Gay Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage and Evangelical Concern

The Supreme Court Decision last month has been a cause of concern for many evangelical Christians before and after they gave their 5-4 decision that made gay marriage legal in all 50 states. Many evangelical Christians believe that gay marriage goes against the clear teaching of Scriptures, and point to Gen 2 and Matt 19, and several Old Testament and New Testament texts commonly considered to be concerning homosexuality. I would place myself in their ranks, but rather than posting a blog defending traditional marriage, or warning America that they are departing from the godly principles that have brought our country blessing, I would like to call my fellow right-leaning Evangelicals to a little introspection.

What is it that makes gays and lesbians our favorite targets? Some of Jesus’ teachings may apply to the issue of gay marriage, such as the aforementioned Matt 19, but in sort of a second-order way; by inference. 

There is another modern issue about which Jesus had some rather direct things to say, with no inference needed (Matt 19; Mark 10). Jesus confronted divorce and remarriage head-on, in no uncertain terms. Through the prophet Malachi, the LORD says rather clearly, “I hate divorce (Mal 2:16).” The Torah allowed for divorce (Deut 24:1), but Jesus submitted that it was only because of the stubbornness of the Israelites, not because it was something God approved. I could give more examples of biblical texts that speak against divorce, leaving behind, divorce and remarriage. Evangelical biblical scholars have performed exegetical gymnastics to relieve the offense and discomfort that these texts may cause to their divorced and remarried constituents in a similar way that a number of scholars have bent backwards to say that the biblical texts that condemn homosexual acts are not relevant to the modern phenomenon of gay marriage. With few exceptions, I have not heard many pronouncements about the evils of divorce and remarriage. 

If all of the gays and lesbians got married tomorrow, the societal effect, and I think that there could be SOME deleterious effect, would be miniscule to the devastation that our modern heterosexual divorce culture has wrought. Yet, the church seems to have accepted it with little difficulty, with my own denomination even allowing divorced and remarried persons to be ministers. I am not calling for a purgation of divorced and remarried persons from our midst, but reflect on this in order for us to get to motivations, seeing that divorce and remarriage is probably even more clearly condemned in scripture, by Jesus no less, than gay marriage.

But back to my question about why gays and lesbians are our favorite targets. Unlike divorced and remarried folk, who make up a little over one half of our church constituencies, gays and lesbians hardly darken the doors of our churches, and if they did, they would be a relatively small demographic, as they are in society at large—we can seem holy by confronting the sin of homosexuality without risking a mass exodus from our churches and our coffers beginning to run empty. I submit to you, then, that it is an issue of money and attendance rolls as much as it is about the teaching of Scriptures. Right-leaning Evangelicals, take a moment and think about it.

A Functional approach to Biblical Inspiration

I have worked at an institution which interacts with Christ believers from all over the world for the last several years, and have also learned quite a bit about Church history and the impact that the Bible has made in various societies. This impact has been through translation into the various languages of peoples around the globe. It does not seem to me that a purely ontological approach to inspiration of Scriptures takes the fact that it is through translation, not the original texts, that the Bible has made its greatest impact. This is not to say that the original texts of the Bible were not inspired, and owe their existence to the Holy Spirit guiding the producers of those texts. It is just that this is an inadequate place to leave the discussion given how Christ believers have interacted with the Bible over the centuries.

A more adequate approach is to consider the functionality of the Bible in our discussions of inspiration. We can even start with the same text, 2 Tim 3:16-17, where Paul gives basically a discussion of inspiration that is functional. The Bible does certain things in the church. It is  "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16)." When we look at how the Church fathers understood the term theopneustos "God-breathed," it basically conforms to this functional view. Certain writings were useful for the church.

The Bible in translation fits the bill for what Paul says in 2 Tim 3:16-17 concerning what Scripture does, how it functions. Such an approach to inspiration, although in some ways frightening, as it is a step away from arguing that inspired equals inerrant, which virtually no one argues for translations, fits what 2 Tim 3:16 says about what the function of a divinely inspired text is.

The above approach to inspiration more accurately reflects how the Bible has operated in Christ believing communities from the beginning. It has made its biggest impact in translation. This leaves the inerrant nature of the original texts of the Bible unexamined, which is not the interest of this essay in the first place. It is an approach to inspiration that relies on the Holy Spirit's work in Christ-believing communities as an essential guide to faithful theological reflection and praxis as God's Word is contextually embodied in every culture and leaves its indelible, transformative mark.