Theology in the Raw - 871: Responding to Arguments for Same-Sex Marriage: Dr. Darrin Snyder Belousek

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

Darrin W. Snyder Belousek teaches philosophy and religion at Ohio Northern University. He has taught previously at various church-related colleges: Bluffton University, Louisburg College, Bethel College, Lithuania Christian College, Goshen College, and St. Mary's College. He received a Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science from the University of Notre Dame (1998) and a certificate of theological studies from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (2017).  Dr. Belousek has written an outsstanding book about same-sex marriage titled: Marriage, Scripture, and the Church: Theological Discernment on the Question of Same-Sex Union. In this podcast, we talk about the meaning of marriage, Ephesians 5, sex difference (or sexuate correspondance, as he calls it), Genesis 1-2, and why the question of marriage is at the center of these debates.  Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today, Dr. Darren W. Snyder Balusek. Balusek? I think I pronounced that right. Darren is the author of a few different books. The first big book he wrote is called Atonement, Justice, and Peace. And he also wrote Good News, the Advent of Salvation in the Gospel of Luke. The book we're going to talk about today is his recent book, which is an absolutely outstanding book called Marriage, Scripture, and the Church. I have it right here if you're watching on YouTube. I'm holding it up in front of the camera. The subtitle is Theological Discernment on the Question of Same-Sex Union.

of same-sex union. When I got an email last fall to endorse this book, I got an email from Baker Publishing saying, hey, would you consider endorsing Darren's book? I almost deleted the email for two reasons. Number one, I was on sabbatical and I was deleting a lot of emails when I would actually check my email. And number two, I kind of thought, another book on same-sex marriage? Like, I think, what else is there that hasn't been said, you know? But I happened to open up the manuscript and started looking at it, and immediately I was hooked. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the kind of missing link to this conversation. Not that, you know, what he talks about hasn't been said before necessarily, but the way he frames the conversation about the meaning of marriage as the starting point for wrestling with what does the Bible say about same-sex sexual unions. It ultimately is a question about what is marriage.

And I've said that. I've kind of been emphasizing that over the last few years. But even as I mentioned in the podcast, even in my own book, People to be Loved, I've got a chapter on marriage. And I've said that I've kind of been emphasizing that over the last few years. But even as I mentioned in the podcast, even in my own book, People to be Loved, I've got a chapter on marriage. And I don't think it was done that well, because I don't think I framed it in exactly the same way that Darren frames the question. So knowing that, looking back on my book, People to be Loved, like, oh, man, if I was going to rewrite this book, much of what I say in the book would probably say the same,

little tweaks and adjustments here and there. But I would completely rewrite, well, largely rewrite my chapter on marriage because I think I didn't frame it the best way in that book. And I think Darren frames it exactly the way I would do so today. And it's a gracious book. It's a very thoughtful, very thorough book. It's an academic book. So if you do buy the book, which I would do so today. And it's such a, it's a gracious book. It's a very thoughtful, very thorough book. It's an academic book. So if you do buy the book, which I would highly recommend, just make sure you're getting into a very in-depth, robust treatment of the topic. So very excited about this conversation. We do talk a lot about just kind of different arguments for and against same-sex marriage in the church. We wrestle a lot with Ephesians 5, Genesis 1 and 2, and just the overarching storyline of Scripture as it relates to marriage. If you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw.

Become part of the Patreon community where you get access to premium content, monthly podcasts, Q&A, dialogues, and much, much more. Patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. All right, let's welcome to the show for the first time, Dr. Darren back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with my new friend, Darren Snyder Belusik. And as I said in the intro, he has written an outstanding book called Marriage, Scripture, and the Church, Theological Discernment, and on the question of same-sex union, which we'll talk about in a second. But Darren, first of all, thanks so much for being on Theology Narah, and would love for

you to just tell your story. How did you become a philosopher? Was that something that as a kid you always wanted to pursue, or is this something that you got into later on in life? Yeah, well, okay. Well, thank you, Preston, for the invitation to join you on this podcast. I'm really grateful for that. And it's good to meet you screen to screen at least for the first time this morning.

No, I would never have dreamed of being a philosopher. I wouldn't have known what one was until I went to college. And I was not on my path to becoming an academic either. I was raised in a farming, rural, small town and was actually intending to go into the agricultural field. It's interesting now to sort of think about this as like, okay, yes, I thought about this many times, but now, all right. So, but I, I got involved in philosophy because I was in an honors program at the college I went to as a junior college, Joliet Junior College, the first junior public community college in the U.S.

And they had an honors program they were starting and invited me to be part of it. And the first year, or maybe it was the second year I was there, the second semester, the only honors course they had on offer was Intro to Philosophy. I had no intention of ever taking philosophy. I said, okay, I'll take this, do it, and be done with it. Well, I don't know how many weeks in we were before I was hooked and um around the same time though I also shifted my my major over to physics and that was a odd thing coming from agriculture to physics I'd done

well in physics in high school and I just wasn't being challenged enough in college and I thought if I'm going to do this and spend all this money and go through all this, I want an intellectual challenge. And so I thought, what's the hardest thing in the book course catalog? And it was physics. I thought, OK, let's try that. And I didn't want to enjoy this. So I was then doing physics along with philosophy as a physics major, philosophy minor through my undergraduate years, and then decided I really wanted to continue on with that. That had not been, you know, what a goal I had set, but by the time I was finishing, I wanted to go on with that. And the path forward was to go on in the field of history and philosophy of science. So combining philosophy and science, you know, and physics together. And I was able to do that

at the University of Notre Dame, where I eventually got my PhD. And now this also then connects of how I end up getting involved with theology, because while I was there, I, um, I had drifted away from the church, um, during my college years. And, and of course, if you're wanting to get away from the church, um, don't go to Notre Dame. Because I'm in the midst of a very, very Catholic institution. I was there for the academics and a very solid program and what I was pursuing and so on. But of course, I found myself surrounded by the church and surrounded by friends who were Christians, most of them Catholic. And they kind of, through friendship, wooed me back into the church. And I found myself then needing to reconnect to the local church. And that ended up being a Mennonite congregation in South Bend, Indiana, where Notre Dame is.

And it so happens that that's just a half hour away from one of the major seminaries of the Mennonite church in North America, in Elkhart, Indiana. the Mennonite Church in North America, in Elkhart, Indiana. And I realized I wanted to learn to read the Bible and to study the Bible and to think theologically, to deepen my faith, to deepen my life with Jesus. And so I started just taking auditing courses one at a time. And of course, again, I got hooked about, oh, maybe about 30 minutes into the first class of Old Testament theology with Ben Ollenberger, who's a classic Old Testament theologian who's recently retired, and so on. Anyway, and it just went from there, right? And so I've tried to combine then over the last 20 plus years then now philosophy and now theology. And mostly what I teach is philosophy over the course of the years.

I have taught some theology courses and I now teach at a university with several professional colleges and I teach professional ethics there and that's what they need and had needs for and that I came about through some life circumstance and God leading down some paths and so on and providing this and so I teach professional ethics to aspiring apprenticing engineers pharmacists and and others you know who are on their way to professional careers I teach ethics to them. So that's what I do. That's my day job, as it were.

And then I've been working on biblical study and biblical theology and so on and have been working in that for a number of years. And this is now my fourth book, and this one. And so it's the product of many, many years of just careful, patient study, as well as, of course, the practical context of this question, engaging with the surrounding church in my denomination, the Mennonite church, around this question. So when I got the manuscript, I was actually on sabbatical. And I got an email from your publisher saying, hey, would you consider endorsing this book? And I saw that it was on the question of same-sex unions. And I was like, what else could be said? And I haven't told you this. I almost deleted the email. I was like, I'm on sabbatical. No way. But I opened the manuscript and immediately when you, because this has been my hobby horse, hobby, that sounds too strong. My theological concern maybe is, is that

this whole debate about same sex marriage or marriage, or, well, let's just say same-sex sexual relationships, it's missed this question of the question of what is marriage? Like, you know, I often get the question, what's wrong with two people the same sex getting married? They're not, you know, and typically it goes, you know, they're not hurting anybody. They love each other. It's consensual. So what's the problem? And I said, well, that's a really good question. Can two people the same sex get married? But we need to first ask a more important question. What is marriage? Because the word marriage has various definitions. So I need to know what you mean by the very term marriage. Like what is marriage when you're using the term same sex marriage?

And this is the premise of your whole book. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting. And I started reading it and I just absolutely got hooked. And that's why I was eager to write an endorsement. This is the... In a discussion that you didn't think there was any missing links, things that haven't been said, this is that book. And so I was so excited to engage it. And in fact, one more thing, and I want to toss it back to you. I mean, I have one chapter on marriage in my book, People to be Loved. If I were to do a second edition of that book, I would completely rewrite that chapter. Because even then, this is 2014 when I finished the manuscript, I still didn't quite get it. I knew the question

of marriage was an important piece, but one chapter, and I still didn't even frame it right in that chapter. I've never said this publicly, by the way, but I think that is, it's a helpful chapter, I think, but it's probably the weakest because I did not frame it right. So anyway, what led you to wanting to even begin researching this topic? And then, I would love to hear more from you, this question of marriage and why that is so vital. And by the way, you're a good company. Augustine, St. Augustine, at the end of his life, wrote a whole Retractions, right? About, went back through all his works and what he had missed and

gotten wrong and so forth. So that's a good discipline for all of us to do at some point, right? To look back and I wouldn't do the same same way again or I'd rewrite it in this way. So that's process of learning and discernment through the spirit. Yes. Well, you know, I wouldn't have started with that question either. And I didn't start with that question. what I was sort of looking at was, I mean, this is sort of a question and issue that's been in, you know, discussion, debate within my denomination, Mennonite Church USA, and of course, the larger church, and so forth. And it was, of course, part of the cultural thing. You know, I first started thinking about this maybe back in the 1990s, when they were talking about,

you know, should there be a law to provide for civil unions or domestic partnerships or things like that and thinking about those kinds of questions just in terms of the wider society but then it also became a was was a a focal point of discussion and debate within my denomination, starting in the 1990s particularly. I want to explain all of that, how that came to be. But so that was when I joined the Mennonites sort of in the late 1990s. This was already a churning question. And that's when I began doing some reading and, and some research first as sort of the first round.

And I, and I read, I read people I knew and trusted already on other things. So Willard Swartley, uh, a mentor and a colleague of mine and the teacher who's just recently died to whom I dedicate this book. He had written a book. He'd been asked to do that for the and had written a book on this. Richard Hayes down there at Duke, you know, his big book on the moral vision of the New Testament. You know, I read chapter, you know, and and some others, you know, as a first go at this to try to think about this and to sort of think. to think about this and to sort of think.

But didn't really pursue it much further. It was just a way of sort of thinking in what were the questions that were being asked, the texts that were being looked at, and all these kinds of things. And kind of just left it there. But of course, the question kept resurfacing, pushing back to the forefront in our denomination. And the next stage then was in, well, 2014, a conference within our denomination licensed for ministry, a minister who was in a same-sex partnership. And this broke the rules, this broke an agreement that was in place among the conferences that wouldn't do this on their own, sort of unilaterally kind of thing. And it just sparked the debate. And it flared up.

And it flared up in just ways that would shock you. Man, I'm supposed to be peaceable and nice and all this kind of stuff. Boy, I was like, wow, I can't believe I'm reading the stuff I'm reading and hearing in this sort of thing. And I was sort of caught in this swirl of this. And I mean, there were a couple sort of things. You know, one is, again, how to think about this. I need to think more carefully and this question isn't just going to simmer on the back burner.

This is now going to be something which is going to churn up the church and will have consequences now for the church. And I need to be able to participate and partake of that discussion and so forth and speak into it and have a wise word to say. And so I need to think about this and study about it for myself to just be part of the church in which this is the question that is swirling and enveloping all of us and so on. I also wondered what I as a philosopher had to offer the church. And where I started was, and what philosophers do, what we do best, what we're trained to do, is to analyze arguments, right? That's one of the first things you do, sort of look at the arguments people are making and the logic they're using and this kind of thing, and to to examine those carefully what are the assumptions that you're using but you haven't stated that might be questioned what are the missteps in logic that you

might use to get from point a to point b it's a place where you want to go but wait a minute the road doesn't go there right um and that kind of that kind of a thing and and uh as well as you know so i thought you know to look at some of the arguments that were being that were being flung around and back and forth and to offer some careful, thoughtful, calm analysis and assessment of those arguments. And that's where I started what I had to offer as a philosopher. And and I wrote an article that appeared in one of our denominational magazines, publications about that. And then I started to think about, well, okay, we got to put this in the bigger context of scripture. And so I started thinking about that. And I started thinking about biblical hermeneutics and how, and, you know, Richard Hayes does some of this in that

chapter of the moral vision of the New Testament. Willard Swartley has some of that. He's written a wonderful book of affirmative, kind of a classic text called Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women. And these different case issues in biblical interpretation. And so I use that also as a kind of framework within which to think about this. So I wrote another article that appeared, you know, a couple of years later, having gone through that kind of study. And as in the response to that article that appeared at the beginning of 2016, I started thinking, well, there's more to it than this, because again, that was structured around this question about same-sex union, same-sex

relationships, and so on, and what does Scripture say, and how does this fit into a larger arc of, okay, about what Scripture says and how it presents sex and marriage. So that was on the—but there was this lingering question that was there because—and it has to do with Ephesians 5. You know, Paul's speaking of the one flesh of husband and wife in marriage as a mystery, a mystery about, in reference to Christ in the church. And I had no clue what to do with that. I didn't know, because here this is Paul speaking, this is

just a very compact kind of statement, which, boy, once you start unpacking it, boy, it sort of envelops the whole of Scripture and the whole of this biblical vision of what marriage is, packed right into those couple of verses in Ephesians 5. But I had no background, theological background, in which to do this. The only thing I could do is think back to my days at Notre Dame amongst Catholics, and they had a theology of marriage. Oh boy, do they have a theology of marriage, a very rich and thick one, and very robust theology of marriage, in which this marriage as a sign of Christ in the Church, and as such as what they would call a sacrament of salvation. And this was very important. But I really didn't

know how to connect all this together and to think about this and how thinking about that. But that was a problem that sort of left me like, if we're going to drop male and female, man and woman from our understanding of marriage, what do we do with what Paul has said here about man and woman, husband and wife joined as one flesh as a mystery in reference to Christ in the church. What do we do with that? That seems very important. Now, in my Anabaptist formation, and I grew up going to Baptist and evangelical churches, this wasn't much talked about, right? This wasn't much on the radar screen to flesh out what Paul is talking about here. So I really didn't know what to do with that. I said, do we just drop it? Do we just drop the male-female part? And it's

just, what is one flesh anyway? What does that mean? Of course, that comes from Genesis. Okay, and all kinds of things that were there that I really didn't know what to do with. And so that question was lingering and churning in my mind and my heart as I continued on to try to develop responses to various kinds of innovationists, what I call in the book innovationist arguments or affirming arguments, arguments that are presented in favor of same sex blessings, same sexsex partnerships, same-sex unions. And so that I developed first, those kinds of responses, critical responses to those arguments. That's what I was at home with as a philosopher.

And that forms what is part three in the book. And this position is part three in the book didn't come all at once because there was the possibility that that would have been the whole book that I wrote at one point. It would have been a short book of 120 pages or something, and that set of arguments. But by that time, as I was going along, this question of what marriage is really started to take hold. And I started to investigate and is really started to take hold. And I started to investigate and study scripture and look into the tradition, the Christian tradition, going back to the early church about this. And a whole wider horizon opened up.

And the implications of what we were talking about in Blessing Same-Sex Partnerships took on a whole other question, a whole new appearance and so on. I'm curious what you do with the pushback with Ephesians 5, that there you have, you know, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. So is the husband kind of like the Lord and the church is submissive to the Lord? And isn't Paul just kind of working within his patriarchal vision where men are way more superior to women because Christ is way more superior to the church? Like, do we really want to map those two onto each other? And isn't the sex difference wrapped up into that patriarchal kind of vision?

Yeah, sure. Now, that's a good question. Now, that I deal with in one of the appendices that's online, if you buy the book, right? So that deeper question, that further question about isn't this just about patriarchy? Is that what Paul is? So there's a lot that you have to do with unpacking that household code there. Paul's addressing wives and Paul's addressing, you know, husbands and then children and parents and slaves and masters, right, and unpacking that. But I think it's interesting, you know, in studying that carefully, Paul does not, when Paul talks about husband as head of the wife, as Christ as head of the church, he speaks of Christ as Savior. Christ is Savior of the church and has given his life for the church to sanctify the church as his bride, as his body, his bride.

It's very much nuptial language Paul is using there to speak about the church, his body, as Christ's body, his bride. And that to prepare her, the church, for the nuptial, for the union of Christ and the church that is going to be the consummation of all of God's work of salvation there at the end of Revelation. And Paul sees that that's the culmination of what this is all working towards. And Christ is, as Savior of the Church, has given himself in sacrifice through the cross for the church. And it's that sense of Christ as head of the church that Paul speaks of. So if you look in Ephesians, there's three places where Paul speaks of Christ as head of the church. And one is Christ as Lord. One is Christ as kind of the source and sustainer of the church. And the other one is Christ there in that passage in Ephesians 5 is Christ as Savior. And it's that connection, Christ as Savior, that then – so it's Christ's self-sacrificial act for the church.

That is to be then the pattern for the husband's then self-sacrificial relationship to the wife. I can still hear my affirming friends listening. So wait a minute, are men the savior of women then? Isn't that still that patriarchal? I hear you saying savior, sacrifice. Paul would never have said anything otherwise than Christ is savior of all. It's Christ as pattern.

So at the beginning of chapter five, it says be imitators of Christ, right? And he offered himself as a sacrifice for us. That imitation of Christ is for the whole church. You have to go back to the beginning of the chapter, of chapter five, that Christ is to be imitators of Christ, and to live then according to that, right? To live, to no longer live according to the patterns of the flesh and so on, but be transformed. That's at the beginning of chapter five. And then it's the beginning of this household code in chapter, verse 21, a verse that often gets left off.

And we go right to wives, submit or be subordinate to your. Paul says, submit to one another in Christ, in reverence for Christ. So imitation of Christ is first, and all are called to that, men as well as women, right? And all in the church are called to imitate Christ, and Christ's sacrifice is an imitation for all of us. And secondly, before we even start talking about those domestic relations, Paul says, submit yourselves to one another in reverence for Christ. So mutual submission within the body of Christ is the second thing. And I think, you know, you have to sort of think about context. Why does Paul address the self-sacrificial imitation of Christ to the husband? Well, culturally, he is assumed by, and that culture still exists, assumed to be the Lord, indeed the master, right? That would be

the presumption in Paul's context, in the Greco-Roman context, that the paterfamilias, the father, the husband, the father, the master of the household, right, lords it over everyone else. And Paul is taking direct aim at that and saying, no, you are to be to the household as Christ is to the church. And including and first and especially with the wife as Christ is to the church who gave himself a sacrifice for her, who did domestic duties, washing her and preparing for her. And as I think about it, Paul, he could link up what Paul says there with John 13, the last supper, Jesus kneeling down, taking the towel in the basin, acting the part of a servant to his disciples. This is so countercultural. No, Peter says, you're the Lord, you're the master. You shouldn't be at my feet as a servant.

And Jesus says, unless I wash you, you have no part in me, right? This is intensely, well, sacramental sort of thing of our union with Christ. And so this carries over into marriage. You can use this, and this, I say, is where the husband should be as an imitator of Christ in marriage, at the feet of his wife, sort of thinking symbolically here, washing her feet as Christ washed the feet of the disciples. And that's the posture, not the Lord, that your culture tells you to be the Lord, the sovereign of your household and lord it over the rest of you command and everyone obeys. And that's the picture that Paul presents right there.

That's what it means for the husband then to imitate Christ in marriage in relation to his wife. to imitate Christ in marriage in relation to his wife. So when you say Savior, when you say Ephesians 5 is emphasizing the Savior aspect of Christ, it's that imitation of self-sacrifice. It's not a position of, it's not emphasizing his power, his lordship over the subordinate. It is you are giving up of yourself, which as you said, that's a pattern we all should follow. Does it mean? Yeah. Okay.

So in a sense, I mean, Paul in that passage is overturning the patriarchal assumptions rather than supporting them. I was asked, this is years ago, 10 years ago, we were preaching through Ephesians and I was assigned Ephesians, this passage. And it was the first time that I did a deep dive in kind of the background of this passage. And so I looked at household codes and like Aristotle and others. And it's like, yeah, if we read this passage simply through a modern lens, it looks very patriarchal. You read it through actual patriarchal passages that are basically saying something. I'm getting at the same point, only they don't say wives submit to your husbands.

They say husbands, you know, make your wives, they don't even give the women the dignity of addressing them. They're like, husbands, you rule over your wives because they are lesser than you. I think there's a quote in Josephus because basically that, like the woman is less than you, therefore you make sure she submits. Here, it's even submitting, we can play with what that even means. But I mean, even if you take a very conservative understanding of that, it still is way, way less patriarchal, I would say not even patriarchal than other actual patriarchal passages in the ancient world.

Yeah. That's right. And I think that then is very important then, for Paul lays all that out, other actual patriarchal passages in the ancient world. That's right, and I think that then is very important then. Paul lays all that out before he gets to, you know, then he says to husbands, you'll love your wives as your own body, as Christ loves the church, his body, right? Right. And then this is this image then of Christ and the church, his body, his bride joined in one, and then the husband joined to the wife, his body. And that language of she is your body, I mean, this is, you know, this is very intimate language. And it goes both ways.

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul puts it exactly reciprocally. Your body, husband, belongs to your wife. It doesn't belong to you. She has authority over your body. Oh, that's a smack. Not very patriarchal. That's a hard slap in the face Yeah, right You've got to get the sense of that that would never have been said and Paul says husband

You're white your body's not your own it belong you pledged it to your wife you in In your body she has authority and and reciprocally this mutual authority and belonging of bodies together. But it's an image that I think is grounded in the image of one flesh, of husband and wife joined as one flesh, as kind of as one body. And so that image then comes in there in Ephesians 5. And then he says for this, you know, this is he quotes, you know, because when you were joined, he quotes then Genesis 2. And therefore, you know, the husband will be joined to cleave to the wife and they will become one flesh. He's reminding husbands, do you understand when you got married, what happened? God joined you together in one flesh, the way in which God is joining together.

And that sort of evokes this bigger picture of how God is joining Christ and the church together as, you know, together in a kind of a nuptial union. And Paul also was talking about heaven and earth being joined, right? Jew and Gentile, heaven and earth. This is all connected together, this big picture of salvation that Paul's talking about in Ephesians. And then he condenses all that down into husband and wife joined as one flesh. And this is a mystery, right? A reference to Christ in the church. But it's only after Paul has recast the role of the husband, the place of the husband in relation to the wife, recast that relationship in one based on imitation of Christ's self-sacrifice for the church.

And so on, only as he has reconfigured that. Now we can say, now we can say husband and wife is sex difference an essential part of marriage? Because I hear that at the end of the day, that's kind of our point here with Ephesians 5, is that sex difference is necessary for this really crucial metaphor to even work, right? Or pause here. That's one of the implications here. I think the main point that Paul is using is that, yes, that this is an image then of this big plan of God's to unite heaven and earth in Christ by way of the church and the church by way of uniting Jew and Gentile in Christ through the cross and the uniting of man and woman in marriage at the beginning of all creation, right, then stands as a symbol within creation of God's plan to unite all things in Christ, which ultimately culminates.

And then that's the big picture. And then what is it about sex that is integral to that image, right? So I think those are— I mean, Paul, he's not arguing for it. Paul doesn't develop as an argument for sex difference in marriage. That would have been taken for granted. Right, right, right, right.

Sex difference, right? But we, so we're sort of turning that around and then we have to sort of think, well, what does sex matter to that image of the one flesh of marriage as a sign, a symbol, a mystery of Christ in the Church. So yeah, that's good. Yeah, because in Judaism, there wasn't a question like, is sex difference part of it?

It's just when they said marriage, that's what they meant. Well, it wouldn't have been a question for the Romans or the Greeks either, right? Nobody would have ever considered anything other than man and woman together to be marriage. Right, right. Even in societies that affirm same-sex sexual relationships, they never would have categorized that as a marriage. No. That's something— No, no, no, no.

It would never have been recognized in law or anything like that, no. So in Genesis 1 and 2, we have the one flesh passage in 2.24. You have Jesus referring back to Genesis 1 and 2, you know, we have the one flesh passage in 2.24. You have Jesus referring back to Genesis 1 and 2 in Matthew 19. And I, you know, I'll get the question like, well, why is sex difference necessary for marriage? Like, what is it about sex difference? Is it procreation? Is it, you know, just some kind of complimentary vision? Or like, why is sex difference necessary for marriage? I don't know if you've gotten that.

I get a lot of why questions in the work that I do. Well, because God created things that way. I mean, this is not the kind of answer that a sophisticated intellectual people like to go to because God created. But God created things that way and for a purpose right and and i think it's this is sort of uh for me it's sort of like well you just got to get into the text here and start unpacking this and it's and indeed if you just take genesis one and two it's kind of a standalone kind of sort of thing you do get some rationale for that but you it's the larger connections of how this is connected to God's purposes in creation and God's promises in covenant.

And you've got to make these connections, right? And what we've been talking about with Christ in the church as a man and woman in marriage is a symbol of Christ in the church, and that has a cipher, kind of a very condensed formula in which is contained all of this Paul's vision for God's work of salvation and so on. That's where all the promises of covenant are ultimately leading towards and are fulfilled in. But those promises of covenant are given within the realm of creation. They aren't separate from it. They are joined to it. And so this is one of the temptations, right, that we have. I call it a temptation there, but I think it is a theological temptation.

And one of the strongest arguments in favor of same-sex union precisely is Robert Song's book, Covenant and Calling, which I deal with at length at a couple different points in my book. What he does in there is he wants to use Jesus as a kind of leverage point, as it were, at the coming of Jesus, the incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus, as a place for the pulling apart of covenant and creation. And creation's kind of been fulfilled and left behind and we're moving forward to the fulfillment of covenant but the structures of informs of creation are then separated from the purposes and promises of covenant and I think you know that is so when we go back to

Genesis we need to sort of read that not only just on its own or even just as looking ahead. But we read that looking back from the place of Christ, from through the lens of Christ and see how all of this is leading up to him. Right. And that's what he taught the apostles, you know, after his resurrection to read all the scripture in reference to him, the law and the prophets and the Psalms. Right. Well, that's what we need to do. in reference to him, the law and the prophets and the Psalms, right? Well, that's what we need to do. And so we need to connect up when we read Genesis 1-2, not just as a standalone thing, as if God invented marriage and just said, oh, isn't that nice now? Let's, you know, like Monty Python style, not for something completely different, right? And we just move on to another scene, cut scene, we move to some other whatever. No, this is, things are integrated here

with what follows in Genesis 1 and 2. So we see unfolded through Genesis 1 and 2 in the creation of the whole order of things and the creation then of human beings within that order of creation uh within that order of creation that god specifically creates humankind male and female and that this is emphasis and both in the image of god equally in the image of god male and female he created them in the image of god he created them and and and then god blessed them and said be fruitful and multiply and then to have dominion over the creation. And so there's a process here with a purpose. And the male and female is not incidental to that. Oh, isn't that interesting? I just wanted to do something different here. But it has nothing to do with anything else. No, this is all integrated into a whole. And it's not just some other,

anything else. No, this is all integrated into a whole, and it's not just some other, some will describe it as, well, it's just another facet of diversity in God's creation and beautiful and big creation or whatever. But it's not, no. And this is where I would talk about, I use the language of sexuate correspondence. We often talk about sex difference, the difference between men and women are male and female. That's often the language that is used. But I think there's something more going on here. Yes, God creates, sex is a created difference. God creates sex within creation and differentiating. And you see that very, a picture of that, of course, in Genesis 2 with God creating the woman from the man's side and so on. But they're created as corresponding counterparts. And so sex is a, yes, it is a difference that God creates in humankind,

male and female, but it's a difference that correlates them together. And it also then unites them. And in that correlation and uniting, then there is generation, right? The generation of new life, the potential for that. So be fruitful and multiply. And that has a purpose. What is that purpose? Well, that purpose is to propagate God's image, human beings, throughout creation, and to perform, among other things, understanding this, that to perform a certain task that human beings are to sort of govern creation as God's kind of viceroys, as God's vice regents in creation. As it were, the first in the big Orthodox tradition will talk about this beautifully,

that the man and the woman, they are king and queen of creation, having, you know, been given this task to rule over all the other creatures in a wise way that reflects the wisdom in which God has created all things. how the plan goes forward. And male and female, that correspondence of sex, that difference in correspondence of sex, is essential to that, for that plan going forward. It's also then from this, from the union of marriage, that God is going to generate a covenant people. So the plan of salvation, the creation plan, runs into a problem, right? I mean, sort of the fall, right? And so how is God going to rescue his creation? A faithful and righteous God is not going to abandon the creation, but is going to rescue it and restore it and redeem it. But God's not going to abandon what God started with male and female. So no, God's going to carry that forward, but God's not going to abandon what God started with male and female. So, no, God's going to carry that forward. But it's going to start over again, as it were, after.

Right. So you have the calling of Abraham and a promise made in his family and a promise made to Abraham and to Sarah. And it's a promise of a of descendants, promise of a family that's going to be generated from their from their union. Right. And in a very unlikely way, right? And we know the story right there. No children, and then this promise comes. But this then, this male and female marriage of male and female, then God takes that up into this covenant plan and the promises of covenant and uses it to generate then a covenant people who are going to, are the recipients of God's promises and so forth. And they too have a purpose, right?

The covenant people have a purpose to, well, be the light to the nations, to spread God's word and God's teaching to all nations so that all nations will see this. They will live God's way. They will proclaim God's word and all nations will see this. And as the prophets envision, everyone sort of come to God to learn God's way and become part of God's people. And so this is integral to that. So what are the purposes of marriage here that are embedded within the biblical story? That's, I think, where we need to see how this is connected into the whole biblical story and what God's purposes are and how marriage is functioning within that. And once you sort of see that, you think, oh, then man and woman, male and female, that's integral to what it is that God

purposed from the beginning as part of marriage. And as we see developing, you know, the prophets begin to see marriage and they look back at, you know, to Genesis and so on. They begin to see marriage, right, as an image, as a figure of God in Israel, God and the covenant people, that this covenant is itself a kind of marriage And start describing it depicting it that way as a usually as a way of reminding Israel Who they are and calling them back to who they are and you see that particularly in Hosea And so on but it's also there in in in Isaiah especially. There's a beautiful beautiful passage of in Isaiah, especially there's a beautiful, beautiful passage at chapter 60, 61, and so forth of Isaiah, where he lays this out, Israel in exile being restored as the bride of Christ,

as the bride of God, and restored in covenant, and restored to as God's people, and so on, being reunited, and so on. And so this then becomes an image then of God's work of salvation, right? And the apostles pick this up, right? Paul and John pick this up and carry this forward as a way of telling the whole story of salvation. And you see those Isaiah references come up in Revelation, right? Yes. Revelation saturated, has all these allusions back to some of those passages. Okay. So because it sounds so good, I need to push back.

Because everything... Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. So what you're saying is that I like your phrase, sexual correspondence, because even the phrase like opposite sex makes it sound like men and women are completely different. Well, we're more like each other than we are different. I mean, our common humanity,

in a sense, has probably more likeness than difference. So even opposite makes it sound like men are from Mars, women from Venus, and I just don't think

that's helpful. So sexuate correspondence, I like that. I might still say sex difference, but I'm saying it with your understanding of mine. So, just to summarize, so you're saying, like, sex difference in marriage is woven into the fabric of creation, and not just creation, but in terms of this covenant that is launched throughout the Testaments. the Testaments. What about the argument that procreation and marriage was vital for the creation of Israel, was certainly vital in the Old Testament? I mean, even the laws, the Leverite laws and others that kind of protected childless women, like having kids was kind of a big deal, right? Both for the creation

of the nation and also just economically and all these things. But when you get to the New Testament, you just don't see that same emphasis in procreation. Now it's discipling the nations, it's going to all nations. And it's almost like the call of evangelism and making disciples has almost replaced procreation as the means by which the kingdom is going to move forward. Therefore, when you have procreation being non-essential anymore, therefore sex, difference, and marriage is no longer that essential. There's that temptation, right, to replace, that sense that the covenant going forward in Christ sort of replaces what God has done in creation and through covenant with Israel. So there's one sense of, and it's sometimes called supersessionism in Christians, the sense that this new covenant through Christ, through which the church comes into being as this union of Jew and Gentile. Well, this kind of replaces Israel and the promises to Israel.

Well, they're just they just come up empty or dead or whatever. And now there's a whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. God does not abandon God's promises. God is faithful and true from beginning to end. And so those promises are not simply dropped. And we have some kind of replacement here. Nor does God abandon creation. God is, this is all the work of redeeming creation. And that work is not yet done. Paul reminds us of

that in Romans 8, you know, the groaning of creation, waiting for its redemption. And we are sort of the first fruits of that. And we still wait for the redemption of our bodies and so forth, and that this work of redeeming creation still goes forward. And there's nothing, there is nothing in the New Testament that suggests that God is just saying, oh, creation's done. I'm done with that. Again, I'm on to the next thing, you know, I'm on to now for something completely different or whatever, Now we're just and so forth. I think this is this is in fact, there's much there that affirms this, that indeed, that in Christ, you know, Colossians one, there's this beautiful Christ hymn, which talks about through Christ, in Christ, for Christ. God created all things and God is at work in in Christ reconciling all things in creation.

All things in creation, right? And that includes male and female, right? This is not sort of abandoned or left behind or something like this. Now, it is true that the covenant people is not just going to be this expansion of the of the of family lines and so on this built up a covenant people but this was always intended to attract and draw others to to itself it was never sort of a self speed be a self-contained thing right that was the vision of the prophets you see it in Isaiah all the nations coming to Jerusalem, to Zion, to learn the law of the

Lord, and so on, the beginning of Isaiah. That was the purpose and so on. So this was a people that would continue to attract. And that way of being God's people continues. There's nothing in the New Testament that speaks against that. And in fact, there's much that speaks forward, including what we were talking about earlier with Ephesians 5. Paul is trying to work with the idea of what comes to be called in the early church, patristic era theologians, sort of the domestic church, right? In which husband and wife married together and the children generated from their marriage and so forth. They become kind of a little church, a sign of the bigger church, and a place, context in which discipleship happens, right, in which God is worshipped, in which the next generation of believers is discipled, through which neighbors are served, and in which then the world has a sign, a little sign, a little visible sign.

What's this Christianity about? What's this kingdom of God about? Well, we see it in miniature then in this domestic church. And so by no means is this done away with. But this was a question that was debated in the early church. And we shouldn't sort of sort of dismiss. It's not something to be dismissed out of hand. This was debated. And there were those who thought exactly that way. Marriage is being done away with.

Jesus has told us in his response to the question from the Sadducees about the resurrection, that in the resurrection of the dead, there will be no giving and receiving in marriage, that that will come to an end. And so the thought was, okay, well, we're kind of already living into that, right? Jesus is raised from the dead. We've been baptized into the risen Christ. We're kind of living already into that eschatological future. And so that means that God has said enough of what came before, right? And if you need that to keep chaste, if you need that to keep from fornicating and promiscuity, fornication and promiscuity or whatever, okay. So there were groups that were like that, that had that to say in the early church. And others that various kinds of twists and turns rejected the created order.

Either saw it as something past or as something that was just a kind of necessary evil. But now we've moved past that in the era of the risen Christ. So that was debated out. And the consensus of the church came, no, that that's not what God is doing in Jesus Christ. consensus of the church came, no, that that's not what God is doing in Jesus Christ. Indeed, this would make no sense because we confess that God has created all things through Christ, that Christ is not a liberator from the creation. Christ is the redeemer of all creation. And so this isn't about creation in some way being left behind or that's done and so forth, but ultimately the renewal of all creation, that's the vision that Christ gives us and that the church, um know, while marriage seemed to be very essential to the furthering of the kingdom in the Old Testament, the argument goes that that is no longer there

in the New Covenant. Correct me if I'm wrong, this is Robert Song's kind of main point. Yeah. Because he would say, yes, sex difference in marriage and marriage, the old covenant, absolutely. But we just see there's discontinuity in the new. The way I've understood it, and I would love to hear your thoughts, is that, I mean, under the old covenant, in the Old Testament, in the theocracy, the creation of the nation of Israel, you do see marriage and procreation. I don't think the ancients would have separated those two. No. Marriage was for the purpose of procreation, I don't think the ancients would have separated those two. No. Marriage was for the purpose of procreation.

You do see that almost essential for human flourishing. Like the whole idea of singleness being a legitimate vocation, you don't see that in the Old Testament. And this would be one kind of, again, one of the several things that are kind of, there is discontinuity between the Old Covenant and New Covenant. The discontinuity is not in the definition of marriage or even the purpose of marriage. It's that under the New Covenant, now we do see singleness as a legitimate, some might even say better,ation. But for those who are called to marriage, that is still, the calling to marriage is still the same. That procreation is still wrapped up in that calling.

Which raises a question that I want to get to with, what do you deal with old people getting married, infertility, people that choose not to have kids. I would love to hear your thoughts on that in just a second. But does that, is that, so the way, yeah, to summarize again, that marriage hasn't changed between old and new covenants, but marriage as an essential part of kind of human flourishing or human existence or kingdom vocation is no longer, it's not emphasized in that way, and singleness is being elevated in the new covenant.

Singleness, chosen singleness, Jesus talks about those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom. So he said some are born eunuchs, and exactly what he's referring to, there could be a lot of various things, something that would be an impediment, a physical impediment to someone being married and uniting in sex and generating children, whatever that would have been. Some have been made eunuchs, and some speculate, for example, Daniel and his friends may have been made eunuchs in the courts of Babylon by others. And Isaiah spoke to them um and promising them a place you know in the in

the in the boot israel the restored from exile and so on eunuchs who hold fast to my covenant they shall you know have a place um and a name within my house uh isaiah says for god um and and uh but then jesus talks about you know well these eunuchs for the kingdom, right? Those who have chosen to become, as it were, become eunuchs. And they've chosen to forego marriage, right? And so Jesus honors them. And, of course, Jesus himself was not married, right? And so in a life of following Jesus, well, that can be a life in which we are not married, in which someone is not married by choice in following Jesus, and so on. And so there's a

sense in which the early church recognizes this, the incarnation and life of Jesus opens up something new. There's no question about that. What we have to be careful about is thinking about, well, what is this new thing, and not pitting against the old. And that was the debate. And I see that in Robert Song's book, this using of the new as a kind of a wedge against the old. And that had to be sort of, but Jesus affirms the old, right? When he's talking to the Pharisees about divorce, affirms the old, right? When he's talking to the Pharisees about divorce, he affirms Genesis and says, and this is what God's will, this is still God's will, what Genesis says. And when he's talking to the Sadducees even about resurrection, that yes, marriage will cease in the resurrection, but the implication is now, the logic of it is now marriage continues to sustain the human race

through procreation. And that is still part of the human vocation. That has never been rejected, that that's no longer part of the human vocation. What's been opened up is something new. And that is the life in which we choose to forego that in following Christ in view of what is to come in resurrection, oriented towards the culmination of God's plan of salvation in that way. Now the question is whether this is better than or something. There were those in their church, that was a common argument, that there's a superiority to celibacy over marriage. I don't find that in the New Testament.

I think we's a, we could delve into specific texts or whatever. But I don't think that's an implication of what Jesus says or anything Paul says about celibacy and marriage, that one is kind of superior to the other. But we now have another vocation, but they exist together within the church. And together, We now have another vocation, but they exist together within the church. And together, both of those vocations testify to creation and and its new possibilities in Christ, which includes celibacy, are never ripped apart from the creation that God created through Christ to begin with, and its purposes. They're never ripped apart from that, but rather they're coming together

and being brought together in Christ in fulfillment. So I think this is a challenge, because it'd be an easy sort of thing to say, okay, we got this new thing in the church, new thing in Christ. And that means, well, we're getting rid of the old thing. And there had to be theologians and bishops who pushed back against that and pushed back against that and said no. I think that's an important lesson to learn from the early church debate that was had in the second to the fourth century about union that kind of rehearse, perhaps without even realizing it, these arguments that were put up long ago, right? And the church already addressed those. It doesn't mean there's nothing new to say or that they got everything exactly right or, you know, we should just take what they said for granted or whatever. But they give us sort of, I think, some resources in which to draw to think about this. So what about the question of procreation?

How would you even word the relationship between procreation and the meaning? God says it's good. But is it essential for a marriage to be a legitimate marriage? And if so, why can two people who are well past the age of childbearing get married in a non-procreative relationship that we call marriage? And so why can't a same-sex couple who also are in a non-procreative relationship get married? My answer may evoke some laughter, even from you um is that when and i and i don't know that any pastor would ever have has ever told any couple this question maybe wait for this century they might

ever in the middle ages uh well people didn't live as long then you know much past childbearing years you know on average but that yes know, we will bless this marriage. But when we, when pastors prepare couples for marriage, I mean, I don't know what pastors usually do. I'm happy to be married to a pastor, and I sort of know what she does with preparing couples, you know, but emphasis on procreative purposes should be part of that it's not the whole of marriage but it's integral and and openness to to procreation as part of when you enter marriage that gift of new life um and um and then lots of questions come up about that what about contraception what about this and all the kinds of things that i think have to be how are those part of the how do those fit

do they fit how and what discipline should we be exercising around that and so forth? I think these are a lot of questions that just are off to the margins of conversation and not as well dealt with in the church as they should be. But I think we should say exactly the same thing for older couples when they're getting married is openness to procreation. And we say, well, look, I'm 70. She's 75. And I said, and how old were Abraham and Sarah? Now, that may discourage.

But, I mean, being willing to be Abraham and Sarah, being willing to be Zachariah and Elizabeth, you know, who also were much, you know, the new story of Jesus starts in the way the story of God's people started with Abraham and Sarah. There's a deliberate, purposeful parallel there of recognizing, you know, Abraham or Zachariah and Elizabeth, you know, that openness to that. I mean, it's not likely to happen. It wasn't likely for Abraham and Sarah to have a child or Zachariah and Elizabeth. They had gotten so old, right? We're beyond those years, right? This isn't going to happen. And yet God made it happen. And are we at least open to God doing a new thing? That's what we need to say that marriage is. Marriage is a new thing that God does in the order of creation.

God creates male and female, humankind in that difference in correspondence of sex, but then God joins them together, right? That's a union that God creates. And Jesus' interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 in Matthew 19, I think, is very important to pay attention to how he words that, that he words it as an act of God, right? That it's a pronouncement of God, they should become one flesh, and that God brings them together. That's a new thing in creation that God, and then from that new thing in creation, that union of one flesh, comes forth another new thing, the offspring and so forth. And this becomes a sign of the new thing God is doing through Christ in the church and so on. That you, when you're married, be willing to be a sign of that new thing and be open to God doing

a new thing. God is doing a new thing and bringing you together in marriage. And be open to God doing a new thing. God is doing a new thing and bringing you together in marriage and be open to God doing a new thing through your marriage. And be like, you know, I mean, it's not likely to happen. I've not heard of it in my lifetime. Maybe I don't know about you. But then again, who had ever heard of it in their lifetimes when Zachary and Elizabeth are pregnant or when Abraham and Sarah are pregnant. And so that's what I would sort of say. That's the attitude within which you should go and God can do a new thing if God chooses.

But it's the willingness to be part of that that God is doing. That this marriage, I mean, part of it is sort of like we can't ever at any point say marriage is just about the two people, right? That's not Christian marriage. And so we have to sort of like we can't ever at any point say marriage is just about the two people, right? That's not Christian marriage. And so we have to think about how this is about God's purposes and promises no matter at what stage of life you might be getting married.

What about – and we're getting lost in the weeds a little bit. At what stage of life you might be getting married? What about – and we're getting lost in the weeds a little bit. But again, I don't – if I can like prophetically hear my audience saying, yeah, but what about – and I know when I listen to podcasts and I do that a lot. And I'm like, well, yeah, you got to ask this question now. So I'm trying to kind of like be a surrogate audience here. I mean what about – yeah, you got a woman that's maybe 45 and maybe she can get pregnant, but man, that's going to introduce all kinds of risks. I don't know, birth abnormalities

or even health risks to the kid or even to the mom. Because it's one thing for a 65-year-old to say, you know, whatever, she's well past, you know, again, apart from an Abrahamic Sarah miracle. But what about somebody in the in-between stage where it's like, no, they could get pregnant. But, man, that's taking some risks there. I mean.

Right. Yeah, I don't. I think this is something I do address. I mean, it's kind of an extended footnote, but I think it's an important question. I think it's an important question. And I look, you look at the be fruitful and multiply as grammatically, it's an imperative, right, in Hebrew and Greek. I mean, it's just the mood of command, right? I mean, this ised them to do from the beginning,

that sin has corrupted things that, and it's affected creation. And so we recognize that there are, you know, whether there are couples who, despite all their best intensive, you know, can't conceive a child or don't succeed at conceiving a child. As well as situations in which conceiving a child very much looks like this would be very dangerous, and so on, to mother or child or both. And in those kind of circumstances, I don't think we're called to sort of put human well-being aside, right? Or just say, well, you just got to, you know, run the risks and, you know, leave it to God or anything, something like that. God's given us discernment and discretion. We'll leave it to God or anything, something like that. God's given us discernment and discretion. And we understand that when we undertake these responsibilities, we undertake this commission that's there in marriage according to God's purposes.

That those purposes are, of course, for our well-being. They're not there to kill us. They're there to give us life. And the same thing, you know, with discipleship. I mean, there may be times, occasions where, boy, the only way to be faithful is to run that risk of death and so on. But it's not a – and the early church was skeptical of people who seemed to want to be trying to martyr themselves, right? Trying to get themselves killed as a witness to Jesus. This was looked down upon.

No, no, no, no. You know, even, you know, how many times did Athanasius escape from those who wanted to, you know, arrest him and throw him in prison? You know, Paul himself escaped from prison and other kinds of things, you know, or could have escaped, I guess. But, you know, this is not something where you, that's not the sense here of of the of the christian life and i don't think it's the sense that of the commitment of marriage that um that indeed that we undertake this commitment with its commission um at all costs to ourselves um and so on like oh you know we're in poverty we can barely feed ourselves but God says be fruitful and multiply. So let's have one more.

You know, that's not – nowhere is that commanded. Nowhere is that sort of picture like you should, you know, generate children to the point where you can't – no, this is not a picture of human flourishing, right? And so we recognize we and these are things which for those who which is these are places of grief and of disappointment for for, you know, for parents, you know, or for couples when they if like this is what it looks like, we, you know, we know a couple, my wife and I know a couple, you know, who'd love to have children and they've done some fostering, but, but the wife has a heart problem. And if she were to get pregnant, you know, probably her heart, she wouldn't survive. The baby probably wouldn't survive, you know, and so forth. They would just go, that's not what God has purposed, right? Is that this be something which brings death and destruction on us. It's to bring forth life. So if we can see because of the fallen condition of things and so forth, that this is what it's going

to bring forth, you know, then, you know, God's purpose is to bring forth life through this, not to put some burden of, on us that we cannot us that we cannot bear. We're going to die trying to fulfill this. The way I word it is marriage is oriented toward and structured toward procreation. To keep it a little bit more on the general level, not get lost in the weeds of individuality. Like Homo sapiens are an upright, two-legged species. Doesn't mean the people that might have been born without a leg, whatever, aren't human anymore. But as a category, we are bipedal, right? And so same thing, marriage by definition

is structured toward, oriented toward, and structured towards procreation. Doesn't mean procreation must be a necessary result of every individual marriage for it to be legitimate, but it still must be structured toward that end. So even an 85-year-old couple are still structured toward procreation, even if it's, or even a couple that maybe for health risks choose not to have kids. And I do think that that's, because again, I can hear my same-sex friend or my same-sex couples saying, yes, we are also like your infertile heterosexual couples incapable of having kids. And therefore we choose to adopt and, um, isn't that, but I said, it's still, it's still, I, I resonate with the heart and goodness. Some of my, some same-sex couples

who have a heart for adoption and are criticized by my conservative friends, I'm like, well, are you going to step in and adopt? You know, like, and so I want to recognize even goods within a relationship that I don't think is aligned with God's will. But it still isn't structured towards procreation, right? I mean, and I do think that's an important piece of the very essence of marriage. Yeah, I do address that argument, sort of looking at what are the kind of implications for both procreation as well as marriage as a symbol of Christ in the church. What are the implications here for blessing same-sex marriage? So I address that at length.

That argument are same-sex couples kind of counterparts to infertile male female couples, aren't they? Just while they come together, but they can't seem to generate children. And and so I I address that and examine that very carefully. It deserves to be examined because I think it doesn't help for for those who are more traditionally minded about marriage within the church to just not think about. Right. Well, what are we doing on the other side? Well, how do how are we thinking about that couple that can't have uh has not been able to conceive uh or continue a pregnancy maybe they can conceive but they keep losing you know the the child um and um you know and and other kinds of you know what about those who seek who can't conceive but then use technology to try to bring about deception and so on. Well, can't same-sex couples do a counterpart thing?

And then what about couples who could conceive? And there's no impediments in the way, there's no health problem, but choose not to. They choose to be childless. And I think that's the strongest argument, childless. And, and, well, can't we, and I think that's the strongest argument is, is if we're going to, um, bless such couples, you know, and consider them to be genuinely married, well, what about, you know, can't we just look at same sex couples as, you know, as a counterpart to, uh, to those who are chosen childlessness? I don't consider the case you were talking about

with a couple where there's health issues and so forth it's a circumstance that's not by choice um and it is uh so i don't i consider that differently from those who don't face such circumstances and potential burdens and risks to um different from those who don't face those and decide for whatever reason, and maybe for some noble reasons, you know, even choose not to have children. Well, that's what I love about your book, Darren. For those watching on YouTube, I haven't lifted it up yet. So Marriage, Scripture, and the Church, Theological Discernment on the Question of Same-Sex Union. What I love about it, I mean, I love many things about it, Darren, but it's so careful and thorough.

That's, gosh, we need carefulness and thoroughness. We can't give thin answers to thick questions. And even like, I mean, just the last 20 minutes, I mean, this procreation question is super, super important. And there's lots of variations and nuances that need to be addressed thoughtfully. And I see- Yeah, I don that need to be addressed thoughtfully. And I see. Yeah. I don't, I don't pretend to have all, all the answers or just, it's,

it's, these are questions we have to continue to think through. Um, and so I, I don't suppose that what I've offered in the book is kind of the final word from me or from anybody on these questions. Um, and, uh, but yes, an attempt to give a careful, thoughtful response to them. Well, thanks so much for being on Theology Narah. I've got another meeting to get to here in just a second. So yeah, it was great talking with you. And thank you so much for your really thoughtful, humble work you've produced in this book, man. It's just such a great book. Thank you, Preston. God bless. you