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Posted on 11/20/2025 6:12:05 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
In response to the erosion of the biblical paradigm of gender and marriage in modern Western society, some believers are inclined to support any promotion of heterosexual monogamous marriage as a positive moral force. However, this impulse can be dangerous, as certain conservative ideologies, while outwardly compatible with biblical values, are fundamentally incompatible with Christian teachings…
A case in point is the version of marriage and gender promoted by the National Socialists in Germany during their ascent to power in the 1930s and 1940s…
Salvation—it would not be a stretch to use that word—came from both the man and the woman working together. Hitler himself affirmed the importance of marriage: “It is therefore our highest task to enable two companions for life and comrades in work to form a family …for the ultimate destruction of the family would mean the end of all higher forms of human life.”
Conversely, Barth’s christological starting point revealed an entirely different perspective on marriage and gender…
To live in the created world is to encounter being made male or female and thus to be confronted with the need to find a meaning to this experience…But this meaning can only be found in the covenant between Christ and the church, which is the ultimate meaning of history.
Thus, in Barth’s system, we cannot look at the goal of gender and marriage apart from this christological definition, and consequently, it becomes difficult to deploy marriage and gender for a purely secular agenda…
Moreover, the only responsible way to act within the covenant of marriage is to come to that covenant through the covenant of grace. This means that we do not come to gender and marriage to manifest human strength, but as a witness to our weakness and our need of grace...
(Excerpt) Read more at thegospelcoalition.org ...
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Germans arguing with Germans can get Freudian very quickly.
And Barth was his name.
Party on, Barth.
Hitler’s socialism was driven by being incel because it was too expensive to get married and the girls didn’t want to have sex outside of marriage with him. Read Mein Kampf; it’s all about making married life affordable.
“Thus, in Barth’s system, we cannot look at the goal of gender and marriage apart from this christological definition, and consequently, it becomes difficult to deploy marriage and gender for a purely secular agenda…”
Quite the opposite. According to St Paul, (but using St. Thomas’s language for brevity), Natural Law, which includes marriage, is an imperative outside of religious observation. It’s a means of providing justice. So out of mere desire for justice, all Christians must seek to promote marriage and faithfulness within the marriage.
The notion that “Hitler liked secular marriage, so if you like secular marriage, you must be a Nazi” is perhaps one of the most evil, stupid, invalid arguments I have ever heard in my life. Hitler had a dog! If you have a dog, you must be a Nazi! Hitler hugged children! If you hug a child, you must be a Nazi!
... besides Hitler’s support of marriage was only a means to an ends. He thought young men should be able to have more sex, so he fought a two-front battle: He wanted women to marry men because he saw they didn’t want to become single Moms. But he also loved Margaret Sanger’s ideas so they wouldn’t see marriage as the only way to avoid being single Moms.
The natural law dimension of marriage is rooted in the Genesis account of Creation, not St. Paul’s, who spiritualized and redeemed it into sacramental status a’la Ephesians 5. Plus if you only had the Old Testament to rely on, then even things like polygamy (albeit heterosexual) and divorce was sanctioned.
Jesus clarified both in the Gospels.
But the point is: when man makes Created things ultimate things, and serves Creation above Creator, or Creation without Creator...trouble abounds.
Romans 1:25 - “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”
It’s dense, but I recommend reading the whole essay on Barth. In a nutshell: marriage, like nature, like art, like our bodies, like nation, like anything “good” - can become dangerous idols.
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