Culture War? What Culture War?

For all, Christian and otherwise, who fervently hoped that the culture wars were over comes the latest salvo on gay marriage. And please note: It isn't from James Dobson or Tony Perkins. Instead, it is coming from the once-respected Newsweek magazine.

Actually, this is a two-part salvo. The first is Lisa Miller's December 15 cover story, "Our Mutual Joy," which purports to lay out the biblical case for homosexual nuptials. And how, you may ask, does Miller turn "Thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman" into a benediction? Miller ignores the Bible's direct commands and turns instead to the lives of its characters (never the wisest hermeneutical course):

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust.

Of course, the Bible is quite clear about the matter. Check out this classic defense of heterosexual-only marriage from Christianity Today.

Mollie Hemingway of GetReligion.org rightly calls Miller's piece "an embarassment":

On a radio show yesterday, the host asked me whether the piece was more offensive to my sensibilities as a journalist or a Christian. I went with “journalist” since the piece wasn’t anywhere legitimate enough, theologically speaking, to be considered seriously. As a journalist, it violated almost every rule in the book. It failed to accurately represent the viewpoint being scrutinized. It was riddled with errors. It was driven by emotion. More than a few journalists — one at a competing weekly news magazine — wrote to me yesterday asking, “Where was her editor?”

Part 2 comes from that editor. Jon Meacham's snide note defending the piece removes all doubt about media bias in this case. Dismissing before the argument starts all who oppose homosexual marriage for scriptural reasons, Meacham says:

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. Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, 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.

If believing and following the Bible is "the worst kind of fundamentalism," one wonders what Meacham thinks of the Islamic terrorits of 9/11. Then the editor practically invites a fight, while simultaneously declaring that the forces of history are on his side.

The reaction to this cover is not difficult to predict. Religious conservatives will say that the liberal media are once again seeking to impose their values (or their "agenda," a favorite term to describe the views of those who disagree with you) on a God-fearing nation. Let the letters and e-mails come. History and demographics are on the side of those who favor inclusion over exclusion.

Nice journalism, that. Misrepresent the Scriptures and those who know them better than you do, then impugn their motives in advance.

With activists marching in the streets demanding retribution on the heads of any religious people who supported California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage, it is clear that the Left-including Newsweek-isn't interested in dialogue. And with the nation's most liberal president set to take office, expect the culture war to get even hotter.

But please don't blame it on conservative Christians.