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The time-worn "gay couples can't produce children" argument

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

This morning I received a friendly email from a non-gay conservative preacher kindly pointing out that since gay couples cannot have children, their unions are barren, against nature and always outside the will of God because they are not part of "God's created order."

He understands God's created order to be one man with one woman. All other marriage iterations are wrong, sinful and never affirmed by God.

Here is an edited version of my response to this sincere (and sincerely wrong) Christian gentleman.

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Plato, the Greek philosopher, 428-348 BC



"Thank you for writing to me. I do understand (but disagree with) your position on homosexuality being against God's created order.

Your position is known as Complementarianism and is as old as Plato (428-348 BC). In fact, the current "Christian" Complementarian position traces its roots to Plato, the unsaved Greek philosopher.

The problem isn't that I think women and men are not complementary (certainly they are in many respects just as two men or two women are complementary in many respects)...

But viewing male-female complementarity as the only option God will accept reads into scripture a private opinion that scripture never states.

You wrote that
"the union of a Holy-Spirit-filled man and woman together in marriage reflects the image of God on Earth."
Implicit in your argument is the idea that Adam by himself or Eve by herself, did not bear the image of God. This viewpoint has been argued by theologians for almost two thousand years. As with your Complementarian/created order argument, you are drawing a conclusion based on scripture not saying something (like, 'God blesses polygamous relationships' or 'God blesses gay relationships') and forming your doctrinal belief based on what scripture does not say.

If your created order argument is true (a Holy-Spirit-filled man and woman together in marriage), then polygamy cannot be blessed or affirmed by God. Yet only 44 verses from Genesis 2:24, in Genesis 4:19, scripture records the first polygamous marriage. And in Deuteronomy 21:15-17, God makes provision in the law for inheritance in polygamous marriages.

You will recall that the nation of Israel was formed from the children of a polygamous marriage where Jacob married two sisters plus the handmaids of each of the sisters. God affirmed this polygamous marriage by choosing children from each of the four wives to comprise the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel.

I make no argument for modern polygamy. I merely point out that scripture does not teach the exclusivism for 'one man with one woman' which you believe is the only kind of marriage relationship God will bless.

If we accept your exclusivist viewpoint, that
"A heterosexual union produces life. Children, the continuing of the generations, are the result. This is the created order at work. That created order reflects the nature of who God is"
then what do we do with an elderly widow and widower who want to marry each other?

They cannot have children. Their union is barren, exactly as you described the homosexual union.
"A homosexual union is barren. No life springs from it... For this reason, it cannot and does not reflect the nature of God or his character."
The elderly couple can nurture children or young parents. They can teach Sunday School, babysit for children or perform some other nurturing function for children. But of course, a gay male couple or lesbian female couple can also nurture and raise children.

There are many grandparents raising children today because the biological parents are drug addicts or in jail or prison. Does not life spring from their loving nurturing of children regardless they are not the biological parents of the children they nurture?

Do you recall the biblical story of Samuel (found beginning in 1 Samuel chapter 1 in the Bible)? When Samuel was about three years old, he was given by his biological parents to an elderly man, Eli, who raised him as his own son.

Did life spring from Eli's nurturing of Samuel? Eli, a man who made a mess of raising his own biological children, managed by God's grace, to raise an extraordinary foster son, Samuel, who became a great prophet of God and who also wrote part of the Old Testament.

And isn't God's grace really the point?

Life and nurturing depend on God's grace more than on meeting some formula derived from your 'created order' argument.

I have no doubt you will view your argument as perfectly valid against gay male couples and lesbian female couples but that you will allow an exception for elderly opposite sex couples who cannot have children. In your view opposite sex couples who cannot produce children may still marry in spite of the fact that they cannot have children and therefore their physical union is barren.

Yet if your argument permits exceptions at the two points listed above, (1) polygamy and (2) elderly couples beyond child-bearing, by what logic do you allow those exceptions yet still contend there cannot be a similar exception for gay couples?

Although you feel your beliefs are based on the Bible, it is clear to many of us that your beliefs are never affirmed in scripture as God's truth. Instead, you have formed your beliefs based on things scripture does not say and now teach what scripture does not say as absolute truth."

Rick Brentlinger

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really appreciate you for addressing these statements so thoroughly. Did the person ever respond to any of it after reading what you said?

Rick Brentlinger said...

Thank you for your kind words.

No, I received no response from the man who originally wrote to me.

People do not like to be confronted, however kindly, with the inconsistency of their logic.

Gay Christian 101 - Spiritual Self-Defense For Gay and Lesbian Christians

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