GAY TRUTH

In March 2012, Matthew Vines posted a video on YouTube suggesting that "being gay is not a sin," and that the Bible "does not condemn, loving, committed same-sex relationships." He spoke eloquently from the heart with poise, conviction and vulnerability. The video quickly went viral. Vines is a bright young man raised in a Christian home. At age 19, he left Harvard University after his third semester so that he could come out to his family and friends in Wichita. He knew that his father would not agree with the way he reconciled his sexuality with Scripture . So Vines sought to arm himself with biblical scholarship on the affirmation of same-sex relationships and strove to convince his family and church that they were wrong—that homosexuality is not a sin. Vines's new book, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships, expounds further on the arguments made in his video. His aim is not to present new information, but

Author: Heath Lambert Is a “gay Christian” consistent with the gospel of Christ ? Matthew Vines’s answer to this question is the exact oppo­site of the one provided by historic Christianity . Vines’s book, God and the Gay Christian, is an unfortunate reversal of thou­sands of years of moral clarity about homosexuality. He says, [I]t isn’t gay Christians who are sinning against God by entering into monogamous, loving relation­ships. It is the church that is sinning against them by rejecting their intimate relationships (162). Just 20 years ago, it would have been unthinkable to propose such a statement. In 2014, the core conviction of a significant book by a major publisher is that the nearly unanimous, historical understanding about the sinfulness of homosexuality is now the problem. It would take a massive amount of argumentation to justify such an extreme and innovative position. But one of the most significant prob­lems in God and the Gay Christian is a faulty assumption that le

English: Drawing of a Macaroni or Molly, an 18th Century term for effeminate homosexual. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Author: Owen Strachan “ History ,” journalist Ted Koppel once said, “is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions.” This quotation reflects a certain skepticism about the world not unknown to the media class, but it makes a valid point: among long-standing academic disciplines, history is among the easiest to use for one’s purposes. It is therefore easy, one could say, to abuse it. Skepticism over history is a valid place to start in con­sidering the new book God and the Gay Christian by former Harvard student Matthew Vines. Vines takes on a weighty task in his new book. He seeks to prove that the Bible ap­proves of a homosexual orientation, and that traditional evangelical interpretation of six key biblical texts has erred. Though Vines is at pains to say “I am not a Bible scholar” (2), he nonetheless attempts to overturn centuries, even two millenni