PUP Task Force Report
Distorts the Unity/Purity Message of Ephesians
By Robert
A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
The Theological Task
Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church has submitted to the 216th
General Assembly (2004) a Preliminary Report of its work that seriously
truncates the message of Ephesians as regards “purity.” In so doing, it
distorts the message of Ephesians regarding “peace” and “unity” as well.
The Report is available
at:
http://www.pcusa.org/peaceunitypurity/resources/prelimreport.pdf.
Readers will find the theological core of the Report in its Part B,
“Preliminary Affirmations About the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the
Church” (pp. 2-5). It builds its case almost exclusively on an exegesis of
the Epistle to the Ephesians.
The Report quotes
copiously from Ephesians, citing 1:3-4; 2:13-14, 16, 21-22; 3:18, 20;
4:2-3, 5-6, 13; 5:2, 10, 25-27; 6:15. It omits the warning regarding false
teaching in 4:14-16 (we should not be “tossed to and fro . . . by every
wind of teaching” but should rather “speak the truth in love”). Even more
importantly, it omits virtually the entire opening section on moral
transformation from 4:17 to 5:20 (36 verses).
The only exceptions are
the mention of two short phrases. There are brief mentions of Christ’s
self-giving “for us” in 5:2 and of “finding out what is pleasing to the
Lord” in 5:10. The latter is cited to prove that we should view disputes
as “gracious invitations to further work together.” This is precisely what
the text does not say in context. Rather, in context, the text urges
believers to be “determining what is pleasing to the Lord” based on the
clarity of the church’s moral exhortation on sexual ethics and other
areas.
What the Report
unfortunately leaves out are the author’s stern warnings regarding
continuance in “impure” patterns of behavior, particularly sexual
behavior. Thus, for example:
[N]o longer walk
as the Gentiles walk, . . . who . . . have given themselves up to
licentiousness
(aselgeia)
for the greedy doing of every
sexual impurity
(akatharsia).
But you did not so learn Christ, if in fact you listened to him and were
taught in him, in accordance with the fact that there is truth in Jesus.
[You were taught] to put off yourselves as regards the former conduct of
the old human that is being corrupted by desires that deceive, and to
renew yourselves by the spirit of your mind and to clothe yourselves with
the new human that was created after the likeness of God in true
righteousness and holiness. . . .
Sexual immorality
(porneia)
and sexual impurity
(akatharsia)
of any kind . . . must not even be named among you, as is proper among
saints. . . . Know this indeed, that every sexually
immoral person
(pornos)
or sexually impure person
(akathartos)
. . . has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one
deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God
is coming on the children of disobedience. So do not become associates of
theirs. For you were once darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk as
children of light. . . . determining what is acceptable to the Lord. And
do not be partnering with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather even
be exposing/refuting them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things
that are done in secret by them. (Eph 4:17-24; 5:3-12; my translation)
These exhortations make
clear that the author—whom we shall hereafter refer to as “Paul,” though
recognizing a scholarly dispute over authorship— believes that no
unrepentant sexual impurity is to be tolerated indefinitely within the
community of faith. Indeed, it must not even be spoken about, that is, in
approving terms. Sexual impurity must rather be exposed and refuted. The
text also makes clear that serial unrepentant, sexually impure behavior
can risk a believer’s disinheritance from the kingdom of God, subjecting
the professed believer to the same wrath of God that awaits unbelievers.
It also goes so far as to say that believers should disassociate from
fellow believers who persist unrepentantly in their sexually immoral
behavior.
Now, in this context, it
should not be overlooked that the term for “sexual impurity,”
akatharsia, is the same term used in Paul’s letter to the Romans to
designate all female-female and male-male sexual intercourse (1:24-27).
Paul normally uses the term to denote sexually impure acts generally that
are, or should be, obvious to all believers, including bestiality,
same-sex intercourse, incest, adultery, and sex with prostitutes. The
wording of Rom 1:24-27, in its literary and historical context, makes it
evident that same-sex intercourse was at or near the top of the list of
“sexually impure” acts for Paul—a supreme instance of human suppression of
the truth about the way the Creator made us, a truth still evident in
nature in the complementary structure and essence of maleness and
femaleness. There can be no doubt that the warnings in Ephesians 4:17-24
and 5:3-12 certainly include professed believers who engage in serial,
unrepentant acts of same-sex intercourse.
The Task Force’s
assessment of Ephesians as regards peace, unity, and purity gives little
hint of this. Instead, the Task Force Report makes a number of claims that
do not accord with Paul’s remarks in Ephesians 4-5. For example:
- The Task Force Report
tells us that it is “difficult to see how this goal of Christian purity
can be squared with the equally important call to unity and peace.” Not
true. It is easily squared inasmuch as unity and peace must always be
centered on the lordship of Jesus Christ and the “learning of Christ” in
accordance with the apostolic witness. There is no such thing as a unity
based on toleration, and even approval, of sexual behavior that Jesus
and the united witness of the authors of Scripture would have been
appalled by. The Report insists that, as regards purity, unity, and
peace, “no one [can be] elevated above the other two.” And yet,
ultimately, the purity of the community does have priority over unity,
certainly as regards core values in sexual ethics. More precisely, it
defines true unity as a value contingent on adherence to apostolic
teaching.
- The Task Force Report
claims that “purity must not become a pretext for division.” Not true.
Rather, unity must not become a pretext for impurity. Paul is quite
clear in Ephesians 4-5 that serial unrepentant sexual immorality of an
egregious sort is just cause for disassociation.
- The Task Force Report
alleges that “unity cannot be attained if the voices of some members of
the body are ignored” and that “all voices [must] be heard and
respected.” Not true. Ephesians 4-5 says the exact opposite. The church
must not allow acts defined as sexually immoral by the united apostolic
witness to be spoken about in an approving manner at any time in the
body of Christ.
- The Task Force Report
further alleges: “It is a necessity: union with Christ means union with
all the other members of Christ’s body, including those with whom one
would not ordinarily choose to associate.” To their “necessity” Paul
would say “Not necessarily.” Paul rather calls on believers to
disassociate, at least at some point, from fellow professed believers
who refuse to desist from acts that the apostolic witness deems to be
sexually impure. Paul treats this as a last-ditch measure on the part of
the community to bring offenders to their senses and so, hopefully, to
reclaim them for the kingdom of God.
- The Task Force also
claims that “Christians cannot even entertain the notion of severing
their ties with sisters and brothers in Christ without also placing
themselves in severe jeopardy of being severed from Christ himself.” Not
true. The implication of Ephesians 4-5 is rather that the church should
consider disassociating itself not just from believers who persist in
sexually immoral behavior but also from believers who condone and
support such behavior. Paul is quite clear that believers who persist in
sexually immoral behavior are the ones that run that risk of being
excluded from God’s kingdom, not those who disassociate from such
persons. In fact, Paul labels “deceitful” all claims that such persons
are not really at risk. Those who support and condone sexually immoral
behavior may become accomplices in a fellow brother’s or sister’s
possible exclusion from God’s kingdom.
The policy put forward in
Ephesians 4-5 is exactly the policy implemented by Paul in the case of
adult incest between a man and his stepmother discussed in 1 Corinthians
5. Paul wasn’t interested in whether the case of incest was a committed
relationship of love. He insisted that the community at Corinth
disassociate from the incestuous man if the latter refused to repent. Paul
did not call here for a unity that trumped issues of sexual purity. He did
not insist that “all the voices” be heard. He did not say that to
disassociate from the incestuous man would sever them from Christ. He did
not puzzle over how to relate questions of unity to questions of purity.
To the contrary on all these points.
Paul was firm and
unequivocal, and eminently pastoral, in insisting on temporary
disfellowship, inasmuch as the incestuous believer’s eternal destiny was
at stake. That the professed believer’s destiny was at stake is clear
enough from the vice list in 6:9-10 (paralleling those in 5:10-11), which
correlates, in context, incest with serial unrepentant adultery, same-sex
intercourse, and sex with prostitutes as sexual behaviors that could get
professed believers excluded from God’s kingdom. There is no doubt that
Paul would have followed the same course of action for a case of adult and
consensual male-male intercourse, whether in the context of a committed
relationship or not, that he would have followed for a case of adult and
consensual incest, committed or not.
In our first extant
Pauline letter, 1 Thessalonians, Paul makes clear that one of the first
things that he did with new Gentile converts to the faith was to sit them
down and tell them what the “commands of God” and “will of God” were in
the area of sexual morality (4:1-8, the beginning of the moral exhortation
in 1 Thessalonians). Gentiles were welcome into the household of faith but
not to engage any longer in the types of sexual behavior that typified
Gentile life and at odds with Scripture. Those who did otherwise, those
who engaged in “sexual impurity” (akatharsia, 4:7), were not just
rejecting Paul. They were “rejecting God.” And God would be “an avenger
concerning all these things,” especially since sexual immorality was a
holistic offense against the human body indwelt by the Holy Spirit
(compare 1 Thess 4:8 with 1 Cor 6:18-20).
Contrary to what the Task
Force Report suggests, there can be no unity of the church that insists
that advocates of homosexual practice be allowed to promote their views
indefinitely and officially, much less that committed homosexual
relationships should be blessed by any sectors of the church. At least
that is what Paul tells us.
Finally, in all its
severe injunctions about the essential value of unity, the Task Force
Report ignores the glaring fact that the PCUSA is a denomination. As such,
it does not share the same corporate institutional structure with, say,
Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Pentecostals, Catholics,
and others. If we are not violating Ephesians by remaining in the PCUSA, a
denominational entity that is structurally separate from other
denominations, how can an “amicable institutional separation” of very
different elements within the PCUSA be a violation of Ephesians’ message
on unity?
And shouldn’t it be
recognized that most people in the PCUSA have for years felt a greater
theological kinship with many persons across denominational lines than
with many persons within the PCUSA? The PCUSA is already in de facto
disunity and has been so for decades or more.
In drastically truncating
Ephesians’ message about purity, the Preliminary Report of the Task Force
deserves to be significantly altered before acceptance by the General
Assembly. Failing that, it should be rejected.
© 2004 Robert A. J.
Gagnon