The Widening of God's Mercy

Yes, time for another book review, its only been a week or so since the last one here. Warning: I have a third review in this series coming up for the next blogpost.

My own attempts to do a bit of study leave work on "A Hermeneutic of Mercy" mean I must read and reflect on an important recent book, Christopher B. Hays and Richard B. Hays, The Widening of God's Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2024.

First big, personal question: does this book make my own project, to consider the Bible with a lens of mercy, redundant? Answer, No!

Second question, where does the title come from? The late Ron Smith, frequent commenter on this blog before his death, would have known the answer in an instant, for he often quoted here from Frederick William Faber's hymn in which these lines occur,

"There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea. // There's a kindness in God's justice which is more than liberty."

Third question - it might be your question - why did I use the word "important" to describe this book?

Well, what got a lot of people intrigued as the notice of the book's publication began to circulate, via their social media "facial/body language" (i.e. grunts and grimaces as expressed on social media), was that this son-and-father duo included a very well-known New Testament scholar, Richard B. Hays, and Richard Hays wrote a very famous, widely read and cited book, some thirty years back, on the New Testament and Christian morality: Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996). The importance of this book was that it cogently set out a "compassionate conservative" discussion on various issues of the day, faithful to Scipture, acceptable to a large part of the evangelical world. It was and is the kind of book one could mention in support of this or that position on an issue and not have your church colleagues or academic common room sisters and brothers think you had taken a turn for some kind of narrow fundamentalist dead end. On the particular question of same-sex partnerships, Richard Hays, in his 1996 book, opined that (to cite from the 2024 book's epilogue, p. 223) he rejected the possibility of a positive acceptance of same-sex partnerships, e.g. via analogy with the changes of heart and mind narrated in Acts 10-11 and Acts 15,

"in the light of the New Testament's few but emphatic statements - especially Romans 1:24-27 - that portray same-sex intercourse as a tragic distortion of the created order."

Thus, the present 2024 book would be important, whether it doubled down on Hay's 1996 view or proposed a change of view. The news flashes before the book was actually published indicated the book's importance would lie with the latter.

Before I go any further I want to acknowledge that Richard Hays has been a luminous New Testament scholar for many reasons - books and articles and conference addresses - and sadly he died at the beginning of this year, on 3 January 2025, after a long illness. What we are discussing here is his last book, and one he worked on through a period when his health was not good. (I am not familar with Christopher Hays' work but he is also a scholar of note, in Old Testament studies.)

So, Richard Hays changed his mind between 1996 and 2024, and some of the book sets out clearly and movingly why he changed his mind, and includes his apology for getting things wrong in 1996. Part of what he offers in these parts of the book is his surprise that what he wrote in 1996 in the hope it would generate wide and healthy discussion among his book's audience, as a starting point for reflection and, potentially, change, in the reality of its reception became a last word rather than a first word. The tendency among readers of the 1996 book became, "I believe the NT says this about same-sex partnerships and, look, none other than Richard B. Hays agrees with me" rather than "Hays has really dug deep into the matter of same-sex partnerships and because of what he has to say, there is a lot to open up for further discussion."

Obviously the consequential question about the 2024 book, The Widening of God's Mercy, is, "Does its conclusion about favourability towards same-sex partnerships have a sound basis?" A change of mind is one thing, but given the solidity of Richard Hays' scholarship in his 1996, it is reasonable to approach this 2024 book with high expectations of a very sound basis for the now changed conclusion reached.

Below in a postscript I note a number of reviews I have read on the internet - some of them highlight significant possibilities that the basis is not as sound as one might expect. In fact, I have my own concerns, even if I am inclined to head more towards where Hays and Hays end up than those reviewers.

First up, there is quite an emphasis on God changing God's mind as a significant feature in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, and one which should prise open our minds to the possibility of God changing God's mind (and thus we changing our minds) on the matter of same-sex partnerships.

I find this a curious line within the arguments of the book. Yes, God is reported as changing his mind in story after story in the Old Testament but there is a lot to unpack theologically (which I don't see Hays and Hays doing) as well as exegetically (as they do). "Changing one's mind" is a very human thing to do, and reporting God as changing God's mind makes God all too human, which is fine as far as story telling goes - a little anthropomorphism never underplayed dramatic moments in the divine drama - but prompts big theological questions given that one fine way to describe God in all God's Godness is "the Absolute", "the Uncaused Cause", "the Rock" - "the Immoveable Mover" and so forth. What kind of god is the "God Whom We Make Much of Changing God's Mind" (per the Hayses' book)? Quite possibly that God is not the God of Jesus Christ - the God, that is, who works through history on a determined and unchanging plan (see Ephesians 1). Further, God changing God's mind could work more than one way: Hays and Hays think God has changed his mind on same-sex partnerships, in a merciful, accepting of those partnerships direction. But what if the same God changes his mind back again?

Secondly, there is a strong emphasis on the widening of God's mercy to include ever more groups of people, aptly summarised towards the end of the book, p. 214, in this way:

"Third, and most decisively, the vision that informs this book rhymes  with the Bible’s pervasive portrayals of God’s ever-expanding mercy. To put this in more technical theological language: The acceptance of sexual minorities in the church re-enacts a narrative pattern that is pervasive in the Bible. There is a powerful analogy, a metaphorical correspondence, between the embrace of LGBTQ people and God’s previously unexpected embrace of foreigners, eunuchs, “tax collectors and sinners,” gentiles, and people with conflicting convictions about food laws and calendrical observances."

But this approach does not touch a pretty standard conservative objection to acceptance of same-sex partnerships, that they are sinful, and so, although God loves LGBTQ people and wishes to accept them into the household of faith, they must repent of sin, like expectations of all other people groups - eunuchs, gentiles, tax collectors (noting the repentance of Zacchaeus) and other sinners.

So, two pretty big objections to the ways the arguments in this book proceed. Is there something to like, to note as a strength or strengths? I think there is.

Let's start with an observation towards the end of the book, p. 220:

"Ultimately, the meaning of scripture is shaped by its reception in communities of faith."

Is it not the case that in many communities of faith - not all by any means - there is an understanding of LGBTQ people and of scripture (especially its themes of mercy and justice, of not judging and of reckoning with the speck in my own eye etc) which judges that the meaning of scripture is that there is a place for LGBTQ people in the household of faith, including those in same-sex partnerships. Whether or not arguments are good, bad or indifferent towards this conclusion about inclusion, communities of faith are shaping how they see scripture on this issue of our day. To be sure, Hays and Hays support this direction of travel, but might they have made more of the reception of scripture and less of (say) God changing God's mind? That is, might more have been made of how the reception of Scripture by communities of faith has led to change in the collective mind of such communities? The obvious example here is slavery. The Bible gives no indication that God has changed God's mind on slavery (as a tolerated institution in various societies) but since the mid nineteenth century and the abolition of slavery in the USA, no Christian community today thinks slavery is a good thing. To be sure, Hays and Hays do reflect on the change of disposition to slavery by churches. My question is whether more might have been made of this and less of God changing God's mind.

If so then they could also have made more of something they do say about the presence of LGBTQ Christians in the church today, p. 212:

"Second, in many cases where the church has changed its understanding of God’s will, the impetus for change has come from careful and compassionate attention to human experience. Why have we rejected slavery? Because we see the suffering it causes, its cruelty and contradiction  of human wholeness. Why have many churches rejected the subordination of women to me and supported their full inclusion in church leadership? Because we see in our experience the arbitrary way in which it denies and stifles the evident gifts and graces of half the human race. 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.

When we form moral judgments, we inevitably and rightly pay attention to the evidence of experience. With regard to human sexuality, we have seen over the past generation a cumulatively increasing body of evidence that sexual orientation is (in a way that remains mysterious) deeply ingrained in individuals and not susceptible to change. And for human beings in general, the wisdom of Genesis 2:18 applies, regardless of sexual orientation: It is not good that we should be alone. Some individuals may have a special vocation to celibacy, but that cannot be imposed as a blanket requirement on an entire class of humans."

Two things are important in these paragraphs. First, that for many communities of faith reshaping the meaning of scripture, an impetus is recognition of "the gifts and graces" given by God to the LGBTQ Christians in their midst. Secondly, if we conclude that sexual orientation is "not susceptible to change" does that make a difference to how we interpret scripture in relation to LGBTQ Christians in our communities of faith, because, to take up something else also mentioned, "It is not good that we should be alone" (Genesis 2:18)? In what way(s) do we who read scripture responsibly and with a view to acting mercifully and justly, offer a way forward for Genesis 2:18 to mean something for LGBTQ Christians? I suggest Hays and Hays could have made more of these considerations.

Finally (at least for now - there is, I think, more to say in the book I am writing), Hays and Hays are on the right track to talk about God's ever widening mercy. In the words of one of the most beautiful prayers of all time, the Prayer of Humble Access, God is the God "whose nature is always to have mercy." 

One of the great strengths of a truly great book, Reading Genesis by Marilynn Robinson, is the way it brings out God's consistent mercy: Adam and Eve sin, but do not die; Cain murders Abel, but he may not be killed; humanity is dire, but survives the Flood via Noah and his family; Abraham and Sarah lack faith in God, but God persists with them; Jacob supplants Esau but God can work with Jacob; Joseph's brothers are very badly behaved towards Joseph, but Joseph forgives them - anticipating Christ himself - because the brothers do not know what they are doing. Scripture just keeps going like that: God is merciful and true, compassionate and just all the way through the Old Testament. Christ comes into the world, full of grace and truth - of course, because God's mercy sends Jesus into the world, to make a way for we sinners to be made just. That mercy, strongly present in the OT, especially in Isaiah (as Hays and Hays repeatedly point out), is expressed in the NT, and in fulfilment of OT prophecies, with the extension of God's love from Israel outwards into the whole world and including all people, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women. God is more merciful that we can imagine; we have less imagination than the imagination which would fully understand how merciful God is.

Now, if I do not think Hays and Hays have got the connection between "mercy" and "LGBTQ Christians" correct, I do think they are correct that there is a connection. It is part of the purpose of my beyond-blog writing to explore that connection. So, no more from me for now on that connection!

Postscript:

Incidentally, if you want some "proper" book reviews, there is no shortage of them on the internet, some by considerable names in the realm of scholarship on biblical sexuality, and these are them which I found in a recent search:

https://reformedjournal.com/2024/10/30/the-widening-of-gods-mercy-by-christopher-b-hays-and-richard-b-hays/ by Ryan Boes

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/widening-gods-mercy/ by Rebecca McLaughlin

https://www.centerforfaith.com/blog/review-of-the-widening-of-god-s-mercy-by-christopher-b-hays-and-richard-b-hays by Preston Sprinkle

https://freethinkingministries.com/the-widening-of-gods-mercy-book-review/ by Josh Klein

https://cbmw.org/2024/08/28/a-review-of-the-widening-of-gods-mercy-sexuality-within-the-biblical-story-by-christopher-b-hays-and-richard-b-hays/ by Thomas Schreiner

https://theaquilareport.com/the-widening-of-gods-mercy-sexuality-within-the-biblical-story-fails-as-serious-study/ by Robert A.J. Gagnon

https://www.livingout.org/resources/posts/227/is-gods-mercy-wide-enough-for-me by Andrew Bunt

https://hermeneutrix.com/2024/10/10/on-gods-widening-mercy/ by Heather Anne Thiessen

https://outreach.faith/2024/10/book-on-bible-and-sexuality-long-on-mercy-but-short-on-scholarship/ by Fr Joseph R. Upton

Hint: every review above by a "conservative evangelical" is a negative review.