Continuing controversy among evangelicals over same-sex marriage may further be fractured by four resolutions passed by the Evangelical Theological Society, or ETS, at their recent meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.
The four resolutions, announced by the Family Research Council in a news release, put members of the ETS group firmly in the camp of marriage traditionalists. The resolutions state:
(1) “We affirm that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God and thus possess inherent dignity and worth.”
(2) “We affirm that marriage is the covenantal union of one man and one woman, for life.”
(3) “We affirm that Scripture teaches that sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage as defined above. This excludes all other forms of sexual intimacy.”
(4) “We affirm that God created men and women, imbued with the distinct traits of manhood and womanhood, and that each is an unchangeable gift of God that constitutes personal identity.”
Family Research Council Senior Vice President Rob Schwarzwalder and Dr. Owen Strachan, chairman of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and associate professor of theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, co-authored the resolutions.
“At a time when some advocates of court created same-sex marriage and the conflation of genders are claiming there is a shift in the evangelical community concerning these matters, today’s vote in favor of affirming Scripture is a distinct refutation of their assertion,” Schwarzwalder said.
“The conviction of America’s leading evangelical scholars that the Bible’s clear teaching on marriage and human sexuality must not be compromised signals that those favoring a redefinition of these things are not within the mainstream of historic Protestant teaching and, more importantly, are departing from some of the distinctive teachings of the Christian faith. Professing evangelicals who hold heterodox views on matters of human sexuality must reconsider their allegiance to Scripture’s teaching. We pray they return to it,” he added.
“Owen and I are particularly grateful for the strong support of former ETS President Dr. Gerry Breshears (Western Seminary) and Dr. Denny Burk (Boyce College) in supporting the resolutions from the floor, and to ETS President Dr. Scott Rae and former ETS President Dr. Clint Arnold, both of Talbot Seminary, for their assistance in bringing the resolutions before the Society,” he said.
In an online interview, Schwarzwalder said those evangelicals who promote same-sex marriage as a viable option are not “intellectually honest” in representing their views.
“For the ETS to go forward and to make the kind of endorsement they did sends a signal, I think most specifically, that biblical orthodoxy within evangelicalism has not changed, and those who claim to be evangelical and want it changed are a tiny minority, and their arguments are not accepted by the vast majority of evangelical scholars, teachers, professors and so forth,” he told the online news site.
