Box Turtle
Kincaid’s Failure to Address Arguments on the Heidelberg Catechism and the
Centurion Story
by Robert A. J.
Gagnon, Ph.D.
Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA 15206-2596
gagnon@pts.edu
Aug. 12, 2008
For
a PDF version with proper pagination and format click
here
Box Turtle Timothy Kincaid’s puerile personal attacks have
intensified in direct proportion to his inability to answer an array of
arguments for which he has no reasonable answer (see his “second update”
to his “tortured logic” piece
here and his “Robert
Gagnon and the Grand Box Turtle Whirl of Immorality (also his “Gagnon
Revisited” which I respond to
elsewhere).
Box Turtle Kincaid
Grow Nastier as His Inability to Defend Rationally His Remarks Rises
His favorite word to describe detailed, reasoned responses
to his numerous fallacies in argumentation is “rant” (translation: Kincaid
feels overwhelmed by the number of rational arguments posed against him).
My “jargonistic language,” which is nothing more than the normal language
that scholars use for discussing historical-critical issues, upsets him
(translation: Kincaid feels like he is out of his league). He asks where I
went “to grammar school” and what “junior high writing class” I had. While
operating in that childish mode, he gets all worked up, angrily referring
to my “frothing indignation,” “obsessive desire,” “laughable proclamations
and self-importance,” “pomposity,” “wild presumptions,” and “very wacky
way of thinking.” In a clear case of psychological projection, he
harangues me for allegedly “not reading carefully, making wild
assumptions, and lashing out indiscriminately” and thinks that he has
driven me “to rage.” Then, with the irony escaping him, he whines about
my alleged “personal insults and general hostility.”
The behavior reminds one of an angry child who, after being
corrected for unleashing a torrent of name-calling, whines about being
picked on. Compare Kincaid’s language with the “principles”
that are suppose to govern the “boxturtlebulletin.com” site: 1. “We are
compassionate.” 2. “We are tolerant.” 3. “We are civil.” 4. “We are
honest.” 5. “We are hopeful.” I guess they forgot to leave out: 6. “We
are modest.” And finally: 7. “We are self-deceived.” Although there is a
danger that one might be driven to uncontrollable laughter by such
absurdities, I really cannot laugh at Timothy Kincaid, for there is
nothing funny about what he has become.
Once More, the Heidelberg
Catechism
Here we focus on what little rebuttal he offers to my
arguments regarding why a retranslation of the Heidelberg Catechism is
without merit (here)
and why the story of Jesus and the centurion in no way suggests Jesus’
support for homosexual relations (here).
As regards the Heidelberg Catechism retranslation, he
states only:
His reasons,
while way too lengthy and numerous to discuss, are worth reading if you
appreciate pomposity and self importance. Some are quite comical. For
example: “Changing any text in the PCUSA Book of Confessions is a
time-consuming (and costly) process” and the only reason for revisiting
the translation is “a less-than-fully-honest homosexualist agenda”. And,
my favorite, the reasons the German Catechism didn’t have “homosexual
perversion” in it originally was because “it would scandalize children.”
The important point to note here is that the derogatory
comments, “his reasons … are worth reading if you appreciate pomposity”
and “comical”—more evidence of his compassion, tolerance, and civility, I
suppose—mask the fact that he has absolutely no reasoned response to a
single one of my seven arguments (here).
They are, in his words, “too lengthy and numerous to discuss.” In other
words, Kincaid has no case to offer. Recapping my seven points:
-
Retranslations of confessions are discouraged in the PCUSA unless errors
in the original translation fundamentally affect the confession’s status
as a reliable exposition of Scripture.
-
The
Catechism clearly alludes to, and partially cites, 1 Cor 6:9, which
expressly lists “men who lie with a male” among offenders barred from
the kingdom of God.
-
A
homosexualist agenda, not translation purity: Why there is no outrage at
the addition of “the covetous” and “swindlers” to the English
translation from the text of 1 Cor 6:9.
-
The
probable reason for the omission of any reference to homosexual practice
in the Catechism: It would scandalize children.
-
This
supposition is confirmed by the strong but oblique visceral opposition
to homosexual practice from Calvin on.
-
Hermeneutical regression: Today’s homosexualist motive for deleting
“homosexual perversion” stands in diametrical opposition to the original
motive for its omission.
-
The
hypocrisy of the “Spirit, not letter” people suddenly so obsessed by the
“letter” is apparent.
Regarding the first point, Kincaid states that it is
“comical” for me to suggest that “changing any text in the PCUSA Book of
Confessions is a time-consuming (and costly) process.” Precisely what is
“comical” about the statement Kincaid conveniently doesn’t say. Anyone who
knows anything about the PCUSA would concede my point as accurate,
inasmuch as the process of changing a translation in the Book of
Confessions requires not only General Assembly approval but also,
subsequent to that,
appointment of a committee to issue a report to the next
General Assembly, debate by all the presbyteries (with two-thirds of the
presbyteries needing to approve the retranslation), and a final debate and
discussion at the next General Assembly.
Most importantly, Kincaid fails to connect this point to my
larger point that the steep curve for changing translations of confessions
was designed to discourage retranslations
unless errors in the original
translation affect
fundamentally the confession’s status as an “authentic and reliable
exposition of what Scripture leads us to believe and do” (W-4.4003;
my emphasis). The insertion of
“homosexual perversion” into a text that clearly alludes to 1 Cor 6:9, a
passage of Scripture that equally clearly refers to men who have sex with
males in a list of offenders who “will not inherit the kingdom of God”
(see the appendix
here) is not a translation error that affects
fundamentally the
confession’s status as an “authentic and reliable exposition of what
Scripture leads us to believe and do.” Kincaid completely ignores this
point.
Kincaid also labels as “comic,” but again without reasoned
argument, my statement that “‘translation
purity’ is not the concern behind the push for retranslation [of the
Heidelberg Catechism] but rather a less-than-fully-honest homosexualist
agenda.” Homosexualists—a term that Kincaid dislikes intensely (even as he
uses the term “homophobes”) but which I think perfectly describes those
seeking to coerce acceptance of the immorality of homosexual practice on
church and society—have not called for a retranslation of the Heidelberg
Catechism because “grabbers” (i.e., the covetous) and “swindlers” were
added from 1 Cor 6:9 to the list of offenders given in the original German
of Q 87 (4.086) of the Catechism. Obviously a homosexualist agenda is in
play here; in other words, a concerted effort to eliminate from the
constitutional documents of the PCUSA any opposition to homosexual
practice.
Kincaid mocks my argument that “the probable reason for the
omission of any reference to homosexual practice in the Catechism is: It
would scandalize children,” calling the argument his “favorite.” Once more
Kincaid offers no rational argument. Clearly it would be historically
absurd to argue that any sixteenth-century Reformer would have deleted a
reference to homosexual practice because of a favorable opinion toward
such behavior. Concerns for scandalizing youth through overt references to
homosexual practice were felt well into the 20th century, as
evidenced by the Loeb Classical Library series, which regularly translated
texts mentioning homosexual practice into Latin rather than into the
standard English to avoid scandalizing the young. Calvin’s own commentary
on 1 Cor 6:9 and on Rom 1:26-27 confirms the use of oblique language
precisely because of the heinousness with which the behavior was regarded.
Accordingly, it doesn’t take any magical powers to know
what the response of the German translators Zacharias Ursinus and Kaspar
Olevianus or any other sixteenth-century Reformer (all of whom had an
extremely high view of scriptural inspiration) would have been to two
adult men in a homosexual union, committed or otherwise. This point also
renders irrelevant any appeal to Luther’s translation of arsenokoitai
in 1 Cor 6:9 as “Knabenschänder,”
“violaters of boys” or “boy-abusers” as an attempt to limit the indictment
of homosexual practice to coercive pederasty (as one of the comments to
Kincaid’s posting illogically argues). It takes no more magical powers to
discern the Reformers’ unanimous objection to homosexual practice per se
than it does to discern the view of the sixteenth-century Reformers toward
adult-committed forms of incest.
It is clear that Kincaid has no rational case, but only
immature comments, against my series of arguments opposing a retranslation
of the Heidelberg Catechism. Kincaid continues to call my position a
“propensity to finding words on a page that appear not have [sic]
been written there” while, oddly enough, neither he nor anyone else in
favor of a retranslation has expressed any outrage over the fact that the
English translators added “grabbers” (covetous) and “swindlers” from the
offender list in 1 Cor 6:9 to original German text of Catechism. I oppose
homosexualist efforts to remove “homosexual perversion” as a means to
justifying homosexual practice, a purpose that is diametrically opposed to
the spirit of the original Catechism and to the letter and spirit of the
Scripture that the Catechism honors.
Jesus’ Distance Healing
of the Official’s Boy at Capernaum
The absence of rational argumentation is also evident in
Kincaid’s “response” (here)
to my arguments that the story of Jesus and the centurion offers no
support whatsoever for homosexual unions (here).
Kincaid now insists that he never “much cared” anyway whether the story
supports a homosexualist reading. “As
in my original post, i do not make any assumptions about the historicity
of the Biblical tale (a fact which avoided Gagnon’s notice). I have no
notion as to whether the individual under discussion was Jewish or Roman,
civic or military, or whether the suffering one was a slave, a lover, or a
son.”
Yet Kincaid did charge me in his original posting with
deciding “that homophobia trumps written witness” when I argued
here that the earliest recoverable core behind the story of the
centurion in Matt 8:5-13 par. Luke 7:1-10 and the story of the royal
official in John 4:46b-54 involved a Jewish official and his son.
Incidentally and for the record, I drew this conclusion about the
tradition history of the story nearly a quarter of a century ago, when I
was a seminary student and long before I was aware that this story could
be misappropriated as evidence for Jesus’ support of homosexual relations.
The case for this historical reconstruction stands independently of what
one’s views on homosexual practice are. If the reconstruction is accurate
(and neither Kincaid nor anyone else have shown it to be in error), then
Kincaid’s charge that I put “homophobia” (a term as ludicrous as
“polyphobia” or “incest-phobia”) over written witness is shown to be
bogus.
Kincaid also mischaracterized my position as “a desire to
read what isn’t there and to ignore what is present,” when in reality I
certainly “read” what Matthew and Luke each had to say at the same time
that I read what John had to say, in no way ignoring “what is present” but
instead wrestling with what appears to be two different versions of the
same original event. As I pointed out in my response
(here),
an analogy exists in the case of whether Jesus met the centurion directly
(Matthew) or only indirectly through the double delegation of Jewish
elders and other friends (Luke). Jesus obviously didn’t do both. Wrestling
with the question of whether the centurion met Jesus directly or only
through intermediaries is not a case of “reading what isn’t there” and
“ignoring what is present.”
Although Kincaid stated in comments added to his original
posting that he didn’t really know whether a homosexual relationship was
involved in the story, he did caution another person who posted a comment
not “to get bogged down” with the fact that a sexual relationship with a
slave would be a coercive one. And he did conclude: “If it were to be
accepted that this was a same-sex couple, this would be evidence of
Christ’s implicit blessing of a same-sex couple which could revolutionize
the way that Christains [sic] view gay couples. Frankly, I don’t
know if that interpretation is correct. But I do know that Gagnon has
to leap in circles to avoid that interpretation” (my emphasis). My
response to his posting showed that, far from “leaping in circles,” the
case against a homosexualist reading of this story was overwhelming.
Even now Kincaid calls the case that I made “pure comedy”
and a “rant” and says that he finds my “assumptions to be laughable.” Yet,
he adds, “I’m not going to spend time trying to refute him,” which is
another way of saying that he has no case when he claims that the
arguments I put forward are “laughable.” It is another case of all heat,
no light with Kincaid.
Jesus, “Dogs,” and the Holy
Despite saying that he isn’t going to spend time refuting
me, he in fact attempts to do so at one point, in an additional posting
entitled, “My
Very Favorite Gagnonism.” This is the only place where Kincaid
apparently thinks that he has a chance at successfully ridiculing anything
that I say in the centurion article. Kincaid picks the tenth of 12
arguments that I make regarding evidence of Jesus’ opposition to
homosexual practice (sec. VI, end,
here). Here is what I say:
According to Kincaid,
You may have heard of Matthew 7:1-6. You
may even have thought it was about acceptance and tolerance and
withholding judgment of others. Well not according to Gagnon…. I kid you
not! Robert Gagnon believes the text on not judging is really a
condemnation of bottom boys.
True to form, Kincaid once more misrepresents my position.
I do not believe that “the text on not judging is really a condemnation of
bottom boys.” “The text on not judging” comprises 7:1-5, not 7:6. The
saying in 7:6 about not giving “what is holy to dogs” and not throwing
“your pearls before swine” obviously does not continue the theme,
“Don’t judge,” because the very characterization of some group of persons
as “dogs” and “swine” implies a negative judgment of some persons
(add it to the pile of obvious points missed by Kincaid). Matthew puts
this saying, drawn from his special tradition, immediately after the block
of “Q” sayings about not judging (7:1-5) as a way of qualifying an
improper, absolute reading of the “not judging” texts.
Jesus’ words about not judging clearly do not mean that
Jesus’ followers are never to evaluate whether the behavior of others is
bad. For if that were so, Jesus’ comments about rebuking and disciplining
those in the community who do not repent would make no sense (Matt
18:15-17; compare Luke 17:3-4). It would be impossible to explain the
series of three judgment sayings that close the Sermon on the Mount
(7:13-27) or the many other judgments that Jesus makes regarding the evil
deeds of others. He even refers to “this generation” as an “evil and
adulterous generation” (Matt 12:39-45; 16:4; 17:17). Jesus’ message about
not judging is about not judging others without introspection about one’s
own sins or over matters of relative insignificance. Even the saying about
the “log” in one’s own eyes presumes that evaluations of the actions of
others are appropriate when done rightly (“first take the log out
of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out
of your neighbor’s eye”).
The saying in 7:6 presumes also that determinations must be
made as to who the “dogs” and “swines” are to whom “what is holy” ought
not be given. Contrary to what Kincaid claims, I am not saying that the
“dogs” in 7:6 refer only or even directly to the cult
figures in the Old Testament known as the qedeshim (literally, the
“holy [or: consecrated, sacred] ones”), cultic figures who feminized their
appearance and sometimes served as the passive-receptive partners in
man-male intercourse. I am suggesting that Jesus alludes to, or
echoes, Deut 23:17-18, a text that prohibits these “dogs” from giving
money received from abominable practices to the holy place, where the ark
is stationed. This is the only other text in the Bible where “dogs”
and “holy” are combined, which itself is a strong indication of an echo. A
partial parallel is the offender list in Revelation 21:8 and 22:15, which
identify “the dogs” and “the abominable” in what some scholars believe may
also be an allusion to passive-receptive partners in man-male intercourse
(for example, David Aune’s massive commentary on Revelation considers the
connection to homosexual practice possible; also Bruce Metzger).
Jesus’ point is something like the following: If the temple
is too holy to receive the fees from homosexual cult prostitutes, then the
message of the kingdom, which is holier still, should not be entrusted to
those who mock holiness through their continuance in abominable practices
(see my Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views [Fortress Press,
2003], 73). So Jesus employs a lesser-to-the-greater argument: If even
that is the case, how much more this. So I am not even arguing that in
Matt 7:6 Jesus is singling out passive-receptive partners in same-sex
intercourse. I am rather saying that Jesus’ apparent allusion or echo to
Deut 23:17-18 presumes his agreement with the disgust that the
Deuteronomic law shows for men who actively emasculate themselves and
engage in homosexual relations with other men, with Jesus going on to make
a further point about the even greater sanctity of his proclamation about
the kingdom of God and not allowing it to be mocked by those who continue
in egregious immoral practices of whatever sort, including, of course,
homosexual practice.
Such nuanced arguments appear to be beyond Kincaid’s
capacity to understand correctly. He has only one objective in his
postings about me: not to understand issues of truth, much less to
characterize my position accurately and fairly, but rather to dissuade
others from being influenced by my work so that his own self-serving
homosexualist agenda will not be impeded in any way. In attempting to mock
my argument here he only underscores his own unfortunate ignorance. This
is not something to be angry or gleeful about but rather something to be
mourned in Kincaid’s character.
Kincaid states that my historical reconstruction will not
“prove to be beneficial” to “literalists.” Most persons with a high view
of Scripture recognize nowadays that not everything related in every
biblical narrative represents exactly what happened. Most recognize that
sometimes theology is recast as narrative or source materials vary—God
apparently not considering it crucial that every last detail be recorded
exactly in the oral and written transmission of tradition. I do not
propose that this is so extensive as to make impossible all historical
reconstruction. In the Last Supper, for example, few would argue that
Jesus’ precise words over the cup were both “This is my blood of the
covenant” (Mark, Matthew) and “This is the new covenant in my blood”
(Paul, Luke). Few would argue that Jesus’ abstinence from wine statement
occurred both before the words over the bread (Luke) and after (Mark,
Matthew). Few would argue that the cleansing of the temple episode
happened both at the start of Jesus’ ministry (John) and at the end (the
Synoptic Gospels).
At any rate, I have shown in my previous response that even
if Jesus met a Gentile centurion and his “boy” there is no convincing
basis for arguing (a) the centurion and his “boy” were in a homosexual
relationship and (b) Jesus gave tacit approval to such a relationship. How
this would not be “beneficial” to those who presume an historical Gentile
centurion and his slave I know not.
We are at the point where it should be clear to all but the
most confirmed ideologues in homosexualist circles that Box Turtle Kincaid
has made false accusations and spoken irresponsibly and abusively about
matters concerning which he has little knowledge.