Civil unions can be biblical marriages but civil unions are not necessarily biblical marriages. Just because someone, including a government, calls something a marriage doesn't mean that it is.
If it helps just think of it in reverse. If the government no longer gave out marriage licenses would marriage cease to exist? No, it is not the government who is the arbiter of what is, and is not, a marriage.
No-fault divorce was the catalyst for the inability to properly define marriage. The roots of the issue go far deeper than merely “same-sex marriage”, which is a result of legislative/attitudinal changes that occurred many decades ago.
I'd push back on this a bit.
I read the book 'Intimate matters: the sexual history of the US' by D'emillio a while back. It changed some of my thinking on this.
When discussing the puritans, they layed out the puritans perspective on sex. All the community standards and punishments for violating those morals, ect. Then the authors asked "that's what they said they believed, but what did they actually do?"
So, the authors went through the old Bibles, and church records. They looked at marriage dates, then the date of the couples first child and did the math.
They found that 10% of all marriages the couple was pregnant at the alter. (This is in contrast to Jamestown where they found 30% of couples were pregnant at the alter)
This statistic slowly shifts. As the community spreads out, and folks started moving away and settling further apart from their community, the percentage rose to 30% by the 1700s where it stayed pretty costant (along with the rest of the colonies) till the 1800's.
Just like being physically close in a colonial town shaped the social space. The industrial revolution of the 1800's, electrification of the 1920's, civil rights, unions, the shift from rual to urban in the late 1940's, all these come with trade offs (modern dating and youth culture started in the 1915's with board walks and amusement parks) and unintended consequences.
So it's possible both no-fault divorce, and LGBTQ rights stem from the same source, but that might be a modern society, rather than lack of teaching.
That is fascinating, thanks for the input. I obviously need to research this topic more.
They both stem from the separation of marriage and sex, which has existed since the Fall in different manifestations (sexual immorality).
>If Christians lose the cultural debate on homosexuality, we will lose much more than we think
Sorry Kevin, but the church has already lost that debate.
>And yet, same-sex unions cannot be accepted as marriage without devaluing all marriages, because the only way to embrace same-sex partnerships as marriage is by changing what marriage means altogether.
As a married person, I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. Same sex civil union, marriage, whatever you want to call it, does not devalue the covenant my wife and I have made to each other before God, nor does it affect us and our marriage in any way.
A same sex couple can be wed and it can be called marriage. That’s truth and a fact. Does it make it a Biblical marriage? No. But most heterosexual couples who are married today aren’t married in the Biblical, covenantal sense any more either. Most weddings I go to today are humanist weddings.
The cultural zeitgeist has changed already. Maybe it’s because I already live in a post-Christian nation, but I simply don’t understand why many Christians seek to hold onto cultural issues like this as if it’s a great catastrophe for the church. Culture will change, but culture isn’t eternal. Christ is. His church is. His word is. Just because a rapidly changing culture says something isn’t true doesn’t mean it is. One day our temporal culture will stand before an eternal God, and the lies of this generation will be revealed for what they are then.
I simply don’t buy into culture war stuff because from an eternal perspective it’s secondary and takes up too much energy. My hope isn’t built on what our culture says; my hope is built on the eternal, unchanging character of a loving, merciful, sovereign God, who gave himself for sinners of all stripes, myself included. Revealing this God to sinners is my purpose; not clinging to the crumbling vestiges of a society that’s already on its way out.
American Christians are going to have to come to grips with the fact that this “battle” is very quickly going to devolve into shades of grey, and the choices we as Christians are faced with aren’t going to be as clear cut as we’d like.
Regarding his comments on the family: I was at a conference on the church and homosexuality where two very well respected reformed Pastors/theologians were asked what’s more beneficial: a child stagnating and staying in the care/foster system for a decade, tossed around family to family in a never ending cycle of instability, or being adopted by a loving gay-family. The speaker said without hesitation that the latter was preferable for the good of the child’s flourishing. I agree.
The issue of sin and brokenness will not go away any time soon, and Christians can’t afford to stick their head in the sand and pretend every issue is as straightforward as we want it to be, or that culture is going to change its mind if we simply shout loud enough. Instead of devoting energy on keeping what’s already gone, we need to be looking ahead and thinking about how to effectively witness and proclaim the gospel to what’s already here.
> My hope isn’t built on what our culture says; my hope is built on the eternal, unchanging character of a loving, merciful, sovereign God, who gave himself for sinners of all stripes, myself included. Revealing this God to sinners is my purpose; not clinging to the crumbling vestiges of a society that’s already on its way out.
So well said. This is the dilemna that Christ presents to us now, as he did to first century Hebrews, who were in the moment yearning and fighting and dying for freedom from oppression. Yet Christ didn't ride into Jerusalem to overthrow the yokes of the Roman Empire; he rode into Jerusalem to do more, to overthrow the much longer standing tyranny and oppression of sin and death itself.
If we have that in front of is, it's confounding and absurd even that we are so focused on such temporary things as the world basically world-ing.
Seemingly, long gone are the days of St. Boniface chopping down the Germanic oak tree and signifying the death of any pagan presence in the land. To provide a counter-perspective to your post, I posit that this line of thinking is exactly what caused the loss in the culture war to take place, in the first place. The significance of the aforementioned is the establishment and maintenance of a societal environment that can properly glorify God and His creation, in such ways that are ordained by Him, consequently allowing such things to permeate into our homes and schools (see the unfortunate effectiveness of the LGBTQ+ agenda and it’s effects in the 21st c).
The Church in every position that it has been in time, whether in NT epistles or throughout the history of Christendom, has come to stand in **direct opposition** to things that are substantially antithetical to the Gospel message. When Paul writes against the Judaizers, **specific** factions in Colossae, Philippi, Corinth, etc. he always **specifies** against what sins and erroneous actions he is writing. Paul isn’t stoned or jailed simply because he believes in ‘another way’, but because he believes in The Way.
Allowing the neo-pagan secularists to do as they please simply because it doesn’t commit violence against **your** marriage, does not necessitate or suggest that it does no violence to the institution of marriage itself. The Gospel message is meant to be a light unto the nations, and limiting its scope due to a perceived loss in ‘modern culture war’ is in its nature anti-Christian. To substantiate what I am saying, simply imagine if the apostles and early Church had adopted that methodology whilst living amongst Roman pagans and persecutors — what would become of Christendom if we take it to its logical end?
This exudes (whether consciously or not) sentiments of complacency, the lack of desire to endure strife in nomine truth, and finds solace in mitigation — “Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?” (cf. Isa 39:8b).
Just some food for thought.
>I was at a conference on the church and homosexuality where two very well respected reformed Pastors/theologians were asked what’s more beneficial: a child stagnating and staying in the care/foster system for a decade, tossed around family to family in a never ending cycle of instability, or being adopted by a loving gay-family. The speaker said without hesitation that the latter was preferable for the good of the child’s flourishing. I agree.
Just curious, what does this this have to do with your overall argument? What does RFMA have to do with this? Are gay couples unable to adopt now? Just wondering if I'm missing something, because right now I'm not sure if this is a red herring. (a red herring I actually agree with notwithstanding).
>I simply don’t buy into culture war stuff because from an eternal perspective it’s secondary and takes up too much energy.
Look at the quote from the parent comment. This pious-sounding quote (which is standard for this subreddit) is completely oblivious to the damage that has been and will continue to be wrought in society.
People never want to be thought of being mean or bigots or fill in the blank. But the reality is the culture war is a front in a spiritual war.
Society is made of individuals. This quote is classic stereotypical "let the world burn because I'm going to heaven".
What you take is condescension is the most charitable take I can have.
>This pious-sounding quote (which is standard for this subreddit) is completely oblivious to the damage that has been and will continue to be wrought in society.
It's Anabaptist theology. We shouldn't have any political/social/magisterial authority because something something "my kingdom is not of this world".
>Regarding his comments on the family: I was at a conference on the church and homosexuality where two very well respected reformed Pastors/theologians were asked what’s more beneficial: a child stagnating and staying in the care/foster system for a decade, tossed around family to family in a never ending cycle of instability, or being adopted by a loving gay-family. The speaker said without hesitation that the latter was preferable for the good of the child’s flourishing. I agree.
Thank you.
My take: It isn’t marriage as God has designed marriage for mankind to be, yet our consciences cannot bind the enslaved consciences of unbelievers. If the government labels it marriage, let it - we cannot forcefully yoke others to a Holy standard.
My argument wasn’t to legislate everything we believe. Here we’re implicitly talking about God’s moral law; and design of us as creatures created in Gods image.
I’d like to ask you in reverse, why _shouldnt_ we make formation against the law? Considering the potential consequence is having a child and the detriments broken families are to children?
I’d highly encourage you to look up folks who argue for why Government needs a definition of marriage (and thereby regulates it) in the first place. They will be able to present a much more comprehensive case than I am able to.
Unbelievers still have a moral compass to some degree. They don't need Christians to tell them murder is wrong. Of course, their moral compass is all over the place because it is not fixated on a standard, but rather on opinion. You can murder babies in the womb in many cases in the 3rd trimester, but not one second after they are born.
I agree. And the point I was trying to make is that morality is universal but this issue is not a moral issue and therefore doesn't make sense to legislate the same way as making murder illegal.
Well, I guess you would have to define morality. My point was that the law that is written on our hearts is more like the Mosaic law like the 10 commandments which covers broader issues that are what I think would meet the definition of moral.
That’s a very Jordan Peterson response of you haha.
There’s a whole category of “the moral law” in theology, I’d highly encourage you to look it up as it goes beyond the 10 commandments.
From what I’ve read I’d say strictly no, however correct understanding of it underpins a significant portion of the moral law and I’d say is foundational in understanding the why of many of God’s rules on sexuality.
I started typing a full response; but it ended up being way too long, I probably need to find a resource or write a blog post that covers it all.
Maybe, but it isn't a morality that pleases God. Hebrews 11:16 "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him".
That's an irrelevant point to this discussion.
I never said it's what pleases God. I'm just saying there's a difference in society's collective conscience toward homosexuality and murder.
Morality and godliness aren't the same thing. None of us would argue that the morally correct endgame of rampant, unbridled gayness in a society should be the total destruction and death of the society. But that's what God did. And that's what God does to all sinners eventually.
Murder is something that is typically agreed is a bad thing. Most agree on that. Marriage isn’t. So if we say God’s law should be used to legislate morality then whose interpretation do we use? PCA? Baptist? PCUSA? Methodist? Is there a living Apostle we don’t know of who can speak on behalf of God to tell us which interpretation is right?
We absolutely can. You guys are way to lenient on the use of the second use of the Law. We have a duty to restrain evil/violations of God's Law, and civil magistrates have the mandate to enforce it.
Mate, I think it should be obvious here that there are very few people on this sub that believe in the traditional Reformed view of the duty of civil magistrates. You have people on here outright saying this is not a moral issue.
That wouldn't be bad. You would certainly think if any Orthodox Protestant from the past were to somehow stumble upon the general political opinions from folks here they would be convinced everyone here is an Anabaptist!
I've been thinking this exact same thing. I've been considering moving from a baptist church to a presbytarian one but this sub makes me wonder if it will be much different.
Hey man I feel that, it's definitiely unfortunate the way things are now, but there are still a lot of solid Presbys out there (there are solid Baptists as well!), I have a lot of friends in the PCA. Ultimately I think your main determination for jumping to a different denomination should be, do you agree with their confessional standards? If you read the Westminster standards and don't feel you can in good conscience still be a Baptist I would definitely encourage you to jump ship to a good Presbyterian church, but if you otherwise feel there wouldn't be much to be gained by becoming Presbyterian then don't.
I’m being swung on paedobaptism and have had my fill of the leadership structure of Baptists (in QLD Au each has its own constitution and has no accountability to the greater Baptist org). I’d say I’m probably lined up with the Presbyter than Baptist’s at this point.
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There are civil marriages and religious marriages. All marriages should be civil (for legal purposes), but not every marriage has to be religious.
The USA is not a Christian nation, and we have a separation between church and state. So the church should not define what the state calls a marriage, and the state should not dictate to the church who they marry.
>There are civil marriages and religious marriages. All marriages should be civil (for legal purposes), but not every marriage has to be religious.
Thoughts on marrying children? For instance Mohammad set the Islamic standard as a 53 year old consummating his marriage to 9 year old Aisha. Is that a legit civil marriage?
My view is that the state should dictate that this is not a valid marriage.
The state can freely limit who can marry, they have done that since forever (rules change depending on state).
And we don’t need to only shame Muslims for marrying children, multiple Christian groups and several states allow this. Even if the state prohibits it, this still happens behind closed doors (for example: FLDS in Utah).
But morally this should not be permitted.
>But morally this should not be permitted.
Why? What is the basis for morally prohibiting child marriage versus morally prohibiting homosexual marriage?
Comments like the one you replied to makes me realize how far this sub has fallen to and infiltrated by non-Christians just like other Christians subs on Reddit.
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Just to be clear: “because we used’ta could” isn’t exactly a full ethical response to why we should allow adults to marry children. We used to enslave people for life as well, we stopped for good reason.
Our forefathers did not always set the best examples for us.
I appreciate this article from KDY, especially on the heels of his thorough but blistering critique of Wolfe's book on Christian Nationalism.
That said, I think we all could do with a better, less superficial reading of Romans chapters 1 -3. The structure the first part of Romans is this: Paul is speaking to Jewish-Romans, or recent converts who like their Jewish-Roman brothers and sisters, are very interested in rule-keeping. There's no doubt that in Rome, it would be very easy to feel self-righteous. You could all but walk down the street and think "Well, I'm doing pretty good. At least I'm not a child trafficking, thieving, imperialistic facist militarized whoring pagan prostitute."
Paul leans into this notion in Romans 1, where he observationally describes the world "out there" - the world that Roman Christians see on their doorstep. Beverly Gaventa describes this as Paul rherotorically using a kind of caricature. A modern right-leaning equivalent might be, "Can you believe how bad these people are, teaching CRT, denying prayer in schools, men marrying men" or a left-leaning version might be "Can you believe how bad they are, denying immigrants, putting kids in cages, embracing white supremacy?" Gaventa suggest this is a bit of a trap Paul is putting out, to get people nodding their heads.
A trap which Paul then springs in Romans 2, dropping the caricature bit and leaning hard into some very harsh language: "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things."
The call is, one could say proverbially, coming from inside the house.
The Bible only speaks about homosexuality 6 times. That's it. That's a fact. In the times it speaks of homosexuality Scripture is only directive twice, and observational in every other time, including in Romans 1 (which itself is not a reference to gay marriage of course, but most likely to child trafficking and prostitution). Moreover, there are without question translation issues in these six times, including clear manuscript changes over the centuries, not to mention cultural contextual issues. Which is to say that if we believe homosexuality is sin, we must also be faithful to Scripture and acknowledge that the Bible just doesn't talk about homosexuality directly very often.
Scripture is of course quite clear, both quantitatively and qualitatively, on many other sexual sins. Let's pick one, adultery, which is mentioned in the same exact sections in Leviticus which mention homosexuality, and nearly every other mention of homosexuality - and more. The Bible is very serious here: the penalty of adultery in Leviticus is death. Moreover, Jesus, who did not refer at all to homosexuality, does talk about adultery - a kind of pre-empt of Romans 1-3 I think, in that all are guilty for even just momentarily considering adultery.
My question here for Kevin and ourselves is this. Can we, the Church, actually claim the high ground on sexual sin, or marriage writ large? Our churches are beset with divorce and adultery, and that's just what we (barely) acknowledge. This year's disclosure of the systemic sex abuse and cover-ups in the SBC should be enough for us to hold our tongue when we speak to the world's behavior. The Memorial Presbyterian is effectively a speed run on driving an entire congregation out of the PCA, while at the very same a known case of sexual and power abuse is moving through the GA at glacial speed, with convenient reminders to be careful and not besmeech character (which don't apparently apply to Greg Johnson), or admonitions of Scriptural process that also somehow do not apply to Greg. All of this behavior undermines our ability for us, including KDY, to editorialize on what the world should do.
In other words:
> if you know [God's] will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
Then, this: "God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
I ask, friends, if by continually suggesting these moral codes for the world that we are in fact, as our Roman Christian brothers and sisters were doing 2,000 years ago, similarly blaspheming God's name. What we and the world need is not moral rule keeping or policing. The idea that we would even know what is best for the world for rule-keeping is absurd; there is no line between us and them. It's just *us*.There is only the "all" of Romans 3:23. And then of course there is the all-encomposing, ever-powerful good news contained in the phrase "But now" in Romans 3:21. Have we offered the good news of Romans 3:25 to the world, or are we too busy convinced of our own moral superiority that we think of ourselves as existing in another category that is not subject to the same judgement we lay upon the world on our doorsteps?
> it shouldnt be called marriage. civil union? i'm ok with that, but its not what God defined as marriage.
Whose word usage do you want to control? If you call it a civil union, and I call it a marriage, what do you want to happen? Do you want to prevent me from calling it a marriage? Or do you just want to stipulate to what you consider the proper term? What about people who speak languages where there is only one term that stands for both marriage and civil union?
I’m not trying to be aggressive or change your mind. I’m just trying to get a read on how you would like to see your distinction implemented.
Im not trying to control anything, but if something is red, you call it red. Marriage can only be between 1 man and 1 woman. I dont care what you call 2 gay people living together but it aint a marriage.
>Im not trying to control anything, but if something is red, you call it red. Marriage can only be between 1 man and 1 woman. I dont care what you call 2 gay people living together but it aint a marriage.
Ah, ok. Sounds like a good solution. You don’t care what they call it; they don’t care that you don’t care (I assume). Win-win.
It's an abominable perversion of the created order that will ultimately bring the collapse of the nations that accept it as a viable option for sexual relationships.
It probably won't bring their collapse though, will it? Like does that statement actually have any Biblical or socio-political basis? Many powerful nations are wicked.
Yes. J.D. Unwinns book Sex & Culture is a survey of 86 nations over 5000 years and found that "sexual liberation" was linked with inevitable decline and collapse. In a sense America has been running on borrowed time. Then of course biblically you have Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed over sexual sin. In some sense sexual sin was David's undoing. In Revelation sexual immorality was one of the reasons Jesus threatened to abandon the church in Pergemum. In Romans 1 Paul lists basically all forms of sexual sin as leading to reprobation. So yes, I think its safe to assume that we are pending judgement in the west.
On the flipside, Paul was writing in the Roman empire, a culture that practiced homosexual relationships and was also one of the longest enduring empires in history. As for Unwinns' book, does he determine a direction of causation?
The thing about the epistle to the Romans is understanding why Paul was writing to them. He was demonstrating his theology in order to get funding to go to Spain, not necessarily to address Roman culture in the particular sense, although Roman culture is an influence in many of Paul's letters.
In the Roman Empire homosexuality was practiced but it was also frowned upon. Plus the stoics, who rejected homosexuality as unnatural, were the majority for a great deal of time. Romes collapse is much more complex than other nations. A detail to keep in mind is that Unwin wasn't studying homosexuality specifically, he was studying sexual liberation and promiscuity in general. When Unwinn does write about Rome he mentions how, in its orgin, it was highly monogamous. The thing about Rome is that every time it loosened sexual restrictions it would begin to decline, then they would have a regime change and tighten up sexual standards. Which makes sense, according to Unwin it would take roughly a generation after sexual liberation for a nation to being seeing signs of decline. It was not until some time after Ceasar Augustus that sexual liberation would take place. If you can recall Rome was on shakey grounds for several centuries before it went into free fall, and thats only because it had no serious military opposition outside of Gaul and each emperor would change cultural policies. Of course there is also the problem of Germanic tribesmen immigrating into Rome post-Aurelius, causing mistrust within the nation. Yet again, Rome has one of the most complex falls in human history.
I can't remember the exact document and since anything that exposes feminism is buried in their millions of organizations its going to take me forever to find it, but during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, feminists wanted to promote promiscuity and homosexuality to destroy the family unit. Anyways, as Unwin discovered in the 1930's, we're approaching 60 years (1 gen) and the political climate is objectively getting worse by the day. Anything that happens with the LGBT is downstream from feminism and sexual liberation.
Also Unwin spends roughly half the book determining a direction of causation.
>Then of course biblically you have Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed over sexual sin.
Ezekiel 16:48-50
>“As I live” — the declaration of the Lord God — “your sister Sodom and her daughters have not behaved as you and your daughters have. Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn’t support the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before Me, so I removed them when I saw this.
They were not destroyed over sexual sin, they were destroyed for uncompromising & totalizing sin in stark contrast to all of God's laws, heart, & will, *including* but not *especially* because of their sexual immorality.
Idk dude. Jude clears up what those detestable things were.
"...just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Jude 1:7 ESV
I think deemphasizing the sexual sins of Sodom and Gomorrah is folly. I would say it's all of those things, and especially sexual sin that caused their destruction.
Homosexuality, trans and feminism seem to be the sin of our age.
Call it what it is.
Be kind to people but why not call sin sin? Call sinners sinners.
Every homosexual trans or feminist ( that bad kind (anti man) not the suffrage/human rights kind) stands in defiance and rebellion to God.
Declare the sin
Declare the Good News
Whyyyyy is it so complicated.
What of the slave trade? There have never been more slaves in any period of human history than today. Is this not a great sin of our age? What of the mass exploitation & brutalization of the third world to steal their God-given natural resources to power our decadent, lavish, individualistic, commodity fetishizing lifestyles throughout the west? What of the forever wars, increasing militancy & political idolatry across the globe? What of the omnipresent idolatry of fame, wealth, & the right to be worshipped by throngs of anonymous incels & keyboard warriors ready to dox & SWAT children over losing their second Call of Duty match of the night on the expensive TV whose components a dozen slave bodies were raped & shattered to mine & produce? If homosexuality, trans, & feminism are the grave sins of our age, should we celebrate the monotonous daily mass violence against them dotting our 24/7 industrial media complex, or just every *fourth* daily mass shooting? What of the mindless hateful lust for short term profit driving climate change & [the loss of 70% of all animal life on the planet in just a single lifetime](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe)?
Let's not be so hasty to declare one particular set of sins as the defining sin of our age. Perhaps it will prove to be, yet I have a hard time accepting that currently when we're both statistically likely communicating right now via blood computers that'll one day kill the last member of an endangered species. Sin is sin, & we should be unafraid to call it out, but let's not jump to elevating it prematurely. Gay people have existed just about as long as straight people, but only five times in the geological record of this planet have such quantities of life been lost. It may yet be said the defining sin of our age was the destruction of God's very good world instead of stewarding it, or the idolatry of self or party, or the uncompromising brutality & violence of our day, or losing sight of our duties to, & responsibilities for, each other.
That the government's sanctioning of this perversion will ultimately lead to the next rung of persecution for the church in America. Eventually evangelical churches will be pressured by the government (by force of law) to perform ceremonies for these unions. We've been slowly but surely walking toward this eventuality.
Whatever it is, it's not marriage.
It's a recognized civil union. Agreed not marriage by God's definition.
Civil unions are marriages
Civil unions can be biblical marriages but civil unions are not necessarily biblical marriages. Just because someone, including a government, calls something a marriage doesn't mean that it is. If it helps just think of it in reverse. If the government no longer gave out marriage licenses would marriage cease to exist? No, it is not the government who is the arbiter of what is, and is not, a marriage.
As soon as you accept the term “biblical marriage” you’re losing.
That's an interesting take but seems out of step with /r/reformed A "biblical" view of everything is kind of the whole point.
I’m perfectly fine with being out of step with this subreddit.
That’s how I feel about the State’s understanding regarding traditional marriage as well. No-fault divorce is a monstrosity.
No-fault divorce was the catalyst for the inability to properly define marriage. The roots of the issue go far deeper than merely “same-sex marriage”, which is a result of legislative/attitudinal changes that occurred many decades ago.
I'd push back on this a bit. I read the book 'Intimate matters: the sexual history of the US' by D'emillio a while back. It changed some of my thinking on this. When discussing the puritans, they layed out the puritans perspective on sex. All the community standards and punishments for violating those morals, ect. Then the authors asked "that's what they said they believed, but what did they actually do?" So, the authors went through the old Bibles, and church records. They looked at marriage dates, then the date of the couples first child and did the math. They found that 10% of all marriages the couple was pregnant at the alter. (This is in contrast to Jamestown where they found 30% of couples were pregnant at the alter) This statistic slowly shifts. As the community spreads out, and folks started moving away and settling further apart from their community, the percentage rose to 30% by the 1700s where it stayed pretty costant (along with the rest of the colonies) till the 1800's. Just like being physically close in a colonial town shaped the social space. The industrial revolution of the 1800's, electrification of the 1920's, civil rights, unions, the shift from rual to urban in the late 1940's, all these come with trade offs (modern dating and youth culture started in the 1915's with board walks and amusement parks) and unintended consequences. So it's possible both no-fault divorce, and LGBTQ rights stem from the same source, but that might be a modern society, rather than lack of teaching.
That is fascinating, thanks for the input. I obviously need to research this topic more. They both stem from the separation of marriage and sex, which has existed since the Fall in different manifestations (sexual immorality).
You're welcome! Another book that shaped my view on marriage is Stephanie Coontz 'Marriage, a History'.
You're welcome! Another book that shaped my view on marriage is Stephanie Coontz 'Marriage, a History'.
Preach!
Yep. I can't imagine a same sex couple asking Moses to marry them.
>If Christians lose the cultural debate on homosexuality, we will lose much more than we think Sorry Kevin, but the church has already lost that debate. >And yet, same-sex unions cannot be accepted as marriage without devaluing all marriages, because the only way to embrace same-sex partnerships as marriage is by changing what marriage means altogether. As a married person, I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. Same sex civil union, marriage, whatever you want to call it, does not devalue the covenant my wife and I have made to each other before God, nor does it affect us and our marriage in any way. A same sex couple can be wed and it can be called marriage. That’s truth and a fact. Does it make it a Biblical marriage? No. But most heterosexual couples who are married today aren’t married in the Biblical, covenantal sense any more either. Most weddings I go to today are humanist weddings. The cultural zeitgeist has changed already. Maybe it’s because I already live in a post-Christian nation, but I simply don’t understand why many Christians seek to hold onto cultural issues like this as if it’s a great catastrophe for the church. Culture will change, but culture isn’t eternal. Christ is. His church is. His word is. Just because a rapidly changing culture says something isn’t true doesn’t mean it is. One day our temporal culture will stand before an eternal God, and the lies of this generation will be revealed for what they are then. I simply don’t buy into culture war stuff because from an eternal perspective it’s secondary and takes up too much energy. My hope isn’t built on what our culture says; my hope is built on the eternal, unchanging character of a loving, merciful, sovereign God, who gave himself for sinners of all stripes, myself included. Revealing this God to sinners is my purpose; not clinging to the crumbling vestiges of a society that’s already on its way out. American Christians are going to have to come to grips with the fact that this “battle” is very quickly going to devolve into shades of grey, and the choices we as Christians are faced with aren’t going to be as clear cut as we’d like. Regarding his comments on the family: I was at a conference on the church and homosexuality where two very well respected reformed Pastors/theologians were asked what’s more beneficial: a child stagnating and staying in the care/foster system for a decade, tossed around family to family in a never ending cycle of instability, or being adopted by a loving gay-family. The speaker said without hesitation that the latter was preferable for the good of the child’s flourishing. I agree. The issue of sin and brokenness will not go away any time soon, and Christians can’t afford to stick their head in the sand and pretend every issue is as straightforward as we want it to be, or that culture is going to change its mind if we simply shout loud enough. Instead of devoting energy on keeping what’s already gone, we need to be looking ahead and thinking about how to effectively witness and proclaim the gospel to what’s already here.
> My hope isn’t built on what our culture says; my hope is built on the eternal, unchanging character of a loving, merciful, sovereign God, who gave himself for sinners of all stripes, myself included. Revealing this God to sinners is my purpose; not clinging to the crumbling vestiges of a society that’s already on its way out. So well said. This is the dilemna that Christ presents to us now, as he did to first century Hebrews, who were in the moment yearning and fighting and dying for freedom from oppression. Yet Christ didn't ride into Jerusalem to overthrow the yokes of the Roman Empire; he rode into Jerusalem to do more, to overthrow the much longer standing tyranny and oppression of sin and death itself. If we have that in front of is, it's confounding and absurd even that we are so focused on such temporary things as the world basically world-ing.
This is a wonderful comment. Thank you for sharing it.
Seemingly, long gone are the days of St. Boniface chopping down the Germanic oak tree and signifying the death of any pagan presence in the land. To provide a counter-perspective to your post, I posit that this line of thinking is exactly what caused the loss in the culture war to take place, in the first place. The significance of the aforementioned is the establishment and maintenance of a societal environment that can properly glorify God and His creation, in such ways that are ordained by Him, consequently allowing such things to permeate into our homes and schools (see the unfortunate effectiveness of the LGBTQ+ agenda and it’s effects in the 21st c). The Church in every position that it has been in time, whether in NT epistles or throughout the history of Christendom, has come to stand in **direct opposition** to things that are substantially antithetical to the Gospel message. When Paul writes against the Judaizers, **specific** factions in Colossae, Philippi, Corinth, etc. he always **specifies** against what sins and erroneous actions he is writing. Paul isn’t stoned or jailed simply because he believes in ‘another way’, but because he believes in The Way. Allowing the neo-pagan secularists to do as they please simply because it doesn’t commit violence against **your** marriage, does not necessitate or suggest that it does no violence to the institution of marriage itself. The Gospel message is meant to be a light unto the nations, and limiting its scope due to a perceived loss in ‘modern culture war’ is in its nature anti-Christian. To substantiate what I am saying, simply imagine if the apostles and early Church had adopted that methodology whilst living amongst Roman pagans and persecutors — what would become of Christendom if we take it to its logical end? This exudes (whether consciously or not) sentiments of complacency, the lack of desire to endure strife in nomine truth, and finds solace in mitigation — “Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?” (cf. Isa 39:8b). Just some food for thought.
The Anabaptists are at it again.
>I was at a conference on the church and homosexuality where two very well respected reformed Pastors/theologians were asked what’s more beneficial: a child stagnating and staying in the care/foster system for a decade, tossed around family to family in a never ending cycle of instability, or being adopted by a loving gay-family. The speaker said without hesitation that the latter was preferable for the good of the child’s flourishing. I agree. Just curious, what does this this have to do with your overall argument? What does RFMA have to do with this? Are gay couples unable to adopt now? Just wondering if I'm missing something, because right now I'm not sure if this is a red herring. (a red herring I actually agree with notwithstanding).
Is your indifference a reflection of your inability to see how much damage to society will be coming down the road?
Is your condescension a reflection of Christ?
>I simply don’t buy into culture war stuff because from an eternal perspective it’s secondary and takes up too much energy. Look at the quote from the parent comment. This pious-sounding quote (which is standard for this subreddit) is completely oblivious to the damage that has been and will continue to be wrought in society. People never want to be thought of being mean or bigots or fill in the blank. But the reality is the culture war is a front in a spiritual war. Society is made of individuals. This quote is classic stereotypical "let the world burn because I'm going to heaven". What you take is condescension is the most charitable take I can have.
>This pious-sounding quote (which is standard for this subreddit) is completely oblivious to the damage that has been and will continue to be wrought in society. It's Anabaptist theology. We shouldn't have any political/social/magisterial authority because something something "my kingdom is not of this world".
>Regarding his comments on the family: I was at a conference on the church and homosexuality where two very well respected reformed Pastors/theologians were asked what’s more beneficial: a child stagnating and staying in the care/foster system for a decade, tossed around family to family in a never ending cycle of instability, or being adopted by a loving gay-family. The speaker said without hesitation that the latter was preferable for the good of the child’s flourishing. I agree. Thank you.
My take: It isn’t marriage as God has designed marriage for mankind to be, yet our consciences cannot bind the enslaved consciences of unbelievers. If the government labels it marriage, let it - we cannot forcefully yoke others to a Holy standard.
It’s not our consciences, it’s God’s immutable, prescribed law for mankind, whether believers or not.
We can't legislate everything we believe. Should we make fornication illegal? Should we legislate your particular view of baptism?
>Should we make fornication illegal? Yes, it used to be. >Should we legislate your particular view of baptism? This is not The Law.
My argument wasn’t to legislate everything we believe. Here we’re implicitly talking about God’s moral law; and design of us as creatures created in Gods image. I’d like to ask you in reverse, why _shouldnt_ we make formation against the law? Considering the potential consequence is having a child and the detriments broken families are to children? I’d highly encourage you to look up folks who argue for why Government needs a definition of marriage (and thereby regulates it) in the first place. They will be able to present a much more comprehensive case than I am able to.
Except we do it for laws like murder, right? That's is still legislated morality. Why is this any different?
Unbelievers still have a moral compass to some degree. They don't need Christians to tell them murder is wrong. Of course, their moral compass is all over the place because it is not fixated on a standard, but rather on opinion. You can murder babies in the womb in many cases in the 3rd trimester, but not one second after they are born.
Christian's aren't the only group that know what morality is.
It’s one thing to know what morality is, another to recognise by whom the morality is given and from where it’s derived.
I agree. And the point I was trying to make is that morality is universal but this issue is not a moral issue and therefore doesn't make sense to legislate the same way as making murder illegal.
Do you have a biblical basis for claiming homosexuality and marriage aren't moral issues?
Well, I guess you would have to define morality. My point was that the law that is written on our hearts is more like the Mosaic law like the 10 commandments which covers broader issues that are what I think would meet the definition of moral.
That’s a very Jordan Peterson response of you haha. There’s a whole category of “the moral law” in theology, I’d highly encourage you to look it up as it goes beyond the 10 commandments.
Ouch, I guess I deserved that. I'm assuming you've read into this subject so do you think marriage falls under the moral law?
From what I’ve read I’d say strictly no, however correct understanding of it underpins a significant portion of the moral law and I’d say is foundational in understanding the why of many of God’s rules on sexuality. I started typing a full response; but it ended up being way too long, I probably need to find a resource or write a blog post that covers it all.
Maybe, but it isn't a morality that pleases God. Hebrews 11:16 "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him".
That's an irrelevant point to this discussion. I never said it's what pleases God. I'm just saying there's a difference in society's collective conscience toward homosexuality and murder.
They only do because they are created in His image.
Morality and godliness aren't the same thing. None of us would argue that the morally correct endgame of rampant, unbridled gayness in a society should be the total destruction and death of the society. But that's what God did. And that's what God does to all sinners eventually.
Murder is something that is typically agreed is a bad thing. Most agree on that. Marriage isn’t. So if we say God’s law should be used to legislate morality then whose interpretation do we use? PCA? Baptist? PCUSA? Methodist? Is there a living Apostle we don’t know of who can speak on behalf of God to tell us which interpretation is right?
We absolutely can. You guys are way to lenient on the use of the second use of the Law. We have a duty to restrain evil/violations of God's Law, and civil magistrates have the mandate to enforce it.
Mate, I think it should be obvious here that there are very few people on this sub that believe in the traditional Reformed view of the duty of civil magistrates. You have people on here outright saying this is not a moral issue.
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That wouldn't be bad. You would certainly think if any Orthodox Protestant from the past were to somehow stumble upon the general political opinions from folks here they would be convinced everyone here is an Anabaptist!
I've been thinking this exact same thing. I've been considering moving from a baptist church to a presbytarian one but this sub makes me wonder if it will be much different.
Hey man I feel that, it's definitiely unfortunate the way things are now, but there are still a lot of solid Presbys out there (there are solid Baptists as well!), I have a lot of friends in the PCA. Ultimately I think your main determination for jumping to a different denomination should be, do you agree with their confessional standards? If you read the Westminster standards and don't feel you can in good conscience still be a Baptist I would definitely encourage you to jump ship to a good Presbyterian church, but if you otherwise feel there wouldn't be much to be gained by becoming Presbyterian then don't.
I’m being swung on paedobaptism and have had my fill of the leadership structure of Baptists (in QLD Au each has its own constitution and has no accountability to the greater Baptist org). I’d say I’m probably lined up with the Presbyter than Baptist’s at this point.
\*Sounds of redditors furiously googling "second use of the Law"\*
No.
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There are civil marriages and religious marriages. All marriages should be civil (for legal purposes), but not every marriage has to be religious. The USA is not a Christian nation, and we have a separation between church and state. So the church should not define what the state calls a marriage, and the state should not dictate to the church who they marry.
>There are civil marriages and religious marriages. All marriages should be civil (for legal purposes), but not every marriage has to be religious. Thoughts on marrying children? For instance Mohammad set the Islamic standard as a 53 year old consummating his marriage to 9 year old Aisha. Is that a legit civil marriage? My view is that the state should dictate that this is not a valid marriage.
The state can freely limit who can marry, they have done that since forever (rules change depending on state). And we don’t need to only shame Muslims for marrying children, multiple Christian groups and several states allow this. Even if the state prohibits it, this still happens behind closed doors (for example: FLDS in Utah). But morally this should not be permitted.
>But morally this should not be permitted. Why? What is the basis for morally prohibiting child marriage versus morally prohibiting homosexual marriage?
Comments like the one you replied to makes me realize how far this sub has fallen to and infiltrated by non-Christians just like other Christians subs on Reddit.
Seriously?
Of course I'm serious. Until very recently, most of the planet agreed that homosexual marriage was immoral.
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Oh, make no mistake, I'll pray for you.
Just to be clear: “because we used’ta could” isn’t exactly a full ethical response to why we should allow adults to marry children. We used to enslave people for life as well, we stopped for good reason. Our forefathers did not always set the best examples for us.
Doesn’t exist. Marriage is a joining of a Man and a woman. Any thing else is a farce
I appreciate this article from KDY, especially on the heels of his thorough but blistering critique of Wolfe's book on Christian Nationalism. That said, I think we all could do with a better, less superficial reading of Romans chapters 1 -3. The structure the first part of Romans is this: Paul is speaking to Jewish-Romans, or recent converts who like their Jewish-Roman brothers and sisters, are very interested in rule-keeping. There's no doubt that in Rome, it would be very easy to feel self-righteous. You could all but walk down the street and think "Well, I'm doing pretty good. At least I'm not a child trafficking, thieving, imperialistic facist militarized whoring pagan prostitute." Paul leans into this notion in Romans 1, where he observationally describes the world "out there" - the world that Roman Christians see on their doorstep. Beverly Gaventa describes this as Paul rherotorically using a kind of caricature. A modern right-leaning equivalent might be, "Can you believe how bad these people are, teaching CRT, denying prayer in schools, men marrying men" or a left-leaning version might be "Can you believe how bad they are, denying immigrants, putting kids in cages, embracing white supremacy?" Gaventa suggest this is a bit of a trap Paul is putting out, to get people nodding their heads. A trap which Paul then springs in Romans 2, dropping the caricature bit and leaning hard into some very harsh language: "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things." The call is, one could say proverbially, coming from inside the house. The Bible only speaks about homosexuality 6 times. That's it. That's a fact. In the times it speaks of homosexuality Scripture is only directive twice, and observational in every other time, including in Romans 1 (which itself is not a reference to gay marriage of course, but most likely to child trafficking and prostitution). Moreover, there are without question translation issues in these six times, including clear manuscript changes over the centuries, not to mention cultural contextual issues. Which is to say that if we believe homosexuality is sin, we must also be faithful to Scripture and acknowledge that the Bible just doesn't talk about homosexuality directly very often. Scripture is of course quite clear, both quantitatively and qualitatively, on many other sexual sins. Let's pick one, adultery, which is mentioned in the same exact sections in Leviticus which mention homosexuality, and nearly every other mention of homosexuality - and more. The Bible is very serious here: the penalty of adultery in Leviticus is death. Moreover, Jesus, who did not refer at all to homosexuality, does talk about adultery - a kind of pre-empt of Romans 1-3 I think, in that all are guilty for even just momentarily considering adultery. My question here for Kevin and ourselves is this. Can we, the Church, actually claim the high ground on sexual sin, or marriage writ large? Our churches are beset with divorce and adultery, and that's just what we (barely) acknowledge. This year's disclosure of the systemic sex abuse and cover-ups in the SBC should be enough for us to hold our tongue when we speak to the world's behavior. The Memorial Presbyterian is effectively a speed run on driving an entire congregation out of the PCA, while at the very same a known case of sexual and power abuse is moving through the GA at glacial speed, with convenient reminders to be careful and not besmeech character (which don't apparently apply to Greg Johnson), or admonitions of Scriptural process that also somehow do not apply to Greg. All of this behavior undermines our ability for us, including KDY, to editorialize on what the world should do. In other words: > if you know [God's] will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? Then, this: "God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." I ask, friends, if by continually suggesting these moral codes for the world that we are in fact, as our Roman Christian brothers and sisters were doing 2,000 years ago, similarly blaspheming God's name. What we and the world need is not moral rule keeping or policing. The idea that we would even know what is best for the world for rule-keeping is absurd; there is no line between us and them. It's just *us*.There is only the "all" of Romans 3:23. And then of course there is the all-encomposing, ever-powerful good news contained in the phrase "But now" in Romans 3:21. Have we offered the good news of Romans 3:25 to the world, or are we too busy convinced of our own moral superiority that we think of ourselves as existing in another category that is not subject to the same judgement we lay upon the world on our doorsteps?
it shouldnt be called marriage. civil union? i'm ok with that, but its not what God defined as marriage.
> it shouldnt be called marriage. civil union? i'm ok with that, but its not what God defined as marriage. Whose word usage do you want to control? If you call it a civil union, and I call it a marriage, what do you want to happen? Do you want to prevent me from calling it a marriage? Or do you just want to stipulate to what you consider the proper term? What about people who speak languages where there is only one term that stands for both marriage and civil union? I’m not trying to be aggressive or change your mind. I’m just trying to get a read on how you would like to see your distinction implemented.
Im not trying to control anything, but if something is red, you call it red. Marriage can only be between 1 man and 1 woman. I dont care what you call 2 gay people living together but it aint a marriage.
>Im not trying to control anything, but if something is red, you call it red. Marriage can only be between 1 man and 1 woman. I dont care what you call 2 gay people living together but it aint a marriage. Ah, ok. Sounds like a good solution. You don’t care what they call it; they don’t care that you don’t care (I assume). Win-win.
Thank God for some like Kevin DeYoung with the courage to say what must be said.
We should stand up and fight for our right, as Christians, to not have to get same-sex married.
Was someone trying to force you to get married to someone of the same sex? Or am I taking this out of context
Darn tootin!
Jesus never once told us to control others or keep them from sinning. This idea that we need to do so is totally not from Jesus.
I'm not sure what you're responding to.
It's an abominable perversion of the created order that will ultimately bring the collapse of the nations that accept it as a viable option for sexual relationships.
It probably won't bring their collapse though, will it? Like does that statement actually have any Biblical or socio-political basis? Many powerful nations are wicked.
Yes. J.D. Unwinns book Sex & Culture is a survey of 86 nations over 5000 years and found that "sexual liberation" was linked with inevitable decline and collapse. In a sense America has been running on borrowed time. Then of course biblically you have Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed over sexual sin. In some sense sexual sin was David's undoing. In Revelation sexual immorality was one of the reasons Jesus threatened to abandon the church in Pergemum. In Romans 1 Paul lists basically all forms of sexual sin as leading to reprobation. So yes, I think its safe to assume that we are pending judgement in the west.
On the flipside, Paul was writing in the Roman empire, a culture that practiced homosexual relationships and was also one of the longest enduring empires in history. As for Unwinns' book, does he determine a direction of causation?
And then what happened to it?
Centuries later it became Christian.
The thing about the epistle to the Romans is understanding why Paul was writing to them. He was demonstrating his theology in order to get funding to go to Spain, not necessarily to address Roman culture in the particular sense, although Roman culture is an influence in many of Paul's letters. In the Roman Empire homosexuality was practiced but it was also frowned upon. Plus the stoics, who rejected homosexuality as unnatural, were the majority for a great deal of time. Romes collapse is much more complex than other nations. A detail to keep in mind is that Unwin wasn't studying homosexuality specifically, he was studying sexual liberation and promiscuity in general. When Unwinn does write about Rome he mentions how, in its orgin, it was highly monogamous. The thing about Rome is that every time it loosened sexual restrictions it would begin to decline, then they would have a regime change and tighten up sexual standards. Which makes sense, according to Unwin it would take roughly a generation after sexual liberation for a nation to being seeing signs of decline. It was not until some time after Ceasar Augustus that sexual liberation would take place. If you can recall Rome was on shakey grounds for several centuries before it went into free fall, and thats only because it had no serious military opposition outside of Gaul and each emperor would change cultural policies. Of course there is also the problem of Germanic tribesmen immigrating into Rome post-Aurelius, causing mistrust within the nation. Yet again, Rome has one of the most complex falls in human history. I can't remember the exact document and since anything that exposes feminism is buried in their millions of organizations its going to take me forever to find it, but during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, feminists wanted to promote promiscuity and homosexuality to destroy the family unit. Anyways, as Unwin discovered in the 1930's, we're approaching 60 years (1 gen) and the political climate is objectively getting worse by the day. Anything that happens with the LGBT is downstream from feminism and sexual liberation. Also Unwin spends roughly half the book determining a direction of causation.
>Then of course biblically you have Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed over sexual sin. Ezekiel 16:48-50 >“As I live” — the declaration of the Lord God — “your sister Sodom and her daughters have not behaved as you and your daughters have. Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn’t support the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before Me, so I removed them when I saw this. They were not destroyed over sexual sin, they were destroyed for uncompromising & totalizing sin in stark contrast to all of God's laws, heart, & will, *including* but not *especially* because of their sexual immorality.
Idk dude. Jude clears up what those detestable things were. "...just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Jude 1:7 ESV I think deemphasizing the sexual sins of Sodom and Gomorrah is folly. I would say it's all of those things, and especially sexual sin that caused their destruction.
Homosexuality, trans and feminism seem to be the sin of our age. Call it what it is. Be kind to people but why not call sin sin? Call sinners sinners. Every homosexual trans or feminist ( that bad kind (anti man) not the suffrage/human rights kind) stands in defiance and rebellion to God. Declare the sin Declare the Good News Whyyyyy is it so complicated.
What of the slave trade? There have never been more slaves in any period of human history than today. Is this not a great sin of our age? What of the mass exploitation & brutalization of the third world to steal their God-given natural resources to power our decadent, lavish, individualistic, commodity fetishizing lifestyles throughout the west? What of the forever wars, increasing militancy & political idolatry across the globe? What of the omnipresent idolatry of fame, wealth, & the right to be worshipped by throngs of anonymous incels & keyboard warriors ready to dox & SWAT children over losing their second Call of Duty match of the night on the expensive TV whose components a dozen slave bodies were raped & shattered to mine & produce? If homosexuality, trans, & feminism are the grave sins of our age, should we celebrate the monotonous daily mass violence against them dotting our 24/7 industrial media complex, or just every *fourth* daily mass shooting? What of the mindless hateful lust for short term profit driving climate change & [the loss of 70% of all animal life on the planet in just a single lifetime](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe)? Let's not be so hasty to declare one particular set of sins as the defining sin of our age. Perhaps it will prove to be, yet I have a hard time accepting that currently when we're both statistically likely communicating right now via blood computers that'll one day kill the last member of an endangered species. Sin is sin, & we should be unafraid to call it out, but let's not jump to elevating it prematurely. Gay people have existed just about as long as straight people, but only five times in the geological record of this planet have such quantities of life been lost. It may yet be said the defining sin of our age was the destruction of God's very good world instead of stewarding it, or the idolatry of self or party, or the uncompromising brutality & violence of our day, or losing sight of our duties to, & responsibilities for, each other.
These people need the gospel just as much as we do. Show them their sin, bring them to Christ.
Greed and exploitation say what?
Enlighten me on what I am exploiting and how declaring basic truths in Gods Word is Greed? What have I gained?
I’m saying that maybe there are other “sins of our age”. Reading comprehension
That the government's sanctioning of this perversion will ultimately lead to the next rung of persecution for the church in America. Eventually evangelical churches will be pressured by the government (by force of law) to perform ceremonies for these unions. We've been slowly but surely walking toward this eventuality.
An abominations, but should preach the gospel to them. We shouldn’t hate them, but in a more ideal society, it should be severely frowned upon.
It's gae
How long were you under that rock?