Why Grace does not destroy nature – a response to Martyn Percy on the Bible and the nuclear family
by Martin Davie:
Professor Percy’s five fold argument.
In the latest instalment of the ViaMedia.News series ‘Does the Bible Really Say…’ series, Professor Martyn Percy addresses the topic ‘Does the Bible Really…Advocate the ‘Nuclear Family?’ [1]
In his article Professor Percy gives five reasons for rejecting the idea that Christianity is ‘right behind the nuclear family.’
First, he appeals to the teaching of Jesus, declaring:
‘Jesus advocated leaving one’s parents for the sake of the Kingdom. The siblings too, got some short shrift from Jesus. He told his disciples to go do likewise, more or less. Moreover, don’t even think about loitering at your parents’ funerals; there is kingdom work to be done. The dead can bury the dead.’
Secondly, he argues that the Bible ‘contains many patterns of family life’ and that the Old Testament in particular ‘offers us dozens – literally – of ‘family patterns’, which ‘should not necessarily be honoured today.’ As an example, he refers to the story of Rachel and Leah in Genesis 29-30, both of whom are married to Jacob, and both of whom offer him their maids so that he can beget children by them.
Thirdly, he argues that the founders of four of the world’s great religions, Moses, the Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus were all adopted:
‘Moses was abandoned by his birth mother and left to float in a small coracle in the River Nile, and had the good fortune to be picked up by the daughter of one of the Pharaohs, and nurtured as one of her own. Mohammed was orphaned at the age of six, or perhaps earlier, and was brought up by his uncle in the ancient city of Makka. The Buddha’s mother died when he was less than a week old, and he was raised by her sister. Jesus, of course, according to Christian orthodoxy is not exactly the child of Joseph, since Christian tradition claims no human intervention in his genesis. Although Mary is clearly his mother, Joseph is not his biological father.’
According to Professor Percy this matters because it places the dynamic of adoption at the heart of these religious traditions.
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