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Posted Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:22 AM

Continuing the Faith-Based Debate

Kurt Soller

Given that Lisa Miller's cover story on gay marriage caused such an uproar of feedback, we gathered two religious experts to parse through the issue when it comes to the Bible, gay marriage and Christianity. Throughout the weekend, Bill Wylie-Kellerman, a United Methodist serving as pastor at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Detroit, and Dr. Barrett Duke, vice president for Public Policy and Research at The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, e-mailed back and forth about their conflicting viewpoints surrounding this issue. The full debate (and it's long!) can be read here.

As I was moderating the debate throughout the weekend, I bolded some take-away lines from both sides that I thought were insightful and interesting. If you don't feel like reading the whole transcript, here's a bit of a preview.

From Bill Wylie-Kellerman:

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  • "Today I hear the summons to say, in Christ, there is neither gay nor straight."
  • "The Bible, beginning with the old covenant is, to be frank, fraught with patriarchy."
  • "[The Definition] of marriage will change, as it has repeatedly during and since the biblical era. I believe this and welcome it."

From Dr. Barrett Duke:

  • "I approach the Bible as a fixed product... Communities don't adapt it; they adapt to it."
  • "I must make sure that I come across as loving when I speak to homosexuals or about them, though, something I confess I do not always do adequately."
  • "If the gay community really wants respect, they should pursue a path toward public acceptance, not judicial fiat." 

There you have it. My editors and I hoped that this debate would address some of the criticism NEWSWEEK has received for not having biblical scholars directly discuss the issues that Miller addressed in her piece. Hopefully, this moderated debate will assuage that concern and be of interest to readers on both sides.

 

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Member Comments

Posted By: mikeproud (December 30, 2008 at 9:40 PM)

I am amazed that people actually take an obvious non-Christian, such as Lisa Miller, serious concerning things of Christianity. she would not dare do such a thing with Judaism. Wait, she constantly referred to the Old Testmanent, which is drawn from Judaism.

But, she tried to deceive people into thinking that God was not clear concerning homosexuality and that the Bible does not speak against lesbianism. Well, we can dismiss her by simply going to the New Testament, you know after Jesus came, and read Romans 1:22-32

for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

It is unfortunate, that people practicing the gay lifestyle, think is political correct to promote what God sees as sin as some type of race they were born into. To be clear, if I have an uncontrollable desrie to sleep with multiplke women besides my wife, the world may grow to accept that as normal, but God remains clear, that is sin. And the wages of sin is death.

The problem the homoseuxal has, is that he is surely as tied to his homosexuality as the person is tied to their cigarette or the alcoholic to his liquor. In either case, they have to serve God, not the sin.