From Russia, in Hope

From Russia, in Hope Marilyn and I spent our vacation in St. Petersburg and Moscow this summer. Our two weeks there gave us no expertise whatsoever on so vast a country—the distance from one end of Russia to the other is greater than the distance between Moscow and Chicago. The more we learned, the less we understood. The Russian Orthodox Church is back in favor, or at least it has gained enough financial backing to refurbish and even rebuild churches destroyed or secularized by Stalin. Orthodox spirituality celebrates mystery while our mostly right-brained Christianity features moments like preaching, largely unknown there. Moscow, they say, is the most expensive city in the world, but the salaries of people like school teachers and doctors in today’s Russia pale in comparison with salaries here. Go figure. Some people we met longed for the good old days of the Soviet system; others thrived on the nascent capitalism or, among the young, never knew the old system first hand at all.

The articles in this issue expose the disagreements among our writers and probably among our subscribers as well. Our unity is surely and solely and finally baptismal; our realities, even in the Christian or even Lutheran tradition, proclaim our diversity. How frankly can we speak to God? How central is healing to the Christian tradition? What makes up the center of Lutheranism? How can we Western Christians learn from Chinese Christians? And when it comes to the sexuality of Jesus or the current debates about homosexuality in the church and society, don’t expect to read one point of view, let alone imagine that the editorial board, let alone the editor, agrees with everything here printed. We aim to print responsible arguments, not a party line.

Fred Holmgren notes that as Jeremiah spoke his warning message to the people, he felt abandoned by the very one who had called him. Jeremiah longed for the comforting presence of Immanuel, but in his time of desperate need God appears nowhere to be found. Throughout Jeremiah’s ministry he was pressured by questions about God’s inaction that allowed his enemies to have the upper hand. Jeremiah is a model for an honest relationship with God. Jeremiah’s “Confessions” and other laments in the Old Testament connected with the Israelite community, as they do with communities facing hard lives today. When the road is rough, it is not an act of unfaith to release our thoughts to God in lament. Both Jeremiah and the psalmists matched their laments with frequent outbursts of praise. Several texts in the New Testament appear to point to Jesus’ own struggle in accepting his path of suffering. While confession of guilt is a part of some laments, it is usually not the case. The heightened emphasis on sin in the New Testament may explain the rarity of lament in this testament. Lament is also relatively infrequent in Christian worship, resulting in passive behavior which accepts whatever comes one’s way. Lament, however, offers the Christian congregation opportunity to bring real life and faith together.

Christoffer H. Grundmann calls the church back to the ministry of healing. Both Jesus and the disciples specialized in healing, but the topic has received only slight attention in academic theology. In recent years, however, healing has become one of the most notable characteristics of many churches, especially in the southern hemisphere. How do these healing experiences relate to salvation? In the ministry of Jesus healing became a legitimate corporeal aspect of salvation as Jesus cured every disease and sickness. Jesus lived out the compassionate care for humanity which is credited to God throughout the Old Testament. The healings of Jesus brought life in all its abundance. The disciples in turn healed in the name of Jesus, thus by an authority not their own. The history of the church is also one of genuine compassion and care, entailing the establishment of healing institutions and of programs devoted to care. The proclamation of the gospel attempts to bring people back into the presence of the living God as it was in the very beginning. While seeking to bring about healing is part of the mission of the church, very often such healing does not take place in spite of all our efforts. Healing is always just a provisional mending, preventing untimely death, not death as such.

Albert Pero, Jr. has been a pioneer in articulating what it means to be Black within Lutheranism. The theological pluralism made clear in the works of African and African American Lutheran theologians is echoed today by similar voices among Asian, Latin American, and feminist Lutherans. The “center” of Lutheranism is constituted by the contributions of the whole of the Lutheran circle to the center. Each of the Lutheran cultures must cultivate its own particularity with energy and a sense of the larger whole. The proclamation of the gospel is always directed not toward humankind in general but toward humankind wrapped in all of its cultural diversity. We must be careful not to see our own Christian cultural tradition as the Christian tradition. The universal thrust of the gospel prevents theology from becoming only indigenous, and the indigenous character of the gospel prevents theology from becoming merely theoretical or transcultural. Spirituality is that constant tension of trying to understand what it is that God is calling us to be and to do. The breath of God can be a mighty power thing, upsetting us in ways we never expected. A minister in a multicultural context, who has experienced the ministry of the Holy Spirit, has a head start on following Jesus.

John Gugel reports on a recent visit he made to China. While respectful of the missionaries’ witness to the gospel, he notes that many Chinese remember the missionaries’ collaboration with the oppressive western infrastructure. Bitterness about experience with the Japanese during World War II continues among Chinese to this day. Some of the worst wounds China has suffered were the result of the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Despite persecution, the church survived and even thrived in this period. Some estimate that the church grew fourteen times as numerous from the beginning of the Peoples Republic to the end of the Cultural Revolution. We can learn from the Chinese Christians how to remain faithful in the face of hostility and the threat of death. The Chinese have also transcended denominationalism, discovering that under persecution they could no longer enjoy the luxury of separation. In this too they may be an example to the west. The Amity Foundation, in collaboration with the United Bible Society has printed thirty-five million Bibles, but it has also focused on helping the millions of poor people in China.

William E. Phipps claims that the Da Vince Code is based in part on his own book, published in 1970, that argued that Jesus was married, possibly to Mary Magdalene. He argues that early church leaders were as a rule married and that arguments about Jesus’ marital state are based largely on arguments of silence. The women who went from village to village with Jesus and the disciples had, in his view, become married. The heavy impact of Jerome and Augustine on Christian teaching has made it difficult to understand the marital mores of people like Jesus and Mary Magdalene, who were part of the Jewish culture.

Gary R. Jepsen continues our series of articles on homosexuality, arguing for the traditional understanding of 1 Cor 6:9-10. His essay is an extensive review of an article by Dale Martin that can be found on the Internet and that he would classify as the revisionist position. He argues that the etymology of the word arsenokoites is significant for its meaning in the New Testament, but argues that the traditional understanding is also supported by the context in which it is used. While he concedes that the word might have been used in texts later than Paul to designate homosexual rape or sex by economic exploitation, it sometimes may also have been used to refer to homosexuality in general. In addition, he argues that the usage of the term in the Septuagint of Leviticus would have highly influenced how Paul used this term. He also argues that Martin is wrong in construing the term malakos as a full scale attack on the feminine and not as referring to a penetrated male in a homosexual act. Finally, he claims that Martin has given up the guiding principle from the Reformation that Scripture is the norm for the faith and life of the church.

Quite another position is maintained by Gwen Sayler, who challenges the “complementarity argument” on homosexuality because it imposes on Genesis 1-2 questions foreign to the issues the texts are addressing and because it assumes that the anthropological model of two sexes differentiated on biological grounds has been constant from ancient times to the present. Her critique is directed at Robert Gagnon, who has championed the complementarity argument. In the Yahwist’s account, however, covenantal lines of procreation, not complementarity of the sexes, constitute the subject of the Yahwist’s use of bone/flesh imagery. In the Yahwist document, the significance of the creation of man and woman is explored in terms of perpetuation of covenant lineage rather than of proper norms for sexual relationships. The notion of complementary sexes was alien to the worldview of ancient times. Furthermore, the conceptualization of the human body in any era reflects the world-view of that time rather than an essence unchanged throughout time. Claus Westermann concludes that far from providing a general understanding of sexuality, the narrative of Genesis 1 is shaped to challenge readers to face how incomprehensible and indescribable is the subject of the author’s story. The Genesis story presupposes the dominance of the partner with the more perfect body (male) and the subordination of the less perfect body (female). The human’s status and role among the other creatures—to rule over the rest of creation--is captured through its identification as “image of God.” While Gagnon concludes that same-sex sexual relationships cannot express the image of God, he fails to address the implications of his logic for unmarried heterosexuals and for heterosexual couples who are childless. The Genesis 1-2 creation accounts simply do not address the question of whether God’s creation of the first Adam and Eve necessitates divine and human censure of today’s Adam and Steve.

I never dreamed that the Soviet Union or Apartheid would pass from the scene peaceably or even pass from the scene at all. But pass they did. We often limit our horizons to the cultures or the traditions or the opinions or the options in which we were born or raised, thereby shutting our eyes to the gifts that lie all around us, thanks to the One who makes all things new. Not every opinion is tenable, not every option is to be preferred, not every hope is realizable. But if angry laments demonstrate how deeply we trust God, being free to act for change in our contexts shows how much God trusts us. Or at least that’s what I think today.

Ralph W. Klein
Editor

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