What They're Saying 08.02.11

Gay Man Announces the End of Homosexuality

Looking at it from a genetics/research psychology point of view, Scientific American blogger and public homosexual Jesse Bering theorizes on how the acceptance of gay marriage might actually lead to a decrease in the homosexual population. This is because, as gay men and women stop attempting to live in heterosexual sham marriages (which often result in children), the genes responsible for inclining someone towards a homosexual orientation will stop getting passed on. Jesse Bering also presents some studies which show that homosexuality runs in families. In one of the more interesting parts, he writes 'Homosexuality is often presented as an evolutionary “mystery” because of the obvious reproductive disadvantages, and thus for decades researchers have sought some adaptive function for the culturally recurrent percentage (anywhere from 1 to 10 percent of the population, depending on the measures used) of the human population that is aroused more by the same than it is by the opposite sex. Yet if we consider the historical, and perhaps even the ancestral, percentage of the homosexual population that did in fact reproduce because of societal proscriptions against adult relations with the same sex, the mystery becomes considerably less profound', which in translation means: 'homosexuality is a failing and abnormal evolutionary adaptation, and any genes responsible have only been passed on because of a historical coincidence.' Interestingly, he also makes a comparison between homosexuality and beastiality (sensitive psyches, read no further): 'If zoophiles can ejaculate into their wives only by imagining that their spouse’s vagina is actually a horse’s vulva, a man’s anus must certainly be within mind’s reach of the average married homosexual.' While most of this is pretty much common sense, it's interesting to see a gay man working for America's most popular scientific magazine admit as much. -SEAN

Kevin DeYoung Rips Christian Smith's New Book

'In the end, I wonder what pastors are left with after they lose their “biblicism.” I am all for gaining a Christocentric hermeneutic and keeping the main thing the main thing. But in Smith’s mind the big problem with “expository preaching” today is that it “proceeds on the assumption that a minister can select virtually any passage of scripture and adduce from the text an authoritative, relevant, ‘applicable’ teaching to be believed and applied” by the congregation (12). I’m not sure what the alternative is—proceeding on the assumption that most passages of Scripture yield interesting stories that are more or less irrelevant to what we believe and do? I agree that evangelicals sometimes make Scripture speak definitively on matters it doesn’t mean to address. But Smith’s radical ambiguity about most doctrinal matters doesn’t work in the real world. It is, to borrow a phrase, “the Bible made impossible.”'

John Starke Answers, 'Did God Change At the Incarnation?'

'So, for example, we’re told that Jesus was omniscient (John 16:30) but also that he increased in wisdom (Luke 2:52). To be precise, however, we should say that Jesus was omniscient with respect to his divine nature and gained wisdom with respect to his human nature. On this basis, it seems natural to say that God the Son is timeless and unchangeable with respect to his divine nature but temporal and changeable with respect to his human nature. Since Jesus’ death and resurrection pertained to his human nature, this standard Christological distinction suggests a way to reconcile the events of Jesus’ life with the immutability of God.'

Tomb of Philip the Apostle Found (We Think)

'Italian professor Francesco D'Andria said archaeologists found the tomb of the biblical figure -- one of the 12 original disciples of Jesus -- while working on the ruins of a newly-unearthed church, Turkish news agency Anadolu reported Wednesday. "We have been looking for Saint Philip's tomb for years," d'Andria told the agency. "We finally found it in the ruins of a church which we excavated a month ago." The structure of the tomb and the writings on the wall proved it belonged to St. Philip, he added. The professor said the archaeologists worked for years to find the tomb and he expected it to become an important Christian pilgrimage destination. St. Philip, recognized as one of Christianity's martyrs, is thought to have died in Hierapolis, in the southwest province of Denizli, in around 80AD. It is believed he was crucified upside down or beheaded.'