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By Travis K. McSherley [February 2004] World's Joel Belz has a fascinating, albeit extremely sobering, column about the marriage debate, in which he says that we may already be too late to save the institution -- and that our approach is all wrong. It is too late because even most Americans who want to restrict "marriage" to heterosexual couples do so for the wrong reasons. If you don't hear them basing their argument on poll results, you'll hear them instead pointing to the "experience of five or six millennia of human experience." Well and good, since both are true. But both arguments were also used half a century ago to defend blatant racism-and both arguments were so badly discredited in that context that we should be embarrassed to use them now.... There is, in the end, only one sound defense of heterosexual marriage. The only ultimate argument is that restricting marriage to one man and one woman is part of God's creation order, the pattern He planned for the good and the glory of the human race. Apart from that admittedly quaint rationale, every other raison d'être collapses in contradiction and embarrassment.I'm not yet sure that I would give a blanket approval to every point in Belz's article, but I think his heavy warnings are on the right track. Yet I never would have placed such a dire outlook on the debate until the whole breakout of insanity in San Francisco. What a wakeup call that should be in the marriage debate and beyond. With the debacle still continuing, and copycats bound to pop up in other cities, I'm not sure we have enough fingers to plug all the leaks in our sinking ship. Does that mean we stop trying? Of course not. But our efforts seem to be going nowhere fast, from a legal perspective and a grassroots one. There's a more radical concept that all of this creates, though, and I think Joel Belz even hints at it in his column. Take a look at all of the major cultural issues going on right now: abortion, homosexuality, the definition of marriage, Ten Commandments monuments and other "church and state" issues, the war against radical Islam, and on and on. Even the controversy over "The Passion" has elements of the same conflict. And that conflict comes down to whether we are going to follow God or ourselves. Still speaking of the marriage debate, Belz continues: We may not like to admit it, but when you leave God's design out of the argument, there's really no overwhelming reason any longer to limit marriage to a man and a woman. Apart from His sovereign word, experimentation, reconfiguration, and realignment of virtually every kind are in order. Why not?Bottom line: America is at a crossroads. Founded as a Christian nation (though not a Christian theocracy), America has been guided for over 200 years by its adherence to the Judeo-Christian worldview. Our laws, our traditions, our societal expecations; all have had their boundaries within a cultural acceptance that a Supreme Being existed and that He had expectations to be followed. Now, as a nation, we must decide whether we are going to continue to follow that Eternal God or whether we are not. As for me and my house? We will serve the Lord -- no matter what. But as a society, we have to choose. And if, as a society, we determine to reject God and His established order, then our future, consequentially, will be guided by a new order. Is it not clear that our God-fearing heritage is in grave jeopardy? Absolute truth is a concept denied by a vast majority of our population (and over half of the church-going population). The tenets of the Bible are under constant attack, by secular and "religious" scholars. Judges refuse to issue injunctions against city officials who issue phony marriage licenses in defiance of state law. Other judges demand the removal of a symbol of God's Law from a public establishment. But you don't need me to convince you that culture is warped and decayed. And it doesn't take much to see that the same culture has, to a large degree, forsaken the Lord of Heaven. Yet in the end, we cannot shift the tide of destruction by offering the best rationale or the most effective ideology. I'm a conservative through and through, but I am not so naive as to think that America will be revolutionized by the teaching of conservatism's ideals, as logical and effective as they may be. No, the problem stems much deeper, right down to the heart. It is not an issue of ideology, but of worldview. Not what laws we will pass, not what ideas we will believe, but whom we will worship. And there is no room whatsoever for compromise on this point. Either God is Lord, or He isn't. America must choose (though I admittedly fear the choice she may make). You and I must choose as well. Our culture may or may not be beyond hope. We certainly must continue to fight to save it. Defend marriage, and pass an amendment to preserve its definition. Express outrage at pop culture's debauchery. Play hardball with legislators and judges who refuse to abide by the spirit and letter of the law. But in the end, America must choose. And before we can change America, you must choose. I must choose. Whom will you serve? Whom will you follow? I choose the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of (at least once) America. I choose Jesus Christ, who came as the Lamb of God to save the world from its sins. Whom do you choose? |
And if it seem
evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve;
whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side
of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but
as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
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