We are facing a true moral inversion ”” a system of moral understandings turned upside down. Where homosexuality was even recently condemned by the society, now it is considered a sin to believe that homosexuality is wrong in any way. A new sexual morality has replaced the old, and those who hold to the old morality are considered morally deficient. The new moral authorities have one central demand for the church: get with the new program.
This puts the true church, committed to the authority of God’s Word, in a very difficult cultural position. Put simply, we cannot join the larger culture in normalizing homosexuality and restructuring society to match this new morality. Recognizing same-sex unions and legalizing same-sex marriage is central to this project.
Liberal churches and denominations are joining the project, some more quickly and eagerly than others. The cultural pressure is formidable, and only churches that are truly committed to Scripture will withstand the pressure to accommodate themselves and their message to the new morality.
Of course, the elephant in the room where such emphatic calls for a return to traditional, biblical marriage are discussed is the whole issue of divorce and remarriage. Until that one is addressed in a way that is faithful to the explicit teaching of Jesus in the gospels, the case against same-sex marriage/blessing can’t possess all the integrity it ought to.
Mohler’s article is a fine one. I just posted it verbatim on a blog I often go to.
Ian+ – No reason to hold back in one area just because of lack of success in another. We have to fight the war bravely on all fronts.
I agree, Luke. But a holistic biblical approach to sexuality is ultimately the only way the Church can recover integrity in her teaching. For ministers of the Gospel to roundly condemn SSBs repeatedly while indiscriminately remarrying those who are divorced is not only hypocritical, but dare one say as sinful as presiding over SSBs.
I have found this by far the most cogent (and iconoclastic) Protestant book on the subject of divorce-and-remarriage:
http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Divorce-Gordon-J-Wenham/dp/1608992403/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346078679&sr=1-1&keywords=heth+jesus+and+divorce
One of the authors, Heth, is a Southern Baptise seminary professor; the other, Wenham, an Ulsterman Irish Anglican Calvinist.
“No reason to hold back in one area just because of lack of success in another.”
If the argument against one area rests precisely upon consistency in biblical application, it’s hard to see how you can make this argument. It’s not like any church that allows remarriage is talking about it as a problem to even be considered. If you press ahead against same sex relationships and do nothing about remarriage, it looks to the world like you’re going full out against the more marginalized and holding back against the people who are more like you (do you have as many gay friends as divorced friends?) — which is very hard to square with the way Jesus lived.
Ian and Mark make a good point. If the issue truly is the sanctity of marriage, the 50 percent divorce rate would seem a much more important target than same-sex couples.
Actually, I think the more consistent “elephant in the room” is the lack of a call for sexual purity for all people. Same-sex unions is but the attempt to put the societal seal of approval on sex acts that are intrinsically immoral.
Sex between males and females outside of marriage is also intrinsically immoral, as all sorts of other sex acts are. Purporting to offer some kind of “liturgical union” to honor various sex acts [between same sexes, sex acts between multiple/open partners, sex acts between the life-challenged and otherwise, sex acts between adult siblings — all, of course, committed, loving, and consensual] is merely the covering offered for the deeds.
So that’s the elephant in the room — a loss of a call for sexual purity in the church.
Another problem with this article and the church’s response in general to same-sex unions is that the church doesn’t offer to suffer along side people who have same-sex desires. Often these Christians are left on their own to navigate life with these desires. These Christians are told by the Church both you can’t give into your desires and we aren’t going to pray with you and walk along side you in your life. It becomes the unmentionable sin, and people who struggle with it can’t struggle in the community.