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.
God Hates Divorce AND Homosexuality. But, they are NOT the same. God will take back a wayward wife and forgive a repentant adulterer like David. He will, however, give over a homosexual. He will destroy entire cities for that deed.
Not at all equal. One is bad, very bad, but many escape and find salvation. The other nearly impossible to escape once it has you and even God will just give up if you embrace it.
Some may disagree, but many conservative scholars maintain that there are certain scriptural grounds for divorce and remarriage. There are no scriptural grounds for sodomy.
That’s the ticket ... let’s just play with our language until we get right wrong and evil good, eh ?
NO!
Also depends on the reasons for the divorace...
If the other party is not wanting to save the marrige and is doing everything to sabotage it despite the heroic efforts of the other party... Then One party is more “guilty” than the other...
I have a quick question for you, just wondering about this.
If you have two people of the same sex living together in a relationship but without any sodomite type sex. Is that a sin as bad as a Same sex couple who engyuage in sexual acts with each other?
Is the “Emotional Relationship” between two men/women that is the sin or the specific act of Physical Sex Sodomization that is the issue?
They are not the same.
God hates divorce, but homosexuality is an abomination.
Both, however, have the same effect - the destruction of the family as God intended it.
Obviously not.
He let his chosen people divorce.
The church’s acceptance of no-fault divorce with little if any push back is worse, arguably, than the church’s acceptance of homosexual marriage. The reason is the plain reality that there are many more people getting many more divorces than their are homosexuals wanting to get married.
Divorce crushes marriages, families, and children. Marriage is the ONLY supportable location for human sexual activity.
The difference between the church’s acceptance of divorce from that of the church’s acceptance of homosexuality (and homosexual marriage) is that Satan pushed divorce into the church quietly. With homosexuality, Satan has banged on the door of the church and demanded loudly to be let inside.
All sorts of sin goes on in the church, as the church is filled with humans. To a certain extent, this is to be expected, if not fully tolerable. But the arrival of the sin of homosexuality in the church may be unique in all of church history, as the effort has been so open and blatant.
The difference is in the heart of the sinner. One may divorce and remarry for various biblical reasons including abandonment and adultery and emotional/physical abuse and be forgiven. But one cannot be forgiven if one intends to live as a sexually active homosexual without changing anything. It’s like a thief who asks for forgiveness but has no intention to stop stealing.
Christ said lusting in our hearts for a married woman (wife) is the same as adultery:
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
So Christ said lusting is the same as the real thing. It’s still sin, even if not physically acted upon.
Two people of the same sex living together and who are purely platonic friends with no lust involved, wouldn’t be a problem, of course.
We just got a phone call about same sex marriage. Told them we were against it but refused to do the survey.
but for the hardness of your hearts
I guess one could ask ... is divorce the same thing as being angry with someone?
Get back at me the first time you find a divorced person bragging about doing it with 100 or more partners.
He doesn’t like it, but it is an obvious difference.
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