A Response to the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage
Seven or eight years ago now, I was teaching Confirmation to the eighth graders in our Lutheran, parochial school at my last congregation. I asked the kids to raise their hands if they though homosexuality was ok. An overwhelming number raised their hands in affirmation. So I told them that the Bible said that homosexuality was wrong. One of the youth then said, “Well, we need to rewrite the Bible then.” This was from an eighth grader who had grown up in that Lutheran church and had gone to our school all their life.
I’ll never forget that day or that discussion. It might have been the first time I really saw that, when faced with the realities of family, friends, TV, public opinion, and personal emotions, Christians would willingly choose to say they thought the Bible was wrong. Normally people would shamefully say they chose to go against God’s Word, but this was different. The Bible was clearly aberrant, and not our desires.
To affirm the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s position: we believe God’s design for humanity in marriage is the union of male and female. Anything else is strictly against God’s wishes and command. That being said, I have long said that you cannot legislate morality. The state can compel someone to go against their belief structure if they make the consequences burdensome enough and if the individual feels that regulation or law is unjust. Changing hearts and minds is not the majority interest of the state. That belongs to the moral institutions of our societies. The majority interest of the state is to keep and protect order. If we want people to believe and trust that God’s Word is better than man’s opinion, then we must show and act as if it is better to us first.
I cannot say I’m overly surprised with the decision by the Supreme Court. When it comes to equality as protected under the Constitution and Bill of Rights, I confess that I am no expert. I’ve read through the majority ruling and the lead dissenting opinion and have many questions as to how the language used will be interpreted for us as Christians, our religious institutions, lay people called to violate their conscience, and pastors who may be called to violate religious belief.
Only time will tell on all of these things.
The question for us as Christians turns toward our reaction. Simply, the church must continue to act better tomorrow than it has today. That is not to say that we have been behaving badly, but we must always continue to love one another as Christ loved the church. Ours is an eternal love that is defined by God and not by man. We are still called to love those who need the love of God in Jesus Christ. And that is each and every one of us. As I said in a sermon a few years ago, many have held homosexuality as a sin greater than other sins, but in the sight of God, all transgression of the Law is worthy of eternal condemnation. Man makes distinctions and classifications according to necessity or bias, but God judges all by the blood of the Savior. It either covers or condemns. We cannot find ourselves guilty of condemning one sin while excusing another. Conversely, we cannot excuse this sin because of our emotional ties in this world, while judging another for what we believe they deserve condemnation for. So let us continue the mission for which we are always working, and that is helping to soften hearts to the Gospel of Jesus Christ through our words and actions.
As I said in church on Sunday, I was not alive when Roe v. Wade happened, but I believe there was probably the same type of adulation on the one hand from supporters of that decision, and deep lament on the other side, from Christians. But forty years later, I do have hope. Two generations after that landmark decision, we are finally starting to see a turn in public opinion, that abortion may not be as positive as thought at that time. It may take another couple of generations, but I believe society will see the negative effects this ruling has had on our society.
Stay strong. Continue to pray. And do not succumb to the emotional ties, on either side of the argument. Stand for Jesus Christ. Amen.
I thought this article was well written. In my experience gay people are pretty much like anyone else. As as a Christian I don’t agree with them. My beliefs are different then theirs and thats fine. My issue comes with the “gay agenda”. Where if you don’t agree with them you get labeled a bigot. It’s as if homosexuality is being used as a veil to attack christianity. Then like the child in the story people’s emotions are used to manipulate them into supporting that cause. America is supposed to be a place where you can believe whatever you wish without fear of attack. Sadly those days seem to be slipping away.
Noted Vicki. Loving one another is always hard when values clash. Disagreeing with someone’s core beliefs has a bad habit of negatively impacting a relationship or possible relationship. It is those times that we must work even more diligently to present ourselves in a caring way while protecting our own value system.
Okay you are saying what a lot of the Christian blogs are saying, we are to love everyone as Christ loves us and I get that so maybe we should have more sermons that teach us how to love others as Christ loves us instead of using that word “judge” as if we as christian’s are better than everyone else.