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My Life, My Struggles & Being a Woman in a Man's World

The Podcasts

By Robert A. J. Gagnon

In her recent CNN Belief Blog post “The Bible’s surprisingly mixed messages on
sexuality,” Jennifer Wright Knust claims that Christians can’t appeal to the Bible
to justify opposition to homosexual practice because the Bible provides no clear
witness on the subject and is too flawed to serve as a moral guide.

As a scholar who has written books and articles on the Bible and homosexual practice,
I can say that the reality is the opposite of her claim. It’s shocking that in her
editorial and even her book, "Unprotected Texts," Knust ignores a mountain of evidence
against her positions.

It raises a serious question: does the Left read significant works that disagree
with pro-gay interpretations of Scripture and choose to simply ignore them?

Owing to space limitations I will focus on her two key arguments: the ideal of
gender-neutral humanity and slavery arguments.

Knust's lead argument is that sexual differentiation in Genesis, Jesus and Paul
is nothing more than an "afterthought" because "God's original intention for
humanity was androgyny."

It’s true that Genesis presents the first human (Hebrew adam, from adamah,
ground: “earthling”) as originally sexually undifferentiated. But what Knust
misses is that once something is “taken from” the human to form a woman, the
human, now differentiated as a man, finds his sexual other half in that missing
element, a woman.

That’s why Genesis speaks of the woman as a “counterpart” or “complement,”
using a Hebrew expression neged, which means both “corresponding to” and
“opposite.” She is similar as regards humanity but different in terms of
gender. If sexual relations are to be had, they are to be had with a sexual
counterpart or complement.

Knust cites the apostle Paul’s remark about “no ‘male and female’” in Galatians.
Yet Paul applies this dictum to establishing the equal worth of men and women
before God, not to eliminating a male-female prerequisite for sex.

Applied to sexual relations, the phrase means “no sex,” not “acceptance of
homosexual practice,” as is evident both from the consensus of the earliest
interpreters of this phrase and from Jesus' own sayings about marriage in
this age and the next.

All the earliest interpreters agreed that "no 'male and female,'" applied
to sexual relations, meant "no sex."

That included Paul and the ascetic believers at Corinth in the mid-first
century; and the church fathers and gnostics of the second to fourth centuries.
Where they disagreed is over whether to postpone mandatory celibacy until the
resurrection (the orthodox view) or to begin insisting on it now (the heretical view).

Jesus’ view

According to Jesus, “when (people) rise from the dead, they neither marry nor
are given in marriage but are like the angels” (Mark 12:25). Sexual relations
and differentiation had only penultimate significance. The unmediated access
to God that resurrection bodies bring would make sex look dull by comparison.

At the same time Jesus regarded the male-female paradigm as essential if sexual
relations were to be had in this present age.

In rejecting a revolving door of divorce-and-remarriage and, implicitly,
polygamy Jesus cited Genesis: “From the beginning of creation, ‘male and
female he made them.’ ‘For this reason a man …will be joined to his woman
and the two shall become one flesh’” (Mark 10:2-12; Matthew 19:3-12).

Jesus’ point was that God’s limiting of persons in a sexual union to two is
evident in his creation of two (and only two) primary sexes: male and female,
man and woman. The union of male and female completes the sexual spectrum,
rendering a third partner both unnecessary and undesirable.

The sectarian Jewish group known as the Essenes similarly rejected polygamy on the
grounds that God made us “male and female,” two sexual complements designed for a
union consisting only of two.

Knust insinuates that Jesus wouldn’t have opposed homosexual relationships.
Yet Jesus’ interpretation of Genesis demonstrates that he regarded a male-female
prerequisite for marriage as the foundation on which other sexual standards
could be predicated, including monogamy. Obviously the foundation is more
important than anything predicated on it.

Jesus developed a principle of interpretation that Knust ignores: God’s
“from the beginning” creation of “male and female” trumps some sexual
behaviors permitted in the Old Testament. So there’s nothing unorthodox
about recognizing change in Scripture’s sexual ethics. But note the
direction of the change: toward less sexual license and greater conformity
to the logic of the male-female requirement in Genesis. Knust is traveling
in the opposite direction.

Knust’s slavery analogy and avoidance of closer analogies

Knust argues that an appeal to the Bible for opposing homosexual practice
is as morally unjustifiable as pre-Civil War appeals to the Bible for
supporting slavery. The analogy is a bad one.

The best analogy will be the comparison that shares the most points of
substantive correspondence with the item being compared. How much does the
Bible’s treatment of slavery resemble its treatment of homosexual practice?
Very little.

Scripture shows no vested interest in preserving the institution of slavery
but it does show a strong vested interest from Genesis to Revelation in
preserving a male-female prerequisite. Unlike its treatment of the institution
of slavery, Scripture treats a male-female prerequisite for sex as a pre-Fall
structure.

The Bible accommodates to social systems where sometimes the only alternative
to starvation is enslavement. But it clearly shows a critical edge by specifying
mandatory release dates and the right of kinship buyback; requiring that
Israelites not be treated as slaves; and reminding Israelites that God had
redeemed them from slavery in Egypt.

Paul urged enslaved believers to use an opportunity for freedom to maximize
service to God and encouraged a Christian master (Philemon) to free his slave
(Onesimus).

How can changing up on the Bible’s male-female prerequisite for sex be
analogous to the church’s revision of the slavery issue if the Bible encourages
critique of slavery but discourages critique of a male-female paradigm for sex?

Much closer analogies to the Bible’s rejection of homosexual practice are the
Bible’s rejection of incest and the New Testament’s rejection of
polyamory (polygamy).

Homosexual practice, incest, and polyamory are all (1) forms of sexual behavior
(2) able to be conducted as adult-committed relationships but
(3) strongly proscribed because (4) they violate creation structures
or natural law.

Like same-sex intercourse, incest is sex between persons too much
structurally alike, here as regards kinship rather than gender.
Polyamory is a violation of the foundational “twoness” of the sexes.

The fact that Knust chooses a distant analogue (slavery) over more
proximate analogues (incest, polyamory) shows that her analogical
reasoning is driven more by ideological biases than by fair use of
analogies.

Knust’s other arguments are riddled with holes.

In claiming that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship she
confuses kinship affection with erotic love. Her claim that “from the
perspective of the New Testament” the Sodom story was about “the near
rape of angels, not sex between men” makes an "either-or" out of Jude
7’s "both-and."

Her canard that only a few Bible texts reject homosexual practice overlooks
other relevant texts and the fact that infrequent mention is often a sign of
significance. It is disturbing to read what passes nowadays for expert
“liberal” reflections on what the Bible says about homosexual practice.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Robert A. J. Gagnon.

Category:Aliya Leigh Live - Podcast -- posted at: 6:59pm EDT
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- A support group for gay military service members launched
an online magazine to provide information about pending repeal of the Pentagon's
"don't ask, don't tell" policy, and printed copies could be on large bases by
May, the group's co-director said Monday.

An active-duty Air Force officer who is the co-director of OutServe said the
magazine of the same name seeks to raise awareness that the change is coming.
He uses the pseudonym JD Smith because he is gay and has lingering concerns
about whether he could be discharged before the policy is fully implemented.

"The magazine helps set the tone, the idea, that it's actually going to happen
and normalizes it," he told The Associated Press on Monday.
"The more we normalize it, the more accepted it becomes."

The free magazine will be published bi-monthly. OutServe has about 3,000 members,
and the group plans to distribute copies in places like hospital waiting rooms
and on stands at community centers on military bases where other publications
are available.

Military officials did not respond to an email seeking comment Monday.

The magazine also will include articles about different OutServe chapters and
information of interest to gay military members. Smith said group members
believe the visual presence of a magazine will highlight that gays already
serve proudly in the military.

The first electronic issue includes an article on a meeting between
representatives in the group and the Pentagon Repeal Implementation Team.
The article pointed out that the services plan to complete training at
various points this summer relating to the policy's repeal. The article
also said team representatives could not give an expected repeal date
because the decision is being based on training completion and how well
unit commanders believe units are prepared.

The electronic edition also includes information about different gay
support groups in the military, such as the Servicemembers Legal Defense
Network, which provides free legal advice to service members affected
by the policy.

President Barack Obama signed a law in December to repeal the 17-year-old
"don't ask, don't tell" policy, which requires soldiers, sailors, airmen
and Marines to keep their homosexuality a secret or face dismissal. Final
repeal implementation does not go into effect until 60 days after the
president, defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
certify that lifting the ban won't hurt the military's ability to fight.

---

Online:
OutServe: http://outserve.org

Category:Aliya Leigh Live - Podcast -- posted at: 11:46am EDT
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