Even one believing parent is a powerful thing

I was going over some Bible passages tonight and I came across this verse in 1 Corinthians:
For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. ~ 1 Corinthians 7:14(emphasis mine)
Of course, I’d read 1 Corinthians 7 plenty of times before, as it’s probably the most significant discourse on interfaith marriage in the Bible, but tonight was the first time that the implications of this verse really jumped out at me.
I called my husband over first to ask him what he thought the verse meant. “It means if one parent is a member of the church, the child is still considered to be born into the church.” I started fishing around to try and see if any LDS General Authorities or scholars have said anything on the passage, only to learn that all of D&C 74 is based on this one verse, and at first I was excited to read about the official, canonized LDS interpretation of the passage. Unfortunately, I can’t say I found D&C 74 very helpful. The passage interprets unbelievers as Jews who still wanted to practice circumcision, then expounds on how circumcision is no longer necessary because of the Atonement and how Paul advised Christians not to marry Jews to avoid this problem. It doesn’t say anything about what it means for the believing spouse to make the rest of his or her family holy. (See the Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual on Section 74 for more information on this interpretation.)
The LDS New Testament Student Manual’s take on the passage is even worse:
Paul is referring here to marriages where the husband or wife has converted to Christianity but the other partner has not. Though in this context “unbelieving” refers to Jewish parents who wanted to continue circumcising their children, the principle of spiritual damage to children from such marriages holds true in all generations. When a man or woman who are faithful members of the church marry those without a strong testimony of the gospel, not only is the marriage itself endangered but the spiritual training of the children will be severely limited. A child needs the spiritual testimony and training of both parents without conflict or schism. (emphasis mine)
This is what we call “exegesis fail.” 1 Corinthians 7:14 is saying the exact opposite of what the manual claims it’s saying: the testimony of one believing partner is sufficient for causing the unbelieving spouse and children to “become holy,” whatever that means. It says nothing about an interfaith marriage being damaging to children and implies that the guidance of just one believing parent who stays faithful to the unbelieving spouse is somehow deeply significant.
Verse 16 goes on to clarify that the believing spouse has no guarantees that he or she will save the unbelieving spouse, so the holiness promised in verse 14 does not seem to be talking about salvation itself.
I turned to my study Bibles. From the ESV Study Bible:
made holy . . . are holy. These are the same terms (Gk. hagiazō, hagios) used earlier for God’s separation of Corinthian Christians from their pagan environment as his special people (1:2; 3:17; 6:1, 2, 11). The unbelieving spouse and children in a family with a believing spouse are not saved by this association (7:16), but they do come under the believing spouse’s Christian influence and so, Paul notes, they are much more likely to be saved in due course through their own faith. Thus they are in a real sense “set apart” (the basic meaning of hagiazō and hagios) from other unbelievers and from the evil of the world. Thus the positive spiritual and moral influence of the believing parent outweighs the negative influence of the unbelieving parent.
I like that immensely. Here’s the NIV Study Bible:
the unbelieving husband … wife has been sanctified. The unbelieving partner is influenced by the godly life of the Christian partner, so that family is under the holy influence of the believer and in that sense is sanctified. your children… are holy. They at least have the advantage of being under the sanctifying influence of one Christian parent (see v. 16) and so may be called holy.
1 Corinthians 7:14 seems to indicate that for a child to be under the influence of one faithful parent is a tremendous thing. I don’t think anyone denies that the influence of two godly parents is superior, but credit should be given where credit is due. I hope the other parents out there in interfaith relationships find this encouraging. Quit fretting over the “spiritual damage” your spouse’s views pose to your child and start believing in the power you have in you.

Comments

Even one believing parent is a powerful thing — 47 Comments

  1. I take it that “exegesis fail” is the same as “eisegesis.”
    I see D&C 74 as neither agreeing with nor rejecting your view here; its point with regard to children is that children are holy. This is consistent with other LDS scripture, including the Book of Mormon’s rejection of infant baptism and teachings about those who die before the age of accountability.
    And as to the New Testament manual: Let’s just say that not everything in every manual is inspired. There may be some truth in the statement depending on individual circumstances, but it’s the author’s opinion and clearly not what Paul is saying. I think your advice here is sound.
  2. There are some of us who just don’t consider exigesis as the only way to believe something.
    But I agree that eisegesis shouldn’t be used to convince someone of their own error. But you did ask your DH what he believed it meant, not how exegeted it.
    There are volumes of Evangelical beliefs that are exegesis failure. I’m less inclined to worry about that, and only get upset about the exegesis failure of their attacks on my beliefs.
  4. That’s right, Whitney. Git yer own damn valiant men! (or would that be “undamned valiant men”?) Keep your hands off ours!
    Is there within the evangelical movement not a similar emphasis on marrying within the fold? Is it not considered unfortunate to marry the lost?
  5. Unfortunately, all of the LDS student manuals are full of exegesis fails. Sometimes it seems like the people who wrote them didn’t actually read the related scriptures at all.
  6. I don’t know about an evangelical movement, but I don’t think Methodists really care either way. I believe individual pastors have a lot of discretion in that respect, but if one spouse was a believer and the other wasn’t, I’m feel like the pastor would see it as more of a pre-marital counseling issue to make sure that communication on the subject was healthy and open.
  7. Back in the days when I was growing up as an evangelical, there was a huge emphasis on not marrying an unbeliever, pretty similar to how it is in the LDS church about marrying nonmembers.
    I don’t know what it’s like today (but I’d bet Jack does!). My guess is that it would depend somewhat on the denomination or particular pastor, but at the very least marrying a believer would be seen as the ideal.
    As a practical matter these days, I suspect that evangelicals who take chastity seriously (many nonevangelical Protestants don’t emphasize it) would face challenges getting involved with unbelievers. But that’s a whole other subject.
    PM said:
    But you did ask your DH what he believed it meant, not how [he] exegeted it.
    Well, that’s partly what exegesis is. In many cases, it’s no more complicated than looking at the simple and obvious meaning of the text. The manual portion Jack cited didn’t even do that.
  8. At evangelical churches, you’ll definitely be encouraged to marry other Christians, but some evangelicals are pickier than others about what qualifies as a “Christian.” Lisa, who comments at Tim’s blog, has told me a few times that she caught a lot of flack at her evangelical church for marrying a more liberal, mainline Protestant. For my own part, the evangelicals I knew have been very accepting of marriages between Protestant denominations, liberal and mainline or not. Marriages to Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are pretty well accepted with the cautions that the couples understand what they’re getting into.
    Marrying a Mormon is something that I don’t think any pastor would recommend. My own pastor in Provo at the time knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t dumb and I knew the ramifications of what I was getting into, so he was fairly supportive. He already had several other members of the church who were married to Mormons (this was Provo, after all), and I spoke with them. Paul and I also did pre-marital counseling with a couple from my church at my pastor’s request.
    Marriages to complete and total non-Christians definitely aren’t encouraged, but I have found a lot of support and understanding for couples who are already in them.
    And yeah, exegesis fail = eisegesis, but exegesis fail sounds so much funnier! Seriously though, when I started hunting down sources for this post, I was really looking forward to getting a handle on the LDS interpretation of this passage. Do Mormons not have scripture commentaries or study Bible equivalents? All I could find were those Institute student manuals, and obviously I didn’t think much of them.
  9. When you ask about scripture commentaries or Bible study, do you mean official materials produced by and sanctioned by the hierarchy? Of that, the closest we have is the Institute manuals and the yearly Sunday School course manuals. There are plenty of independent LDS scripture analysis and commentary by the Skousens, Nibley’s, McConkie’s, and other LDS scholars of this world. Is that the sort of thing you’re talking about?
  12. If you go to Deseret Book, you can find some commentaries on specific scriptures (such as Isaiah), but not a lot. I’m not aware of any independently produced complete “study Bible” or “study Scriptures” from an LDS viewpoint (I doubt if the market is there to make it profitable).
    This CD-ROM looks interesting, if you can find it:
    Latter-day Commentary.
    I did have at one time a CD-ROM that allowed my to cross-reference scriptures with all sorts of LDS writings, but once I switched to Linux I never bothered to see if I could get it to work on my current system.
    There are some online resources of uneven quality, but I don’t want my post held up in moderation, so I’ll just say they’re FeastUpontheWord.org and GospelDoctrine.com. At its best, the first is quite good, but it’s still a work in progress.
    The bottom line is that if you’re talking about independently produced materials, there’s no comparison with what you’ll find in the non-LDS Christian world.
  13. Pay attending to Kevin Barney. He knows what he’s talking about more than I do.
  14. Just to clarify, my book isn’t really a full-on study bible in the vein of the NIV Study Bible or something like that. (For instance, I looked and it doesn’t really respond directly to Jack’s question in the OP.) It’s focus is more specific–to help Mormons be able to read and understand the archaic KJV. There would basically be no need for my book if Mormons would only read a decent modern translation, but in my experience most Mormons insist on sticking with the KJV, which they generally don’t understand well. So my book follows a path they are familiar with–KJV text with explanatory footnotes. Onle we give tons of footnotes, not just three or four per chapter as in the 1979 LDS edition.
    Our notes do have some light background commentary, but the main focus is on helping people understand the words.
    Still, I think my book is probably the closest thing you’ll find to a study bible from an LDS perspective.
  15. Oh, now I get what you mean by study bible. Nope, I’m not aware of anything like that for Mormons.
    Kevin, I agree that it would be much smarter if the Church were to switch to the NIV. This insistence upon sticking with the KJV, which was used by Joseph Smith simply because it was the most readily accessible at the time, and not because it was a particularly accurate version.
    (don’t even get me started on the use of pseudo-KJV language in the BofM…I have a hard time believing God speaks Elizabethan…)
  16. For all of the put-downs Mormons get for being eisigetical, we must remember that from a purely scholarly viewpoint, so were many NT writers of the OT. In my understanding of the LDS canon, that doesn’t invalidate the NT writers, rather it invalidates our current worldview (exegesis is the only valid way of interpreting something).
    I think it fairly dangerous for Mormons to completely lay over on this, as much of our beliefs appear to come by eisigesis. I think it is also very dangerous for Evangelicals to claim none of the NT was an eisigesis of the OT. Some of it obviously is. So to approach the situation with the assumption “All eisigesis is wrong.” is bad.
    That said,
    I don’t think churches should attack one-another with eisigesis, but exegesis only. What can I say, I’m in the world.
  18. The NIV is lower than that for me. It reads like it was written for a seventh-grader (although the TNIV is better in that regard). I much prefer the NRSV and the New Jerusalem Bible, and I just love the abundant translation notes with the NET Bible online.
  20. “I take it that “exegesis fail” is the same as “eisegesis.””
    No, because eisigesis can still be faithful to what the text is actually saying—it just approaches the text with presuppositions and asks the text to support them. What the manual did here is approach the text with presuppositions and then ignore the obvious fact that the text clearly refutes them:
    I want the text to say “yes.”
    The text says, “No.”
    Good, so that’s a “yes” then.
    Glorious, exemplary, epic FAIL.
  21. I did a post on translations a while ago. I generally use the ESV for personal study with reservations about its gender biases, though I used to swear by the NIV. I enjoy the TNIV, but complementarians were successful in giving it a bad rep before it even hit the ground, so not a lot of evangelical churches use it. It is probably my favorite translation as far as my take on controversial gender passages goes, though I’ve come to prefer literal translations to colloquial ones.
    I kind of understand why the LDS church clings to its demi-KJV-Onlyism. It could update to a “modern translation,” but all modern translations come with their own baggage in the bias department—too liberal, too evangelical, too egalitarian, too complementarian, etc. The church could commission its own translation, it certainly has the scholars for it, but then it’d be a scenario like what the JWs have with the New World Translation where outsiders and potential converts might not trust it because it’s the “Mormon translation” of the Bible.
    I certainly think that a KJV study Bible with commentaries from a panel of LDS scholars would be an awesome thing.
    I confess, I had never thought too much about “good eisegesis.” Eisegesis is regularly demonized by evangelicals and I kind of unthinkingly accepted that without considering how NT authors made use of the OT which could have been considered “eisegesis.” I’d never considered the question of eisegesis v. further revelation from God.
    Still, I’m glad most of us are agreed that the NT Institute manual’s take on this passage sucks.
  23. “I certainly think that a KJV study Bible with commentaries from a panel of LDS scholars would be an awesome thing.”
    Jack, this would be awful. I would personally destroy whatever printing press tried to publish it (and you know us Mormons mean it when we threaten presses!). If you’re talking about something published independently and maybe just sold in Deseret Book, then I’d be okay with that. But if there’s any kind of Church approval of it—look, we already have a Bible Dictionary that’s full of problems. I don’t want another.
    Personally, I’m torn on what I’d like the LDS Church to do with the KJV. I can’t decide between:
    1) Switch to the NKJV, which is slightly easier to read than the KJV and maintains the language connection to the other LDS scriptures.
    2) Switch to the NRSV and lose the language connection to other scriptures—but hey, Mormons who don’t speak English already have this problem and miraculously survive.
    3) Stick with the KJV/NKJV but downplay it’s awesome-holiness, and even recommend (in Church manuals, etc.) using other translations to aid study.
    I lean mostly to #3.
    “Eisegesis is regularly demonized by evangelicals…”
    Tell that to Tim and his “What Jesus Says About Polygamy” post. (Sorry, had to get that swipe in there, but only because Tim still hasn’t fessed up to his bad eisigesis.)
  25. The NT Student Guide is neither exegesis nor eisegesis on the passage, because it’s nothing more than a preemptive answer to a common classroom question: “Does this passage say it’s OK to marry a nonmember?”
    The answer is obviously, “Yes, but it’s really hard to pull off,” since there is no Church discipline connected to establishing a marriage like that. But the answer itself looks like it went through some levels of editing where a correlation committee member noted, “We can’t tell the kids this is OK!”
    (Do we even follow this logic these days, imputing the sanctification of the parents onto the children? If anything, Mormonism completely refutes that notion with the claim that little children are alive in Christ. And it seems to me Jesus had some rather harsh things to say about the post-hoc thinking that the sins of parents caused infirmity or handicap in the child.)
    Additionally, there is the vagueness of Paul’s context: is he talking only about already established marriages, in which one partner is a Christian and the other is not, and warning against dissolving such families? Or is his context wider than that?
  26. As to official Mormon Church Bible Commentary, we have the “Bible Dictionary”, which appears to be a compilation of notions by Bruce R. McConkie.
    Beyond that, Mormon scholars make significant and appreciative use of most honest Bible scholarship, as far as I can tell. If the subject was treated with integrity and open-mindedness, why not use those scholars’ efforts?
    For myself, I keep a Westcott-Hort Greek Interlinear close by, along with something similar for the Old Testament, and make significant use of the text-comparison websites out there. I also like Strong’s Concordance, of course.
  27. Interesting comments on the different translations. I obviously haven’t done any meaningful research on the other versions (something I’ve been meaning to do), and these comments help. I can see what y’all mean about the NIV. I do think it is better than the KJV, which is archaic and was more concerned with poetic style than faithful translation. I really wish the church membership would get over this assumption that the KJV is the best translation simply because it was the translation JS used, and go with something more accurate and more linguistically accessible
    (Brian, I would suggest that the linguistic connection between the KJV and the mock-Elizabethan language of the rest of LDS canon is tenuous at best).
    Jack, what do you mean about the TNIV getting a bad rep? Do you mean that it is itself flawed in your estimation, or simply that you’ve found it less useful to use in dialogue because of the bias of many in the Evangelical community against the egalitarian nature of the translation?
    Nicole, that’s true only if we assume that either mainstream Christianity or Mormonism are correct. We might be in for a big surprise if it turns out the Spirits of Shinto are displeased for our lack of reverence…
  28. Rob ~ Bruce McConkie had a BA in bacteriology & pathology and a law degree, and we all know how useless those are for conducting serious biblical and theological studies.*
    It’s not a bad thing for Mormons to use other Bible commentaries. I just think a scholarly collaborative effort from the LDS community would be useful.
    Derek ~ The latter option. See Supporters and Critics here. If you like the NIV, you would probably like the TNIV.
    Here’s an article on the TNIV by Craig Blomberg (who is himself a soft complementarian, you may remember him as the evangelical contributor to How Wide the Divide): Today’s New International Version: The Untold Story of a Good Translation
    *In case anyone doubts, yes, I am kidding.
  29. Jack: I thought I might have read you wrong at first. Glad to see I was right about being wrong; i.e., you don’t want an official LDS commentary. Todd Wood pines for this sort of thing all the time, but you are not Todd Wood.
    Derek: Maybe I missed your point, but:
    “wish the church membership would get over this assumption that the KJV is the best translation simply because it was the translation JS used, and go with something more accurate and more linguistically accessible
    (Brian, I would suggest that the linguistic connection between the KJV and the mock-Elizabethan language of the rest of LDS canon is tenuous at best).”
    Church members aren’t fond of the KJV because it is what JS used, they’re fond of it because of serious efforts by respected leaders like J Reuben Clark, who published an entire book detailing his reasons for supporting the KJV, and articles in the Ensign by various scholars. You can try to make the argument that those leaders/scholars only supported the KJV because it’s what JS used (i.e., they made their judgment eisigetically), but it’s wrong to say that’s the reason most members use it.
    Also, I don’t know what kind of linguistic connection you’re looking for, but when whole passages from the BoM match the KJV word for word, it is easy for the reader to make the connection. If by “tenuous” you just mean “not that important,” well, that’s what I already stated: “Mormons who don’t speak English already have this problem and miraculously survive.”
    To look at this another way, let’s say we abandon the KJV in favor of a Bible that’s actually readable—should we follow up with a “re-translation” of the BoM and D&C so they no longer use (as you call it) mock-Elizabethan English?
  30. Brian, perhaps that is the reason why the hierarchy has decided to stick with the KJV. But I doubt many of the common folk know about Clark’s arguments. In my experience, most of them are hesitant to consider any switches because that is what the Church (starting with JS) always used.
    By tenuous, I mean that many of the passages of the BofM and D&C (those which don’t correlate directly with established Bible passages) are written in a form crudely mimicking the formal language of the Bible. Because it doesn’t accurately reflect the way English operated in the era of the Stewarts, it’s connection is superficial and tenuous.
    Ideally, I would like a re-translation to drop the Elizabethan pretense, yes.
  31. IMO, memhers of the church are fond of the KJV (or, perhaps more accurantly, uncomfortable with modern translations) primarily for two reasons:
    1) For those who grew up in the church, the KJV “sounds like” scripture. Never mind that the New Testament was written in a form of Greek less majestic than the typical General Conference talk. (I will admit, though, that one reason I like the New Jerusalem Bible is because it sounds more majestic and uses loftier language than most other modern translation.)
    2) Many members tend to believe that modern translations are a continuation of the process whereby the Bible has been changed over the centuries, so they tend not to trust them.
    As an aside, I have been surprised by how many people don’t know that many non-English-speaking members use modern translations, usually ones produced by Protestants or Catholics. I have even talked to people who believe that foreign church members use translations made not from Greek and Hebrew but from the KJV as the source material.
    BrianJ said:
    Personally, I’m torn on what I’d like the LDS Church to do with the KJV. I can’t decide between:
    1) Switch to the NKJV …
    2) Switch to the NRSV …
    3) Stick with the KJV/NKJV but downplay its awesome-holiness, and even recommend (in Church manuals, etc.) using other translations to aid study.
    I lean mostly to #3.
    I’d probably go with some combination of #2 and #3, perhaps sticking with the KJV but also having an official modern alternative translation (not necessarily NRSV, but that would be fine). I think the near-exclusive use of the KJV is an obstacle to many people studying the Bible, and I’d like to see that change.
    I wouldn’t rewrite the Book of Mormon or other modern scriptures in updated language.
  32. Derek, I think you underestimate or ignore the importance many members place on the “correct doctrine” in the KJV. That was the crux of Clark’s argument against the RSV and for the KJV, and has been repeated countless times since. Whether or not the “common folk” know of Clark’s book, it’s probably safe to assume that they know of the Bible Dictionary, which states:
    …many translations of the Bible have been produced since 1900 by Bible scholars. However…the Church has held to the King James Version as being doctrinally more accurate than these recent versions. The newer versions are in many instances easier to read, but are in some passages doctrinally weaker in their presentation of the gospel. Therefore, the King James Version remains the principal Bible of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
    I wouldn’t bother pointing this out if I didn’t think it was important to your (and my) cause. If you want to talk someone into switching Bibles, you need to speak to their reasons for holding onto the KJV in the first place.
    As for tenuous linguistic connections, based on your #30 I don’t think we see this all that differently. Thanks for clarifying.
  35. Jack said:
    Spam stole your latest comment (#31), but I just rescued it.
    I figured that’s what happened. I can’t figure out what in there would have tripped your filters, though.
  37. re: 32
    Ultimately, I think we’re getting at the same thing. The average Mormon believes that the KJV must be the Bible most correctly translated (ie, containing the most correct doctrine) because it is the one which JS used (and because, as Eric noted, modern versions are, they believe, continuations of a history of flawed translation, not having been translated by inspired leaders).
    re: 31
    For me, the translation of the modern scriptures to modern language would be even more desirable than a switch to a more modern translation of the Bible. After all, the KJV is at least authentic linguistically. It reflects the language of its time. The language of modern scripture, OTOH, is a linguistic conceit.
  38. @ #26
    The Bible Dictionary was compiled in the 1970s by the Scriptures Publications Committee which was headed by Thomas S. Monson, Boyd K. Packer, and Bruce R. McConkie, with many others called to assist. Three BYU religion profs (Robert J. Matthews and 2 I’m not remembering right now) were some of the major ones assisting.
    So BRM did have a major influence in compiling the BD, but to say it’s a product solely of his own making is inaccurate. I love the urban legend that he read the scriptures 200+ times, once for each topic, tearing out pages and stacking them by topic.
  39. I personally like the poetic nature of the KJV.
    I think the Church already went through a period of heavy questioning about use of different Bible translations, which resulted in a First Presidency statement on the King James Version of the Bible. You have to scroll down a long ways to find it, but it’s there, I promise.
    I think all other speculation as to why we still use the KJV in the LDS Church is just that, and pretty useless IMO.
  41. …meaning, I don’t find that it captures the poetry any better or worse than other translations. (Speaking of the OT here, and not the NT—I know nothing about NT poetry, or whether Paul et al even intended such.)
  42. Jack, this issue (not the scripture in specific, although I am glad to read it) is something that Kullervo and I have discussed at length. It’s difficult to raise kids with one religion, let alone with two. And with two that are at odds with each other (as is the case in both your family and mine), the difficulty is compounded with the need to be respectful of each others’ beliefs, respectful of each other, a desire that your children choose the ‘correct’ path, etc.
    However, what Kullervo and I have decided is that in a lot of ways, our children will grow up understanding that people of other faiths are “bad” or “stupid” or many of the labels that some faithful kids wind up feeling. They will grow up and have the capacity to think for themselves, and the need to figure it out and decide what they think. Our children will not be able to just drink the water, go with the flow, and never actually become believers themselves. (Or they will, but it will be more difficult because they have more choices of water flavor).
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