the concerns of the King and the responsibility of his followers.

Here's a bit from Pope Pius XI:

If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone.
(Quas Primas, 33)

Collect for the Feast of Christ the King

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

See also:

St. Ambrose and the Emperor

Centered on Jesus IV: The Story and Other Stories

Centered on Jesus III: Jerome the Ciceronian

Centered on Jesus II. What it is Not, Part 2: Not a Mid-point on a Spectrum

Centered on Jesus I: Introduction. Not Moderate

How I Came to Change My Mind on SSU: Part 13. Romans 1 (iv) Idolatry, self-control, and same-sex sex

Having taken a bit of  a detour, let’s return to Romans 1. 

Paul’s Logic

In Romans, Paul lays out the dire situation of all humanity in bondage to Sin. Both Jews and Gentiles are caught in that bondage. In Chapter 1, he focuses his attention on Gentiles. From a Jewish perspective, Gentiles are, by definition, guilty of idolatry. Though Paul asserts that there is sufficient evidence in creation for them to know better, they neither honor God as God nor give thanks to him (1:21). Instead, they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles” (1:23).

Of course, in the ancient world literal idolatry was pervasive. There were statues and images of gods of all sorts everywhere. But, idolatry is more than worshiping images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. We can exchange the glory of the immortal God for almost anything: Family, money/Mammon, Nation/Flag/Patriotism, Political Ideology, Fame/Reputation, Violence, Vengeance,  Race, Security, Pleasure, Sex, the Mirror, etc. When we give such things our ultimate allegiance and allow them to shape our imagination we make gods of them. And that distorts our thinking and disorients us morally.

When people exchange the worship of God for the things God created, they lose moral perspective and self-control (see Wisdom 12:23-13:10 and 14:9-31). They become “futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds are darkened” (Romans 1:21). They are thus subject to “every kind of wickedness” (Romans 1:29).

The sexual licentiousness Jews attributed to Gentiles was part of this. And it was not hard in the Greco-Roman world to see a connection between idolatry and sexual licentiousness. Images of the phallus were ubiquitous (here). And all sorts of sexual goings-on were common in and around pagan temples (see the first comment below taken from “But the Bible says...”? A Catholic reading of Romans 1 by James Allison). The evidence confirming that Gentiles were sexually out of control was everywhere.

Paul points to same-sex sexual encounters as a particular example of this:

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:26-27)

As we saw in the last post, such behavior was evidence of the out of control behavior that results from idolatry. Same-sex intercourse was seen as one extreme example of licentiousness.

But, let’s be clear. Paul asserts that idolatry leads to "every kind of wickedness":

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Romans 1:28-31)

Verses 26-31 should be read as a whole. The attitudes and behaviors Paul lists are all similar in his mind.

Application

So, how might this passage of Holy Scripture apply to us today?

Though literal idolatry is rare in our context, idolatry (as in the examples in the second paragraph above) is no less pervasive here and now than it was there and then. It is just more subtle. Partly because it is more subtle it is easier to fall into and because it is less obvious we can fool ourselves into thinking we are not guilty. But, it still can lead us to accept and do things that are contrary to the way of Jesus and fill us with every kind of wickedness. It is not the point of this series, but I think Christians would do well to take more seriously the temptation of idolatry and the possibility that we are more idolatrous than we would like to think.  

It is also a reminder that in the New Testament and the early Church, self-control was understood as a fundamental mark of faithfulness to the Christian way of life (see, Neglected Fruit of the Spirit). That is about as counter-cultural and scandalous as it gets in a society such as ours with its self-indulgent, consumerist pursuit of more and more money and stuff, more comfort, and more pleasure. 

More specifically, what does this passage teach us about the phenomena of same-sex sexual attraction?

First, allow me to repeat again that every reader of scripture reads with a perspective that includes rules, conscious or unconscious, which determine how they interpret what they read. I laid out some of my basic approach to interpreting scripture here: Some Thoughts on Interpreting Scripture. Among other things, I pointed out that according to the official teaching body of the Catholic Church, the Pontifical Biblical Commission, Catholic readers of the Scripture have a positive duty to avoid certain sorts of what the authorities call ‘actualization’ of the texts, by which they mean reading ancient texts as referring in a straightforward way to modern realities. One does not have to be Roman Catholic to find this a valuable guide to interpretation:

Clearly to be rejected also is every attempt at actualization set in a direction contrary to evangelical justice and charity, such as, for example, the use of the Bible to justify racial segregation, anti-Semitism or sexism whether on the part of men or of women. Particular attention is necessary... to avoid absolutely any actualization of certain texts of the New Testament which could provoke or reinforce unfavorable attitudes to the Jewish people”. (The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, IV.3)

While there are plausible – maybe even probable – interpretations of scripture “contrary to evangelical justice and charity,” i.e., that endorse slavery, racism, anti-semitism, sexism, etc., they are to be avoided. Interpretations that reflect and reinforce justice and charity are more faithful to the Good News of Jesus Christ. It seems to me that this principle makes space for asking whether or not we should be wary of reading biblical texts about homosexuality as referring in a straightforward way to what we are talking about now.

I believe that, given the logic of Romans 1, we should indeed be wary of 'actualization' of the text as referring in a straightforward way to modern realities. In the previous two posts in the series we saw the importance of self-control for Paul and his contemporaries and the common understanding that homosexual behavior was a matter of out of control sexual desire. Is the reality Paul is talking about necessarily the same thing we are talking about regarding same-sex relationships in our context?

How should we now understand gay and lesbian Christians who are no more idolatrous than the rest of us and give every evidence of faithfully worshiping God in Christ and honoring God as God and giving thanks to him? And who love God and neighbor? And demonstrate self-control and self-denying discipline in their desire to follow Jesus and be formed in his image? Who are not dominated by passions and who build up the body of Christ? And who resist the evils listed in Romans 1:28-31 and elsewhere? And give testimony to their experience of same-sex attraction being different from that described in Romans 1 and elsewhere? And that it is not a matter of their choosing or lack of self-control, but an ingrained part of their personal identity?

It doesn’t work to say that in spite of all that, their same-sex attraction is itself idolatrous. That is not the logic of Paul’s argument. His argument is that idolatry leads to loss of perspective and self-control which leads to out of control sexual behavior among other things. But, what if gays and lesbians demonstrate that they are no more out of control than anyone else and that their same-sex attraction is an inherent part of them?

Another common approach is to argue that indelible same-sex attraction is a product of the brokenness resulting from the Fall. But, that also does not fit Paul’s logic. For Paul, the out of control sinful behavior he is talking about is the result of the prior decision to turn from the glory of God and worship something less than God. As we have seen, the assumption was that homosexual behavior was just such out of control behavior. As such, it was an extreme example of fornication to which all are similarly tempted. We know that gays and lesbians, like heterosexuals, can choose to be licentious, promiscuous, and adulterous. But, given the apparently fixed nature of most same-sex attraction, it is different from those. It is not a consequence of choosing idolatry over honoring God. And gays and lesbians, like heterosexuals, can and do also demonstrate self-control and sacrificial faithfulness.

Gay and lesbian Christians are not essentially idolatrous. If they honor God and give him thanks and demonstrate self-control that leads to love and the building up of the congregation, then it is hard to see how what Paul is writing against in Romans 1 actually applies to Christians who are gay or lesbian. The out of control sexual behavior Paul is talking about is not what we are talking about given how we understand the phenomena of same-sex attraction. It is not what we are talking about when we talk about committed, self-sacrificial same-gender unions that reflect all the disciplines and commitments of traditional marriage. I suggest that that opens space for the Church to rethink its teaching on the matter.

Previous: Looking at Romans 1:

Romans 1 (i) Context

Romans 1 (ii) UnnaturalPassions

Romans 1 (iii) Natural andUnnatural Sex

Romans 1 (iv) Idolatry, self-control, and same-sex sex

Next:

Same-sex behavior in the rest of the New Testament