Posted on 09/26/2014 11:58:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This week my denomination, through its executive committee, voted to "disfellowship" a congregation in California that has acted to affirm same-sex sexual relationships. This sad but necessary move is hardly surprising, since this network of churches shares a Christian sexual ethic with all orthodox Christians of every denomination for 2,000 years. One of the arguments made by some, though, is that this is hypocritical since so many ministers in our tradition marry people who have been previously divorced.
The argument is that conservative Protestants already embrace a "third way" because we've done so on divorce. Couples divorce, sometimes remarry others, and yet are welcomed within the congregation. We don't necessarily affirm this as good, but we receive these people with mercy and grace. Why not, the argument goes, do the same with homosexuality.
The charge of hypocrisy is valid in some respects. I've argued for years and repeatedly that Southern Baptists and other evangelicals are slow-motion sexual revolutionaries, embracing elements of the sexual revolution twenty or thirty years behind the rest of the culture. This is to our shame, and the divorce culture is the number-one indicator of this capitulation. The preaching on divorce has been muted and hesitating all too often in our midst. Sometimes this is due to what the Bible calls "fear of man," ministers and leaders afraid of angering divorced people (or their relatives) in power in congregations. Sometimes it's due to the fact that divorce simply seems all too normal in this culture; it doesn't shock us anymore.
A recovery of a Christian ethic of marriage will mean repentance, and a strong commitment by churches to courageously say, where applicable, what John the Baptist put his head on a platter to say to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have her." In that sense, the charge is correct.
But divorce and remarriage is not, beyond that, applicable to the same-sex marriage debate. First of all, there are arguably some circumstances where divorce and remarriage are biblically permitted. Most evangelical Christians acknowledge that sexual immorality can dissolve a marital union, and that innocent party is then free to remarry (Matt. 5:32). The same is true, for most, for abandonment (1 Cor. 7:11-15). If the church did what we ought, our divorce rate would be astoundingly lowered, since vast numbers of divorces do not fit into these categories. Still, we acknowledge that the category of a remarried person after divorce does not, on its face, indicate sin.
The second issue, though, is what repentance looks like in these cases. Take the worst-case scenario of an unbiblically divorced and remarried couple. Suppose this couple repents of their sin and ask to be received, or welcomed back, into the church. What does repentance look like for them? They have, in this scenario, committed an adulterous act (Matt. 5:32-33). Do they repent of this adultery by doing the same sinful action again, abandoning and divorcing one another? No. In most cases, the church recognizes that they should acknowledge their past sin and resolve to be faithful from now on to one another. Why is this the case? It's because their marriages may have been sinfully entered into, but they are, in fact, marriages.
Jesus redemptively exposed the sin of the Samaritan woman at the well by noting that the man she was living with was not her husband. "You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband" (Jn. 4:18). It could be that her husbands all died successively, but not necessarily. Christians are forbidden to marry non-Christians. This does not mean, though, that these are not marriages, or that, after repentance, these marriages are ongoing sins. Instead, the Scripture commands a repentance that looks like fidelity to that unbelieving spouse (1 Cor. 7:12-17; 1 Pet. 3:1-2).
Even if these marriages were entered into sinfully in the first place, they are in fact marriages because they signify the Christ/church bond of the one-flesh union (Eph. 5:22-31), embedded in God's creation design of male and female together (Mk. 10:6-9).
Same-sex relationships do not reflect that cosmic mystery, and thus by their very nature signify something other than the gospel. The question of what repentance looks like in this case is to flee immorality (1 Cor. 6:18), which means to cease such sexual activity in obedience to Christ (1 Cor. 6:11). A state, or church decree of these relationships as marital do not make them so.
We have much to repent for in the accommodation to a divorce culture in our churches. And if we do not articulate an alternative gospel vision of the definition of marriage, we will see the same wreckage we've seen on so many churches' capitulation on the permanence of marriage. But our attitude should not be that so many have shirked their churchly responsibility in some things, so let's then shirk our responsibilities in everything. That would be the equivalent of someone saying, "Since I have had lust in my heart, which Jesus identified as root adultery, I should go ahead and have an affair" or "Since I am angry with you, which Jesus identified as springing from a spirit of murder, I should go ahead and kill you.
Instead, our response ought to be a vision of marriage defined by the gospel, embodied in local congregations. This means preaching with both truth and grace, with accountability for entering marriages and, by the discipline of the church, for keeping those vows. We don't remedy our past sins by adding new ones.
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Russell D. Moore is president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Well, if the emotion you are talking about is lust, then that’s a sin. If it’s just love, absent carnal lust, then that isn’t a sin.
Is Divorce Equivalent to Homosexuality?
It’s up to God. I wouldn’t involve myself in either however.
I’ve often wondered if you are going to accept divorce and remarriage, why not have some sort of faith divorce process as well as marriage ceremonies? Seems like there would be less danger of relying on the state to decide when a marriage has ended and can be resumed, and messing it up like with things like no-fault divorce. I think a big reason so many accept ‘gay marriage’ is because they have been conditioned to think the state defines marriage in the first place.
Freegards
There's a difference between having sinned years ago in your life, often before coming to Christ, and claiming to be a Christian and choosing to live in blatant unrepentant sin.
Whatever someone did before they became a Christian is forgiven and that is why churches accept couples who have divorced and want to remarry.
However, if a couple in a church divorces while being a member, I don't know of any churches which will allow to marry someone else. Usually the people find another church and try to get it done there.
The reason to reject homosexual marriage is that if the person claims to be a believer and lives in sin, we are commanded to not even wish them Godspeed. We are not to associate with them in fellowship and certainly not participate in their making a mockery of marriage.
If the unbelieving spouse leaves, the person is free as Paul says.
I know some people who say that in every divorce both parties are responsible, that it's never one sided, but I've seen some situations where that is the case. The one party does NOT want to end the marriage and the other one is bound and determined to.
I've decided to refuse to do any more surveys.
They have your phone number. They can tell who they are talking to.
I don't believe the claims of confidentiality and I will not go on record any more with opinions that will be used against me by the totalitarian regime that I see on the horizon.
That's especially true of political surveys.
Voting is supposed to be by secret ballot.
I'm not telling them who I voted for or intend to vote for.
A gal I used to work with back in the 1980's also got divorced but because her mom clerked for a high official in the Catholic church here in the Detroit area, he was able to get her a pardon (or whatever it is) from the Pope himself.........
Guess it pays to have friends in high places..........
I hadn’t heard about the disfellowshipping decision on the sodomite California church. Good on the SBC. When they couldn’t get it done at this year’s convention, I was really heartsick, in another way.
They may have hope yet.
I’ve heard one very fundamentalist congregation teach that if a wife is defiantly unfaithful, the husband may divorce her and remarry. But the woman doesn’t have this same option; she may not remarry as long as he lives. He gave a scriptural reference which made sense at the time, but I can’t think of it.
The NT Church is held to a higher standard, though.
...
I don't believe the claims of confidentiality and I will not go on record any more with opinions that will be used against me by the totalitarian regime
Oh, I love surveys. And I always hope that they WILL make my answers public, so that I can have a very interesting "conversation" with any sodomite who accosts me.
It really depends on who's conducting it, but I realize that that is sometimes invisible because some groups contract with "objective" survey firms, hiding the agenda of the poll.
We need to boldly come out into the open.
When the results came in, my boss debriefed his personal team of 15 people, and went down the list of responses that HIS TEAM had provided.
Not so very anonymous.
Homosexuality, otoh, is the result of living a life so far outside the boundries of God's law that God gives us over to the lewdness of our sin. (Rom 1:21-24) There is nothing we can do to solve this except to beg God's forgiveness. It is like leprosy.
That wasn’t the question
Sorry Lears that’s under the law of Moses(Leviticus 20:21). As a Christian we are not under the law, but under the Grace of God. There are other arguments, but that’s not one of them.
Jesus condemns divorce and remarriage by taking us all the way back to “the beginning” (Matthew 19), before the Law of Moses. “Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so.” (v. 8)
The consequence of God’s edict at “the beginning” is that “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.” (v. 9)
The author in the OP claims that this adultery is a one-time act (presumably taking place at the marriage ceremony or on the honeymoon night). John, however, didn’t say, “It was unlawful for you to TAKE your brother’s wife,” but rather, “It is unlawful for you to HAVE your brother’s wife.” I can see no other conclusion than that it was unlawful for Herod to take her BECAUSE it was unlawful for him to have her. That was my point.
Similarly, if a man divorces his wife (except for fornication) and marries another, it is unlawful for him to HAVE her. Advising them against “doing the same sinful action again, abandoning and divorcing one another” (as he puts it) is to advise them to continue in adultery.
As to law and grace: Yes, we are under grace, freed from having to pursue a righteousness based on perfect law-keeping as our only hope, and placed under the law of faith (Romans 3:27), to be justified by our faith rather than by our works of law-keeping (which could only condemn us in our failures).
Does this mean we are free to do as we wish, having no law over us? Hardly. “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid.” (Romans 6:15) To do so would be, as Paul explains, to continue to be servants of sin.
If all the well meaning heterosexual divorcees can’t keep from committing the sin of adultery—and by hook or by crook calling it something else—how are the homosexual offenders supposed to quit their sin? Or the drunkards? Or the gluttons?
You got that right.
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