The new issue of Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought contains a wonderful review by David G. Myers of the second edition of Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality. Dr. Myers is professor of psychology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and is co-author with Letha Dawson Scanzoni of What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage. I've long admired and benefited from Dr. Myer's insightful work and I'm honored by his generous review of the second edition of my book. Below is an excerpt from the review but please click (here) to read the whole review on the Perspectives website.
May 2010: Review There's a Wideness in God's Mercy by David G. Myers "Homosexuality is a burden that homosexual people are called to bear, and bear as morally as possible, even though they never chose to bear it" (229). So wrote Lewis Smedes in his 1994 revised edition of Sex for Christians. Last year was the tenth anniversary of Smedes' powerful Perspectives essay, "Like the Wideness of the Sea" (May 1999), which lamented his (Christian Reformed) church's one-time marginalization of divorced people, and similarly of gays and lesbians. Whomever Paul had in mind in Romans 1:18-27, Smedes noted, "We can be certain... they were not... Christian homosexual persons who are living their need for abiding love in monogamous and covenanted partnerships of love." Moreover, he added, "My church's exclusion of homosexuals who confess Christ and live together in committed love makes me very sad." In 2002, Smedes sent me an email detailing the further evolution of his thinking: "I wish the sentence about the church making me sad were a bit stronger." And "I wish that the sentence following the 'burden to bear' clause could be something like this: 'It is a burden most obediently and creatively born in a committed love-partnership with another.'" As Lewis Smedes' understandings and attitudes were changing, so also, simultaneously, were those of his kindred-spirit and one-time faculty colleague at Fuller Theological Seminary, Jack Rogers. Like Smedes, Rogers had taken a Ph.D. under Dutch Calvinist influence in the Netherlands, was evangelical and Reformed, was widely published, and was highly esteemed in his (Presbyterian) denomination, which elected him Moderator. Mindful that Smedes' life was cut short by his accidental death seven months after our exchange, I had a thought while reading Rogers' Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: if Lew Smedes were still with us, this is a book he might have written. Rogers' "change of mind and heart" occurred as a result of his "going back to the Bible and taking seriously its central message for our lives.... I now know many people across all theological and ideological lines who are convinced that the Spirit of Christ is leading us, based on our best understanding of the Bible, to be consistent in allowing all of our baptized members eligibility for positions of leadership" (15-16 ).... |
Please click (here) to continue reading the rest of the review on the Perspectives website.
