Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. On today\u2019s BreakPoint, a reprint from Chuck Colson will remind us why we can\u2019t let that happen with marriage.<\/p>\n
===========<\/p>\n
So often we hear that allowing two men or two women to marry won\u2019t hurt anyone, and certainly not \u201cstraight\u201d people. Well, the truth is, we already know what happens when a society promotes sexual license and devalues marriage. We just have to look at history.<\/p>\n
Way back before anyone was talking about so-called \u201cgay marriage,\u201d radio talk show host and Jewish theologian Dennis Prager wrote a fascinating article called \u2014 get ready for this \u2014 \u201cJudaism\u2019s Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the Jews were placed in the Ancient Near East, the pagan world was already a sexual free-for-all that debased women, boys, and religion itself in the service of male lust. Every aspect of life was sexualized. The pagan gods engaged in no-holds-barred sex, and so did the people. Homosexuality had almost unquestioned acceptance in the ancient world.<\/p>\n
But the key issue wasn\u2019t gender, it was power. Prager quotes philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who wrote, \u201cThe central distinction in [ancient] sexual morality was … between active and passive roles.\u201d Because boys and women were on the receiving end of sexual activity, they were \u201cvery often treated interchangeably as [simple] objects of [male] desire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, then, women were relegated to the sidelines, important for giving birth and running the home, but not important as real and equal partners to men, who had other sexual options \u2014 with boys and other men.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Judaism\u2019s claim that God created sex only for a man and a woman in marriage was so revolutionary \u2014 and despised by ancient pagans and modern pagans, I might add, as well. As Genesis said, \u201cTherefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prager writes, \u201cThis revolution forced the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, it heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and it began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.\u201d No wonder,\u201d Prager notes, that the \u201cimprovement of the condition of women has only occurred in Western civilization,\u201d which historically has been the \u201cleast tolerant of homosexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, I should note that it was the Apostle Paul who further carried this Jewish sexual revolution throughout the ancient world. As Sarah Ruden wrote in her recent book \u201cPaul Among the People,\u201d predatory homosexuality was common in Rome and Greece; women and children were just property.<\/p>\n
Through Paul, however, Christianity ensured that western civilization promoted sex within the confines of marriage between one man and one woman, and placed off limits the sexual abuse of boys and slaves.<\/p>\n
Now the point is simply this: God instituted marriage for the good of man (restraining and channeling his sexuality), for the protection and dignity of women, and the flourishing of human society.<\/p>\n
Western civilization, the greatest ever, took this to heart, but forgets it now at its own peril.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Resources:<\/p>\n
\u201cJudaism’s Sexual Revolution: Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality,\u201d Dennis Prager (Catholic Education Resource Center: 1993)<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul Among the People,\u201d Sarah Ruden (Pantheon books: 2010)<\/p>\n
ManhattanDeclaration.org
\n________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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