Posted on 11/23/2022 1:41:40 PM PST by Ennis85
It’s been an interesting few days. Ever since I wrote (first in The Atlantic and then on Sunday here in The Dispatch) in support of the Senate version of the Respect for Marriage Act, I’ve been subject to an absolute torrent of online criticism, mainly from fellow Christians. The culmination of the critiques came from Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who took to the pages of World Magazine to pen a piece called “The Parable of David French.”
“This is how conservatism dies,” he wrote. “This is how marriage is surrendered.”
That’s dramatic! But it’s not as extreme as other critiques, including those who questioned whether I am truly a Christian, who told me I should face church discipline, and who compared my support for the Respect for Marriage Act to support for slavery. I kid you not.
Whew. That’s a lot. It’s always a struggle to know when to keep addressing an argument and when to just move on, but given the continued attacks—now running into their sixth day—I think it’s important to go one more round. And this time I’m going to take a bit of a different approach. I’m going to address directly, from the ground up, why the debate is so confused and why the distinctions between Christian marriage (what I’ll call “covenant marriage”) and civil marriage matter so very much.
I’m particularly interested in the various allegations of apostasy, especially given my agreement with the orthodox creeds and confessions of the church, including doctrines relating to sex, sexuality, and sexual morality. In fact, in 2019, I signed the controversial Nashville Statement, in large part because I thought it was important for Christians to offer a clear statement of orthodox Christian theology on matters of sexual controversy.
The intent of the Nashville Statement, as I understood it, was not to write a model law for a secular state, but rather to clear up confusion in Christian churches about the basics of Christian doctrine. Despite its explicitly religious purpose, it is still very helpful to the debate because it clarifies where I think discussions over marriage often go so very wrong.
Here’s the definition of marriage taken directly from the statement itself: Marriage is the “covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride the church.” Other faiths might have other definitions of marriage, but this is among the best Christian definitions I’ve read.
What is one of the first things you should note? That is *not* the definition of civil marriage even under American law prior to Obergefell. Marriage prior to Obergefell was governed by a series of laws in the 50 states that generally permitted divorce on no-fault or substantially no-fault grounds.
Under this legal regime, civil marriage was a quasi-contractual relationship between a man and a woman, provided they were of proper age and not too closely related. It was breakable at will. In fact, civil marriage is a less binding legal arrangement than your typical commercial contract. It’s not a true contract. It’s a quasi-contract.
In civil marriage, individuals can and do break their marriage quasi-contract for reasons that range well beyond the small number of defined justifications (such as adultery or abandonment) for a “scriptural” divorce. Then, once a civil marriage ends, the law allows a person to enter into any number of additional civil marriages provided that they are serial and not simultaneous.
The contrast with covenant marriage is simply staggering. In fact, under the definition of Christian covenant marriage outlined in the Nashville Statement, there are millions upon millions of American heterosexual couples who would not be considered properly married under ecclesiastical law.
The relationship between covenant marriage and civil marriage can be imagined as a Venn diagram. Not all civil marriages are covenant marriages, and while all covenant marriages can be civil marriages, a covenant marriage does not depend on state recognition for its religious validity. If I exchange vows with my wife, I’m married in the eyes of God even if the state never receives my marriage license.
When you understand these distinctions, you can start to understand how the two sides are often mystified by each other. Millions of people of faith who hold to the traditional teachings of their faiths know that same-sex marriage simply doesn’t fit within their theological traditions and teachings. If covenant marriage is symbolic of the union between Christ and his bride, then its opposite-sex nature is intrinsic.
This is what most Christians I know believe they’re defending when they say they’re defending marriage.
But LGBT Americans look at this and are stumped. Covenant marriage is not what marriage is under the law. America’s Christian majority already gave up that definition decades ago. Its legal meaning has shifted and changed in response to popular demand. Church pews are packed with people who might say they uphold covenant marriage, but they live as if civil marriage is the moral norm.
This is what troubled me so much when the marriage debates first truly touched off in the early 2000s. One of our local conservative “marriage activists” had been married three times. When a church full of divorcees argues marriage is sacred—or when a state creates marriage rules that are fundamentally at odds with religious definitions—I can understand why same-sex marriage activists were puzzled at the idea that “we can’t mess with marriage.”
It had already been messed with. It had already been changed. We already knew the definition and scope of civil marriage could be (and was) defined by the state for purposes advanced by the state.
The concept of no-fault divorce is alien to me as a matter of faith, but I recognize the reasons for the state interests asserted, especially considering the way in which American law turned a blind eye to domestic abuse and historically failed to grant women equal rights under law.
As a matter of faith, I don’t agree with remarriage in the absence of scriptural grounds for divorce, but I can see the state’s interest in creating legal stability in subsequent marital relationships.
In addition, I think the default posture of the state should be toward individual liberty and autonomy, absent evidence of direct harm to others. The responsibility to exercise that liberty virtuously rests with the citizen, mediated through churches, families, and other private institutions, whose liberty is also protected by the state.
Anyway, given the vast, vast gap between civil marriage and covenant marriage, I struggled with the idea that granting a relatively small number of gay couples the right to civil marriage was any kind of culture-changing threat. At the same time, I could also see how gay Americans could perceive the refusal to accommodate their requests as a form of invidious discrimination. After all, heterosexual Americans had granted themselves every legal convenience, but they drew the line at their gay brothers and sisters.
And that brings me to religious liberty. There are those who say religious liberty concerns are secondary to the primary concern over the change to the definition of civil marriage. That’s wrong. Religious liberty is no secondary concern. The instant the more-radical same-sex advocates set their sights on religious institutions—including threatening tax exemptions and the autonomy of religious schools—was the instant they set their sights on the institutions that sustain covenant marriage.
This raised the stakes. Civil marriage isn’t foundational to my faith. It’s not a cornerstone of my life. It’s not even relevant to how I raise my children. I raise them to understand and appreciate covenant marriage and to enter into faith-filled relationships that render no-fault divorce meaningless. Covenant marriage is foundational. It is a cornerstone.
So when radical activists took aim at the institutions that help foster and perpetuate what many Christians would call an actual sacramental element of their faith, they committed a grave error. These attacks threatened to violate the American social compact, which includes as the first freedom in the Bill of Rights the right of free exercise of religion.
If activists were going to take the position that saying yes to civil marriage necessarily meant saying no to covenant marriage—including by treating those private individuals and institutions who hold to covenant marriage as bigots no better than white supremacists—then I wasn’t ever going to agree to those terms. I still don’t agree with those terms.
Thankfully, my worst concerns are being addressed. Obergefell did not herald the end of religious liberty. The First Amendment is stronger than ever. The Respect for Marriage Act does not attack religious freedom. While it mostly maintains the status quo, to the extent it changes the law it reinforces the autonomy of religious institutions and protects them from punitive federal action.
And that brings me back to Al Mohler. Frankly, his piece was both dramatic and poorly reasoned. He’s not a lawyer (so I don’t want to impose too much legal rigor on him), but his “argument” about the religious liberty protections in the Respect for Marriage Act was nothing more than a series of conclusory statements. He told me the legal protections were “hogwash,” but he did not show me why they were.
Instead, he pointed to a World Magazine piece by my longtime friend Kristen Waggoner. Before I say anything else, I want to say that I’m a huge fan of Kristen’s. She’s the new president of Alliance Defending Freedom (where I used to serve as a senior counsel), and she’s not only an outstanding lawyer, she’s also an immense upgrade over the previous president, Mike Farris.
Farris, some folks may recall, played a key role in assisting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his remarkably dangerous and remarkably stupid lawsuit that attempted to vacate the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The lawsuit was an embarrassment. I’m so glad Kristen now sits in Mike Farris’ chair.
At the same time, however, I’m stumped by Kristen’s summary of the bill. She says:
It imposes a new obligation to recognize same-sex relationships on religious organizations that work closely with government. It creates new tools for progressive activists and the Department of Justice to enforce that obligation. It gives the Internal Revenue Service a new argument for taking tax-exempt status away from religious non-profits. It makes religious freedom and free speech cases harder to win by elevating the federal government’s interest in same-sex marriage.
Asked how they asserted this about the IRS, a spokeswoman for ADF told The Dispatch the bill would create a “ripple effect” through government agencies, but that’s speculation contradicted by the language of the statute itself. The bill says this about exemptions and government benefits:
Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed to deny or alter any benefit, status, or right of an otherwise eligible entity or person, including tax-exempt status, tax treatment, educational funding, or a grant, contract, agreement, guarantee, loan, scholarship, license, certification, accreditation, claim, or defense, provided such benefit, status, or right does not arise from a marriage.
I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m just asking you to read the text of the bill. Does that language truly give the IRS a “new argument for taxing tax-exempt status away”?
And does the act create “new tools for progressive activists and the Department of Justice” to enforce an obligation to recognize same-sex marriages on “religious organizations that work closely with government”? Again, let’s go to the text. It says “No person acting under color of State law may deny” the “faith and credit to any public act record, or judicial proceeding of any other State pertaining to a marriage between individuals, on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.” (Emphasis added.)
“Under color of state law” is a legal term of art that refers to government acts, not the policies of private organizations. There are very narrow ways in which private organizations may be treated as government actors when the government actually directs the private entity or when the entity performs a “traditional, exclusive, public function” (such as running private prisons or company towns), but the line between public and private actors is very bright indeed, and this act restrains the government, not churches or charities.
Moreover, rather than making it “harder to win” religious freedom and free speech cases, the act explicitly reaffirms existing religious liberty protections and includes a statement by Congress that diverse beliefs about the role of gender in marriage are held by “reasonable and sincere people based on decent and honorable philosophical premises.” Again, don’t trust me. Trust the text:
Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed to diminish or abrogate a religious liberty or conscience protection otherwise available to an individual or organization under the Constitution of the United States or Federal law.
But Mohler isn’t content with citing incorrect conclusory legal assertions. He has to light a straw man on fire. His big beef, it turns out, is with my commitment to pluralism. Here’s Mohler:
In a recent book, French explains, “I recognize pluralism as a permanent fact of American life and seek to foster a political culture that protects the autonomy and dignity of competing American ideological and religious communities.” But what, dare we ask, are the allowable boundaries of respectable pluralism? In answering this question, David French is particularly unclear. If he is clear, his view would undermine any stable public morality based on any objective moral truths.
I’m sorry, but this is absurd. He’s making an assertion about my principles that is completely undermined by the very book he quotes and by countless other examples of my work. My view undermines any “stable public morality” based on any “objective moral truths”?
How do you write that with a straight face?
I could go all day, but let’s give some counterexamples. Honesty is a profound moral value. I’ve strongly supported defamation litigation—which protects individuals and institutions from harmful lies—including the harmful lies advanced by Mohler’s chosen political candidate in 2020, Donald Trump and his team.
Protecting women from exploitation and abuse is also an indispensable element of a “stable public morality,” and that’s a key element of my work. It includes protecting women from harassment and abuse by people like Mohler’s candidate, Donald Trump.
I believe all human life should enjoy legal protection, from conception until natural death. And not just as a matter of religious morality. There is a secular case for life as well.
Finally, let’s not forget the context here. This argument is occurring after hundreds of thousands of gay marriages have been performed, and I have yet to hear a compelling argument why the “stable public morality” requires Christians to support ripping legal recognition and stability from those families.
Can you imagine waking up one morning and hearing the state no longer recognizes your marriage and that suddenly everything from medical decisions to child custody to basic inheritance and ownership rules were up for grabs? And the people telling you “stable public morality” requires your pain and sacrifice have also told America that a vote for a thrice-married, multiple adulterer who faces multiple, corroborated claims of sexual abuse, and who appeared in Playboy Video Centerfold: Playmate 2000 Bernaola Twins was an urgent moral imperative?
There’s been a lot of cultural water under the bridge since 2015, when the Supreme Court decided Obergefell. Religious liberty is stronger. Millions of Americans are living stable, joyful lives in LGBT families, and key Christian institutions are facing a moral reckoning as a result of their own profound corruption. As the Apostle Paul warned in 1 Corinthians 5, their ability to judge those outside the church has been undermined by their inability to deal with the evil within. These are my last words on the subject, but this is where I stand. I want the church to be obedient, the state to be restrained, and for diverse American communities to live together with a degree of mutual respect across profound differences. If anyone feels this disqualifies me from Christianity, please feel free to forward this piece to the elders of my church.
Never heard of him...
Sounds, to me, like a classic dildo...
“Can you imagine waking up one morning and hearing the state no longer recognizes your marriage and that suddenly everything from medical decisions to child custody to basic inheritance and ownership rules were up for grabs?”
Thats because it never existed at all because you know, Marriage is the union between man and woman. So called same-sex “marriages” do not exist, it is an oxymoron, it is make-believe.
And the people telling you “stable public morality” requires your pain and sacrifice have also told America that a vote for a thrice-married, multiple adulterer who faces multiple, corroborated claims of sexual abuse, and who appeared in Playboy Video Centerfold: Playmate 2000 Bernaola Twins was an urgent moral imperative?
” requires your pain also said that voting for a man who overturned Roe VS Wade”
Fixed
All that he has written here supports the fact that the so called “Respect for Marriage Act” has no purpose.
The sentence he quotes may have a clear meaning to lawyers but probably a lot of non-lawyers will be a little uncertain about its meaning.
God recognizes two...and *only* two...sexes/genders.He only recognizes one kind of marriage.Anyone with a different attitude is an atheist.It’s that simple.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MZABsf4JS94/maxresdefault.jpg)
and which can easily led to exemptions for non-profits to be removed, as the men of Sodom pressed upon Lot to gain entry to his house to get at the men inside that he was protecting, so the devil seeks entry into all places that protect Biblical marriages, so that all give glory to him who perverts all that God ordained, to man's benefit.
(https://www.rainbowtoken.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/the-men-of-Sodom-blindness.jpg)
He doesn’t condemn LGBT living happily in sin? ... People can recognize their nonadherence to the commands of Christ, ...True, they need to start obeying Christ, ...Not the ones openly defying Christs commands.
= = =
I Cor 5:
9I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
10not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
11But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
13God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
Especially verse 12
French, and other Never-Trumpers who pretend they are “conserving conservatism” by supporting the democrats, see themselves as heroes. They believe they only they can determine what conservatives and Christians should believe. And they believe conservatives should be supporting Biden and the left. What does that tell you?
There are so many of them who are the designated “conservative” at leftist publications and all they do is spout the leftist narrative. There is no difference in what they believe and what the left believes. In other words, they are not conservative at all. Instead, they are full-blown progressives. Progressives who write articles with headlines such as “The Conservative Argument for Drag-Queen Story Hour for Four Year Old Children”. Ignore them or mock them, but do not believe a word they say.
He can’t lose something he never had.
“... as the men of Sodom pressed upon Lot to gain entry to his house to get at the men inside that he was protecting, so the devil seeks entry into all places that protect Biblical marriages, so that all give glory to him who perverts all that God ordained, to man’s benefit.”
Fantastic, Daniel.
Whoever thought we’d live to see the day?
“God recognizes two...and *only* two...sexes/genders.”
I would submit that true science can only recognize two genders too, since no matter how many nips, cuts, slices, or hormones will ever change ones DNA that they were born as. While I’m sure that the current mrna research is trying to cure that problem, to date it is still not possible.
David French has beclowned himself.
I had hoped I wouldn’t. 😅
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Maybe it won’t be long and they can call us gone.
YES, YES, YES. OSAS dittos.
Q: What is Fi, fi, fo,fum?
A: Mike Tyson giving out his phone number.
Genesis 18:20-21
20. Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous
21. that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
Genesis 19:4-7
4. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house.
5. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
6. Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him
7. and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing.
Leviticus niv
18:22 Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.
20:13 If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.
They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Isaiah 3:9 The look on their faces testifies against them;
they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it.
Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.
================================================
2 Peter 2:13b Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight.
They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
================================================
Ezekiel 16:49-50 "`Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom:
She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
They were haughty and did detestable things before me.
Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
1. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.
2. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
3. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;
5. if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
6. if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
7. and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men
8. (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)--
9. if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
10. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;
11. yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.
12. But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
13. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
But there IS hope!!!
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:
Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
10. nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
A wonderful and excellent post on such a horrible subject, Elsie.
You did extremely well putting it together.
Some people look down on my superb c&p abilities.
I encourage them to try it themselves.
Just like small poems with an AABBA format, one gets better with practice.
That was the most torturous thing I’ve read in quite some time, and it normally is when someone is trying to make the narrow path into a wide road. Frenchy doesn’t realize his argument is with the Author of The Book, not fellow Christians. And, paraphrasing the late, great Herb Brooks, Albert Mohler should worry about is own game. Plenty there to keep him busy.
👍
And here’s wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, Elsie!
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