Politics/F.%20Hollande(-15331)%20in%20[5]772(-2)%20in%20year(1)%20elected(2)%20will%20be%20elected(1)%20President(1).jpg' alt='Bible Codes Search Pro' title='Bible Codes Search Pro' />Gay Marriage Our Mutual Joy. Lets try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women two sisters and their servantsAbraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israelall these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachmentsespecially family. The apostle Paul also single regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. It is better to marry than to burn with passion, says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couplewho likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic loveturn to the Bible as a how to scriptOf course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so. The battle over gay marriage has been waged for more than a decade, but within the last six monthssince California legalized gay marriage and then, with a ballot initiative in November, amended its Constitution to prohibit itthe debate has grown into a full scale war, with religious rhetoric slinging to match. Not since 1. 86. 0, when the countrys pulpits were full of preachers pronouncing on slavery, pro and con, has one of our basic social and economic institutions been so subject to biblical scrutiny. But whereas in the Civil War the traditionalists had their James Henley Thornwelland the advocates for change, their Henry Ward Beecherthis time the sides are unevenly matched. All the religious rhetoric, it seems, has been on the side of the gay marriage opponents, who use Scripture as the foundation for their objections. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now. G Hsdpa Usb Modem Software Download. The argument goes something like this statement, which the Rev. Is Donald Trump the Antichrist of the Christian Bible If youve been asking yourself this very question then I ask that you read what Ive discovered. Tabtight professional, free when you need it, VPN service. Did the Holy Spirit inspire the authors of the Bible The Bible contains several references to slavery, which was a common practice in antiquity. The Bible stipulates the treatment of slaves, especially in the Old Testament. Silent Steel Submarine Game. Richard A. Hunter, a United Methodist minister, gave to the Atlanta Journal Constitution in June The Bible and Jesus define marriage as between one man and one woman. The church cannot condone or bless same sex marriages because this stands in opposition to Scripture and our tradition. To which there are two obvious responses First, while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Winmail Reader For Windows 7. Bible Codes Search Pro' title='Bible Codes Search Pro' />And second, as the examples above illustrate, no sensible modern person wants marriagetheirs or anyone elses to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes. Marriage in America refers to two separate things, a religious institution and a civil one, though it is most often enacted as a messy conflation of the two. The inevitable question, of course, is, whose morality will be taught We will offer our answer by way of a sketch of a theory of moral education. As a civil institution, marriage offers practical benefits to both partners contractual rights having to do with taxes insurance the care and custody of children visitation rights and inheritance. As a religious institution, marriage offers something else a commitment of both partners before God to love, honor and cherish each otherin sickness and in health, for richer and poorerin accordance with Gods will. In a religious marriage, two people promise to take care of each other, profoundly, the way they believe God cares for them. Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,0. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be civilly and religiously marriedand a number of excellent reasons why they should. In the Old Testament, the concept of family is fundamental, but examples of what social conservatives would call the traditional family are scarcely to be found. Marriage was critical to the passing along of tradition and history, as well as to maintaining the Jews precious and fragile monotheism. But as the Barnard University Bible scholar Alan Segal puts it, the arrangement was between one man and as many women as he could pay for. Social conservatives point to Adam and Eve as evidence for their one man, one woman argumentin particular, this verse from Genesis Therefore shall a man leave his mother and father, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. But as Segal says, if you believe that the Bible was written by men and not handed down in its leather bindings by God, then that verse was written by people for whom polygamy was the way of the world. The fact that homosexual couples cannot procreate has also been raised as a biblical objection, for didnt God say, Be fruitful and multiply But the Bible authors could never have imagined the brave new world of international adoption and assisted reproductive technologyand besides, heterosexuals who are infertile or past the age of reproducing get married all the time. Ozzie and Harriet are nowhere in the New Testament either. The biblical Jesus wasin spite of recent efforts of novelists to paint him otherwiseemphatically unmarried. He preached a radical kind of family, a caring community of believers, whose bond in God superseded all blood ties. Leave your families and follow me, Jesus says in the gospels. There will be no marriage in heaven, he says in Matthew. Jesus never mentions homosexuality, but he roundly condemns divorce leaving a loophole in some cases for the husbands of unfaithful women. The apostle Paul echoed the Christian Lords lack of interest in matters of the flesh. For him, celibacy was the Christian ideal, but family stability was the best alternative. Marry if you must, he told his audiences, but do not get divorced. To the married I give this command not I, but the Lord a wife must not separate from her husband. It probably goes without saying that the phrase gay marriage does not appear in the Bible at all. If the bible doesnt give abundant examples of traditional marriage, then what are the gay marriage opponents really exercised about Well, homosexuality, of coursespecifically sex between men. Sex between women has never, even in biblical times, raised as much ire. In its entry on Homosexual Practices, the Anchor Bible Dictionary notes that nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women, possibly because it did not result in true physical union by male entry. The Bible does condemn gay male sex in a handful of passages. Twice Leviticus refers to sex between men as an abomination King James version, but these are throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world, a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goator a lamb or a turtle dove. Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions.