Score One for Nature

     Voters in Maine last night narrowly repealed a law granting to same-sex couples the recognition of being married.  I am choosing my words advisedly here.  A man can no more marry a man than he can marry a post.  A woman cannot marry a woman, any more than she can marry a hair dryer or a rainbow.  Yes, it is true, they can form eroticized friendships that mimic marriage, just as they can do things with their bodies (as can a man and woman together) that mimic sexual intercourse.  But they cannot form the one-flesh union of man and woman that is biologically designed, when the conditions are right, to bring about a new human being.  This is a plain fact.  Indeed, there are biological changes that occur in both man and woman in the marital embrace that suggest that their union functions as a single organism, literally the "one flesh" that Jesus says was the Father's will for them "in the beginning," meaning not only before the Fall, but at the foundation of all sexual reality here and now, and forevermore.

     One young lady interviewed yesterday said, with breathless naivete, that the issue was all about love, and love can hardly be a bad thing, can it?  But no, the issue is not all about love.  Christians and Orthodox Jews and others who care about preserving some freedoms apart from the state, and some vestiges of a natural life, should take heed.  It is not all about love.  It is about many things.  First, it is about whether we shall all become, as the Canadian political philosopher Douglas Farrow puts it, "chattels of the state."  That is because as long as the natural family is recognized as prior to the creation of the state, then we may still argue that it possesses its own legitimate sphere of authority, and indeed that the state is in some sense beholden to, and subordinate to, and the artificial construct of families, and not the other way around.  Simply put, once the state assumes the authority to rule that relationships outside the boundaries of the natural constitute married relationships, then the family becomes a mere ward of the state; for the power to define implies, a fortiori, the power to control.  That this is true in the tyrananny of Canada is evident from legislation and court decisions that intrude ever more intimately into the everyday workings of the family. 

     Second, it is about whether we should enshrine forever the fundamental tenet of the sexual revolution, that in matters pertaining to sex, or to the body more generally, individual wills are all that matter.  That is to sever sex from any notion of the common good.  It is, if you will pardon my French, a policy of laissez foutre, analogous to that unchristian notion, put forth by Benthamite atheists long ago, that what I do with my money is strictly my own business.  Not exactly; we are beings, as Aristotle said, who find their best chance to thrive only in the context of a polis.  That does not imply state oversight over everything we do.  It does mean that the virtuous use of my resources, like the virtuous use of my body, must take into account the good of the place where I live.  I am economic man most justly when, in more ways than one, my household is in order.  But the sexual revolution is predicated instead upon my supposed right to sexual pleasure, so long as my partner or partners consent, regardless of all considerations.  This leads, not surprisingly, to the chaos of our cities, wherein it is easy to find mothers who have had children by two or three fathers, none of whom now lives with his children; and to the chaos of a culture of divorce, with children's hearts sawn in half to please the whims of the parents.

     And there is worse chaos to come.  In his debates with Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln argued that the matter of so-called popular sovereignty was not simply about whether the voters of a state had the right to approve or disapprove of slavery.  That is all Douglas said it was about; he insisted that popular sovereignty had no wider implications.  But Lincoln looked at the Dred Scott decision, and the Fugitive Slave act, and popular sovereignty, and said that all the pieces were in place to make slavery the law of the land everywhere.  The logic of the decisions, he argued, made it inevitable.  Now I understand that history does not always proceed by logic.  Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the power of a bad premise.  If the state can recognize pseudogamous relationships and declare them to be marriages, on the grounds that the people in them desire one another sexually and demand that their desires be legitimized in law, how on earth can it deny recognition to other arrangements, for instance, to a man with two wives?  He can at least have sexual intercourse with them.  Or what about people who insist that they cannot be sexually fulfilled unless they lie with two people, one of each sex?  Or what about a brother and a sister, so long as one of them has been sterilized?  The retort that these arrangements would never be recognized rings hollow; already in Nanada there is a movement pressing for "polyamory."  It would be, I think, a civilization-breaker -- the ultimate in making marriage porous, turning everyone at once into an eligible bachelor or bachelorette; or infecting the family with the notion that incest, so long as it is engaged in consensually, could ever be anything other than an abomination and a corruption of the relationships that should subsist between brother and sister, father and daughter, mother and son.

     Third, it is about whether we will retain any sense of "manhood" and "womanhood," or "father" and "mother" -- and whether we will acknowledge that children deserve both a father and a mother.  It used to be considered a tragedy when a child grew up without a father; now we cheer those tragedies on; and turn our heads demurely from the millions of men in our prisons, a majority of whom grew up without the manhood-developing influence of a father in the home.  That is a cruelty of our time that unites sexual libertarians of both parties -- we pretend that fatherlessness is of no concern.  But children need mothers and fathers.  They need those models of what the sexes are in themselves, and what they are to one another; and they need them in ways that social scientists themselves, with their blunt instruments of research and their severely narrow range of questions, have begun to see.

     Finally, it is about whether we will begin to undo the stupid mistakes of the past few decades.  I am thinking in particular about no-fault divorce, palimony, treating single parents as if they were married, and so forth -- all the chaos which the all-competent state has helped to produce, and upon which it feeds in turn to grow great.  If Christians would only take to the streets to demand that the state take their marriage vows seriously -- seriously enough to punish an adulterous husband or wife with loss of custody, for example -- then we would not now be talking about same-sex pseudogamy. 

Comments

[Dana Cole]

You have nailed this one, Professor Esalen. This is a thorough treatment of all the reasons why gay marriage is intolerable. Thank you.

[Bull]

Several years ago I exchanged emails with Andrew Sullivan.

My simple question was "as a Christian advocate of gaymarriage, tell me: who assumes the role of Christ, and who the Church? Who is the bride, and who the kinsman redeemer?" His frank - and honest, I think - answer back was he was finding it tough to reconcile his faith with his values in this area.

Tony, biological and other philosophical/practical arguments aside, Paul declares marriage The Great Mystery, a physical manifestation of the relationship between God and mankind, Christ and the Church.

The Bible's bookends are the wedding before The Fall and the wedding of the Lamb and the Bride in Heaven at the end of time. In between are Hosea and Ruth and Jeremiah other prophets, all accounts of God's faithfulness to an unfaithful bride. And then there is Christ, quoting Genesis 2, and turning water to wine at a wedding, and telling parable after parable re: "the kingdom of heaven is like a wedding feast..." And John the Baptist the bridegroom. And on and on.

Gaymarriage (heterosexual divorce too, for that matter) is not a philosophical debate, or a physiological one, or a moral one, or a religious one. It is the Enemy's deadliest strike at the most fundamental understanding of mankind's relationship with a redeeming, loving God. It is two humans, entering into a human-conceived relationship, devoid of God-breathed humble submission or loving servant leadership. Its intent is to demolish The Great Mystery.

If more Christians understood this, I wonder if the debate would be clearer.

[Ken]

Great post. "Easy" and no-fault divorce have already made a mockery of "til death do us part", and we can't force spouses to "love, honor, and cherish", nor "forsake all others" - and many don't. So if marriage no longer even means the union of a bride and groom, then it means nothing to society.

Fortunately, as much as our culture has deteriorated, on some level enough people still recognize that marriage is supposed to mean something beyond the whims and fashions we are now experiencing. Follow my link for my own analysis of the coverage of Maine's vote.

[Nemo]

Well said, Dr. Esolen! It strikes me that under the OT law the society/state did not have the authority or responsibility to permit (or license) marriages, form marriages, or dissolve marriages. Families formed marriages, and the couple (or the husband, at least) had sole authority to dissolve them. The society/state did, however, have the responsibility to enforce marital faithfulness.

In the modern U.S., at least in some states, the situation is exactly reversed. A couple needs a state license to marry and a state court to dissolve the marriage. In between, however, the state has no interest in enforcing marital faithfulness and no responsibility to do so.

In some (many?) states, adultery is perfectly legal, facing neither criminal nor civil penalties. A woman may attempt to seduce a married man with impunity. If he, outraged, slaps her, then he, not she, is guilty of a crime.

I wonder if the time has come for young Christian couples to drop the whole concept of civil marriage and the intrusion into family life that it brings. Better, perhaps, to content themselves with a marriage formed by the Church or the family, unrecognized by the state.

[John FB]

" [H]ow on earth can it deny recognition to other arrangements, for instance, to a man with two wives?"

Another poster here (I assume he's a conservative Christian) argued that polygamy was a valid, if imperfect, arrangement permitted by God. The vast majority of the Old Testament figures were polygamous, and Scripture provides no indication of them having repented for this. Why should we forbid what God has sanctioned?

In terms of Maine, I wouldn't jump for joy too much. Divorces will continue at the same rate, people will continue to marry (or not marry) at the same rate as before. The only people this will impact are the fraction of a percent of the population who are gay and who desire to marry. We're talking maybe .5% of the population, at best. What's this really about?

[Anonymous]

John FB demonstrates a remarkably superficial knowledge and understanding of Scripture, which can perhaps be attributed to a deficient education, or perhaps willful blindness, or some combination thereof.

God did not "sanction" polygamy, or divorce, but rather He allowed it to exist, as Jesus himself says, "Because of the hardness of your hearts". Jesus then goes on to lay out a different, and sacramental view marriage as an eternal bond between one man and one woman.

Insofar as the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (but which now will not shut up) is concerned, Scripture is unambiguous and explicit: such relationships are sinful and an abomination in the eyes of God. All attempts at a different exegesis rely on selective reading of the evidence and tendentious interpretations of straightforward passages.

Going beyond the Judea-Christian moral universe, there are no examples in human history of a society in which "same sex marriage" ever existed, let alone was recognized. Even cultures that tolerate homosexual relationships do not dignify these with the name of "marriage", which term is reserved for legally recognized unions of a man and one (or more) women. The religious rationale for marriage is sacramental; the secular rationale for marriage is the formation of strong and stable families for the raising of children. Current structures emerged from tens of thousands of years of human evolution. It's really rather remarkable, then, that people who are most likely to support the concept of evolutionary biology so selectively reject it in the case of homosexuality.

[John FB]

Anonymous writes before disappearing in a cloud of condescension:
"God did not 'sanction' polygamy but rather He allowed it to exist"

1) The penalty in the Old Testament for picking up sticks on the Sabbath was death. Numbers 15: 32-36
2) Improper use of anointing oil results in forced, permanent exile. Exodus 30:33
3) Eating leavened bread during the Feast of Unleavened Bread results in forced exile. Exodus 12:15
4) The penalty on the owner of an animal who kills a person (with or without the owner's consent) is death. Exodus 21:29
5) Cursing one's parents resulted in death.

Are we to believe that God had exacting and precise requirements for every conceivable human activity, whether it's burning incense or eating bread (upon penalty of exile or death), yet really couldn't be bothered with a very avoidable human activity (such as courting and marrying three or four women).

I'd really have to ratchet up my gullibility level to swallow this one ... and I might be prey to every Amway salesman that comes to the door. It's just not worth it.

[GL]

Trying to reason with someone who rejects the clear and unambiguous teaching of Scripture on this matter is futile, as Scripture also plainly teaches. Their reasoning has been already been subject to God's judgment:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

[GL]

Oh, and by the way, good post, as usual, Tony.

[Christopher Hathaway]

As far as Nemo's idea that we abandon civil marriage, nice ploy, but such an act would be to abandon civilization. Shall we as Christians kick the legs out from under a fragile civilization because it shows signs of weakness? What kind of love is that for all those born and "raised" in such a godless and chaotic system. It is for God to destroy Sodom. It is not for us to throw the gasoline and light matches because we find living in Sodom too difficult.

As for John FB, he says:
The only people this will impact are the fraction of a percent of the population who are gay and who desire to marry.

This ignores the legal ramification the equalizing of gay unions with natural marriages will have on education. This would give the State the right and even the duty to teach in every level of public schools that gay marriages are no different that heteroxual ones. Indeed, given the normative bias that natural marriage has had in our culture the State would be obligated to especially push such "education" to rectify the imbalance. If there is then no difference between gay and striaght unions how could the State tolerate preference being given to straight marriages in public school books?

If you don't think the gay lobby wouldn't exploit that avenue to stamp out the normative view of natural marriage you haven't looked at Massachusetts.

[Kamilla]

I agree with GL.

Both times, by the way, Tony.

Kamilla

[Michael]

At the risk of sounding a pessimist, prepare to score one for the Enemy. R-71 is currently passing in Washington (home) with 400,000 ballots left to be counted.

[John FB]

Thanks for the post GL.

Scripture's clear on a few other things as well.

1) Paul stated that women should not teach or hold authority over men. Period. This means no women politicians, no women teachers. If you think the same Paul who told women to cover their heads while praying would find it acceptable for a woman (and a MOTHER, yet!) to hold the second highest level of power in the most powerful nation on Earth, I have a bridge to sell you.

2) The forceful taking of persons against their will for involuntary servitude by God's faithful is sanctioned and decreed as holy. There are numerous passages that clearly support this. The abolitionists had almost no scriptural passages to support any of their claims. (see http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/string/string.html)

I could go on but I'm probably wasting my breath.

"heartless, ruthless"
Yes, that's the unbeliever. Meanwhile, people like John MacArthur spout vile sermons about Jesus sharpening His righteous sword and splashing His garments with the blood of His enemies (whoever that might be), and he smacks his lips with delight over this thought.

I've read of Christians defending the notion of God burning the skin off the bones of infants for all eternity because they didn't have water sprinkled on their heads before they had the bad sense of timing to die too early. I've heard Christians insist that slavery is really not all that bad (the Bible says so!!). I've heard Christians say that gays should be gathered together and shot to death. The vile Westboro Baptist protests at the funerals of dead soldiers and AIDS patients and sticks the proverbial knife into the hearts of the mourning in the name of "righteousness". One of the most popular evangelists in early American history, Edwards, gave an entire sermon depicting (with some sense of sadistic glee) the tortures of the damned whose blood would be sprayed in every direction and how HIS God would find joy in finding increasingly painful ways of humiliating and torturing His enemies (whom He preordained for destruction for no other purpose then that it "glorifies" Him).

Yet somehow, the pagan unbeliever is "heartless"?

Give me a break.

[Kamilla]

John FB,

For every Wesboro I could point you to dozens of pagans who proudly proclaim their heartlesness on the back bumpers of their cars. All it would take is a few minutes driving through any large city in the country.

Now really, who needs a break?

Just because someone claims to be a Christian doesn't mean that they are - if you want points upon which Scripture is crystal clear, this would be one of them.

Grace without law is just as much tragedy as law without grace.

Kamilla

[Brad Green]

Anthony:

Wonderful! I suspect ushering Lincoln to your side in a piece trying to argue for a sane public policy muddies things a bit, but overall great.

[GL]

John FB,

You're welcome, but my post was not directed to you. It was directed to those who are trying to reason with you.

[Rob G]

"I could go on but I'm probably wasting my breath."

You act as if traditional Christians have never run across these examples before. I'll leave the women in authority issue to someone else (although I, for one, believe that head coverings in worship are appropriate for women. I don't see that as a cultural matter, but it's not a hill I'll die on.)

As far as the slavery issue goes, you are correct that the abolitionists, in a certain sense, had Scripture going against them. But note two things. First, the defenders of slavery in the South made the error of equating the Biblical idea of slavery with that of their own version of chattel slavery based on race. Some in the South realized this and pushed for a reform of slavery along Biblical (especially NT) lines, but their voices were drowned out by the extremists on both sides.

Second, the radical abolitionists were perfectly willing to dispense with Scripure altogether if it was found to support slavery, since in many cases they were the liberal, progressive Gnostics of their day -- they said, in effect, "If we have to choose between the Bible and abolition, then we get rid of the Bible!"

For an account of this, with documentation, see Mark Noll's recent book 'The Civil War as Theological Crisis.'

"For every Wesboro I could point you to dozens of pagans who proudly proclaim their heartlesness on the back bumpers of their cars."

Indeed. I recently saw a T-shirt that said something to the effect of "So many conservative Christians, so few lions!" You can just imagine the reaction among libs if someone wore a shirt that said "So many homos, so few AIDS viruses!"

Likewise, going back to the Civil War, the liberal and progressive abolitionists were perfectly willing to celebrate the life and work of the terrorist and murderer John Brown. Different times, but obviously the same spirit!

JohnFB, your own deficient understanding of hermeneutics and history seems to lead you to believe that all other Christians work under the same exegetical and theological handicaps. You'll rapidly find out that such is decidedly not the case here.

[GL]

Rob G,

When my family was visiting churches last year after moving to a new community, we attended an REC church on a couple of occasions at which the women and girls placed a mantilla on their heads during the celebration of th Eucharist. My wife and I found it to be a beautiful and reverent act.

[Rob G]

Greg, some Orthodox churches maintain that custom or have restored it (Fr. Reardon's parish in Chicago, for example). Some Pentecostals do as well, and you find a remnant of it in many black churches where a majority of women still wear hats to church on Sunday.

[Nemo]

Christopher, God forbid that I should advocate abandoning the society or the civilization! As you rightly point out, Christians -- in imitation of their Lord -- are under obligation to seek the welfare of those around them, no matter how hostile those folks may be.

But Christians have sometimes (often?) found it best to seek God's grace for themselves and their societies in ways the society considered abandonment. Pagans accused the early Christians of being unsociable because they no longer participated in the social life of the temples. They accused them of being unpatriotic because they refused to burn a pinch of incense to the genius of the emperor, such genius (and such emperor-worship) being understood as the glue that held the empire together. Hermits abandoned the cities for the deserts where they upheld civilization by their prayers. The Irish monks quietly preserved the flame of knowledge until they time they could relight it on a darkened continent.

To abandon civil marriage is not to abandon marriage. Rather it is, at least potentially, to recognize that marriage was never civil to start with but always sacramental. The Lord, not the state, joins husband and wife as one, and it is the place of the family or the Church -- but not the state -- to solemnize what the Lord has done. Put another way, abandoning civil marriage is no more abandoning the society than homeschooling is. Homeschooling simply recognizes that the state is not the legitimate partner of father and mother in raising children. Far from abandoning child-rearing or society, homeschooling seeks to regain a proper form of childhood and family life, with a firm conviction that both Church and society will benefit therefrom. Simlarly, to abandon civil marriage (in favor of marriage recognized only by the family or the Church) is to exclude the state from a role that it never legitimately possessed and to seek thereby to regain a more accurate view of marriage, from which everyone should benefit. Like homeschooling, it also has the great virtue of being readily practicable by every young couple, family, and church that develops the conviction that it is right to do so -- unlike the political solutions that require masses of people to set in motion the multi-year processes of crafting legislation and defending it in the courts.

I'm not saying the abandonment of civil marriage is an obvious step to take. Certain Christian traditions (the Puritans, for instance, as I understand them) fully embraced the rightness of civil marriage. I would love, however, to see the Church as a whole look at its history and doctrine and consider whether the abandonment of civil marriage is a prudent step at the current time in regaining a true understanding of marriage and promoting God's gracious work of salvation in our lives and our society.

[Anonymous]

A return to the practices of the early Church would require Christians to ignore civil marriage altogether and only celebrate sacramental marriages according to their own theology and discipline. In the West, the Church gradually assumed responsibility for marriage due to the breakdown of the Roman imperial administration. In the East, that administration continued uninterrupted, with the state overseeing marriage as a civil contract. It was only in the sixth century that sacramental marriage was accepted as a legally binding proof of marriage in civil courts. It was only in the ninth century that civil marriage was abolished and the Church given responsibility for overseeing everything related to marriage, including issues of divorce and remarriage. Once the Church was forced to deal with the societal aspects of marriage, it found it difficult not to make accommodations that, to some extent, compromised its theological and sacramental view of marriage.

[Christopher Hathaway]

To abandon civil marriage is not to abandon marriage. Rather it is, at least potentially, to recognize that marriage was never civil to start with but always sacramental.

A return to the practices of the early Church would require Christians to ignore civil marriage altogether and only celebrate sacramental marriages according to their own theology and discipline.

These two statement are utter nonsense. Marriage has always been a civil matter. It has not always been a sacramental matter. And in the church all sacramental marriages are also civil. But not all civil marriages are sacramental. This does not make them any less legitimate as marriages. It only means that the mere civil marriages do not have the special invioble status that sacramental marriages have. They can be dissolved by laws of society. But they cannot be ignored.

Only a denial of the legitimacy of a society or of the need for civilization to exist outside the church can justify Christians thinking their sacramental marriages are not also civil. Are they not part of the civilization? There can be no civilization without marriage. That is what civil marriage means. It is not a private affair.

Shall we withdraw into the desert and support civil marriage only with our prayer? Only if I can withdraw from the poor and support them only with prayer. Shall I evangelize with prayer from a distance.

This is nonsense, and I think it is implictly cowardice. We as citizens of a democratic republic are not subjects who must suffer whatever the king decrees. We are the true princes of this secular society and are charged, just as any Christian king would be, with the duty to uphold justice and righteousness in this society to the best of our ability. That means standing up for what is best, not just for the church but for society. It means protecting the institution of marriage that is the very foundation and building block of any society that doe not wish to descend into worse than barbarism with every generation.

[John FB]

Perhaps my issue is that I don't see why this need be an all-or-nothing affair, and I some false dichotomies here (gay marriage OR real marriage).

You can enact covenant marriage laws that can be entered by two people (same or opposite gender) and make divorce harder to obtain. This would probably weed out many people of either persuasion who are interested in marriage only as a convenience.

The other thing is that, while the law has some bit of a pedagogical element, marriage is not in its current state as a result of changes in the law. There are numerous cultural factors that come into play: financial stability, education, ethnic traditions, etc. Has anyone noticed that divorces have declined as the economy started to tank? I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not (marriages of necessity), but the relationship is there.

"That is what civil marriage means. It is not a private affair."

This is where I don't understand otherwise "small-government" conservatives. Do you want the government determining who should and who should not marry, to examine the motives of the individuals entering into it, their finances, their histories? This most personal of choices? Give a government too much authority and it will abuse it. Is not one's priest or pastor a better arbiter of these things?

[Anonymous]

Christopher misconstrues my remarks. I merely make an historical observation; the early Church did not concern itself with the legal aspects of marriage. A large proportion of Christians could not marry under Roman law, since they were either not Roman citizens or not free persons. The Church thus concerned itself only with marriage on its own terms--as a sacrament. This allowed the Church to be extremely rigorous in its approach, insisting on the freely given consent of the couple, on marriage as an eternal bond, and (in the Christian East, at least), on the impossibility of remarriage within the Church. Through its independence of the civil authorities in matters of marriage, the Church could uphold its own theology and its own sacramentology.

Having gained control over all aspects of marriage in the early medieval period, either by default or through imperial directive, the Church lost much of that freedom, because matters such as divorce, remarriage, custody of children, disposition of property, etc., which had been the purview of the civil authorities were now subsumed by the Church, which thus had to compromise its position on the theology and discipline of marriage.

In the long term, the Church also got lazy, assuming that the state would always support its position on marriage; it could not envisage a time when the commonly understood definition of marriage would come under attack. Yet the Church still acts as a deputy of the state in the matter of marriage: priests and ministers can sign marriage licenses, "by the power vested in [them] by the great state of [insert name here]". Thus, if the state changes the meaning of marriage, the Church becomes complicit in it. If the state insists on having its way, the Church has very few options under our present system: it can either give in, or it can stop celebrating marriages as a deputy of the state.

But the latter does not mean that the Church could or should stop celebrating marriages. Rather, it could mean that the Church opts out as an agent of the state. People would still get married in Church, but such marriages would have no legal standing. To have a marriage legally recognized by the state, a couple would have to get a license and appear before a JP, but their marriage could be sanctified by the Church in accordance with its sacramental discipline--and there would be nothing the state could do about it. The Church would remain free.

This is important, because more is at stake than just demands that it allow same sex couples access to the sacrament of marriage. There are also all the other conditions that the Church puts on marriage, whether degrees of consanguinity, former marital status, etc. By dropping out as administrators of civil marriage, the Church will be free of the coercive bond of the state, because Church marriage will have no legal standing.

Defense of civil marriage would therefore take place in the secular realm, according to secular reasoning and categories--as it should be. And, if traditional marriage begins to lose ground in the secular world, the Church will still be free to bear witness to the true, sacramental meaning of marriage, no matter what the state declares.

[Christopher Hathaway]

I merely make an historical observation; the early Church did not concern itself with the legal aspects of marriage.

A misleading observation because the Church had no other option, being itself illegal. This tells us nothing about what that "early" Church would have done if it had been responsible for directing the laws of society.

if the state changes the meaning of marriage, the Church becomes complicit in it.

Only if the Church does nothing to oppose it but rather cooperates with such a change.

By dropping out as administrators of civil marriage, the Church will be free of the coercive bond of the state, because Church marriage will have no legal standing.

This rather presupposes that the State and the culture which it represents has already become hostile to Christian, and even natural morality and that there is nothing that the church, or rather Christians for there is no one church (for good or ill) can do to stop it or correct it.

I am all for the church being independent of the State but only in the sense that it recognizes itself to be higher than the State. The church is not subject to the state but to God. But it is the servant of the State and of society in the sense of serving it with the light of Christ, being salt and light. But it cannot do that by drawing apart for self protection. That is not the way of Christ. Let the culture kick the church out. The church should never abandon the culture.

Besides, it is foolish to think merely by separating from civil marriage that churches will be free from the coercive power of the state. If private clubs cannot exclude homosexuals from its ranks what is to protect churches in discriminating against them when it comes to sacramental marriages? Our Constitutional freedom of worship? That too can be redefined to fit the new zeitgeist.

[Anonymous]

Christopher,

Even after the Church was legitimized by Constantine, marriage remained a strictly civil matter for several centuries. That is, a Church marriage was not considered evidence of a legal marriage. Eventually, it was considered one of several criteria for determining the existence of a legal marriage, but civil marriage and sacramental marriage remained distinct and separate down at least until the ninth century. Thus, the Church did not issue divorces, or celebrate remarriage, but allowed these to remain the concern of the civil authorities, focusing its activities entirely on reconciliation and reintegration of those who transgressed its theological and disciplinary norms.

On the complicity of the Church in the redefinition of marriage, so long as the Church remains an agent of the state, it tacitly approves what the state mandates.

As for whether the state has already become hostile the Christianity and the Church, that seems self-evident, doesn't it?

[Christopher Hathaway]

Even after the Church was legitimized by Constantine, marriage remained a strictly civil matter for several centuries.

Interesting, and entirely new (to me) historical fact(?). Do you have a historical citation for this assertion?

As for whether the state has already become hostile the Christianity and the Church, that seems self-evident, doesn't it?

It seems self evident that there are many who wish it to be that way, and who wish it to be hostile to all Natural Law. That is no reason for us to accept that situation and surrender. I don't believe in giving up. Do you?

[Kent Cordray]

It seems to me that maybe instead of sitting around moralizing, debating, and criticizing society, or trying to leverage the already ineffective and corrupt government in some sort of misbegotten idea of a "morality war", we should instead focus on ministering to the people who need it and showing them God's love.

Christ did not choose to reform Roman politics when he came even though he could have, had he chosen to do so. Rather he went and ate dinner with tax-collectors, prostitutes and those sinners most marginalized by the religious authorities of the time. If this was the path he chose to influence culture, and the world, it seems that as his followers we must be called to do the same, whether our culture is friendly to us or not.

He told us to be in the world but not of it, to love your neighbor as yourself, and to share his love and forgiveness with all sinners. Our fellow sinners.

It is sad to see society going down hill, but I would submit that part of the real problem is that the Church has moved away from the foundations of its original influence as a grassroots institution for personal and societal improvement, and has basically evolved into an extremely powerful group of lobbyists. We try to control society through government, rather than trying to love individuals into the Kingdom.

I think that Christians' focus on politics as an expression of religion is a trap caused by our power within the current political system. The more and more divisive political power struggle in America seems to be causing many Christians to fall into an "us and them" mentality which is hard enough to avoid already!

In truth, we know that there is no "Them". We are all sinners to whom God has offered a gift and if we see people who have not yet accepted that gift as enemies, it becomes hard to present a good witness.

It is hard to invite people into the kingdom when what you really want is to see them burn in Hell.

Who cares if the state is hostile to us? Frankly, the state can go ahead and "Bring it", because Christ's love thrives under duress.

And it really doesn't matter what sin a person has or hasn't committed: God can convict them at their heart. What we need is to not be hostile to our fellow sinners and show them how little their sin matters to our merciful God!

[Christopher Hathaway]

So Kent, I trust you do not vote and participate in an entirely worldly power structure imposing your ideas of what is right upon society.

[MCModerator]

Inappropriate comment deleted.

The present round rules do not not forbid the use of pseudonyms, and speculation on the identities of the persons behind them is off-topic and inappropriate. Comments are judged by adherence to the rules, not by who posts them.

[Bananas Gorilla]

>I trust you do not vote and participate in an entirely worldly power structure imposing your ideas of what is right upon society.

Odd conclusion.

[Christopher Hathaway]

Odd conclusion

It refers to this:

"It is sad to see society going down hill, but I would submit that part of the real problem is that the Church has moved away from the foundations of its original influence as a grassroots institution for personal and societal improvement, and has basically evolved into an extremely powerful group of lobbyists. We try to control society through government, rather than trying to love individuals into the Kingdom."

If you don't like trying to control society through government, nomatter how much or little, you shouldn't vote and validate the power structure.

[ralpho]

Well, they said this tragic social rot is exactly what would happen if the Church was split apart by dissenters. Yes, there were knaves in the Church in Luther's day, but at least there was always recourse to the moral and ethical standards of Jesus. Now, Moloch is the moral norm. Come quickly, Jesus. Ralpho.