12 Disqualifying Errors In Richard Hays’ ‘Biblical’ Case For Gay Relationships

THE FEDERALIST/ Robert Gagnon-

book recently published by Yale University Press and much hyped by the media for promoting a “biblical” case for homosexual unions falls woefully short: The Widening of God’s Mercy, by Christopher and Richard Hays, has been hyped by Religion News Service, CNN, and The New York Times. It generated attention because Richard, professor emeritus at Duke Divinity School, was regarded in the 1990s as the main go-to person for Evangelicals seeking to defend Scripture’s opposition to homosexual relationships. His co-author and son, Christopher, is chair of the Old Testament Department at Fuller Seminary, supposedly an Evangelical institution.

Their thesis is that “the biblical narratives … trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities.” They see this as a Spirit-driven move, a new chapter in an “ongoing story,” where “God repeatedly changes his mind” to “widen” or “expand” “the scope of his mercy” to once-excluded “fixed classes of human beings.” “There is a powerful analogy, a metaphorical correspondence, between the embrace of LGBTQ people and God’s previously unexpected embrace of foreigners, eunuchs, ‘tax collectors and sinners,’ gentiles.”

Not Living Up to the Hype

The authors fail to provide a credible defense of their thesis. They ignore virtually all the weight of scholarship since 1996, when Richard Hays’ Moral Vision of the New Testament was published. They also intentionally ignore discussion of the most important biblical texts that counter their claims. I would expect more from an undergraduate thesis.

There are 12 key areas where this failure to acquaint themselves with the scholarly literature becomes most problematic: Continue reading…