Expanding Christian compassion

History full of changes in believers’ attitudes

What do the following things have in common: Same-sex marriage; representative democracy; the abolition of slavery; borrowing at interest; monogamy; women’s suffrage; racial integration; blood transfusions; birth control; divorce; drinking alcohol; capital punishment; war; paying taxes; inter-faith marriage; and interracial marriage?

All of these are issues that Christians have disagreed about, both sides quoting the Bible to defend their positions. For Christians, our lens of judgment is to see with the eyes of Jesus as the living incarnation of Divine love and compassion. Over and over in our history we have reinterpreted our inherited norms and social values in the light of Jesus’ love and compassion.

Slavery, monarchy and polygamy are Biblical norms. But subsequent generations challenged those social norms on the basis of higher Biblical values.

Circumcision was the first example in the Church’s story. Circumcision was the mark of belonging to God’s community, commanded by scripture and history. Led by a vision from Peter and the mission of Paul, the early Church decided circumcision was secondary to faith and unnecessary for inclusion into the Christian community. It was a controversial decision, and Paul met with opposition throughout his ministry.

In our time, we take for granted that representative democracy is superior to the former days when sovereigns inherited absolute power. But, the liberal reformers who first challenged monarchy found themselves attacked on Biblical grounds by Christian defenders of the “Divine Right of Kings.”

There are hundreds of scripture passages about kings and about the monarch’s relationship with God. There is nothing in the Bible directly endorsing representative democracy. Yet early democrats and republicans successfully condemned centuries of royal rule and abuse by claiming certain inalienable human rights given by God. They reinterpreted the scripture and changed our structure of government.

Slavery is normative in scripture. The tenth commandment enjoins us from coveting our neighbor’s slave. Slaves are characters in Jesus’ parables. Although Paul’s churches gave equality to slaves within the congregation, apostolic letters in the New Testament instructed slaves to obey their masters.

Christian abolitionists of the nineteenth century proclaimed a vision of God’s equal love for all people. They were challenged by Bible-quoting traditionalists, certain of God’s intention from creation that some be masters and others be slaves. Our Bible-believing Southern ancestors were willing to go to war to protect those sacred traditions. In the next century, we fought the same battle over racial segregation.

Most of the Biblical narrative treats women as property. The patriarchs had multiple wives and concubines. Inherited property went to the eldest son. Marriage was arranged by men as a business agreement between families. These are Biblical “family values.” Even the most passionate Biblical literalist no longer accepts those norms. We all find ways to affirm higher spiritual values of love and compassion. We’ve been expanding our understanding of love and compassion in our more recent history as we consider the role and function of families.

Can loving families be created from two people who come from different traditions? Some say “No!” One of my relative’s best friend could not marry her beloved because he didn’t belong to the Church of Christ. The family believed only members of the Church of Christ could be saved. All others, Christians or non-Christians, were under eternal judgment. I know this family. They are good and loving people. Yet their love became constrained by their identification with a small and nearsighted faith.

Jesus was farsighted. His love and compassion crossed cultural, political and religious boundaries. His fellowship was scandalously universal. He ate and touched and befriended foreigners and the unclean.

Interfaith marriage is now an acceptable possibility for more and more loving couples.

Interracial marriage became legal throughout the US only in 1967 when the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia. And most recently the Court recognized the grace and love present in the relationships of committed same-sex couples.

It seems that every generation of Christians has to do our part in extending Jesus’ inclusive love in an ever expanding arc. The key to discernment is our acknowledgment of oppression in an older paradigm and our recognition of the fruit of the Spirit present in the new way. In this generation we are acknowledging the suffering that our LGBT neighbors have endured, and we are seeing the fruit of the Spirit — “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and moderation” — in the lives and loving relationships of our LGBT neighbors. The apostle Paul tells us, “There is no law against such things.” (Galatians 5:22-23)