At the Kansas City Regional Conference, Dr. Mark Achtemeier continued his exploration of biblical insights into marriage: “…We have now come to the end of our experiment in reading the Scripture like the faithful scribe in Jesus’ teaching. We have taken what is old – the testimony about God’s purposes for love and marriage and sexuality that comes to us from the broad sweep of the Bible’s story. We have brought out this old, time-tested wisdom and combined it with what is new: the recently emerging opportunity for gay and lesbian people to openly makes vows and commitments to one another in the covenant of marriage.
The result of this combination of old and new is not the abolition of biblical sexual morality or the abandonment of Scripture’s teaching. The result is the right and proper extension of the Bible’s time-honored teachings on love and sex and marriage into these new relationships where it manifestly belongs…”

Dr. Mark Achtemeier addressed the Twin Cities Regional Conference on same-gender marriage: “…The vocation of groups like the Covenant Network will be critically important in the months and years ahead. It is not within our power to turn back the rising tide of cultural and historical forces that are sweeping our church into a period of decline. But we are confident that the day will come when God will purge the poisonous legacy of exclusion and hatefulness from our culture’s image of Christianity. Until that time it falls to you and me to keep the lights of a gracious witness burning in the midst of the surrounding darkness.
To carry out that task, to make that positive Christian witness, you and I must be absolutely clear that our affirmation and celebration of gay marriage is a consequence of the Bible’s testimony and not its contradiction…”