What Is “Holiness”?

One of my recent blogs under the title of “Communication Breakdown”—which became a series of three—drew attention to popular Christianity’s tendency to place undue reliance on a set of traditional religious words and phrases, assuming they will make sense to people today, when the reality is that they typically don’t. I am not suggesting these words and phrases have no value; not at all—theologians use them all the time (though typically they explain them, whereas popular Christianity tends not to). The underlying problem is that all words are simply tools—“signposts” for us to use in communication. They’re our servants, not our masters. We’re under no compulsion to use any word—not even a “biblical” word—unless it continues to serve us well in what it’s signposting people to.

That recent series was asking whether we give enough thought to whether the customary set of religious words and phrases that is deployed Sunday-to-Sunday is signposting meaningfully in a “post-Christian” world where the vocabulary isn’t taught anymore.

What gives a word its value is not whether it’s found in the Bible, or in Statements of Faith, but whether it’s effective in signposting something—some truth—to the hearer. I should slightly clarify that—I’m talking about English words in English Bible translations, and we know that words change their meanings over time. Not necessarily in an Oxford Dictionary technical sense, but in the popular sense—the popular perceptions—of what those words mean (what they’re “saying”).

To be clear, I am not poo-pooing the truths that the words are pointing to. I’m complaining about Christian laziness (or perhaps it’s simply an inability) in “translating” traditional religious words into language and concepts  that will make sense for ordinary people today, such that they can say “I get that. That makes sense”—which is surely the goal of all communication. If we want to be missional, rather than just tickle the ears of a core religious audience (many of whom don’t actually understand their meaning either, if truth be told), it’s essential.    

We are not compelled to use these traditional words even if they are “biblical.” Perhaps the fact they’re in the Bible (or rather, they’re in our English translations of the Bible—always keep that distinction in mind) gives us the excuse to be lazy, or at least, misleads us into thinking we’re not allowed to change them. Certainly, older church members may well expect to hear them, to be comforted that the preacher is indeed preaching “biblical truth.” But what’s important is what’s being signposted, not the signpost itself. On a car journey, we follow signs along the way, but we know full well that the signposts are not the destination.   

One such word that we have not previously addressed is “holiness.” It’s worthy of an article of its own not just because of its self-evident credentials as both religious and obscure, but more importantly, because it’s been badly deployed in popular evangelicalism. Even “biblical” words can be harmful if they’re wrongly understood and wrongly used. Biblical words are a particular problem because of the clear implication that the way the person is interpreting and applying them has the authority of God himself behind it. This is what we call “weaponizing” texts.  

Blogs always need to generalise to some extent (they’re not book-length, after all) but I have found an increasing tendency for conservative evangelicals to deploy “holiness” as a synonym for “purity.” By “purity,” they mean “sexual purity” and almost always they’re applying it disproportionately to homosexual people. (Google “purity culture” and you’ll see where UK evangelicals are getting it from). Whatever one thinks of the underlying question of same-sex relationships, there seems to be a clear difference in the standards applied to homosexual people compared to those expected (or tolerated . . . which is the “elephant in the room” for evangelical purity culture) in equivalent heterosexual contexts. I think this is because of a combination of a fear of corrupting a pure church and the need to be seen to be upholding traditional morality—not letting the evangelical side down in its resistance to the “spirit of the age.” Homosexual people then become the line in the sand that must not be crossed for fear of opening the floodgates to further moral decline, against which evangelicalism feels it’s fighting a culture war (in some senses it should be; I’m just not convinced it’s always picking the right targets and going about it in the right ways).    

In its biblical usage, holiness appears in a wide range of contexts, principally referencing God, but also people, things, and even places. Holiness can be an inherent attribute (“is” holy) or it can be achieved through ritual means (ceremonially “made” holy). It’s closely connected with notions of “clean” versus “unclean,” which have nothing to do with “being dirty” in any literal sense. For example, in Levitical law, certain animals were considered “clean” and others “unclean” but the categorisation is apparently quite random. The lists included mammals, fish, birds and insects, wooden articles, clothes, skins and sacks, and male and female biological emissions. None of those “biblical” meanings have any comparable meaning for us as Christians today.

In short, the biblical meanings and applications of the word are wide-ranging. If you want to know more, look at “Holiness” in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, volume 3, pp.237-56, and “Clean and Unclean” (a cross-reference from “Holiness”) in The IVP Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, pp. 142-49.

Now here’s a big problem (well, I think it’s a big problem, at least). Because “holiness” is so often used in Scripture alongside  “pure” versus “impure,” and “clean” versus “unclean,” when conservative evangelicals deploy the word in the context of human sexuality it will likely come across as a contrast between impure/unclean = homosexuals (bad) and pure/clean = heterosexuals (good). Or at least, a contrast between homosexuals who are single and celibate, who can be tolerated, and homosexuals who are not, and can’t. I do wonder whether conveying that impression is deliberate. If so, it’s extremely unkind. Whatever one thinks of same-sex relationships, we need to do much better than just throwing the word “holiness” around, with those implications. Surely those who choose to use it in that way must be aware of that. One evangelical organisation is fond of the phrase “radical holiness.“ What that means is anyone’s guess (there’s no biblical equivalent). Sounds good as a sermon soundbite, I suppose. 

Sidebar: There can be an assumption by older conservative evangelicals (the ones who tend to have the most influence, aka, the most money, and the most prominent voices) that homosexuals (in no particular order) pose an inherent safeguarding risk, practice promiscuity, and will proselytise our children in LGBTQ ideology. But this is plain and simple prejudice speaking. Whenever I’m writing or speaking about our expectations of homosexual people, I intend them to be no different from those applied to heterosexual people; for example, that sexual expression should be in a faithful, monogamous, formally-committed covenantal relationship. Yet I see evangelicalism policing that with far more rigour in relation to homosexual people than heterosexuals.        

The core meaning of the word holiness in its biblical application is “set apart-ness.” God is holy because he is set apart from an unholy world. We are called to be holy in the same way. 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world.” Another word for “set apart-ness” would be “dedication.” It has to do with aligning ourselves with God and his ways rather than the world and its ways. Intrinsically, the word holiness is not targeting homosexuality, unless, of course, we have already decided that it is, so we read that in. 

In the New Testament, God’s name is holy, John the Baptist is holy, the Old Testament prophets are holy, the (old) covenant is holy, the law is holy, offering our bodies as a living sacrifice is holy (Romans 12:1), a brotherly kiss is holy, a believing spouse leads to that couple’s children being holy (rather than unclean), and in the epistles the people in the churches being written to are frequently addressed as God’s holy people—people who have been made holy and who are being made holy. We are called to live a holy life and to pray lifting holy hands. Peter quotes from Leviticus, “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). In short, throughout the Bible, holiness does not exclude sexual ethics, but it’s very far removed from primarily defining it, and especially when it’s singled out to be applied to homosexual people.

It's strange how conservative evangelicalism seems to have a disproportionate focus on sexual ethics relative to all other ethical concerns, and a disproportionate focus on homosexuality within that. I wonder why that might be. Might cultural conservatism be as much the reason as biblical conservatism? This is not to say (please don’t critique me for thinking I’m saying) that sexual ethics are unimportant. Not at all. All ethical concerns are important; I’m just not sure that all those that are most prominent on God’s radar—that are most important to him—are as prominent on some Christians’ radar. Our goal as Christians should surely be to get our order of priority and relative weighting in line with his, and then prioritise that in what we say and do.