I agree, others' actions do not necessarily force me to change
my beliefs, faith, etc. However, as a Christian, leaving others to do as they
please ISN'T love, it is more akin to apathy and its neighbor, hate.
First, it needs to be said, I have an incredibly high view of Scripture. I unashamedly say that the Bible is my sole authority for faith and practice. That means that the when the Bible speaks, I seek always to be in submission to it. One thing to take from that is this: I believe that the Bible is not only the ONLY divine text given to man, but also the BEST guide for how life is to be experienced. Scripture is described as God-breathed, eternal, written by men moved by the Holy Spirit, without error, coherent, and complete. It's the Creator explaining how best to experience the world He has created.
Second, Christ associated with sinners (and was even very
compassionate with them). The reason He withheld criticism from the tax
collectors, prostitutes, etc. was because they simply knew they were sick and
didn't try to hide it as the Pharisees did with their religious vestiges. The
whole reason Jesus came to earth was because, in order to accept us, He had to
DIE to deal with sin. There is no one who more so despises sin that the holiest
of Persons, God. He knows how to best experience life, and thus knows the great
counterfeit compromise sin creates. Sin ONLY produces death in our experience.
It ONLY robs, cheapens and steals. The best God we could ever have then is the
one most fiercely set against it, for that is the GREATEST EXPRESSION of love.
That is the God we have. One willing even to die knowing we could do nothing to
defeat that dark enemy.
Third, as a Christian I will ALWAYS speak out for laws that
affirm the moral stance of Scripture, for ALL people, whether professing
Christians or not. All because I believe God's book of what is best is ALWAYS
the BEST experience for man, whether he recognizes or submits to it or not.
So with that said, the role of government, in Scripture, is to check sin. When working at its best, government protects man from degrading deeper and deeper into sin. Yet we see a different trajectory desired by man in Scripture, as he willfully moves further and further away from God's law. Romans 1:18-32 describes a progression (or rather, digression) of man as we chose to walk more and more away from God. The sad judgment from God on those people interestingly enough is that He "gives them over" to their sin. The result is man freed to do whatever his heart desires to do. Though that might sound good, there is actually nothing worse. Man, walking in his own ways, only lives a life enslaved to sin. Proverbs 16:25: The way of man (because of sin) seems right, but its end is death. Why would I then not fight to preserve man as much as I can?
Marriage has from earliest times been a religious institution,
from the second chapter of Genesis. With sin entering into the world, that
relationship was not only tainted, but has been ever since, also challenged. I
don't deny that people may experience same-sex attraction, but just because
they do, I cannot condone it. A person may experience a desire to pursue sexual
gratification through pornography, adultery, polygamy, or sex outside of
marriage... but just because a person might 'feel' those emotions doesn't mean
they are then acceptable or "okay" with God, best for him, or for our
society. Sin has given all of us propensities that lean away from God. For some
that is alcohol, for others lying, for others jealousy. Paul describes that
battle in Romans 7. He never writes to embrace it, as if embracing your
feelings makes you more human... instead he argues the opposite... to deny and
fight those is to more fully experience true humanity.
Christ, who was the only perfect expression of humanity, never
sinned. As we sin less and less yielding to God's law and His Spirit within us,
we experience more and more what true humanity is. Then finally one day for
those in Christ, we will be made complete in Him without any reference to sin
at all! All of them (our sins) canceled on the cross.
So then, Gay 'marriage' is an outright denial of God. And though
man has been given a degree of freedom to set his own laws whether in light of
God or not; the Church is not. The Church is under the headship of Christ
always, to stand on Scripture with the deepest of convictions.
The mission of the gospel is to influence the world with the
message of the gospel and the testimony of Christ, all the while the world
seeks its own independence from God. So inevitably the Church is to seek to
influence the culture just as the culture is always seeking to push back
against the Church. It is spiritual warfare. It is a battle over ideology, but
more than that... from my perspective it is a battle over the souls of men.
One of the scariest verses in Scripture... Judges 21:25
"everyone did what was right in their own eyes..." This wasn't a
cause for celebration or sign of acquiescence, it was a statement of judgment.
Christian morality is to be a light to the world... the expression of life
lived rightly and best. Giving people over to freely sin more doesn't show them
love, it shows them something far worse. We must stand with compassion,
humility and honesty.
We are the salt of the world. Salt on a wound stings, but it
heals. Homosexuality is just one of many points we have conceded and
"washed our hands of" in our culture... where does it stop? A mom
doesn't let her son do wrong things... we would argue that she is a bad mother.
Why should the church let the darkness do whatever they want. Isn't that a bad
church?
Legislation is only a part of the solution; our churches must
stand for truth and reach out to ALL with the love of Christ. It is from the
new birth in men's hearts that change will come to our culture… it will be from
the inside out. Laws can be there to give us enough time to hopefully see that
happen! Come on Church, let's not abandon them. Let's lovingly give them Jesus
and let them settle for nothing less!
If you are up for more reading, consider this article:
