Friends,
I have no doubt about the sincere conviction you feel about
the subjects covered in The Nashville Statement. But I have to point out the
fact that some of your premises simply don’t follow the examples given in
scripture.
Let’s start with Article 1
WE AFFIRM that God has designed
marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and
one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant love
between Christ and his bride the church.
WE DENY that God has designed
marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship. We also
deny that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made before
God
I’m going to focus on two areas here – polygamous/polyamorous
and the “mere human contract.”
- Abraham with Sarah and Hagar
- Jacob with Leah, Rachel, Zipah, and Bilah
- David with Ahinoan, Abigail, Maacah, Haggith, Abital, Eglah, Michal, and Bathsheba
- Solomon with – well, a lot of wives.
The “mere human contract” line could certainly apply to
Jacob and Leah, definitely to David and Michal, probably to a few other of his
wives, and certainly to many of Solomon’s marriages.
On to Article 2
WE AFFIRM that God’s revealed will
for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage.
WE DENY that any affections,
desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or outside
marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality.
And yet, we have Judah and Tamar – and we have Rahab the prostitute – and we have the third chapter of Ruth – and the Song of Songs –
and Hosea – and the list goes on. Bottom line, there’s a lot more to scripture
than the limited statement you have crafted and/or signed.
Skipping ahead to Article 7 (again, my focus here is
scriptural consistency)
WE AFFIRM that self-conception as
male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and
redemption as revealed in Scripture.
WE DENY that adopting a homosexual
or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in
creation and redemption.
Just a question – why would the God of Scripture go out of
His way to use a trans-gender individual to convert the nation of Ethiopia?
Here’s the thing – your statement gives the impression that
the thrust of the Bible is making sure that everyone is straight and that they
only get it on after they are married – that somehow this is the primary
concern of the God of Scripture.
There are a couple of problems with that.
First, the God of Scripture seems to be more interested in
how we treat the widow, orphan, stranger, alien, and the “other” than He is in who
gets whose juices flowing.
Second, as much as you try to couch your language about how
anything outside of your narrowly defined area of acceptability doesn’t put
someone outside the reach of God’s love, well, the tone is very clear that
anyone who identifies as anything other than a straight man or straight woman
is, at best, a tolerated second-class citizen of the Kingdom and definitely
shouldn’t expect to be used by God to advance that Kingdom.
Yes, I realize I have pretty much just condemned myself by
Article 10 of your statement:
WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to
approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval
constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.
WE DENY that the approval of
homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about
which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.
So, just checking – the transgender individual from the
book of Acts – so does that mean that Philip departed from Christian
faithfulness and witness by talking with that individual, or was it Luke who
departed from Christian faithfulness and witness by writing about the
individual, or was it the Holy Spirit that departed from Christian faithfulness
and witness by telling Philip to go talk with the transgender individual – or
are all parties guilty?
Seriously, do you not grasp how you are perpetuating
Biblical ignorance by coming out with a statement that reflects more of your
own personal bias than anything that could be justified by scripture?
Hold whatever views you wish, but please do not take the
rich, complex, engaging, life-affirming, gritty, real, and awesome Word of God
and misrepresent it as a simplistic, small pamphlet on Victorian morals, then
expect all of Christianity to affirm it along with you.
With that, I honestly do invite a conversation, let's discuss.
