When I began this series, I said the battle to define marriage is not over — and I’m still convinced that is true. However, the issue in America has clearly passed the eleventh hour and I fear the clock has already begun to toll. The outcome of California’s Proposition 8 this November, which seeks to amend the state constitution in order to establish that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”—thus reversing the state Supreme Court’s recognition of same-sex marriage in May—will figure prominently in the future of marriage in America. If the measure is defeated (and barring any intervention by God), I predict it will be nearly impossible to halt the homosexual movement and with it the radical redefinition of sexual morality.
This raises the important question of “What then?” How should the church respond in the wake of such profound moral and social revision? Should we continue to battle with homosexual activists? Will doing so distract us from our true calling and thus undermine the church’s mission and purpose? Should we persist in pressing the point even unto arrest and imprisonment? Is this how we are called to live in a pagan culture? These are the questions we must face. I wrestle with these, as I continue to address the church’s relationship to culture. I suggest that we all need to wrestle with these questions in an effort to find the most biblical answers, given our very real and possible future in America.
In his classic book Christ and Culture, Richard Niebuhr suggests that there are only a handful of postures the Christian can take toward culture. For example, we can emphasize the opposition between Christ and culture, what Niebuhr calls the Christ against culture position. This view sees the customs and advances of the day as inevitable affronts to Christ. Predictably, this position results in a withdrawal or separation from culture—a move that only renders Christianity less relevant and neglects to press Christ’s kingdom in the world. I certainly do not recommend this approach.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are those who feel there is a fundamental agreement between Christ and culture, in which Christ is equated with the apex of human achievement. Niebuhr labeled this the Christ of culture group. Far from simply identifying Christ with culture, it is more the alignment of certain aspects of culture with Christ—such as Western civilization, American nationalism, or conservative politics. With this position, Christ is recast in the guise of that culture’s predominant values. Rather than Christ standing over and against culture as judge and challenge, Christ is absorbed into the culture and appropriated for its ends. So you end up less with Christ than you do with culture. This appears to have been a dominant trend within the American church over the last fifty years, to the point that Christianity has been narrowed to the political realm as best seen in the “culture wars.”
This position has tended to neglect the whole missio Dei, or mission of God, in that it seeks primarily to promote and preserve certain values through civil or political means. While these values may be consistent with Christianity and their advocates may be well-meaning, there is no eternal value in morality apart from faith in Jesus Christ. The values of the Christian faith flow from conversion; they do not convert the lost. Furthermore, this response tends toward an “us versus them” mentality that all too easily operates “out of a conquering spirit or urge to control, vestiges of a former Christendom that no longer lives anywhere but in the impulses of our minds,” according to George Hunsberger (Hunsberger and Van Gelder, eds., The Church Between Gospel & Culture, [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996] 290). Continue >>
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I agree with your assessment of religion's role in culture... that religious beliefs should be expressed through example and not through legislation. However, I am concerned with your portrayal of homosexuality. While I'm sure it is not your intention, your association of homosexuality with moral bankruptcy is likely to incite hatred and even violence towards gays and lesbians. Gays and lesbians want the state to recognize their stable, loving, and monogamous relationships with the same dignity and respect accorded to heterosexual couples. I find it troubling that this is what you oppose. In order to promote morality within the gay community, shouldn't we be encouraging these types of relationships? All mainstream research on homosexuality supports this positive view of gays and lesbians. From a Christian perspective, Jesus never spoke of homosexuality and Old Testament citations are right alongside condemnations of eating shellfish. Finally, the recent Supreme Court ruling explicitly exempts religious organizations and officials from having to officiate the weddings of gay and lesbian couples. Just some food for thought from one gay guy. Vote No on 8 readers =)
john 14-6, prophet,believer,igh etc
is it your desire to live in a theocracy, based on the interpretation of scripture of who ever is in power.
the orthodox one day, the episcopalians another, differents baptists another, lutherans another etc.
or maybe you would prefer that congress legislate one of these denomonations as the religion of this country that there be no laws that would be made that would come against any precepts of that denomination like in iraq and saudi arabia. that way the laws could only change as your understanding of scripture changed.
just how would any of you like any of your understandings of scripture infused in the laws of this country?
what i am applying to you is the application of a period.
because its the truth no one heteriosexual knows what it means to live as a homosexual. and no one who has lived as a homosexual can assume their experiences are the same for all others living as a homosexuals.
as soon as the supreme court deemed homosexuality legal, that gave homosexuals the right to live a life free from the imposition of anyone's religious beliefs on the street , in the schools, in public places, etc.
its called seperation between church and state.
and you damn well are expected to accept homosexuals as legal citizens to live their lives as homosexuals, free from any imposition of your religious beliefs. that is what people in this country have died for, to live freely according to a system of laws.
your freedom of expression and speech ends where it imposes on the legal rights of another.
and not only do you have to do it but you have to teach every member of your family to do it as well.
The entire problem I have seen with the Gay community is the position that they have the right to force what they believe on Christians and everyone else that finds it offensive. We MUST accept them or we have some kind of phobia but how dare we expect them to respect us.
"can you imagine what the difference would be, if all those who believe homosexuality to be a sin could own this. particularly the ones who believe the their freedom of speech has been or will be violated."
The problem comes in when it violates others rights of the same. In our state it is contributing to the delinquency of a minor to allow a child to be around people that cuss all the time and it's considered illegal in many other ways to cuss in public (offensive language). This is to protect children and parents from being subjected to this poor use of the English language.
It sends a mixed message to children when Christian parents tell their children that homosexual behavior is against the Bible and yet we allow it displayed in public.
Just FYI, my gay friends would laugh at your statement "......."i believe that homosexuality is a sin. im totally ignorant of what it means to be gay. but that is my belief" if you are applying it to me.... :D
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God
Don't you people see that?
i have never had a problem with......."i believe that homosexuality is a sin. im totally ignorant of what it means to be gay. but that is my belief.
it has never stopped there.
can you imagine what the difference would be, if all those who believe homosexuality to be a sin could own this. particularly the ones who believe the their freedom of speech has been or will be violated. and the ones who feel compelled to proselitize their beliefs
it never ceases to amaze me how people can compare human bonding out of mutual love, attraction, respect,trust, devotion for a shared committed life together with adultery, the violation of vows, pedophilia, the predatory abuse of one human being over another, alcoholism the degradation of self thru substance abuse, fits of rage, and even murder.
to do this, believers are forced to subjectively characterize homosexuality with negative attributes for the sake of their theology, when in actuall fact they are totally ignorant of what living as a gay person is all about.
because of the inordinate riduculous focus solely on the sex act is has allowed the perpetual ignorance of things like.... desires to bond with, to share a life with, and to be devoted to another.
they would never say heterosexual marriage is about sex, because it is about devotion. but they would have no problem vocalizing the reverse about homosexual marriage to those they know to be gay.........possibly their brothers, sisters, congregants,neighbors,friends or work associates.
abandoning the spirit of christ, the love of christ, and the fellowship of christ.............to denegate out of ignorance................all for the sake of their own theology.
not interested in hypotheticals............try real life.
thats what craven did . he created his own hypothetical then believed it was a moral imperative. he was asking people to conduct their lives in a particular way because of his concocted hypothetical. what could be more ridiculous.
hypotheticals are nothing but subjective.
<< is it natural for someone have relations with the opposite sex, when from earliest childhood memory they had no attraction to the opposite sex, but rather to the same sex.>>
So if it comes natural, then itâ
<<interesting that craven still is obsessed with his interpretation of scriptural values are right versus anyone else's that are different, are wrong. but still is unable to offer any evidence with any form of objective reason.>>
Sure he did - haven't you read the other parts in the series? In any event, if it's pure reason you want, how about some Immanuel Kant? The philosopher Kant proposed long ago what he called the categorical imperative. He said if you want to know whether something is moral or not (and this only implies to moral acts), take a particular behavior/moral action, extend it to be universal in scope, and observe the end result. So for example: lying. What would happen if everyone in the world lied continuously? First, rational communication would break down because no one could believe what anyone else was saying. But more importantly - it becomes self-defeating because for a lie to work, it's 'target' must expect the truth. But if everyone lied, no one would expect the truth so lying becomes self-defeating.
Now, what would happen if everyone in the world committed themselves to loving, monogamous homosexual and lesbian 'marriages'? The human race ceases to exist in a generation - in other words, it becomes self-defeating as the act removes the very ones who practice it.
what does being born of the spirit have to do with your peculiar interpretation of scripture about homosexuality?
Craven and his fellow theocrats had better hope that none of their opponents get hold of this series; if it is the best that his kind can do, then we should expect gay marriage to be legalized nationwide by next Tuesday.
The government does not have the right to dictate which consenting adults are permitted to love each other. It does not have to interfere in the private matrimonial rights of committed, monogamous Americans. These rights are millennia older than this government and same-sex unions have been consecrated in cultures around the world, including Christian cultures, hundreds of years before anyone even dreamed of the United States of America.
This is dictatorial big-government intrusion in the bedroom at its most sinister. Anyone who advocates a smaller government ought to be disgusted by this attitude that gay marriage is somehow any of the federal government's business.
feetxxxl said, "is it natural for someone have relations with the opposite sex, when from earliest childhood memory they had no attraction to the opposite sex, but rather to the same sex."
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. --John 3:3