A few days ago, Tony Jones continued his blogologue with Rod Dreher on Same-sex Marriage. In it, he says:
“Many of my commenters have expressed frustration over my initial post in which I narrated my story on this issue. It seems that for many of our readers, my own experience of life and my friendship with and compassion for gay and lesbian persons should play no role in the formation of my opinion regarding their rights. Many of these commenters, for instance, feel that posting a Bible verse, or telling me that God never changes is sufficient to show how faulty is my thinking. (If it’s okay with you, Rod, I’d like to finish up with government action this week, get into issues philosophical next week, and then tackle the theological/biblical messages after that. (Not to tip my hand, but I will be asking why they are so impressed with Leviticus 18:22 but not 19:27 or 20:9, 10, and 18!))”
I am one of those that’s concerned about the role you are giving experience in this debate. However, I never claimed that experience should have *no* role. I clearly think that experience does and should influence human beings. My only question is: “how much of a role should we give it?” My concern with Jones is that he *seems* to be giving it a primary role. I see signs that he made up his mind before coming to the Scriptures. Of course I could be wrong in that last judgment; all I’m saying is that I see signs of that right now.
Experience and emotions, as JP Moreland puts it, are wonderful slaves but terrible masters. If you give experience the reigns, it leads you in all sorts of wacky directions. Does this mean that we should just disregard it? No, please don’t pidgeonhole me in that corner. All it means is that we’ve gotta have the horse of Scripture and reason before the cart of experience and emotions.
Jones does say that he values reason/Scripture and experience, but as of now, I don’t see much evidence of that. If he did value reason/Scripture, I think he would have at least mentioned it in his initial post about how he came to his beliefs….but its nowhere to be found.
Read my original post here.
8 responses so far ↓
Neil // November 28, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Good point about emotions. My pastor did extensive research to show his peers why their pro-gay theology was wrong. They only responded with stories and feelings. They had nothing from the Bible. That speaks volumes about their worldview.
Rich Bordner // November 28, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Yes…that’s the rule, not the exception, I’ve found. And if they do have arguments from the Bible, too often they are mostly afterthoughts and are the old worn out ones Jones mentions in his posts (i.e., “Paul was concerned not about homosexuality in Romans, but about rampant sensuality and about both heterosexuals and homosexuals going against their nature.”)
Neil // November 28, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Yes, and those kinds of “arguments” show they are ignorant of the text. The original Greek showed that the homosexuals were going against their natural “function,” not desire. Tony should know better. I’m not saying tradition is always right, but 2,000 years of heterosexual one man / one woman marriage puts the burden of proof on the pro-gay theology folks. And they fail miserably.
Rich Bordner // November 28, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Good point about burden of proof and of function being the locus of the Romans passage…
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