So let me ask those of you who are interested in this kind of thing to watch this clip of an interview with N.T. Wright on the subject of homosexuality, and why he hasn’t written on it. (HT: Justin Taylor, Denny Burk) Watch it a couple times, and then read on. Let me begin by saying that I think (judging from these few comments) that any book by Wright on the subject of homosexuality would be well worth the read. He is opposed to same sex unions as a deviation from the creational norm, and seems to be thinking clearly on the subject. Just the few teasers he threw out here showed great promise. He would begin by noting the differentiations that were built into the creation at the very beginning, and how they were all meant to come together in the marriage of all things. The cosmos, in other words, is hetero. He rightly dismisses the Enlightenment arrogance that pretends that we in modern times are somehow dealing with sexual issues that were unknown in the ancient world. He dismantles the sophistry that says that anything a baptized person does must be okay. Wright really needs to write this book, and I would certainly read it. I am also willing to say that I would learn a great deal from it.
So why is this clip singularly unsatisfying? Why does it leave me feeling bleh? I honestly wouldn’t anticipate any basic disagreements with Wright on the subject of homosexuality. What I see here is profound disagreements on the nature and object of scholarship, and on the nature and object of debate. What Wright says at the beginning about how he was brought up to debate rationally, and how debate was meant to work thoughtfully to a conclusion, is all very well, and works very well on a wide range of issues. Academic rules of rational discourse are very helpful when it comes to the identity of Shakespeare, the authorship of Hebrews, or the root causes of the Civil War. They are no good at all when the serpent is telling us that we will not die. Die? How do you define die? To enter into dialogue at this point is not to uphold the truth, but to compromise it at the outset. I have often said in sermons that sin doesn’t make sense. If it made sense, it wouldn’t be sin. If someone is enticing you to leave the way of God, the temptation is to run headlong down the path with no light. And when you get down there, you can’t see. Longing for the day, as Wright clearly does, when the devil will starting playing fair, when he will starting arguing like a gentleman, is to mistake radically the kind of situation we are in.