Jerry-Springer Stuff.

I think that scripture teaches that we are called to walk out radical, life-giving love and to completely abandon judgment of any kind. Our judgments are largely culturally defined, by nature extremely narrow in scope, and they're usually built toward excluding those who are culturally marginalized anyway. In other words, they are bigoted and arbitrary, focusing on people and things that the bible doesn't seem to think are a big priority. For example, in those lists we focus on are "the greedy" right along with the sexually immoral. Now, we typically define "greedy" pretty broadly while defining "sexual immorality" very narrowly (usually down to one issue). I don't see anyone ejecting the ultra-rich from our meetings. Now why is that?

One of the big questions I get is, "what about 1 Corinthians 5:11-12"? Here it is:

"But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with any who claim to be fellow believers but are sexually immoral or greedy, idolaters or slanderers, drunkards or swindlers. With such persons do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. 'Expel the wicked person from among you.'"

The assertion usually goes something like this: "see? The bible tells us to make judgements about the goodness or badness of people in the church. We have not only license, but a duty to to judge."

The key to understanding this passage is the general context (the big point of the whole book of 1 Corinthians) and the local context (the big point of chapter 5).

The general context is that the Corinthian church is in trouble on a number of fronts, but the large issue really is that they've begun to look more like Greco-Roman culture than Christ. Notice the first issue Paul raises in chapter 1? It's not sexual immorality, drunkenness or idolatry. IT'S LACK OF UNITY. DIVISION. The church has already begun to stratify based on the teachings of various Apostles, which is precisely what students of various schools of philosophy did (and still do). They'd begun to view Christianity as another form of philosophy, which led them to form exclusive clubs around Paul or Apollos. The twin issues of inclusiveness and unity are Paul's number two agenda next to his variation on the gospel. So, keeping that in mind: the big issues in the Corinthian church are cultural ones, specifically lack of unity, stratification, dissension and division.

The local context seems to be a man who is sleeping with his father's wife (who is presumably not his birth mother). Guys, this is Jerry-Springer stuff. Paul says that even the Gentiles are horrified by it. We're talking about extremes of behavior here in the context of a church that's already having trouble staying united. This particular incident would be a like bucket of gasoline on a smoldering garbage pile. When Paul does bring up the issue of this kind of behavior not coming to characterize the church in Corinth (vss. 6-8), the idea is that the church remain attractive to the culture outside. Remember, even the pagan Corinthians think that the Christians are messed up. Paul is concerned that the non-believing Corinthians will justly level the charge of hypocrisy at the church, which would have a deep impact in terms of its attractiveness.

The bottom line is, Paul wants the church to love like Christ, which is expressed to the degree that it is unified and attractional. The behavior discussed in chapter 5 is extreme even by our standards in 2010. It's divisive and humiliating. It's dehumanizing and degrading. As open as I am to absolutely every single person with any kind of issue, as a pastor I would deal with that kind of behavior swiftly and sternly, not out of judgment, but out of a desire to protect other people. Grace, love and inclusiveness should not permit victimization.

But why stop at the over-the-top issue in verse 1? Paul doesn't. In verse 11 he includes all kinds of sexual immorality (predictably, Paul being Jewish and whatnot), GREED, idolatry (again a predicate of Jewish morality), drunkenness (Jewish morality), GOSSIPPING and EXPLOITATION (my translation of the Greek words loidoros and arpaks).

Uh oh.

See, that list includes a whole lot of people that we typically have no problem with, doesn't it? We liberally provide accommodation for greed, gossipping and exploitation...we just call them something nicer. We understand that people are often not at their best, so we lift them up with encouragement and kindness, knowing that God is in the process of working everything out for their best...until we get to the couple of things that Christians have decided are really repugnant, then we trot out 1 Corinthians 5.

1 Corinthians 5 is not for the every-day don't-act-like-a-dork stuff. It's for the extreme stuff. Yes, we should act decisively and conservatively when abuse and/or victimization is the issue, and the response can include excluding someone from our fellowship, but this assumes that the individual refuses to be reconciled. On the other hand, 1 Corinthians 5 does not apply to things that are on our arbitrary short-list but are not abusive, victimizing or divisive.

After all, if the bible has a short-list, I'd say it's pretty different than the one Christians usually draw...