My Response to Dr. Jack Rogers' New Book--"Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality"
Here is my response to published excerpts from Dr. Jack Rogers’ new book, “Jesus, The Bible and Homosexuality.”
But first, allow me to introduce you to Dr. Jack Rogers, former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly, retired Vice-President of San Francisco Theological Seminary, Southern California, and currently an avid supporter of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians (CNP). Along with the Covenant Network, Dr. Rogers endorses advocacy for the full inclusion of otherwise qualified sexually-active gay and lesbian persons to all ordained offices in the Church (Elder, Deacon & Minister of the Word and Sacrament). Such persons have been denied ordination in and for the Church both by historical understanding of the Word of God, the Authoritative Interpretation of the General Assembly and an explicit statement to that effect placed in the text of the denomination’s Constitution, Part II, the “Book of Order.”
Excerpts from his new book, “Jesus, The Bible and Homosexuality,” were published in the Spring edition of “The Covenant Connection,” the newsletter of the CNP.
The claims and assertions made in these excerpts are so brazen and outrageous that I could not restrain myself from making some sort of a response. Accordingly, I more or less randomly chose four statements and have limited myself to them for my response as illustrative of the quality (or lack) of scholarship represented in Dr. Rogers’ arguments.
The entire text of Dr. Rogers’ article can be found at here (beginning on page 2).
The quoted statements by Dr. Rogers are numbered 1-4 and highlighted in bold.
Excerpt 1. “However, Genesis 1-2 contains no reference to homosexuality, or marriage.”
My Response: Jesus seems to disagree with Dr. Rogers as he is cited in both Mark 10:6-7 and Matthew 19:4-5 as quoting Genesis 2:23-25 in support of God’s creative plan for marriage.
Paul also view Genesis 2:23-25 as relating to marriage as he quotes it in the context of his discussion of the mutual submission of husband to wife and wife to husband in Ephesians 5:31.
I cannot but wonder how Dr. Rogers can present himself as a better interpreter of scripture than either Paul or Jesus. Perhaps Jesus was not familiar with a politically correct “historical-critical” reading of the Word of God?
Indeed, it is the expressed view of the Reformed Faith that “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture, is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it may be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.” Westminster Confession of Faith 6.009
Excerpt 2. “Indeed, Furnish (here quoting another author) asserts that Genesis 2:23-25 neither commands nor presumes a ‘monogamous’ relationship between man and woman and…it offers no comment on ‘marriage’ as such.”
My Response: On the contrary, Jesus (cited above) clearly sees this passage as a comment on marriage. As for ‘monogamy’ the phrase “two become one flesh” is clearly a statement of male/female unity. Can three people become “one flesh?” Can four? Or is Genesis 2:23-25 simply referring to sequential sexual acts between one man and a variety of women, each act making them “one flesh” for the moment?
To answer “Yes” to any of these questions makes a mockery of the New Testament’s association of this passage with the unity of the church with Christ (Ephesians 5:31).
To answer “Yes” to any of these questions would make Christ but one of perhaps many lords with whom the Church might share spiritual commitment or “intercourse.”
Conversely, to answer “Yes” to any of these questions would perhaps make the Church but one of many “brides” for whom Christ died.
Excerpt 3. “Moreover, Old Testament heroes of the faith certainly did not model monogamy, but rather followed the patterns of their culture with multiple wives, concubines, and slaves as sexual partners. The Bible not only approves, but appears to mandate such behavior.”
My Response: The Old Testament heroes of the faith did indeed follow “the patterns of their culture with multiple wives, concubines, and slaves as sexual partners.” That is the entire problem with Dr. Roger’s arguments. Simply because somebody in the Bible does something does not mean that it receives God’s blessing or is consistent with God’s original intent in creation.
Culture is generally at odds with God’s holiness. Culture, along with each of us as individuals, is consumed by the corruption of sin. Just because God works within culture and through culture does not mean that God endorses or blesses the culture in which God works.
God’s blessing on monogamous, covenanted male/female sexual relations is, from the beginning, above and beyond and beside the mores of fallen, sinful, human culture. Cultural norms shift and change, come and go, but “the word of the Lord is flawless, his truth endures forever and of his law not one jot or tittle will be unfulfilled in Jesus Christ.” (2 Samuel 22:31; Psalm 117:2; Matthew 5:17-18)
One could point to the pattern of Genesis wherein Adam & Eve are monogamous as is their son, Seth. It is the doubly-fallen “marked man” Cain whose great great great-grandson becomes the first biblical man who marries “two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah.” (Genesis 4:19)
The long genealogy of Seth makes no mention of polygamy at all.
Through the story of the flood and the ensuing story of Babel there is no mention made of polygamy. Indeed, even Abraham and Isaac were monogamous insofar as they were only married to one wife. And they lived in a culture that celebrated polygamy and held it in esteem as a mark of wealth, influence and alliance between different clans, tribes and family groups. (Note: It is true that Abram’s wife, Sarai, give her servant, Hagar, to her husband as a second wife. see Genesis 16:3. But it is also clear that this was contrary to both God’s will and his covenanted promise with Abram. God’s will and promise required but one wife, Sarai; and one son, Isaac.).
It in not until we come to the deceitful liar and cheat named Jacob that we find the first evidence of polygamy in the lineage of Seth. As far as it goes, Jacob did not even want Leah as his wife and did not even realize that he had married her until after the wedding! It is clear from the way that he treated her throughout their lives that he considered her more of a legal obligation than a beloved wife. This relationship he reserved for the one he believed to be his only true wife, Rachel.
There are many things in Jacob’s life that cannot and must not be lifted up as evidence of God’s favor. Polygamy must certainly be one of these.
It is not until we come to the royal households of David, Solomon and their successors that we encounter polygamy once again. The political requirements and the unbridled power of royalty to “do what they want” is hardly a setting for claiming this as evidence of God’s favor.
In any case, polygamy can be best identified as an exception to the general pattern of the “Old Testament heroes of faith.” Even more than that, an argument could be made that monogamy was the clearly preferred ideal of every “godly” polygamist cited in the Old Testament.
Indeed, the Semitic word for “second wife” is (according to the “Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible”) a derivative from a root meaning, “show hostility
toward” or to “vex.”
The New Testament reaffirmation of monogamy as God’s created context for sexual human relationships can be found most clearly in the qualifications for the office of elder/overseer as cited in I Timothy 3:2. “Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife.” None of the other qualifications for this office are morally “optional” or unrelated to God’s clearly revealed will for us. Why should Dr. Rogers consider being “the husband of but one wife” to be the biblical exception?
Where Dr. Rogers finds God’s blessing or mandate in this matter is beyond me.
Excerpt 4. “We need to return to a biblical understanding of God, creation, sin, salvation, and love. Those who rely instead on natural law and biased cultural assumptions, twist and distort the fundamental message of the gospel.”
My Response: Three points . . .
Point One: Is Dr. Rogers suggesting that “natural law” is somehow in conflict with the God of creation? Is nature so fallen as to be unreliable as a guide to the creative purposes of God?
Dr. Rogers derides “natural law” and dismisses it out of hand. This is far from the case with scripture where we find Paul, in the first chapter of Romans verses 18-20, telling us that
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s divine nature—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has bee made, so that men are without excuse.”
It is a prima facie that the one who created the universe with his word included the laws of physics and the so-called “law of nature” in that word. Those things which are contrary to the laws of physics are in opposition to the reality of creation. Those things which are contrary to the law of nature are also in opposition to the reality of creation.
It is true that we have not yet discerned all things concerning the laws of physics. New discoveries are being made and new theories are being formulated every day.
But such is not the case with the “law of nature.” Such “law” is not only readily observable (such as one species cannot reproduce with another and two men or two women cannot “become one flesh” in the same way as can a man and a woman) but wonderfully confirmed by the word of God in scripture.
The law of God and the law of nature are of one piece. The one cannot contradict the other lest the universe be deemed to function contrary to the will and order of God who created it and who sustains it.
Point Two: It would appear that “biased cultural assumptions” are the unique talent of Dr. Rogers. It is he who is determined to “twist and distort the fundamental meaning of the gospel.”
Without a trace of embarrassment Dr. Rogers can claim that for thousands of years, from the days of the Old Testament and God’s Covenant with Moses through the New Testament, the teachings of Jesus, the presentation, interpretation and application of the Gospel through the Apostles and the consistent, unwavering witness of the Church throughout all history everyone has been wrong except for him and those who desire to believe as he does in these matters.
For millennia, the Word of God has resisted the “biased cultural assumptions” of one culture after another. The Church has steadfastly said “No” to the things of this world. And now, Dr. Rogers tells us that the time has come at last to reclaim the truth of the gospel that has been lost and corrupted in the world for over two thousand years! It appears that it is a truth that has been revealed in these latter days to him and to those who share in this “truth.”
This sounds remarkably like the premise upon which Joseph Smith built the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Point Three: Dr. Rogers states, “We need to return to a biblical understanding of God, creation, sin, salvation, and love.”
Here, at least, I find that I can agree with Dr. Rogers completely. The only difference between us is that I do not believe that the Church has ever wandered away from “a biblical understanding of God, creation, sin, salvation, and love.”
The burden of proof falls on Dr. Rogers’ shoulders to convince us that the Church, the Saints and Apostles, the Fathers and Mothers of the Faith and those who “reformed” her back to a central reliance on the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, were and are the ones who have wandered and strayed from these things and need to return to the correct, new and improved “biblical understanding” of what it all means.
I’m sorry, Dr. Rogers. I am not convinced. I must conclude that it is you and those who endorse your view (that God has, from the beginning of creation, blessed any form of homosexual practice) who have strayed and ought to return to the fold.
But first, allow me to introduce you to Dr. Jack Rogers, former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly, retired Vice-President of San Francisco Theological Seminary, Southern California, and currently an avid supporter of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians (CNP). Along with the Covenant Network, Dr. Rogers endorses advocacy for the full inclusion of otherwise qualified sexually-active gay and lesbian persons to all ordained offices in the Church (Elder, Deacon & Minister of the Word and Sacrament). Such persons have been denied ordination in and for the Church both by historical understanding of the Word of God, the Authoritative Interpretation of the General Assembly and an explicit statement to that effect placed in the text of the denomination’s Constitution, Part II, the “Book of Order.”
Excerpts from his new book, “Jesus, The Bible and Homosexuality,” were published in the Spring edition of “The Covenant Connection,” the newsletter of the CNP.
The claims and assertions made in these excerpts are so brazen and outrageous that I could not restrain myself from making some sort of a response. Accordingly, I more or less randomly chose four statements and have limited myself to them for my response as illustrative of the quality (or lack) of scholarship represented in Dr. Rogers’ arguments.
The entire text of Dr. Rogers’ article can be found at here (beginning on page 2).
The quoted statements by Dr. Rogers are numbered 1-4 and highlighted in bold.
Excerpt 1. “However, Genesis 1-2 contains no reference to homosexuality, or marriage.”
My Response: Jesus seems to disagree with Dr. Rogers as he is cited in both Mark 10:6-7 and Matthew 19:4-5 as quoting Genesis 2:23-25 in support of God’s creative plan for marriage.
Paul also view Genesis 2:23-25 as relating to marriage as he quotes it in the context of his discussion of the mutual submission of husband to wife and wife to husband in Ephesians 5:31.
I cannot but wonder how Dr. Rogers can present himself as a better interpreter of scripture than either Paul or Jesus. Perhaps Jesus was not familiar with a politically correct “historical-critical” reading of the Word of God?
Indeed, it is the expressed view of the Reformed Faith that “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture, is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it may be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.” Westminster Confession of Faith 6.009
Excerpt 2. “Indeed, Furnish (here quoting another author) asserts that Genesis 2:23-25 neither commands nor presumes a ‘monogamous’ relationship between man and woman and…it offers no comment on ‘marriage’ as such.”
My Response: On the contrary, Jesus (cited above) clearly sees this passage as a comment on marriage. As for ‘monogamy’ the phrase “two become one flesh” is clearly a statement of male/female unity. Can three people become “one flesh?” Can four? Or is Genesis 2:23-25 simply referring to sequential sexual acts between one man and a variety of women, each act making them “one flesh” for the moment?
To answer “Yes” to any of these questions makes a mockery of the New Testament’s association of this passage with the unity of the church with Christ (Ephesians 5:31).
To answer “Yes” to any of these questions would make Christ but one of perhaps many lords with whom the Church might share spiritual commitment or “intercourse.”
Conversely, to answer “Yes” to any of these questions would perhaps make the Church but one of many “brides” for whom Christ died.
Excerpt 3. “Moreover, Old Testament heroes of the faith certainly did not model monogamy, but rather followed the patterns of their culture with multiple wives, concubines, and slaves as sexual partners. The Bible not only approves, but appears to mandate such behavior.”
My Response: The Old Testament heroes of the faith did indeed follow “the patterns of their culture with multiple wives, concubines, and slaves as sexual partners.” That is the entire problem with Dr. Roger’s arguments. Simply because somebody in the Bible does something does not mean that it receives God’s blessing or is consistent with God’s original intent in creation.
Culture is generally at odds with God’s holiness. Culture, along with each of us as individuals, is consumed by the corruption of sin. Just because God works within culture and through culture does not mean that God endorses or blesses the culture in which God works.
God’s blessing on monogamous, covenanted male/female sexual relations is, from the beginning, above and beyond and beside the mores of fallen, sinful, human culture. Cultural norms shift and change, come and go, but “the word of the Lord is flawless, his truth endures forever and of his law not one jot or tittle will be unfulfilled in Jesus Christ.” (2 Samuel 22:31; Psalm 117:2; Matthew 5:17-18)
One could point to the pattern of Genesis wherein Adam & Eve are monogamous as is their son, Seth. It is the doubly-fallen “marked man” Cain whose great great great-grandson becomes the first biblical man who marries “two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah.” (Genesis 4:19)
The long genealogy of Seth makes no mention of polygamy at all.
Through the story of the flood and the ensuing story of Babel there is no mention made of polygamy. Indeed, even Abraham and Isaac were monogamous insofar as they were only married to one wife. And they lived in a culture that celebrated polygamy and held it in esteem as a mark of wealth, influence and alliance between different clans, tribes and family groups. (Note: It is true that Abram’s wife, Sarai, give her servant, Hagar, to her husband as a second wife. see Genesis 16:3. But it is also clear that this was contrary to both God’s will and his covenanted promise with Abram. God’s will and promise required but one wife, Sarai; and one son, Isaac.).
It in not until we come to the deceitful liar and cheat named Jacob that we find the first evidence of polygamy in the lineage of Seth. As far as it goes, Jacob did not even want Leah as his wife and did not even realize that he had married her until after the wedding! It is clear from the way that he treated her throughout their lives that he considered her more of a legal obligation than a beloved wife. This relationship he reserved for the one he believed to be his only true wife, Rachel.
There are many things in Jacob’s life that cannot and must not be lifted up as evidence of God’s favor. Polygamy must certainly be one of these.
It is not until we come to the royal households of David, Solomon and their successors that we encounter polygamy once again. The political requirements and the unbridled power of royalty to “do what they want” is hardly a setting for claiming this as evidence of God’s favor.
In any case, polygamy can be best identified as an exception to the general pattern of the “Old Testament heroes of faith.” Even more than that, an argument could be made that monogamy was the clearly preferred ideal of every “godly” polygamist cited in the Old Testament.
Indeed, the Semitic word for “second wife” is (according to the “Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible”) a derivative from a root meaning, “show hostility
toward” or to “vex.”
The New Testament reaffirmation of monogamy as God’s created context for sexual human relationships can be found most clearly in the qualifications for the office of elder/overseer as cited in I Timothy 3:2. “Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife.” None of the other qualifications for this office are morally “optional” or unrelated to God’s clearly revealed will for us. Why should Dr. Rogers consider being “the husband of but one wife” to be the biblical exception?
Where Dr. Rogers finds God’s blessing or mandate in this matter is beyond me.
Excerpt 4. “We need to return to a biblical understanding of God, creation, sin, salvation, and love. Those who rely instead on natural law and biased cultural assumptions, twist and distort the fundamental message of the gospel.”
My Response: Three points . . .
Point One: Is Dr. Rogers suggesting that “natural law” is somehow in conflict with the God of creation? Is nature so fallen as to be unreliable as a guide to the creative purposes of God?
Dr. Rogers derides “natural law” and dismisses it out of hand. This is far from the case with scripture where we find Paul, in the first chapter of Romans verses 18-20, telling us that
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s divine nature—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has bee made, so that men are without excuse.”
It is a prima facie that the one who created the universe with his word included the laws of physics and the so-called “law of nature” in that word. Those things which are contrary to the laws of physics are in opposition to the reality of creation. Those things which are contrary to the law of nature are also in opposition to the reality of creation.
It is true that we have not yet discerned all things concerning the laws of physics. New discoveries are being made and new theories are being formulated every day.
But such is not the case with the “law of nature.” Such “law” is not only readily observable (such as one species cannot reproduce with another and two men or two women cannot “become one flesh” in the same way as can a man and a woman) but wonderfully confirmed by the word of God in scripture.
The law of God and the law of nature are of one piece. The one cannot contradict the other lest the universe be deemed to function contrary to the will and order of God who created it and who sustains it.
Point Two: It would appear that “biased cultural assumptions” are the unique talent of Dr. Rogers. It is he who is determined to “twist and distort the fundamental meaning of the gospel.”
Without a trace of embarrassment Dr. Rogers can claim that for thousands of years, from the days of the Old Testament and God’s Covenant with Moses through the New Testament, the teachings of Jesus, the presentation, interpretation and application of the Gospel through the Apostles and the consistent, unwavering witness of the Church throughout all history everyone has been wrong except for him and those who desire to believe as he does in these matters.
For millennia, the Word of God has resisted the “biased cultural assumptions” of one culture after another. The Church has steadfastly said “No” to the things of this world. And now, Dr. Rogers tells us that the time has come at last to reclaim the truth of the gospel that has been lost and corrupted in the world for over two thousand years! It appears that it is a truth that has been revealed in these latter days to him and to those who share in this “truth.”
This sounds remarkably like the premise upon which Joseph Smith built the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Point Three: Dr. Rogers states, “We need to return to a biblical understanding of God, creation, sin, salvation, and love.”
Here, at least, I find that I can agree with Dr. Rogers completely. The only difference between us is that I do not believe that the Church has ever wandered away from “a biblical understanding of God, creation, sin, salvation, and love.”
The burden of proof falls on Dr. Rogers’ shoulders to convince us that the Church, the Saints and Apostles, the Fathers and Mothers of the Faith and those who “reformed” her back to a central reliance on the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, were and are the ones who have wandered and strayed from these things and need to return to the correct, new and improved “biblical understanding” of what it all means.
I’m sorry, Dr. Rogers. I am not convinced. I must conclude that it is you and those who endorse your view (that God has, from the beginning of creation, blessed any form of homosexual practice) who have strayed and ought to return to the fold.
posted by Bird of Paradise at 2:38 AM
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