Posted on 03/05/2008 12:33:48 PM PST by kiriath_jearim
In a stump speech at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, on Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama said his support for same-sex unions is rooted in the New Testament's Sermon on the Mount, as reported by Cybercast News Service.
But theologians and other experts don't agree on what Obama's biblical reference meant.
"If he's finding support for same-sex marriage from the Sermon on the Mount, he's reading a different Bible than I've ever read," Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy with the Christian Focus on the Family, told Cybercast News Service.
"I think Obama needs to grapple with the words of Jesus on the meaning of marriage," Minnery said.
"Hasn't he ever read Matthew 19:4 that the creator made the male and female? In other words, you cannot believe what Jesus said in Matthew and that Jesus endorsed same-sex marriage. It's inconsistent," Minnery said.
Rev. Jesse Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), told Cybercast News Service that it may be more a case of politics than theology that inspired Obama's comments.
"When I first heard Obama comment on the Sermon on the Mount and homosexuality I couldn't grasp any relationship between the two," Peterson said.
"There is no correlation at all. The Sermon on the Mount is for the saints, and it explains their suffering and their reward as a result of suffering for what is right for Christ's sake. It doesn't give blessings or approval to homosexual unions," he said.
"I think maybe Senator Obama came up with the wrong passage," Peterson said. "Unless he is just trying to deceive the people. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he could be so desperate to win he'll just say anything."
But Tony Campolo - professor emeritus at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, ordained minister, spiritual adviser to Bill Clinton, and founder of the liberal Christian group, Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education - told Cybercast News Service that he thinks Obama's reference to the Sermon on the Mount was meant to highlight the core message of the Christian faith.
"He's saying, very carefully, that I personally believe that gay marriage is contrary to the teaching of Scripture," said Campolo. "He's very clear about that.
"He takes Paul (Romans 1:27) seriously, but he is saying 'in my own ideology,' Jesus is speaking to the needs of the poor, standing up against violence, opposing war, standing up against capital punishment. These are values that are pervasive in the Sermon on the Mount and in my politics, this is what I want to emphasize," he said.
Minnery said he is familiar with Campolo and his Red Letter Christians, who put more stock in Christ's teaching than the other teachings in the Bible, but biblical interpretation can only go so far, he said.
"I think (Obama) is taking one aspect of the Christian faith and going to ridiculous ends with it," Minnery said. "Plainly, Jesus evoked one man and one woman as the meaning of marriage, and Tony Campolo and Barack Obama are trying to have it both ways.
"For example, Barack Obama says he's for traditional marriage and yet he stands against the very thing that will preserve it, which is the Defense of Marriage Act," said Minnery.
Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said it is a mistake for Obama to look to the Bible as a playbook for his political aspirations.
"It seems pretty bogus using (the Bible) to justify civil unions," McCaffrey told Cybercast News Service. "He should be using secular reasons to back it up.
"He can search the whole Bible and not find anything that justifies gay marriage or same-sex unions," she said.
Ding! I think we have a winner!
Great, now the Emperor’s New Clothes is a theologian!
Scripture according to the rats, “And the misguided masses cried out, ‘Save us oh Great Obama, save us.”
Obama’s church, United Church of Christ, is actually considered a cult by Hank Hannegraaff (the Bible Answer Man). It is very liberal and accepts “all” as children of christ, including couples living together, same sex or not.
True, his wife almost said she liked crackers the other day...
Did I get that right?
Additionally, his church is antisemitic... Thus, they are NOT Christians.
And, now this same sex union flub.
Think Obama doesn't know much about the Christian faith because he's a Muslim pretending to be a Christian.
Think over the years, the people who belong to his church picked up on media stereotypes depicting Christians, e.g. KKK claimed to be Christian... they weren't, etc.
And one of those experts is the Apostle Paul.
The Bible is clear about homosexual acts in both the New and Old Testaments and Jesus did not speak if favor of that, much less gay marriage.
Homosexuality was fairly common among some pagan groups in the ancient world, but even they never confused a homosexual relationship with marriage.
True. But because the Islamic doctrine of supercession allows contradictory verses in the Koran to be true at the same time, for a Muslim contradiction does not mean that anything is amiss. Bear in mind that Obama was educated at a Muslim school in his formative years and could well accept contradictions if he was taught to think that way.
Careful, here. All are children of Christ. Some are misbehaving children and need rebuking, but children just the same.
Christ loves us all, even those who reject that love. Christ is Lord of all, those who deny Him cannot usurp His Lordship, only pretend it doesn't exist.
I must have missed it in the article, how in the world did Osama, er I mean Obama twist it to support gay marriage?
***Obama’s Bible Defense of Same-Sex Unions Wrong, Experts Say**
Don’t have to be an expert to know that.
Just another little Omama Osama Obama misQQQQQQQ. No worries. He is still going to take care of all of us and make us all rich and full health care.
IMO, the passages about homosexuality in the Bible are very, very clear. Some parts of the Bible may appear somewhat ambiguous, but those verses are not.
I shake my head at Campolo who has been doing this kind of bactracking/parsing for a long time now.
maybe he’s dyslexic and thinks that homosexuality is an “obama nation”
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