Why Do Modern Christians Favor, Or Oppose, Same-Sex Marriage?

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(OPINION) THE QUESTION:

Why do 21st century Christians favor, or oppose, same-sex marriage?

THE GUY’S ANSWER:

Just before Christmas, a top Donald Trump-loving conservative on New York City talk radio professed disbelief that some Americans persist in opposing same-sex marriage because of some book (unnamed) written ages ago.

Obviously, The Guy again realizes that journalism has important work to do explaining the basics of centuries of Christian thinking, both con and pro.

The teaching against gay and lesbian sexual relationships stood essentially unquestioned for 2,000 years, but now that’s changing.

Still, on the global level, some 2 billion people belong to Catholic, Orthodox, conservative Protestant, and independent Indigenous churches where there’s no prospect of any major change, though individual members dissent. The same is true for a billion Muslims.

In the U.S., the traditionalists are on defense with gay and lesbian marriage legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court and now Congress. They seek recognition by courts and government agencies of their conscience claims, hope to avoid penalties, and worry that ostracism from polite society may lie ahead.

Many mainline Protestant churches in North America and Western Europe recently enacted historic breaks with tradition, approving same-sex marriages for clergy and parishioners. U.S. landmarks: Change was first formally proposed to Presbyterians in 1968 and the United Methodist Church in 1972. Members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America published four major books advocating change between 1983 and 1999. The Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop in 2003, deepening an international divide among Anglicans.

Among resulting walkouts, the biggest may be the United Methodist one that is finally erupting.

Protestant disputes always center on the Bible. In the following, The Guy used the updated New Revised Standard Version Bible, and sources that include the useful “Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views,” co-authored by the late Dan O. Via, a liberal, and conservative Robert A.J. Gagnon.

Conservatives like Gagnon have written extensively, but their case boils down to this: The Bible’s aversion to same-sex behavior and all sex outside of traditional marriage is clear and must be honored.

Via explained that fellow liberals don’t necessarily take Scripture “at face value.” Their “experiential or existential view” says a Bible passage carries authority for an individual when seen as “engaging and compelling,” by providing “grounding and meaning to existence.”

Bible texts “do not necessarily mean what they say,” Via contended, and interpreters must consider the ancient context, modern social science, gay experience and biblical principles like justice, equity and love of neighbor. Thus instead of moral decision-making based on “acts and rules,” Christians should consider “consequences, intentions, and inner dispositions.”

The Old Testament’s Leviticus 18:22 commands, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Exegetes like Via see this as part of a Jewish “holiness code” whose ritual purity tenets no longer apply for Christians. Conservatives like Gagnon respond this may be true for other biblical passages, but this one addresses sexual practices, including adultery, incest and bestiality, which all branches of Christianity reject to this day.

In the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 6:9 says “wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God,” including “the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex,” with a New RSV footnote that the meaning of Paul’s last two Greek words is “uncertain.” But evangelicals’ New International Version reads “men who have sex with men,” with a footnote citing scholars who say the two words “refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.”

However experts understand that verse (or 1 Timothy 1:10, or Jude 7), both sides agree the key is Paul’s Letter to the Romans 1:26-27. In discussing rejection of God’s truth, he denounces those overtaken by “dishonorable passions. Their females exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the males, giving up natural intercourse with females, were consumed with their passionate desires for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males.”

Some argue that Paul was assailing only the era’s widespread practice of men exploiting or prostituting boys, often slaves, and argue this does not apply to modern-day adults’ consensual partnerships. Via said though pederasty was indeed widespread, Greco-Roman culture also had consensual adult couples.

Via’s emphasis instead was that Paul, like other ancients, had no concept of sexual orientation that may not be a person’s choice, may not be open to reversal, and is fixed early in life whether from biological or psychological causes. He thought gay marriage prevents harmful promiscuity, an argument Paul made for heterosexual marriage (1 Corinthians 7:2,9).

For Via, such “contextual factors” can invalidate sexual rules if a relationship is “loving, consensual, non-manipulative and faithful.” Conservatives like Gagnon say behavioral science has no firm conclusion on causes, and in any event such factors cannot erase what Scripture clearly teaches.

CONTINUE READING: “Why do 21st Century Christians favor, or oppose, same-sex marriage?” by Richard Ostling.

Richard Ostling is a former religion reporter for The Associated Press and former correspondent for TIME Magazine. This piece first appeared at Get Religion.