Bob, Jennifer and the Jack of Hearts

A man who once fraternised with a male prostitute, a recording artist who has recently revealed she is in a relationship with another woman, and a pastor - all claiming to be on a journey towards the truth, all claiming to be Christians, all appearing on Larry King Live.

I didn’t see the show, but I read the transcript. How could I not with such a, ahem, festive line up? I may discuss some of what was said another time, but my initial reaction is simply this: Why?

Why did this dialogue take place on national television? Assuming Ted Haggard, Jennifer Knapp and Pastor Bob Botsford to be Christians and thus members of the Church, is there a justifiable reason for opinions to be aired and judgements to be made outside of a church context? Who benefits when Christians argue about the sinfulness (or lack thereof) of homosexuality in a secular environment? This is akin to the church members of Corinth going to court against one another, thus bringing what should have been church-related matters into a non-church environment. As Gordon Fee points out, Paul’s correction of this behaviour is a correction of the Corinthians’ failure to let the church be the church.

The media has no interest in enhancing the unity of the church. This self-serving moral compass (the media, not the church…oh no - never the church) wants scandal and bickering and contradiction. It wants the Westboro Baptist Church, not Redeemer Presbyterian; it wants Pat Robertson, not John Stott. This may sound like I want to isolate the church from “real life”, to cover up its failings so that it appears good from the outside looking in. I don’t. As recent church history in Ireland tragically demonstrates, this can only end badly.

What I am advocating is for debates such as the one in question to be kept in their proper context. Since the matter of homosexuality and its relation to Christian discipleship is a community-of-faith matter and a Scripture-interpretation matter, it has no business being discussed outside of the church. In fact, this debate is unintelligible outside of the church; unintelligible in the world of the ‘No-God’ (to use some Barth-speak in an effort to delude myself into thinking I know what he’s on about).

One of the conclusions of Richard Hays’s book Echoes of Scripture... is that the Bible can only be read faithfully by members of the new covenant founded in Christ and energised by the spirit; that is, by members of the church, for whom the text of Scripture not only stands as a word spoken over and against our own words, but as a word to be “made flesh” in the life of the community.

This community, and not the bright lights of a television studio, is the place to thrash out thoughts and feelings about homosexuality. In the world of television, Jennifer Knapp becomes a mere idea, a political pawn to be used by both sides of the divide, a discussion topic for pseudo-theological bloggers to vent ab…oh…right. I’ll be off, then.