I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching (Proverbs 4:2).

We're such doubters, such skeptics, such know-it-alls.  We so easily dismiss the conclusions of previous generations as being uninformed, unenlightened, and old-fashioned.  We're always ready to rewrite history, science, literature -- because we "know better."  This is just a part of the post-modern, youth-culture, revisionist mindset.  But I'm afraid it's tragically short-sighted and foolish.  The hubris of our generation.

Dietary guidelines seem to be one of those areas where we knock ourselves out, trying to get our diets to conform to the "latest scientific breakthroughs."  Fru-fru fruit is very bad for you:  makes you fat, causes cancer, depletes your immune system... No wait!  Fru-fru fruit is good for you:  chock full of Vitamin Q, Alpha-6 fatty acids, natural anti-viral properties... No wait!  Fru-fru fruit produces children with left-handedness and energy irregularities... No wait... We go back and forth disqualifying and then glorifying this food item that's been in circulation for thousands of years!

Sexuality seems to be another one of those areas where we act as though we've discovered the great secret to happy-and-healthy sexuality which has eluded generation upon generation.  Homosexuality is actually totally fine -- endorsed by nature and historical precedent that's just been swept under the run for thousands of years... Sex before marriage -- actually not that big of a deal.  All the ages of cultural confinement were just silly superstition and "the Man" trying to control the population... Does the Bible really have anything bad to say about these (or any other) alternative expressions of sexuality?  Well, actually, that verse you cite there is just taken out of context, patently misunderstood for centuries...

I realize that, for others from my generation, I probably sound a bit "old-school" and inflexible.  Intolerant.  Maybe even evil.  I imagine that people could talk about how Copernicus and Galileo and Martin Luther King Jr. would have never gotten anywhere if they had listened to "people like me."  And I'd like to think that I am humble enough to admit that I may very well be wrong about the fru-fru fruit dilemma or my convictions about sexuality.  But is old-school always bad-school?  Just because a particular point-of-view has been maintained in orthodoxy for thousands of years, does that mean that it's necessarily "entrenched traditionalism?"  I certainly don't think so.  The Bible is remarkably clear about a great many controversies -- and it has withstood the harshest of criticism for the longest of time.  It gives us sound teaching, whether we like it or not.  So please, let's not just flippantly forsake its teaching or the interpretations applied to it by previous generations.