[Vision2020] Good-bye Stile, Hello Gay Marriage

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

I didn't want to waste another posting on Stile alone, so I'm using this 
opportunity to speak to another topic.  Some of you may have heard the 
commentator on NPR who spoke about Denmark's experiment with same sex 
marriage.  They passed a law in 1989 and some of the results are quite 
remarkable.  First, divorce among straight couples went down.  Second, the 
new gay couples stayed together longer than the straight couples.  Just my 
own observation here: will the commitment and seriousness shown by gays 
towards the institution of marriage strengthen the it rather than destroy it???

Now my last and final comments to Mr. Stile.  Get this: he wants me to find 
the non-existent quote from George Washington that he gave us!  And taking 
out this non-quotation does not help his case for theocracy.  What famous 
Americans say is the not the law of the land.  The religion-less 
Constitution is the law of the land.

Quite apart from my Bible scholars who are current and well tested in the 
marketplace of ideas and Stile's  discredited sources (some of which go 
back to the 19th Century!), I want to return to the basic question that 
does not involve scholars at all.  My focus was 2 Tim. 3:15-16, which has 
Paul speaking of inspired scripture that his readers would have read in 
childhood.  That can only be the Hebrew Bible and not any of the New 
Testament.  The logic of his passage is indisputable.

Furthermore, I should have clarified an ambiguity that others Stile and 
others love to exploit.  They conflate inspiration and detailed 
inerrancy.  Of course the Church has always believed that their scripture 
is inspired, but only recently have Christians believed that the Bible is 
without error in all areas of human knowledge.

Finally, let me clarify once again the qualification I make in the third 
section of chapter 6 of my "God, Reason, and the Evangelicals" 
(www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre.htm). Here I spoke, perhaps unclearly, 
about a controversy about detailed inerrancy that I admitted, because I'm 
not a historical theologian, I could not adjudicate myself.  I go on, 
however, and side with scholars who reject detailed inerrancy in Luther and 
Calvin.  Mr. Stile, a good sign of intellectual honesty is to make 
qualifications and to admit the limits of one's expertise.

Nick Gier