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<\/a>As I delved into Adrian Thatcher\u2019s God, Sex and Gender<\/em>, I repeatedly thought of these two selves of mine. While the thrust of Thatcher\u2019s text is an exploration into how Christians understand gender and sex (primarily same-sex), on a deeper level it challenges the concept of Biblicism, or biblical literalism, \u201cthe Bible is clear on this\u201d mentality. Thatcher approaches how we understand what God desires of us (the will of God) using the image of stools, with one to four legs, beginning with Scripture (one leg) and adding Tradition, Reason, and Experience to make a four-legged stool (Thatcher\u2019s preference).[1]<\/a><\/p>\n[As a long aside, a significant gap in Thatcher\u2019s argument is his lack of recognition of the extent of the \u201cone-legged\u201d approach within churches (especially Evangelicalism). Thatcher introduces it briefly\u2014almost in passing\u2014but spends no time wrestling with its problems or strengths, as he does with the other three \u201clegs.\u201d This \u201cone-legged\u201d approach drives much of the biblical literalism of my church movement, and many others. While Thatcher appears to completely discount this image as unfeasible\u2014\u201cthis appears to be a one<\/em>-legged stool!\u201d[2]<\/a>\u2014I imagine sitting comfortably on a solid tree-stump and have seen this approach regularly practiced by churches claiming that we don\u2019t need theology, only scripture.]<\/p>\n And yet, throughout his text, Thatcher suggests that \u201ctraditional\u201d ways of reading scripture are simply that: traditional; and that there are other possible ways of understanding the scriptural text. For instance, looking at Bible passages traditionally understood as opposing same-sex sexual activity, Thatcher submits, \u201cthe conventional interpretation of the biblical passages remains a possible<\/em> one. But the claim that it is the right one<\/em> seriously exceeds the biblical evidence available. The churches should be more honest in admitting the difficulties of the traditional case.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n Thatcher wants his readers to recognize that we are always reading scripture with a lens (or lenses), whether we recognize it or not. Even our \u201ctraditional\u201d reading of scripture is still only \u201ctraditional\u201d in a particular context. We would do well to approach the development of a theology of sex with Stephen Bevans\u2019 Models of Contextual Theology<\/em> in hand along with Thatcher. Bevans reminds us \u201ca theology that is not somehow reflective of our times, our culture, and our current concerns\u2014and so contextual\u2014is also a false theology.\u201d [4]<\/a> And again, contextual theology \u201ctakes into account the faith experience of the past<\/em> that is recorded in scriptures and kept alive, preserved, [and] defended\u2026 in tradition\u201d and that \u201cwhile theology needs to be faithful to the full experience and contexts of the past, it is authentic theology only when what has been received is appropriated, made our own.\u201d[5]<\/a> Thatcher would agree: \u201cthe Church\u2019s beliefs and values must transcend time\u2026. Just because the Church is<\/em> a trans-historical body, it spans more than one cosmological world: indeed, it spans all of them. Now for the Church to span all historical or cosmological worlds, it cannot identify<\/em> its teaching with any of them!…. How the Truth of Christ is understood and expressed across time and place will be varied.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n It is this recognition that is so challenging for many churches and Christians today: a recognition that the Holy Spirit continues to work through tradition and experience (our own and others\u2019) in our discernment of God\u2019s way. When it comes to our understanding of the \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong\u201d of same-sex activity (or the appropriateness\/inappropriateness, or sinfulness, etc.), and our understanding of gender and male\/femaleness, we have to recognize that we are wearing glasses of our own biases and background, tradition and feelings, [7]<\/a> and our context may bring different conclusions as we read scripture.<\/p>\n So much of what I regularly conclude after our reading assignments is a sense of the importance of epistemic humility, that what we know or think we know is so very limited. As we seek to understand ways to faithfully respond to challenges in relating to our cultural contexts, specifically sex and gender, it seems appropriate to land where the early church did as they wrestled with incorporating non-Jews into the Body of Christ: \u201cIt seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us\u201d (Acts 15:28).[8]<\/a> We read scripture, pray, trust the presence and work of the Holy Spirit within our expression of the Body of Christ (the church), and move forward with humble confidence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Adrian Thatcher, God, Sex and Gender: An Introduction<\/em>, (West Sussex, Eng: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 33-40.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Ibid., 36.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid., 171. Emphasis mine.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology<\/em>, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992), 5. Thatcher would agree: \u201cRelevance is not simply a requirement in accounts of Christian faith. It requires a creative weaving of past and present, of internal and external stories, and this process inevitably brings about change in doctrine and ethics.\u201d (Thatcher, 177).<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Thatcher, 177.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n