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Showing posts with the label Emory University

Washington Post faith reporter asks, ‘Why is polygamy so problematic?’

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WASHINGTON, D.C. , October 10, 2012, ( LifeSiteNews.com ) – As three states face ballot questions on whether to uphold the traditional definition of marriage between two members of the opposite sex, some in the national intelligentsia are looking forward to the next victory of the sexual revolution: polygamy. The faith writer at  The Washington Post  asked in a recent column, if one believes marriage should sanction any affectionate arrangement that makes its parties happy, “Why is polygamy so problematic?” John Witte Jr., a law professor and religion scholar Atlanta’s Emory University , has written in a forthcoming book on plural marriages that the case for legalizing polygamy rests on the same ground as that of homosexual unions. “American states today, viewed together, already offer several models of state-sanctioned domestic life for their citizens: straight and gay marriage, contract and covenant marriage, civil union and domestic partnership,” he writes in the first

Now to legalize polygamy

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Now that gay marriage is legal in many jurisdictions and broadly accepted, activists are taking up the cause of polygamy. The liberal Washington Postreligion columnist Lisa Miller is sympathetic: This week, in one of his first public statements since this past summer’s anti-gay-marriage remarks, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy told an Atlanta television reporter that he supports “ Biblical families.” This comment immediately gave rise to jokes questioning his familiarity with the Old Testament , where, as any Mormon elder can tell you, patriarchs such as Abraham, Jacob and David all practiced polygamy. John Witte Jr., however, thinks it isn’t so funny. A scholar of religion and law at Emory University in Atlanta, Witte is working on a lengthy history of polygamy due out next year. He believes that polygamy is the next frontier in marriage and family law. If states are able to dismantle traditional or conventional views of marriage by allowing two men or two women to wed, then why s

Homosexuality and the Bible — The Rejectionist Approach

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Image via Wikipedia Luke Timothy Johnson thinks that the Christian crisis over homosexuality is not really about sex at all.  Instead, it “has less to do with sex than with perceived threats to the authority of Scripture and the teaching authority of the church.” In reality the crisis is about both sex and biblical authority , as Johnson himself makes clear. Johnson  serves as Robert R. Woodruff Professor of New Testament at the Candler School of Theology  at  Emory University .  He is one of the most influential Roman Catholic scholars in the field of biblical studies. In “ Scripture & Experience ,” published in  Commonweal  magazine, Professor Johnson presents what can only be described as a rejectionist approach to the Bible ’s teachings on homosexuality. This rejectionist approach means that Professor Johnson directly rejects what the Bible teaches on this issue, and does so with a boldness shared by few others in this debate. He accepts that “the Bible nowhere speaks pos