The pace of change on the gay marriage issue has been breakneck, ever since President Obama changed his position and came out in favor of so-called “marriage equality.”
I don’t have the time or the understanding of Supreme Court rulings to do a thorough analysis, but I thought that some might have the desire to address the issue (respectfully, please – even of an administration we disagree with).
As I understand it, DOMA is basically gutted. It has been declared that marriage is a fundamental right and that it would be discriminatory (under the equal protection concept) to deny that right to homosexuals.
Prop 8 from California was rejected on the grounds that the citizens had no standing to appeal the lower court order. Since the state government of California has made it clear they have no intent to defend the amendment passed by the citizenry, Prop 8 is dead and gay marriage will resume in California.
Suddenly, we are in Oz. We are now the minority. Instead of opposing gay marriage, we are in the position of defending our right not to practice it. It is a new world. The Moral Majority is dead. We are clearly the minority now (55-44 in the poll I saw this morning) and that will probably only get worse.
Fortunately, Jesus still lives, the gospel still saves, and the Spirit still transforms. So, the church is not destroyed even as the moral foundations of our culture crumble.
I’m off to lunch. Behave yourselves.
For a great read, you must review Justice Scalia’s dissent. He holds nothing back.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/scalia-high-handed-kennedy-has-declared-us-enemies-of-the-human-race-20130626
Scalia says Kennedy calls us “enemies of the human race.” Hard words, Are they the portent of terrible times to come? When will get down to really praying in earnest?
Here’s my understanding after going through the news of what this impacts:
1. Prop 8 was overturned on technicality – CA declined to actually defend it, therefore those who tried to defend it did not have grounds. This ruling ONLY impacts California.
2. DOMA as a federal law defining marriage was overturned. Marriage is now defined as each state chooses to define it. I live in Maryland, so that meaning is no longer Biblical. That said, if you live in Nebraska, it still is. Federally they now will recognize whatever each state recognizes as a marriage. It does not overturn state laws. That said, it opens the doors for them trying to force that later.
3. The portion of the DOMA where each state is not required to acknowledge the marriage licenses of other states which violate their law, was not overturned. Meaning? If two men get “married” in Maryland, then move to Alabama – Alabama is still not required to accept the marriage license from Maryland as it is in violation of their state laws.
Hope this helps you as you digest.
Thanks Matt. Although it may eventually lead to a national recognition of homosexual “marriage,” the decision on DOMA basically means that the Federal Government cannot deny what an individual state declares a reality. This will only get worse as the fallout spreads.
Or it may get better. In a way. At least politically.
The Court in both rulings today seemed to defend states rights and, again seemed, to place this issue in the hands of each state and take it away from the Federal Govt.
Being a bit of a political junkie and a staunch federalist….I can see some potential silver lining in this dark cloud.
Don’t worry Tar Heel, they will keep Federalism until they switch to dictatorship and tyranny with the use of military might to enforce the extermination decrees. Remember the Guidestones in Georgia and the reduction of the earth’s population to a few billion or less. Should have read Wells’ The Open Conspiracy.
Yeah. You’d think we were living in the days of the pagan Roman Empire and they were about to by edict put Christians to death by feeding them to the lions in a Colosseum built with the loot of the sacking of Jerusalem and the dismantlement of the Temple.
Let me offer an alternative view that could be helpful and hopeful:
The adoption of the civil liberties argument for preventing discrimination against homosexuals is an extension of some of the success of the Gospel in our society. When we no longer are visibly discriminating against them, they will still not have lived life according to the Master Designer’s design. And their spiritual need will be just as great but they will have exhausted one more recourse for filling that eternity that God has put in their hearts.
When they read the Bible they will still experience conviction not because WE are convicting them but because the Holy Spirit interprets those words for them. And their natural–sin-informed–response will be to reject those words as being of human origin in an effort to mute the conviction they feel.
Now what happens after that? They will remember those who have reached out to them with the Good News and they either will respond positively to it or will die not due to rejection of the Gospel or of Jesus Christ but because of the condemnation of sin that is already upon them.
The condition of the world hasn’t changed. Our mission hasn’t changed. Our God hasn’t changed. The only thing that has changed is the veneer that allowed us to pretend the need wasn’t already great has been stripped away. Conforming the externals of culture to a standard does not result in the advancement of the Kingdom. Never has. Never will.
But in the interim, the folks who are using this little ploy have some interesting extermination techniques in mind for their biggest obstacle to world control, the true believers who only want the control of Christ.
@Matt:
Unfortunately Matt it is not that simple. Remember the Scopes monkey trials? William Jennings Bryan and our side WON that trial. But the way that the media covered the trial, the verdict and has depicted ever since i.e. the “Inherit The Wind” movie turned the legal victory on that case into a loss in the eyes of the public, making opposition to evolution within mainstream institutions pretty much impossible ever since.
So even though we won the most important part of this case – where each state is not required to acknowledge the marriage licenses of other states which violate their law – the media is doing their best to leave the impression that DOMA was thrown out entirely. That is going to make it that much easier to enact state and federal laws designed to compel states to accept gay marriages done in other states.
Another consequence of this ruling: you can stick a fork in the GOP’s organized opposition to this. It is done. Especially when you consider that Republican judicial appointees gave the left their biggest victories on this issue (from the judge in California to Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy … Reagan’s O’Connor halted the pro-life movement and now Reagan’s Kennedy has ended the marriage preservation movement) and also that Ted Olson was co-leader of the Proposition 8 legal team.
The GOP isn’t exactly going to run and join the Human Rights Campaign or ACT-UP marches or anything, but the GOP is not going to lead – or even follow – on this issue any longer. With the exception of some pro-life action on the state level (and incidentally you are aware that Rick Perry bungled the opportunity to take advantage of the Kermit Gosnell case to severely restrict abortion in Texas … he pretty much handed the Democrats the ability to defeat the bill with a filibuster so you can’t count on the GOP, which has a ton of secretly pro-abortion types in its leadership there either) you are going to see the GOP take a more liberal – excuse me, libertarian – stance on social issues in the future.
‘libertarian’ IS a Republican thing, you know . . . and it is 180 degrees different from social conservatism, in the sense that it doesn’t want government ‘involved’ in areas that restrict personal behaviors . . .
but ‘libertarian’ could never be a Democratic thing, simply because Democrats don’t want people to have certain ‘freedoms’ that impinge on the lives of others in ways deemed hurtful to their human dignity as now protected by law
I still can’t sort out if the ‘tea party’ thing is more ‘socially conservative’ or more ‘libertarian’ . . . or a very strained marriage of the two
It is time to live as Daniel lived and to get our people out of our club type churches and engaged in loving ministry and service with a people that need to see and hear of the real Jesus!
This is the break point that a small group in Germany decided on as the issue to corrupt, ruin, and divide America and remove it from the venue of Christianity and bring about the socialistic state, religion, and extermination of the majority of the population (about 4-6 billion people). Too bad so few people do research on the Cabal, the conspiracy that has run the world for about 300 years. One of them has even bragged about it in his autobiography. Guess who fits that work? Worse is yet to come. Jesse Ventura’s review of the FEMA camps, the coffins, the constant reference to epidemics, tell us trouble, big time is coming. Add to that the tsunamis that kills a quarter of a million people or the earthquake doing the same in Haiti, HAARP’s place in the process, the links to Nikolas Tesla’s inventions, and we have an insane asylum run by the inmates. Justice Kennedy’s reference to us as “the enemies of the human race” will justify the rage that is coming. What is the answer? It is prayer for a Third Great Awakening, for the power of God to come down to earth as it did during the First and Second Great Awakenings and the launching of the Great Century of Missions. I have a work, The Nature of Revival, compiled by on Clare George Weakley, Jr., with the name of John Wesley prominent on the cover, followed by Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. On p.77 John Wesley is cited as stating that: “At New Year’s 1739, George Whitefield, my brother Charles, three others, and I, with about sixty of our brethren were present at a love feast in Fetter Lane. About three in the morning, as we were continuing in prayer, the power of God came upon us so mightily that many cried out in holy joy, while others were knocked to the ground.” During those visitations like things occurred, and the presence of such spirit of power and holiness was effective to change the populaces of Great Britain and America from a worldly indifference to all consuming concern for the Christian Faith. Benjamin Franklin described such a change in his Autobiography, telling how the whole world (of Philadelphia) grew religious after a visit by Whitefield. Now I suggest that if we would see any change at all, we really do need to began to pray, pleading the promises recorded in Jonathan Edwards’ Humble Attempt which inspired William Carey and so many others. God grant that we shall wake up and get concerned enough to begin to pray thusly until God does indeed bless us with such a visitation.
I’m with Scalia but let’s not pronounce the benediction for our country just yet.
Southern Baptists have hitched their wagon for about a generation and a half to various vehicles which sought to express our political power. Seems we don’t have a lot of that. Might be a good time to focus on something with power beyond that of our civil government.
Gay marriage will not, has not destroyed the moral underpinnings of our culture, that happened long ago when we first started accepting serial marriages…but I digress.
If you don’t approve of gay marriage (I don’t) don’t marry and gay folks and set your church policies accordingly.
I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow.
Good word William. The sun will rise. And with it, the mission of Jesus will be as much in front of us then as it is today, and as it was yesterday.
These are scary, and exciting days!
Good for you, William. About the most positive I can be about that is that I expect it to rise tomorrow. But I have a high standard regarding predictions. [emoticon not used out of respect for the moderator]
Yep, it rises to morrow even as it did in Germany, when Adolf came to power. My grandfather’s brother knew of this cabal way back around 1898 or there abouts. He could name names etc. A friend of mine said he didn’t believe such stuff, and I answered, “Well, we have a mutual friend who had a man in his church who was head of the American Constitutional Party. His family booted him out, when he failed to go along with the conspiracy. He told our friend a great deal and still our friend did not believe it. Thus, it is no surprise that you don’t believe it either.” I could have added the brainwashing these folks have done to our society was and is highely effective.
William,
You know, I agree somewhat with you on your analysis. Certainly the sun will rise tomorrow (unless the rapture takes place and I believe that is a moment in time that I affectionately refer to as “pre”) but we certainly do not want to pass this off as just another Supreme Court ruling. Wouldn’t you agree that was the reaction among many for the “Roe v. Wade” court ruling? Look at the millions of lives that have been lost since that time because many pastors at that time said; “the sun is going to rise tomorrow”.
I am not one to begin a “chicken little” campaign but this is a huge ruling and certainly one that will call into question religious liberties. Dr. Russell Moore said it well in his article To dispense with marriage is to dispense with a mystery that points to the Gospel itself, the union of Christ and his church, as the Apostle Paul says to the church at Ephesus. This ruling strikes at the heart of the Gospel by the state.
Tim Rogers,
I agree. Russ Moore’s article was a good article. It made me proud that he represents Southern Baptist in the halls of government.
He may very well be the right man for an hour such as this in our postmodern, post-Christian, American culture.
Tim, I don’t believe that the state, any state of any era, has power to strike at the heart of the Gospel.
The sun has indeed risen, several times, since the SCOTUS decisions. Other than being sufficiently indignant about them, what do you suggest?
William,
God does judge nations….and, if you don’t believe that God judges nation in our NT age….then, you still must believe that sin ruins and destroys a nation.
David
Said nothing about that David.
God has has sufficient reason to judge our nation since its founding.
From the time this administration stated that America was not a Christian nation it has been a moral freefall and stopping it isn’t possible politically. They will continue to redefine biblical morality until we are considered to be a terrorist group (Uh oh, IRS just picked up on this blog.)
I meant NSA in lieu of IRS.
Don’t worry both the IRS and the NSA have your number. A friend of mine had a call from an IRS agent who said she wanted to examine things. So they came in and looked at all financial records and read the minutes closely, looking it seems for something to the folks of that church under a real strain. Alas! and Hooray! There was nothing of any consequence. Jefferson’s Wall of Separation was meant to keep the government out of the church. LBJ got the IRS involved, because he was made at some preachers in Texas who had opposed him. He opened the barn door and the barn yard gate, and I can tell you what farm animals will do, having spent some hours chasing the ornery critters back home after a few miles break from confinement. Imagine what the government will do as it becomes more concerned about getting more taxes, having more control, and dealing with the perceived threat of religious terrorism from the descendants and successors of the folks who fought for liberty in the American Revolution. I live down the road about a 50 minute drive from where one of my ancestors took part in the Battle of Guilford Court House. And that was only one. I suspect I had relatives by the score, due to connections to two or three Scotch Clans, including the one in which every member of the regiment bore the last name of Craig. I know I copied all 2000 or so names down from a volume of the DAR. And that’s jut for starters. What we need is an Awakening. No little church revival will do. We have to have the very power of Heaven coming down on whole communities convicting them of sin and of their need of a Saviour. Then and only then will we find the way out of this morass.
Amen.
Hopefully, this will pressure the church to do what the church did in Acts 2:1 “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” When we are in one place with a single mind, the Holy Spirit will fall upon us again. The world will be the same, but there will be change.
I recommend that SCOTUS forever ban any use of the Kansas/Toto phrase on the basis of gross overuse.
(Nothing personal towards anyone in Iowa, of course.)
I changed it for you. I’ve got a whole book of cliches, dude.
I could go with “Shock and Awe.”
I could go with “This Ain’t Your Mother’s America.”
I could go with …I got as many cliches as you have time!
What’s wrong with Kansas and Toto? “Dust in the Wind” and “Africa” were two pretty good songs, I thought.
Well Bart Barber,
Since you put it like that. Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
I liked “Carry on My Wayward Son” and “Point of No Return,” as well. Kansas was a great Rock group…when they had Kerry Livgreen.
Toto wasnt one of my favorites….although “Rosanna” was pretty good….and, “Africa” was pretty good, too.
Of course, all Kansans and Iowans wished that Lynyrd Skynyrd would’ve been from up their way….
David
‘Rains Down In Africa’ . . . great lyrics:
‘. . . the moonlit wings reflect the stars
that guide me towards salvation . . . ‘
methinks ‘Toto’ was a bit familiar with the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas on the natural proofs for the existence of God 🙂
Where have all the flower children gone? Some of you are still around. 🙂
Bart,
I was talking with a barber, and he said the flower children almost put him out of business back in the 60’s.
Make no mistake, brothers, our Courts and our Culture are attempting to redefine marriage–and that is beyond their jurisdiction. From the dawn of time, the Divinely appointed institution of marriage has consisted of the union between one man and one woman. Homosexuals are in no way denied the “right” to marry–they may marry a member of the opposite sex in any state in our Union.
Our SBC churches are poorly equipped to deal with all the issues that will arise as a result of this stunningly swift capitulation to the homosexual agenda…..as evidenced by the fact that so many seem content to continue sponsoring Boy Scout troops after their admission of openly professing homosexuals.
In an attempt to help equip Churches, on September 23-25 our Church is sponsoring an Association-wide Conference billed “A Gospel Response to the Homosexual Agenda.”
When you have been brainwashed to set back and let things go on under the mistaken notion that you really can’t do anything, then the enemy has won. Brainwashing, psy ops, is very much a part of war. Just think. Our Supreme Court in 1892 and in 1790 something ruled that the US was a Christian Nation, not because it had a state church, but because it was founded on Christian law, etc. Even old Deist Ben Franklin conceded the importance of prayer in the Constitutional Convention.
On another point, this goes back to the failed strategy of the early part of the religious right/social conservative movement. At that time, there actually was a broad moral majority on social issues. The goal should have been to exploit that by creating a broad coalition to fight the most important battles: abortion, gay marriage, pornography and no-fault divorce. That way it would have been possible to elect socially conservative Democrats and Republicans to Congress and to state houses to enact actual legislation and put real judges on the bench.
Instead, they did the opposite. Rather than trying to build a broad bipartisan coalition, they built a narrow partisan one, which not only cost the movement millions of potential allies such as Democratic leaning Jewish, Catholic and black voters, but left them stuck with the GOP, even when the GOP betrayed them. The GOP used the heartland to get elected, but it has always truly been run by the socially liberal folks who control the money and party machinery. This was apparent as soon as socially liberal George H. W. Bush was installed on the Reagan ticket in 1980 and especially when Reagan failed to replace pro-abortion Potter Stewart (GOP appointee by the way!) with a pro-life Supreme Court justice despite having a very favorable Senate climate at the time (huge victory, large GOP majority plus a sizable contingent of socially conservative Dems in the chamber), but no one was willing to change course and admit that the strategy was wrong even though there was arguably still time. And in addition to narrowing the coalition, they adopted a ridiculously broad array of issues, many of which weren’t politically attainable and couldn’t be addressed by government action anyway, but did distract from what should have been the main goal – overturning Roe v. Wade because it is murder – and the secondary goal of preserving as much of the marriage culture as possible by limiting divorce and pornography and declaring the institution off limits to gay people.
In retrospect, we have to look back and ask what the real goals were anyway. Why was the correlation between ending abortion and being a Reagan Republican (for example) ever made in the first place? The two have nothing to do with each other. Even if you disagreed with a midwestern Catholic or a black Methodist on taxes, spending, unions, regulations, military/foreign policy, welfare, affirmative action etc. shouldn’t working with them install the right judges and pass constitutional amendments (a tall order but definitely possible at least on abortion and gay marriage) have taken priority? It didn’t. Instead, the social conservative leaders spent 30 years taking the position that if everyone else wasn’t willing to abandon their other issues/interests/ideology and become Reagan or neo-con Republicans then they were immoral and un-Christian. They couldn’t see that they were demanding the very sacrifices of others required to be narrow and partisan social conservatives that they wouldn’t make themselves in order to cease risking the fate of the unborn on the agenda, electoral prospects and integrity of a single political party that has never been supported by more than 40% of registered voters at any time.
Add it all up and this day was inevitable because the social conservative movement was doomed to fail from day one. They chose excluding people who agreed with them on the issues that matters in favor of an unequal “partnership” with people who were willing to use their votes to gain victories on issues that didn’t. The result was tax cuts, reforms in Great Society programs, several wars in the Middle East that make even less sense in retrospect – which are well and good to those who support them – in return for losing every single item on a social conservative agenda that was already too big to begin with.
That is where we are now, and hopefully we will make better decisions on how to move forward in the next 30 years than the terrible ones in the last 30 that got us to this mess. But it has to start with asking tough questions of the leaders of this failed movement. They were the ones who decided not to work with social conservatives who were liberal on other issues. They were the ones who told the evangelicals to stick with the GOP despite knowing full well that the people who held the true power in the GOP were socially liberal. There has been no accountability demanded of those who created and stuck with that totally unworkable strategy, or who spent years rubbing elbows with the GOP leaders and knowing first hand what types of people they were but didn’t bother to share that information with the evangelicals whose votes and financial contributions they were soliciting. I guess the questions were never asked because we didn’t want to know the answer, but going forward we are going to have to require more of our leaders and ourselves than this.
This blurb about Richard Land on Wikipedia: “Land was the primary author of the Land letter, an open letter sent to President George W. Bush by leaders of the religious right in October 2002 which outlined a “just war” argument in support of the subsequent military invasion of Iraq.” George W. Bush was openly pro-abortion by the way. He stated multiple times that he opposed overturning Roe v. Wade. So … yeah. Imagine if we had spent those decades pursuing strategies that might have actually resulted in overturning Roe v. Wade instead of pretending that carrying water for pro-abortion Republicans was going to get it done. That is exactly the type of thing that we need to avoid moving forward.
“defending our right not to practice it”
This is quite a strange statement. No one has forced a Christian into a gay marriage. It is Christians who have denied gays the right to marry because they do not agree with it.
If you are saying you’re being forced to live in a country where gay marriage is allowed, that is also not true. You are free to move to any number of countries where they treat LGBTQ people more harshly for religious reasons.
Byron,
You are placing the sin of homosexuality on the level similar to racism. We do not deny gays because “we do not agree”, we deny the right to marriage between the same sex because it is a sin against the holiness of God. For a nation as a whole to accept that before God is suicide for that nation. We can only respond because we know that God must not be mocked when He has declared that homosexual activities are an abomination to a nation.
You must not define what you think we are thinking. We are not saying we are forced to do anything. That is worldly thinking. We know the morals of God brought success to America. When God pulls the plug, the lights really will go out and you will not see it coming. Nothing and no one outsmarts the wisdom of God.
it sounds to me as if the belief of the Christian conservative right has been tied irrevocably to the Will of God,
and if the USA departs from the will of the Christian far right, then ‘God will pull the plug’ is the threat as seen by fundamentalist Christian people
but our country is not ‘Christian fundamentalist’ and never was . . .
so I don’t understand how the ‘contract’ was formed between God and the Christian far right to destroy America if America doesn’t placate the far right agenda ?
when did this happen?
or are there actually Scriptures involved that outline this contract?
to be honest, most Americans don’t see Christian fundamentalists as ‘Christian’ . . . and the reasons always given for this are ‘judgementalism’ and ‘hypocrisy’,
this is a difficult subject, but the more intense Christian fundamentalists get in their judgment, I’m afraid the more they are seen as self-righteous hypocrites,
not as servants of Christ in the way that is commanded in the Holy Gospels of sacred Scripture
Christiane,
I am assuming that you are talking to me.
Christian fundamentalist and Christian far right are terms you use and associate them with judgmentalism and hypocrisy. When we have scripture that our whole eternal future is based on and we think that God does not remove His hand because of sin, we are misguiding ourselves. Our nation isn’t great because of man, it is great because of God. If this nation has no fear of God, it is going to crumble even though we think we are strong. All God has to do is simply remove His hand and it is so.
Many will turn to scripture and say, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chron. 7:14. That would be what we need to do but the Christian fundamentalist would go as far as pointing out verses 19-22 to complete the full reasoning behind turning back to God. Here’s a short version of what those verses say, “I’ll pull the plug if you don’t turn from your wicked ways!” We cannot allow America to go the way it is going and we must fight a battle with different methods. These will be kingdom methods of prayer, humility, love, faith, compassion, kindness and, in every situation, truth. Truth is where you and I may differ.
L’s,
You have slipped up a little haven’t you?
You usually post your godless spew on other blogs, leaving SBC Voices to present yourself as the loving soul bubbling over with good will for the children of God and devotion to the Savior.
I guess you forgot to put on your sheep’s clothing when you approached the keyboard this time. Your true nature overcame you and the wolf you are came bursting forth for all the world to see, ya think?
CB,
Boy, did it. Of course, we saw some of it after our kidding around with Dwight the other day, too.
David
Tom Parker,
I am absolutely certain you are right. My “true colors are showing.” But, Tom Parker, I must ask you, when have they not?
Crickets…..
Christiane,
Pro 14:34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a shame to any people. (LITV)
It’s not that God has a contract with Christian Fundamentalism it’s that He has a complete faithfulness to Himself and His word. Surely you can’t believe that the open acceptance of sin that God has made His judgment of evident can actually make us better as a nation.
no clarification needed for my comment:
the nation isn’t buying the teachings of judgmental and hypocritical people who practice serial marriage and whose divorce rate is on par with non-fundamentalists
I think many have said this before me
Christian people are sent forth to present Christ to the world . . . that is not what has been going on in some of the politically-wired efforts of the conservative far-right
And yes, others have said THAT also
so when our country is not buying something that is marketed under the name ‘Christian’ and being sold openly as ‘God’s Will’, remember that it DID MATTER and it DOES MATTER how the messengers lived their own lives imperfectly while holding other people in contempt who were different
once Christian witness is damaged, then you have to take stock of how much of that witness to the country WAS truly ‘of Christ’ and I think some will then understand what went wrong . . .
Christ was not rejected here . . . but right-wing politics and Christian conservatism have taken a hit,
Lord Christ was not the One rejected . . .
so it might be more honest (and painful) to understand the real reasons something that has been marketed and put out there doesn’t ring true to those for whom it was targeted who have been turned off majorly
and finally,
I am most certainly not the first to have said these things
Christiane,
You make much noise about “not as servants of Christ in the way that is commanded in the Holy Gospels of sacred Scripture”. So do you not believe this portion of His Word also?
Genesis 19:1-29
New King James Version (NKJV)
Sodom’s Depravity
19 Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. 2 And he said, “Here now, my lords, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.”
And they said, “No, but we will spend the night in the open square.”
3 But he insisted strongly; so they turned in to him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4 Now before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.”
6 So Lot went out to them through the doorway, shut the door behind him, 7 and said, “Please, my brethren, do not do so wickedly! 8 See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish; only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof.”
9 And they said, “Stand back!” Then they said, “This one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge; now we will deal worse with you than with them.” So they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door. 10 But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. 11 And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door.
Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed
12 Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city—take them out of this place! 13 For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city!” But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.
15 When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” 16 And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. 17 So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he[a] said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”
18 Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords! 19 Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. 20 See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.”
21 And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. 22 Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.”
Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
23 The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. 24 Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
26 But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace. 29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.
Christiane,
I wish I possessed the fine genteel manners of CB and others who have attempted to show you some grace over this outrageous comment. Please forgive me. I seriously don’t feel very charitable regarding this bit of complete nonsense and all out assault upon our values.
Now me, if people want to call me a bigot or an enemy of human decency after I dedicated the largest portion of my life to the service of my country, then that is fine. But do not come here pontificating about Christian fundamentalists while your church is in serious disarray and truly depraved sin.
The Catholic church is the most hypocritical organization on the planet.
Do these names mean anything to you? Father Marcial Maciel, Father Oliver O’Grady. Father Murphy, Cardinal Levada, Cardinal Mahony, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Cardinal Law. How about Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict the XVI? The evidence against all of these people is overwhelming and it is morally and biblically disgusting, vile and shameful. Your church DELIBERATELY CHOSE MONEY, and their REPUTATION over the lives of children. Your church is buried in centuries of deep sexual sin and by some estimates more than 30% of your Priests today (so-called ‘another Christ‘) are homosexual and act upon it.
Then of course we have Catholics for Choice, Catholics for Equality, but the most descriptive bit of hypocrisy that shows the moral compass of the Catholic Church is here:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2013/01/catholic-hospital-claims-fetus-is-not-a-person.html
Shameful, just shameful.
Christiane: Chief Katie has your number. These conservative folks make goofs, some really big ones, sometimes, but it was their ancestors and predecessors who were the cannon fodder for the American Revolution. It was their ancestors and predecessors who enlisted the young men of their communities in the Patriots Cause. And I was watching a program on C-Span the other day about the book, Mortal Sins, recounting the awful predatory priests, and there were Catholics speaking out about how bad their churches were. Christiane, just because these Bible believing folks oppose the homosexual agenda about same sex marriages, that does not make them monsters. I suspect that all of those writing on this blog would step forward in a moment to stop people from abusing those with whom they disagree. Having been threatened by one homosexual and being aware of violent some of them can be, I am not that impressed with their arguments. In addition, the same aguments are being used by the advocates of Pedophilia and Incest. Ugh! Have you ever studied the effects of sex on children? I have, and it is terrible.
And Katie is right about the hypocrisy of your church even as you are in some cases about ours. I took notes on the Inquisition, and the father of a friend of mine was tortured in an Iron Maiden, an invention of that tawdry outfit, the Inquisition, so I understand. I also took notes and studied and even proposed a doctoral dissertation at an Ivy League University on the subject of the Baptists and Slavery, the sources of which like those on the Inquisition and the holocaust, gave me nightmares. We are not at all impressed by your arguments for your church. Not in view of the awful representations of it that can be found in many history books (even those written by Catholics themselves) and on the news.
How can you argue as you do, when the priests of your church and the hierarchy has been found guilty of the problem of pedophilia and even homosexuality going back for 400 years according to the records? Pshaw! I would say it goes back even further based on what I saw in the records and histories I examined in my researches which I did not record as it was not germane to my aim.
No one really minds you arguing your view points, but they do mind setting up yourself as one able to make such judgments is a bit much, don’t you think? Some of our ministers are hard to live with as they are in any church, human nature being what it is, but the diplomatic skills needed for pastoring can be developed and are over the years. Believe me. I know and speak from experience about this. And let me add here, that we do believe there are Catholics who are saved, usually in spite of your church, rather than because of it. After all, the Church has been cooperating in the Billy Graham Crusades for decades now, and some of us get a little worried about the whole deal, especially if we have been the subjects of threats from some Catholics bent on have their way at any price or some bent on following the philosophy of the ends justify the means as some do and even as some of us do. But a Great Awakening might well resolve that for us all. Won’t you join with us in prayer for a visitation like those of the First and Second Great Awakenings and like the Renewal that the Reformation brought to the churches of Europe, even Rome had a renewal in its Counter Reformation, though the protestants found that a bit wearisome as it often led to persecution. But now the Popes are calling us “separated brethren,” I believe that is the phrase used by one in the past 20-30 years.
Chief. Did you really use “genteel” and CB in the same post?
Your response to the error above is spot on.
We also “deny” same sex couples marriage…because a union between two men or two women is in fact not a marriage at all by the biblical definition.
it goes much deeper than a “disagreement”.
This would be meaningful if the US were a Christian nation and words like “marriage” and “moral” were defined by the Bible. But it isn’t, and they aren’t.
Byron,
It could be pointed out that marriage has never, at any point in recorded history, been defined as anything other than the union of one man and one woman.
Start re-defining terms and concepts whose meaning is clearly established, and sooner or later society itself unravels.
In this case, sooner.
Grace to you, friend.
“”” if the US were a Christian nation”””
Byron, I have no illusion that America is anything like what the Founders envisioned. But, I would like your atheist opinion on a question:
“What religion is at the basis of all the quotes related to religion in the Founding Documents–and there are thousands?
Is it Islam? Is it Hinduism? What is it?
Byron,
America still is a Christian nation. We still reach out to other nations when there is a disaster, that is what Christ would do. We even rebuild a nation we destroy in war to free their people from tyranny, that is what Christ would do. We provide grace to immigrants, we feed the poor and we provide assistance when someone cannot pay their medical bills, that is what Christ would do. The problem is, many who think we are not a Christian nation want to take credit for what Christ taught, He just didn’t get the copyright on what he did and anyone can use it for their own glory by redefining it.
Bruce, I must disagree with you here.
America is not a Christian nation. There is no such thing as a “Christian nation”…Christ did mot die for and redeem nations….he died for and redeemed individuals within those nations. Those individuals who will believe are those for whom Christ died, and those who are Christians. We do not have a national salvation…we have personal salivations from every nation, tribe and tongue.
Acting morally, or doing good things is not what it means to be a Christian…any more than it is the way to become one.
Not to mention that America was not even founded on biblical grounds in the first place.
I’m a political conservative, but I have no illusions that America is a Christian nation…in fact, that statement (that America is not a Christian nation) is one of the few statements with which I actually agree with President Obama.
I also have great respect for the Christian philosophy that under-girded so much of the founding of America, and truly think that if we today would heed their guidance we would be better off as a nation…
However, those rich philosophically Christian roots, nor moral actions today for that matter, make us a Christian nation.
* However, neither those rich philosophically Christian-like roots or moral actions performed today make us a “Christian nation”.
Tarheel,
Disagreeing is a privilege under our American and Christian freedoms. America does respond in Christian-like responses toward others and the world. It is Christ-like to respond to situations that Christ would respond. The world likes the response to how Christ responds. Therefore, they want the attention they would get from the principle of how Christ would respond. Theirs is the response of pride and ours would be the response of humility and love. We must understand that. It is all about the principle of the way Christ has responded to the worldly actions.
Tarheel,
I understand that America is not living out a Christian heritage. I understand that strictly speaking God has only one chosen nation and that is Israel.
But, in common vernacular, which is the world in which we live as Americans, our nation was established as a “Christian nation.” That is, our laws and forms come from a Christian foundation.
With the caveats I mention, what kind of nation would you say we were: Islamic, Hindu, New Age, Hare Krisna?
We are a nation founded upon Christian principles and intended by our Founders to remain connected to those broad principles that all Christian sects agreed upon: deists to Episcopalian.
One conqueror said, and I paraphrase from memory, “in order to conquer a people, one must first rewrite their history.”
It is a matter of semantics and esoteric theology to say without qualification, “Christianity is not a Christian nation.”
We may abandon those principles if we choose, but we cannot ignore that they are there.
Tarheel,
What I was trying to get at and may never have arrived is that when you say, the U.S. is not a Christian nation, and when Byron says it, you are not in my opinion saying the same thing
. . . or hoping the same hope.
You’re right, frank. We’re not saying the same thing, and certainly are not on the same page. 😉
Bruce said;
“America does respond in Christian-like responses toward others and the world. It is Christ-like to respond to situations that Christ would respond. The world likes the response to how Christ responds. Therefore, they want the attention they would get from the principle of how Christ would respond. Theirs is the response of pride and ours would be the response of humility and love. We must understand that. It is all about the principle of the way Christ has responded to the worldly actions.”
Yes, but we also go to war unjustly and lie, and spy, and governmentally (and always have) condone ungodly and unbiblical actions.
I think we’d be hard pressed to identify (outside of a couple and those not founding presidents) a true believer in Christ who has ever served as president of the US.
Yes, christian like Philosiphy was used….but a Christian nation is more than that….it’s a nation that ordained and selected by God to be His people….the US is no such nation. We even started our country on unbiblical grounds (we defied scriptures in fact that require us to honor the king and submit to authority).
Remember when Paul and Peter gave those instructions, under the guidance and direction of the holy spirit the “kings” the we’re refering to were worse aggressors against thier subjects than was the King of England. Taxation without representation is not biblical grounds for making war against authority.
We’ve got to stop Americanizing God!
All that said, I love America. It’s where I love to live. But let’s be honest. We’re not a Christian nation. We’re not a religious nation at all….in fact the founders worked hard to ensure that we are a secular nation.
Frank said;
“But, in common vernacular, which is the world in which we live as Americans, our nation was established as a “Christian nation.” That is, our laws and forms come from a Christian foundation.”
I agree…that’s what I meant when I said we were founded on Christian like Philosiphy (among other philosophies)
Tarheel,
Our disagreement on this issue is merely opinions based upon what we believe or want to believe. I cannot help believe that an atheist, Muslim, Buddhist or any other religion that does not believe in our (Christian) God will look at our (American) paper money and wonder what “IN GOD WE TRUST” really means. With that, America has been overwhelmingly blessed by God since we began. Our history reads much like the life of David and Solomon, sin and all, yet, Christ was from that linage. I just think America can still be called a Christian nation because that is who we are.
I think we tend to Americanize God to the point that we distort who He is.
It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
I apologize if I am coming off offensively. I just think we as the church need to be very careful that we do not distort the gospel by linking it to the American way of life.
Tarheel,
I agree and hear what you are saying. Not offended. I must say though, it is the American way of life that has changed the church already. That may be another subject altogether.
Also, “In God we trust” Question….
Which God is that? The god of Thomas Jefferson? That god is certainly NOT the God of Christianity.
Seriously Tarheel… It’s fine if you want to say you don’t see America as a Christian nation, but please spare us the “What God” comments… I suppose your next question might be, “What bible” in reference to the bible a President places his hand on when being sworn in to office… the President may not believe in the God of the bible he is placing his hand on, but we all know which bible it is referring to..
Tarheel,
Here is the history of “In God We Trust”.
http://www.treasury.gov/about/education/Pages/in-god-we-trust.aspx
Well, Nate….since you brought it up….
“I suppose your next question might be, “What bible” in reference to the bible a President places his hand on when being sworn in to office… the President may not believe in the God of the bible he is placing his hand on, but we all know which bible it is referring to.”
You do realize that you’re making my case for me don’t you?
If the Bible is customarily used, and it is, the invocation of “god” is used, and it is, the idea of Chrstianity is touted, and it is, prayer is spoken blasphemously, and it is, all used as merely a social agenda piece in our government structure and not true heartfelt faith on the part of our leaders….then how exactly is that same govt. considered Christian in any real sense?
Are we so lackadaisical with our church membership?
Do we believe that Christians are regenerated believers in Christ – or is “acting the part”, exhibiting certain behaviors, living morally upstanding lives enough?
I’m sorry, but moralism is not Christianity…..in individuals or in countries.
Again, there’s no such thing as a Christian nation….only individual Christians within nations.
Byron,
You are quite simply wrong. Stop doing your homework at the FFRF. Trust me, I know their director personally, and if you possessed the knowledge I do, regarding Tom Barker, you’d look elsewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams
The problem is that it takes moral people to interpret a moral document. We are running a surplus of immoral people. Thus the Great Commission.
It is Christians who have denied gays the right to marry because God’s word clearly says it’s wrong
Sorry, Byron. You had a little typo there. Thought I’d help you out. 🙂
“””” It is Christians who have denied gays the right to marry””””
Byron, I’m sure you just let excitement over the nations continued slide into oblivion get the best of you, but your statement has no basis in fact.
In California, persons of all kinds of faith, and no kind of faith at all voted to pass Prop 8. I know, some of the “non-Christians” that put up signs in support for Prop 8 live just down the street.
I believe in the eyes of God, June 26, AD 2013 is a key date in the history of the United States of America.
David R. Brumbelow
David R. Brumbelow,
I think you are right. It is a date of drastic change not unlike that of January 22, 1973.
However, and Praise God!; A springtime date back in the first century has trumped them both, for Christ has risen from the dead! Amen and Amen!!
I have said this about 1,000 times, and will say it again here. We cannot blame the Government, any politicians, or any groups of any kind for the sin in America. We all have the freedom to sin if we choose. It’s called a Democratic Society. America didn’t want a King to tell us how and who to worship, so we fought and won. This evil cannot be blamed on society.
Where I do place the blame may offend some if not all of you. To locate the blame, all we have to do is look into a mirror. That’s right, the Church.
We argue over petty differences, and go to the extremes trying to prove our points, and sit on our behinds while the lost goes to Hell everyday.
We try to be so Theologically sound that we are missing the bigger picture.
God wants us to convince the lost to be saved. Every Denomination is
doing nothing. I ask you, what else can we expect. Can’t we see, we are just going with the flow. Who cares about tongues or no tongues, Calvinism or Traditionalism. Folks are going to Hell.
We first have to be convinced, and then the Congregations have to be convinced, that our #1 priority is to see the lost saved.
If the majority of the folks were saved in these United States, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, now would we?
Please, I appeal to you all, let’s reach America with the Gospel. So goes the people, so goes the government. We blame everyone but ourselves.
What I’m telling you all is the truth, unless you believe it’s God’s will for same sex marriage to be legal.
Amen Jess!
While Southern Baptists debate chicken or egg theology, the demons of abortion and homosexuality are winning the day, with major victories in Texas and DC today. I believe we have all the heavenly resources we need to turn this nation back to God, but they are not apportioned to us because we don’t pray as we ought. I suppose it hasn’t got bad enough yet for the church to do that.
“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”
This a day to mourn folks, to humble ourselves, to pray, to repent, and to seek God’s face. “IF My People … THEN Will I.” Will we?
Max,
Great thoughts!
“””It’s called a Democratic Society.”””
No, it’s called a Republic.
Jess, strap yourself in tight on that high horse because I see you debating “petty issues” pretty frequently.
“””” Every Denomination is doing nothing.”””
1) Based upon what facts; 2) God didn’t call denominations to do the Kingdom work.
“”””and sit on our behinds while the lost goes to Hell everyday”””””
Maybe you are sitting on your hands, but I personally am doing every thing I know to do to engage my church more and more in Kingdom work.
“””We first have to be convinced, and then the Congregations have to be convinced, that our #1 priority is to see the lost saved.””””
Agree 110%.
Frank L.
Are your toes sore?
Scalia noted in his dissent that while the Court’s ruling did not technically require all states to immediately allow same-sex marriage, it neglected to settle the issue of what happens when a gay couple moves from, e.g, New York to Alabama, and then one “spouse” dies. Does the other have to pay federal estate taxes since their marriage is not valid in their current residence, etc.? What was once clear in DOMA is now very muddy.
And as Mohler also blogged, all it will take now is one gay couple from Alabama to file a court case and the Supreme Court has very neatly set the stage to rule all state laws banning same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. And waiting in the docket will be polygamy, incest, and so forth.
Egad, it’s gotten worse (although points are being awarded for a robust sense of humor).
As we get into this discussion on marriage, it will soon become evident that “because the Bible says so,” will have little impact on the discussion in our nation at large.
However, a great defense for conjugal (traditional) marriage can be made without any reference to religion–Christian or otherwise.
The “same sex” agenda not only seeks to redefine marriage but seeks to redefine other institutions as well, like motherhood and fatherhood. These are meaningless in a “same sex” society.
I’m just beginning a great book, “What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense,” Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, Robert George, Encounter Books.
Girgis has a Ph.D from Princeton and is working on a J.D. at Yale. Every pastor should read and digest this book.
That book is on my “I’ll get around to that one – one day” list, Frank. LOL
One thing that came to mind as I watched all the Rainbow Flags and jubilation among gays, lesbians, transgendered, and those-to-be-named-later, is this: “is this decision indicative of some great utopian revival in America?
Are we as a nation actually getting “better” as we get infinitely “broader?” Is this ruling any indication of progress?
I think not. Just last week on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame just down the highway a bit, a young lady was brutally stabbed to death in broad daylight. The man had been arrested 46 times in the last few years, seven times for assault.
The liberal courts put him back on the street. Is that progress?
China and Russia laugh behind our President’s back in regard to a man wanted for treason. We are a global clown to other nations. Is that progress?
We are so far in debt our grandchildren now owe something like $60,000 in national debt. Is this progress?
A baby is aborted ever three minutes, legally and with full support of the society. Is that progress?
Could it be that what the Bible says is actually truth, “Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people?”
I’m not sure those who are waving Rainbow flags and celebrating in the streets because the California Governor manipulated the system single-handedly should be celebrating. What goes around tend to come back around.
Well, I had written some more, but the NSA or someone cancelled that out before I could post it. So I will quit for now.
We gave the state power to define marriage by using it to our advantage. Now they want a piece of the pie.biblical marriage does not include a state certificate, insurance coverage and better tax rate. As long as w trust in the state certificate they have power over biblical marriage.
Dee,
Fortunately, our forefathers included free speech. It is our right and duty to speak out against their wrong doings.
I think your right about this.
We (the church) in essence and practicality have turned authority over to the govt. that belongs to the church.
Russell Moore nailed this yesterday.
http://www.russellmoore.com/2013/06/26/how-should-same-sex-marriage-change-the-churchs-witness/
“… 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.”
Moore’s commentary was long on the “for too long…” but short on ways to confront what is going on. Did he mean specifically in the church? Did he mean to continue to press politicians? He gave no specifics for how or what Christians should do, simply “sermonizing” over the issue of marriage.
Is he advocating tearing up our marriage licenses? He spoke in large metaphors and gave no specifics….
Yep, he is already fitting in to his new role as a politician…
Seems pretty clear. If the couple falls short of biblical expectations for marriage and a life dedicated to God, don’t do the wedding.
So, you think that is the ultimate point of his commentary?
The ultimate point? No. I was just addressing that one issue quoted by Tarheel. Moore hits several points, including the call for stable, biblical marriages which serve as lights in the darkness. He is not writing a marriage book – he can’t say everything – but his language is not vague or unspecific.
I would think we are all in favor of marriages that serve as lights, but Moore’s commentary (as the new head of the ERLC) did not give us any indication of how his office would be interacting with politicians or giving believers/churches any thoughts on how to continue to engage the political discourse? Isn’t that his job?
Furthermore, is Moore saying the SBC churches aren’t currently measuring up to holding their membership accountable for the marriages among their members? Is he calling out pastors of the SBC and telling us we better get our houses in order? (As if we aren’t doing that). If he is, then he should be specific. And if he is, should we now, in light of this ruling, disconnect ourselves from state-marriages altogether and simply have marriages in the church. That is a radical statement. That might say something to our neighbors, but the ramifications are large.
If he is calling on Christendom in general, I think he is pontificating. We already have seen denomination after denomination cave to the LGBT movement and this ruling is not a wake-up call for them, but a means of celebration.
So, as I said earlier, what is he specifically encouraging SBC churches, their pastors, and their members to do? Can we still fight in the political arena or should we huddle up and cloister ourselves off. Again, his commentary is long on metaphors and short on prescriptions. What is he going to do specifically in his new lobbying position.
I must admit his words fell a bit short for me
Bruce H.
I agree, My speaking out, now includes only marrying folks that are members of my church.
Just a question Jess. So if a young girl who is a member of your church goes off to college, meets a believer and wants to marry him, but he is a member of another church and the girl and the parents want the wedding at your church, and she wants you (her pastor to do the wedding), you are going to tell them–forget about it… If so, are you going to press that the church itself not allow the wedding at the facility because the groom is not a member of your congregation?
I don’t think you really were going that far, but if you were, you are going to be headed for some serious confrontations my friend.
Nate,
He can become a member of my church or she can become a member of his church. I will not do weddings for members of other churches.
That is understood in the beginning.
But if she becomes a member of his church, then she subsequently violates your statute. So would you then tell her family that she can’t get married in your church and you won’t officiate?
If so, would you voice an objection for her getting married in the church you pastor? Just trying to understand. I appreciate your concern in this matter, but was trying to understand possible instances where you could feel comfortable.
I think you would almost have to have similar hesitations about any marriage you perform since you can’t guarantee you will always be their pastor, since you could leave or they could leave. Subsequently you have now married folks that aren’t members of your church.
Just curious, but do you hold to closed-communion as well?
BTW: I appreciate you thinking through this and forming a decision you believe is appropriate.
“”””Just curious, but do you hold to closed-communion as well – “””
You have to ask?
I most certainly hold to closed communion, there is no other legitimate communion.
If she becomes a member of his church, then it is out of my hands,
If they want to get married in my church, then her new pastor can officiate. I can’t see any reason why she wouldn’t want to get married in her new church. Her parents shouldn’t be telling her where to get married anyway. If this is the case, it seems to me the marriage is off to a rocky start.
I will not even perform a pet marriage ceremony unless they belong to members of my church, and well behaved.
A male dog must not bark at another female dog. Also there is an
extra 300.00 fee, because it’s so hard to get a dog to recite a vow.
Dave,
Would you delete my last two comments?
I want to step up to the plate and take some swings. CB is going to be throwing batting practice for me.
1). Do you think the SCOTUS decision on DOMA was conducive to the good health of the United States?
No and yes. No in the sense that it is, yet another, raw political decision by the Supreme Court and it completely ignores the law (not to mention “the Law”).
Yes in the sense that none of us should have been able to listen to the story of Matthew Shepard without feeling violently ill even if the thought of homosexuality itself also makes you violently ill (as it generally does me.)
Also yes in the sense that–as I wrote earlier–the decision strips away the veneer–the shiny gloss–that we’ve used to convince ourselves that we can use a legalistic approach to curing spiritual problems. The law of the land is a blunt instrument and is not designed to nor is it capable of accomplishing heart change.
Worst yet, and this was why the formula in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was sent back to Congress for an update, those who seek to accomplish heart change through legislation sometimes find their hearts hardened against those they were trying to change.
2). Do you think it was a right and godly decision?
I think the decision was anticipated by all parties. The problem of democracy is that the will of the people eventually is responded to though not always in the ways we expect. In repeated polls support has continually increased for extending the legal benefits of marriage–as well as the social nomenclature–to same-sex couples. No one can claim they are surprised by the outcome: it’s been telegraphed for over 20 years by the public at large.
Playing the jester a little: absolutely a godly decision if you maintain the lower case ‘g’. We’re making ourselves to be God with this decision.
But to a certain extent we were all there in the nine seats in the Supreme Court as the ruling was announced because this is a republic and they are–through the Constitution and the workings of our government–our legal representatives. I think a helpful question to ask is “if the shoe were on the other foot–and this was a decision about something important to us–would we be upset that the SCOTUS made a ruling in our favor in this way?” We have an obligation to our fellow citizens to adhere to the Constitution. The argument that the state has no interest in preventing same-sex marriage purely from a Constitution/Bill of Rights point of view is not a weak argument and it is levered on the same freedom that we Christians depend on in order to maintain freedom of religion.
3). Do you think it was a decision that New Testament Christians should graciously support?
I believe that we need to be circumspect in advocating rejection of the law of the land including Supreme Court rulings. But a call for circumspection is not a call to capitulation. If we want to have a positive ministry in this situation, we could–for instance–acknowledge that the political causes of this decision lead to horror stories like that of Matthew Shepard. We could even acknowledge that we recognize the similarity between that behavior–by a couple of miscreants at a bar in Wyoming–and some of the worst offenses of groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
We could further acknowledge that the government treating all citizens the same and restricting none from “the pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happyness” remains an expected freedom that we each expect to enjoy and we understand why our past actions could be viewed as seeking to restrict freedom for others.
And then we could preach the sermon that we also agree that we need–in our circumspection–to prioritize logs in our eyes over specks in others. And further to recognize that God’s blessing on our land always is–due to the problem of sin–a matter of unexpected, unanticipated, overflowing grace from God of both the common and believer-specific varieties.
From the abundance of God’s grace is how we respond to sin. “Or do you despise the riches of His kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”. Perhaps this is merely God practicing kindness, restraint, and patience with the hope of leading more to repentance. Perhaps that is how we graciously respond: to pray fervently that God’s will is accomplished first in us.
Because we know God will judge the wicked and we know their punishment is eternal. It isn’t a punishment designed for people but instead for Satan and the fallen angels according to Scripture. God’s design is that people would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and be united with the Trinity through that saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Our goal isn’t to condemn others. It is to participate in that kindness that leads to repentance.
But we believe–BECAUSE the Bible says it–that without the Law we have no knowledge of our condition. So to reject the Law and it’s clear description of sin is to reject the most central kindness of all that God extends to us. This decision rejects God’s Law and its clear message that demonstrates every person’s need for salvation and for Jesus Christ as both Savior, and Lord, and Bridegroom.
Even so, I say, Maranatha: Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
“””” The argument that the state has no interest in preventing same-sex marriage purely from a Constitution/Bill of Rights point of view is not a weak argument and it is levered on the same freedom that we Christians depend on in order to maintain freedom of religion.””””
This sounds good on the surface. It may have a fatal flaw of presumption. It presumes that Christians will be afforded the same standing in court that homosexuals have been given.
That is a big presumption and evidence does not give a strong reason to accept it as true.
In regard to Matthew Shepherd, there can be no argument. However, I’m aware of many crimes against others that were equally evil but because the perps were not heterosexual, the media did not cover it except on back pages.
As I read the pontifications of Stetzer and Moore, I got the sense that we are throwing in the towel as Southern Baptists. I know they did not use these terms, but there op-eds along we others I’ve read make me wonder if we will simply crawl into a corner and be thankful for any crust of bread society throws our way.
“their” not “there”
Greg Harvey,
1). The SCOTUS decision on DOMA was not conducive to the good health of the United States.
2). The SCOTUS decision on DOMA was not a right and godly decision.
3). New Testament Christians should not graciously support the SCOTUS decision on DOMA.
Two additional statements relating to your comment.
A). What happened to Matthew Shepherd was wrong. I would hope that any person who frequents this blog would agree that it was. In addition, I would hope that any person who frequents this blog, had they been there, would have done whatever necessary to stop it.
B). No matter what the SCOTUS does or does not do, we who are New Testament Christians should take seriously our mandate from Christ to fulfill the Great Commission and be obedient to stay the course until He returns and let God handle the consequences of our obedience. And the devil can take the hindmost parts with the rest of it.
You fellows arguing for the USA as a Christian Nation have several things in your favor. One, you have two decisions by the Supreme Court, one in the 1890s and the other in the 1790s, both of which affirmed that America was a Christian Nation. Two, two professors from Houston did a research project on the founding documents of the USA and of the colonies, etc. and they concluded that the number one source of our documents is the Bible in double digits, like about 34% and the next major sources were John Locke, 8-9% and the French political philosopher, Montesquieu. Three, you have the witness of the first major American History, George Bancroft (he had a Ph.D., if memory serves correctly and taught the subject for many years) who wrote the standard text used in the schools of the new nation from circa 1800-1850, and in it he used the term, Calvinistic Republic to describe the new nation. Four, you have the writings of Jefferson, Washington, Adams, et. al., all of whom admit that the Bible is the source of our ethic, the Christian Ethic, which Jefferson thought so much of that his revision of the Bible, while excluding the doctrines, did preserve the ethics of Jesus. Comes the 20th century and the switch to a stress on the Deism of the Founding Fathers, some were but most were not, all of the switch designed to serve the secularists who want to get America away from her Christian roots and making her into something else, an ugly caricature (to my way of thinking) of what she once was. Before the change came to America’s government, even Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman made appeals to America’s Christians with the idea of this being a Christian nation. I have a service man’s New Testament from WWII in my collection somewhere (now hid in one of nearly a 1000 boxes) in which Roosevelt had many things to say, to encourage the soldiers to believe in Christ, to pray, and etc. These things I say, having taught American History for two years in college, as having an M.A. in American Social & Intellectual History, plus 18 hrs. toward a Ph.D., 6 hrs at the Univ. of South Carolina and 12 at Columbia Univ., having been elected to membership in Phi Alpha Theta – the International Honor Society of Historians, and having been a member of the Organization of American Historians. The folks in charge of education have done the will of certain selected individuals to brainwash Americans out of control of their schools, all under the rubric of State neutrality, bent on removing the last vestiges of resistance to their socialistic and tyrannical aims, which include as the Guidestones in Georgia state the reduction of the world’s population from almost 7 billion to less than 2 billion. Getting rid of the “USELESS EATERS” as H.G. Wells indicated in his book, The Open Conspiracy, is the aim. O and by the way, the jobs for our children are gone. They are not needed anymore, because most menial jobs and labor intensive jobs can be handled by automation, robotics, and computerization, something I wrote about some 22 years ago.
Can we change the cliche again? The Houston meeting has come and gone, and though we resolved against this, it happened anyway.
“””then how exactly is that same govt. considered Christian in any real sense? – “””
In the same way Israel is God’s chosen people though they ignore Him.
Our laws are Christian based. Our jurisprudence is soundly Christian. Our national memory is Christian.
Of course as you point out it is changing rapidly. This will create a vacuum that will be filled by another religion.
But the citizens of the geopolitical nation of Isreal are not Gods chosen people, are they?
Has God made Israel like covenants with America?
Is America noted in the prophecies yet to come?
It’s very presumptious to assert that God is on America’s side.
Frank said.;
“Our laws are Christian based. Our jurisprudence is soundly Christian. Our national memory is Christian.”
So are the laws and jurisprudence of several other nations….are the “Christian nations” too?
Not sure what national memory even means…you’re obviously smarter than me. (he said sincerely)
Tarheel,
I don’t know of any other nation with Founding Fathers (over 200) that by a wide majority saw the establishment of our nation as an act of Providence. This word is always capitalized in Founding Documents because it refers tto the God of the Bible.
Other nations, may have some connection to Christian values, but I don’t I can’t think of any that were specifically chartered to be a place to express their Christianity without oppression.
Yet, it is true that nations, such as England share Christian values. But, their jurisprudence developed quite differently than our Constitutional Republic. There are, I’ll agree similarities.
National memory means that the default world-view of our nation is Christian–though fading fast. As late as 1972 something like 62% were avowed Protestants. Our collective stories, interactions and therefore our national memory is (soon to be was) Christian. In fact, since the 50’s it has been emblazoned on our currency.
One concrete example would be the number of Scripture verses (not just allusions) that dot the walls of national buildings in D.C. Another example is the fact that the “Ten Commandments” hung for years without any question in nearly every court house in America.
Though Islam is the fastest growing religion in America, most Americans do not share their world-view or an Islamic memory . . . yet.
A Christian perspective, based upon a Christian history, worked itself into the very DNA of our nation. What we are seeing happen is the changing of the American DNA. If it changes enough, we will no longer have a default of Christianity. It will take many years for the laws of our nation to be completed scrubbed clean of this reference and world-view.
But, it is happening now. I use the description “christian nation” not in regard to how we operate, but from where we originated.
“Smart” is a relative term–I do have some smart relatives.
Frank said “…Constitutional Republic…”
So that’s what makes us Christian?
I think several countries around the world use that moniker.
Being “Christian” has nothing to do with political Philosiphy.
Tarheel,
I made that statement to indicate that when we push democracy we end up with morality by vote, not by principle.
See below for my perspective on why it is helpful to understand the “Christian” foundations for our nation.
So, Frank, setting aside whatever narrative one prefers concerning our founding, what would you do today?
Duly elected presidents nominated Supreme Court justices who were confirmed by duly elected Senators. Our constitution has all those provisions about a balance of power whereby the SCOTUS can rule on laws passed by legislators but wayward justices can be impeached, as can presidents if the citizenry is sufficiently disgusted at their actions. Congress can also set limits on the SC or expand the number of justices.
God can do anything He wants about the SCOTUS. At the moment, apparently, He is allowing things to unfold, perhaps to see how believers respond. Perhaps the best response is for believers to understand that our citizenship is in heaven and acting accordingly.
I’ve been in some Islamic Republics and much prefer freedom of religion, even if no preference or privilege is given to Christians.
I think that the Iranian revolution as well as the Taliban both in Afghanistan and Pakistan are fantastic models of how we should not frame the Christian life. More generally: I’m not sure that the general Muslim propensity towards a private, religious view of “law” (which actually is more like “commandments” in both Hebrew and NT scripture while it’s more like the Arabic word “fatwa” which is a “legal pronouncement for a specific situation” according to Wikipedia in Muslim life. Very specifically, “shari’ah” as a specific, religiously founded moral code and religious “law” seems to me to be successful in producing a particular cultural result that is exceedingly legalistic without being sufficiently “moral”.
One common example of this is a tendency in some countries to pretend the rules of Islam don’t apply while one is visiting those countries and then to pretend in one’s home countries that they apply very strictly. While my point isn’t so much to frame Muslims as generally hypocritical–they might be but that isn’t my point–as to demonstrate that moral codes generally fail to produce any other behavior other than faked adherence especially when someone isn’t looking. Which is why there are moral police in both the Kingdom of Saud and in Iran.
My answers to CB’s questions reflect my reluctance to send us down the path of becoming moral police in these United States. WE have a higher calling. And our higher calling isn’t specifically to CONDONE sin–we shouldn’t–nor is it to POLICE sin. It is instead to minister the Gospel to those that ARE SINNERS so that they might instead pray to God for salvation and for the Lordship of Jesus Christ to be extended to them in its entirety.
I believe God takes significant responsibility at that point for sanctification though we as believers still have an important responsibility to also not choose to sin. In fact the Bible clearly says that in Christ Jesus we have FREEDOM to not sin.
That strongly suggests–in fact the Bible generally revolves around this theme–that sin leads to a condition of slavery to sin i.e. a lack of freedom to NOT sin. So the only thing a moral code can do is make a sinner pretend to not sin while they still sin. And pretense is the enemy of truth and specifically of THE TRUTH.
It’s why I’m going to rely strongly on my Baptist heritage to emphasize the benefit of freedom of religion and separation of church and state in responding to the current situation. It isn’t that my presumptions are fatal or not. They might be. But my God is the only source of life and therefore the only source of true spiritual health for the individual. Any other source of spiritual health is counterfeit. And for us to fall into the trap of thinking we’re doing the nation a favor by convincing them to counterfeit their own spiritual health seems both short-sighted and perhaps an abandonment of our mission.
But I want to be clear: that does not mean capitulate on the commandments we have been taught. It means instead to focus on the person’s professed confession of Jesus Christ as Savior with the expectation that only through that confession will the person experience meaningful sanctification. And only from that meaningful sanctification will true, meaningful, “morality” result and be an enduring (and eternal) characteristic of the person.
The opposite is to police morals like the Taliban and the Wahhabis. I just don’t see any indication in Scripture that we have that responsibility for the public at large.
Greg Harvey,
I do not think that my convictions would constitute the mentality of the Taliban. My convictions about the issue of DOMA and the ill-fated decision of the SCOTUS related to it are founded on the teachings of the Scripture and the fact that the United States was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic.
Also, I have no concern about the argument that the United States is or is not a Christian nation. It is obvious that the US is not a Christian nation. Nor, has it ever been. Yet, it is very obvious that the Founding Fathers did adhere greatly to a Judeo-Christian ethic and moral structure when constructing the documents by which this nation was and has been to this point governed.
I realize that many people have been greatly influenced by a re-constructionist/deconstructionist theory and teaching of American history. (That is evident by a simple reading of Baptist blogs.) However, it is a fact that this nation was founded on a Jeudeo-Christian ethic and moral structure. That is a reality and it is a far cry from declaring this nation to be a Christian nation, which it is not.
Therefore, my questions presented above are all rhetorical in nature, for the answer to all three is evident. The answer to all three is a sound, historically based (due to the structure of the nation in its founding), and plain common sense, No.
I will post the questions again with additional substance and the answers to all three will still be: No.
1). Do you think the 1973 SCOTUS decision of Roe V. Wade and the current SCOTUS decision on DOMA were conducive to the good health of the United States?
2). Do you think the 1973 SCOTUS decision on R. v W. and the current SCOTUS decision on DOMA are decisions that New Testament Christians should graciously support?
3). Do you think the 1973 SCOTUS decision on R. v W. and the current SCOTUS decision on DOMA are right and godly decisions?
Greg Harvey, surely you would agree that the answer is a declarative and solid, No.
BTW, I always enjoy your comments. They generate thought and it is obvious that you have seen a thing or two in your time.
Also, please know that I believe many of us Christians are extremely hypocritical in the way so many of us give heterosexual sin a pass and then turn around condemn all homosexual sin as the unpardonable abomination of all human transgressions.
Finally, I despise the kind of treatment that Matthew Shepherd received at the hands of vile men. It is my opinion that people who perpetrate such evil upon others are seeking to go to jail or hell in a hurry and I have no qualms against helping them to either or both.
And ultimately, no matter what happens to this nation, God’s children must be obedient to Him and fulfill the Great Commission and be aggressive therein and be content to know God is in charge of the consequences of our obedience. The same was true in Nero’s Rome and it is true in our Untied States.
CB:
My apologies for not getting a response up yesterday. I wanted to and started one but my duties prevented concluding the comment. I also started it in a different venue and currently don’t have access to the thoughts I had strung together.
So rather than going into further detail in an effort to convince you where my heart lies–I thought my earlier answers demonstrated that this style of litmus test question didn’t permit the kind of nuanced discussion that we need to have at this point, but clearly that didn’t satisfy you–I’ll let my actions speak:
I live in Iowa. I’ve voted to unseat each justice of the 9-0 unanimous verdict that has come up for extension (the governor appoints and then the people vote to continue as terms complete.) I’ve ALREADY taken more action than most of you will get the opportunity to EVER take on this subject.
I will fully attest that I have done everything in my power, legally, to command the tides. So as a reminder of the futility of that effort:
“Henry of Huntingdon, the 12th-century chronicler, tells how Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet “continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. Then the king leapt backwards, saying: ‘Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.’ He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again “to the honour of God the almighty King”.”–Cnut the Great Wiki page, Ruler of Waves section
I hereby hang my crown on the cross with respect to same-sex marriage.
Greg Harvey,
I think here we shall agree:
“And ultimately, no matter what happens to this nation, God’s children must be obedient to Him and fulfill the Great Commission and be aggressive therein and be content to know God is in charge of the consequences of our obedience. The same was true in Nero’s Rome and it is true in our Untied States.”
CB,
Amen.
David
William,
You seem to imply that I am advocating for “going back to somewhere in our storied past.” Perhaps I would if that were possible–it is not. I’ve not made that argument.
I simply think it is helpful for us to understand where we have come from to better understand where we are. I think those who ascribe to a false past will likely not have a faithful present and fruitful future. I’m not advocating seeking to make our nation a Christian theocracy.
You use the term, “God can do anything?” but you begin by asking me, “what would I do?” Do you not see a bit of an inconsistency that could arise from in these two statements? Yes, God could do anything, but that really is never the issue in ministry. The issue is always, “What must I do.”
We live in an increasingly pagan land. I know this by measuring our present situation against Scripture. It is further confirmed by measuring our present situation against our past. I see it as helpful to understand from “what great heights we have fallen.”
I think it is naive to believe that Congress will reign in the Court. That’s the whole issue in California. Congress, the people, enacted laws that the Supreme Court made an orphan.
Here again, this would make more sense if one would look at our history. This is a fundamental shift in our jurisprudence. The Supreme Court was never “supreme.” It was always the intent for the Legislative Branch to be the “supreme” part of our government.
Knowing this, I know that we cannot “legislate” a revival in our country. I believe the handwriting is on the wall. I know from what great heights we have fallen and I know that the Bible and history confirm that we are in the death throes of a nation.
Now, that is not going to get me elected to any position in government, nor is it going to garner me any favor with the Convention. We like our preachers and politicians to look more like Joel than Jeremiah.
No, my concentration is not on reforming my culture, but in reaching my neighbor before it is too late.
That, from a card-carrying Moral Majorian and Conservative Resurgency soldier.
Dave is right–this is Rome, not Israel.
Revelation 2:5 is the Scripture I was alluding to above.
Christiane,
Do you believe that homosexuality is a sin against God, or not?
David
A proper question, Vol.
L’s, here is another or two.
1). Do you think the SCOTUS decision on DOMA was conducive to the good health of the United States?
2). Do you think it was a decision that New Testament Christians should graciously support?
Hey, since we are staying with the topic of the post, let’s just go ahead and make it three questions.
3). Do you think it was a right and godly decision?
The Supreme Court Rulings: “Houston, We Have a Problem” (Cliche Changed for William Thornton!)
If I recall correctly, not too long ago, a SBC church ordained a woman to the pastorate. As a consequence, this SBC church was, for lack of knowing the proper term, “disfellowshipped” by the state or national SBC bodies.
Now suppose a SBC church conducts homosexual weddings in its church due to state and/or federal law.
What happens?
TUAD: At least for right now, churches cannot be compelled by law to conduct such weddings.
“TUAD: At least for right now, churches cannot be compelled by law to conduct such weddings.”
They might in the future, but hopefully not. There is a certain amount of discussion right now about protecting religious liberty (through legal and political means) in view of this week’s SCOTUS rulings.
501(c)3 tax-exemption or fidelity to Christ and His Word?
The Catholic Church abandoned adoption services in Massachusetts when state law said they had to provide adoption services to homosexual couples.
“Come and die” was a phrase, concept, principle, aphorism used by SBC Pastor Kyle Idleman in his book “Not a Fan”. I think the boldness, bravery, courage, and fidelity of some high-profile, leading SBC pastors and churches to be socio-culturally crucified via being stigmatized, marginalized, mocked, laughed at, ridiculed, unfairly lumped in and associated with the KKK and Westboro Baptist (and Tim Tebow), and unfairly accused of playing the victim card, will be helpful for the mass of sheep across America in what it means to “Stand Firm in the Faith.”
Is this a hill that SBC churches and pastors want to die on?
Surely they will be kicked out so as to be consistent with the kicking out of a church for ordaining a woman.
What would be the difference?
Surely they will be kicked out so as to be consistent with the kicking out of a church for ordaining a woman. –
The doggone well better be, since by performing that wedding they have proven themselves to not be a Christian church, much less Baptist.
Christiane: You have a problem. Fundamentalism is the embattled remnants of old orthodoxy, biblical orthodoxy, which was the Christian Faith which helped to bring this nation into being. Indeed, it forced the founding fathers to admit that the Providence of God, the God of the Bible, no less, was certainly involved in the great Charade. Those awakenings made it safe for people to travel through out the settlements. Just consider how one Methodist preacher went into a Robbers’ Roost on the Ohio River, won them all to Christ, and ended their reign of terror, murder, thievery, etc. Where ever the awakenings occurred, civilization came. My Bible teacher in College told of a revival in his home county in Arkansas back in the 1800s. Back then the revival effected to the whole county so that there was not a single case to come before the county grad jury for 10 years. During that time, the folks in the county seat were playing baseball with another county seat. The folks from that town had not experienced revival. One of their players spiked a boy from the home county, severely injuring him. These were frontier folks, ready to fight at the drop of a hat, so to speak, and the knives came out (Arkansas toothpicks or bowies, I imagine. A little saw-off runt of a preacher (Dr. Munsey’s description) walked out on to the field and pointed at the people who had pulled their knives, and said, “We are not going to disgrace this town. Put up those knives.” And they put them up out of respect and reverence. Even as late as the 40s, my ordaining pastor noted the respect people had for the ministers. He was with the pastor of the North Charleston church during a summer interim. On Sunday Afternoon, driving by a park, the pastor and his interim saw a group of kids playing baseball. The pastor pulled up, got out, went out on the field, held out his hand for the ball, and said, “We are not going to disgrace the Lord’s day by playing games.” The teenager, I suppose he was, handed the Pastor the ball, and the young people quietly left the park and went home. Not a one fussed or cussed or acted out of order. The even made a tremendous impression on the man who was to become my pastor, Dr. Ernest R. Campbell. Others had like experiences throughout the South, especially. Things like praying for rain for the crops or, in one case, praying for something to replace the ruined crops from the boll weevils which happened in the case of a town in Alabama where they erected a monument to the weevil which led to the planting of peanuts which saved the area. All in answer to prayer. And Then there was the friend of mine, a Traditionalist, in this case, who helped lead the fight against the gang in sin city, Phoenix, Alabama, Dr. L.G. Meadows, whose deacons had to carry guns to guard him. He baptized one of the gang’s henchmen who said they would find him out by the river bank dead of a gun wound and that was the way it happened. Dr. Meadows also baptized the gang leader’s wife and daughter.
While Fundamentalism like anything can be run into excess, it has this in its favor: It is trying to stick to biblical orthodoxy. Read J.I. Packer’s book, Fundamentalism and the Word of God, and remember he is a D. Phil from Oxford. I could say more and even concede that Fundamentalism can go to the extremes of judgmentalism, etec., and yet it is like the Pharisees who believed in the Resurrection. Jesus said to follow their instructions, etc., but to avoid the hypocrisy.
Above, William asked, “what would I do today?” I think that is a very good question and one I am wrestling with in my ministry, and my personal life.
For one, I am gathering my resources to prepare for a time when there will be less in God’s storehouse. I am helping my children get out of debt so that they will be prepared for a coming famine in the land so to speak. That is a large part of my ministry.
I am also “making hay while the sun shines.” Our church is experiencing a bit of a revival and I am trying to harvest as much as I can as fast as I can.
That leads to a very troubling (for me as a life-long Baptist) conundrum. How do I relate the the Convention? How do I relate to the “politics of the denomination”–that is, all the debates: Calvinism, tongues, communion, drinking, etc. etc.? Well, I’m backing off. I’m not filling any buses for any votes at any Convention, no matter how important the issue.
Been there, done that. Have a hole in that T-shirt.
Second, in regard to the denomination, is: what do I do about allocating resources? This is most troubling for my soul. I am pulled between putting more into my primary mission which means I put less into my denominational mission.
That means, less into the Association (mine hardly does anything). It means less into my State–same thing. It means continuing our mission through our generous contributions (offerings) twice a year to Annie and Lottie, and putting the Lion’s share into our upcoming vision, “Taking It To The Streets” (Lk. 14:23).
This is not as easy for me as a life-long Baptist as it may look on paper. It is putting me on my knees–perhaps where I should have been all along.
Frank, you and I think alike on many denominational funding questions and I think that the long term decline of the CP is partly explained by folks like you who just don’t see as much value in asso. Missions and the CP as they do in LM, AA, and local missions?
William,
I don’t think we can take a smaller pie and cut into more pieces and think we are doing more ministry.
The CP has become a bloated bureaucracy.
We have many associations for example that pay 95% of receipts to pay someone to open the office each day. My Associational Missionary is a great person that loves the Lord. He is just in a dead end position. He needs to be in a church.
The CP has eclipsed the church.
I don’t understand why gays want to get married when most of the rest of the people in the country are not bothering. Have you looked at the fraction of children who are born to unmarried mothers? We have problems that are worse than gay marriage as far as messing up children and the culture.
And besides, we have all these conspiracies that we have to beware of.
Presidential Tweet Morality
Tweet from Barack Obama
“Retweet if you believe everyone should be able to marry the person they love.”
06/29/2013 – James White
I guess we live in a day when ethics and morality are discussed in 140 character snippets. Fitting, for the level of dialogue.
I should not be shocked that those who think that man is nothing more than the random chance accident of cosmic forces, the result of atoms bouncing off one another in a cosmic soup of chaos, do not exhibit a deep interest in transcendent meaning or life-guiding morality. If you are not created, you are your own creator; if you are your own creator, you get to decide what is right, what is wrong, what has meaning, what does not. Who cares about those who came before you? They were not as technologically advanced as you anyway, right? Can anyone who lived their lives without even touching an iPad really have any insight into life?
It is interesting to contrast the above words from the current President of the United States with a little snippet found in the front cover of New Testaments that (gasp!) the US Gov’t used to issue to soldiers in World War II. I first heard these words when my fellow elder read from the New Testament he received when his father, a WWII vet, died. Then I saw them again, briefly, in the hands of EB Sledge in the mini-series The Pacific. So I looked them up on line. Here’s what was printed in each New Testament:
The White House
Washington
January 25, 1941
To the Armed Forces:
As Commander-in-Chief I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States. Throughout the centuries men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the Sacred Book words of wisdom, counsel and inspiration. It is a fountain of strength and now, as always, an aid in attaining the highest inspirations of the human soul.
Very sincerely yours,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Of course, we learned from Anthony Kennedy this past week that FDR—and all American Presidents before BO—were animated by animus, prejudice, and bigotry, like all Americans were until about ten years ago, so I guess we can pretty well dismiss anything any of them said, but it is still an interesting contrast.
In any case, when I saw the President’s tweet I had to laugh. It is so laughably absurd, so morally childish, so enthusiastically shallow. And yet so “now,” so reflective of the current culture of the United States, and in particular, of the generation of our youth.
You know, I was once madly in love with Wendy. I can still see her face. But we lived in bigoted times. Discrimination was everywhere. You were simply not allowed to marry the one you loved. Besides, we were in fourth grade.
I am sorta glad no one really believes what the President tweeted. We don’t think kids should get married. But then again—why not? I mean, if a 6 year old can decide he is a girl, not a boy (his parents said he decided that when he was 18 months old—yeah, right–was that during a diaper change?), as the “law” decided up in Colorado last week (anything coming out of the Colorado legal system is now tainted by a strange odor that makes its judgment just a tad bit suspect), why couldn’t I marry Wendy? If 6 year old is mature enough to decide that his biological gender isn’t his “real” gender, then surely that same 6 year old can decide to marry, right? So I should have been able to marry Wendy, since I was like almost 10! Of course, if that boy in Colorado wanted to marry another boy, maybe there would be a movement to allow it? I mean, marriage equality, right? No H8, right?
In a few years marriage will be a relic, an item for the history books. Well, forgive me, I am an older fellow now, and I keep using language in the old ways, the Before Obama ways. Bitte vergib mir! I have not been able to adopt New Speak yet. Marriage used to have a specific meaning to it. The West has been chipping away at that meaning for a very long time, to be sure. But being the bigoted, animus-animated Christian that I am, I insist upon letting a transcendent authority define it for me—that being the sole human being who died and rose again, having prophesied those events, Jesus of Nazareth. He taught that marriage is a God-ordained institution, a covenant involving a man, who is the husband, and a woman, who is the wife. As people used to understand, terms have meanings in contexts, in word groups. Marriage, husband, wife, to marry, etc., all, together, communicated a single meaning. To be a husband had a meaning. To be a wife had a meaning. And that’s what I mean when I say marriage—the real meaning of the word, the only meaning that has lasting value, the only meaning that counts—will be a relic in our society in a few years. Because an association of people—whether that is a woman and a woman, a man and a man, a man and two women, two women and one man, a man and a boy, a woman and a girl, a man and a dog, a woman and a horse, two men and a chimpanzee—whatever combinations the twisted heart of humanity can envision—is not, cannot be, will never be, a marriage. All the benighted judges in the world cannot force those groupings into the meaning of the word marriage, but, since they are obviously bound and determined to do so, what passes for “marriage” in our culture will be a sham, a worthless, shallow substitute. Real marriage will be a relic.
But, of course, relics can have great value. And amongst those who refuse to cower before the faux morality of the rabble who scream “shame!” and “bigot!” at the followers of light, marriage will always exist, because when one has been freed from slavery to darkness, the light shines upon God’s highest callings on our lives. True Christian men will desire to be husbands, men, created by God to be MEN. True Christian women will desire to be wives, women, created by God to be WOMEN. They will not give heed to the perversity of the world, but will find far greater value in God’s approbation of their lives than in the mocking derision of the secularists. They will marry, they will honor marriage, they will find God’s blessings in the midst of the rubble created by the self-destructive course of Western culture under God’s judgment.
I realize I have not been fair here. I used more than 140 characters. As Doug Wilson said to a particularly annoying homosexual zealot recently, who could not bear the burden of trying to think through multiple sentences in a row, “I often have thoughts that require more than one sentence to express.” But the reality is the worldview expressed by Barack Obama is best limited to 140 characters. Beyond that, it is truly out of its depth anyway. It progresses through promulgating its own shallowness in the minds of its adherents. And in responding I have not only demanded a few moments of concentration (look! shiny object! ad in right column! MUST CLICK LINK), but I have refused to bow down to the almighty authority of “the most recent polls.” I know what the polls say. I expect the polls to reflect the opinions of a secular culture that hates what is good and loves its own sin and rebellion. I expect pagans to think and act like pagans. I just refuse to adopt the idea that they get to determine the grounds of dialogue. I refuse to drop down to that level. I know what marriage is. So do they, since they are made in the image of God. In their foolishness they have allowed themselves to be deceived, to be robbed of the life-giving, humanity-enriching institution of natural, ordained, covenant marriage. Most don’t seem to miss it. Yet.
Oops! Forgot the link: http://aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=5475