Good morning, fellow shepherds. If you stood in a grocery store line this week, you've no doubt already been treated to an eyeful of the big debate being discussed this week among religious Americans: the cover issue of Newsweek entitled "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage". There in the checkout stand news racks in all its glory is the latest and boldest example yet of a secular world's approach to the Biblical arguments against gay marriage.
The article, written by Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller, is alternately uninformed, inconsistent, evasive, and ultimately simply dismissive of the great and sweeping Biblical arguments for traditional marriage. It is, in the end, nothing more than a clear example of the postmodern mind's flair for ending all arguments by simply stating "You're just not mature enough to see the whole picture". Nevertheless, Newsweek's analysis of the Bible's case for traditional marriage is now part of the current popular conversation. If it doesn't crop up in your church this week, it certainly will pop up in the days to come.
So what is your response when something like this comes into the media mainstream? I hope you'll take time to apply your Biblical grid of thinking to this latest assault on conservative values and be ready to interact with your people about it when it rises in conversation. To that end, I'd like to share several talking points I have formed concerning the article. I hope to use them in a conversation with anyone who asks me "Pastor, were you a little bit bothered by the Newsweek article? I felt my faith shaken a little bit. Can you help me?" Here we go.
The Elephant in the Room...
Miller spends a large part of her article deriding the Old Testament as having "Few examples of what social conservatives call the traditional family". Instead, she says, the older Testament is rife with incidences of polygamy, extramarital sex and other behaviors that break the traditional marriage model. But she fails to see something critical here: the presence of a behavior in the Bible does not imply the propriety of the behavior. One of the reasons we know that the Bible is the Word of God is because it is absolutely honest about both the deeds and the misdeeds of its characters. Furthermore, God Himself as the Author of the Book consistently reveals the various marital misbehaviors in the Old Testament record as a failure of his ultimate standard: faithful heterosexual monogamy. That's the elephant in the room that Miller fails to acknowledge; from the beginning, a man was to cleave to his wife in faithfulness. (Genesis 2:24ff ) The varied failures of some Old Testament figures to be sexually faithful don't belie the existence of a heterosexual standard for marriage, but they rather reveal it as a divine ideal, albeit one that was often poorly approached in everyday life. But it is an ideal that is clearly portrayed in the older Testament nonetheless.
Say It Ain't So...
Miller also trots out to a gullible readership many of the standard pro-homosexual interpretations of Scripture that are always put forth by the theological left. However, to anyone who has studied these tired old approaches of playing "Biblical dodge ball" with the clear texts that stand in condemnation of same-sex behavior, the arguments Miller cites have long since been discredited by able Bible scholars.
For example, she argues that while the Bible might have some problems with sex between men, it is silent and therefore consenting about sex between women. A simple reading of Romans 1: 26ff in any translation debunks that hypothesis. Another example is her repetition of liberal theology's contention that the Levitical condemnations of homosexuality are pointless because "Our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions." In other words, when the clear interpretation of the Scripture destroys your position, flee to the false citadel of a "changing culture" to support your views. I trust you can see the evident weakness in that approach.
She also predictably floats a favorite opinion of gay theologians that while the Bible does seem to condemn certain acts of homosexuality in Leviticus and in First Corinthians, these were only commands against acts of homosexual violence, and don't apply to loving homosexual relationships. What she doesn't mention is that recent conservative responses to these hollow arguments have forced even the gay authors of these views to admit that they have forced meanings into Scripture that are not only not there but that are also directly refuted by the meanings of the original languages.
In summary, it really isn't tenable for same-sex marriage proponents to try and explain away the clear condemnations of homosexual activity in either Testament, because the original language is clear and the interpretation is undeniable. Indeed, clear opposition to homosexual behavior has been the norm across the orthodox church for 2000 years precisely because the Biblical record is that undeniably clear.
The only position that someone like Miller is really left with is to deny the validity of the entire Bible itself. Interestingly, this is where she ultimately takes her argument.
The Bible for Grown-Ups...
While following a pathway of faulty logic and disproved scholarship through most of her piece, Miller essentially frames her point of view by stating that truly enlightened people don't take the Bible literally or seriously anyway; therefore, the literal meanings of the Bible can be discarded. She writes, "Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document.... A mature view of Scriptural authority requires us to move beyond literalism... The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own it's impossible to apply its rules at face value to ours."
In other words, Newsweek's Miller seems to say that when the Bible says things that don't offend her worldview or her morals, she welcomes it's literary grandeur; but when it confronts her behaviors, she prefers to call it wooden headed and archaic.
I seem to recall that Jesus told a parable about such people once. "But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call out to the other children, and say, "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn." For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say "He has a demon!" The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say "Behold a gluttonous man and a drunkard!" Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." Matthew 11:16ff
Wisdom really is vindicated by her deeds, especially when it comes to the self-serving arguments of an indulgent culture. Confidently demanding to have it both ways is, according to Jesus, the pathetic ethical behavior of a society that has not yet reached moral puberty. I fear we're facing such a "marketplace of children" in our current public debate over morality. Miller's Newsweek article is simply the latest example of this.
But I'll keep preaching anyway, and so, I trust, will you. For here we stand. We can do no other...for the Bible tells us so.
Keeping the faith with you,
Joe Pursch