Book Review - Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God’s Design for Marriage (22/8)

Do you personally think same-sex marriage is permissible? Well… According to the authors, they think it should be, IF marriage is nothing more than just a way we acknowledge our feelings of love and affection between people. And that is the crucial point that Sean McDowell and John Stonestreet talks about in this book.

In the first part, the authors defines what marriage is, and also find supports for it, both within the bible and also from historical and sociological records. What the authors brings across clearly is that marriage is not a social norm that is gradually formed, rather it is instituted all the way in creation and predates any civilisations or governments. And thus far, no civilisation has tried to do what the society is trying to do.

In the second part, the chapters centres about the “so what” aspects since we have a definition of what marriage is from the bible. First, there is a call for chrisitans to be willing to take a bold stand for the truth, there is also a clear call for christians not to mis-represent what is found in the bible, such as by telling others that it is ok for same-sex marriages to happen. The authors also calls the christian community to repent. This is a particular topic that has not been discussed by other books on this topic. It is true that chrisitans have had a hard time trying to show others marriage as defined by God, we’ve been a poor example and representation of it. This is one area that the churches have to work hard on in the future in order for us to show the world that marriages as defined by God, is right, true and beautiful.

Lastly, the book ends off with several suggestions on what to do in various situation, however this book is rather short and many may not find it to be sufficient. (Look out for the upcoming book, ‘Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor’ by Glenn Stanton, which will fill this gap very well) [my review here]. Included in the 2 appendixes are what the churches can and should do in order for churches to be better equipped to support our brothers and sisters who are struggling with homosexuality, and also how Christians can answer honestly to questions that are commonly raised by non-christians. The 2 appendixes are really helpful and in my opinion will prove to be helpful for all christians, and worth the price of the book!

This book is to be praised for their call to christians to take marriage seriously, and for christians not to give up in this fight. It is both a call for christians to take our stand, and also a call for us to recover the biblical definition of marriage. I hope that church leaders will take a serious look into this book and train your congregation to be better equipped to deal with the situation, and to take God’s definition of marriage seriously.

Rating: 4.5/5

If you're interested, you can get this book here, and here (free international shipping), Kindle.

Disclaimer: I was given this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

For a similar view about this, read this article by Danny Burk on the impact of same-sex marriage.