Rob's Thoughts

For those who read this who are not familiar with Christian Theology so they may not understand a couple of the premises I hold.  Without understanding these presuppositions my answer makes no sense.  So allow me to explain.  My first presupposition is that man was created by God in his image.  I am not arguing a method of that creation in this paper, but simply that the finished created being was created in God’s Image.  My second presupposition is that what is supremely ethical, or right, or good is to display the glory of that image.  If these things are not true my entire answer falls apart.  But for sake of argument, I simply assume these two realities.

With that introduction here is is:

Summary of the question: You must decide how to advise the mayor about religiously mandated dress, the governor about female genital mutilation, and the mother about the balance between submission to her husband and care for her daughter. What is right and just in these situations? What is loving to neighbor? Walk through each step of ethical reflection, explaining how you arrive at your answers, grounding your answer in Scripture, the gospel, and, if applicable, natural law and common grace. Think through the implications of your answer in each situation for unintended consequences, and show how you would resolve those.

Beginning of Answer:

Alya, Jeremy, and Emily, in such confusing times we must remember that our highest rule and authority isn’t the constitution of the united states, or cultural norms but it is the divinely inspired scripture.  Yet how the word of God speaks to the state is different than how it speaks to the individual.  And how it speaks to the individual is different than how it speaks to the church.  So, I begin by unpacking the issues.  I’ll do so in the framework of 5 different ethical levels and how scripture speaks to each one.   All the while, I understand that some of these levels wont apply to you all of you in the same way.  The common thread we will continually see is that scripture teaches that mankind is the bearer of the divine image, therefore human life has dignity; thus, any practice that impugns the image we bear or the dignity we share must be resisted.

1) Kingdom Ethics.  Christian ethics should enable us to rule and be ruled.  God created humans to be his regents over creation.  They were to exercise equitable rule over the created order.  They were to expand and improve on the order for the glory of God.  This task was to be accomplished through procreation and work.  Mankind was to fill the earth and work to bring it under God’s rule as Eden was under his rule.   Yet at the same time they were to recognize that God was their ruler.  In other words, they were to obey Him and carry out his rule by being rulers.  Christians are the one group of humanity that has reclaimed that ethic through Christ.  We are once again spreading the kingdom of God on earth a number of different ways while obeying his rule in our lives.  However, we can still fail at this rule.  We fail three ways, by marring the image of God (that is the vessel of his Glory…the human being), by ruling poorly, and by refusing the rule of God.  We must understand that any decision we make regarding uniforms, submission, or genital mutilation must also honor the kingdom ethic that is laid out in scripture.

So, Alya, you must ask how your role as a citizen of a Kingdom that is not of this world effects your decision to stand against your husband’s wishes or submit to them.  Ultimately, we must understand that mutilation of anything except evil is entirely contrary to our role as rulers in the kingdom of God.  As a member of God’s chosen people you are called to put on display the Glory of God through showing your husband something much more beautiful than mutilation.  You must reveal to him the wonder of a human being created in the image of God.  You must do this by standing against the destruction of that image through genital mutilation. Yet you must do so with a peaceable spirit so as not to mutilate the beautiful institution of marriage, which also reveals the image of God.  It is entirely possible and appropriate for you to honor your husband through refusing to submit to his desire to mutilate your daughter while still maintaining a respect and submission to his role as husband and father.

Emily, and Jeremy the same is true for both of you, yet in a different way.  The Kingdom Ethic must inform how you govern in this delicate issue.  At the center of the Kingdom ethic is the reality that we are created in the image of God.  The mutilation of any part of that image is absolutely unacceptable.  I don’t mean to indicate that God has genitals.  But I do mean to indicate that the human body in a mysterious way contributes to the whole idea of what it means that we are created to image forth His transcendent glory.  In the first part of scripture we see Adam (and therefore, mankind) given the role of spreading this image throughout all of creation.  That’s right, the entire earth was to be full of the glory of God, because the glory of His image IN MANKIND had filled the earth.  This was man’s original purpose, and it persists today in a somewhat different way, yet it persists none-the-less.   So to require that a woman as part of that image be either mutilated or hidden is contrary to the Ethic of the Kingdom.

Emily, how does this principle translate to circumcision?  Once again we rest in scripture, where circumcision is expressly encouraged not as mutilation but as an indication that those circumcised belonged to God.  While we hold that Christ has fulfilled the purpose of circumcision rendering it no longer necessary, the Biblical principle still stands that there is a difference between mutilation and circumcision.  If circumcision were the removal of male genitals you would have a closer comparison to female mutilation since the entire female clitoris is often removed, and the vaginal opening sewn shut, in this Islamic practice.

Jeremy this is essential to understanding your issue of dress as well.  You must maintain the line of dress that is appropriate for the display of the glory of God in the human being.  This means that the grotesque display of carved human skin is unacceptable and must be resisted.  So in the same way the grotesque hiding of the human body so as to shield it’s display of the Glory of God is also to be resisted.  The question then, “why don’t we all just walk around nude?” is aptly answered by explaining that because of human sin and our desire to rule each others bodies in unjust ways it is essential that each person understand their duty to protect her body from that abuse (The pornographic culture we live in rejects this notion – yet they reap the consequences of their rejection in that many of the woman in pornography have been or are being abused).  We do this through modest clothing.

All of this being said, the idea of the Kingdom ethic must be seen in light of the fact that the kingdom has only come in part.  We live at a time when the kingdom has not come in its fullest sense.  The place where the kingdom exists right now isn’t in culture or politics but in the Church.  Which brings us to our next category of ethical application: ecclesial ethics.

2) Ecclesial ethics.  This is the category of ethical application that exists within the Church.  The Church is to be a sign of what the kingdom of God is going to be like, when Christ returns.  It is a picture of those being ruled and ruling.  In other words the Church is the place where the ethic of the Kingdom ought to be most clearly seen.  See, ecclesial ethics deals with how the Church applies scripture to itself as a whole.  There are things that the Church is called to ethically that an individual is not called to ethically.  Excommunication for example may be the ethical thing for a church to do, yet the individual has no power or ethical responsibility to excommunicate.  There may be things that the Church is ethically called to that the state is not ethically called to.  Evangelism for example is a mantle the church must carry, but it would be injurious for all parties involved for the state to attempt to carry this mantel.  Capital punishment is something the state may be called to; however, the church should not attempt to take this responsibility upon itself.

The issues you three bring up are effected by an ecclesial ethic much the same way they are effected by a kingdom ethic since the Church is the center of the Kingdom at this point in time.  The Church must hold high the image of God as it exists in the Human being.  Certainly it would be appropriate for the church of Christ to speak to the state on these issues and call them to hold high the dignity of the human being.  Indeed this they ought to do.

Alya, in your situation the Church (ecclesial) ethic carries more profound implication in that the local body that you are a part of has the responsibility to encourage you, and instruct you to do the right thing.  They also have the responsibility of restorative discipline if you transgress the word of God unrepentantly.  The Church also has the responsibility to speak into your husband’s life the Christian Gospel that he may turn from sin and embrace Christ.

3) Political Ethics. This category of ethical discipline (along with ecclesial ethics) is perhaps the most hotly contested in our culture.  Where does the state’s ability to legislate ethics begin and end.  The Bible is clear that the state has real authority, but the Bible is also clear that the state has limited authority.  Fundamentally, the state has the responsibility to wield the sword.  In other words, they have the obligation to protect the innocent and punish evil, and that’s about it.  In our state we have given the state (the U.S.A.) more power than this, but the Bible never does.

In all three cases there are clearly innocent individuals who need protection.  Governor Schreiner, innocent infant girls must be protected from those who would mutilate them.  Mayor, scripture calls you to exercise the authority given you to protect those girls who are abused through the veiling of the divine image that they bear.  The state must exercise the power of the ‘sword’ to protect those under their care.  Based on this reality, I encourage both of you to abandon any thought of condoning Islamic Mutilation, or Islamic Dress.  I realize that this may open you to the charge that you are trying to legislate morality, or that you are mixing religion with politics, or prohibiting the “free exercise thereof”.  However, it isn’t just biblical law that points out these realities but natural law shows us that women’s skin must see the light of the sun in order to receive beneficial consequences from exposure to the sun.  Natural law also illustrates that a women’s genitals be allowed to develop and grow in order that sex and childbirth be possible – two acts that are greatly complicated with genital mutilation.  Additionally, Islamic mutilation and dress undermine human dignity at a secular level as well, all of the consciences of mankind at one point feel the moral unacceptability of abuse.  But regardless of natural law or secular conscience, scripture calls the state to protect the innocent and punish the evil -doer.  Our legislation must reflect this reality.

Understand that I am not advocating a state that interferes with religion in so far as the religion respects the dignity of humanity, nor am I advocating that the state favor any certain religion.  Rather when any religion, or idea, begins to work itself out in a way that harms the innocent it is the state’s responsibility to protect.  Neither the scriptures nor the constitution (not to put them on the same level) afford the freedom to cause harm to others.

To be very specific on dress, Mayor to make an exception for Islamic dress is to make an exception for abuse, how could you not allow the white supremacists to come to school with carved skin when what the only difference between them and Islamic girls is that they are abusing themselves.  But, more to the point, to allow Islamic dress certainly would be granting one religion favor over others.  Individuals practicing Islamic law or any other religion should be able to dress modestly, in accordance with their religion on two conditions.  So long as that dress isn’t an affront to the dignity of Humanity, and so long as their dress doesn’t require the government to grant them favor it doesn’t grant to other religions.  Islamic individuals ought to be welcome to adorn themselves at school in whatever way they deem fitting so long as it fits with these two conditions.  Additionally, we must apply these conditions equitably to all people groups and religions.

Governor, in these same principles apply to you.  The state must protect those who would do harm to others.  At the center of who we are as human beings is a gender distinction tied up in genitals.  To allow for the mutilation of the flesh is to fail at wielding the sword in order to protect the innocent.  We’ve already covered ground regarding the differences between mutilation and circumcision so I wont rehash that, except to say circumcision doesn’t mutilate the gender marker but actually makes it more distinct.

4) Social Ethics deals with the role of the person in society and culture. It is difficult not to sympathize with the Islamic longing to cover women in our increasingly pornographic culture.  However, we must ask ourselves how culture would then be affected by Islamic dress.  In your situation, Jeremy, and your situation, Alya, it may seem that religious dress should be tolerated so long as it isn’t offensive.  However, I would urge you to consider the consequence of relegating half of the human beings in our culture to a status where they are never seen, and for all intent and purpose, don’t exist except to their spouse.  The cultural trend of Islamic dress cloaks the beauty of divine image bearing humanity in more than half of the culture’s population.   In many ways it is as great of an abuse of women as pornography.  Women, who have the God given right to display the beauty of the Divine image to the world, are turned into objects that exist solely for the pleasure of their husband.  This is utterly misogynistic.  The more Islamic dress is regarded by our culture as normal, the more misogynistic our culture will become.  In the same way, the more revealing women dress becomes, the more misogynistic our culture will become.  Two extremes will lead us to the same place: misogyny.  All three of you then have a responsibility to live in our culture in a way that enforces the intrinsic equality that women have been given with men.

5) Personal ethics considers an individuals ethical responsibility.  What are we called to as individual divine image bearers?  Certainly, it would be a wrong conclusion to draw that because the state outlaws and punishes those who mutilate innocent children, that the individual is to take up arms against those evil doers and enforce the states laws.  Or that because we live in a culture of misogyny through pornography or misogyny through Islamic dress that it is the individuals responsibility to go around ripping off clothes of Islamic women or handing out longer skirts to those women who have embraced the pornographic culture.  So how do we translate these issues into our lives as individuals?

For you Alya this is where the rubber really meets the road.  You will be called to account in a very real way for how you relate to your husband in this matter.  And you cannot depend on the states legislation or even your church’s polity to mitigate your responsibility to act rightly in this situation.  You must do what is right in your conscience and through your understanding of what scripture teaches.  We have already talked about the dignity of humans, and what it means to be created in the image of God.  If the state fails to back you, and if your church stands somewhere else on the issue you must still do the right thing of protecting the image of God in your daughter, yet you must make great pains to do so in a way that honors your husband.  This is not easy but it is what you are called to do.

You must do it, not by arguing and fighting but through respectful dissention.  You must have a conversation where you articulate your respect for your husband and his role in your family.  But where you also articulate that you cannot in good conscience support the mutilation of your daughter or the relegation of her position in society to a faceless, figureless life form.  You must also articulate that you will do all you can to see that this is not her fate, while still loving and caring for his him as your husband and yielding to his leadership in anyway that doesn’t cause you to violate your responsibility before God.

Mayor, in your situation, whether or not you find it ethically responsible to allow Islamic dress, you must be able to stand before God one day and answer how you as an individual resisted the temptations of misogyny in your own life.  Love your wife and daughter, allow and even encourage her to spread the glory of God in her own world through modest God-Glorifying dress.

Governor, you have great power as an agent of the state to effect change and regardless of whether or not you view it an acceptable use of state power to outlaw mutilation, you will answer one day for your own individual practice of right and wrong.  You may consider it an overstepping of the state to outlaw genital mutilation.  However, this does not mean that you as an individual who must one day given an account to God can have the same stance.  The Bible’s teaching against mutilation of the flesh is clear.  You must not engage in such a practice.

I will be starting this blog again january 1. Check back then.