What I'm Reading: What God Has Joined Together?

What God
Has Joined
Together? 

What God Has Joined Together?: A Christian Case for Gay Marriage
by David G. Myers & Letha Dawson Scanzoni

Every once in a while you find a book, article, or letter that so clearly expresses how you feel that you wish you'd taken the time to write it yourself. The authors of What God Has Joined Together? make the argument I've always wanted to make for gay equal marriage, but in much more compassionate, persuasive, and well researched terms than I ever could have.

Throughout the book, the authors seek common ground between the right and the left, the liberal and the traditionalist, always pointing out the points of agreement between seemingly disparate figures. By keeping the focus on goals common to all Christians, they weave together many different lines of reasoning to form a compassionate (and passionate) position supporting marriage-for-everyone that most honestly-thinking Christians would find difficult to oppose. And here's the best part: This is not just an opinion piece. The first half of What God Has Joined Together? takes the form of a very detailed review of the literature concerning marriage and sexual orientation, families and children, happiness and belonging, and multiple translations of the Bible. At every step along the way, the authors present the supporting research (and even dissenting research) and illustrate how the best logical course for a strong society is to allow gay and lesbian people to marry.

I won't recount the entire argument here. You'll have to read the book for that. (Don't worry. It's a quick read.) But the essence of the argument presented is that marriage is good for society. Research has shown that strong cultural support for marriage encourages most of the good things we desire in society. Marriage alternatives such as cohabitation, civil unions, domestic partnerships, and other "marriage-lite" options do not seem to provide the same level of societal benefits as the real thing. The neo-conservative push to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples is self-defeating in that it:

• Prevents part of the population from benefiting from the positive affects of marriage so that they place a burdon on the rest of the population.
• Encourages the development of "marriage-lite" alternatives for everyone, further reducing the number of people reaping marriage benefits.

In their introduction, Myers and Scanzoni present another underlying epistemological view that I have also long wanted to express. It is not directly related to the equal marriage debate, but instead should serve as the basis all Christian discourse involving the world around us. This passage will likely serve as a launching point for more comments in the future:

As we believers approach difficult times, our obligation is to be faithful to the creation. If God has written the book of nature, our calling is to read it as clearly as we can, remembering that we are answerable to the giver of all data for the accuracy of our observations. We do so always mindful that our biblical, theological, and scientific interpretations are vulnerable to error. All such human efforts are approximations that are subject to test, challenge, and revision.

Believing that both the biblical and natural data reveal God's truth, albeit filtered through human brains, we can listen to scholars who study Scripture or science. And we can allow biblical and scientific perspectives to challenge and inform each other. In humility we can also listen to one another's stories, perspectives, and insights.

Sometimes the faith-mandated testing of our ideas strengthens them... Other times, the open-minded testing of our ideas changes our thinking...

Indeed, Christian humility mandates the very opposite of fanaticism.