FW: [Church_of_Christ] Cowboy's favorite quotes
Beth, thank you for your response. I am going to respond to your post in order, so I may be a bit repetitive. I apologize in advance for that.
Also, thank you for posting the quote. This is a conversation that Christians need to have and we need to have it real soon. As Mr. Veith pointed out, there are two groups broadly defined within Christianity with regard to this issue. Right now, Mr. Veith holds the majority position, but there is a growing segment of the Christian population, particualrly in the younger generation, who see the battle over state acceptance of gay marriage as counterproductive. So this is certainly something we need to start talking about.
Regarding Mark 6
Yes, the disciples were teaching repentance. I don't argue with that. However, evangelism as described in Mark 6 is not done at a very macro level. Perhaps the disciples preached in synogogues on their journey, but most of the preaching would have been done on a micro level, one to one. It certainly wasn't done on any national or state wide level.
The concept of shaking the dust off your feet is appropriate here. The disciples were told to move on if their message was not accepted. For example, Vermont's legislature legalized gay marriage this week after a long period of accepting civil unions. How should Christians in Vermont react? What about Iowa where the state supreme court just ruled that state's prohibition on gay marriage is unconstitutional? How should Christians in Iowa react? Should they organize an initiative to put a gay marriage prohibition in their state's constitution? Should their churches hold petition drives? When does a disciple shake the dust off and move on? And where in the political campaign to prevent gay marriage does the call to repentance occur?
Beth:::: Brian, do you agree that homosexuality is sin?
Yes I do. Please understand that I am not advocating acceptances of homosexuality. I am trying to focus on the very narrow question of what the extent the church should invovle itself in forming a government policy against gay marriage.
But do you know what else I think is sin? Adultery. But where is the church's cry for a law preventing the marriage of a man and a woman after the man had an affair with the woman and divorced his first wife so he could be with the new woman? To be consistent, shouldn't we seek to outlaw those marriages because those marriages also violate God's design for marriage? In fact, why don't we just go the whole way and completely outlaw divorce since divorce is a sin and is outside God's plan for marriage?
Romans 1 is an interesting passage. It indeed condemns homosexuality. But why do you stop at verse 28? Read verse 29 and the rest of the chapter. He says "they" have become filled with EVERY kind of wickedness. Look at some of the things Paul lists as wickedness: greed, envy, strife, deceit, gossip, slander, arrogance, etc. Where is the law against greed? Why do we not cry out to constitutionally prohibit arrogance? This is all wickedness. Why does the church only seek to prevent certain parts of it through state action?
Mr. Veith essentially raises an argument based on God's design for marriage. My point is that whether the state recognizes marriages or not does not affect God's design for marriage.
Did God need the state of Tennessee to give me a piece of paper in order to honor his design?
Let's consider how man can affect God's design. In Matthew 19, Jesus is asked about divorce. He cites Genesis 2 to make the point that the man and woman become one flesh. He is then asked why Moses permitted them to grant certificates of divorce. First he says it happened because their hearts were hard. This is similar to Romans 1 where Paul says their hearts were darkened. He then says it was not this way from the beginning. Does the fact that Moses permitted divorce somehow change God's design? No. God's design is still the same. Moses did not "revise" marriage, to use Veith's term. Man simply messes up in the application of the design although the design is still the same.
Consider further that the design for marriage was part of the grander design of the garden and of creation. Man was designed to live in communion with God. Man (the first one in fact) didn't follow the design. We now have sin in the world and people who do not live in communion with God. Should we outlaw atheism since that is not part of God's design? No. God gave them over to all of their wicked desires from unnatural relations to greed. My point is that we should do the same. God has loosed them to their evil desires, why can't we?
Why have we gotten to the point that we rerfuse to recognize sin as sin and condemn it?... So why would we not stand firm on any moral message?
Now one might say that by not fighting the gay marriage issue, I am somehow saying that we no longer call homosexuality a sin. That is not what I am advocating. I am saying that the church should continue to teach that homosexuality is a sin regardless of what the government does the same way we teach against adultery even though the government does nothing to stop adultery and marriags arising out of adultery. We can stand firm on the morality of one man, one woman for life regardless of who the state grants certain privileges and benefits to.
And they are going to push this agenda whether gay marriage is allowed or not as they already are. I am well aware of the agenda. I live in Miami. The church's opposition to gay marriage is not going to stop that agenda until we get back to doing what the disciples did: preaching repentance to people one on one. The way for the church to counter this agenda is to actually teach people rather than run a political campaign.
Our country is in the state it's in right now because we, Christians, have set back and kept silent about God's Will and the sins that are not acceptable to HIm.
Are you concerned about this country or His kingdom? As the hymn says, this world is not my home, I'm just a passing thru.
I must get ready to go to work, so I will have to leave this for now. Let me sum up my point regarding Veith's quote. Man cannot revise God's design. His design is his design. Man can only fail to live up to the design. God's design is one man, one woman, for life. I affirm that. As part of that, God's design for sex is for it to take place in the marriage context. Sex that does not occur between one man and one woman commited to one another for life violates God's design. Mankind is violating that design in numerous ways whether the state sanctions it or not. Disallowing gay marriage does not prevent the violation of God's design and it does not accomplish the goal of teaching repentance from all violations of God's design for sex, marriage and otherwise.
In Him,
BB
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