How does it all end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I am unsure if this final part is one or both Hayses, so I will just say the Hayses. Again, we find the idea popping up of God changing His mind.
Because God sometimes changes his mind and his approaches to the world, faithfulness to God means sometimes doing the same. This book presents a biblical vision of God that differs from what many people assume about God and the Bible. As we have seen in case after case, the Bible doesn’t portray God as static; instead, it tells stories that portray God as a mysterious, dynamic, personal power who can and does change his mind and reveal new and surprising facets of his will. In
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 207). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
I plan on writing on the topic of the problem of God changing His mind, but the issue is that the Hayses took 2,000 years of Christian theology, threw it in the trash, then approached the text to see if they could find something to justify their positions. Hey! If God changed His mind, let’s just assume that He did it on this section too! One would hope that there was some new revelation or something. Maybe God has changed His mind on incest or pederasts or on murder. Maybe God now thinks greed is good or would really like us to bring back that slavery thing?
I mean, why not? All you need to do in the world of the Hayses is assert that this has happened and then it is done.
It may be difficult to get our minds around this idea, but if we take the biblical narratives seriously, we can’t avoid the conclusion that God regularly changes his mind, even when it means overriding previous judgments. To say it one more time, our vision is this: The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and the New trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as “strangers and aliens” but as “fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.” Full stop.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 209). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
The question is not if it is difficult to get our minds around. It is rather, “Is this true?” If you’re going to upend again all of Christian tradition with regard to the immutability of God, you’d better make a strong case. Everyone who holds to the classical position, like myself, knows all about the texts that the Hayses bring forward. Unfortunately, they don’t interact with anyone who holds to a different position.
Christians across time have found the Spirit-led freedom to set aside biblical laws and teachings that they deem unjust, irrelevant, or inconsistent with the broader divine will. It is not hard to see how the prohibition of same-sex relations could fall into the same category.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 214). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
Definitely. It’s not hard to see that. The question is “Should we do that?” The Hayses have not presented a case that we should.
For many, the evidence of experience outweighs the inertia of tradition and the force of a few biblical prooftexts on these questions. In the same way, we see LGBTQ Christians all around us who are already contributing their gifts and graces to the work of God in the world and in the church.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 215). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
And if you get to this position, anything goes. It is we who become the masters of Scripture. It submits to us. If our experience tells us one thing and the Scriptures another, so much the worse for the Scriptures.
For now, my next plan is to write on the idea that God cannot change His mind.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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