This article seems to demonstrate more the religious illiteracy of NY Times writers or the level of religious literacy they expect of their readers, than anything else.
Theological dissidence or dissonance? I suspect we’ll be reading a good analysis on Terry Mattingly’s site, soon, but it’s an unbalanced opinion piece at best.
The final, (foundational?), paragraph can be responded to by turning it around: The virulent defense of homosexual marriage can’t be sustained by an informed reading of the text. The defence of open homosexuality has a basis in culture that’s masquerading as religion. The textual evidence is clear. So the role of Bible scholars who support marriage is to show where the Bible condemns homosexuality and considers the action sin, along with a reminder that children of God are called to repent from all sin and to love all our neighbors as we love ourselves.
[blockquote]“The virulent opposition can’t be sustained by an informed reading of the text,†said Dr. Hendricks, who is now a visiting scholar in the religion department at Columbia University. “The opposition to homosexuality has a basis in culture that’s masquerading as religion. The textual evidence is ambiguous, at best. So the role of Bible scholars who support marriage equality is to show that there’s no biblical reason to oppress gay people. They are children of God.â€[/blockquote]
I wonder how much Columbia pays visiting scholars to come up with this stuff?
This article seems to demonstrate more the religious illiteracy of NY Times writers or the level of religious literacy they expect of their readers, than anything else.
Theological dissidence or dissonance? I suspect we’ll be reading a good analysis on Terry Mattingly’s site, soon, but it’s an unbalanced opinion piece at best.
The final, (foundational?), paragraph can be responded to by turning it around: The virulent defense of homosexual marriage can’t be sustained by an informed reading of the text. The defence of open homosexuality has a basis in culture that’s masquerading as religion. The textual evidence is clear. So the role of Bible scholars who support marriage is to show where the Bible condemns homosexuality and considers the action sin, along with a reminder that children of God are called to repent from all sin and to love all our neighbors as we love ourselves.
[blockquote]“The virulent opposition can’t be sustained by an informed reading of the text,†said Dr. Hendricks, who is now a visiting scholar in the religion department at Columbia University. “The opposition to homosexuality has a basis in culture that’s masquerading as religion. The textual evidence is ambiguous, at best. So the role of Bible scholars who support marriage equality is to show that there’s no biblical reason to oppress gay people. They are children of God.â€[/blockquote]
I wonder how much Columbia pays visiting scholars to come up with this stuff?
Who wants to oppress gay people? Not me. There’s just no such thing as Biblically based marriage of same sex people.