Posted on 07/11/2013 7:26:56 PM PDT by rhema
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". . . But Im even more concerned for what this means for the church in America. Dr. Russell Moore made a statementthat bears repeating:
In another sense, though, the marginalization of conjugal marriage in American culture has profound implications for our gospel witness. First of all, marriage isnt incidental to gospel preaching. Theres a reason why persons dont split apart like amoebas. We were all conceived in the union between a man and a woman. Beyond the natural reality, the gospel tells us theres a cosmic mystery (Eph. 5:32). God designed the one-flesh union of marriage as an embedded icon of the union between Christ and his church. Marriage and sexuality, among the most powerful pulls in human existence, are designed to train humanity to recognize, in the fullness of time, what it means for Jesus to be one with his church, as a head with a body.
This is the fundamental goal of redefining marriage to erase any semblance of Christ and His church from our culture. Its not to attain equality or benefits, those are distractions designed to pull at heart strings and dominate the narrative while the underlying goal is advanced. People living in rebellion to God dont want the truth staring them in the face; moral absolutes preach a truth that cuts to the heart. So the only thing left for those in rebellion to do is destroy any absolutes.
"I think the pregnant question is how will the church respond? Will it continue to tolerate a culture of divorce, cohabitation, and infidelity in marriage that threatens to destroy the family? Will it continue to skirt the issue of homosexuality in order to not offend anyone? Or will the church finally start teaching a complete model of biblical sexuality and marriage that boldly addresses all these issues? Its not unloving to teach the truth of Scripture. It is however, unloving to teach only a half-truth while ignoring the whole truth."
Obama: I wont make churches conduct gay marriages
Every homosexual owes her life to 2 heterosexuals. That’s an enormous debt.
They will respond with a fierce SILENCE! What did YOU expect? If they open their mouths, they will be attacked, vigorously!
Hubris, thy name is Soetoro
Uh Yes. The church should not try to forceably stop sinful behavior if that is what this guy is suggesting. The Church is not the Taliban. The Church needs to educate regarding what is sinful behavior and urge sinners to come to Christ. The Church should focus on its job which is to teach the gospel and quit watering it down.
Clinton: DOMA will withstand constitutional muster.
You got that right.
The lamestream media hates Catholics and evangelicals. They hate them because those two religious entities point out the emptiness and nothingness of the mainstream media, people and styles.
Responding to the theological and religious-liberty implications of the U.S. Supreme Courts June 26 decision regarding same-sex marriage, The Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod issued a statement from the Rev. Bart Day, executive director of the LCMS Office of National Mission, saying we are saddened for our nation, even as we call our fellow Christians to faithfulness and prayer.
As Christians, we believe and confess that God Himself instituted marriage as the lifelong union of one man and one woman, Day said in the statement found at thelc.ms/19Cdp5j. As Christians, we proclaim this truth, no matter what the courts or legislatures may say.
Now there is a much larger looming issue, said the Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, LCMS president. This ruling portends a growing bureaucratic opposition to our First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, our ability to speak the Gospel and our capacity to perform acts of mercy in caring for our neighbor, including those who struggle with same-sex attraction. Yet God is in His heavens, and we are baptized for this moment.
The statement was issued shortly after the Supreme Courts decision was announced. It was emailed to about 17,000 pastors and church workers, who were encouraged to share the statement with congregation members, family and friends reminding them that the LCMS will continue to teach marriage according to Gods plan and gift.
We are called not to popularity but to truth, Day said in the statement. Therefore, we call on our fellow Christians to be faithful first to Gods Word, knowing that another court is ultimately supreme. Marriage is a fundamental building block of society, binding parents to their offspring.
Every child benefits from the nurture of a mother and the leadership of a father.
Sinners already have the ten commandments (NOT "suggestions").
The Church's DAILY Mass has it all, readings from both testaments, homilies and communion, that is, everything. The New Testament is the Eucharist. That is what Scott Hahn was saying about why the New Testament is new. It's all about the Eucharist, totally new.
Our priests do no watering down. Besides how can "thou shalt not..." be watered down. There's no wiggle room in "thou shalt not steal." We ALL know what that means.
Just my opinion.
Obama CAN'T be so stupid as to think that he can "MAKE" the Catholic Church DO, think or say ANYTHING, can he?
Two men (or two women) CAN'T be married so conducting a "gay marriage" isn't possible. It would be like conducting a marriage between two pieces of bread or between two cars....not possible.
The church should forget about government sanctioned marriage and instead promote and conduct Bible based Holy Matrimony.
I think a far more relevant question would be: How do Christians actually live out their own marriages?
Frankly, I believe the [C]hurch is following the culture. We eat, drink and waste our time and lives much as the culture does. Functioning, loving and successful Christian marriages are something of the exception, not the rule. Same goes for our lives and child rearing.
I have traveled much of the world and consistently found Western Christianity lacking in the primacy of surrender (brokenness, if you will) to the Lordship of Christ. Instead, we seem to pretty much fall into the ‘good enough’ pattern of middle class existence and not think about things too deeply.
One simple book, ‘The Pursuit of God’ by A.W. Tozer switched on the lights for me. Today, I am still a sinful man, but I’m standing at the plate and willing to swing (pretty much). The tenuous grasp I have on the meaning of surrender has blown apart, forever, my religious conceptions of what it means to please God and what He expects of us.
The [c]hurch may howl all it wants about this or that, but the [C]hurch immortal and invisible will not be left alone by our Master. He WILL bring us into his purposes one way or another, Usually, I have found, that is totally contrary to what we suppose his methods and purposes are. In matters of family and marriage, after submission to his revealed will, we are to be spent as sacrifices for our charges. Few of us will ever take that charge seriously. Fewer still will pursue it.
Actually, it may not come to a head in the next three years...it will be Hillary who goes all out to try to coerce the churches into compliance.
This [ruling] gives Christian churches the opportunity to do what Jesus called us to do with our marriages in the first place: to serve as a light in a dark place. Permanent, stable marriages with families with both a mother and a father may well make us seem freakish in 21st-century culture. But is there anything more "freakish" than a crucified cosmic ruler? Is there anything more "freakish" than a gospel that can forgive rebels like us and make us sons and daughters? Let's embrace the freakishness, and crucify our illusions of a moral majority.
That means that we must repent of our pathetic marriage cultures within the church. For too long, we've refused to discipline a divorce culture that has ravaged our cultures. For too long, we've quieted our voices on the biblical witness of the distinctive missions of fathers and mothers in favor of generic messages on "parenting."
For too long, we've acted as though the officers of Christ's church were Justices of the Peace, marrying people who have no accountability to the church, and in many cases were forbidden by Scripture to marry. Just because we don't have two brides or two grooms in front of us, that doesn't mean we've been holding to biblical marriage.
Amen.
That is what I have been saying for a while now.
By “The Church” I was mainly to the body of Christian churches which includes some liberal ones. RCC has its own set of problems but thats a different story all together
. . . gay marriage and religion are not compatible. The left cannot take marriage out of government because for so long it has been government through which marriages were legitimized to the public and the left must also use government to silence those, particularly the religious, who refuse to play along.
The gay rights movement has been very, very successful. But they have failed on the religious front. So the religious front cannot be accommodated. It must be made to yield.
There is one bright spot for Christians in America, though it will not appear so. Christianity in America has become soft. Persecution of the faithful will strengthen it as it has done for centuries. It will happen. We best prepare.
I fully agree. I have let go of my sectarianism long ago and urge the brothers and sisters in my sphere to do the same. We do not have a religion or serve an ‘interpretation of God. The closer we walk with him, the less we care about our sects and the more we find His true nature.
I truly believe God will literally burn our religious notions right out of us if we care enough to obey and follow. This is not to say we’ll all congregate in some ecumenical stewpot. Just that in losing our false (in some case millennia old) ideas about God and Faith by walking with the living Christ, we’ll find ourselves in the company of the saints - and persecution. Marriage, in the future, will be the stigma illegitimacy was 10,20 or 30 years ago.
Be prepared.
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