Thursday, February 2, 2012

Do you project your own views onto those of Jesus? Oh oh …

From FRC.org’s Socially Conservative Review:

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is one of America's most respected and learned journals. It is a forum in which some of our finest minds publish articles on everything from "Evidence for the extraterrestrial origin of a natural quasicrystal" to "In-feed antibiotic effects on the swine intestinal microbiome." To a non-scientist like me, even the titles are intimidating.

In the most recent edition of PNAS, three Stanford University scholars argue that both liberals and conservatives engage in a "dramatic projection of one's own views onto those of Jesus." While it is only human for us to want the Savior to confirm our own predilections, there can be no doubt that, objectively, Jesus affirmed the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, Old Testament teachings about human sexuality and personhood within the womb, or the dignity of every person such that liberty -- religious, political, and economic -- should be the normal state of society.

As theologian Andreas Kostenberger wrote in his recent FRC booklet, "The Bible's Teaching on Marriage and the Family:"

Marriage and the family were God's idea, and as divine institutions they are not open to human renegotiation or revision ... the Bible clearly teaches that God instituted marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman, a lifelong union of two partners created in God's image to govern and manage the earth for him. In keeping with his wonderful design, the Creator will normally bless a married couple with children, and it is his good plan that a family made up of a father, a mother, and several children witness to his glory and goodness in a world that has rejected the Creator's plan and has fashioned a variety of God-substitutes to fill the void that can properly be filled only by God himself.

We all like it when people agree with us. Yet it's more important that we agree with the God of the Bible, Whose path for human relationships and sexuality is clear in His written Word and evidenced in the natural order.  It's up to each of us to choose whether or not to take it.

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