Dr. Dobson Responds to 'Newsweek' Cover Story

January 2009

Dear Friends,

A Happy New Year to each one of you! I'm writing this month from the California desert, where I have periodically spent time over the past few years working on my book Bringing Up Girls. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Barack Obama is being inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States on the 20th of this month. There will be ample opportunity to discuss Mr. Obama's presidency and its implications for the institution of the family in the days ahead, and in fact, I plan to devote my February letter to that subject.

This month, however, I'd like to address the egregious cover story that appeared in the Dec. 15, 2008, issue of Newsweek^®. It was titled "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage," and it was written by the magazine's senior religion editor, Lisa Miller. There was certainly nothing in the article that would qualify as "news." Rather, the piece was clearly the magazine's attempt to editorialize on the issue of gay marriage following the passage of Proposition 8 in California in November. Miller's article was full of many of the same tired arguments that the Left has been advancing for years (namely, that what the Bible has to say about human love somehow negates any of the references to the sin of homosexuality).

I do get weary of liberal magazines assigning reporters to cover topics of concern to Christians when these so-called "journalists" dispense with any sense of objectivity and instead advocate for their own liberal perspective. It is particularly egregious when they know nothing about believers or the biblical text. That is like a reporter writing about football when he or she doesn't know a touchdown from a field goal. What credentials or experience does Lisa Miller have to write as an expert on theology and biblical exegesis? We've reviewed her online bio and found nothing that would qualify her to write this article in Newsweek^®. That is as foolish as my critiquing textbooks on cardiology or nuclear physics.

Thankfully, a number of informed, thoughtful voices from the evangelical community spoke out against the Newsweek^® article and effectively dismantled Miller's flimsy arguments. Chief among those voices was Dr. R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a member of Focus on the Family's own Board of Directors. He has written extensively on the subject and even debated Lisa Miller on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and on "The Laura Ingraham Show." Perhaps Dr. Mohler's strongest argument came in an online article he wrote in response to the Newsweek^® story. With Dr. Mohler's permission, I have adapted and excerpted that article below. In his commentary, Dr. Mohler effectively counters Lisa Miller's ridiculous assertion that "While the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and marriage, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman."

What nonsense! Here is Dr. Mohler's response:

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Miller's claim is just patently untrue. Consider Genesis 2:24, KJV: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. This verse certainly reveals marriage to be, by the Creator's intention, a union of one man and one woman.

To offer just one example from the teaching of Jesus, read Matthew 19:1-8, ESV: Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?" He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so."

This passage makes absolutely no sense unless marriage "between one man and one woman" is understood as normative.

The real issue is not marriage, Miller suggests, but opposition to homosexuality. Surprisingly, Miller argues that this prejudice against same-sex relations is really about opposition to sex between men. She cites the Anchor Bible Dictionary as stating that "nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women." She would have done better to look to the Bible itself, where in Romans 1:26-27 Paul writes: For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. This passage makes absolutely no sense unless it refers very straightforwardly to same-sex relations among both men and women — with the women mentioned first.

Miller concedes that Paul "was tough on homosexuality," but she takes encouragement from the fact that "progressive scholars" have found a way to re-interpret the Pauline passages to refer only to homosexual violence and promiscuity. As always, the bottom line is biblical authority. Lisa Miller does not mince words. "A mature view of scriptural authority requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism," Miller writes. "The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it's impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours."

All this comes together when Miller writes, "We cannot look to the Bible as a marriage manual, but we can read it for universal truths as we struggle toward a more just future." At this point the authority of the Bible is reduced to whatever "universal truths" we can distill from its (supposed) horrifyingly backward and oppressive texts.

Even as she attempts to make her "religious case" for gay marriage, Miller has to acknowledge that "very few Jewish or Christian denominations do officially endorse gay marriage, even in the states where it is legal." Her argument now grinds to a conclusion with her hope that this will change. But — and this is a crucial point — if her argument had adequate traction, she wouldn't have to make it. It is not a thin extreme of fundamentalist Christians who stand opposed to same-sex marriage; it is the vast majority of Christian churches and denominations worldwide.

Disappointingly, Newsweek^® editor Jon Meacham offers an editorial note that broadens Newsweek's responsibility for this atrocity of an article: "No matter what one thinks about gay rights — for, against or somewhere in between — this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism," Meacham writes. "To argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt — it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition."

Newsweek® could have offered its readers a more careful and balanced review of the crucial issues related to same-sex "marriage." It chose another path, and published this cover story. The magazine's readers and this controversial issue deserved better.

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Well said, Dr. Mohler! Another powerful response to the Newsweek^® article came from C. Ben Mitchell, director of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity and associate professor of bioethics and contemporary culture at Trinity International University. Just as Dr. Mohler soundly defeated Lisa Miller's attack on the integrity of Scripture, Dr. Mitchell skillfully dismantles her misrepresentation of the story of Christ's encounter with the woman at the well. Here is a quotation from the Newsweek^® article, followed by Dr. Mitchell's response:

"In the Christian story, the message of acceptance for all is codified. Jesus reaches out to everyone, especially those on the margins, and brings the whole Christian community into his embrace. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, cites the story of Jesus revealing himself to the woman at the well—no matter that she had five former husbands and a current boyfriend—as evidence of Christ's all-encompassing love."

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Here again Miller is guilty of telling only half-truths. Unquestionably Jesus reaches out to and welcomes everyone. But Miller is not making the point that Jesus reaches out to everyone, she is claiming that Jesus does not care about sexual behavior. This is, after all, the burden of her essay.

One glance at John 4 finds Jesus meeting a woman gathering water at a well. In an act that would have astounded his contemporaries, Jesus not only initiates a conversation with a woman, but with a woman from a socially disdained group, the Samaritans. His aim is to evangelize the woman, to point her to the water of eternal life in Christ. Jesus obviously deals gently with the woman, but his language is not entirely free of confrontation. After all, when Jesus instructs her to call her husband to the well, Jesus in His wisdom knows that she is cohabiting with a man, and that she has had numerous husbands in the past. The woman said, "I have no husband." Jesus responded, "You are right in saying ‘I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true" (John 4:17-18). She knew precisely what Jesus was getting at.

The Great Physician was doing a bit of diagnostic work to bring about conviction. It obviously worked because the woman responded "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet …" (v. 19). This woman understood her need for water more thirst-quenching than what had drawn from the well. Jesus is, indeed, an extraordinarily welcoming and loving Messiah. We must not, however, mistake Jesus' mercy for grandfatherly indulgence. After all, later Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15).

In another encounter with an adulterous woman, Jesus calls her to "sin no more" (John 8:11). And, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus holds back very little when he says, "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell" (Matthew 5:27-30). So Jesus takes a very hard line against sin.

His apostle, St. Paul, took an equally welcoming but hard line toward the notoriously sinful Corinthians when he said, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). That is, Paul says that those who continue to practice sinful behaviors without repentance will not inherit eternal life. Thankfully, there was evidence among some of the Corinthians that they had embraced Jesus Christ and forsaken their sinful lifestyles, including homosexual practice.

Miller is engaged in a bit of false advertising if she wants readers to think that Jesus does not care about how His followers live. In fact, He calls them to sacrifice no less than their own lives in order to follow Him. That's what German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer called "costly discipleship."

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Again, Dr. Mitchell's commentary cuts to the heart of the matter and demonstrates the shallow nature of Lisa Miller's arguments in the Newsweek^® article. I'd like to thank Drs. Mohler and Mitchell for taking the time to offer reasoned and persuasive responses to Newsweek's attack on the beliefs of millions of Christians across America and around the world. If you'd like additional information on the Newsweek^® story and the response to it, including the two excerpts quoted above, I hope you'll check out the February issue of Focus on the Family's Citizen^® magazine, which will be devoted entirely to the ongoing controversy surrounding same-sex "marriage."

Please be in prayer about this issue, won't you? It is clearly not going away anytime soon, despite the fact that 30 states to date have adopted amendments defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Not one state has chosen to redefine this institution that dates back to the garden of Eden. It began with these words from the creator, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Genesis 2:24, KJV). We dare not throw marriage on the ash heap of history in our day.

Pray, too, that our new president will not simply echo the liberal party line on this issue. Whatever his mistakes and shortcomings, I will certainly miss President Bush when he is gone from the Oval Office. He was unwavering in his support for the sanctity of human life and the institution of marriage. The incoming president, on the other hand, holds views that are problematic for many in the pro-family movement. When criticized by the Left for selecting evangelical pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Inauguration, Mr. Obama qualified his decision by saying that he held views on abortion and gay rights that were "absolutely contrary" to Warren's, and assured those concerned that he was "a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans."1 Equality for all Americans is certainly a worthy objective, but Mr. Obama's words signal his intention to promote special rights for homosexuals and to advance the cause of those who advocate so-called gay "marriage." Time will tell.

In closing, I'd also like to remind you that January marks Sanctity of Human Life Month. I hope you're planning to observe this important event at your church or with a pro-life organization in your community. The pro-life movement has made great strides in recent years, and the tide of public opinion continues to shift against the evil practice of abortion. At the same time, the Democratic majority in Congress remains as committed as ever to promoting abortion-on-demand, and so we still have much work to do. Our task as Christians must begin on our knees, asking for divine intervention. May we never grow weary of doing so!

Sincerely,

James C. Dobson, Ph.D.
Founder and Chairman

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