Dr. Jack Rogers

David Myers reviews Jesus, The Bible, and Homosexuality in Perspectives Magazine

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.

Excerpt from preface to the second edition of Jesus, The Bible, and Homosexuality

Over the next week or so I want to share with you some exclusive excerpts from the new expanded second edition of Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church.  As you know, for much of the last 2+ years I've been out on the road on a book tour in support of the first edition.  In the process, I've met countless faithful LGBT Christians and their families and been blessed to worship and share in fellowship together.  I wrote up some of my experiences, "stories from the road" if you will, and that became the preface to the second edition of Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality.  Pasted below, I've chosen a few paragraphs from the preface to the new edition:

    ...In the summer of 2008, I spoke to about two-hundred LGBT evangelical Christians at the West Coast conference of Evangelicals Concerned, a group founded by Dr. Ralph Blair, a New York psychotherapist, gay man, and evangelical Christian.  Blair founded this organization to meet the needs of conservative Christians who also know themselves to be gay. At the conference I became reacquainted with three former students from my teaching days at Fuller Theological Seminary. I had not known that the three men were gay.  Each of them shared with me essentially the same story: when he had finally acknowledged that he was gay, people who had previously loved and admired him suddenly rejected him and refused to allow him to participate in church leadership. 
    These men had all participated in so-called “ex-gay” groups or therapy. They had been told by their church leaders that the Bible condemned homosexuality and that their salvation was at risk. So they had turned to organizations that promised to help them change their sexual orientation.  One man had tried for three years. Another had stayed in an “ex-gay” group for ten years. They had each spent enormous time in prayer, therapy, and self-loathing.  But they all finally came to realize that they had not chosen nor could they change their sexual orientation no matter how hard they tried.  When these three former students finally accepted their sexual orientation, they were able to find meaningful relationships and personal stability, and they were able to start building a healthy family life.
    This book tour has shown me firsthand the enormous pain caused by the church’s unjust policies. All of this suffering is completely unnecessary and preventable.  As I show in this book (and as countless other scholars have shown in their work), the Bible, properly understood, does not condemn people who are LGBT, and it does not prohibit faithful same-sex relationships. The church’s historical prohibitions against marriage and ordination for people who are LGBT are an anachronism—much like our churches’ previous policies that prohibited interracial marriage or ordaining people of African descent, women, or people who are divorced and remarried. Indeed our faith calls us to do justice, provide hospitality, and embrace equality for all God’s people... 

The second edition of Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church is in stock and available now from Amazon.com, Cokesbury.com, and bookstores near you.