Newsweek Goes for Gay Marriage
Genesis certainly reveals marriage to be, by the Creator's intention, a union of one man and one woman. Turning the Bible on its Head: Newsweek Goes for Gay Marriage by Dr. Albert Mohler: Newsweek magazine, one of the most influential news magazines in America, has decided to come out for same-sex marriage in a big way, and to do so by means of a biblical and theological argument. In its cover story for this week, "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage," Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller offers a revisionist argument for the acceptance of same-sex marriage. It is fair to say that Newsweek has gone for broke on this question.Miller begins with a lengthy dismissal of the Bible's relevance to the question of marriage in the first place. "Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does," Miller suggests. If so, she argues that readers will find a confusion of polygamy, strange marital practices, and worse. She concludes: "Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?" She answers, "Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so." . . .
"A mature view of scriptural authority requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism," she asserts. "The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it's impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours." All this comes together when Miller writes, "We cannot look to the Bible as a marriage manual, but we can read it for universal truths as we struggle toward a more just future." At this point the authority of the Bible is reduced to whatever "universal truths" we can distill from its (supposed) horrifyingly backward and oppressive texts.
Even as she attempts to make her "religious case" for gay marriage, Miller has to acknowledge that "very few Jewish or Christian denominations do officially endorse gay marriage, even in the states where it is legal." Her argument now grinds to a conclusion with her hope that this will change. But -- and this is a crucial point -- if her argument had adequate traction, she wouldn't have to make it. It is not a thin extreme of fundamentalist Christians who stand opposed to same-sex marriage -- it is the vast majority of Christian churches and denominations worldwide.
Disappointingly, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham offers an editorial note that broadens Newsweek's responsibility for this atrocity of an article and reveals even more of the agenda: "No matter what one thinks about gay rights—for, against or somewhere in between — this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism," Meacham writes. "Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt—it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition."
Well, that statement sets the issue clearly before us. He insists that "to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt." No serious student of the Bible can deny the challenge of responsible biblical interpretation, but the purpose of legitimate biblical interpretation is to determine, as faithfully as possible, what the Bible actually teaches -- and then to accept, teach, apply, and obey. . . . Read Full Article. Dr. Albert Mohler is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a member of the Focus on the Family Board of Directors.
Tags: Albert Moler, Bible, gay agenda, gay marriage, liberalism, Newsweek, Southern Baptists To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Posted by Bill Smith at 7:28 PM - Post Link
2 Comments:
I am profoundly grateful to Miller for her well-reasoned, carefully thought-out analysis of this contentious social issue.
Miller makes a point that many activists seeking equality for gay persons have been making for decades now: simply stated, the prohibitions against gay sex in Leviticus are lumped together with prohibitions against a range of human behaviors that are not considered by persons living in the US today to be immoral, illegal, or even worthy of comment. Many people eat cheeseburgers; many people eat lobster; many people eat pork; many people eat bacon; many men shave their sideburns; and many people work on Sundays (to list just a few prohibited acts, some of which are referred to as "abominations").
Conversely, most persons living in the US today discount or entirely ignore many of the prescribed, affirmative commandments: nobody stones rebellious children to death; nobody stones adulterers to death; nobody stones gay persons to death; nobody sacrifices bulls on altars; nobody executes prostitutes; and many uncircumcised men choose to remain uncircumcised (to list just a few prescribed acts that are routinely ignored).
Yet social conservatives continue to cite Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 as authority for societal disapproval of homosexuality, not even mentioning the fact that Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 are both entirely silent with respect to the issue of lesbian sex, making reference only to male homosexuality.
These selective references only to those biblical passages that support their moral and social agenda represent a betrayal of principle on the part of social conservatives, who pick and choose which biblical passages to apply and which ones to ignore. Miller exposes the duplicity and moral hypocrisy of this cafeteria-style morality -- in so doing, she incurs the wrath of religious conservatives and right-wing fanatics who, embarrassed by this exposure, resort to angry bluster, protestations, and invective born of righteous indignation.
Miller is also entirely correct in observing that gay persons were not recognized as a distinct class when the numerous books comprising "The Bible" were written, many thousands of years ago. This is consistent with the findings of modern sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, all of which disciplines recognize that the concept of homosexual identity (as opposed to behavior) was only recognized very recently (in the early 20th century). Prior to this recognition, gay sexual behavior was considered to be "immoral" behavior engaged in by persons who were essentially heterosexual; and many societies punished gay persons for overt expression of their sexual orientation. This is consistent with the language of Romans 1:26-27, which makes reference to men who, "leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one towards another" and which also makes reference to women ("...God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature."). What is noteworthy about these passages is that they presuppose that the persons referenced were intrinsically heterosexual, but "changed" and expressed homosexual behavior. Those activists for gay equality who take these passages seriously have interpreted them as describing heterosexuals who experiment with homosexuality, as opposed to persons who are intrinsically gay and who have always remained true to their sexual orientation.
Religion has been wielded as a mace, to maintain the status quo and to justify slavery, the subjugation of women, and the existence of harsh and oppressive legislation. I was born and raised in South Africa, where Christianity was used by the South African branches of the Dutch Reformed Church (both the “Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk” (NGK) and the “Nederduitse Hervormde Kerk” (NHK)) to justify the abomination known to the world as “apartheid.” I naively believed that Americans meant what they said when they made reference to such concepts as equal justice under law. I believed in the concept of all persons being equal.
I was young then. I have since grown up.
I hope, sincerely, that Miller's essay will form the basis for a better understanding of what it means to be a gay person in the US at the beginning of the 21st century. I am an optimist, and I believe that gay Americans will prevail and that justice will be done.
However, I fear that this will be despite religious beliefs, not because of them.
PHILIP CHANDLER
Memo to Newsweek: Give the Real Bible Equal Time
Newsweek magazine effectively declared war on marriage this week, running a long essay on "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage" as their cover story. In the wake of the victory of California's marriage amendment (Proposition 8) on Election Day, homosexual marriage advocates are realize that their opponents are not going to fade away or compromise their convictions. Not content any longer to make a "separation of church and state" argument for same-sex "marriage," they are instead mounting a direct attack on Christian opposition to homosexual conduct and to same-sex "marriage" on biblical grounds.
There was little that was original about the essay. It strung together a lot of talking points that have wafted about the homosexual movement for years. What was astonishing was that the author (Newsweek's religion editor Lisa Miller) not only tried to explain away the Bible's condemnation of homosexual conduct, but actually claimed that "Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married-and a number of excellent reasons why they should."
The article included blatant factual errors, such as the claim that Jesus never "explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman" (see, e.g., Mark 10:6-8-"But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh."), and the claim that "nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women" (see Romans 1:26). It also had logical contradictions, arguing for the Bible's support of "gay marriage" while simultaneously dismissing the Bible as supportive of slavery and anti-Semitism.
If homosexual activists want to simply ignore the Bible, they are free to do so. If they are going to blatantly distort its teachings, Newsweek should not help them do so.
Email Newsweek today and demand that the magazine print an accurate article presenting the Bible's true teaching about homosexual conduct and same-sex "marriage"-one equal in length to the Miller piece (which was over 2,700 words) and also run as the cover story.
Click to to email Newsweek editor Jon Meacham.
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