Today I will continue my review of Karen Keen, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships.* However before moving on to chapter 6, “The Question of Celibacy for Gay and Lesbian People,” I want to discuss a methodological issue that will become increasingly important as we reach the final phases of Keen’s argument.

Who Bears the Burden of Proof?

The Bible-Believing Audience

Who bears the burden of proof, Keen or the traditionalist? In a court of law in a criminal case, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The prosecutor bears the “burden of proof.” There is no logical law, however, that says the one who affirms a proposition (for example, “the defendant committed the crime,” or “God exists.”) bears a greater burden of proof than one who denies that proposition. For to deny the proposition “God exists” is logically equivalent to affirming the proposition, “God does not exist.” In the same way, there is no logical law that says defendants are more likely to be innocent than to be guilty. The reason prosecutors bear the burden of proof is that in our culture we believe that it is morally preferable to let a guilty person go free than to punish an innocent one. Hence by demanding that the prosecution bear the burden of proof we increase the level of our certainty that justice will be served. Who bears the burden of proof in the discussion in which we are now engaged, the one who affirms the proposition, “Same-sex relationships are morally acceptable” or the one who denies this proposition? Logically speaking, there is no distinction in the level of evidence required to affirm or to deny this proposition. Who bears the burden of proof? is not a logical question at all but a rhetorical one, dependent on the makeup of the audience the speaker wishes to persuade.

Keen’s target audience of bible-believing evangelicals approaches her book with the presumption that the Bible teaches that same-sex intercourse is immoral and that the ecumenical church has held this view for 2,000 years without dissent. Keen acknowledges this rhetorical situation and argues as if she bears the burden of proof, for on the face of it the Bible and tradition stand overwhelmingly against her contention. She has an uphill climb, and it seems that she is clear about that.

Because Keen has willingly accepted the burden of proof and argues accordingly, I do not as a critic need to accept the responsibility of defending the opposing proposition (that is, “same-sex relationships are not morally acceptable”) to fulfill my duty of dealing with Keen’s argument responsibly. All I need to do is rebut her case. If you are an evangelical who holds the traditional view of same-sex relationships and Keen cannot move you to reject or doubt that position, you have no logical, rhetorical, or moral duty to explain why you remain unmoved.

The Progressive Audience

When the audience is comprised of progressives or simply of a cross-section of popular American culture, the rhetorical situation is completely reversed. Within the last decade, beginning in about 2010, a consensus formed in American and other Western cultures that places gay and lesbian relationships on an equal footing with traditional married couples. In 2021, anyone who argues in a public forum for the traditional view of same-sex relationships bears an insurmountable burden of proof. The biblical teaching on same-sex relationships carries no weight at all. Arguments from natural law or physical complementarity or reproductive capacity are met with incredulity, if not derision. Progressive culture has decided that the self-attested experience of gay and lesbian people—also of transgender people—is the highest authority possible for deciding the issue. Anyone who contests this self-authenticating experience or who refuses to draw the correct conclusions from this testimony can do so only from irrational prejudice, hatred, or fear. Within our culture, expressing traditional views on same-sex relationships corresponds to speaking blasphemy in theocratic cultures and engenders the same sort of response. Under these conditions and with this audience, argument is impossible, dissent is forbidden, and silence provokes suspicion.

A Nagging Question

Before I take up the last three chapters of the book, I need to ask a question to which I will return in my examination of those chapters. Keen presents her arguments as founded on–or at least consistent with–the same view of biblical authority as that held by her evangelical audience, and she seems to accept the burden of proof in relating to that audience. But I wonder how much the plausibility of her argument depends on evangelicals having absorbed to one degree or another the progressive assumption that the self-authenticating experience of gay and lesbian people is the final court of appeal when it comes to the moral acceptability of same-sex relationships. Would Keen’s interpretive strategy and novel treatment of biblical texts possess any plausibility with evangelicals were it not for the influence of progressive culture on them, that is, were they not already disposed to find her arguments plausible?

The social pressure on evangelicals to conform to progressive orthodoxy is powerful, pervasive, and relentless. They face it in their schools and colleges, in the media, in the workplace, and in law. There is no escape, no respite. It takes extraordinary clarity and strength to accept social marginalization as the price of remaining faithful to the Christian vision of life. And Keen offers a simple way out of this difficulty: you can keep your evangelical piety, your Trinitarian orthodoxy, and your doctrine of Scripture while joining progressive/popular culture in celebrating same-sex relationships. I have no doubt that this solution will appeal to many evangelicals, especially to younger generations.

Does Keen consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or instinctively, overtly or subtly appeal to those sensibilities and that desire for a way out? The cultural wind is clearly at Keen’s back. To what extent does she take advantage of it to move her audience toward her position? These questions have been eating at me from the beginning.

*I want to remind the reader again that my choice to review Karen Keen’s book is a matter of convenience. I looked for the right book to serve as a springboard for me to discuss these issues in detail. After examining many others, I decided that Keen’s book would served this purpose very well. My goal is not to chop Keen into little bits. I hope she takes my choice as a complement. There are not many books to which I would devote such thought as I have put into this one.