Deuteronomy 23:12-14

“You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it.  And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement.  Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you. (ESV)

One thing that seems to come up so much in recent times is how we look at God in the Old Testament, and how we determine if something is moral for us today. I hear Christians sharing Antebellum thoughts such as “While I agree slavery is unpleasant, it can’t REALLY be wrong since God allowed Israel to do this.” Or, “Well, polygamy should not be rejected out of hand since many of the Biblical patriarchs were in polygamous marriages.” Similar statements for other things like rejecting racially mixed marriages or supporting (even genocidal) war.

To explore such questions, one needs to do better than Verse Dropping. We need to explore bring in a bit of theology. To do that I am bringing in a test case— where does one “go to the bathroom” according to “The Law.” I am going to ignore the fact that as Christians we are not bound by the Mosaic Law. The reason for doing this is that I am trying to make my case stronger. In other words, if my argument is strong with us under the Mosaic Law, it is that much stronger if we are not.

I am going to explore three theological perspectives regarding the passage above.

Perspective #1. God does not change, and culture does not matter. If God does not change, then His command in Deuteronomy remains valid; and if culture does not matter, then the fact that things have changed in the world has no relevance. We are bound to this law in detail. We must walk outside the camp with a trowel to defecate. And if we don’t live in a camp— well, maybe we SHOULD live in a camp. If you think restrooms, bathrooms, comfort rooms, water closets, loos, lavatories and the like are a good thing, you will probably struggle with this interpretation.

Perspective #2. God Changes. This bit of Process Theology may clean up things a bit, but a majority of Christians would reject this out of hand. We want to rely on God, and it is hard to see God as reliable if He changes His mind, plans, purposes, and (maybe) promises.

If you are comfortable with either of the above perspectives, that is fine. But for me, I must move on.

Perspective #3.  God does not Change, but Culture Does Matter. God’s desires and purposes do not change, and neither does His character and will. However, because we as humans are constantly changing— particularly in terms of culture— God’s will will be expressed to us differently depending on the culture.

So take this passage in Deuteronomy. God says that when one needs to “use the bathroom,” one is to walk out of the encampment to a designated area with a trowel. One should make a hole in the ground, do one’s business, and then cover over the hole.

But we don’t live in a mobile encampment. Most of us have permanent or semi-permanent structures where we live in, and are part of broader communities that have infrastructure for dealing with bodily waste in ways that are hygienic. Do we have a problem here? Well (again not pulling the “New Covenant” card out of the pile at this point) I don’t believe we are. The law in its most specific form only really made sense for the Israelites in their wanderings from Egypt to Canaan. Perhaps one could include camping in a more general sense, or trade caravans. But for those who have settled down and built infrastructure, some of that infrastructure can be used to take care of human waste in a better way than simply “dig a hole.”

How do we know this? There are at least a couple of ways. The command was only (if one is very technical) about those who live in a camp, but the broader Scripture (and more to the point, Deuteronomy) was written on the assumption that their cultural situation would change greatly. They were supposed to move into Canaan and settle down. There was nothing implied, then, in this law to keep them from cultural adaptation.

We today may say, “Well, obviously, having a latrine meets this requirement. Having a septic tank or regional sewer system works fine.” But what if waste disposal were not the key concern for God? Fortunately, the particular passage clarifies this. God was not interested in the Israelites getting the Israelites to have a good daily walkabout. God is not interested in mandating trowel usage or hole digging. The passage made it clear that it was a matter of purity. God did not want “uncleanness” in the camp. It may not be clear whether the point is symbolic purity, or good hygiene. Nevertheless, the key point is that human excrement should be managed far from where the people eat, sleep, and live their lives.

Therefore, having a latrine (outhouse) that is away from one’s residence meets this requirement. The same could probably be said of a septic tank with a leach field, and most certainly of a community septic waste system.

You may say that this is pretty obvious, and I would agree. But there is a bit of a principle here that is pretty profound.

Let’s take this to childcare. Suppose a child back in the 1400s (AD) was sick. Perhaps the parents may go to the local healer (or barber, hexenmeister, herbalist or whatever) and have leeches applied to draw out bad humours, or given an amulet to wear to drive away curses. We may say that this child has great loving parents. Now, suppose it is 2000AD and some parents in a developed country did the same thing. We may suggest that this is child abuse. Not only that, but we may suspect that God would very much affirm that assessment. Why? Because our knowledge of illness, and ways of diagnosing and treating has changed so much that truly caring for one’s child looks different today than it did 600 years ago.

Let’s take it to polygamy. It is pretty clear (I feel this is a pretty fair assessment although some would not agree) that the Bible idealizes monogamy and a family structure based on husband with one and only one wife. At the same time, it is pretty clear that polygamy happened in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, and was not directly condemned (although it seems to almost always be portrayed in terms of strife). Should we see this permission of polygamy as a universal acceptance of the practice by God? Perhaps, but perhaps not. What would be an argument that things have changed between 1500BC Middle East, and 21st Century Fairfax, Virginia (for example)? 1500BC there was likely, due to clan wars and blood feuds, a shortage of men. We see this in the Book of Judges where a high percentage of the males in the Tribe of Benjamin were killed. In a culture that is built around families and clans, if in society there are, for example, four women for every three men (it is understandable that social harmony would be established if a few men have a second wife. If the societal imperative was for pretty much every male and female is married within that structure (Yes… I am presuming heterosexual marriage here), then moving to today, then for everyone to be married in the group of 40 women and 30 men, there would be 20 men with one wife and 10 men with two. In a band-based society that is not unrealistic. However, in Virginia today, the population is 49.2% male and 50.8% female. There is no real demographic need for polygamy. In fact, polygamy (or technically polygeny) could result in disruptions with a lot of men without a mate.

The point is that, God has a guidelines, but these guidelines may look different filtered through different cultures. Slavery may exist in the Old Testament but does that mean that God smiles on the practice forever? There was no real economic system to replace the slave system 3000 years ago. As such, God’s guidance involved limiting the abuse of that system. Today in a capitalist system (with all of its benefits and problems) God’s message seems to minimize abuses in that system.

Recognizing the importance of culture does not negate God’s word. Rather, it challenges each culture in unique ways.