I really was trying to stay out of trouble by sticking to the daily office readings as the source of my blog material for a little while. But the daily office reading for today, Romans 14:13-23, is filled with trouble, because in verse 14, Paul says something that sounds morally relativistic, and usually the more that Christians love Paul, the more they hate moral relativism. Here it is: “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.” Now I know somebody will say dismissively that Paul was just talking about sacrificial meat which has nothing to do with anything we deal with today (he doesn’t really mean “nothing” when he says “nothing is unclean” just like his “all” isn’t really “all” when he’s talking about grace). But why not confront this statement in its full radical nakedness? Because Paul seems to say pretty plainly that our perception of our actions is what makes them clean or unclean. And if that’s not relativistic, I’m not sure what is.
I recognize that Romans 14:13-23 is only one passage in a canon that contains a whole lot of contradicting witnesses. Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.” But I don’t think the presence of other passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 allows us to qualify Paul’s “nothing” in Romans 14:14 and say that he was only talking about “trivial” things like whether you have a glass of wine with dinner and not “major” things like whether you’re attracted to people of the same gender. Moreover, there are several important distinctions made by Romans 14:13-23 that illuminate the nature of sin and offer the basis for interpreting other references to sin.
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