Al Mohler with an interesting response to Lisa Miller’s Newsweek article What the Bible Really Says about Sex. Here are a few snippets of his response:
Lisa Miller summarizes the arguments of Coogan and Knust by explaining that they are each attempting “to steal the conversation about sex and the Bible back from the religious right.” Putting the two books together, Miller explains that they argue along these lines: first, that “the Bible is an ancient text, inapplicable in its particulars to the modern world.” Second, that “sex in the Bible is sometimes hidden.” Third, that “that which is forbidden is also allowed.” And fourth, that “accepted interpretations are sometimes wrong.”
Well, one immediate problem with this set of arguments is that they are themselves contradictory. Is the Bible itself wrong, or just its interpretations? If the Bible is just an ancient text, which is not relevant in its particulars for the modern world, why argue over its interpretation?
Lisa Miller notes that “Coogan and Knust are hardly the first scholars to offer alternative readings of the Bible’s teachings on sex.” As a matter of fact, almost all of the arguments made in these books have been around for the past thirty years. Miller argues that it is the populism of these books that sets them apart. “With provocative titles and mainstream publishing houses, they obviously hope to sell books,” she explains. “But their greater cause is a fight against ‘official’ interpretations.”
In response to that, Lisa Miller quotes me: “That’s why Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that citadel of Christian conservatism, concludes that one’s Bible reading must be overseen by the proper authorities.” I enjoyed my conversation with Ms. Miller, but my point was not that the church needs “proper authorities,” but that just any interpretation of the Bible will not do. The authority in this issue is that of the Bible itself. Those who read it as bearing the very authority of God will read the Bible quite differently than those who see it as a human book conditioned and warped by human frailty and fallibility.
The most important point I made to Lisa Miller is that revisionist interpreters of the Bible are playing a dishonest game. Consider the audacity of their claim: they claim that no one has rightly understood the Bible for over two thousand years. No Jewish or Christian interpreter of the Bible had ever suggested that the relationship between David and Jonathan was homosexual — at least not until recent decades. The revisionist case is equally ludicrous across the board. We are only now able to understand what Paul was talking about in Romans 1? The church was wrong for two millennia?
Source: Mohler, A. (2011). What the Bible Really Says about Sex… Really? Retrieved from http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/02/09/what-the-bible-really-says-about-sex-really/
Deus Tecum 