How Should Same-Sex Marriage Change the Church's Witness?

Christian Post ^ | 06/27/2013 | Dr. Russell D. Moore

[SeekAndFind]

The Supreme Court has now ruled on two monumental marriage cases, and the legal and cultural landscape has changed in this country. The court voted to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act and remand the decision of the Ninth Circuit in the Proposition 8 case, holding that California's Proposition 8 defenders didn't have standing. The Defense of Marriage Act decision used rather sweeping language about equal protection and human dignity as they apply to the recognition of same-sex unions. But what has changed for us, for our churches, and our witness to the gospel?

In one sense, nothing. Jesus of Nazareth is still alive. He is calling the cosmos toward his kingdom, and he will ultimately be Lord indeed. Regardless of what happens with marriage, the gospel doesn't need "family values" to flourish. In fact, it often thrives when it is in sharp contrast to the cultures around it. That's why the gospel rocketed out of the first-century from places such as Ephesus and Philippi and Corinth and Rome, which were hardly Mayberry.

In another sense, though, the marginalization of conjugal marriage in American culture has profound implications for our gospel witness. First of all, marriage isn't incidental to gospel preaching.

There's a reason why persons don't split apart like amoebas. We were all conceived in the union between a man and a woman. Beyond the natural reality, the gospel tells us there's a cosmic mystery (Eph. 5:32).

God designed the one-flesh union of marriage as an embedded icon of the union between Christ and his church. Marriage and sexuality, among the most powerful pulls in human existence, are designed to train humanity to recognize, in the fullness of time, what it means for Jesus to be one with his church, as a head with a body.

Same-sex marriage is on the march, even apart from these decisions, and is headed to your community, regardless of whether you are sitting where I am right now, on Capitol Hill, or in a rural hamlet in southwest Georgia or eastern Idaho. This is an opportunity for gospel witness.

For a long time in American culture, we've acted as though we could assume marriage. Even people from what were once called "broken homes" could watch stable marriages on television or movies. Boys and girls mostly assumed they had a wedding in their futures. As marriage is redefined, these assumptions will change. Let's not wring our hands about that.

This gives Christian churches the opportunity to do what Jesus called us to do with our marriages in the first place: to serve as a light in a dark place. Permanent, stable marriages with families with both a mother and a father may well make us seem freakish in 21st-century culture. But is there anything more "freakish" than a crucified cosmic ruler? Is there anything more "freakish" than a gospel that can forgive rebels like us and make us sons and daughters? Let's embrace the freakishness, and crucify our illusions of a moral majority.

That means that we must repent of our pathetic marriage cultures within the church. For too long, we've refused to discipline a divorce culture that has ravaged our cultures. For too long, we've quieted our voices on the biblical witness of the distinctive missions of fathers and mothers in favor of generic messages on "parenting."

For too long, we've acted as though the officers of Christ's church were Justices of the Peace, marrying people who have no accountability to the church, and in many cases were forbidden by Scripture to marry. Just because we don't have two brides or two grooms in front of us, that doesn't mean we've been holding to biblical marriage.

The dangerous winds of religious liberty suppression means that our nominal Bible Belt marrying parson ways are over. Good riddance. This means we have the opportunity, by God's grace, to take marriage as seriously as the gospel does, in a way that prompts the culture around us to ask why.

The increased attention to the question of marriage also gives us the opportunity to love our gay and lesbian neighbors as Jesus does. Some will capitulate on a Christian sexual ethic. There are always those professional "dissidents" who make a living espousing mainline Protestant shibboleths to an evangelical market. But the church will stand, and that means the gospel Jesus has handed down through the millennia. As we stand with conviction, we don't look at our gay and lesbian neighbors as our enemies. They are not.

The gay and lesbian people in your community aren't part of some global "Gay Agenda" conspiracy. They aren't super-villains in some cartoon. They are, like all of us, seeking a way that seems right to them. If we believe marriage is as resilient as Jesus says it is (Mk. 10:6-9), it cannot be eradicated by a vote of justices or a vote of a state legislature. Some will be disappointed by what they thought would answer their quest for meaning. Will our churches be ready to answer?

This also means we must change the way we preach. Those with same-sex attractions, who follow Christ, will be walking away from what their families and friends want for them: wedding cake and married life and the American Dream. Following Jesus will mean taking up a cross and following a hard narrow way. It always does.

If we're going to preach that sort of gospel, we must make it clear that this cross-bearing self-denial isn't just for homosexually-tempted Christians. It is for all of us, because that's what the gospel is. If your church has been preaching the American Dream, with eternal life at the end and Jesus as the means you use to get all that, you don't have a gospel that can reach your gay and lesbian neighbors-or anyone else for that matter.

Same-sex marriage is headed for your community. This is no time for fear or outrage or politicizing. It's a time for forgiven sinners, like us, to do what the people of Christ have always done. It's time for us to point beyond our family values and our culture wars to the cross of Christ as we say: "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."

And that's good news.

-- Dr. Russell D. Moore is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

[Secret Agent Man]

if the witnessing is biblical, not at all.

[ModelBreaker]

I have no idea what he is saying as it relates to the real world. When a homosexual pair comes to a church picnic and starts holding hands, what does the Church do? When a homosexual member demands that the pastor marry him, what does the Church do?

[Yosemitest]

When the laws of man violate the laws of God, follow the laws of God.

This is what we get when we FAIL to OBEY God.
For it is written:

“ For whosoever shall commit ANY of these abominations,
even the SOULS that commit them
SHALL BE CUT OFF from among their people. ”

Those who support homosexuals are against our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
These anti Christ people only bring destruction on us ALL.
I have NO sympathy for homosexuals!

Homosexuality is a "Mark" of disobedience.

It was given by our Heavenly Father to test us
to see ... if we will OBEY our Heavenly Father,
and abide by His commandments, statues, and ordinances.

Someone once asked

"Why are they [homosexuals] all so angry?"

The answer is in the definition of "REPROBATE".

rep·ro·bate \ˈre-prə-ˌbāt\ a. [L. reprobatus, reprobo, to disallow; re and probo, to prove.]

1. Not enduring proof or trial; not of standard purity or fineness; disallowed; rejected.


Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them. Jer. 6.




2. Abandoned in sin; lost to virtue or grace.

They profess that they know God, but in works deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate. Titus 1.

3. Abandoned to error, or in apostasy. 2Tim. 3.

And the reason"why" is given in the Bible.

God has a cure for homosexuals.

But will we OBEY our Heavenly Father?

"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just,
that his justice cannot sleep forever."

[Yosemitest]

Tell them to leave.
We don't want you; we don't need you; we will have NOTHING to do with you!
Know you not the words of God?
Get out now!

[Natufian]

Homosexuality is a sin explicitly condemned in the Bible. Divorce is sin explicitly condemned by Jesus. Churches and the faithful need to be cohrent in their witness if they want to be more effective in the cultural battle

[Yosemitest]

Churches OFFEND God, by tolerating homosexuals, period.
OBEY God!

[Buckeye McFrog]

You are now going to Hell with a Government-stamped ticket?

[Sans-Culotte]

The author seems to be parroting the liberal/gay mantra that "Christians see homosexuality as a sin while ignoring their own sin". That has never been the case. The point of contention has always been that the gays and their cohorts insist that homosexuality is not a sin. If homosexuality is not a sin, fornication is not a sin. If these aren't sins, nothing is a sin. If nothing is a sin, God and Jesus are irrelevant.

[Natufian]

God is offended by divorce.

[mikedfox]

I would argue that most Christians don’t really see divorce as a sin, either. They see it as a bad thing, except when its happening to them, in which case its necessary.

The biggest destroyer of marriage in our culture isn’t the homosexual agenda, its no fault divorce, and a church full of christians unwilling to take a stand on it.

But we also have to remember that, while Jesus never hesitated to call a sin a sin, he also never rejected the sinners.

[Yosemitest]

Not the same, and you know it!

[Natufian]

If you think Jesus is ok with divorce, you need to read your Bible more.

[ThomasMore]

But what has changed for us, for our churches, ...In one sense, nothing...

Sorry, but I disagree. Many Christian churches changed what marriage was when they perceived it and MADE it a contract. It was never a contract. It was a covenant

Jesus said, "...from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and join to his wife; 8And they two shall be one flesh: so then they are no more two, but one flesh."

When marriage began to be a contract, we began to have problems.

[Mister Da]

Here is an idea for the Church to trump the perverts.

Stop doing marriages & start doing “Christian unions between a man & a woman”, & call it that.

Stop sanctioning marriage, which has become meaningless. Let marriage be a solely government institution, bereft of an religious or spiritual meaning, much like a fishing license.

Create a new institution within the church joining together one man & one woman, until death do them part - no divorce possible, in a spiritual union recognized by the church, & limited to church members in good standing only.

If the couple wants to have a civil union too for tax purposes, that’s fine, but it has no relation to the Christian Union in the eyes of the Church & is meaningless to the Church.

Leave the perverts with their temporary, meaningless, secular unions they so deserve.

Change a few words & the Church can take back the meaning & purpose of marriage, while completely excluding the opinion of the bureaucrats.

[Yosemitest]

Remember:

" The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king,
Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done ?
she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree,
and there hath played the harlot.
And I said after she had done all these things,
Turn thou unto me.
But she returned not.
And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery
I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce;
yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not,
but went and played the harlot also. "

[CatherineofAragon]

"God is offended by divorce."

Yes, He is. But the comparison doesn't hold water.

The Bible calls homosexuality detestable, shameful, vile, degrading, and an abomination, and we know what penalty Jewish law prescribed for sodomites. It was called a capital offense.

Divorce was permitted in certain circumstances. While still hating divorce, God has never permitted homosexuality under any circumstances.

[Yosemitest]

Know you not that Jesus is also the LORD of the Old Testament?

[WilliamRobert]

I it okay to get divorced if you find out your husband is homosexual?

[MEGoody]

I’m saddened by the decision of the Supreme Court but not surprised. Fallen people are going to think and behave like fallen people.