In-Depth Articles

Most Evangelical discussions of same-sex marriage ignore same-sex orientation, both in politics and in theology. But if we look at orientation and marriage together, we find it doesn't match the reasons for the Bible's moral condemnations of same-sex relations. This is surprising. It illuminates our difficulties with orientation and it fundamentally changes our arguments about nature and marriage. Reexamining these arguments suggests that we should view a same sex marriage of two same-sex oriented Evangelicals as a biblical marriage, and believe that God does too.

David Gushee, like many, has changed his mind on same-sex marriage through ‘transformative encounters’. But while he engages with the pastoral and theological issues with honesty and integrity, his conclusions are flawed because they are based on an insufficiently integrated reading of Scripture that misses the foundational nature of creational sexual difference.

We often define people and their human dignity according to their rational and relational assets and activity, or even their relational capacity. But our dignity does not reside in any human function, or even in our knowing God, but in being known by God.

Revelation is not about the end of the world, but the end of a covenant era – the Old Covenant. Once it is understood in its historical and ‘covenant’ context, it is rescued from the obscurity of the ‘fringe’ of biblical studies and allowed to shine as one of the most insightful, enlightening and practical books of the Bible.