Rebecca McLaughlin, Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships: Examining 10 Claims about Scripture and Sexuality (The Good Book Company, 2024)
A few years back I struggled to recommend books that accessibly combined the best of scholarship with a compassionate voice and cultural engagement when it came to articulating Jesus’s worldview on same-sex sex and relationships. Since then, a couple of friends of mine have wonderfully plugged that gap. First off the blocks was Preston Sprinkle with his excellent Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? which Ashleigh has reviewed for us here. He has now been followed by Rebecca McLaughlin with her shorter book, Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships?
In Rebecca you find things that don’t often come together: she’s a clear and compassionate communicator, an incisive and empathetic apologist, and a same-sex attracted woman married to a man. These rare combinations result in a book that connects well not just with arguments but with people: especially because she makes the compelling stories of others like her central to all she writes.
She makes the compelling stories of others like her central to all she writes.
The ten claims she responds to will be familiar to anyone interacting with those seeking to replace Jesus’s worldview on same-sex sex and relationships – there have been no substantially new arguments for decades. Each of her responses is well-articulated, but I thought she was especially strong on two of the most successfully deployed false claims – ‘Jesus Was Silent on Same-Sex Relationships’ and ‘The Trajectory of the Bible Is toward Rejecting Slavery and Affirming Same-Sex Marriage’ – expertly handling biblical texts and historical sources, alongside making challenging applications to a range of readers.
Rebecca is great at making familiar points in winsome ways, but one of the extra pleasures of this book were a few things I hadn’t heard or seen before. I loved the pairings she highlights in Paul’s letters – how in Galatians 5 ‘The New Testament’s strict teaching against sexual immorality is paired with the good fruit of the Spirit’ (p.101), and how in 1 Thessalonians 4 a ‘stark warning against sexual immorality comes with an equally strong call to sibling love’ (p.102). Wonderfully she doesn’t just point out these pairings but manages to demonstrate them in all she says.
Rebecca is great at making familiar points in winsome ways.
As in previous writings, one of her best made points is how the Bible massively encourages, even commands, loving same-sex relationships – just not sexual ones. She points out how ‘In modern culture and within the church, we’ve drained the blood from same-sex friendship’ (p.99) and I loved the push-back to cultural norms, and the personal examples, that followed.
It’s hard to think of someone who will not benefit from reading this short book – from those very new to the question it poses to those over-familiar, and from those for whom the answer is painfully personal to those who need to learn to communicate the biblical answer in compassionate and culturally connected ways.
