Turning the Bible on its Head - Newsweek Goes for Gay Marriage

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.”

Now, wait just a minute. Miller’s broadside attack on the biblical teachings on marriage goes to the heart of what will appear as her argument for same-sex marriage.  She argues that, in the Old Testament, “examples of what social conservatives call ‘the traditional family’ are scarcely to be found.”  This is true, of course, if what you mean by ‘traditional family’ is the picture of America in the 1950s.  The Old Testament notion of the family starts with the idea that the family is the carrier of covenant promises, and this family is defined, from the onset, as a transgenerational extended family of kin and kindred.

But, at the center of this extended family stands the institution of marriage as the most basic human model of covenantal love and commitment.  And this notion of marriage, deeply rooted in its procreative purpose, is unambiguously heterosexual.

As for the New Testament, “Ozzie and Harriet are nowhere” to be found.  Miller argues that both Jesus and Paul were unmarried (emphatically true) and that Jesus “preached a radical kind of family, a caring community of believers, whose bond in God superseded all blood ties.”  Jesus clearly did call for a commitment to the Gospel and to discipleship that transcended family commitments.  Given the Jewish emphasis on family loyalty and commitment, this did represent a decisive break.

But Miller also claims that “while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.”  This is just patently untrue.  Genesis 2:24-25 certainly reveals marriage to be, by the Creator’s intention, a union of one man and one woman.  To offer just one example from the teaching of Jesus, Matthew 19:1-8 makes absolutely no sense unless marriage “between one man and one woman” is understood as normative.

As for Paul, he did indeed instruct the Corinthians that the unmarried state was advantageous for the spread of the Gospel.  His concern in 1 Corinthians 7 is not to elevate singleness as a lifestyle, but to encourage as many as are able to give themselves totally to an unencumbered Gospel ministry.  But, in Corinth and throughout the New Testament church, the vast majority of Christians were married.  Paul will himself assume this when he writes the “household codes” included in other New Testament letters.

The real issue is not marriage, Miller suggests, but opposition to homosexuality.  Surprisingly, Miller argues that this prejudice against same-sex relations is really about opposition to sex between men.  She cites the Anchor Bible Dictionary as stating that “nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women.”  She would have done better to look to the Bible itself, where in Romans 1:26-27 Paul writes:  “For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Again, this passage makes absolutely no sense unless it refers very straightforwardly to same-sex relations among both men and women — with the women mentioned first.

Miller dismisses the Levitical condemnations of homosexuality as useless because “our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions.”  But she saves her most creative dismissal for the Apostle Paul.  Paul, she concedes, “was tough on homosexuality.”  Nevertheless, she takes encouragement from the fact that “progressive scholars” have found a way to re-interpret the Pauline passages to refer only to homosexual violence and promiscuity.

In this light she cites author Neil Elliott and his book, The Arrogance of Nations.  Elliott, like other “progressive scholars,” suggests that the modern notion of sexual orientation is simply missing from the biblical worldview, and thus the biblical authors are not really talking about what we know as homosexuality at all.  “Paul is not talking about what we call homosexuality at all,” as Miller quotes Elliott.

Of course, no honest reader of the biblical text will share this simplistic and backward conclusion.  Furthermore, to accept this argument is to assume that the Christian church has misunderstood the Bible from its very birth — and that we are now dependent upon contemporary “progressive scholars” to tell us what Christians throughout the centuries have missed.

Tellingly, Miller herself seems to lose confidence in this line of argument, explaining that “Paul argued more strenuously against divorce—and at least half of the Christians in America disregard that teaching.”  In other words, when the argument is failing, change the subject and just declare victory.  “Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition,” Miller simply asserts — apparently asking her readers to forget everything they have just read.

Miller picks her sources carefully.  She cites Neil Elliott but never balances his argument with credible arguments from another scholar, such as Robert Gagnon of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary [See his response to Elliott here].  Her scholarly sources are chosen so that they all offer an uncorrected affirmation of her argument.  The deck is decisively stacked.

She then moves to the claim that sexual orientation is “exactly the same thing” as skin color when it comes to discrimination.  As recent events have suggested, this claim is not seen as credible by many who have suffered discrimination on the basis of skin color.

As always, the bottom line is biblical authority.  Lisa Miller does not mince words.  “Biblical literalists will disagree,” she allows, “but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history.”  This argument means, of course, that we get to decide which truths are and are not binding on us as “we change through history.”

“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.

The national news media are collectively embarrassed by the passage of Proposition 8 in California.  Gay rights activists are publicly calling on the mainstream media to offer support for gay marriage, arguing that the media let them down in November.  It appears that Newsweek intends to do its part to press for same-sex marriage.  Many observers believe that the main obstacle to this agenda is a resolute opposition grounded in Christian conviction.  Newsweek clearly intends to reduce that opposition.

Newsweek could have offered its readers a careful and balanced review of the crucial issues related to this question.  It chose another path — and published this cover story.  The magazine’s readers and this controversial issue deserved better.

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‘There are many different versions; I don’t see why we can’t have one’

A filmmaker who recently released an independent project about a formula that turns all heterosexuals into “gays” now has announced he’s working on “The Princess Diana Bible” in which “God” ordains homosexuality as the better lifestyle.

“There are many different versions of the Bible; I don’t see why we can’t have one,” stated Max Mitchell in a statement on a website for his new project.

The “gay Bible,” produced by the New Mexico-based Revision Studios, states God instructs “it is better to be gay than straight.”

Mitchell said he developed the idea for the “Bible” from his new movie project, called “Horror in the Wind,” in which an airborne substance “reverses the world’s sexual orientation.”

He said it’s named “The Princess Diana Bible” because of Diana’s “many good works.”

The website offers a preview of the project, which is forecast to be available in 2009.

In Mitchell’s version, Genesis talks about Aida and Eve:

“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Aida, and she slept: and he took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from woman, made he another woman, and brought her unto the first. And Aida said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of me. Therefore shall a woman leave her mother, and shall cleave unto her wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ And they were both naked, the woman and her wife, and were not ashamed.”

The new version continues:

And Eve conceived, and bore Cain, and said, we have created a child in God’s image. And God said the male was different than the woman because he was fathered by the serpent. … And Eve again conceived with the serpent and bore Cain’s brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

According to the pro-homosexual website Queerty.com, Mitchell has described his work as divinely inspired.

“Jesus was gay. In Biblical times homosexual relationships were so commonplace that no one gave it a second thought. It was heterosexuality that was considered sinful,” he told the website.

On the website’s comment page, one participant said, “Aida and Eve are a breath of fresh air upon the face of repressed homosexulity (sic) in America. Finally, a version of the bible everyone can relate to.”

At Belieftnet.com, a commentator expressed opposition to the project.

“Every once in a while, art doesn’t transcend truth as much as it distorts it, and that’s where I draw the line. Hence my opposition to the upcoming ‘Princess Diana Bible.’

“This book is inspired by a political agenda and one person’s desire to contort not only the text but the very context of it to suit his own perspective. That, you may say, is what commentators do – and perhaps even translators – but this guy is making himself an ‘author,’ which makes it a book, not a Bible,” the commentator wrote.

From World Net Daily News

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop a suburban Atlanta county from opening its meetings with prayers that mention “Jesus” or other “sectarian” references, claiming the invocations represent government favoritism of Christianity.

The three-judge panel of the court, however, was immediately skeptical of how the ACLU expected prayers to be crafted without appering to favor one religion over another.

“What about King of Kings?” Judge Bill Pryor asked ACLU lawyer Daniel Mach in the case’s hearing last week. “Is that sectarian?”

“What about Lord of Lords?” Pryor persisted, interrupting the ACLU lawyer’s arguments. “The God of Abraham? … What about the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad?”

Judge Charles Wilson wondered just how far Mach was suggesting the county go in editing people’s prayers.

“As a practical matter, how do you draw the line?” Wilson asked.

He also asked what steps the ACLU suggested the Cobb County, Ga., board of commissioners take before its regulation became “some sort of censorship” or “just government prayer.”

At one point in the hearing, ACLU attorney Mach pointed out that the invitations Cobb County sends to guest clergy already ask that the prayers not proselytize or disparage other religions. According to the Associated Press, Mach suggested that the invitations simply be amended to ask the clergy to refrain from invoking “religious messages” at all.

Cobb County attorney David Walbert countered that such restrictions would make it a “virtual impossibility” for clergy to draft any kind of meaningful prayer.

Liberty Legal Institute Chief Counsel Kelly Shackleford was indignant about the ACLU asking clergy to pray without “invoking religious messages.”

“I think this is really where you pull the cover off and see what you’re really looking at with the ACLU,” Shackelford told OneNewsNow. “This is religious bigotry; it’s anti-free speech; it’s everything that they’re supposed to be against.”

“The government really has no business telling anybody how they should or should not pray,” Shackelford said. “And the fact that the ACLU is trying to use the power of government to tell people how to pray is just an incredible invasion of freedom, and (it) shows that they are not about freedom and liberty at all. They’re about oppression and trying to stamp out religious speech.”

The ACLU, together with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, are arguing on behalf of seven individuals who filed suit in 2005 challenging the “sectarian” nature of Cobb County’s invocations, claiming 70 percent of the prayers were Christian or mentioned Jesus Christ.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Richard Story ruled the prayers could continue and said that because the county invites clergy from all denominations, the practice doesn’t constitute endorsement of one religion over another.

Story did, however, criticize the county’s practice of selecting its invited clergy by merely thumbing through a phone book and awarded $1 to each of the seven plaintiffs.

The ACLU then appealed the case to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, ALCU attorney Mach argued that federal appeals courts in Richmond, New Orleans, Chicago and San Francisco already have ruled sectarian invocations at government meetings violate the First Amendment.

Cobb County attorney Walbert, however, disagreed with the argument, saying that the U.S. Congress has opened its sessions with sectarian prayers since the appointment of the first Senate chaplain.

“Everything that is at issue here was clearly being done in 1789,” Walbert said.

The AP reported Judge Pryor also questioned the reasoning, pointing out that even the Supreme Court opens its session with a prayer that could be called sectarian: “God save the United States and this honorable court.”

With arguments concluding last week, the court is expected to rule on the case sometime in the coming months.

Atheists abandon attempt to ban baptisms

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

An atheism-promoting organization has withdrawn its lawsuit demanding Christian baptisms of children be banned in Italy after a U.S.-based legal team took on the defense of a bishop and the Roman Catholic Church there.

“This was a preposterous lawsuit, and we are pleased that it has been dropped,” said Joseph Infranco, a senior counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.

However, he said, “Americans should be aware that such lawsuits may seem far-fetched, but they really are happening … and foreign legal decisions are increasingly cited in American courts.”

The ADF stepped into the battle when the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics filed a lawsuit seeking an end to all baptisms of children in Italy. The organization alleged the practice encroached on its religious freedom and violated Italian Constitutional Court precedents regarding free will and personal privacy in religious decisions.

The organization alleged the law does not allow parents to enroll their children in certain groups such as trade unions, therefore, the law also “does not allow, as well, that the parents may decide their children become members of a religious association.”

The Alliance Defense Fund reported the plaintiff in the case was demanding that his name be erased from a baptism registry in what was described as a type of “debaptism.”

But the petition was withdrawn just before a court hearing was to take place.

Gianfranco Amato, an ADF-allied attorney, said the plaintiff became convinced that the nation’s legal precedents would not support such demands.

“It’s unthinkable to ask the government to force the church to abandon one of its sacraments to appease a radical, anti-religious agenda, yet that’s what this activist group did,” said Amato.

“According to Italian law, the demand to remove a name from the register must be made by an individual with a personal interest, rather than by a private association such as the UAAR,” said Amato. “Also, it was easy to demonstrate that the group had no legal leg on which to stand.”

Infranco said, “All parents have the right to raise their children in their religious tradition, which obviously includes participation in the historic rituals associated with that religion.”

The website for the atheist organization is in Italian, but an English translation describes the group as being based on the values of human rights, democracy, pluralism, equality and individuality.

The website has been highlighted among a listing of resources on the website of prominent atheist Richard Dawkins.