This was originally intended as a response to comments added by Daniel Farmer to Justin’s ‘In Defense of Infant Cannibalism’ post, but as often happens it evolved into something else, becoming a distinct argument about the eschatological framework within which we attempt to address the problem of homosexuality.
One of the problems with PastorPete’s three question test is the unstated assumption that by ‘beneficial’ or ‘helpful’ in 1 Corinthians 6:12; 10:23 Paul means ‘builds up the community’ in the sense of promoting healthy relationships. I would suggest that although this is not irrelevant, Paul’s overarching concern was the preservation of holy and righteous communities that would be able to stand blameless before Christ at the parousia (cf. 1 Thess. 3:13). His concern in 1 Corinthians 6 is not simply with relationships - it is that this group of believers in Corinth should be fit to inherit the kingdom of God (6:9-10), and I would have thought that ‘are helpful’ (sumpherei) in verse 12 needs to be interpreted in this context: is their behaviour helpful towards this end of preserving a holy community. Paul is quite clear that the easy-going tolerance of certain forms of behaviour, including homosexuality, would disqualify the church at Corinth from inheriting the kingdom. I am not persuaded by the argument about the association with temple prostitution: Lev. 18:22; 20:13 are so clearly the source of the word arsenokoitÄ“s that I think Paul must be using the term in a way that evokes the general Old Testament prohibition against a man lying with a man as with a woman.
It is my view, however, that the eschatological narrative that centres on the parousia is not the one that should directly inform our own identity, purpose and values as the church today. I think that the parousia - the coming of the Son of Man, the inheritance of the kingdom - marks the transition from judgment to restoration, from suffering to wholeness, from contempt to vindication, from persecuted and outlawed minority to a people free to worship and witness under the lordship of Christ. We have moved beyond that, and what we have now is a narrative recentred on the renewal of creation. The issue here is not a change of cultural context but a change of eschatological context. What we now have to ask fundamentally is: What do we have to do, how do we have to live, in order faithfully to represent in ourselves, in our actions and words, in our life together, the hope of a renewal of creation?
I am not at all sure how one unpacks the implications of this, so these are only tentative suggestions.
1. The debate about homosexuality cannot be settled simply on ethical grounds of whether it is healthy or unhealthy, upbuilding or destructive - or even right or wrong. It needs to be assessed in relation to the larger narrative context and the vocation of the church to be - both actually and prophetically - a new humanity.
2. I think it means, in crude terms, that we need to acknowledge as a community - even as a community that includes homosexuals - that humankind was originally created to unite sexually as male and female. That ideal may also be acknowledged in practical terms by people leaving a homosexual lifestyle - provided that in doing so we don’t create more serious damage (social or psychological) elsewhere in the fabric of creation.
3. The renewal of creation must also entail the renewal of culture. Such an eschatological commitment, therefore, is bound to challenge a whole range of cultural assumptions, tendencies, fashions, blindspots - including how we view homosexuality as a matter of lifestyle or social-political bias.
4. The renewal of creation certainly includes the renewal of community and of relationships, which must have a bearing on how homosexuals are received and loved by the predominantly heterosexual church. Perhaps we need to see this as currently a critical test of the church’s commitment to be the people that it professes to be.
5. There are constraints on how far we can actually be a new humanity, which means there are inevitable constraints on how far we can conform to the creational ideal in our sexuality. The deficit is always made up by grace, experienced concretely in praxis, in relationships; but it is also, I would suggest, made up by prophecy - out of our inadequacy and inability to change we find ways to embody the hope that we have in a creator, creative, and recreating God.
6. It is a mark of the new humanity in Christ that deep social divisions are overcome. The fundamental question is not the divisive and individualizing one about who is saved and who isn’t, who gets to heaven and who doesn’t. It’s how do we as a community, together, in relationship with one another, with all our failings, take hold of the power of God to be a renewed humanity. There have been suggestions in some of our discussions that a less antagonistic approach to the debate would be fruitful. Don’t we need to affirm the oneness that we have in Christ and then take up together the challenge in all its complexity and difficulty of being the people of God in the world?
7. There are, of course, all sorts of ways in which we fall short of the creational ideal - the widespread breakdown of Christian marriages, from that point of view, is as much an affront to the original and originating goodness of God as homosexuality. Whatever the state of our sexual relationships, we participate in the church as broken people. Shouldn’t we confess that to one another, share it - homosexuals and heterosexuals alike? Isn’t that the proper ground for unity in Christ?
Re: Homosexuality and the renewal of creation
Hi Andrew,
Since marriage (and presumably every other type of sexual relationship) will be absent from the new creation (Matthew 22:30), how relevant is it to examine homosexuality in this context?
And do Paul’s comments have anything to say (indirectly) about the subject?
It seems to me that the church on earth is called to live a life of abundant love, humility, compassion, and selflessness - which would obviously enhance any heterosexual marriage (and every other relationship). We are called to demonstrate a deeper love than that which comes naturally (Matthew 5:46-47). This enhanced quality of a husband-wife relationship is supposed to echo the beautiful love between the Lamb and the Bride. And we are supposed to love others with the same love with which God loves us. Whilst I can see how the love which will be realised in the new creation should be a blueprint for the quality of our relationships now (including the attitudes of homosexuals to heterosexuals and vice versa), I fail to see how the context of the new creation could be expected to address the propriety of homosexuality itself.
But my ears are open to further elucidation!
Phil
Re: Homosexuality and the renewal of creation
Paul’s comments I would definitely place within the context of the eschatological transition of the early centuries. I think he is urging that particular community of believers in mid-first-century Corinth to live in a way that will best ensure that they survive the imminent or already present ‘distress’ (1 Cor. 7:26) more or less intact - that they will not have to face shame and reproach when they stand before their Lord at his parousia. I would argue that this crisis is in fact the day of fire by which the work of the apostles will soon be tested (1 Corinthians 3:12-15; cf. COSM 235).
I’m not so sure about Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:30. He speaks of resurrection rather than new creation, and although the two go together in Revelation 20:11-21:4, I rather suspect that he is thinking of a resurrection of the righteous following the extreme suffering that would mark the end of the age of second temple Judaism (cf. Daniel 12:1-3) - rather than a general resurrection of all the dead prior to a final renewal of creation. I certainly think it is possible that the scope of this saying is restricted by Jesus’ particular Jewish-apocalyptic horizon. The point of this is that those who are raised during the course of history do not participate in the new creation immediately but live, as Jesus lives, in the presence of God in heaven, which may explain the analogy with the ‘angels in heaven’. Sexuality has no relevance in a heavenly environment.
As to the question about the bearing this all has on the debate about homosexuality - the negative point would be that it may (I stress ‘may’ - I’m not at all sure of this) be possible to confine the more severe strictures excluding homosexuals to an earlier eschatological moment, prior to the destruction of the temple and the conflict with Rome, when the church still felt itself to be essentially a Jewish renewal movement struggling to preserve its spiritual integrity.
The positive point might be something like this: to the extent that homosexuality is an inescapable part of this creation, whether biologically or culturally, the responsibility of the heterosexual church is now not to exclude but to struggle together with homosexuals to represent both the difficult process and the elusive end-product of creation renewal. The process calls for grace; the end-product calls for clarity of witness.
Re: Homosexuality and the renewal of creation
Andrew,
I agree with your general understanding of eschatology and how it should inform our ethics and sense of identity as the church. However, I’m not yet convinced by your application of your ideas to this issue. In particular, I wonder
1) How you would respond to Dale B. Martin’s arguments regarding the translation of arsenokoités in his article “Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences” (available here: http://www.clgs.org/5/5_4_3.html)?
2) Regarding your point #2, how do you reconcile Gen 1:27 with Gal 3:28?
The meaning of arsenokoitēs
I have to say, Seth, that I’m not entirely convinced either regarding the application of these ideas, but hopefully it’s worth pursuing the creation logic a bit further in this direction.
1. Thanks for the link to Dale Martin’s article. I have commented on those statements that are most relevant to the interpretation of arsenokoitÄ“s.
Normally this would be correct: etymology is not a good guide to meaning. But in this case, in the absence of a history to Paul’s use of the word arsenokoitÄ“s and in view of the conjunction of the two terms in the Leviticus texts, it still seems to me highly likely that someone or some tradition more or less self-consciously coined the compound word arsenokoitÄ“s as a summary allusion to the Old Testament prohibition.
It’s not as simple as that. A word may have one meaning in context A and a different meaning in context B. You can’t throw all the meanings from all the contexts into a big pot, stir it up, and claim that the end result is the meaning for context C.
I find this rather odd. In 1 Corinthians 6:9 arsenokoitÄ“s occurs after moichoi and malakoi; in 1 Timothy 1:10 it is found alongside pornois. The evidence from the later texts certainly needs to be taken into account, but you would have to have very strong contextual arguments before reading these possible nuances back into Paul’s texts.
2. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Galatians 3:28 certainly doesn’t abrogate or nullify the creational distinction between men and women. Paul’s point is surely only that distinctions of race, social status or gender do not disqualify anyone from putting on Christ (27) and thereby inheriting the promise given to the free Jewish man Abraham (29). Or am I missing something?
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
Andrew,
Regarding the Martin article, I agree it makes no decisive arguments. I think its main usefulness lies in calling our attention to the difficulties inherent in translating the word and the cultural bias that may be involved.
Regarding Gal 3:28, I think there is a bit more to it than you suggest. Most English translations change the conjunction joining “male” and “female” from “and” to “nor” in order to maintain the parallel structure with the previous two binary constructions (“Jew nor Greek”; “slave nor free man”). The conjunction in the third construction, however, is different from the one in the previous two. In the Greek, the third construction is literally “male and female” rather than “male nor female.” Paul, it seems, specifically breaks parallelism here in order to recall Gen 1:27 (he quotes the Septuagint exactly). This would seem to suggest that there is more going on here than just a kind of egalitarianism with regards to entrance requirements into the covenant community. He has creational categories in mind.
Note that the negation of the binaries occurs after the baptism/clothing language, presumably signifying the new state of converts after they are “in Christ,” a state in which the binary categories fundamental to Jewish and Hellenistic thought no longer apply. Thus, your claim that such categories do not disqualify someone from being clothed in Christ is true, but it’s not the only point Paul appears to be making here. It seems Paul is not just talking about entrance requirements but also about after-effects – what he elsewhere refers to as a “new creation” (2 Cor 17; Gal 6:15)—not, I might note in passing, a “renewal of creation.”
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
Male and female are creational categories whatever Paul’s precise argument is here. I agree that he is probably alluding to Genesis 1:27, but why should that mean he is thinking of something more than entrance requirements? It is just as likely that he does so because he had come across people who were invoking Genesis 1:27 and the priority of the man in creation as a reason for excluding women from full participation in the covenant community.
The larger argument in Galatians 3:1-4:6 still has to do with the conditions under which people receive the inheritance of Abraham, which is the Spirit. Is it on the basis of works of the law or on the basis of faith? But the problem is that even after the Galatians had received the Spirit on the basis of faith, Judaizers were seeking to persuade them that in order to be true descendants of Abraham they needed to become circumcised and observe the Torah. This seems to me to be the reason why Paul negates these distinctions after the statement about putting on Christ. It is not just about entry requirements - it is about an ongoing refusal not to exclude people from the promise on the basis of racial, social or creational differences. To infer from this that he sees an actual negation of male-female in the new creation seems unwarranted - it simply doesn’t come into the argument.
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
Well, since you mentioned Paul’s purpose in this section of the letter, it seems to me that it’s precisely the focused nature of that purpose (his critique of the Judaizers’ *ethnic* discrimination) that makes the two additional binary oppositions (class and gender) so odd and out of place (in fact, it’s one reason that many scholars have thought he must be quoting a formula here). Why not just say the bit about neither Jew nor Greek and be done with it? Why continue to make the rhetorical crescendo that leads to the invocation of creational categories if not to emphasize the supersession of all such categories?
You may be right that he just used the opportunity to correct some class and gender discriminations that happened to be occurring alongside the ethnic discrimination that is his focus. However, I see no corroborating evidence for such concerns in the letter, so adopting your explanation moves us farther and farther away from Paul’s explicit concern. Conversely, my argument is strengthened by attending to Paul’s purpose and focus in the letter because, in this particular argument, he would strategically not want to leave open the possibility of anything less than complete transcendence. And so at the close of the letter, instead of the typically abundant greetings and warm wishes, he instead reiterates the point of 3:28, only this time saying that the “cosmos” has been crucified with Christ (6:14) and that the binary of circumcision/uncircumcision has given way to a “new creation.” He seems to want to highlight the radical nature of the transformation that his eschatology and Christology imply, just in case the Judaizers (or anyone else) might still have any doubts. It’s not just that circumcision is still ok for some while not being required for others. Circumcision and uncircumsion (and, by implication, the other binaries from 3:28) are nothing! The whole binary opposition has been overthrown.
I guess at this point, I have to wonder: if ethnic, class, and gender distinctions no longer serve to delimit membership or rank in the covenant community, then what theological purpose do they still serve? Do you see any theological value at all in the Jew/Greek or slave/free distinctions? If not, why do you still see value in the male/female one? Because it was mentioned in Gen 1 and the others weren’t? That actually is something to think about, and I’m reminded here of Barth’s argument about Gen 1:27, namely, that male and female categories are necessary to understand what it means to be made in God’s image. But there are dangers with that argument, as intriguing as it is (I’ll save that for another discussion). For now I’ll simply ask why Paul (and the authors of Isaiah 65 and Rev 21) speak of a new creation instead of a mere restoration of the old?
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
It’s true that class and gender issues do not appear to have any relevance to Paul’s argument in Galatians - it seems to me quite likely that the three-fold pattern is formulaic and reflects debates elsewhere.
I have a feeling you’re trying to get too much out of Paul’s argument in this letter. It’s precarious to push the analogy between the three distinctions beyond the frame of the argument about inheriting the promise to Abraham because the categories are so different. As you say, being male and female is intrinsic to the original creation (not just as ‘image of God’ but also with respect to being fruitful and multiplying) in a way that is clearly not true for racial and social distinctions. Paul uses ‘new creation’ as a metaphor for the abrogation of the division between the circumcised and the uncircumcised, but surely it’s going too far to infer from that that the male-female duality is also abrogated.
The other problem I have with your argument is that the hope of renewed creation ought to have implications for how we are and how we relate to one another in the present - rather in the way that Paul uses the new creation metaphor in Galatians 6:15. We look at ourselves as ‘new creation’ and certain divisions, certain forms of behaviour, become unsustainable. Do we really want to say that the polarity of male and female becomes unsustainable - that the ideal Christian state is one of androgyny? I certainly don’t.
By your argument, any distinction that could in principle be used to exclude a person from sharing in the promise to Abraham must also be removed the new creation, which is going to end up as a rather bland affair, isn’t it?
What are you getting at in your last statement about making creation new rather than restoring the old?
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
Sorry for the delay in responding, but things have been pretty hectic lately.
It’s always interesting to read how one’s arguments appear to someone else. I can see how you might have thought I was heading towards resurrecting the once-fashionable—and ultimately Gnostic—idea of androgyny in Gal 3:28, but nothing could be further from my intentions. I’m simply saying that Paul links creational and covenantal binaries together in Gal 3:28 and does so in a way that emphasizes their negation. I find it odd that you would insist on making a distinction between creational and covenantal categories where Paul does not. Of course, I recognize that gender still exists as a scientific, cultural, and social category (though it appears to be much more fluid and complex than the simple male-female binary allows). I can even accept it as a theological category pertinent to understanding creation and the old age, but I don’t see it having any post-resurrection authority for grounding ethics. Nor do I see it as telling us anything theologically important about a person.
I’m not sure what difference it makes that male and female were intrinsic to the original creation, unless our goal is to somehow get back to that original creation. Does creation represent the timeless, unchanging will of God? Does it appear to you that the Biblical narrative is moving us closer and closer towards Eden? If not, then presumably some creational intentions have changed. For example, in Gen 1 the creational model was a garden, but in Revelation the new heaven and new earth culminates, not in a garden but in a city. Who created the first city? Not God, but Cain. After the Fall. Only later did God invest a city with a positive theological dimension (Zion). At first, it was a sign of human rebellion and independence, a desire for safety and security in a fallen world. That to me is just one example of why we need to be wary of giving too much weight to creational categories. This, by the way, is what I was getting at in the last question of my last post. It also points to the usefulness of Wright’s 5-act play model for understanding scriptural authority. Biblical history is linear, not circular. We can’t always figure out what we’re supposed to be doing now just by looking at what happened in act 1. There must be continuity, but there must also be change and growth. There is an ongoing creative element involved.
None of this means that I see no basis for a Christian ethic or that the ethic I envision is one of “anything goes.” Nor does it mean that I think God will just ratify anything we choose to do. But I see no reason to give particular weight or importance to creational categories when it comes to ethics, especially when love seems to lead us in a different direction. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I would like to be shown why. I completely agree that we are to bear witness to a different way of life and that there are some things that we should see as incompatible with that way of life. But of what does this different way of life consist? Our ethic, as I understand it, is based on being freed from the order of necessity (death, etc) to live out a life of selfless love guided by the Holy Spirit. I hope that doesn’t sound to bland to you : ).
If one truly loves God and one’s neighbor, there are certain things one will not do. The key question I think we should ask, then, is whether a particular act or category of acts violates the ethic of love, not whether or not it violates creational categories. Committed homosexual relationships do not a priori seem to violate the love ethic, though they may – as may heterosexual relationships – be sources of idolatry, which would lead us to love something else more than God. I think each instance must be evaluated on an individual basis. That is messy and inefficient, but then again, so is love. Since love is the fulfillment of the Torah, it should not bring us into conflict with it. But if it does (or appears to), then love wins out. It probably means we’ve misinterpreted Torah.
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
Seth. You have synthesized my own thoughts on this matter quite well, thereby sparing me the urge to post a comment. Thank you. :-)
Blessings,
-Daniel-
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
Why shouldn’t gender tell us something theologically important about a person? That seems odd. I accept that both biologically and culturally the distinction between male and female can be fuzzy, but in general terms it is fundamental to our sense of being human - so why is that not theologically important also? I know this is problematic for the debate about homosexuality, but why would we want to say that the union of a man and woman in marriage, for example, is not theologically important? Isn’t there indeed an element of gnostic dualism creeping in here?
Again, I think Paul’s argument in Galatians 3 is limited in scope and must be understood as a polemical response, as part of a particular debate, not as some sort of definitive ontological statement about what it means to be in Christ. Somewhere in the background is the argument or the assumption that a woman cannot be a full participant in the promise made to Abraham. Paul contests this, or incidentally invokes a traditional formulation that contests it: men and women have the same standing as heirs of the promise, just as Jews and Greeks, freemen and slaves have the same standing. It is too much to infer from this that in Christ the male/female binary is now theologically and ethically irrelevant.
My reason for pursuing this argument has to do with eschatology. It’s quite possible that I am oversimplifying things, but it seems to me that we have good warrant for thinking that the eschaton towards which we are in some sense moving needs to be defined in creational terms. Now, of course, it’s a moot point to what extent the new creation will differ from the old creation, and I agree that this cannot be conceived simply as a return to Eden. But it’s also a mistake to be too reductive in how we understand the new creation. In John’s vision the new heavens and new earth do not ‘culminate’ in a city if you mean by that that the new Jerusalem is the sum of the new creation. The city descends to be part of the creation as the place where God dwells and is worshipped, and there is interaction between the city and the nations of the earth (Rev. 21:24-26). Doesn’t this suggest a socially and cultural complex understanding of the new creation in which gender might well have a continuing significance? We might also consider the imagery of new creation in Isaiah, which certainly cannot be reduced to the dimensions of a city.
I would rather, then, frame the ethical challenge in a more complex way as having to hold together both the prospect of a renewal of creation in a comprehensive (not narrowly spiritual) sense and the obligation to love - this is, in a sense, an anti-gnostic commitment. Undoubtedly it will involve compromises - and probably confusion. But I don’t see how we can worship a creator God and at the same time marginalize a central structural element of what it means to be created. I see nothing in the Bible that encourages us to do that.
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
Paul’s altering of the wording in the sequence of Galatians 3:26-28 (from "nor" to "and" in "male and female") is intriguing. But rather than removing creation ordinances, elsewhere Paul appeals to creation (the original creation, that is) to support his views on gender (1 Timothy 2:13-14 - that’s assuming Paul wrote it, and taking into account that here as in Galatians the argument is more relative than absolute).
Isn’t the backdrop to this discussion that a time is coming, after the resurrection, when gender distinctives will be removed, as described in Mark 12:25? At such a time God’s creation purposes will be fulfilled, but the original terms of creation will no longer obtain amongst the resurrected people.
For now, we live as ‘new creation’ people, but in old creation bodies with their old creation gender distinctives - which means that various old creation ordinances, such as marriage (Gen 2:24) still hold good.
This may affect our view of the topic of this thread - but for myself, I remain somewhat agnostic about applying this line of thinking as a prohibition on gay people and their relationships: largely because I think they need to discover for themselves in what way their lives can be lived under God’s approval. I think they are capable of understanding the bible and hearing God on the subject - if they claim to be God’s people, have the Spirit residing within them and are followers of Jesus.
I also think, like Peter in his vision on the roof of Simon the Tanner, and his visit to Cornelius’s household, we need to be asking what the Spirit is actually doing, by the evidence of the Spirit’s fruit (or not), as much as applying, from a distance, with little or no personal relationship or involvement, preconceived interpretations of biblical ethics and behaviour. In this instance the latter (ethics concerning behaviour) needs to be governed by the former (what the is Spirit doing as evidenced by his fruit).
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
It may well be that Mark 12:25 is evidence for a gender-free new creation, though I commented on Matthew 22:30 above to different effect - this sounds to me like mid-term eschatology (a resurrection of the righteous to heaven) rather than end of term eschatology (a resurrection of all the dead preceding the final renewal of creation). I don’t really see why gender, which is so integral to our present created identity, would be excluded from the new heavens and earth. I accept that nothing is explicitly said to suggest that there will be men and women in the new creation, but notwithstanding Jesus’ one statement about the resurrection, I find it odd that a Jewish mindset would come to the conclusion that when God makes all things new, he will take the precaution of neutering us all.
Although this line of thinking must put a question mark over it, I don’t think it necessarily entails a ‘prohibition’ against homosexual behaviour. We struggle towards wholeness and renewal under all sorts of personal and societal constraints, and I agree that we must be careful not to despise the work of the Spirit in people’s lives - you make that point very well. There is a real danger that in using the new creation motif we grossly oversimplify what it means to be ‘new humanity’ in the here and now. That is why it is important that we preserve the ‘prophetic’ aspect of the calling - in all our inadequacy we continue to yearn for the making new of the world and make that hope visible to others.
Re: The meaning of arsenokoitēs
Daniel, Glad I could help!
Peter, your point about the Spirit is crucial. I also think of Acts 8, where first the Samaritans and then the Ethiopian eunuch (a sexual outcast – cf. Deut 23:1) receive the Spirit, no doubt to the surprise of many! Good point about the Mark 12 passage as well. I could go either way though (yours or Andrew’s) on it’s applicability here. Finally, you’re right that Paul can sometimes appeal to creational categories and all manner of binaries. I’ve spoken to that problem on this thread, and I’m still not sure exactly what I think about it. While it is a problem for my argument, I don’t think it’s a fatal one.
Andrew, I completely agree that the new creation is material, not just spiritual/ethical. I am simply saying that I think we should remain open-minded about the degree of continuity or discontinuity it will have with the original creation. Material things (especially living things) grow, change, and evolve. Moreover, part of the reason we worship God as Creator is because of his ability to do new things, to bring life where there was only barrenness (such as Sarah’s closed womb).
I also agree that our sense of our gender/sex/sexuality is crucial to our sense of self (though like the latter, I suppose the former may change). It may well be true that all such aspects of ourselves will be present in the new creation. My point with the city/garden binary was just to point out that God may take what we have done and use it to add to or to supplement His own creational intentions. That, after all, is what Adam was up to by naming the animals and what we still do when we reproduce, create, build. What of all our works will God preserve, if any? I don’t know (1 Cor 3 seems to speak to this), but I am wary of using Gen 1-2 to limit God’s creativity to only that which he’s done in the past. I’m not saying you want to do this, but this is the danger to which I fear that too strong an attachment to the creational categories may sometimes lead. The Spirit’s freedom and ongoing work means there is an open-endedness to the story that too strong a focus on Gen 1-2 tends to obscure. That’s why I like Wright’s 5-act play model so much (though I may use it slightly differently) because it assumes that we are partly responsible for creating scenes 2-x of act 5. (For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, see N.T. Wright, ‘How Can the Bible be Authoritative’ or N.T. Wright, The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture)
Of course, there is a danger in the other direction as well: gnosticism, dualism, Marcionism (pick your poison). I’m glad you (like Tom Wright) are ever on the watch for these heresies, but it’s important to remember that there are more alternatives than just these two basic positions. I am extremely committed to a fully embodied and material understanding of the new creation, and I fully accept that the original creation was “good.” That said, the incarnation itself is more than enough to affirm the *relative* goodness of creation without the necessity of positing that creational categories are eternal and unchanging ideals. Who are we to say God might not make something even better?
I look forward to reading your book, Andrew, and I would welcome other suggestions as well. Here are a few (besides Wright’s stuff) that I’ve found helpful for thinking through some of these issues:
Richard B. Hays’ The Moral Vision of the New Testament
Louis Martyn’s Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul
Jacques Ellul’s Ethics of Freedom
Gordon D. Fee’s God’s Empowering Presence
And, of course, Douglas A. Campbell’s Quest for Paul’s Gospel