Sometimes,
by refusing to speak, you can shout pretty loudly.
In
what seems to be to many a surprise, the Supreme Court has
refused to even consider appeals by states that had bans
against homosexual marriage against court rulings that
declared them unconstitutional. This, in effect, makes
homosexual marriage the constitutionally-approved law of the
land. I'm not a lawyer, a legal scholar or an expert on the
matters such as this. However, it seems to me that this is
pretty much the end of the discussion.
- For
years, public opinion has been slowly turning. In his first
election campaign (2008) Barack Obama supported traditional
marriage. It was just 5 or 6 years ago that it was
considered necessary to support traditional marriage, even
by a Democratic presidential candidate.
- In
the 2000s, state after state passed constitutional
amendments declaring that marriage was between one man and
one woman. Even leftist states like California passed such
measures.
- There
has been a relentless onslaught by the molders of public
opinion - Hollywood, the music industry and the TV networks
- to support homosexuality and the right for homosexuals to
marry.
- In
May of 2012, President Obama declared himself a newly-minted
supporter of the right of homosexuals to marry.
- This
flip-flop (excuse me - reexamination of his beliefs) seemed
to trigger a tsunami of shifting beliefs. For the first
time, polls showed that a majority of Americans now
supported the right of homosexuals to marry.
- State
after state has been able to find an activist judge who
would declare homosexual marriage unconstitutional. Most
state attorneys general didn't support the ban and refused
to appeal the rulings. At least 5 did, and they sought a
ruling by the Supreme Court.
- Today's
ruling that the court will not hear appeals leaves the lower
court rulings in tact and means that the right of
homosexuals to marry is now settled law in those states
where a judge has ruled it unconstitutional. When the
Supreme Court declared abortion a human right, it at least
left some gray area and those who cared about life and
opposed the abortion mills had some room to maneuver. This
is pretty cut and dried, it would seem.
Gay
marriage is the law of the land. There is little we can do
about it now.
I
am not a prophet, but I saw this coming. I didn't think it
would happen as quickly as it did, but it was morally
inevitable when you see the direction the US was headed. What
do Bible-believing Christians do now?
1)
One of our primary points of emphasis needs to be the
preservation and protection of religious
freedom.
Conservative
Christians have devoted a lot of time and effort to trying to
"turn America back to God" - a noble goal and a worthy effort.
However, it has an unintended side-effect. We've spent the
last 30 years trying to encode our beliefs, which we thought
were majoritarian, into national laws.
Baptists,
because we were always the minority and because of biblical
conviction, tended to prize and advocate religious freedom. As
we saw the world rushing into unbelief and liberalism, we
joined with the conservative evangelical political movements
of the last 30 to 40 years that focused on the
(re)establishment of a Christian America.
As
I have said, that battle is lost - on a national level at
least. American public opinion has rejected most of what we
believe and barring a massive, national revival, that trend is
likely to continue and become worse.
Perhaps,
even in the heady days of Reagan Revolution and the moral
majority, perhaps we should have made this more of an
emphasis, but now we are faced with a reality - we live in a
world which disdains our values and beliefs and is
demonstrating a strong desire to sanction us. A CEO has been
fired for donating a small amount to a traditional marriage
cause. Christian groups are being punished on college campuses
for not bowing down to the mantra of "tolerance."
We
need to be focusing our effort toward two things:
a)
The prophetic ministry of speaking the truth, regardless of
its popularity.
b)
The protection of religious freedom in America - our right
to live by our convictions even if they do not kowtow to the
politically-correct, universalist, tolerance-loving
majority.
2)
We cannot compromise truth based on the world's
beliefs.
Expect
the trickle of evangelicals who have followed the world into
sympathy with homosexual marriage to grown into a steady
stream. Within 20 0r 30 years, it will likely be a river.
There
has been a lot of room for evangelicals to improve our
approach to homosexuality. We've often treated them as beyond
redemption, as perverts outside of God's grace. We can work
hard to make sure we treat homosexuals as people, as those for
whom Christ died, as divine image-bearers. But we cannot give
up on this issue no matter how much pain and grief it causes
us.
Those
who value the truth of God's Word, who submit to its
authority, who live by what is taught there - the person and
work of Christ, the gospel of salvation through Christ, etc -
cannot just ignore the clear teaching of God's Word on an
issue like this because it makes us unpopular in the
world.
The
early church suffered greatly because Christians would not
speak the meaningless mantra of the Roman world - Caesar is
Lord. They would not bow to the will of the state or to public
pressure. This issue has become America's new creedal
confession and those who refuse to "tolerate" homosexual
marriage can no longer be tolerated.
As
the Roman world demanded Christianity express its cultural
loyalty by saying "Caesar is Lord," our culture demands we
acquiesce on this issue.
We
cannot. Those who compromise on this issue will soon find it
easier to compromise on other issues and pretty soon, the
heart and soul of the gospel will vanish.
3)
We must consistently love those with whom we
disagree.
We
have to love homosexuals even while we refuse to give approval
to their sinful choices. Well-meaning Christians differ on the
approach to this and it is a minefield for us, but it is
something we must attempt to do.
4)
It's all about the court!
The
most important thing a president does is appoint supreme court
justices. If the razor thin balance of the current
supreme court shifts at all, American will change
dramatically.
There
is a lot of gray hair behind the bench and the next decade
will be crucial. Economic and foreign policy issues matter.
But the most important thing a president does is nominate the
federal judges and supreme court justices.
We
do not have abortion in the land today because of federal or
state legislation. The courts mandated it and have
consistently thrown out laws that tried to limit it.
Homosexual marriage has been imposed on America by courts
(though now, it might well pass through the legislative
system).
So,
there it is. I've got about 8 hours of yard work to do and
about 2 hours to do it, so I'd better stop here. But I'm
guessing that most of our readers like me are not happy that
marriage has been twisted and perverted in this way. But now,
by the Supreme Court's refusal to even consider the issue,
it's something we have to get used to.
Gay
marriage isn't going away.
But
neither is the church of Jesus Christ.
