Letter to the Editor: A Non-Biblical Perspective

Pastor Englebert’s complaint [Peninsula Pulse letters, Aug. 4, “A Biblical Perspective”] that Door County is drifting away from “our Judeo-Christian faith, especially in the area of morality” is interesting. 

He seems to think morality is entirely about sexual relationships and seems eager to reintroduce a death penalty for adultery – but “lovingly,” a contradiction in terms. Wisconsin decriminalized cohabitation 40 years ago, probably recognizing the culture had changed and a rapidly growing fraction of couples had not been through a marriage ceremony. 

The Bible also has a death penalty for sodomy, now entirely irrelevant as same-sex marriage has been incorporated into the marriage laws. It has nothing to say about pornography, a modern obsession.

The biblical rules are relics of an age of intense patriarchy, and of polygamy (does he want to reintroduce that?), and concubines (that, too?), ownership of women by men, and a death penalty for women (but not for men) who were not virgins on their wedding night – she was to be “stoned with stones that she die”!

The big move over the past century toward real gender equality is a move away from biblical savagery. Most regard it as a very good development. Preaching a return to Bronze Age sexual rules just shows how incongruous the pastor’s value system is in our time.

Robert Bender
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin