Pop Quiz! Romans 1:18 - 32

 Specifically what theory am I deploying?

Which words did I “‘make up?”

Answer these questions: According to Romans 1:18 - 32 …

1. What is the purpose of the created order?

To testify to God’s design for human sexuality so we can do sexual ethics or to His existence, attributes, & authority as the basis for all ethics.

2. How did the nations wind up with idols with sexual characteristics? By looking to God’s image & authority or by looking to their own & others?

3. Does God indict humanity for suppressing His image & authority & supplanting it with their own & others or for failing to look at the human image & understanding & believing that the human image is heteronormative?

4. Apropos 3, since the text indicts humanity for suppressing His image & authority & supplanting it with their own & others, how can “natural” mean “heteronormative” if God has no sexual characteristics? How can God indict some people for refusing to understand & believe in heteronormativity while indicting us all for reasoning from the human image to worship & sexual ethics?

The answer is: Heteronormativity isn’t the subject of 1:26 - 27, because if so, you have to divorce worship ethics (theology about God’s image) from sexual ethics (theology about the human image) in a text that binds them together. God’s image — not ours — is the source of worship & sexual ethics, & since He has no sexual characteristics, “natural” has nothing to do with heteronormativity. If so, then God has sexual attributes.

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