Posted on 08/15/2012 7:38:20 PM PDT by darrellmaurina
I appreciate the responses to my previous posts on this issue and, after reading some of the questions, thought somewhat pressed to write this last one. OK, so we know what Christian marriage is. We preach that, teach it, and expect believers to embrace Scripture’s instructions regarding sexual conduct, although we are still sinners who must continually repent, trust in Christ, and receive his pardon. Got it. But what about the public argument?
As I said in the last one, we aren’t authorized to speak in God’s name where he hasn’t spoken, but we are commanded to do so wherever he has. This is where it gets dicier, though. I’d like to frame my response, first off, in terms of two extremes that we have to avoid:
1. Treating references to homosexuality in the Old Testament as either irrelevant or directly applicable to the current question.
You see this in public debates of the issue, where extremists on both sides talk over (and past) each other. One thing they often share in common is interest in quoting passages from the Old Testament on the question. Then the person on the left reminds us that the sanction mentioned is stoning. “Do you want to stone gays?”, one shouts. “No, but I believe what the Bible says about homosexuality.” “Well, right next to that verse it says that you should stone disobedient children—Oh, and not eat pork, and not touch a woman who is having her period.” Bottom line: the skills of biblical interpretation are about equally as bad on both sides of the table.
The statements in Leviticus are part of the Mosaic covenant. They pertain uniquely to the covenant that God made with Israel as a nation. The laws that governed every aspect of private and public life, cult and culture, were a unique episode in redemptive history. Their divine purpose cannot be rationalized in terms of sanitation, public health, or personal well-being. The whole focus was on God and his desire to separate Israel from the nations, preparing the way for the Messiah to come from her womb. Therefore, there is no more biblical warrant for stoning homosexuals today than there is for avoiding Scottish cuisine.
If there’s every reason to distinguish these two covenants, we have to be very careful nonetheless that we don’t make the opposite interpretive blunder of contrasting the Old and New Testaments on the question of homosexual practice itself. I’ve heard of late several times committed Christians acknowledging that the Old Testament forbids it, but the New Testament is silent. It’s “mean Moses” versus “nice Jesus”: a familiar but completely baseless contrast. Affirming that the the civil laws are now obsolete doesn’t mean that the rationale explicitly given for some of these laws should be disregarded, especially when God singles some acts out not simply as dependent on God’s will for that time and place, but as “abominations.” Homosexuality is included in that list, as it is also in the New Testament (1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10—right up there with “murders, enslavers, liars, and perjurers”). The church does not have the power of the sword in the new covenant. Nevertheless, God’s statement on the matter is pretty clear: he hates homosexuality. It violates the natural order—reflecting the extent to which fallen humanity will go to suppress the truth—even that which can be known by reason—in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18-32).
Jesus brings forgiveness of sins, not a new—supposedly easer, happier, more fulfilling law. In fact, he upbraids the lax view of divorce tolerated in his day. Jesus does not ground marriage between a man and a woman in the Mosaic covenant—or in the new covenant, but returns to the order of created nature: “He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’” (Mat 19:4-6).
It should be added that Paul’s point in Romans 1-3 is to sweep the whole world—Jew and Gentile—into a heap, condemned under the law, in order to announce that Christ is the Savior of all, Jew and Gentile, and justifies the ungodly who trust in him. We are all called to repent—lifelong repentance, in fact. In this, as in everything, we fall short; our imperfect repentance would be enough to condemn us if we weren’t clothed in Christ’s righteousness. However, to repent is to acknowledge that God is right and we are wrong—on the specifics of precisely where we want to assert our sovereignty.
2. Allowing same-sex marriage because since this isn’t a Christian nation, we should not seek to make the traditional Christian view public law.
Yes and no. The argument sounds like a “two-kingdoms” approach, but I think it’s actually more on the historic Anabaptist side.
First, it is certainly true that America is not a Christian nation and in any case Christians should not seek to promote distinctively Christian doctrines and practices through the properly coercive power of the state.
Second, however, I believe that we have to carefully distinguish general and special revelation, common and saving grace, the kingdoms of this age and the kingdom of God. Traditional Roman Catholics and Protestants are the vanguard of the pro-life movement, but in addition to witnessing to the depth of Christian conviction on the subject they also make arguments that can appeal to the conscience of non-Christians. The goal is certainly to legislate morality (just as the pro-abortion lobby attempts). However, it is the attempt to include the unborn in the category of those to whom the most basic right to life applies (namely, human beings). It is not a distinctively Christian view that the unborn are human beings (many pro-abortionists even agree, but rank the mother’s choice and happiness higher). Nor is it a distinctively Christian view that human beings shouldn’t be murdered—regardless of the parents’ economic or psychic well-being.
I think that the same can be said here as well. Marriage is not grounded in the gospel, but in creation. Special revelation corrects our twisted interpretations and gives us a better map, but general revelation gives sufficient evidence at least for minimal arguments from antiquity. Knowledgeable people will disagree about the strength of those arguments, since, for example, Greek elites often had teen-age boys entertain them on the side—with the approval or at least the awareness of their wives. Yes, others reply, but that was part of the downfall of the Greek civilization. In every case, it will be a debatable point—not to say that it isn’t worth arguing, but in the light especially of recent studies, it probably will not change a lot of minds.
Third, in my own wrestling with the political debate, love of neighbor looms large. Some on the right may offer arguments that reflect more the same demand for special rights as those on the left of the issue. The legal aspects of that are beyond my pay-grade—and they are important. Others may treat this issue as irrelevant: “Look, it doesn’t affect me. I just don’t want to live next door to some creepy home like that.” However, in terms of specifically Christian witness, love of neighbor (as God’s image-bearers) should be front-and-center. We have to care about our non-Christian neighbors (gay or straight) because God cares and calls us to contribute to the common good.
The challenge there is that two Christians who hold the same beliefs about marriage as Christians may appeal to neighbor-love to support or to oppose legalization of same-sex marriage.
On one hand, it may be said that if we can no longer say that “Judeo-Christian” ethics are part of our shared worldview as a republic, then the ban seems arbitrary. Why isn’t there a campaign being waged to ban providing legal benefits to unmarried heterosexual couples? Or to make divorce more difficult? It just seems more symbolic than anything else: it looks like our last-gasp effort to enforce our own private morality on the public. On the other hand, we might argue that every civilization at its height, regardless of religion, has not only privileged marriage of one man and one woman but has outlawed alternative arrangements. Same-sex marriage means adoption, which subjects other human beings to a parental relationship that they did not choose for themselves. Are we loving our LGBT neighbors—or their adopted children—or the wider society of neighbors by accommodating a move that will further destroy the fabric of society?
I take the second view, but I recognize the former as wrestling as much as I’m trying to with the neighbor-love question. Legal benefits (“partnerships”) at least allowed a distinction between a contractual relationship and the covenant of marriage. However, the only improvement that “marriage” brings is social approval—treating homosexaul and heterosexual unions as equal. Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm domestic partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security. However, the “marriage card” is the demand for something that simply cannot consist in a same-sex relationship. Human love is defined not by a feeling, shared history, or animal attraction, but by something objective, something that measures us—namely, God’s moral law. To affirm this while concluding that it’s good for Christians but not for the rest of us seems to me to conclude that this law is not natural and universal, rooted in creation, and/or that we only love our Christian neighbors.
At the end of the day, what tips the scales toward the second view is that I can’t see how neighbor-love can be severed from love of God, which is after all the most basic command of all. Even if they do not acknowledge “nature and nature’s God”—or anything above their own sovereign freedom to choose—reality nevertheless stands unmovable. Like the law of gravity, the law of marriage (of one man and one woman) remains to the end of time—not just for Christians, but for all people everywhere.
I may only bless what God has blessed from the dawn of creation!
Genesis 2:18
In general: including, for example, contracts between several people or blood relatives. Singling out homosexual partners from the mass of all other perfectly legal partnerships, -- which would happen if the campaign were strictly for domestic unions as a gay alternative to marriage, -- would be singling them for a legal preference precisely for the sexual aspect of their partnership, absent in all other kinds.
But the Christian doctrine clearly speaks against sexual impropriety which homosexuality certainly is.
So therefore, while a Christian organization may generally approve or be neutral to contracts in general, it surely must be opposed to homosexual partnerships even when they are not termed to compete with marriage in the legal space.
Am I wrong?
There is a great deal there which can apply across the board.
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* remind me sometime to sic the FR spelin & grammar pol-leece on you
Potty language is not allowed in the Religion Forum.
Sadly, some folks don't want to follow what comes naturally, and shat is the elemental cornerstone of God's creation.
They foolishly strive to create a "special" status for their unnatural behaviors, and will expend every ounce of their life's energy on forcing everyone else to accept and encourage their behavior.
It is sad to watch.
They should be prayed for, in the hope that they can turn to God, confess their sins, receive Salvation, strive to act as Jesus instructed, and spend the remainder of their days in service to their Creator.
The alternative (remaining in denial, and continuation of their sin) is not a path anyone should take.
Should we prohibit quoting the Bible in the Religion Forum?
Are we prohibiting Bible Language?
2 Kings 18:27 But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
In this case, RM & AM, I’d have to agree with P-M. The King James Version is a revered text of the Bible, and for many it is the ONLY text of the bible. It is the text many of us were reared on.
There is no way they can in some instances avoid the word “piss”.
Nor is it surprising that it remained in common usage. It’s French:
Je dois pisser ! - I have to pee!
Ça pisse ! - It’s pouring/pissing down!
People in my Reformed circles have been accusing Dr. Mike Horton, Dr. David Van Drunen, Dr. R. Scott Clark and Dr. Daryl Hart for some time of having adopted their “Two Kingdoms” viewpoint out of Lutheran church-state theology. I simply don't know enough about Lutheranism on this point to comment intelligently.
I would be quite interested in reading the material you've written. I think a LCMS Freeper with a long history here will have credibility. I think it may also help me understand the Two Kingdoms theologians better.
My view for a long time has been that Christian conservatives need to take allies where we can get them and not divide into minuscule camps fighting each other. If we're in agreement on most areas, let's work together on those areas and politely discuss the rest.
Talking about excretory functions when quoting the King James Version of the Bible is one thing; some words have changed their connotations since Elizabethan times. Same for quoting certain texts from secular sources. If I'm quoting Mark Twain, I'll be quoting language I would never use apart from quoted material.
Using potty language when we could choose to use different language seems unnecessary in a religious discussion.
I didn't request that P-Marlowe’s post or posts be pulled. I didn't even know about it until now, and I didn't see the original text so all I know is what is being said about them. But I'd like to politely request that such language not be used unless it has to be used. This thread on Free Republic is getting attention from people in my theological circles who are not Freepers and are being introduced to Free Republic for the first time, and I'd hate for them to think we use potty language on a regular basis.
Apology accepted; thank you kindly. FReep on!
Glad you joined the thread, lightman.
Thank you for your response. My point is that “Natural Law” is not the ONLY needed element for “Logic and Reason”-—but the best one, excluding Revelation, where people can actually USE Reason (special gift from God) to prove much of Faith and see Him. Christianity, as many scholars state, is a “Reasoned” religion (which requires Faith—as all beliefs, including Atheism, requires).
This was largely what CS Lewis did, once a brilliant atheist, who became more brilliant with becoming a Theist, and then, a Christian-—using Reason, and then, acquiring Faith. He used Logic and Reason with Scripture—and concluded that Scripture was so Wise and Logical and True, it agreed with all his observances of history (natural laws). Both Reason and Faith are one. You can’t be human if you exclude one or the other. We are made Rational animals in God’s image for a reason-—the ability to discern Truth from his creation (natural law).
Revelation is the necessary “glasses” that human beings usually need—for most human beings don’t have the capacity to understand Nature to the degree of an Aristotle or Aquinas or CS Lewis. They never have the time to put into the “seeking Truth” that is required to really grasp the Truth in Revelation which is so obvious by the in-depth study of Natural Law.
The Two Kingdoms people make their mistake in thinking that “applying natural law” can EXCLUDE Scripture. It is in agreement with all of Scripture. As Aquinas proved in his Summa Theologiae-—there is no disagreement in Scripture and Natural Law Theory.
The problem stems in a twisting and warping of Natural Law which only can happen if you remove Reason and Logic. (And, of course, with the hubris and imperfection of man, this “logic” can be imperfect. True! Is indeed, twisted a lot of the time. )
Justice-—and Just Law (God is Just)-—has to coincide with Natural Law-—this is in John Locke’s Theory as well-—which never disagreed with the idea that Natural Rights come from God. God’s Justice is the same as what was Just in Natural Law Theory of Aquinas. There is NO conflict with the two-—Scripture and Natural Law-—all conflict arrises when you get weird, twisted ideas-—like there is no teleological ends in human beings so that man can marry man. This absurd, irrational thinking comes from Marxism where Biology and God are trying to be discarded in favor of making themselves gods.
Only lies about Natural Law—conflict with scripture.
These “theologians” you refer to are “rewriting” and “twisting”not only Natural Law Theory-—but Scripture as well. If they twist the one-—the other will be twisted, since they are in fundamental agreement.
I have studied both Natural Law Theory and Christian Theology. I am no expert (Ph.D). But if you know anything about me-—you would understand how little respect I have for anyone in today’s academic world, when drenched in German Postmodernism, which is only nihilism and hate and a complete rejection of Natural Law Theory, and, of course, The Holy Bible.
Ping to 114
Thanks for the link, pastor. I downloaded it to read this coming week. Warm regards,
Jim
Though not a Frau, I usually spend my Saturdays at home lounging, PC & TV, as well. Only today, two open houses. Roberts Armory was having their open house during our Heritage Festival, so a buddy and I showed up. I brought some literature about WWII for their collection. Chuck is my 2nd in command in our Legion post.
Then it was an open house for a buddy who remarried a while back and just had their open house to celebrate.
I'm pooped, and looking for another quiet Saturday like you describe...
They are pulled to prevent flame wars, i.e. potty language usually provokes even worse use in replies and so on.
Where the potty language is contained in a Bible quote, that post will not be pulled.
Well, I wouldn’t spend my time reading the Postmodernist rubbish put out by our “Justice” system, since Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. destroyed the whole legal process with his foul ideology. After twisting our legal system into something found in Stalin’s Soviet Union—I wouldn’t tax my brain on absorbing such insanity.
There is no Justice system without Moral Absolutes which are enshrined in the Supreme Law of the Land. Holmes’s own words, “Men make their own laws...these laws do not flow from some mysterious omnipresence in the sky, and...judges are not independent mouthpieces of the infinite.” He also threw out Natural Law-—which is why we now get absurd irrational thinking, such as there is a “right” to sodomize other people and “Just” Law has to reward Vice. There’s a “rational” concept for you.
We have arbitrary law—man made-up law-—not Rule of Law which requires “Right Reason” and a Higher Power than man. Holmes: “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” So, Darwinian—don’t you think? or can you after immersing your brain in the convoluted thinking of Marxists who “create” our laws now out of PRECEDENT—Precedents created out of Nonsensical conclusions not based on Reason and Natural law or God’s laws. Great system. John Marshall would have thrown out thousands of our latest laws—Null and Void-—because they conflict with the Supreme Law of the Land. Wow-—what a concept....but Mark Levine stated it best—we are Post-Constitutional now.
Law schools NOW teach a system of Rule of Man. They are taught how to get around Just Law and pervert it. Several of my sons graduated with honors from law schools. The ideology taught is John Austin’s —not The Founding Fathers and John Marshall’s. John Austin was the father of Germany’s legal system in the late 19th century and embraced by all jurists by the 1920’s which paved the way for a Hitler. We are on that same road since Holmes.
“The gunman situation writ large.” as Hart would put the John Austin philosophy which replaced our Rule of Law.
I was not a Christian until i was well into my thirties but i did not like queers any better then than i do now, it is no more natural than a man or woman and a dog.
As far as law is concerned, Christians are no longer making the laws for this world to live by but i will vote against that sort of stuff as long as i have enough breath to go vote.
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