{"id":102,"date":"2018-11-16T16:22:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T08:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesus4lesbians.com\/?p=102"},"modified":"2018-12-06T12:13:15","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T04:13:15","slug":"matthew-vines-use-of-scriptures-is-quite-sophisticated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/?p=102","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Vines’ use of Scriptures is quite sophisticated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Vines\u2019 entire family deciding to leave their hometown church as well.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t do this in anger or in frustration.\u00a0 They did it because they wanted to express, first and foremost, their solidarity with their son or with their brother.\u00a0 They also did this, I would conjecture, because they were increasingly suspicious, thanks to the insights of their son, that there might be something drastically mistaken in the traditional Bible interpretations and that the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d was indeed destructive to the spiritual and psychological well-being of Matthew<\/span>.\u00a0 By extension, they might have conjectured that if the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d is poisonous to their son, it would follow, as the night follows the day, that this \u201cgospel\u201d would be toxic to other youths[i]<\/a> wrestling with their sexual orientation as well.\u00a0 Here is how Vines masterfully expresses this in his own words:<\/p>\n

Could it be true?\u00a0 Could it really be that this holiest of books, which contains some of the most beautiful writings and inspiring stories known to mankind, along with the unparalleled teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, also happens to require the emotional and spiritual destruction of sexual minorities?\u00a0 For any of us who learned to love the Jesus who called the little children to him, whose highest law was that of love, and who was a fierce defender of the downtrodden and the outcast,<\/strong> this simply did not seem possible.<\/strong>[ii]<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus, the suspicion was that the teachings of Jesus invalidate the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d and that, in the case of homosexuality, false teaching has distorted the biblical texts such that \u201cScripture is used to manipulate.\u00a0 God is used as a weapon.\u201d [iii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew Vines’ use of Scriptures is quite sophisticated<\/h4>\n

Matthew Vines’ use of Scriptures is quite sophisticated.\u00a0 Vines is not only casting doubt on the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d and the texts used to support it, he is also discovering overlooked texts that construct a solid basis for an eventual acceptance of homosexual unions.\u00a0 Here is an excellent example:<\/p>\n

In the first two chapters of Genesis, God creates the heavens and the earth, plants, animals, man, and everything in the earth.\u00a0 And He declares everything in creation to be either good or very good \u2013 except for one thing.\u00a0 In Genesis 2:18, God says, \u201cIt is not good for the man to be alone.\u00a0 I will make a helper suitable for him.\u201d\u00a0 And yes, the suitable helper or partner that God makes for Adam is Eve, a woman.\u00a0 And a woman is a suitable partner for the vast majority of men \u2013 for straight men.\u00a0 But for gay men, that isn\u2019t the case.\u00a0 For them, a woman is not a suitable partner.\u00a0 And in all of the ways that a woman is a suitable partner for straight men\u2014for gay men, it\u2019s another gay man[iv]<\/a> who is a suitable partner<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the same is true for lesbian women.\u00a0 For them, it is another lesbian woman who is a suitable partner.\u00a0 But the necessary consequence of the traditional teaching on homosexuality is that, even though gay people have suitable partners, they must reject them, and they must live alone for their whole lives, without a spouse or a family of their own.<\/p>\n

We are now declaring good the very first thing in Scripture that God declared not good: for the man to be forced to be alone.\u00a0 And the fruit that this teaching has borne has been deeply wounding and destructive.<\/strong>[v]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Notice how Vines begins by carefully examining the text of Gen 1-3.\u00a0 He isolates God\u2019s declaration, \u201cIt is not good for a man to be alone,\u201d as his key concern.\u00a0 But then he shows that the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d frustrates God\u2019s declaration in two ways:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Gay people know very well that God has created for them \u201csuitable partners,\u201d yet the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d declares that same-sex partners are everywhere and always unsuitable;<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Likewise, the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d declares that gays must embrace life-long celibacy; yet, in so doing, they frustrate God\u2019s declaration that \u201cit is not good for a man to be alone\u201d<\/strong> (Gen. 2:18).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This double failure on the part of the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d is \u201cdeeply wounding and destructive.\u201d\u00a0 The unspoken complaint here is that following the gospel of life should lead to peace, joy, and understanding; hence, quite clearly the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d is not the gospel of life even though Matthew\u2019s church declares that it is the one and only Gospel.<\/p>\n

    Vines\u2019 argument could be further expanded by taking note that in Gen. 1, God alone judges the worth of his majestic creation on the six days.\u00a0 \u201cGod saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good\u201d (Gen. 1:31).\u00a0 Not so in Gen 2.\u00a0 Here it is the earthling (Adam) who signals to God that he is lonely.\u00a0 The assumption of the narrative is that God is never lonely; hence, not even God could have anticipated the onset of loneliness nor could he have immediately known how to heal this loneliness.\u00a0 Nonetheless, God takes Adam at his word and throws himself into trying to find an appropriate solution:<\/p>\n

    So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name (Gen. 2:19).<\/p>\n

    Notice here how, after each new trial, God brings his latest creation to the earthling so that he can name it and, quite possibly, discover whether this new creature will dispel his loneliness.\u00a0 Notice carefully that the text demonstrates that God cannot anticipate the final solution to Adam\u2019s problem.\u00a0 He must experiment and then await Adam\u2019s response.\u00a0 This is because the \u201cloneliness\u201d belongs properly to the earthling and not to God.<\/p>\n

    What we can learn from this is that God, in the case of gays and lesbians, would not presume to know in advance that gays and lesbians would be prone to loneliness.\u00a0 Even then, God would have to wait and see how gays and lesbians would choose to dispel their loneliness.[vi]<\/a>\u00a0 If God himself has to be patient and to listen, then it would be incumbent upon pastors in the Christian churches to do the same.\u00a0 When they sidestep this listening process, they easily err because they take the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d given to them and force it upon people they do not properly understand.[vii]<\/a> \u00a0So, the churches can error easily when they fail to act with the same care and discernment that God himself displays in Gen 2.<\/p>\n

    \"\"Those who want to interact with this blog are invited to “Leave a Reply” below.\u00a0 A solid way to begin doing this is to offer “readback lines.”\u00a0 <\/span>To do this, quickly glace back over the entire blog and pick out the one or two lines that have made a deep impression upon you.\u00a0 Copy them [CTRL-C] and then paste them\u00a0[CTRL-V] into an empty comment box below.\u00a0 If you wish, signal the emotion that you feel when reading your readback lines.\u00a0 The primary emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise.\u00a0\u00a0 No need to further explain yourself.\u00a0 It is enough to identify the text important to you and to name the emotion(s) that it evokes.\u00a0 All of this normally takes less than a few minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

    I and others will “thank you” for your contribution.\u00a0 If you are tempted to say more, I urge you to hold back.\u00a0 Your sense of safety and the safety of others is best protected by not getting overly wordy in the beginning.\u00a0<\/a> This will come after a few days or weeks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Endnotes and Leave a Reply~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

    [i]<\/a> For excellent life-stories inspired by the Reformation Project of Matthew Vines, go to https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReformationP\/<\/p>\n

    [ii]<\/a> Matthew Vines, \u201cThe Bible and Homosexuality: Why I Left College and Spent Two Years Finding Out What the Scriptures Really<\/em> Say,\u201d The Huffpost Gay Voices<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0 26 March 2012 (http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/matthew-vines\/bible-homosexuality_b_
    \n1378368.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n

    [iii]<\/a> Given my own special interest in Jewish-Christian relations, I am especially sensitive to how anti-Jewish sentiments circulating among Catholics were used to interpret a few texts in the Gospels (especially, \u201chis blood be upon us and upon our children\u201d Matt. 27:25) in order to prove (a) that God held all Jews accountable for the killing of Jesus and (b) that God, as a result of this crime, had rejected all Jews in all times and in all places as his chosen people, and, in their place, God embraced Catholics with his love and protection and enduring covenant.\u00a0 In the wake of this \u201canti-Jewish gospel,\u201d Christians routinely interpreted natural and deliberate disasters (beginning with the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 68-70 CE) as the divine retribution inflicted upon Jews for their crime of killing Jesus, the Son of God.<\/p>\n

    Not until after the Holocaust did the Christian churches finally come to their senses and begin to sort out what the Scriptures did and did not say about the Jews.\u00a0 As a result, biblical interpretations held for more than sixteen hundred years were uprooted over the course of a few decades (1948-1968).\u00a0 Meanwhile, biblical interpretations that had been ignored or obscured were brought forward, more especially, (a) that God\u2019s election of the Jewish people was permanent and irrevocable and (b) that Jesus himself lived and died as a faithful Jew.<\/p>\n

    This case of anti-Jewish prejudice poisoning the true meaning of the Scriptures is important for a number of reasons.\u00a0 First, it demonstrates that, once an error inserts itself, it can persist from generation to generation undetected because the false interpretation itself feeds upon the anti-Jewish prejudice that stimulated its origination.\u00a0 Secondly, it demonstrates that, saints and sinners, bishops and scholars all were mutually supportive in maintaining and promoting these false biblical interpretations.\u00a0 Only the massive and unthinkable Holocaust had enough shock value to inspire a critical reassessment of those anti-Jewish interpretations that had become firmly entrenched within the Catholic tradition.\u00a0 For further details, see James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews<\/em><\/strong> (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001) & Aaron Milavec, Salvation Is from the Jews: Reflections on Saving Grace within Judaism and on Messianic Hope within Christianity<\/em><\/strong> (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007).<\/p>\n

    [iv]<\/a> Keep in mind that complementary personalities and complementary skill-sets figure into the mutual choice of a suitable partner in both heterosexual and homosexual unions.<\/p>\n

    [v]<\/a> Matthew Vines, \u201cThe Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality,\u201d 08 Mar 2012 (www.matthewvines.com\/transcript\/).<\/p>\n

    [vi]<\/a> This emphasis upon experimentation and flexibility found in the Gen. 2 account also serves to make way for transgendered and bisexual individuals.\u00a0 When one hears the personal stories of such persons, it is not at all intuitive whether there is a single formula for how such persons will choose their soul mates.\u00a0 Hence, as in the case of God, both heterosexuals and homosexual persons will have to wait and see what sort of choices satisfies their yearning hearts.<\/p>\n

    [vii]<\/a> Many Christians think, for example, that giving legal recognition to \u201csame-sex marriages\u201d has the effect of devaluing \u201cheterosexual marriages.\u201d\u00a0 In truth, the very opposite is the case.\u00a0 It is because homosexuals esteem the permanent covenant of love that prevails in marriages that they want to participate in this social matrix themselves.\u00a0 They also discern that sex in marriage entails a mutual surrender and provides a pleasure bonding that is re-creative and healing. This too they want to taste for themselves.\u00a0 As for setting up households and deciding upon children, same-sex unions have a wide variety of options to consider here just as do their heterosexual counterparts.\u00a0 No two heterosexual unions are the same.\u00a0 The same rule will prevail among homosexual unions.\u00a0 No two heterosexual unions express love and affection in the same way.\u00a0 The same rule will surely prevail among homosexual unions.\u00a0 What is avoided as vulgar by one couple may be a source of delight for another.\u00a0 No two heterosexual unions make decisions and share household chores in exactly the same way. \u00a0Same for homosexual unions.<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Matthew Vines\u2019 entire family deciding to leave their hometown church as well.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t do this in anger or in frustration.\u00a0 They did it because they wanted to express, first and foremost, their solidarity with their son or with their brother.\u00a0 They also did this, I would conjecture, because they were increasingly suspicious, thanks to … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Matthew Vines’ use of Scriptures is quite sophisticated”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":370,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions\/370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}