There’s been no shortage of buzz surrounding Lisa Miller’s Newsweek article on “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage” from conservative Christians; see the following posts (which are but a sampling):
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Newsweek On Gay Marriage – Mark Hemingway
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Sola Scriptura Minus the Scriptura — Mollie Hemingway
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Looking for a Serious Conversation — Christianity Today
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Hey Newsweek: It’s the Journalism, Stupid – Justin Taylor
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Gay Marriage and the Haircut Argument – Rob Bowman
If you’ve read any of these then you can see that there is a general tone of shock at the level of shoddy journalism and research displayed in Miller’s article. Of course they all disagree with her, but that goes without saying. So when I read Carl Trueman’s post this morning I was surprised to find statements like the following:
the article is well-written, engaging, makes some good points that provoke critical reflection. . . She does make some very good, if rather obvious and long-established, points, such as the fact that modern conceptions of marriage and family are, in significant ways, different from those we find in the Bible.
Now to be sure, Trueman ultimately disagrees, but I thought to myself after reading these comments in light of others, “now that’s different.”
B”H
Whenever I read articles by most people with non-American English accents I usually just read them as though they are the voice in my head…but for some reason anytime I read Trueman I hear his laid back British accent…I’m not sure why that is.
Definitely thought the same thing, and then scrolled down my reader to see your post confirm my thinking! :)
Here is Michael Brown’s:
http://voiceofrevolution.askdrbrown.org/2008/12/15/refuting-newsweek%e2%80%99s-cover-story-on-the-religious-case-for-same-sex-%e2%80%9cmarriage%e2%80%9d/
Here’s the link to what I wrote:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/sexandgender/859/a_response_to_the_newsweek_flap:_passages_vs._principles
Here’s what I wrote: http://notes-from-offcenter.com/2008/12/15/stoning-same-gender-love/
Thought I would get hate mail, but alas, none.
Ranger: Interesting, I wonder why that is.
David: Good to know I’m not alone.
Yvette: Thanks for the link. I’m going to try and listen to his radio broadcast later tonight.
James: Thanks for the link.
Drew: Thanks for the link. I’ll try to get you some hate mail. ;)
Man I would have never known about the articles if it weren’t for all the negative response. I always find that to be the ironic thing about controversial articles, movies, or books that people in the church respond to. It always makes more people want to look into it. Any press is good press I guess.
Bryan L
The issue is not with the content per se, but with the explicit claim (through feature as a cover story in Newsweek) that Miller’s piece qualifies as “news” or even “journalism.” It is clearly an opinion piece, and not a poorly written one for that genre. But it is not news/journalism. Newsweek had formerly been known as a news weekly, which avoided opinion pieces for cover stories. So, they’re changing. That’s what the better part of the reaction is about, at least in what I’ve read.
Bryan: I don’t know how ironic it is unless people are saying, “don’t read it.” Newsweek isn’t hurting for publicity, but most of the reactions I’ve read have all been along the lines of “read this to see how bad of an article it really is” type of reactions.
Kevin: The conservative reactions I’ve read have all pretty much commented on Miller’s mishandling of Scripture and I think they’re right to do so. I just read this moments ago from Mike Wittmer:
That’s pretty indicative of a lot of the responses I’ve come across.