Monday, June 29, 2015

Obergefell et al. v. Hodges and the Difference Between Love and Acceptance

In case you've been living under a rock or somehow haven't gone on facebook in the past few days, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the plaintiffs in Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, which is a cumbersome way of saying that States cannot ban same-sex marriages. As such, we now wake up in an America where all are free to enter a marital union with whomever they choose, regardless of gender, for the first time in history. As with most, I have numerous opinions and feelings on this and some are quite conflicting with one another. It is my great privilege to live in a country where I have the right (some would say the obligation) to express my opinions even when they may be unpopular or differ from the accepted norm. Thus, I wanted to try to at least put forth a clumsy attempt to express and clarify what I and many others believe in the hope that it fosters some healthy discussion and clears up some confusion regarding the Christian point of view on marriage.

First things first - you can go read the Court's decision and the majority and dissenting opinions here.  I didn't peruse the entire document myself, but it's written by people 1000 times more eloquent than I and has a lot of good explanation.  In my opinion, a big problem with our information consumption these days is that so many people get their news and opinions secondhand from one media outlet or another without going to an original source. Don't let someone else be your filter for information -  form your own opinions!

Now the crux of the matter: I am saddened by the decision of the SCOTUS, since I believe it is an erosion of one of the most beautiful gifts that God has given us - Christian marriage. However, the manner in which the country and state I live in choose to define marriage in the civil sense does not prevent, preclude, or influence my belief regarding marriage. I believe that God instituted marriage as a union between one man and one woman for their mutual benefit - as written in Genesis 2,

The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
... Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”


That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The Bible is clear on this matter and leaves no wiggle room for debate. Christian marriage is between one man and one woman, for life.  As stated in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral."

However, the Bible is clear on many things. For instance, the next verse, Hebrews 13:5 is this: "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have..." So all of you greedy folks out there are deserving of the same hell as homosexuals. Same for the heterosexuals who did not remain sexually pure until marriage. Same for liars. I can go on and on, a litany of sins of which I have committed far too many. One thing that is unequivocally stated is all humans are sinful and deserving of God's judgment, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23).  God doesn't rank sinners based on the severity of their sins - his standard is perfection, and no one is good enough. There's no seeded Sinner or Saint March Madness bracket - no one made it to the Big Dance in God's book.

Thanks be to Jesus, then, for (as stated in the next verse in Romans, emphasis mine), "and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Thus, my sins and all of the sins of every homosexual and every heterosexual and every human who ever lived have been freely and completely paid for by Jesus' perfect life and death on the cross.  Christ died for all.

The sticky part comes in how we RESPOND to that grace.  As Paul puts it later in Romans, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" A Christian continues to struggle with their sins from the day of their birth to the day of their death. Being a Christian and continuing to repeatedly commit the same sin does not JUST make you a hypocrite - it makes you a human. Thus, the path to hell is no longer forged from a panoply of sins, like the vision in Dante's Inferno, but only in the rejection of Christ's love through unbelief. That's it - it's that simple. John 3:16 is the most well-known Bible verse for a reason, " For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Thus, the real fight for a Christian should not be against homosexuality or racism or hate, but against unbelief.

Ok, so you've come with me this far and are wondering when he's going to be done proselytizing. I wrote the above merely to clarify the cores of what I believe and why I believe it. The important thing is how does this affect how I see the world and the people around me, and how do I treat people who may have different beliefs in my life. 

I reject the increasingly prevalent position that pointing out what I feel is a sin (because God says it is sin) means that I hate that person. I despise the labeling of everyone who speaks out in disagreement with something gets labeled a -phobe (in this case a homophobic) and should be publicly shamed. I feel homosexuality is wrong in God's eyes, and I do not ACCEPT that it is OK, but I also do not believe that a homosexual individual is any worse a sinner than myself or any other human. All have sinned. All fall short. I have personally known numerous homosexual individuals (and probably more that I didn't know were homosexual) and have generally found them to be people in all of the wonderful and terrible glory of that word. Some are jerks, some are wonderful human beings, some are snobs, and some are the meek of the earth. I love all of them equally (in my imperfect human way) as human beings as Christ has directed us to (the popular phrase "Hate the sin, not the sinner" is a good summary). Because of that love, I want them all to come with me to Heaven. It is because of that love that I write this post, because the Bible is also clear that unrepentant sin is a rejection of Christ's sacrifice, and only an unbeliever rejects that sacrifice.

That is why it is so important to reach out with love to those who sin around us (and that's everyone), try to show them their sin (the purpose of the Law), and then to show them their Savior (the purpose of the Gospel). Standing in a college campus and shouting that everyone is condemned and going to Hell is not going to save very many people, and is a confusingly mixed message at best (yes, all are condemned, yes all would go to Hell based on their actions - no, not all ARE going to Hell because of the life and death of Jesus, etc.). Expressing outrage and disgust at the decision of a judicial court, which can only define the laws of man and not the laws of God, is not the way to show Christian love to those so desperately in need of it (all of us). The legalization of homosexual marriage in America is not a death knell in the fall of society for a Christian, but another symptom of the overall sickness of sin that pervades the entire world. The Church and Christians still have an obligation to point out what is right, but we have an obligation to do it for the right reasons - out of love.

Thus, I do not accept that homosexuality is OK, but it does not change the love I feel to those for whom this sin is a constant presence for, or those who do not believe it is a sin in the first place. Acceptance and love are not inextricably tied.

I also pray that the separation of Church and State be maintained in this (and all) cases in America, that those of us who do not choose to accept homosexual marriage as God's plan for marriage will not be forced to participate in or perform homosexual marriage in our churches, just as I would not want a Muslim American to be forced to say a rosary or a Jewish American to be forced to have a cross in their home. It is not discrimination to state that our church body does not believe this is right and will not marry you because of that - the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (or WELS, my church body) does the same for heterosexual couples living in unrepentant sinful premarital relationships. On this, I'll admit that my record is not perfect. I would certainly reject being asked to be a celebrant at a homosexual marriage, yet I have in the past not abstained in situations where I knew the heterosexual couple was living together before marriage. I obviously have made a distinction in my own mind - God does not and judges each situation as equally sinful. Does that make me a hypocrite? Well, yes, it does - just as nearly every other sinful human being. 100% consistency in all things in life is difficult to achieve.

I am saddened on one hand because I would like all Americans to come to what I feel is the truth about God's plan and God's salvation for them. However, unlike so many of the parodies and outlandish statements made in the past days, I have no fears of this decision "letting the gays out of the woodwork" or "letting them infect us with their homosexuality" or any other preposterous statement about the impact of this. Certainly the fact that it was not legally permissible to be homosexual and married in many states was not doing anything to prevent homosexuality or to help those individuals in a heavenward quest. I can even admit that the humanitarian side of me is in some way glad to see that many who have been shunted to the edges of society may find some sense of belonging and peace in this decision. I have long felt that this moment was inevitable in a "government of the people, by the people, for the people" and a society in which many feel that homosexuality is an acceptable choice in life. The legalistic side of me will even admit that if Church and State are truly separate, then who is ultimately to say what the legal definition of marriage is, and why can't it be defined in a way that the majority of the citizens feel is most fair?  The disappointment I feel is merely in the acceptance that we as a society do not hold to the ideals in Scripture (as, indeed, no society on Earth ever has), and that many of my fellow Americans will eventually not join the heavenly band.

So, to circle back, as Paul writes, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" No, as justified children of God, we should not. We should not persist in acts that we know are sinful in God's eyes. That includes hating those who are sinning, shunning them as some sort of criminal (ignoring our own readily evident sinful natures). That means not being hypocritical judges meting out damnation and salvation; as Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, "How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." It means preaching the truth out of LOVE, not out of HATE. It means that while we need not ACCEPT the sinful acts a person may do or say are good and right, we must strive to ACCEPT that sinner as a fellow human being, deserving of respect and dignity.

I'll wrap this up with some links to further reading that is probably better stated than mine anyways (and likely much more concise, even in the case of the books listed below). Russell Moore wrote a wonderful article in the Washington Post on why churches should not preach that the sky is falling because of this decision, but also that we must continue to preach the truth found in God's Word. For more information on the WELS position on this decision, see this statementwels.net also has a ton of great material outlining our beliefs on marriage and lots of other subjects, if you're curious. Some of the best books I've ever read explaining the "tough" theologies of Christianity are Prepared to Answer and More Prepared to Answer by Mark Paustian (available from the Northwestern Publishing House at this link) - the question of homosexuality is specifically dealt with in More Prepared to Answer, but there is a ton of great material in both books.

1 comment:

  1. So this is what you do in the wee hours of the morning. My Church has taken a similar stance as I'm sure a majority of the Evangelicals have throughout the Country. Christ said it best "Love your neighbor as yourself." We live by the tenants of His word and we do condemn all sin and yes the only solution is to bring those outside of God into acceptance of Christ as Lord and savior. The only way out for us all is into the grace of God. Thanks for posting this, God bless you and yours Jeremy! Uncle bob...

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