Experience, Prophetic Faithfulness, and Orthodoxy

The Very Rev. Father and Doctor John Jillions has written recently concerning the interplay of experience and tradition with regards to “LGBTQ+” concerns in the Church (https://publicorthodoxy.org/good-reads/lgbtq-experience-and-orthodox-tradition/). Dominant notes in his paper include what he describes as the “messy process” of discernment, a call that careful thinkers should be prepared for “new possibilities” regarding the Church’s response to “this important issue,” and the operative power of “new experience” in our decisions and actions today.

Though Father Jillions’ first major section concerns biblical hermeneutics, we look in vain for any close reading of passages where the Scriptures deal with sexuality.  Instead, he fastens upon Peter’s experience of the sheet-vision, by which (along with other methods), God instructed the  Church concerning the inclusion of the Gentiles in the New Covenant, beginning with Cornelius (Acts 10-11).  Fr. Jillions seems to think that the vision pertains mostly to the eating of food proscribed as unclean by the Torah, but in fact, “what God has cleansed” and is no longer to be considered unclean is the Gentile believer, who is baptized and whom the Jerusalem leaders now understand to have been called by God to “repentance to life.”

Of course, the matter of food being clean or unclean (along with circumcision and observance of holy days) becomes a part of this debate, so that, beginning with the first Jerusalem Council, this must be resolved in order to remove a standing separation between Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus.  However, it is simply not the case, as Father Jillions declares, that “[c]hange was a process that started with personal experience.”  All experience is personal, but the vision of the sheets was not “personal” in the sense of private or limited.  Rather, it is presented by Luke as a revelation of God, accompanied by God’s word, twinned with a vision vouchsafed to Cornelius, and the concrete action of an angel who enters what would have been considered an “unclean” household, as an example to the apostle.  This revelation of God’s extension of mercy to Gentiles is underscored by the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44), and the recognition of the community (Acts 12:16) which glorifies God.  Even more importantly, this is not the first time that the apostles have been told about God’s purpose.  The apostles may be slow to learn, but it is not as though the calling of the Gentiles, and the cleansing of all food (as the ceremonial Torah finds its fulfillment in Christ) were utterly novel things in the Acts.  Luke, after all, begins his two-tome work with the prophetic statement of Simeon, that Christ is “a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles” –a statement recalling God’s primordial promise to Abraham in Gen 12:3!  Moreover, Jesus taught his disciples about the true meaning of purity and defilement in a teaching that later was understood to “declare all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). Change did not spring from “a process of discernment,” as it is often put, but was the result of revelation.

Yes, full understanding of God’s purposes took time.  But it did not spring from the foundation of personal experience, even the important experience of Peter.  It came foundationally through promise, revelation, and dominical word, and was confirmed through sober ratification in the community. Foundational was not “new experience,” but the clear and consistent words and actions of God Himself—yes, “experienced” among us, as everything that we know is “experienced.”

And here is the issue: experience is not in itself an authority!  It is one of the means, along with our reason, that we receive what is given to us by the authority of Scriptures and Holy Tradition.  Moreover, Scriptures and Tradition point to the One who is the authority—the Word and Wisdom who is God.  I am surprised, as a scholar who has embraced Orthodoxy for several decades now, to find in an Orthodox writer that same emphasis on experience that is so widely accepted in Protestant circles—an emphasis made famous by Albert Outler, and erroneously called the Wesleyan quadrilateral.  Wesley would not have recognized himself in Outler’s insistence that Christian bodies should make decisions based on Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, all equally authoritative.  Moreover, Outler himself in later life, seeing how his contemporaries had run with his idea, and turned experience into a trump card (in matters of debate) that gave an “empirical means of knowing,” regretted the way that he had framed the matter (Outler, “The Wesleyan Quadrilateral in John Wesley,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 20.1, 9). 

Fr. Jillions says, “New experience was fundamental to shaping the Church, beginning with the empty tomb and encounters with the risen Jesus. The apostolic church re-interpreted everything—Jesus’ ministry, his crucifixion, their own lives, Scripture, everything—in light of that radical new experience. And that new experience launched a tidal wave that swept away the most basic assumptions about a well-ordered Jewish life” (my emphasis).  But look at what has happened in his statement: Jesus’ ministry, crucifixion, and Scripture (indeed everything) have been made subservient to, or conditioned by a (supposedly) more foundational “new experience.” Experience is a very slippery word, but comes here to take an utterly determinative role. Isn’t it rather the case, though, that Jesus’ ministry, crucifixion, resurrection, and the way that he taught his disciples to read Scripture (Luke 24) were foundational?  Of course, the apostles experienced these things—but it is these things that were foundational, not “personal experience.”  As 2 Peter 1:19 says, “We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place.”  God spoke and acted: His apostles and His people responded, sometimes immediately, and sometimes through a longer process of understanding.  The “well-ordered” Jewish life was not “swept away,” but transfigured by the glorious One who was its fulfillment, so that Abraham’s seed indeed did become a blessing to the whole world.  What looked like change was actual fulfillment.

If we are surprised to see a Protestant hermeneutic of experience at work here, we will be even more astonished to see the use of E. P. Sanders as a model exegete.  For years I have myself put forth Sanders, for all his ribald writings and lectures, as an honest interpreter, who allows Paul to be Paul, and who scoffs at scholars who consider “that the words are uncertain” in the apostle’s condemnation of practicing aresenokoitai and malakoi (active and passive same-sex partners) in 1 Cor 6:9.  But it is also true, as Fr. Jillions points out, that Sanders attributes the apostle’s position to his Jewish background, and “conceives” that Paul might have “rethought” this had he had our experiences (Paul, Oxford, 1991, 113-116).  In other words, we may well know better than St. Paul on matters of same-sex eroticism.  This hermeneutic may fit well for a Protestant scholar of the old-fashioned liberal mold.  But should we not be concerned when, regarding Sanders’ “correction” of St. Paul by contemporary “experience,” an Orthodox priest and teacher baldly says, “I agree with him”? After all, the first Ecumenical Council (Acts 15) ratified the so-called “Jewish” concept of human sexuality (“abstain from porneia”), though it radically modified Torah’s laws concerning kosher food. For twenty centuries, that teaching has been maintained.

The apostle, and Sanders, were talking about same-sex eroticism.  But Fr. Jillions’ paper goes beyond this single issue to tackle the whole “LGBTQ+” scene.  And so we can wonder, would he think it possible to make a similar correction of our Lord, who bases his proscription of divorce upon the foundations of Genesis 1: “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.”  This saying preserved in Mark and Matthew  is, according to most scholars (including Sanders) representative of Jesus’ original saying (Jesus and Judaism, Fortress, 1985, 257).   So then, anyone seeking to build a “Christian” hermeneutic that can move the Church “from awareness, to tolerance, to acceptance, to blessing” of non-Christian lifestyles and understandings, must deal with Jesus’ foundational statement. Jesus’ words spoke (and still speak) to divorce and remarriage, but are also directly relevant to contemporary ideas of cis-, bi-, trans- and other supposed expressions of gender. Is the suggestion that the apostle might reconsider, given today’s knowledge and experience, something that eventually must be applied by revisionist scholars to Jesus Himself, regarding his teaching concerning male and female?

The emphasis upon experience in the Biblical section of Fr. Jillions’ paper directly prepares for his second concern, pastoral care.  Here he cites  (without naming him) a priest who maintained, despite his acceptance of traditional teaching, that two lesbian women who cared for him and his wife were clear exemplars of Christian love.  I have no doubt that what he experienced here was real: I have myself been on the receiving end of gifts from those who do not follow the Christian way in terms of their sexual morality, and I hold these friends dear.  Indeed, these ones are so beloved that I fear very much for a Christian body that is considering reformulating the hope that is held out to all, regardless of sexual orientation—“repentance unto life.”  Our pastoral care should include a robust and compassionate attachment to that way that is offered to all of us, and that includes God’s life-giving path for sexuality.  St. Paul was utterly concerned about the incestuous man of whom he speaks in 1 Corinthians, but he called the Corinthians to make him accountable, rather than changing the life-giving standards of the Church. This is quite different from the path that Fr. Jillions suggests, that is, openness to a change that “begins with awareness, moving  to tolerance, to acceptance, to blessing.”  Awareness and love are absolutely key; but love does not mean tolerance or acceptance of behavior and ideas that are death-dealing.  Love also involves a call to repentance and healing, given in all humility and in recognition that we all must walk this difficult way. If we have been unloving and haughty, treating those who do not accept or practice Christian sexual mores as Samaritans, then we must repent. But love does not lie.  Rather, it must live and tell the truth with great tact and alongside other demonstrations of love, such as generously befriending those in the “rainbow community.” We might also consider specific ministries to these friends, as we have with those who have had abortions:  other Christian groups, such as the Anglican communion, have launched several helpful programs to serve this community, and these may be a model to us to consider, alongside the pastoral help available through confession and priestly counsel. Many who have explored non-Christian expressions of sexuality speak of loneliness rather than erotic desire as their deepest need: it is surely the responsibility of God’s people in general to respond to this.

Several times Fr. Jillions suggests that those who are blocking change in Orthodoxy are those who are in positions of authority.  He speaks of the “gap between official church pronouncements and the experience of people in our churches,” as though official statements regarding sexuality are out of touch with how the ordinary worshipper thinks. But sometimes this picture is reversed, so that those who are teaching are driving for change, whereas the ordinary believer understands the position of the Church in these matters.  In fact, there are those of us in the churches who are dismayed that there are not enough official statements to help guide us in these matters, offering careful and up-to-date instruction regarding the challenges of the world, and the destructive changes that we have seen.  We look for careful instruction from Scriptures and the Fathers interpreted for today so that we know how to speak to our non-Christian or questioning friends.  One clear light was given by the Synod of the OCA in July 2022, when it explained that both same-sex erotic behavior, and teaching that opposes or questions the sexual standards of Scripture and the Fathers, are disruptive to the Church. “Motivated by love and out of sincere care for souls,” the Synod recognized that the Church is a hospital for sinners, and also called upon every “clergy, theologian, teacher, or lay person” not to contravene the health-giving teaching of the Church. This directive was given not simply to preserve the peace of the Church, but also in recognition that “those who teach these errors become participants in the sin of those whom they have tempted or whom they have failed to correct.”  May it never be that God’s priests and teachers put a stumbling-block in the way of those who are already blinded by the mores of the times! We want, as Fr. Jillions says, “to do no harm.”

What, then, of academic freedom?  This is a matter upon which Fr. Jillions and others have written quite extensively, both before and after the Synodal declaration. In his piece on experience, Fr. Jillions mentions the response of Metropolitan Kallistos to the 2008 Anglican debate on same-sex matters, and his endorsement of  “vigorous debate by people of conviction.”  When speaking with the press, Metropolitan Kallistos asked a question regarding the place of prophetic action in these matters.  I would suggest that the truly prophetic action today is to call the erring ones whom Christ loves back to the ways that God has laid down from the beginning:  faithful marriage between a single man and a single woman, or the “new” way of committed celibacy set forth by both the Lord and St. Paul.  (The latter offers an accent and correction to our idea that present love and life is all that matters, and points us forward to the eschaton.)  The prophet does not deal in novelties, but knows all too well the seductions, physical and intellectual, of this world.  Thus a prophetic statement reminds folks of what they know in their hearts, but would rather not hear.  In the case of sexual intimacy, man and woman were made for each other;  but in the depth of our humanity, each of us was made for God Himself. 

It is hard to say these things today in polite company.  I had an academic friend who was fired for doing so. Teaching and holding to the tradition today may cost an academic his or her job or a promotion.  So then, to be prophetic in the “conservative” mode is often, in our day, something that “academic freedom” will not protect, depending upon where the scholar is working. But we need to be sober: statements like that of the Synod which prohibit teaching that contravenes the Church are not an attack on academic freedom. For the Synod is not an academic body.  Rather, it is made up of bishops who care for the well-being and faithful witness of the Church and its more influential members.  If an Orthodox academic can no longer hold to the teachings of the Church, then he or she has the freedom to go elsewhere and teach in good faith. We would not accept an Orthodox scholar teaching against, or questioning the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: such a teaching would not be Orthodox.  Yes, sexuality is not in the Creed. Yet, as Fr. Jillions points out, it is “not peripheral,” but “important.”  Those things which we do in the body matter; “from the beginning,” those things now being put forward as normal “were not so.”  For those who have bought into today’s errors in these matters, as for the rest of us, repentance and healing stream from the One who sends His cleansing waters, until we are made according to His likeness.