Hank Hanegraaff on Neutering Marriage and Hit & Run Bible Mockers

Hank Hanegraaff, culture warrior, is a longtime husband and father of 12 children. If understand correctly, nine of those children are biological (one of which miscarried) and three are adopted. So, he has a lot of perspective on marriage, family, and parenting. He has a new blog that appears to be intentionally distinct from the ministry he leads. Two recent entries are relevant to the issue of neutering marriage.

The first is "What Are the Inherent Liabilities of [Neutering] Marriage?"

Furthermore, we should underscore the biological reality of sexual reproduction. Every organ in the human body is self-sufficient to perform its intended function except for one. Natural reproduction always, always, always requires a coupling of male and female. As Dr. Jay Richards has well written in the Christian Research Journal, “Marriage protects, reflects, and reinforces this powerful complementary, reproductive part of our natures.” As such, marriage “is a comprehensive union of body, mind, emotion, and soul, a proper end of which is children.”

One need not even cite reproduction. It is a biological fact that men and women are different. All one must do is note that men and women are different and thus the uniting of both sexes is different from other kinds of associations. States are allowed to treat different kinds of associations differently. This is not a religious argument, it is an argument based on basic biological reality that most people understand and live by, with perhaps the exception of a very, very few people, most of whom required many years of brainwashing to arrive at their stated opinion. and unless they are neuterally bisexual, they are hypocrites.

In sum, marriage cannot be reduced to politically correct rhetoric or political whims. It is a matter of natural law. Says Richards, “Rights come from our nature, and our nature comes from God. If you deny that, then you deny the basis of all our other rights.” In the end, redefining marriage strikes a mortal blow to the foundation of a free society.

This is no small matter. because of the flouting of so much other "traditional morality" in having sex and raising children out of wedlock, shacking up, adultery, what I would call elective divorces, and elective abortions, too many people think it won't feel any different if marriage is neutered, and so there is no harm in it. However, the arguments driving the neutering of marriage undermine the very foundation of our rights, making them nothing more than things doled out by whomever is currently in office. In gaining the "right" to get a state license without a bride or without a groom (which is not just limited to homosexual people - anyone can access this "right" just as homosexual individuals can access bride+groom licenses), all rights are being weakend.

Hanegraaff's entry offers:

See also Jay W. Richards, “To Defend Marriage, We Should Learn a Lesson from Apologetics,” Christian Research Journal, vol. 35, no. 4, 2012.

Bible Answer Man interview with Jay W. Richards, “What is marriage?”
http://www.equip.org/audio/hank-hanegraaff-with-special-guest-jay-w-richards/

The second entry is "Can Christians Only 'Thump the Bible' On the Issue of [Neutering] Marriage Legislation?"

When the Bible is being denigrated, mocked, disdained, as sarcasm drip from the lips of political pundits and public personalities, we must take a stand, because the lives of multiplied millions literally hang in the balance.

He takes Bill O’Reilly and Lawrence O'Donnell to task.

In reality, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell is himself a “thumper;” a “thumper” who has taken the Bible out of context and used it as a pretext for his own idiosyncratic brand of fundamentalism. To anachronistically rip a narrative out of its Ancient Near Eastern context and then use it as a demonstration of the superiority of modern pluralist assumptions, I think is at best misguided. And to read anachronistic modern meanings into an Ancient Near Eastern context is hardly enlightened. Instead of reading anachronistic prejudices into the text of the Bible, O’Donnell would have been well-served to read the Bible synergistically. One can no more read New World realities into Ancient Near Eastern legalities than read Torah legalities into New Covenant realities. He cannot comprehend the Bible as a whole without comprehending its individual passages. And He cannot comprehend its individual passages apart from, well, comprehending the Bible as a whole.

Lawrence O’Donnell’s bigotry has done a grave injustice to the majesty of the most significant book in the history of Western civilization. If indeed, O’Donnell had an adequate understanding of the rich tradition of biblical Judaism, he would not have been so cavalier in his diatribe against Old Testament Jewish jurisprudence. Because complex codes regarding the propriety of human relationships are hardly reducible to superficial sound bites like those emanating from his mouth.

That's just a taste of the two entries.