Embracing the Beauty of Covenant Marriage

Fuller's Compromise is Not Love

Just last week, David Emmanuel Goatley, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary released a statement saying that the board of trustees had “reaffirmed” their commitment to biblical marriage. Unfortunately, their statement did not stop there. The board also affirmed that Christians can rely on their “lived experience” to embrace other forms of covenantal relationships.

After several years of consultation, feedback, and dialogue, the Board of Trustees reconfirmed the institution’s commitment to its historic theological understanding of marriage and human sexuality—a union between a man and a woman and sexual intimacy within the context of that union. At the same time, we acknowledge that faithful Christians—through prayerful study, spiritual discernment, and lived experience—have come to affirm other covenantal forms of relationship.

Notice Goatley’s careful phrasing. He states that the board is committed to the “historical” understanding of marriage, but he refrains from explicitly linking it to the Bible. This omission is ironic, since decades ago the founding Dean of Fuller Theological Seminary, Carl F.H. Henry, warned us against evangelicals like Goatley.

All the more remarkable therefore is the fact that even some evangelical scholars now apologize for aspects of biblical ethics that are out of tune with the culture of our times, and theorize that apostolic teaching shared the cultural outlook of the past at specific points and must now be superseded by a supposedly superior view more compatible with contemporary insights. Congruity with contemporaneous culture is hardly a stable confirmation of biblical legitimacy; ancient Pompeii considered sexual wickedness the norm, and the now dawning secular West may soon view indiscriminate prostitution to be culturally more acceptable than monogamous marriage. If earlier in this century American culture disadvantaged women because of male bias against the full equality of women taught by the New Testament, American culture today in defining the freedom of both men and women tends to be more libertine than biblical.¹

Thankfully, Fuller’s empathic approach to moral truth got a lot of pushback. In response, Goatley defended his “messy commitment to Scripture” in his article on Church Leaders.

Some evangelicals will disagree with this acknowledgment; others will resonate deeply. Recognizing such differences does not weaken our commitment to historic Christian teaching. Instead, it reflects our effort to engage complex realities with theological integrity and pastoral sensitivity.

Even if I accept at face value that Goatley and the Fuller trustees are motivated by compassion, their motives don’t justify their compromise.

Let me offer one example of how genuine trust in the Bible simplifies our “complex realities.” Think back to the Old Testament when YHWH made a covenant with Abram. God promised Abram that he would become the father of many nations. Yet, when Sarai did not conceive, Abram embraced “other covenantal forms of relationship” accepted by the culture by having sex with Sarai’s servant Hagar.

Genesis 16:1–4 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. ² And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³ So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. ⁴ And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.

How did it work out for Abram, Sarai, and their sons when they trusted their “lived experience” to go outside of God’s covenant? This story should be a warning to us all. Goatley’s theological double-speak weakens Fuller’s commitment to Scripture and compromises their ability to offer pastoral care.

Thomas Kidd of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary recognized Fuller’s compromise and expressed concern that their squishy statement is just the first step in their journey toward a fuller rejection of biblical marriage.

Fuller Seminary's announcement is a good opportunity to remember Neuhaus's law: "Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed." Without major course correction, you can be sure that Fuller will stop hiring those who affirm traditional marriage.

I believe Kidd is right. An ethic grounded in a high view of Scripture precludes same-sex marriage. For Christians on the fence, or for those digging into this issue for the first time, I’d like to share my reasons for making that claim.

First, I’ll clarify the differences between the biblical covenant and social contract views of marriage.

Second, I’ll look at the Scripture which affirms the traditional Christian teaching that marriage is a God-ordained covenant between one man and one woman.

Finally, based on these biblical affirmations, I’ll close with some principles to help Christians faithfully and lovingly engage the culture.

Biblical Covenant vs Social Contract Marriage

Covenant marriage is a union between one man and one woman, rooted in our created purpose and designed to reflect God's relationship with his people. Social contract marriage is fluid, shifting with cultural norms and individual desires. Many Christians today overlook this distinction, partly because we’re used to the historical alignment between Christianity and U.S. law. However, this traditional alignment diminished in recent decades as the culture became more secular.

The Overlap Between Covenant and Contract Marriage Constantly Shifts

So where then did the Christian influence come from, and how did it wane?

Since Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the 4^th century A.D., the Western concept of contract marriage as a monogamous, and indissoluble, union between one man and one woman has been largely shaped by the Judeo-Christian theology of covenant marriage.² During the 16^th century, this “purification of the secular” reached its zenith when the Protestant Reformation elevated “holy matrimony,” over Roman Catholic chastity, as “the morally normative centre of society.”³

While the practice of contract marriage never fully aligned with God’s design for covenant marriage, the foundation for both remained largely complementary. Beginning in the late 19th century, however, this shared foundation began to crack. The embrace of philosophical naturalism—primarily through the lens of Darwinian evolution—became a critical factor in creating a rift between human biology and teleological purpose. The rejection of God as the creator of male and female led, not only, to the bifurcation of sex and gender, but to the sociopolitical division between covenant marriage and contract marriage. The influence of Marxist ideology in the mid to late 20th century and the embrace of no-fault divorce is another key factor I’ll touch on below. First though, let me share just a few quick clips showing how the rhetoric of marriage shifted.

In 2004, Hillary Clinton and Dick Durban took to the Senate floor to declare their support for marriage as a sacred union between a man and a woman. In 2004, Barack Obama said marriage was between a man and a woman and “not a civil right.” In 2008, Obama assured a naive Rick Warren, “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman” and, like Goatley, Obama affirmed his position was solidly rooted in his “Christian beliefs."⁴

However, as public opinion shifted, so did their commitment to the “bedrock principle” of marriage. The growing rift between covenant and contract marriage was enshrined into law on June 26, 2015, when the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the legal prohibition on same-sex marriage in states like Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, the court ruled 5-4 that same-sex couples in every state of the union have a constitutional right to marry. The majority decision accepted the plaintiff’s novel interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and ruled that limiting marriage to one man and one woman violated the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the majority opinion of the court.

It cannot be denied that this Court's [previous] cases describing the right to marry presumed a relationship involving opposite-sex partners.”⁵

These previous court rulings, Kennedy claimed, were unduly shaped by a culture which did not fully respect gay rights.

To correct the outdated precedent rooted in Christianity, Justice Kennedy embraced the plaintiff’s claim that the institution of marriage should be treated as a social contract which must evolve to suit the mores of modern culture.

Kennedy argued that extending the legal right to marry to any two persons (regardless of gender or biological sex) protects not only the dignity of gay persons but ensures their access to governmental rights, benefits, and responsibilities.

Same-Sex Marriage as Social Contract

To show the error of Kennedy’s moral reasoning, I’ll examine the court’s decision through the framework of M. V. Lee Badgett’s research. Badgett—alongside her wife—lived in the United Kingdom for two years researching the social implications of gay marriage. Her book, When Gay People Get Married, was published six years before Obergefell, but her work is reflected in Justice Kennedy’s decision. In the early pages of her book, Badgett argued that same-sex marriage will positively reshape both the cultural meaning of marriage and sexual identities. This change, she says, will not destroy the institution of marriage but strengthen it.⁶

Like Justice Kennedy, Badgett believes that the institution of marriage, “is an adaptable, resilient institution, able to meet the challenges of a market-driven, secularizing world.”⁷ Allowing same-sex marriage, therefore, is a “natural experiment” that will help eliminate oppression of women endemic to traditional marriage, increase mental health for LGB couples, and secure financial stability.⁸

Within the framework of her philosophical naturalism, Badgett’s primary presupposition is that marriage is a mailable institution, affirmed through a legal contract, and “nothing like biblical marriage, which is a covenant relationship.”⁹

Badgett concludes that a nonreligious form of contract marriage is the only acceptable ground for public policy. What then are the features of contract marriage as defined by our current culture?

Contract Marriage Redefines Family

Badgett observes that legalizing gay marriage did not devalue marriage in the U.K. because the institution itself was already degraded by heterosexual beliefs and practices. She found a direct link between heterosexual cohabitation prior to marriage and legal recognition of gay couples. As traditional marriage became less necessary for economic survival and social acceptance, politicians embraced the redefinition of family..¹⁰ History supports Badgett’s theory.

In episode 30 of raZe the roof, we explored Lenin’s rise to power in the October Revolution of 1917. One interesting parallel is Badgett’s argument against Christian marriage tracks with the Marxist lust to end traditional marriage. To achieve that goal, the Bolsheviks introduced the first modern form of no-fault divorce. In 1926, A Woman Resident in Russia wrote an article for The Atlantic detailing the devastating impact of this new law.

When the Bolsheviki came into power in 1917 they regarded the family, like every other 'bourgeois' institution, with fierce hatred, and set out with a will to destroy it. 'To clear the family out of the accumulated dust of the ages we had to give it a good shakeup, and we did,' declared Madame Smidovich, a leading Communist and active participant in the recent discussion. So one of the first decrees of the Soviet Government abolished the term 'illegitimate children.' This was done simply by equalizing the legal status of all children, whether born in wedlock or out of it, and now the Soviet Government boasts that Russia is the only country where there are no illegitimate children. The father of a child is forced to contribute to its support, usually paying the mother a third of his salary in the event of a separation, provided she has no other means of livelihood.

At the same time a law was passed which made divorce a matter of a few minutes, to be obtained at the request of either partner in a marriage. Chaos was the result. Men took to changing wives with the same zest which they displayed in the consumption of the recently restored forty-per-cent vodka.

'Some men have twenty wives, living a week with one, a month with another,' asserted an indignant woman delegate during the sessions of the Tzik. 'They have children with all of them, and these children are thrown on the street for lack of support! (There are three hundred thousand bezprizorni or shelterless children in Russia to-day, who are literally turned out on the streets. They are one of the greatest social dangers of the present time, because they are developing into professional criminals. More than half of them are drug addicts and sex perverts. It is claimed by many Communists that the break-up of the family is responsible for a large percentage of these children.)

I see a lot of parallels here between the early communists and our current culture. For now, I’ll leave those discussions for the comments section, but this bit of history certainly illustrates why Fuller’s embrace of “other covenant relationships” is both shortsighted and lacks biblical compassion.

Giving into people’s lived experience in the name of empathy will have terrible social consequences that the progressive theologians leading Fuller seem ill-equipped to understand.

Badgett is correct. Same-sex marriage is not the destroyer of marriage, but the inevitable outcome of a culture, supported by progressive Christians, that has unceremoniously separated covenant marriage and led to the dissolution of the family.

Contract Marriage Redefines Social Justice

Badgett believes that redefining contract marriage is the best means to achieve power distribution and social justice. This ideal is reflected in Badgett’s interview with a man named Rob, who opposed the institution of marriage but admitted he would get married in the United States as a means of obtaining political power.¹¹ Many lesbian feminists interviewed by Badgett confessed their hatred for the political and religious history of marriage. Marriage, they assured her, was a form of slavery. Badgett assures her readers.

The history of marriage certainly shows that the legal institution placed women in a position subordinate to that of men in many places and times.¹²

Despite their disdain for marriage itself, these feminists still fought for the right to marry because of its perceived legal and social benefits.

Contract Marriage Centers Gender

Badgett believes that the legalization of same-sex marriage is necessary for the deconstruction of traditional Christian teachings about asexual identity. The redefinition of gender identity and gender roles begins with the acceptable loss of meaning in terms like husband and wife. In a same-sex marriage, Badgett concedes,

the word ‘husband’ certainly no longer points to or implies the existence of a wife… and Mother no longer implies father.¹³

But the loss of information conveyed by these words is minimal when compared to the value of redefining contract marriage in order to secure equal rights for gay persons.

Badgett’s primary presupposition is that marriage is a mailable social contract that must be reshaped to reflect cultural mores. While Badgett’s assessment of the cultural perception of marriage is correct, her statistical observations do not provide warrant for the leadership of Fuller, or for any Christian, to accept same-sex unions as compatible with covenant marriage.

Christian leaders must face this challenge, not by crafting squishy statements of cultural compromise, but instead by painting a picture of covenant marriage that inspires people to reject maudlin views of contract marriage and pursue the lasting beauty of covenant marriage.

Contract Marriage Centers Sexual Fulfillment

In his book, God and the Gay Christian, Matthew Vines claims that poor translations of key Bible passages have mislead Christians into condemning same-sex relationships.¹⁴ Like most heterosexual and homosexual couples in the United States, Vines believes that the purpose of marriage is to affirm the love between two people and a means to express their sexual passions.¹⁵ Condemning gay persons to a life of celibacy, argues Vines,

requires gay Christians to build walls around their emotional lives so high that many find it increasingly difficult to form meaningful human connection of all kinds.¹⁶

Vines offers an analysis of marriage that is fully compatible with Badgett’s view of contract marriage. Like Badgett, Vines concludes that state-sanctioned marriage is a means of securing equal rights for gay people and requires Christians to reject traditional beliefs about sexual orientation or gender identity.¹⁷ The ideas expressed in Vines’ book are nothing new. They reflect the culmination of a new anthropology that has been emerging in Christian theology for many decades.

Same-sex sexual attraction is a normal part of the human condition—a normal and consistent variation in the phenomenology of human sexuality. If we accept this, and I do, then it makes perfect sense for the spiritually minded to accept that God is the author of all human sexuality, including gay sexuality, which is thus as much a part of the ‘objective moral order’ as is straight sexuality.¹⁸

This new theology of human sexuality is what Daniel R. Heimbach calls the romantic counterfeit to covenant marriage. The romantic person, argues Heimbach, values the institution of marriage but denies that there is any constraint or guide for its practice. When it comes to sexual fulfillment, the romantic person applauds the feeling of sexual pleasure experienced through a committed relationship but denies that there are any boundaries to guide this pursuit.¹⁹

Now that I’ve shown how contract marriage redefines family, redefines social justice, centers gender, and centers sexual fulfillment, let’s turn to God’s design for covenant marriage.

Covenant Marriage as God’s Glory

The glory of marriage is that it stands from the moment of creation as the ultimate covenant between one man and one woman (Gen. 2:24); a beautiful covenant affirmed by the witnessing of God himself (Mal. 2:14). The wedding ceremony itself is a public profession of the couple’s lifelong commitment to establish a new household (Gen. 2:24) and their desire to stand for the good of society (Gen. 29:22; John 2:1–11).²⁰

Covenant Marriage Affirms Male and Female

The unified account of God’s creation of mankind begins in Genesis 1:26–31 and is further detailed in Genesis 2:18–25. These passages affirm God’s creation of male and female as the only two sexes. Sexual complementarity, ordained by God and revealed in Genesis 1 and 2, serves as the path to sexual fulfillment and procreation.

The sexual complementarily of male and female is affirmed, writes Peterson, in the Hebrew phrase עֵ֖זֶר כְּנֶגְדֹּֽו (‘ezer kenegdo).²¹ This phrase, unique to Genesis 2, refers to a counterpart (female) who corresponds to another (male).²² Many commentators translate this phrase using the non-sexual term helper. Gordon J. Wenham, in his widely used commentary for biblical scholars, concludes this phrase expresses an ideal of mutual support and companionship rather than sexual identity.²³ Peterson, however, asserts that translation like this fail to capture the significance of Adam’s sexual relationship with Eve.²⁴

If Peterson is right, then ‘ezer kenegdo is a profound description of God’s intention for the woman to complete the man as a sexual companion who, together, fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply.

Imago Dei... Made in the image of God

Covenant Marriage Affirms the Family

Covenant marriage is defined by the enduring beauty of God’s design. For the purpose of marriage, “a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”

The one flesh of Genesis 2:24 serves not only as an expression of male and female fit together, but a divine blueprint for the family.²⁵

The Apostle Paul quoted this passage from Genesis in Ephesians 5:31 to demonstrate how the bond of marriage obligated the husband to serve his wife, but also released women from the obligation (both cultural and spiritual) to submit to their father and discover a new unity with their husband.²⁶ The force of Genesis, affirmed by Paul, is that one man alongside one woman has the power vested in them by God to establish a new family unit that will fulfill God’s call to be fruitful and multiply.

Covenant Marriage Affirms Mutual Ownership & Submission

Covenant marriage has always been a counter-cultural union that defies the expectations of culture. This contrast is evidenced in the theology of mutual ownership and submission outlined in passages such as Ephesians 5.

As we saw above, advocates of same-sex unions treat marriage as a contract of self-affirmation and social justice. Badgett recounts one lesbian couple who emphasized the “problematic possessiveness associated with introducing Anneke as ‘my wife’: ‘She isn’t mine.’²⁷ While the words ownership and submission are anathema to proponents of contract marriage, the commitment to self-sacrifice for the sake of creating a new united family is critical for covenant marriage.

Ephesians 5:21–33 was written by Paul to a people surrounded by Roman, Hellenistic and Jewish marriages in which the wife was dominated and controlled by the husband.²⁸ Within this cultural context, Paul affirmed the husbands authority as the head of the family. Yet, he taught that headship (κεφαλὴ or kephalē) for the Christian husband must be defined by a willingness to sacrifice and love the wife as he loved his own body.²⁹ Headship, then, implies that the husband is the “farthest extension” of the wife and not an external force acting independently of her.³⁰ Edwin M. Yamauchi writes,

It is certainly true that in respect to legal standing and social mores the degree and manner in which Christian wives are “kept” in submission are inevitably culturally conditioned. A Christian husband, however, who suppresses or subjugates his wife violates the command to love her as his own self (Eph. 5:28).³¹

The command that husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies is not an apostolic endorsement of male conceit. Paul’s words are a reminder to the husband that his body is now united by marriage with the body of his wife. In this context, ownership obligates both husband and wife to love their spouse as human beings of equal value and worthy of equal protection.

Covenant marriage, while at times deformed by cultural standards, is not ownership as in the institution of slavery, but ownership in the sense of sacrificial love, moral duty, and submission.

The beauty of biblical submission and ownership, therefore, overshadows the secular vision of two perpetually independent individuals united by a social contract for the purposes of gaining financial benefits, companionship, or legal rights.

Covenant Marriage Affirms God’s Love

Covenant marriage endures as a symbol of God’s love. Marriage is a covenant relationship used in the Old Testament as a metaphor for God’s relationship with Israel (Hosea 1:2–7). “In rabbinic tradition,” writes Larry W. Hurtado, “Moses is sometimes described as playing the role of ‘friend of the bridegroom’ for God, in leading Israel to the covenant at Sinai, viewed as the ‘marriage’ ceremony.”³² This picture of YHWH as the Husband of Israel is critical for understanding God’s covenant-love (חֶסֶד or ḥeseḏ) for his people (Isa. 54:5–10; Jer. 3:1–14; Hos. 2:19–20).³³ Ezekiel 16:7–8 offers a particularly graphic description:

⁷ I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare. ⁸“When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.

Reminiscent of Ruth 3:4 where Ruth and Boaz commit to marry, “God spreads the corner of his garment over Israel to claim her as a bride.”³⁴ Even more, the strong sexual imagery of male and female is critical to establishing the power of God’s covenant-love for his chosen bride.

This same imagery is used in the New Testament as a picture of Christ’s relationship as the husband to his waiting bride, the church (Eph. 5:31–32; Rev. 21:2). Bruce A. Ware makes clear that the polar complementarity of male and female is critical for making sense of the masculine identity of Jesus as the bridegroom. Ware concludes that,

to deny the theological necessity of Christ’s male identity would be unimaginably destructive to biblical theology and undermining of the very atoning work by which we are saved.³⁵

David Bennett’s book traces his own journey from LGBTQ advocate to a life of celibacy. Bennett not only rejects the romantic idolatry of gay-affirming Christians like Vines and Wilson but affirms the significance of male and female in covenant marriage as the ultimate expression of Divine love. Bennett writes,

I knew in this moment that marriage was something innate to God’s own image and his intention for our humanity. He had made them male and female to reflect his glory. It was beautiful… As I listened to these words, I realized that being gay did not exclude me from this kind of intense, faithful love. Like Tristan and Renée, I was part of the marriage between Jesus and his bride, the church, regardless of my sexual orientation… We weren’t just celebrating their individual marriage; we were anticipating the future heavenly marriage of God and his people.³⁶

Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction are not doomed to a life absent of emotional connection, nor are they excluded from covenant marriage with God Himself. Gay persons, single persons, and even heterosexual couples are all participants in the greater covenant of God’s love (ḥeseḏ) through their redemption in Christ.

Affirming same-sex marriage does not empower LGBTQ people to express their love, but in fact hinders their capacity to experience the true love of God, which is reflected in God’s creation of humanity as male and female complements.

With this understanding that covenant marriage affirms male and female, the family, mutual ownership and submission, and God’s love, let’s take a moment to rethink Fuller’s messy theology. How can Christians faithfully live our covenant marriage in the evolving Western context?

Christian Obedience in the American Political Context

I firmly believe that compassion for the individual and our desire for a healthy civilization means that we, as Christians, must pursue alignment between covenant and contract marriage. How Christians respond to the practice of same-sex marriage is critical for influencing the next generation of believers. Below are several principles to guide our political choices.

First, our belief in covenant marriage is not hatred toward LGBTQ+ people. Every human being, regardless of their sexual orientation, is made in the image of God.

Second, regardless of how the culture defines contract marriage, no legal system can perfectly mirror the beauty of covenant marriage.

Third, our desire to see U.S. law align with biblical marriage sits in tension with the fact that Christianity is not inherently a political movement. We should embrace our rights, but we must never forget that we are in truth citizens of a greater Kingdom.

Fourth, our obligation as Christians is to obey God’s covenant, not imagine our own covenants. Our pursuit of holiness is the central feature of our evangelism, discipleship, and pastoral care. Peter offers us wisdom if we are open to hearing it.

1 Peter 2:9–12 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Fifth, Christians should not be discouraged by the legalization of same-sex marriage. The shift in the law has only served to clarify the divide between social contract and covenant marriage. The marital status of another human being does not change God’s design or the mission of the church.

Finally, Christians should not feel pressured by the Fuller messy theology to compromise our commitment to covenant marriage. Fuller’s pursuit of the world does not change our morals or our mission. What matters is that we live out the beauty of our marriage to God in a way that inspires the lost to desire the beauty of God’s covenant marriage between one man and one woman.

1. Henry, Carl F. H. 1999. God, Revelation, and Authority. Vol. 4. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

2. Charles Donahue, “The Legal Background: European Marriage Law from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth Century,” in Marriage in Europe, 1400–1800, ed. Silvana Seidel Menchi et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 33–34.

3. Heide Wunder, “Marriage in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century: Moral, Legal, and Political Order,” in Marriage in Europe, 1400–1800, ed. Silvana Seidel Menchi et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 68.

4. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

5. Supreme Court of the United States, Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. __ (2015).Note that in the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas, all sides of this debate agreed that prior to the 20^th century, no socieity had legalized same-sex marriage.

6. M. V. Lee Badgett, When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 7.

7. Ibid., 201.

8. Ibid., 193.

9. Ibid., 30.

10. Ibid., 193.

11. Badgett, When Gay People Get Married, 32.

12. Ibid., 34.

13. Ibid., 112.

14. Matthew Vines, God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships (New York, NY: Convergent Books, 2015), 11.

15. Ibid., 17.

16. Ibid., 18.

17. Ibid., 178. See also, W. Michael Wilson, “From Sherwin Bailey to Gay Marriage: Some Significant Developments in Christian Thought Since 1955,” Modern Believing 54, no. 3 (2013): 209.

18. Stuart Edser, Being Gay, Being Christian: You Can Be Both (Wollombi: Exisle Publishing, 2012), 173.

19. Daniel R. Heimbach, True Sexual Morality: Recovering Biblical Standards for a Culture in Crisis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), 259–265, Kindle.

20. Wayne A. Grudem, Christian Ethics: An Introduction to Biblical Moral Reasoning, Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 3243–3254, Apple Books.

21. Ibid., 687.

22. William Lee Holladay and Köhler. Ludwig, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 226.

23. Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, Vol. 1, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1987), 68.

24. Peterson, “Does Genesis 2 Support Same-Sex Marriage?,” 688.

25. Peterson, “Does Genesis 2 Support Same-Sex Marriage?,” 689.

26. Jack J. Gibson, “Ephesians 5:21–33 and the Lack of Marital Unity in the Roman Empire,”Bibliotheca Sacra 168, no. 670 (April–June 2011): 175.

27. Badgett, When Gay People Get Married, 109.

28. Gibson, “Ephesians 5:21–33,” 175.

29. Ibid., 176.

30. William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 542, Logos Bible Software.

31. Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Cultural Aspects of Marriage in the Ancient World,” Bibliotheca Sacra 135, no. 539 (July–September 1978): 251.

32. Larry W. Hurtado, “Friend of the Bridegroom,” in A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, ed. David L. Jeffrey (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992), 295.

33. Mazie Nakhro, “The Manner of Worship according to the Book of Revelation,” Bibliotheca Sacra 158 (2001): 168.

34. Fredric W. Bush, Ruth, Esther, Vol. 9, Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1996), 164.

35. Bruce A. Ware, “Could Our Savior Have Been a Woman?: The Relevance of Jesus’ Gender for His Incarnational Mission,” Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 8, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 38.

36. David Bennett, A War of Loves: The Unexpected Story of a Gay Activist Discovering Jesus, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 134.