A day without a snicker is a wasted day, I say. Happy to help! And may God bless your studies and ministry! Here, have some cake:
Posted on 08/15/2012 7:38:20 PM PDT by darrellmaurina
There is NOTHING, nor has there ever been anything, that prohibits two or more adults from forming a legal partnership and nothing to prevent the partners from placing any or all of their assets (including property) in the partnership.
This has been going on forever. I have interests in several business partnerships with my wife, relatives and business associates. If the only concern of the homosexuals is legal and financial the law has always protected their property rights.
We oppose same sex marriage because it is a dangerous attack on the culture we would leave to our children.
Do we leave them a legacy of communism or freedom?
Do we leave them with addiction or with clear minds?
Do we leave them with natural wholesomeness or with idolatrous, narcissistic, death-bringing orgasmia?
I agree, P-M. The word “affirm” is definitely a red flag. Those two sentences are so poorly written that he could say he intended to emphasize “simply cannot consist”, or he could say he meant “I could affirm”.
This is a terribly written essay, and they need to revoke his doctorate.
But as a pastor-in-training, I simply cannot understand how we could ‘affirm’ these relationships at all. They are, quite frankly, sinful. I suppose we could affirm the Lord using same-sex relationships for good purposes, but that would be along the lines of him using the pagan Babylonians and Persians for his own good purposes. We don't ‘affirm’ the sin, just what God does to bring good out of it.
Marriage in the Catholic or Orthodox Church is a sacrament because the spouses form Church Domestic and become vehicle of grace for each other and their children, leading each other to salvation in the Church.
In a Protestant setting I don’t know what is. Logically, Baptism and Marriage should be the only two Protestant sacraments since they do not absolutely require a priest, and indeed most Protestant baptisms are valid, and so are Protestant marriages unless a Catholic is involved.
Obviously I do not like being called a heretic, but I will resist the urge to attack Trent. I find this discussion interesting of how viewing marriage as something other than a sacrament may lead to devaluing it.
I'm not used to this line of argumentation. I'm listening, but I can't respond with intelligent comments to an argument that I don't think I fully appreciate.
I probably need to add that conservative Reformed churches have historically been very, very strict in their emphasis on marriage and family life, and have reacted with disgust and abhorrence toward the typical broad evangelical “easy believism” which leads to easy divorce and remarriage. Church discipline is not a minor issue in conservative Reformed circles. I know we can point to all kinds of abuses, but they are far less frequent in conservative Reformed circles than generic evangelical Protestantism where church discipline is rare or entirely unknown.
In reformed/prebyterian theology, the two sacraments are baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptists don't have any sacraments. Marriage would be considered an ordinance. Thus while a presbyterian could have a lawful marriage not performed by an ordained man, only one lawfully ordained can administer the Lord's supper or baptize a child or adult.
most of the country opposes this agenda and no matter how many bogus polls or the media tries to spin it.
I was aiming at the rather general lack of forgiveness in many marriages; not aiming to put you in your place at all. I love debate; but often can't resist any opportunity for a witticism. No offense intended.
Post 37: Multiple amens!
Aha, I get now. ^^; Thanks for clarifying that.
For what it’s worth, you made me snicker now that I get the joke.
LOLs!!
A day without a snicker is a wasted day, I say. Happy to help! And may God bless your studies and ministry! Here, have some cake:
If it is not a sacrament, then marriage is ultimately in the human realm and subject to human prudential judgement, like the Tower of Babel. So whether you are "strict" or not, the result is still a sorry one for the society as a whole, because as a whole the least common denominator rules. Currently, that denominator is contraception and serial marriage, and rapidly shifting to include homosexual "marriage".
Very strange, but thank you for the explanation, even though I heard it before.
The strictness of certain groups who consider it merely a contract is admirable, but ultimately rests on the notion of marriage as an ordinance of human provenance.
Our society no longer considers marriage an inevitable and necessary building block of civil order. The notion of marriage as a contract as promulgated by the private-judgment crowd is grounded on the assumption that society will always take marriage for granted as a basic civic necessity. As with every other initiative of the private-judgment contingent, that was a bad mistake founded on unjustifiable assumptions.
Ultimately, all theologies that reject the sacramentality of marriage are rejecting the teaching of the Apostles - as recorded in Scripture and in the Tradition - and will run into the difficulties we are grappling with on this thread.
I swapped some emails on the subject with my pastor. He made the point that flagrant homosexuality is a sign God is already judging a people:
“So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him...
THEREFORE God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie...
FOR THIS REASON God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise...men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
As others have pointed out, you don’t need specific divine revelation to know certain body parts don’t belong in certain other body parts. The natural revelation given to ALL makes it obvious. There may be an obscure exception somewhere, but I don’t know of any society that endorsed homosexual ‘marriage’ during the last 5000 years.
When people ignore excruciatingly obvious natural truths, THEN God gives them up to dishonorable passions. It is not an unforgivable sin, but it is a sign men and society have rejected God already, and God is already preparing their judgment. God is bringing their rejection of Him to the surface so all can see how just his judgment will be.
“Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you...
...Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.” - Prov 1
Marriage is most definitely a divine institution. At least we both know that. And I can understand your argument on why you believe it's a Sacrament too, so I know where you're coming from, and I can see why the Roman Catholics have defined it as such.
I think that at least we can find common ground in that marriage is a gift, a command, and an institution created by God himself, and that same-sex marriage makes a mockery of that institution. Whether we hold to the argument that marriage is a Sacrament or not, we know that marriage is still important enough that we must resist all mockeries and perversions of it.
I think that the issue that we’re having is on the definition of a Sacrament. From my time in the seminary, I’ve learned that a Sacrament is the vessel that God uses to pour his forgiveness out on his people. So Baptism and Communion definitely are, but marriage? That’s a little trickier, especially because marriage was instituted before sin entered the picture and before there was the need for forgiveness.
But Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, and Orthodox should all agree that marriage is most definitely a divine institution.
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