A few weeks ago, one of my students sent me a link to a video and transcript of a young man from Harvard University who was making a case for why the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. My student was hoping that I could especially address the meaning of Romans 1:26-27. I quickly perused the transcript and sent a copy of an article I wrote a few years ago.
Fast forward almost three weeks, and our Communications Office at SWBTS got an email from a reporter at The Christian Post asking for a professor to answer some questions related to that same video. The seminary asked me to respond.
Today, the article was released, and it included a significant amount of my responses. I would like to encourage you to read the article. I am honored to be included with the likes of Robert Gagnon (Pittsburgh Seminary), Sean McDonough (Gordon-Conwell Seminary), and Richard Mouw (Fuller Seminary). It is the second part of a three-part series. The first was an interview with the student from Harvard, Matthew Vines. In the days to follow, I will also post the full text of my answers to the questions.
Over the summer, Professor Mark Regnerus (University of Texas at Austin) published a paper noting some negative outcomes for children of parents who had same-sex relationships compared to children from biologically intact families. His findings contradict previous research based on much smaller sample sizes that claimed there was no difference in children raised in traditional families and those raised by parents in same-sex relationships. Immediately after the paper was published, Regnerus faced a firestorm of criticism that culminated in formal allegations of scientific misconduct by a blogger known for promoting a homosexual agenda. The University of Texas initiated a formal inquiry, and the results have been made public–there is insufficient evidence to warrant a formal investigation.
Reading the official report from the University sheds clear light on the issue. In part, the report states:
None of the allegations of scientific misconduct put forth by Mr. Rose were substantiated either by physical data, written materials, or by information provided during the interviews. In brief, Mr. Rose believed that the Regnerus research was seriously flawed and inferred that there must be scientific misconduct. However, there is no evidence to support that inference.
While much has been said about the accusations against Regnerus, little has been reported about his exoneration. In essence, unsubstantiated allegations were made against Regnerus by someone who disagreed with his conclusions. Based on his disagreement, Mr. Rose sought to have Regnerus disciplined or even removed from the faculty. While the inquiry was most certainly a burden to the professor, I am sure he is thankful that the integrity of his research was upheld.
Given the scope of Regnerus’ research and the controversial conclusions, I am sure his findings will be debated in the future. However, it should be made clear that any attempt to discredit him or his research on the basis of politics has been declared as unsubstantiated.
I am thankful for Mark Regnerus and his work showing the impact of same-sex parents on children and the value of traditional marriage and family structures for children and society at large.
“Eat More Chicken.” That’s what former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee wants you to do today. Gov. Huckabee has declared August 1 to be “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” in response to the negative firestorm surrounding Dan Cathy’s recent declaration of support for the biblical model of marriage. Cathy is the president and chief operating officer of the Atlanta-based restaurant chain.
Should we support Chick-fil-A today? Should we affirm Mr. Cathy’s statements? Does Mr. Cathy have the right to say such things? The answers to these questions are yes, yes, and yes, but let’s take a look at why.
Biblically, we need to be reminded to stand together with fellow believers as they try to do the right thing. In Hebrews 10:24, we read, “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” The Cathy family has worked long and hard to build a business on principles derived from the Bible. They keep their doors closed on Sundays so their employees can spend the day in worship. They train their staff to treat everyone with respect and kindness. They have even created foundations to fund college scholarships and other educational opportunities for employees. They are working diligently to do good—investing in their people and their communities. In an age where business is marked with greed and fraud, Chick-fil-A is running things the right way.
In addition, fellow believers should stand for what Dan Cathy has affirmed—a biblical understanding of marriage. In an interview with Allan Blume of the Biblical Recorder, Cathy said, “We are very much supportive of the family—the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”
Cathy’s statement is much broader than the media has reported. Certainly, his words exclude a vision of marriage beyond heterosexual union. However, he more specifically affirms marriage between one man and one woman for a lifetime. His concern is not simply with same-sex marriage. His statement expresses concern for rampant divorce in our culture, cohabitation before marriage, and the fringe elements of polygamous and polyamorous relationships that are becoming more mainstream.
Marriage as the Bible describes it is a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman that lasts until death. Genesis 2:24 declares, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” This relationship is then a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31–32). I applaud Mr. Cathy for supporting this vision of marriage.
Socially, not only should we affirm Mr. Cathy’s words, but we should support his work that in turn strengthens marriages. The company uses its profits to support a number of causes, one of which is its own WinShape Foundation. One of the focal points of the foundation is helping people prepare for, strengthen, and save their marriages. In our society today, over 60% of marriages are preceded by cohabitation; more than a third of all American adults experience at least one divorce; and 34% of all children under 18 live in households without two married parents. These numbers are staggering. Marriage is on the decline, and we need to do all we can to support it. When a company like Chick-fil-A and the Cathy family have made it possible for us to be a part of preserving marriage in our society, we need to vote with our mouths and our money.
Politically, we need to stand up for Mr. Cathy’s right to speak his opinion boldly and without threat of retaliation by the government. The First Amendment to the Constitution reads in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. . . .” Threats of retaliation by the city governments of Boston and Chicago constitute a violation of Mr. Cathy’s first amendment rights. Mr. Cathy has clearly stated that his position is based upon his religious beliefs. Therefore, blocking a company’s ability to operate in a city for the religious beliefs of its president amounts to the prohibition of his free exercise of religion. If that were not enough, Mr. Cathy has a first amendment right to speak his opinion under the protection of freedom of speech. Governments cannot discriminate against him or his company simply because he chose to speak. In fact, Mayor Menino of Boston and Mayor Emanuel of Chicago have both backtracked on their threats to ban the restaurant after facing the reality that such actions would be unconstitutional.
So what should Christians do? When we find businesses that promote biblical values, frequent them. Tell the company that you support the stands they take. Use your words and your money to demonstrate support. What about Chick-fil-A today? I say, go to Chick-fil-A. Buy a meal. Drink some lemonade. Eat more chicken.
Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, offers an insightful look at the tension between religious liberty and the redefinition of marriage. Here are a couple of highlights:
It was only yesterday, was it not, that we were being assured that the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex partnerships would have no impact on persons and institutions that hold to the traditional view of marriage as a conjugal union? Such persons and institutions would simply be untouched by the change. It won’t affect your marriage or your life, we were told, if the law recognizes Henry and Herman or Sally and Sheila as “married.”
Those offering these assurances were also claiming that the redefinition of marriage would have no impact on the public understanding of marriage as a monogamous and sexually exclusive partnership. No one, they insisted, wanted to alter those traditional marital norms. On the contrary, the redefinition of marriage would promote and spread those norms more broadly.
George then shows how those “assurances” were false and questions why those supporting traditional marriage ever bought into such assurances. He continues:
I must say, though, that I still can’t fathom why anybody believed any of it—even then. The whole argument was and is that the idea of marriage as the union of husband and wife lacks a rational basis and amounts to nothing more than “bigotry.” Therefore, no reasonable person of goodwill can dissent from the liberal position on sex and marriage, any more than a reasonable person of goodwill could support racial segregation and subordination. And this, because marriage, according to the redefiners, consists principally of the emotional union of people committed to mutual affection and care. Any distinctions beyond this one they condemn as baseless.
Since most liberals and even some conservatives, it seems, apparently have no understanding at all of the conjugal conception of marriage as a one-flesh union—not even enough of a grasp to consciously consider and reject it—they uncritically conceive marriage as sexual-romantic domestic partnership, as if it just couldn’t possibly be anything else. This is despite the fact that the conjugal conception has historically been embodied in our marriage laws, and explains their content (not just the requirement of spousal sexual complementarity, but also rules concerning consummation and annulability, norms of monogamy and sexual exclusivity, and the pledge of permanence of commitment) in ways that the sexual-romantic domestic partnership conception simply cannot. Still, having adopted the sexual-romantic domestic partnership idea, and seeing no alternative possible conception of marriage, they assume—and it is just that, an assumption, and a gratuitous one—that no actual reason exists for regarding sexual reproductive complementarity as integral to marriage. After all, two men or two women can have a romantic interest in each other, live together in a sexual partnership, care for each other, and so forth. So why can’t they be married? Those who think otherwise, having no rational basis, discriminate invidiously. By the same token, if two men or two women can be married, why can’t three or more people, irrespective of sex, in polyamorous “triads,” “quadrads,” etc.? Since no reason supports the idea of marriage as a male-female union or a partnership of two persons and not more, the motive of those insisting on these other “traditional” norms must also be a dark and irrational one.
This article is worth your time, especially in light of the current public discussion of Chick-fil-a’s support of traditional marriage. George lends credence to the Cathy family’s stance but explains why they are taking a beating in the media and social “elite.”
Source: Vital Statistics Birth Data, 1990 and 2009, Via ChildTrends.org
An article ran in The New York Times over the weekend about the impact of marriage on income inequality. The journalist followed the lives of two mothers who work at the same company—one is married and the other is a single mother. What he found, along with conclusions from research, was that marriage plays a significant role in determining on what side of the income inequality divide a family will be.
With a presidential election upon us in a few months and the political machines in full swing lobbing ad hominem attacks back and forth, one of the major issues is income inequality. While both political parties blame one another, research has demonstrated that there may be other causes at play than just the tax code.
The NYT reports:
Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns—as opposed to changes in individual earnings—may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality. Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes.
There are a number of factors that play a role in the discussion of marriage, family, and child-rearing on a societal level. For instance, the education level of the mother influences the likelihood that she will have a child out of wedlock. Even though the national numbers across educational levels show that 41% of all children are born to unwed mothers, only 8% of births to college-educated mothers are outside of marriage. The numbers for mothers with high school education or less are around 60%. In addition, these trends transcend racial lines.
The staggering changes in family structures witnessed in the United States in the last few decades have impacted people dramatically during the recent recession. The article notes:
Economic woes speed marital decline, as women see fewer “marriageable men.” The opposite also holds true: marital decline compounds economic woes, since it leaves the needy to struggle alone.
“The people who need to stick together for economic reasons don’t,” said Christopher Jencks, a Harvard sociologist. “And the people who least need to stick together do.”
Changes in family structure do not explain the gains of the very rich—the much-discussed “1 percent” and the richest among them. That story largely spills from Wall Street trading floors and corporate boardrooms.
But for inequality more broadly, Mr. Western found that the growth in single parenthood in recent decades accounted for 15 percent to 25 percent of the widening income gaps. (Estimates depend on the time period, the income tiers and the definition of inequality.) Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution found it to account for 21 percent. Robert Lerman of the Urban Institute, comparing lower-middle- and upper-middle-income families, found that single parenthood explained about 40 percent of inequality’s growth.
There are other intangible, non-economic factors in marriage that contribute to the stability of the family. Having two parents in the home means that there are more people to spend time with the children. While single parents find themselves pulled between jobs and children’s school and activities, two-parent families can “divide and conquer” when necessary. This lowers stress levels and promotes working together in the family.
In addition, the presence of both parents in the home brings a positive influence for the entire family. Brad Wilcox and Carlos Cavallé report:
For children, marriage matters. Children reared outside of an intact family are significantly less likely to acquire the human and social capital they need to become well-adjusted, productive workers. Those from intact, married families are more likely to succeed in school, graduate from college, and be gainfully employed as adults. And men who get and stay married work harder, smarter, and longer hours, and they earn between 10 and 24 percent more money. This is the case in countries as varied as Israel, Italy, Mexico, and the United States. For men and women alike, marriage fosters financially prudent behavior, including higher rates of savings and greater accumulation of assets. In these ways and many more, marriage is an important generator of social, human, and financial capital for economies around the world, and countries that enjoy a comparatively strong marriage culture—such as China, India, and Malaysia—are likely to reap long-term economic dividends.
It is always fulfilling to see when secular social science confirms God’s intentions for the family—even when they don’t set out to do so. In Genesis 2:24 we read, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” From this point forward, God clearly communicates that his design for the family is one man married to one woman for a lifetime. They work together to rear their children and provide lasting stability to their family that will hopefully be reproduced in the next generation.
Of course we encounter the fall of mankind in Genesis 3 that creates new difficulties for subsequent generations to fulfill this God-given design. However, we can even see in this article that God’s design is the best plan for marriage, family, and economic well-being.
As we endure the burdensome political process leading up to the election in November, we will hear politicians proclaiming they have the answers to our society’s economic woes. Most of their “solutions” will revolve around taxes, job creation, and government programs. Perhaps they should look at something else—the intact family.
W. Bradford Wilcox and Carlos Cavallé, “The Sustainable Demographic Dividend,” in What Do Marriage & Fertility Have to Do with the Economy? (National Marriage Project, 2011).
Ethics as Worship 