The Nashville Statement is built on erroneous theological, hermeneutical, and epistemological premises. Thus, this statement is unfair to people and communities whom it is singling out, insulting and abusing. But it is also intrinsically unfair to the treasured religious texts and customs which it is misrepresenting and abusing. In a very blurred and foggy way it is referencing Biblical tradition and divine authority of the Creator to promote likes and dislikes of the authors of the Statement.
In 1906, in the opening part of the epochal study “Quest of the Historical Jesus”, Dr. Albert Schweitzer clearly demonstrated the limits of all our human hermeneutic endeavor (particularly our attempts to understand and interpret ancient texts or historical figures). He showed that, absent stringent scholarly approach, we always have tendency to project into the Bible our own biases, prejudices and desires.
The end of the Nashville preamble “...witnessing publicly to the good purposes of God for human sexuality revealed in Christian Scripture, we offer the following affirmations and denials” is the prime example of what I have just stated as it calls upon the authority of the Scripture, in a foggy way as it does, to support the personal prejudices and resentments of the authors.
Thus, this whole document is unfair to the Bible and Jesus Christ to use their message and authority without humble yet thorough and thoughtful consideration. It is doubly unfair to use them as absolute prescriptive and proscriptive answers for human culture and behavior thousands of years later.
We do not use the Bible and divine authority, as much as we value them, to inform our understanding of physics, mathematics, biology, geology, astronomy or any other science. In the same way it would have been futile to use the Bible as direct model for our social structures such as the forms of government, jurisprudence, racial or international relationships, organization of work, healthcare, or as the statement does, to model for us our gender identities or family structures. To do such things (albeit selectively) betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the function and the role of religion and religious texts in our faith and the life of society. The Nashville Statement does not reveal anything about divine will, it only betrays prejudices of its authors.
In 1906, in the opening part of the epochal study “Quest of the Historical Jesus”, Dr. Albert Schweitzer clearly demonstrated the limits of all our human hermeneutic endeavor (particularly our attempts to understand and interpret ancient texts or historical figures). He showed that, absent stringent scholarly approach, we always have tendency to project into the Bible our own biases, prejudices and desires.
The end of the Nashville preamble “...witnessing publicly to the good purposes of God for human sexuality revealed in Christian Scripture, we offer the following affirmations and denials” is the prime example of what I have just stated as it calls upon the authority of the Scripture, in a foggy way as it does, to support the personal prejudices and resentments of the authors.
Thus, this whole document is unfair to the Bible and Jesus Christ to use their message and authority without humble yet thorough and thoughtful consideration. It is doubly unfair to use them as absolute prescriptive and proscriptive answers for human culture and behavior thousands of years later.
We do not use the Bible and divine authority, as much as we value them, to inform our understanding of physics, mathematics, biology, geology, astronomy or any other science. In the same way it would have been futile to use the Bible as direct model for our social structures such as the forms of government, jurisprudence, racial or international relationships, organization of work, healthcare, or as the statement does, to model for us our gender identities or family structures. To do such things (albeit selectively) betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the function and the role of religion and religious texts in our faith and the life of society. The Nashville Statement does not reveal anything about divine will, it only betrays prejudices of its authors.
nice
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