Newsweek's "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage"

Unless you've been under a rock, out of the country, or out of your mind, you're heard about Newsweek's provocative and controversial issue now on newsstands. First, editor John Meacham begins the issue with an editorial piece which sets the stage for the cover article. With ease he compares those who cite Scripture to prohibit gay marriage with the Devil and the Nazis. Lisa Miller then expounds her view in an article entitled "Our Mutual Joy" (read it here). She proposes a hermeneutic for reading the Bible that does not prohibit homosexuality or homosexual marriage. Her basic stance is that the Bible is not a manual for "doing" marriage and if it were, we'd all have to make radical changes to our marriages, hetero and homo.

Since the article is short and very well-written, I don't need to summarize it here. Read it for yourself. But what I do want to do is synthesize some of the orthodox Christian material that has been produced in response to the article.

It saddens me that so bright a woman in so influential a periodical would do so little actual unbiased research into the matter. Her presuppositions are so apparent that she is totally unwilling to engage any serious scholarship that would threaten her thesis. My lament throughout was, "Whither the footnotes?" Here are what others have said:

Robert Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice (the most thorough scholarship on the topic available) and professor of NT at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, responds with a 23-page rebuttal of Miller's thesis here. If you read nothing else, READ THIS!

A summary: "To arrive at her ideological objective Miller makes a number of bad moves. She overemphasizes discontinuity and underemphasizes continuity between marriage values in Scripture and our own values. She engages in a distorted form of analogical reasoning that elevates distant analogies over close analogies. She shows little or no understanding of the historical and literary contexts of the texts that she treats. She ignores just about every major argument against the positions that she espouses. And she extrapolates, from certain 'universal truths' in Scripture, conclusions that the scriptural authors would have found appalling and that bear little logical connection to the agenda that she seeks to promote."

Christianity Today calls Miller's article a "marginalization" of the mainstream Christian position on the matter. Read it in full here.

A summary: "All this would be infuriating and insulting if it weren't finally laughable and sad. It suggests one of three things.

It could mean that Meacham and Miller are simply ignorant of the nuanced and careful biblical arguments that religious conservatives have made. But this is doubtful, since as journalists of the topic, they have surely been immersed in the literature.

It could suggest they simply don't understand the subtleties of the biblical arguments. But this can't be, because they are clearly bright people in other respects.

Or it means they have found themselves hamstrung by the richer, nuanced, and thoughtful biblical defense of traditional marriage. And they find themselves utterly incapable of responding to it on its own terms."

Mark Hemingway of the National Review Online minces no words in his op. ed. here.

A summary: "So should I be surprised that Lisa Miller, Newsweek's religion reporter natch, can't even get through the first paragraph of her story without evincing an understanding of Christianity and its basic texts that is grossly oversimplified and distorted, filtered through an almost exclusively liberal political lens, not to mention catty and downright insulting?"

Al Mohler, president of Southern Theological Seminary and leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, provides a detailed response on his blog here.

A summary: "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."

Carl Trueman, professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary, does likewise here. He is gracious in highlighting places where Miller has made strong points.

A summary: "The article does end on a note with which I wholeheartedly agree, however, at least on the surface. She quotes a pro-gay priest as saying `if Jesus were alive today, he would reach out especially to the gays and lesbians among us.' Amen, So he would. But not with the tawdry bauble of passing social acceptance; rather he would reach out with the love of the Father for those who are unlovely, offering them life in abundance, not through some intense but illicit orgasm; rather through the forgiveness and newness of life that comes from life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even as the church must dismantle erroneous hermeneutics and defend the authority of scripture, so she must also reach out with the love of the gospel to the dirty, the immoral, the things that are not, with the light of the gospel. With what does the Christ of Ms Miller reach out? A piece of paper and the promise of a few years of companionship, perhaps some great sex, and then what?"

Mollie Ziegler-Hemingway over at GetReligion.com makes some poignant, albeit puncturing remarks here. Caveat lector.

A summary: "But if you are going to pretend that opposition to same-sex marriage is based Sola Scriptura, could we at least get our Scripture right?"