of socks and theology

Years ago, when I was thinking through my departure from Evangelicalism, I built up an elaborate scenario in my head.  

Let's say there's a family, distraught about their teenager's downward spiral into drug use. They've tried tough love, they've tried limiting his access to everything that might lead him down The Wrong Path, but the kid keeps discovering new ways to get high. His latest attempt involves burning his sister's pantyhose and trying to get high off the fumes.

In desperation, they write to a Christian advice columnist, who replies with encouraging words about love and faithfulness, and also says: don't keep pantyhose in your house! no one needs to wear pantyhose!

A thousand years later, this advice columnist's hundreds of letters are found and become the foundation of a new religion. The new believers have copies of his advice, but they no longer have the original letters asking for help. The word "pantyhose" has no literal translation in the language they speak; in fact, it has no meaning at all, so it gets translated as socks. Don't keep socks in your house! No one needs to wear socks!

So the signature characteristic of this new religion becomes going without socks. They are the Barefoot Believers, the people who will not let socks touch their feet, who will not let their homes be defiled by allowing socks across the threshold.

OK, so it's a bit heavy handed, and it exaggerates the process of translation to make a point. But you probably get the point without me even having to say it. We don't know the context of the New Testament writers. We don't have the letter(s) that people in Corinth or Ephesus wrote to Paul to tell him what was happening there.

Really, Paul's letters may have been responding to quite specific situations. Wives submit to your husbands may have meant simply, move back into your family household. It seems fairly obvious that the early Christians were expecting the immediate return of Jesus. Maybe the more fervent among them had moved out of their homes and were living in joyous, jumbled community, leaving their families behind. Who knows?

The larger point is: Evangelicals (including myself, when I was one) take the Bible way too literally. Instead of being clear on the large, over-arching themes (love, joy, compassion, mercy, forgiveness), the focus is on a few bedroom morality items, sometimes to the exclusion of all else. In some Evangelical circles, the whole point of faith has come down to standing firm against immorality. End of story.

The fact that Jesus said, "by this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35 NIV), and not "if you condemn immorality" seems to have been lost somewhere.

I've discovered over the past few weeks that some of the podcasts I've been listening to are hosted by Evangelicals. Theoretically, I have no problem with this. Many members of my family are still Evangelical, devotedly so. There are many people I love dearly who are Evangelicals, and I respect their beliefs and my life is enriched by their presence.

But there are a number of issues where we disagree. We know better than to talk about them, because we're not going to change each other's minds. (The exactly-literal interpretation of Scripture is first on the list.)(partly because I would argue that their "exactly-literal" interpretation is more heavily influenced by middle class American conservativism than they would like to admit, but that's a different topic.)

I'm occasionally a little queasy while listening to the Evangelical podcasters. Because one of the primary features of Evangelicalism is the desire to convert people. It's the Great Commission (Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...), the last instruction Jesus gives before he is swept back up to heaven in the Gospel of Matthew.

And I can't help but wonder exactly where these friendly podcasters stand. I know there are progressive Evangelicals, Evangelicals who believe as I do that the church has no business meddling in what consenting adults do in their bedrooms. There are also Evangelicals, especially younger Evangelicals, who believe that the teaching of the New Testament is for believers, and therefore has no bearing on the activities of people who are not Evangelicals. And I'm sure there other varieties-- I haven't been an Evangelical in over thirty years now, so I'm not exactly up on it.

But there are also many Evangelicals who still feel, for example, that homosexuality is a sin that must be pro-actively fought. Just last August, 150 Evangelical leaders signed the infamous Nashville Statement that said, among a whole lot of other things, that it is sinful to even be open-minded about LGBTQ issues, let alone being actively supportive of gay or transgender friends.

So I kind of want my new favorite podcasters to declare themselves. Are they acting amusingly hip about pop culture so they can lure gay people into thinking they mean them no harm? And then when they're hooked, they get coerced into "conversion therapy," so they'll give up their supposedly sinful ways? Would they tell a 17-year-old whose boyfriend's condom broke that taking a morning-after pill would murder her baby?

Maybe they wouldn't, but maybe they would.

Maybe they are part of the new wave of open-minded Evangelicals who are willing to be supportive of the choices of people with different (or no) religious affiliation. But I can't help my skepticism, because that sneak attack is what a childhood of being raised Evangelical taught me to fear.

p.s. I'm avoiding naming them here because once when I named an author in a blog post, I got an email from his agent. It was an entirely different situation, but it made me aware that sometimes Google shows my posts to people I'm not expecting.

(edited to fix my Bible reference error, oops. I've left typos uncorrected in two of my last three posts --which almost makes me crazy-- but I am trying not to re-post so often)