Alan and Greg continue their response to the Reformation Project (the movement to change Christians’ minds about homosexuality) in this month’s issue of Solid Ground. (You can read Part 1 here.)
The article addresses several of TRP’s talking points (taken from the Reformation Project’s regional training conference in D.C. last year), including:
- “Experience shouldn’t cause us to dismiss Scripture, but it can cause us to reconsider our interpretation of Scripture.”
- “Sexual orientation is a new concept—one the Christian tradition has not addressed.”
- “The New Testament points toward greater inclusion of gender and sexual minorities, including those who do not fit neatly within binary categories.”
- “The Bible does not teach a normative doctrine of gender complementarity.”
Here’s an excerpt regarding that last point:
Scripture, TRP is claiming, is actually silent on the idea that males were made by God as the appropriate sexual complement to females (the “normative doctrine of gender complementarity”). Rather, “the focus in Genesis 2 is not on the complementarity of male and female, but rather on the similarity of male and female, over and against the created animals. The ‘one flesh’ union spoken of in Genesis 2:24 connotes not physical complementarity, but a kinship tie.”…
Eve was a suitable helper for Adam because she was human, not animal—true enough. But that is not the whole of it. God also said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Complying with this command requires more than a species kin relationship. It requires the “male and female” genders mentioned in the verse right before it. Indeed, the reproductive system is the only human bodily function that requires uniting with a human being of the opposite sex to fulfill its purpose.
When a man leaves his parents, he cleaves to—becomes one flesh with—his wife (Gen. 2:24), not just to another human he is “kin” to. This is the kind of one-flesh union God had in mind, the only union capable of fulfilling the “be fruitful and multiply” creation mandate. That’s why there is not a single instance in Scripture where a pair of men or a pair of women are described in a “one-flesh” union.
Read the rest of “A Reformation the Church Doesn’t Need, Part 2.”
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