Posted on 04/24/2014 6:06:22 AM PDT by xzins
Evangelical Christians in the United States now face an inevitable moment of decision. While Christians in other movements and in other nations face similar questions, the question of homosexuality now presents evangelicals in the United States with a decision that cannot be avoided. Within a very short time, we will know where everyone stands on this question. There will be no place to hide, and there will be no way to remain silent. To be silent will answer the question.
The question is whether evangelicals will remain true to the teachings of Scripture and the unbroken teaching of the Christian church for over two thousand years on the morality of same-sex acts and the institution of marriage.
The world is pressing this question upon us, but so are a number of voices from within the larger evangelical circle — voices that are calling for a radical revision of the church’s understanding of the Bible, sexual morality, and the meaning of marriage. We are living in the midst of a massive revolution in morality, and sexual morality is at the center of this revolution. But the question of same-sex relationships and sexuality is at the very center of the debate over sexual morality, and our answer to this question will both determine or reveal what we understand about everything the Bible reveals and everything the church teaches — even the gospel itself.
Others are watching, and they see the moment of decision at hand. Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford University has remarked that “it is clear to an observer like me that evangelical Christianity is at a crossroad.” What is that crossroad? “The question of whether gay Christians should be married within the church.” Journalist Terry Mattingly sees the same issue looming on the evangelical horizon — “There is no way to avoid the showdown that is coming.”
Into this context now comes God and the Gay Christian, a book by Matthew Vines. Just a couple of years ago Vines made waves with the video of a lecture in which he attempted to argue that being a gay Christian in a committed same-sex relationship (and eventual marriage) is compatible with biblical Christianity. His video went viral. Even though Matthew Vines did not make new arguments, the young Harvard student synthesized arguments made by revisionist Bible scholars and presented a very winsome case for overthrowing the church’s moral teachings on same-sex relationships.
His new book flows from that startling ambition — to overthrow two millennia of Christian moral wisdom and biblical understanding.
Given the audacity of that ambition, why does this book deserve close attention? The most important reason lies outside the book itself. There are a great host of people, considered to be within the larger evangelical movement, who are desperately seeking a way to make peace with the moral revolution and endorse the acceptance of openly-gay individuals and couples within the life of the church. Given the excruciating pressures now exerted on evangelical Christianity, many people — including some high-profile leaders — are desperately seeking an argument they can claim as both persuasive and biblical. The seams in the evangelical fabric are beginning to break and Matthew Vines now comes along with a book that he claims will make the argument so many have been seeking.
In God and the Gay Christian Vines argues that “Christians who affirm the full authority of Scripture can also affirm committed, monogamous same-sex relationships.” He announces that, once his argument is accepted: “The fiercest objections to LGBT equality — those based on religious beliefs — can begin to fall away. The tremendous pain endured by LGBT youth in many Christian homes can become a relic of the past. Christianity’s reputation in much of the Western world can begin to rebound. Together we can reclaim our light” (3).
That promise drives Vines’s work from beginning to end. He identifies himself as both gay and Christian and claims to hold to a “high view” of the Bible. “That means,” he says, “I believe all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life” (2).
Well, that is exactly what we would hope for a Christian believer to say about the Bible. And who could fault the ambition of any young and thoughtful Christian who seeks to recover the reputation of Christianity in the Western world. If Matthew Vines were to be truly successful in simultaneously making his case and remaining true to the Scriptures, we would indeed have to overturn two thousand years of the church’s teaching on sex and marriage and apologize for the horrible embarrassment of being wrong for so long.
Readers of his book who are looking for an off-ramp from the current cultural predicament will no doubt try to accept his argument. But the real question is whether what Vines claims is true and faithful to the Bible as the Word of God. But his argument is neither true nor faithful to Scripture. It is, nonetheless, a prototype of the kind of argument we can now expect.
What Does the Bible Really Say?
The most important sections of Vines’s book deal with the Bible itself and with what he identifies as the six passages in the Bible that “have stood in the way of countless gay people who long for acceptance from their Christian parents, friends, and churches” (11). Those six passages (Genesis 19:5; Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; and 1 Timothy 1:10) are indeed key and crucial passages for understanding God’s expressed and revealed message on the question of same-sex acts, desires, and relationships, but they are hardly the whole story.
The most radical proposal Vines actually makes is to sever each of these passages from the flow of the biblical narrative and the Bible’s most fundamental revelation about what it means to be human, both male and female. He does not do this merely by omission, but by the explicit argument that the church has misunderstood the doctrine of creation as much as the question of human sexuality. He specifically seeks to argue that the basic sexual complementarity of the human male and the female — each made in God’s image — is neither essential to Genesis chapters 1 and 2 or to any biblical text that follows.
In other words, he argues that same-sex sexuality can be part of the goodness of God’s original creation, and that when God declared that it is not good for man to be alone, the answer to man’s isolation could be a sexual relationship with someone of either sex. But that massive misrepresentation of Genesis 1 and 2 — a misinterpretation with virtually unlimited theological consequences — actually becomes Vines’s way of relativizing the meaning of the six passages he primarily considers.
His main argument is that the Bible simply has no category of sexual orientation. Thus, when the Bible condemns same-sex acts, it is actually condemning “sexual excess,” hierarchy, oppression, or abuse — not the possibility of permanent, monogamous, same-sex unions.
In addressing the passages in Genesis and Leviticus, Vines argues that the sin of Sodom was primarily inhospitality, not same-sex love or sexuality. The law of Moses condemns same-sex acts in so far as they violate social status or a holiness code, not in and of themselves, he asserts. His argument with regard to Leviticus is especially contorted, since he has to argue that the text’s explicit condemnation of male-male intercourse as an abomination is neither categorical or related to sinfulness. He allows that “abomination is a negative word,” but insists that “it doesn’t necessarily correspond to Christian views of sin” (85).
Finally, he argues that, even if the Levitical condemnations are categorical, this would not mean that the law remains binding on believers today.
In dealing with the most significant single passage in the Bible on same-sex acts and desire, Romans 1:26-27, Vines actually argues that the passage “is not of central importance to Paul’s message in Romans.” Instead, Vines argues that the passage is used by Paul only as “a brief example to drive home a point he was making about idolatry.” Nevertheless, Paul’s words on same-sex acts are, he admits, “starkly negative” (96).
“There is no question that Romans 1:26-27 is the most significant biblical passage in this debate,” Vines acknowledges (96). In order to relativize it, he makes this case: “Paul’s description of same-sex behavior in this passage is indisputably negative. But he also explicitly described the behavior he condemned as lustful. He made no mention of love, fidelity, monogamy, or commitment. So how should we understand Paul’s words? Do they apply to all same-sex relationships? Or only to lustful, fleeting ones?” (99).
In asking these questions, Vines makes his case that Paul is merely ignorant of the reality of sexual orientation. He had no idea that some people are naturally attracted to people of the same sex. Therefore, Paul misunderstands what today would be considered culturally normative in many highly-developed nations — that some persons are naturally attracted to others of the same sex and it would be therefore “unnatural” for them to be attracted sexually to anyone else.
Astonishingly, Vines then argues that the very notion of “against nature” as used by Paul in Romans 1 is tied to patriarchy, not sexual complementarity. Same-sex relationships, Vines argues, “disrupted a social order that required a strict hierarchy between the sexes” (109).
But to get anywhere near to Vines’s argument one has to sever Romans 1 from any natural reading of the text, from the flow of the Bible’s message from Genesis 1 forward, from the basic structure of sexual complementarity, and from the church’s faithful reading of the Bible for two millennia. Furthermore, his argument provides direct evidence of that Paul warns of in this very chapter, “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).
Finally, the actual language of Romans 1, specifically dealing with male same-sex desire, speaks of “men consumed with passion for one another” (Romans 1:27). This directly contradicts Vines’s claim that only oppressive, pederastic, or socially mixed same-sex acts are condemned. Paul describes men consumed with passion for one another — not merely the abuse of the powerless by the powerful. In other words, in Romans 1:26-27 Paul condemns same-sex acts by both men and women, and he condemns the sexual desires described as unnatural passions as well.
In his attempt to relativize 1 Corinthians 6: 9, Vines actually undermines more of his argument. Paul’s careful use of language (perhaps even inventing a term by combining two words from Leviticus 18) is specifically intended to deny what Vines proposes — that the text really does not condemn consensual same-sex acts by individuals with a same-sex sexual orientation. Paul so carefully argues his case that he makes the point that both the active and the passive participants in male intercourse will not inherit the kingdom of God. Desperate to argue his case nonetheless, Vines asserts that, once again, it is exploitative sex that Paul condemns. But this requires that Paul be severed from his Jewish identify and from his own obedience to Scripture. Vines must attempt to marshal evidence that the primary background issue is the Greco-Roman cultural context rather than Paul’s Jewish context — but that would make Paul incomprehensible.
One other aspect of Vines’s consideration of the Bible should be noted. He acknowledges that he is “not a biblical scholar,” but he claims to “have relied on the work of scholars whose expertise is far greater than my own.” But the scholars upon whom he relies do not operate on the assumption that “all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life.” To the contrary, most of his cited scholars are from the far left of modern biblical scholarship or on the fringes of the evangelical world. He does not reveal their deeper understandings of Scripture and its authority.
The Authority of Scripture and the Question of Sexual Orientation
Again and again, Vines comes back to sexual orientation as the key issue. ‘”The Bible doesn’t directly address the issue of same-sexorientation,” he insists. The concept of sexual orientation “didn’t exist in the ancient world.” Amazingly, he then concedes that the Bible’s “six references to same-sex behavior are negative,” but insists, again, that “the concept of same-sex behavior in the Bible is sexual excess, not sexual orientation.”
Here we face the most tragic aspect of Matthew Vines’s argument. If the modern concept of sexual orientation is to be taken as a brute fact, then the Bible simply cannot be trusted to understand what it means to be human, to reveal what God intends for us sexually, or to define sin in any coherent manner. The modern notion of sexual orientation is, as a matter of fact, exceedingly modern. it is also a concept without any definitive meaning. Effectively, it is used now both culturally and morally to argue about sexual attraction and desire. As a matter of fact, attraction and desire are the only indicators upon which the modern notion of sexual orientation are premised.
When he begins his book, Matthew Vines argues that experience should not drive our interpretation of the Bible. But it is his experience of what he calls a gay sexual orientation that drives every word of this book. It is this experiential issue that drives him to relativize text after text and to argue that the Bible really doesn’t speak directly to his sexual identity at all, since the inspired human authors of Scripture were ignorant of the modern gay experience.
Of what else were they ignorant? Vines claims to hold to a “high view” of the Bible and to believe that “all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life,” but the modern concept of sexual orientation functions as a much higher authority in his thinking and in his argument.
This leads to a haunting question. What else does the Bible not know about what it means to be human? If the Bible cannot be trusted to reveal the truth about us in every respect, how can we trust it to reveal our salvation?
This points to the greater issue at stake here — the Gospel. Matthew Vines’s argument does not merely relativize the Bible’s authority, it leaves us without any authoritative revelation of what sin is. And without an authoritative (and clearly understandable) revelation of human sin, we cannot know why we need a Savior, or why Christ died. Furthermore, to tell someone that what the Bible reveals as sin is notsin, we tell them that they do not need Christ for that. Is that not exactly what Paul was determined not to do when he wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11? Could the stakes be any higher than that? This controversy is not merely about sex, it is about salvation.
Matthew Vines’s Wedge Argument — Gender and the Bible
There is another really interesting and revealing aspect of Matthew Vine’s argument yet to come. In terms of how his argument is likely to be received within the evangelical world, Vines clearly has a strategy, and that strategy is to persuade those who have rejected gender complementarity to take the next logical step and deny sexual complementarity as well.
Gender complementarity is the belief that the Bible’s teachings on gender and gender roles is to be understood in terms of the fact that men and women are equally made in God’s image (status) but different in terms of assignment (roles). This has been the belief and conviction of virtually all Christians throughout the centuries, and it is the view held by the vast majority of those identified as Christians in the world even today. But a denial of this conviction, hand in hand with the argument that sameness of role is necessary to affirm equality of status, has led some to argue that difference in gender roles must be rejected. The first impediment to making this argument is the fact that the Bible insists on a difference in roles. In order to overcome this impediment, biblical scholars and theologians committed to egalitarianism have made arguments that are hauntingly similar to those now made by Matthew Vines in favor of relativizing the Bible’s texts on same-sex behaviors.
Matthew Vines knows this. He also knows that, at least until recently, most of those who have rejected gender complementarity have maintained an affirmation of sexual complementarity — the belief that sexual behavior is to be limited to marriage as the union of a man and a woman. He sees this as his opening. At several points in the book, he makes this argument straightforwardly, even as he calls both “gender complementarity” and denies that the Bible requires or reveals it.
But we have to give Matthew Vines credit for seeing this wedge issue better than most egalitarians have seen it. He knows that the denial of gender complementarity is a huge step toward denying sexual complementarity. The evangelicals who have committed themselves to an egalitarian understanding of gender roles as revealed in the Bible are those who are most vulnerable to his argument. In effect, they must resist his argument more by force of will than by force of logic.
Same-Sex Marriage, Celibacy, and the Gospel
Matthew Vines writes with personal passion and he tells us much of his own story. Raised in an evangelical Presbyterian church by Christian parents, he came relatively late to understand his own sexual desires and pattern of attraction. He wants to be acknowledged as a faithful Christian, and he wants to be married … to a man. He argues that the Bible simply has no concept of sexual orientation and that to deny him access to marriage is to deny him justice and happiness. He argues that celibacy cannot be mandated for same-sex individuals within the church, for this would be unjust and wrong. He argues that same-sex unions can fulfill the “one-flesh” promise of Genesis 2:24.
Thus, he argues that the Christian church should accept and celebrate same-sex marriage. He also argues, just like the Protestant liberals of the early twentieth century, that Christianity must revise its beliefs or face the massive loss of reputation before the watching world (meaning, we should note, the watching world of the secular West).
But the believing church is left with no option but to deny the revisionist and relativizing proposals Vines brings to the evangelical argument. The consequences of accepting his argument would include misleading people about their sin and about their need for Christ, about what obedience to Christ requires and what faithfulness to Christ demands.
Matthew Vines demands that we love him enough to give him what he desperately wants, and that would certainly be the path of least cultural resistance. If we accept his argument we can simply remove this controversy from our midst, apologize to the world, and move on. But we cannot do that without counting the cost, and that cost includes the loss of all confidence in the Bible, in the Church’s ability to understand and obey the Scriptures, and in the Gospel as good news to all sinners.
Biblical Christianity cannot endorse same-sex marriage nor accept the claim that a believer can be obedient to Christ and remain or persist in same-sex behaviors. The church is the assembly of the redeemed, saved from our sins and learning obedience in the School of Christ. Every single one of us is a sexual sinner in need of redemption, but we are called to holiness, to obedience, and to honoring marriage as one of God’s most precious gifts and as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church.
God and the Gay Christian demands an answer, but Christ demands our obedience. We can only pray — with fervent urgency — that this moment of decision for evangelical Christianity will be answered with a firm assertion of biblical authority, respect for marriage as the union of a man and a woman, passion for the Gospel of Christ, and prayer for the faithfulness and health of Christ’s church.
I do not write this response as Matthew Vines’s moral superior, but as one who must be obedient to Scripture. And so, I must counter his argument with conviction and urgency. I am concerned for him, and for the thousands who struggle as he does. The church has often failed people with same-sex attractions, and failed them horribly. We must not fail them now by forfeiting the only message that leads to salvation, holiness, and faithfulness. That is the real question before us.
perfect verse. It’s creepy how relevant it is here.
“And they do it with Maradiaga’s sophisms, which state that, yes, Jesus’ words on marriage are binding, “but they can be interpreted” as today there are many new situations of cohabitation and “answers which can no longer be based on authoritarianism and moralism” are needed. “
Unique marriage being discussed in the Catholic church too.
Isn’t Maradiaga the Coordinator of the Council of Cardinals.
I think the “fame and fortune vs. the Word of God” argument is valid, but I think there’s another. The decision that not only preachers and teachers have, but also everyday people in the church as a whole have is...do I want to go along with accepting this, or do I stand firm in scriptural truth and face the possibility of real persecution?
I know that there are many who claim they wouldn’t care what happens to them because they are “firm in their stance” on the truth of the Word of God. They figure persecution is ‘part of the package’ of being a Christian...which it is.
People face losing friends (Facebook and/or real-time), getting called names, facing boycotts (which haven’t really worked), and face protests from people who support homosexual marriage...or homosexual inclusion into the church.
What I wonder is...how many of them who say that would stand firm will fold when real pressure is applied? What would happen when ‘bigotry’ of any sort against homosexuals is codified as law? Some say it is now...but what if it was made MUCH easier for someone to take your livelihood, your property, or to put you in prison for taking a Biblical stand?
What I am saying is that the time is fast approaching where the stand you take may mean that you really are leaving everything on the table and you will face actual persecution.
Ignore him and he will go back to sleep shortly ...
sola scriptura
So you’re saying there are no gay groups pushing for acceptance in the Catholic church?
it’s not a matter of groups pushing for this in His catholic church, since His church has steadfastly taught the sin that is homosexual behavior, whereas thru the wonderful ‘gift’ of sola scriptura, this person can again, look you in the eye and say the scripture means this and says that, and his version of the word is being guided by the holy spirit just as you say that yours is....
Mr. B that is exactly what went through my mind. Also, love your tag line : )
This is the issue of the day for 21st century Christians in America.
The problem isn’t Sola Scriptura. The problem is apostates/heretics perverting what scripture plainly says, thereby engaging in false prophesy and calling God a liar.
So, they're doing it on some basis, aren't they? One group uses one dodge, and a Catholic group uses a different dodge.
And for some reason that is a reason to attack the GOOD people who are doing the right thing.
You don't understand when to exercise unity and present a unified Christian front.
And...for the record...they AREN'T using sola scriptura, as Dr. Mohler painstakingly points out throughout this article. Sola Scriptura only applies when one is using a biblical hermeneutic.
It is when a BIBLICAL hermeneutic arrives at a wrong destination that you should say, "see, sola scriptura has problems." This is NOT one of those cases. Dr Mohler, the only one applying a biblical interpretive system, arrives at an extremely sound biblical conclusion, and apparently its a conclusion that you agree with.
Our Messiah, who is the Word that became flesh ( and we all believe that right? He didn’t just stumble into this world at Mathew?)
He gave us the command written in Leviticus 18:22
New King James Version (NKJV)
22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination
The word, sharper than two edge sword, except to those who don’t want to offend someone.
Any pastor, preacher, minister, priest, pope or christian leader who cannot give us The Word that became flesh’s answer to gay sexual relations or any other sinful act , is a false teacher... there is no moral relativism in I change not.
This is a commandment as much as thou shalt not steal is...
Not tickling to the ears, but Truth is hate to all of us who hate the Truth..
The author of this thoughtful piece left out one other key scripture, a quote from Christ Himself:
“4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matt. 19:4)
He says nothing about homosexual marriage. Did the Creator not know about “sexual orientation”?
Silence of the Scriptures is never an argument for license to do something different from what is specified. See the Hebrews writer’s argument in 7:14: If God through Moses “spake nothing” about it, it was NOT authorized.
The problem isn’t Sola Scriptura. The problem is apostates/heretics perverting what scripture plainly says, thereby engaging in false prophesy and calling God a liar.
Really? back in the beginning when there were heresies and apostates, what body did the correcting and excommunicating and rectifying of the issues?
Once corrected, it was gone, and not to be confused with genuine teaching of His church.
Now, 2000 years later you have folks using the word of God alone, the bible alone, and allowing the holy spirit (as they believe) to guide them, afterall, the word is all you need...and you end up with Matthew Vine, et al.
Exactly.
Dennis Prager, Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality
Yes, you agree with the author of this article.
Is your IQ really that low, or do you just like squeezing all the truth out of your position before you post?
So what about the 1st option, that you left out, that the person is actually lying, since he is perverting the word of God and cannot be in fellowship with Christ by stating that something is OK with God when God has declared it a sin?
Why skip over the obvious and go straight to the slander or Protestants?
Im not slandering anyone, i happen to believe mr vines is dead wrong, im just pointing out the issue of protestants who claim all you need is the bible and study it and all the pieces will fall into place, this is not happening, and Mr vines is taking scripture, just like you would, on perhaps another subject, and saying, as you would, that this is what the word means, and that he has been guided by study and prayer, as well.
you can call that lying if you will, fine, but dont deny him his right to use the same scriptural techniques you use to come to theological conclusions, though not necessarily on this subject, based on sola scriptura.
The Matthew quote is Jesus actually quoting from Genesis. The author does touch on the Genesis part of the Matthew quote.
Natural law teaches that there is no means whatsoever that a penis in a rectum is going to produce combined DNA....a baby... the ULTIMATE “one flesh” that is created by a Godly union of man and woman, of sperm and egg.
Hmmm... yes, I see you point and I think you may be on to something. It is coming for all of us. And a testing of the Church is not a bad thing as a rite of purification.
Exactly. It looks like You agree strongly with the author of this article. Good.
Have been studying Genesis, the creation, fall and flood series with Kay Arthur. No serious Bible “scholar” can claim that God is okay with homosexuality. When you reference all the scriptures pertaining to the act, it is clear that God is condemning the act, and not only that, but He says that He gives men/women over to this state (act of homosexuality) when they have denied Him and refuse to believe the Truth. You cannot reconcile Matthew Vine’s book with the Bible. He should know better, as well. He has been reading commentary until he found something that he can twist into his view. That is all.
This past week, our study was about capital punishment and abortion. There is no other way to put this, but we are NOW under condemnation as a nation from God. Not just for abortion, but I think it goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, when Turkey was annihilating the Armenians and our ships were in the harbor in Izmir and refused to take the refugees on, then in WWII, when we sent the ships of Jews back to their deaths, etc. We followed WWII with the sexual revolution and legalization of abortion. Since then, we’ve had nothing but trouble in one form or another, whether it be earthquake, hurricane, fire, flooding, etc. Now it grows worse and worse.
There has not been a serious revival or spiritual awakening since the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th....over a hundred years. I see no evidence of anything other than a local awakening here or there in small communities. People don’t care, they have their new god, and it is government. So, fellow believers, I do believe we are going to experience some very dark days ahead and we need to prepare. God gave us Obama to bring judgment, and he is faithful in delivering it to us. Yes, God uses the unjust to judge the just...over and over in Scripture, God gave us that picture. We really need to quit complaining about Obama and how bad he is and start asking God to examine our hearts to show us every wicked thing that lies therein. Get our hearts right with Him and then begin praying for revival, getting involved in helping godly men/women get elected, and look for evidence of what God is doing around us and get involved in that to bring His kingdom closer. We are to be about His business of preparing for the kingdom. It is not until that last person that God already knows will be saved that brings Christ back, but it will be during severe persecution...as that is what will bring a revival of sorts...unsaved seeing True believers willing to die for their Faith, then they will see that it is the Truth...else why would one die for a myth or a lie? May God deal with each of us and open our eyes to see what He is clearly revealing to those with “eyes to see and ears to hear”.
God bless!
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