Has God Changed His Mind on Sex? - Gagnon vs. the Hayses
February 13, 2025
Robert Gagnon is the most prolific scholar of sexuality in scripture. This past fall, well-known New Testament scholar, Richard Hays, published The Widening of God’s Mercy, co-authored with his son Christopher (an Old Testament professor at Fuller Seminary). This book shows that not only has Richard Hays changed his mind about the bible and sexual ethics, but so has God. Gagnon authored several responses to the Hayses and he joined me to critique their book.
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Transcript
Welcome to the more, to the story. Podcast I'm, so glad you all have come along for this episode. This is an important episode. It's a familiar guest.
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Andy Miller III: Timor's story, podcast who, i'll introduce in just a second. But this, podcast. As you know, comes to you from Wesley Biblical Seminary, where we are sending out trusted leaders for faithful churches. And we have our highest enrollment in our history, more students taking more classes than ever, in part because we've held to our doctrinal standards theological foundations. But then, also, we're willing to adapt some of our methods
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Andy Miller III: to be able to go directly to students. So if you're interested in theological education, we'd love for you to check us out at Wbsedu for bachelor's master's doctoral degrees certificate programs, a course of study that we offer for the global Methodist Church. In addition to several lay initiatives through what we call the Wesley Institute, so we'd love for you to check us out at Wbsedu. Also, I'd love for folks to sign up for my email list at andymillerthird.com. That's Andymiller.
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Andy Miller III: and if you sign up for that list I'll send you a free tool called 5 steps to deeper teaching and preaching. And then at my website, you can see I have several other things that are available there, Sunday school courses, small group curriculum that is available that just takes people a little bit deeper into some specific subjects. For instance, there's 1 there called Contender. It's a 6 week study of the Book of Jude. You can find that at my website
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Andy Miller III: all right, I am so glad to welcome back to the podcast. But this time.
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Andy Miller III: with a different title, Dr. Robert Gagnon, who is the visiting scholar in residence at Wesley Biblical Seminary. Hey? I love saying that Robert, welcome back.
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Robert Gagnon: It's such a pleasure to be here, Andy, and such a pleasure to be affiliated with Wesley Biblical Seminary, a faithful
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Robert Gagnon: orthodox institution that's not afraid to be able to share a compassionate and undiluted message of the Gospel.
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Andy Miller III: Amen. I love how you said that compassionate and undiluted message that's in part like what we want to talk about today, because you have offered several responses to a book that's hit the Christian World, the Evangelical world, even, for that matter, with a bit of shock. And that is, it came this book called The Widening of God's Mercy.
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Andy Miller III: by Christopher and Richard Hayes. And just as we start here, just acknowledge that Richard Hayes is no longer with us. He is now with the Lord, and sadly he died, and wasn't able to respond
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Andy Miller III: more fully to your questions and your your response, your critique. So we just acknowledge at the beginning. And if Christopher Hayes, if you happen to listen to this, I know we don't know each other, but I would warmly welcome an opportunity to talk with you about this, too, and I'm sure that could be just me. I'd be glad to host a conversation, too, with Robert to be a moderator on that, if possible. So anyways, I just throw that out there. That offer has already been extended by Robert.
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Andy Miller III: And so I just want to say that at the beginning here. But, Robert, why don't you just let us know? Why? Why was this a significant splash? And what was it about Richard Hayes particularly coming out with this book that made it something that was significant.
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Robert Gagnon: Yes, and and just at the beginning to comment on something you just said, I want people to know that there was plenty of opportunity.
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Robert Gagnon: Even though Richard had cancer, the cancer had reassorted itself. We prayed for him. We wished for him to have greater longevity here on Earth.
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Robert Gagnon: But he was doing fine up through
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Robert Gagnon: certainly mid November, and to some extent beyond
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Robert Gagnon: he. He had many different appearances at other locations.
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Robert Gagnon: people who did interviews with him. He he went to a conference, did a presentation. It wasn't like he was bedridden the whole time. He did a 6,000 word interview with the New York Times. So I had been extending invitations to them both
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Robert Gagnon: for dialogue, discussion, debate on this issue since way back in the spring last.
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Andy Miller III: Okay.
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Robert Gagnon: So there was plenty of time for them to respond, and they certainly responded to lots of other invitations.
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Robert Gagnon: but only to venues that were friendly to their position. So that's the thing they weren't willing to engage. And I think it's great that you're extending this offer to Christopher. I think the likelihood of him accepting it is virtually nil. I would love to be proved wrong on that, but I think he knows that his case is absolutely indefensible, and if he has to appear before a scholar who has written more than anybody else in the world on this issue
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Robert Gagnon: than ever, then I think he realizes. This probably isn't going to go well for him. And it's not because I'm anything special. It's simply because the evidence of Scripture, and not only the evidence of Scripture, but even natural revelation, philosophical reasoning, scientific arguments, even personal experience all the way through. It just doesn't go well for their position
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Robert Gagnon: now. But again hope against hope that he might accept such an invitation.
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Robert Gagnon: So the reason why this has become such an important book I want to make clear, is not because of the content.
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Andy Miller III: Right, right.
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Robert Gagnon: It's just because of the overarching thesis in connection with Richard Hayes.
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Robert Gagnon: and the reason for that is is that Richard Hayes
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Robert Gagnon: had written some pieces, articles, article, length, pieces only.
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Robert Gagnon: He wrote 2 articles, one that appeared in Journal of Religious Ethics, one that appeared in sojourners.
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Robert Gagnon: It was republished in an edited volume
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Robert Gagnon: and a chapter in his book on Moral Vision of the New Testament. That's it. A grand total of about 75 pages, a lot of overlap between those 3 things. So when you remove the overlap, we're talking basically about a 40 page.
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Robert Gagnon: a discussion of the subject. That's it. That's all he did. But at the time that he wrote these things from the mid nineties, mid eighties to the early nineties, he was the only one
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Robert Gagnon: of that stature who came out defending the orthodox position on the Bible and homosexual practice.
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Robert Gagnon: And so he became the go-to person in that period of time.
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Robert Gagnon: Now I do have to say that already his positions were problematic, even in a half-hearted defense of the Biblical witness. And that's part of the reason why I ended up writing a 500 page book on the subject is because it was thoroughly inadequate as a defense of Scripture. He was eliminating texts that should not have been eliminated, like the Sodom text of Levia, and so on, and so forth.
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Robert Gagnon: And in addition to that, he was saying in his work, this is a minor issue.
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Andy Miller III: Right, right.
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Robert Gagnon: Which is really extraordinary.
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Robert Gagnon: and he was making clear that it should not be a membership issue. If somebody is actively engaged in homosexual practice, you should accept them as a member. Imagine that you'd be in a relationship you might call marriage, even though there wasn't civil, gay marriage at the time. But you should still accept that person as a full member, even though they're actively engaged in this behavior, and he even went so far in the moral vision to say that he's leaning in the direction
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Robert Gagnon: of accepting, even making ministers of persons or active, gay relationships. So he had drawn this, and maybe this is one element of the issue that we can now begin to talk about is that he had.
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Robert Gagnon: He had developed this hermeneutical principle which was really shocking for a scholar of his
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Robert Gagnon: expertise. So maybe back up just slightly and say he was
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Robert Gagnon: a professor of New Testament at
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Robert Gagnon: a Duke divinity school. So he had a very prestigious position.
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Andy Miller III: Jump in there. I mean, like, because you've said that something that twice like he's in prestigious position, a scholar of this stature. You're a New Testament scholar. You kind of understand that I'm going to say club, so to speak, like you went to similar conferences. You would have seen each other. I've seen you interact with other people
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Andy Miller III: of a similar stature, and like being aware of who they are, does he carry? Is it? Is it his position. Is it other past articles on other subjects that had given him this stature? Could you help me understand that.
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Robert Gagnon: Yeah, his stature
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Robert Gagnon: actually no really derives from other things. He had worked a lot on. Well, initially, he did a book. His dissertation on the faith of Jesus Christ. So he had developed what we call subjective generative interpretation, not faith in Christ, but he would.
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Robert Gagnon: Faith. Okay.
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Robert Gagnon: Faith of Christ, or the faithfulness of Christ.
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Robert Gagnon: and and that gave Him gave him some stature I actually still did to this day disagree with that position. It's what we call an objective genitive. It's faith in Jesus Christ, and there's numerous, and, I believe, overwhelming arguments that, but regardless.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah, I'm interested in that. Someday, too, the genesis, Mr.
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Robert Gagnon: 3, right? Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: Still, a live topic, right in in terms of the Academy.
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Robert Gagnon: But then, more importantly, he did work on what we call intertextuality from the New Testament to the Old and intertextuality simply means looking, not just at direct citations, but looking at allusions that you find in the New Testament to Old Testament text, and it sort of created an echo Chamber of meaning, a deepening of the understanding of the New Testament text in light of the resonances with the Old Testament text.
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Robert Gagnon: and he did some. He did a very good book on Paul, and intertextuality. I think that really is what made his name and his niche.
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Robert Gagnon: and then he went further to do a book called The Moral Vision of the New Testament.
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Robert Gagnon: 4 or 500 page book on the subject
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Robert Gagnon: in which he tried to create a Christian vision for morality, and the last part of the book was dealing with specific issues, including homosexuality, including abortion and other things.
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Andy Miller III: That's right. Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: And that's what really that was his magnum opus.
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Robert Gagnon: So it was even before he did that that he started with this back in the Mid eighties, publishing this article in Journal of Religious Ethics, and then, a few years after that, this other one in Sojourners, which got republished in an edited volume, so he made his name on other things he actually gained, though additional notoriety from his stance on the Bible and homosexual practice.
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Robert Gagnon: So for the longest time. People said, he's the go to Guy on this. That's why, when later, he shifted his position
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Robert Gagnon: in terms of writing this book, it was a shock.
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Robert Gagnon: Too many.
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Andy Miller III: Bye. See you right.
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Robert Gagnon: Over who wouldn't go over
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Robert Gagnon: totally opposite my position. My position was, I'm not really surprised at all that he went over.
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Andy Miller III: Okay, interesting. Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: Because he was already soft on so many positions of this
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Robert Gagnon: that I thought, you know, he's really setting himself up for a change on this position.
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Robert Gagnon: so it was not a surprise to me at all. It was a disappointment. I was saddened by it, but it didn't change anything. It doesn't you know, Andy, it doesn't change the word of God. Yeah, sure.
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Andy Miller III: Terry.
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Robert Gagnon: It doesn't change the position of Jesus on a male female foundation for sexual ethics that changes none of those things, although, of course, that's the overarching position of the book. So
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Robert Gagnon: how do they? How do they defend this change in position?
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Robert Gagnon: Well, the overarching thesis? It's stunning
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Robert Gagnon: is not just that he has changed his mind.
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Robert Gagnon: But God.
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Andy Miller III: Right, right.
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Robert Gagnon: I'm sorry. It's hard, almost. I don't mean to laugh at this.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: Because it's a very. It's a super serious issue, and I've treated it as such. But when you're just saying it, it is ludicrous, because
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Robert Gagnon: he's arguing that God.
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Andy Miller III: Bye.
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Robert Gagnon: He's the one who changed his mind on this issue.
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Robert Gagnon: You know God is convinced by we changing our minds. Apparently.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: And so their overarching argument is, there's there's this larger picture
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Robert Gagnon: of the Bible in which God repeatedly changes his mind. The 2 positions that they actually argue. One is that God repeatedly changes his mind, and the other is that God, in the process of doing that, or even if he doesn't change his mind
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Robert Gagnon: is widening his mercy to others, extending that out
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Robert Gagnon: progressively to other groups over time.
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Robert Gagnon: And so that justifies, they say, this new move, even though we admit
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Robert Gagnon: that we can't justify it from Scripture.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah, that's right.
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Robert Gagnon: So long after the cannon is closed. Millennia after the cannon is closed.
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Robert Gagnon: God now has suddenly thought you know what
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Robert Gagnon: that was probably a wrong position that I adopted for millennia. You know. I think I see, I see the humans are really working this out.
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Robert Gagnon: and they're changing their mind. And these denominations have changed their mind. Yeah, I'm so sorry I've been slow in the uptake. I mean, it's an extraordinary.
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Robert Gagnon: That's
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Robert Gagnon: an absolutely extraordinary image of God. It makes you want to say, Andy, almost, you know. Maybe your main problem even is not sexuality, but it's your theology and Christology.
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Andy Miller III: Right? Right? That's the point you often bring up. And I really think it's helpful, like there's another move. There's a philosopher who's fairly well known in some of my theological circles who has come out with a book rejecting omnipotence, and he develops this whole new term for himself. But there was a great response from somebody who's an alumnus of our institution. And he realized that as he was pointing to one of the problems of this is like. It's not just that you end up.
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Andy Miller III: What can this God do who is now no longer powerful to execute any actions, is like you end up having the God who is the name of the person who is involved in this case. His name is Ord. So you have the Ord. You have the Hayes, like Richard Hayes, becomes God. In this situation.
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Robert Gagnon: Yeah, yeah, it raises. So, therefore, raising huge questions about God's immutability and God's omniscience about things.
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Robert Gagnon: And
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Robert Gagnon: you know, there, actually, there's even some a little bit of difference between probably Christopher's view and Richard's. On the other hand, because the thing is, the Bible does use, especially in the Old Testament what we call anthropomorphic imagery for God in order to make God understandable to humans with finite minds. So we do have texts that do talk about God changing his mind.
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Robert Gagnon: There are many classic examples of that from the
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Robert Gagnon: Moses appealing to God, interceding on behalf of Israel after the golden calf episode to the Jonah story.
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Robert Gagnon: and so on. But you don't really get that in the New Testament.
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Robert Gagnon: So that poses a problem. And one of the key issues, for example, in which they try to
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Robert Gagnon: the probably the key example or analogy from Scripture that they use to support God. Making a change
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Robert Gagnon: is the movement towards Gentile inclusion.
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Andy Miller III: -
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Robert Gagnon: But they have to. Their own book, in dealing with that
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Robert Gagnon: issue, resonating already in the Old Testament, clearly shows that this has been God's program all along, right it
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Robert Gagnon: there may be like a change in policy
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Robert Gagnon: over time, in the way God operates with the human creation. 1st this, then, that. Of course we do see that with the new covenant right as well. That brings some changes in policy, because it's a new covenant.
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Robert Gagnon: But we don't see God really changing his mind on the question
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Robert Gagnon: of Gentile inclusion, because he's the Creator from the very beginning, and we see the Abrahamic promise, you know, through you. All the nations of the earth are going to be blessed, which is what Paul develops in his writing. So it's not presented. And and he, Hayes, Richard Hayes acknowledges himself. It's not a change of mind for him.
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Robert Gagnon: for God not presented as such in the Book of Acts or in Paul's letters.
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Robert Gagnon: So that's their key issue. Their key example rather. And yet it doesn't support their conclusion about God. Change his mind. And here's the other. Here's another thing I want to point out about that, and
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Robert Gagnon: it also speaks to a larger
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Robert Gagnon: what? I would consider the number one problem with the book.
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Robert Gagnon: with their argument, as you, as you know, in the article I did for the Federalists. I outlined 12, and I was limiting myself there, you know, limiting myself to 12. I just thought good Biblical number. I'll stop at 12.
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Andy Miller III: But I couldn't.
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Robert Gagnon: Have easily gone beyond 12, but but still there's some of the things they did are worse than others, and one of the things they did is, you know, even though they have 2 chapters on Jesus
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Robert Gagnon: in the book.
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Robert Gagnon: They ignore completely the key Jesus sex text in mark 12 to 12, and in Matthew 19 3 to 9, they just
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Robert Gagnon: ignore it entirely.
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Robert Gagnon: And and but that's where Jesus establishes a male female foundation for sexual ethics, and even extrapolates from that other things. I won't go into all that right now. I just want to say the way in which Jesus views God's change here.
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Robert Gagnon: right? Because what does Jesus do in in this text?
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Robert Gagnon: He develops a very rigorous position of monogamy
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Robert Gagnon: that applies not only to rejecting polygamy.
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Robert Gagnon: but also even rejecting a sort of serial polygamy over time.
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Robert Gagnon: And it's more rigorous than anything else that we find in the ancient world.
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Robert Gagnon: So it's an extraordinary movement, and he justifies it entirely on the basis of the sexual binary. God's intentional creation of male and female, 2 and only 2 sexes, implying a limitation of 2 persons.
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Robert Gagnon: whether at any one time or serially over time.
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Robert Gagnon: Now Jesus does acknowledge a change.
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Robert Gagnon: He's he talks about because of human hardness of heart.
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Andy Miller III: Moses permitted this? Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: Right. Moses permitted these things.
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Robert Gagnon: But it's no longer going to be that way, because
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Robert Gagnon: from the beginning of creation that has not been God's view of things.
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Robert Gagnon: And so that's an interesting hermeneutic. There, it's not.
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Andy Miller III: Closing, not opening.
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Robert Gagnon: That's right.
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Andy Miller III: Much more.
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Robert Gagnon: That's right. 1st of all, there is a movement in the direction of closing loopholes rather than expanding possibilities for sexuality. It's narrowing the possibilities, and it's doing so
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Robert Gagnon: precisely on the basis of a male-female prerequisite.
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Andy Miller III: No.
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Robert Gagnon: On the basis of an intentional creation of a sexual binary. 2 sexual counterparts, right, they put together, male and female, the 2 halves of the sexual spectrum
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Robert Gagnon: they unite into a single sexual whole. Why are you talking about 3 or more persons in the Union? It doesn't make sense. You've already brought it together. So that's the basis Jesus uses the foundation so clearly. It's absolutely a pivotal significance at at this point
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Robert Gagnon: I'm
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Robert Gagnon: and yet so I'm thinking why, when they're talking about God changing his mind, why can't they adopt Jesus's vision.
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Robert Gagnon: which is that sometimes God has made allowances
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Robert Gagnon: in Mosaic law through human hardness because of human hardness of heart, but now, consistent with his
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Robert Gagnon: thinking from creation on, he's going to close that loophole.
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Robert Gagnon: Why don't we adopt that vision? Well.
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Andy Miller III: Right, sure.
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Robert Gagnon: Yeah, that's Jesus's Herman.
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Andy Miller III: Right? Let's get more restrictive. Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: Right, exactly, but they don't. They, instead, just completely, completely ignore that. So it's it's stunning that they, in talking about a change of mind don't acknowledge Jesus's view.
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Robert Gagnon: It's not actually a change of mind on God's part. As a result of a matter of God changing his ethics.
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Robert Gagnon: God is not changing his morality.
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Robert Gagnon: He's changing when he's going, when he's going to stop allowing human beings to get away with, not doing what he wants them to do. That's that's what he's changing on. So it's a change of policy with regard to human, not a change in his own morality. But they have to argue for a change in his morality.
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Robert Gagnon: So that's an extraordinary concept. And think about Gentile inclusion. Right? Is that again, their big analogy? Does God change his morality when he includes Gentiles.
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Robert Gagnon: Absolutely not.
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Robert Gagnon: That's not going to Jerusalem Conference talks about. Yes, they still have some residual elements of ritual
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Robert Gagnon: they wanted to maintain, not, for example, eating meat with too much blood in it. Just so you can still make table fellowship possible between Jews and Gentiles, and the Jewish believers won't be weirded out. That's a concession. It's still a concession.
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Andy Miller III: But yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: Terms of idolatry and in terms of sexual immorality. There's no concession.
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Robert Gagnon: Gentiles are not allowed.
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Robert Gagnon: They're not allowed a polytheistic framework any longer.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: Right, and they're not allowed in their sexual ethics to persist, as they were doing, to do things as Gentiles that are completely in the opposite of direction about what God wants them to do. No, they're going to have to conform their sexual morality patterns to the Biblical one period right? And for the Jews at the top of that list in ancient Israel, early Judaism.
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Robert Gagnon: at the very top of the list of sexual ethics, standards is well. I would put it, actually, number 2. The very top is no bestiality. That's the worst. Don't have sex with animals. Okay, but we don't have to talk about that a lot, because nobody's advocating for it.
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Robert Gagnon: When you talk about intrahuman behaviors of sexual behavior, then that the very top of the list is this male female foundation. You cannot have sex with somebody of the same sex that is treated as the worst
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Robert Gagnon: of all intrahuman sexual offenses. There's no change there.
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Robert Gagnon: let alone change on incest, let alone change on adultery, let alone change in fornication, let alone change in sex with prostitutes. There's no change in any of these things, any of these categories, and that's absolutely clear. And you see that also in Paul's letters, by the way.
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Robert Gagnon: where Paul makes even in first, st it's very 1st extant letter in 1st Thessalonians. Paul's making that clear. You Gentiles, I want you to. I want it to be absolutely clear for you
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Robert Gagnon: that you have to obey the commandments of God. Number one, you know sexual purity.
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Robert Gagnon: that's what he deals with, and if you do not do that, then God will be an avenger against you and all these things because you've rejected his spirit.
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Robert Gagnon: So that's a very clear warning. And you see this throughout Paul's letters there's no allowance, no change whatsoever in Gentiles, in this ethic.
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Robert Gagnon: And yet now they're asking us to believe that God has changed his morality.
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Robert Gagnon: and the most foundational element of that morality in his sexual ethics which Jesus himself views as the foundation of sexual ethics. That's extraordinary where we do find God changing his mind in the Old Testament really comes down to one matter.
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Robert Gagnon: and that is, when people repent.
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Robert Gagnon: God is willing to retract the judgment
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Robert Gagnon: that he had otherwise intended to deliver.
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Robert Gagnon: We see that in the case, for example, of Jonah. That's why Jonah doesn't want to go preach a message of repentance
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Robert Gagnon: to the Ninevites, because he knows
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Robert Gagnon: that God, you know, taking the what we call the magnanimity credo about God, which God reveals when he passes by Moses in the cleft of the rock. You know that God is God is a compassionate God, full of mercy and abounding in steadfast love and forgiving right that's central to God's character.
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Robert Gagnon: but it always comes only as a result of repentance or or God delaying the judgment in order to elicit repentance. But it's always aimed.
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Andy Miller III: Interesting, yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: Repentance right?
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Robert Gagnon: And what the Hayes do in their book is, they basically on the issue of homosexual practice and transgenderism, eliminate that absolutely essential element
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Robert Gagnon: of God, retracting his judgment, which is repentance.
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Andy Miller III: It seems like that would be problematic then, for them withholding to any moral claims
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Andy Miller III: so like. If God's morality changes.
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Andy Miller III: how then do we have a foundation for saying that murder is wrong. How do we have a foundation for saying that incest is wrong? I mean anything stealing, whatever it is.
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Robert Gagnon: Yeah, exactly. And so I just thought, Oh, you know, they're basically just going to be inconsistent.
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Robert Gagnon: logically inconsistent across the board. But then I came across recently
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Robert Gagnon: a interview that Richard Hayes did with his son, Christopher Hayes. Christopher, for those of you who don't know, by the way, who are listening. His son is a professor of Old Testament at Fuller Seminary, supposed to be an Evangelical Institution
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Robert Gagnon: and they were being interviewed by some guy at Yale University Press, because that's press to publish the book.
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Robert Gagnon: and the the guy interviewing them was asking them, well, then, you know, does the Bible even have a stable foundation for ethics, any ethical standards. And and Richard Hayes said, to my surprise, that he acknowledged this.
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Robert Gagnon: yeah, here's the thing he could have either been Con, he could have either been logically consistent, but really bad theologian and Biblical scholar.
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Robert Gagnon: or he could have chosen to be logically inconsistent.
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Robert Gagnon: and at least be a better scholar of the text. Instead, he chose the first.st He actually said, yes, that there is no stable foundation for any moral standards.
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Robert Gagnon: Oh, my goodness!
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Andy Miller III: This is the person who wrote the moral vision of the new test. Yeah, yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: The irony right, the irony of that. He writes a book called The Moral Vision
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Robert Gagnon: of the New Testament. And so that's where it leads to. Because if if God is changing something that Jesus says, this is foundational for God's sexual ethics from creation on, this is why he created 2 and only 2 sexual counterparts
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Robert Gagnon: designed them deliberately for sexual union, sexual pairing
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Robert Gagnon: as a basis for limiting the number. Jesus is like. Yeah. And we got to say, then, that God, from that point on was just simply wrong. For what?
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Robert Gagnon: How many millennia do we want to make that be.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah, she.
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Robert Gagnon: However long it was, was from creation to now, and now suddenly he's he's changed on that. Well, if he's changed on that.
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Robert Gagnon: then actually, you do have to say that nothing is reliable
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Robert Gagnon: in terms of God's standards, because that's right up there at the top.
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Robert Gagnon: Sorry.
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Andy Miller III: For sure.
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Robert Gagnon: You got to eliminate ethics period.
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Robert Gagnon: any stable understanding of ethics. Now, of course, they don't do that in their actual life, because
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Robert Gagnon: no even semi moral person can ever live under that understanding that everything is up for grabs in terms of.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? Then, we.
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Robert Gagnon: Don't believe that deep down, if you put them, you know now it's only Christopher sadly. But if you gave put Christopher under, gave him truth serum, and put him under hypnosis and and gave him a lie detector, and asked him whether he thought there was any stable morality left. He would say, sure there is. He has lots of things that he would call stable.
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Robert Gagnon: but their force, on the basis of
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Robert Gagnon: logical consistency, to arrive at conclusions that are from a Biblical, theological, even reasonable standpoint.
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Robert Gagnon: Can I say it insane?
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Robert Gagnon: It's absolutely insane positions.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah, this is hard. And one of the things that they bring up. And you highlight that I mean, you've you've addressed this many times in many locations for decades, but they, you say that they confuse the infrequency of mentioning with thinking that of anything related to human sexuality, same-sex behavior as meaning is insignificant.
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Robert Gagnon: Yeah, it's.
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Andy Miller III: And that's a problem.
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Robert Gagnon: Yeah, it's an extraordinary principle developed to develop for interpreting the Bible, and it's unbelievable that scholars, a scholar of Richard Hayes's maturity and sophistication in terms of what we call hermeneutics. The interpretation of the Bible
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Robert Gagnon: could arrive at such a conclusion, because I know he wouldn't say that about anything else. Let's take, for example, incest. How many times is incest specifically prohibited in the New Testament just once.
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Robert Gagnon: 1st Corinthians, 5
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Robert Gagnon: in the case of the incestuous man, and we have to look at that and say, if there had not been a man sleeping with his stepmother in Corinth, in the mid 1st century.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: It wouldn't even be mentioned, we wouldn't have it. Yeah, yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: incest would have 0 mentions in the New Testament. So what we should conclude from that, that having sex with your mother is not a significant offense to God.
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Andy Miller III: Right, right.
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Robert Gagnon: It's extraordinary. You know. How many times have. How many times did I sit down when my daughters were young, and have a discussion with them about why they shouldn't murder, you know. I never had that discussion with them.
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Robert Gagnon: because it wasn't on the table.
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Robert Gagnon: hey? I've never had the discussion with them, because it's just not even conceivable as anything that whatever they would ever do so, infrequency of mention sometimes comes simply because something is so beyond the pale.
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Robert Gagnon: Andy Andy, I have. I got to ask you this, and I don't want to put you on the spot.
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Andy Miller III: Oh! Here it is!
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Robert Gagnon: How many times have you delivered a sermon about? Why you shouldn't have sex with your parents?
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Andy Miller III: That's right.
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Andy Miller III: Sorry, sorry, Robert, to say. I just haven't offered that sermon.
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Robert Gagnon: Well it. You must have some sort of open view towards incest, then
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Robert Gagnon: that's the only thing I can. I mean, that is just absurd kind of reasoning. So the reason why there doesn't have to be a whole lot of mention about homosexual practice
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Robert Gagnon: in the Bible when it is mentioned. However, it's very severely condemned
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Robert Gagnon: is quite simple. It's more occasions. And, by the way, even they acknowledge.
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Andy Miller III: Subscription.
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Robert Gagnon: Being mentioned implicitly or explicitly.
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Robert Gagnon: But the reason why it doesn't have to be mentioned before that is, she's not advocating for it.
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Robert Gagnon: There's nobody advocating for it, let alone doing it.
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Robert Gagnon: So what's the point? Why would Jesus, for example, have to specifically say, Stop having sex with members of the same sex. People would be like, Who's who's advocating for that, anyway? And why are you doing? I mean, it's just, you know. It's an absurd kind of thing you have to do to even have to talk about. We don't have a single Jesus saying on why, why you shouldn't commit incest, not one.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: Not one. And again, had it not been for the incestuous man for Paul, we'd have none for Paul either, or the whole rest of the New Testament canon and a good chunk of the Old Testament canon. So it's just. It's just because it is so severe.
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Robert Gagnon: you know, if you had to talk about in a church as a pastor, why you shouldn't have sex with your nuclear family other than your wife.
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Robert Gagnon: who is not akin to you, and but becomes kin as a result of covenant.
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Robert Gagnon: If you were to talk about that in church.
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Robert Gagnon: you would probably have the elders
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Robert Gagnon: coming to you later, and saying, Why did you do that?
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Robert Gagnon: You know how offensive it was, even though you were taking a Biblical position.
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Andy Miller III: Sure, sure.
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Robert Gagnon: Offensive it was even to you have women and children here, you know you.
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Robert Gagnon: It's just something you shouldn't have done. You should have created a special circumstance, and blah blah.
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Robert Gagnon: because it is so outrageous a thing to engage in. So that's what we have going on in Scripture. It's so beyond the pale.
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Andy Miller III: Hmm.
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Robert Gagnon: Sometimes in frequency of mention. Here's the principle you should develop out of it. Sometimes in frequency of mention, especially with regard to sexual ethics
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Robert Gagnon: is due simply to the fact of how scandalous it is even to mention the issue at all.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: Even in rejecting this immoral activity.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah, the silence can represent that now you and people should look to your, you know monograph on the subject, to look at more detail to see the way you outline the reality of same-sex behavior committed homosexual relationships in the world of the New Testament. That was there. Right? I mean, there was. There was an awareness of this, and you've highlighted that, and that seems to be something that they don't highlight in this book, either.
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Robert Gagnon: Another key problem with the book is they don't deal with anything.
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Robert Gagnon: Any scholarship that's come out on the issue on either side since the mid nineties.
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Robert Gagnon: So this is extraordinary. I mean, you're over 30 years. You're just completely ignoring scholarship. Now, there are one or 2 exceptions that they put in footnotes, very minimal exceptions.
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Robert Gagnon: But that's it. The main work that's been done on both sides. They have ignored. They ignored everything I've ever written. By the way just on, as you noted just on that question, hermeneutical principle of what is, does infrequency of mention mean less severity to the concern that it's a minor issue, and I have a section on that on my book of about 6 or 7 pages dealing with. Why, that is a Barret argument. Infrequency of mention does not equate with the issue in question. Being minor.
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Robert Gagnon: on the contrary, it often means the opposite, especially with regard to sexual ethics. They could have looked at that they could have at least addressed it. I don't say.
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Andy Miller III: Exactly right.
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Robert Gagnon: 3.
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Robert Gagnon: But you've got to at least deal with the argument. So here it is in imagine. Okay, we all teach it at at Wesley Biblical Seminary. If a student at Wesley Biblical Seminary.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: Was going to do a paper on any issue.
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Robert Gagnon: yeah, of any significance. And they ignored every every single significant piece that had ever been written on the subject in the last 30 years.
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Robert Gagnon: including everything you've talked about in class.
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Robert Gagnon: What would you would you say? Well, that's an a you know. Let me give that an a. That person really did. Informed analysis.
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Robert Gagnon: You know, you take.
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Robert Gagnon: Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: you didn't do your. You didn't meet the specifications for the paper. You you know, you're gonna have to redo, or we would have to talk about something here, right? But these are seasoned Biblical scholars
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Robert Gagnon: publishing Yale University.
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Andy Miller III: Like, press, yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: And this is acceptable.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah.
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Andy Miller III: You know, for instance, right now, I'm working on a I would like to think of it as maybe maybe this is what they were thinking with their audience. I'm not supporting this, as you know, but that they're scholarly informed, but they're writing for a practical
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Andy Miller III: like in a practical way, and I think they make that type of claim themselves. But, for instance, I'm working on a book right now on the afterlife, and you and I have a friend, Jerry Walls, right, and he's written about a Protestant view of purgatory. So I have a little section coming up on that. Now. I'm not going to spend a lot of time in an analysis of his book from an academic perspective.
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Andy Miller III: But I better have a footnote.
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Andy Miller III: They're acknowledging that this view exists that there are Christians, and in it, particularly in my tradition in the evangelical Wesleyan tradition, who affirm a certain version of purgatory
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Andy Miller III: like, I just need to say that this is something that's there, and I need to acknowledge, or just acknowledging the significant voices who might disagree. Now, maybe that's not a part of the main text, but at least because you're coming from a scholarly foundation. That's a part that's a part of the requirement. What would happen of how that you produce material.
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Robert Gagnon: Exactly. And yeah, I fully recognize it's their popular books. You don't have to footnote everything. I agree with all of that, although they do have footnotes in the book, and they do mention some previous works prior to 2530 years ago.
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Robert Gagnon: So there are capable of doing that. But at least at least be aware of the counter, especially when you're dealing with a super controversial issue.
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Andy Miller III: Right, sure, sure.
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Robert Gagnon: Is right, at least be aware of the counter arguments
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Robert Gagnon: and deal with the main counterarguments against your position.
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Robert Gagnon: But they don't do that.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: And in fact, they have all sorts of erroneous arguments. So here's a couple we can just tick off quickly, and you can follow up with me anything you want to follow up with. But, for example, they use analogies as an important argument. Okay? So you know, here's an important thing. If you think that the closest analogies to changing our position.
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Robert Gagnon: homosexual practice are Gentile inclusion.
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Robert Gagnon: Broadening opportunities for women
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Robert Gagnon: the unix. If you think those are the main analogies. You have to make a case.
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Robert Gagnon: But why?
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Robert Gagnon: You're picking those analogies and ignoring other analogies which I and others but have argued are far closer analogies to the Bible's position, homosexual practice, for example, the Bible's position and other key issues of sexual ethics, like incest, like polyamory. Okay, those are the 2 closest analogs. I've done work a lot of work on that showing. Here's the substantive points of correspondence between those analogies. And this issue.
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Robert Gagnon: Okay, you have to. You have to at least be aware that other people have argued that there are far closer analogies.
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Robert Gagnon: And obviously, if you've got to make an analogical argument.
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Robert Gagnon: The closest analogies win because.
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Andy Miller III: Sure.
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Robert Gagnon: If you're doing the close analogy for remote analogs. Well, why are you doing that? If it's a remote analog, it's not as good an analogy. Well, we're only doing that, so we can get to where we want to go. Well.
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Andy Miller III: Sure.
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Robert Gagnon: You're not honest in your analogy. That's 1 thing. They argue also, for example, that that committed relationships
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Robert Gagnon: and sexual orientation of any level were unknown in the ancient world. Now that is just flatly false.
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Robert Gagnon: That is a false argument I have written, and others have written, even people on their own side.
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Andy Miller III: Right, right.
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Robert Gagnon: Like Pertad Bruton, William Loader. Others who support homosexual unions have acknowledged
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Robert Gagnon: that they were aware in the ancient world of both of those things.
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Robert Gagnon: Okay? So if the Hays are arguing otherwise, and they're producing no evidence for that, right? What they would have to do is they would have to say, well, here's some people have cited these texts
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Robert Gagnon: as indications that they did know about committed homosexual relationships. They did know at some rudimentary level about orientation.
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Robert Gagnon: Okay. Here's why those techs don't do that. They'd have to do that.
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Robert Gagnon: They don't do that.
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Robert Gagnon: They just simply ignore it completely. Make a blanket statement as if no scholarship has been done showing the opposite
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Robert Gagnon: is that good scholarship.
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Robert Gagnon: But those are the 2. Those are the 2 fundamental
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Robert Gagnon: points for them to make, to make their position, analogies, and new knowledge arguments.
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Robert Gagnon: Those are absolutely essential for them to make a case, and yet they ignore every single counter argument
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Robert Gagnon: to that position.
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Robert Gagnon: Extraordinary.
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Andy Miller III: This is so hard, I mean, and that's if you're going to have a revision of something. If you're going to say the way the majority. Let's just say it's even in a completely different academic discipline. The majority of the way science has thought about this subject. We're going to change this.
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Andy Miller III: then you need to deal with the best arguments from that side.
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Robert Gagnon: Exactly.
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Andy Miller III: And and to ignore them is a bit of malpractice from a scholarly perspective. Here.
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Robert Gagnon: Yeah. And somebody would be just. Even somebody once agrees with their overarching position of wanting to support homosexual unions.
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Robert Gagnon: They can be very disappointed when they open this book up
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Robert Gagnon: because it doesn't really discuss it doesn't discuss any of the Biblical texts that make that case
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Robert Gagnon: against that make the case out of 4. Of course, there are none that make the case for homosexual unions, but all the ones that do make the case for opposing such unions they have completely ignored, in addition to ignoring the scholarships. So, chapter after chapter, you're asking yourself, what are they going to talk about?
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Robert Gagnon: What the Bible has to say about homosexual unions, and they never do.
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Robert Gagnon: And even texts like the Creation text, Genesis 1, 27, male and female. God made them right.
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Robert Gagnon: or Genesis 2, 21 to 24, about the creation of woman and the marriage text. Therefore, for this reason man shall become joined to his woman, and the 2 shall become one flesh. The 2 texts which Jesus himself cites
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Robert Gagnon: when dealing with sexual ethics is absolutely foundational for everything going forward on that subject
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Robert Gagnon: complete, that even though they actually have a chapter in creation, those sets of texts
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Robert Gagnon: which are the ones that the only ones that really impinge on the issue of sexuality and homosexual practice they can ignore completely, look up in the index, and then we go to the chapter. You'll see nothing.
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Andy Miller III: Hmm, hmm.
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Robert Gagnon: How can you do that now? If you and I would not allow that of master's students.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: How possibly can Yale University Press allow that of seasoned Biblical scholars.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.
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Andy Miller III: Well, this is where I mean, where society is is to try to get the answer that they want. Now, Robert, I'm interested. I know we don't. We only have so much longer here, but like
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Andy Miller III: I'm hopeful that there can be a change in society. Now there's part of me that thinks that Jesus just needs to return, and I, when you pray the Lord's Prayer, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done like I think that might be. How it needs to happen is, Jesus returns and puts everything right but
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Andy Miller III: But I do wonder if there still is hope
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Andy Miller III: for our society. I'm curious what your hope is, and there's a way I know this will get a little political, but there is a movement even. We both live in the United States. There is a movement toward recognizing natural categories with even in our government like that gives me hope that let me go back. When Obergefell happened. I remember being pretty down in the dumps about it, but I lean back on the reality that
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Andy Miller III: if if this is the way God has designed the world, it will ultimately, like moving against his way, will ultimately fall in on itself
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Andy Miller III: that it's not how God, that's not how the world is designed, that it will. It just might end up being decades. And bergafell. I had a mentor say to me, it's just going to be a couple of decades, maybe centuries before we realize what's happened. But maybe, do you have? What's your hope for? What could even happen now? I mean, that's why you're sticking standing up for this truth at this point, because of God's revelation through Scripture. But also I think you want things to get better. I mean, talk to me about the the hopeful side of what can come on the other side of this.
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Robert Gagnon: Yes, the hopeful side, in addition to Jesus returning and just finally ending this nonsense. But yeah, we see that they've overreached on the Lgbtq. Side a bit on the question of transgenderism. As an example, I just came out with an article in the American Spectator on that the executive order signed by Donald Trump, where
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Robert Gagnon: they actually have now federally defined. What a male and a female are.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: That we have to do that. You know that says we're kind of a sad shape we're in, but of course we have a Supreme Court Justice Kataji Jackson, who.
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Robert Gagnon: who, in her nomination proceedings in the Senate, said, in answer to the question, What is a woman? She said. She couldn't say what a woman was, even though she's a woman.
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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.
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Robert Gagnon: What a woman was because she's not a biologist. Well, hopefully, now, with this executive order, we've defined a woman, you know, it's based on. It's based on ovum and sperm. Human bodies are designed in such a way for a capacity to have one or the other. You can have an egg cell, or you can have sperm cells.
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Robert Gagnon: And it's pretty obvious that one defines female and one defines a male. So now it's been defined that way. An objective biological category, and so now, at least by executive order, the federal of the Executive branch of the Federal Government. They are no longer going to go after people who do not allow so-called trans. Women, which are biological males, who identify as female into female restrooms
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Robert Gagnon: into female locker rooms, into female sports. Right? That's not going to be allowed anymore.
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Robert Gagnon: at least, if the Federal Government has any say in what's going on at that particular venue.
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Robert Gagnon: So that is wonderful. Okay, that's a pushback. And I think it shocked that again, I think it's I'm not giving away a State secret here to say that the Democrats have supported the whole Lgbtq. Agenda. Now, Trump is not in, not where I want him to be. On the whole issue. He's supportive of a lot basically come out now, he's okay with gay marriage. I don't think we should be
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Robert Gagnon: but he is. And the Supreme Court had talked about that already in Obergefell, as you noted.
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Robert Gagnon: but still he's a lot better. At least he stops at transgenderism and recognizes.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: This is just nonsense, right? We can't have men invading female private spaces and endangering women. This is unacceptable, because and that was really a beauty of the executive order is saying, Look, if you're if all the legislation we have protecting women
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Robert Gagnon: allows for this notion of males becoming females, you're basically undermining all female, all pro women legislation that has gone down the line. So we can't do that right? So okay, now, we're stopped. Okay. Now, we stop at this point. Of course the Democrats aren't going to give up on it. They're going to continue to try to push it, which is basically child abuse and getting children chemically castrated
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Robert Gagnon: with cross, with puberty blockers and cross gender hormones. But at least now we're saying, Okay, there's at least a critical mass here. That's saying enough.
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Andy Miller III: Yes.
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Robert Gagnon: Right? So hopefully, maybe we can start pushing back a little bit. What we see is when we say enough about the transgender. It's exactly as you put it. The whole thing has been a house of cards.
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Andy Miller III: Right.
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Robert Gagnon: It's like, Oh, my God! How could we have even thought this at any one time that you could simply think that you're another sex, irregardless, regardless of the way God has made you.
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Robert Gagnon: created you, your whole biological existence. Every cell screams out the sex that you are, and and how can. We have gone along with this? A lot of people now have to say that. So maybe
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Robert Gagnon: it's a lesson for us if we stand firm on what the truth is, lovingly, compassionately.
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Robert Gagnon: in the end, if if only we're waiting for the kingdom of God. But in the end.
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Andy Miller III: Yes.
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Robert Gagnon: This is going to be shown to be the correct and compassionate way to approach things.
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Andy Miller III: Yes, it's beautiful. I think that is a hopeful sign for us that standing on truth with compassion, but also with conviction.
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Andy Miller III: is a way forward so, and I appreciate the way that you've done that, Robert, and those of you who are interested where it might be too late to sign up now, but he is. He does teach classes at Wesley Biblical Seminary, and many people take his classes just to audit. They just come to sit in the lectures. So I encourage you to check out our website to see if you could take a class with Robert Gagnon is a real blessing. We had over a hundred people
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Andy Miller III: take his class on human sexuality last fall. And now teaching on one Corinthians as well, which you've already heard just across this interview important text there, as it relates to human sexuality. So, Robert, thank you so much for your time. I'll have a link to these articles, and if you don't follow him on social media or various places that he writes do it. This is a key voice that God has used in the Christian community to speak.
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Andy Miller III: and it truly is, there truly is compassion behind this, because the truth clarity
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Andy Miller III: ultimately is a form of compassion. So, Robert, I'll let you just say another word before we finish up here. I just want to get you to respond. And so thankful, just know of our appreciation for the way that you're speaking out here.
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Robert Gagnon: Oh, thank you again. Wesley. Biblical Seminary is a home for me. There's real kindred spirits and a desire to do just as Scripture and Jesus asked us to do, regardless of the consequences. And that is so rare today in any educational institution. So and and I would just add, it's not too late to
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Robert Gagnon: sign up as an auditor, and in the course all the 2 previous classes have been recorded, they're available to you. So you're not missing anything, so we encourage you for that or any other class being offered at Wesley Biblical Seminary. It's not too late to do that, and thank you, Andy, for your encouragement and your support and your leadership. Throughout all this.
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Andy Miller III: Absolutely all right. Thank you all for joining us today. God bless you!