When Brothers Dwell in Unity
Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe
by John Boswell
New York: Villard Books, 1994.
(412 pages: $25.00)
reviewed by Leon J. Podles
The late John Boswell has become the chief source of scholarly propaganda for those Christians who wish to approve of homosexual behavior. Boswell has found ceremonies of brother-making ( adelphopoiesis) in medieval liturgical books from Orthodox churches. His thesis is that these ceremonies, which bless a relationship between two men, were gay marriages. He reasons that because homosexuals could have used these blessings as gay marriages, they therefore would have used them as gay marriages, with the implicit consent of the Church hierarchy and laity.
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Leon J. Podles holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia, has worked as a teacher and a federal investigator, and is president of the Crossland Foundation. He is the author of The Church Impotent (Spence), Sacrilege (Crossland Press), and Losing the Good Portion: Why Men Are Alienated from Christianity (St. Augustine Press). Dr. Podles and his wife have six children and live in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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more on sex from the online archives
31.1—January/February 2018
Getting Sex Wrong Is a Foundational Error by James M. Kushiner
32.4—July/August 2019
Does Biblical Language for Man Matter? by Stephen F. Noll
25.4—July/August 2012
The Corrosive & Far-Reaching Fallout of the Sexual Revolution by Anthony Esolen
more from the online archives
33.2—March/April 2020
Christian Pro-Family Governments?
Old & New Lessons from Europe by Allan C. Carlson
36.1—Jan/Feb 2023
A History of the Protestant Debate over Contraception by James A. Altena
32.4—July/August 2019
Will Islamicization Become Its New Future by Peter Riddell
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