Supreme Court on Marriage Equality

[Chris]

I am anxiously awaiting Southern Baptist Convention reaction to today's Supreme Court decision. Robert Jeffress...Russell Moore...Al Mohler....Charles Stanley....Paige Patterson? Come out, comeout, wherever you are!

[William Thornton]

Moore: "Despite this ruling, the church of Jesus Christ will stand fast. We will not capitulate on this issue because we cannot. To minimize or ignore a Christian sexual ethic is to abandon the message Jesus handed down to us, and we have no authority to do this. At the same time, now is not the time for outrage or panic. Marriage is resilient. God created it to be so. Marriage in the minds of the public may change, but marriage as a reality created by God won't change at all. The church must now articulate and embody a Christian vision of marriage and work to rebuild a culture of marriage.""

Floyd: "I deeply believe in biblical and traditional marriage. The court has determined otherwise. Our #1 concern at this point is that religious freedom is protected in every way, honoring our God-given conscience, and that we not be discriminated against for our biblical and traditional stand."

has others and will doubtless have additional stories.

The SBC rhetoric has been modified for some time in recognition of the decision.

[Haruo]

[Chris]

[William Thornton]

Chris, start a topic on the bible and homosexuality if you wish maybe someone will not have seen the arguments. This one is on SCOTUS' decision. The quote attributed to me above is Moore's. Take it up with him.

[Chris]

Apologies to William Thornton. I did not see the word "Moore" at the beginning. I will take it up with Moore, if I can find him.

[William Thornton]

[Chris]

I wish Fox would ask "our Fox" for a soundbite.

[Hal Eaton]

I haven't been on line herein for a while, but I have been busy being busy.

For my ancient thread, "One Mo' Time," I was listening to the follow-up of the Supreme Court's latest entry into our lives. The closed-captionist, always a source of humor, kept referring to the justices who dissented, but used the word "descent" for almost every comment.

It leaves me wondering if they are far wiser than I give them credit for . . .

I made the following comment on Baptist Global News, but they often "moderate" my entries . . .

I said: The four so-called "conservative" justices just happen to be members of the Roman Catholic Church. I offered the idea that they were aware of the RC's dictates regarding gay-marriage and gay (other things), and wondered if they feared excommunication in this life (and the next, forever and ever), if they voted the wrong way. (The same idea applies to the "Hobby Lobby" votes.)

[Tim Bonney]

11650663_10155597285810467_1413304502_n.jpgFrom the Southern Poverty Law Center

[Shawn Koester]

I rejoice at this ruling for nation wide marriage equality for God's gay, lesbian, bi and transgender children. I will gladly perform weddings for both LGBT and straight couples alike. I respect the soul liberty and Biblical freedom of my more conservative sisters and brothers in their beliefs. Speaking as an engaged straight ally of the LGBT community, I see the 50% percent divorce rate of marriages in America and it breaks my heart because we as straight people have taken marriage for granted because we have always had it. Yet some of the most faithful marriages I have seen are with God's gay, lesbian, bi and transgender children because they have not always had the freedom to marry the person they love and their marriages have lasted 30 years or more. I take marriage very seriously. The question in marriage is not Who do you love? but Do you love? Jesus said "People will know you're my disciples if you have love for another". Paul in 1st Corinthians says that "Now abideth faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love'". To quote a Latin phrase- Ubi caritas et amor. Ubi caritas deus ibiest. Where love and charity are there God is. Marriage is not to be entered in lightly or unadvisedly but it is to be done reverently and in awe of the Lord. Marriage at its heart two souls becoming one and nothing brings me greater joy than two people coming together to form new lives together, bearing each other's burdens through good times and bad, poverty or wealth, and all things in between.

[Sandy]

It's hard to see how this ruling "threatens" traditional marriage. That's an empty argument anyhow, given the divorce rate, and the almost completely ineffective way that the church, collectively, handles its own members when it comes to respecting and believing in "traditional" marriage. Nor is this some sort of "tipping point" on God's moral report card of the United States that will trigger some kind of Old Testament judgment and punishment. "Religious freedom" as a constitutional guarantee is not rocket science. A free conscience when it comes to religion means that all religious beliefs are a protected and guaranteed civil right under the constitution, including the right not to hold any belief, and to live in accordance with those principles. The civil authority has co-opted marriage and turned it into a legally binding contract which means that it is a civil right, and it has been defined by the state via the legislative process. Some people get married in a religious context, and decide on their own to follow the principles associated with it. I don't see this as anything different from those who decide to get married but don't do so under religious authority. Since the divorce rate among Christians who get married under that authority is about as high as it is among the secular population, the bigger problem for the church isn't the handful of same-sex marriages that will happen (or already have), but why so many of their own members don't respect the Christian definition of marriage that is now being trotted out and defended.

On the other hand, this ruling will not stop churches from marrying heterosexual couples in a Christian context. It will not bring about persecution of those who hold to traditional, Christian principles related to marriage. It will not open the door to lawsuits or arrests of pastors and church leaders who refuse to perform same-sex weddings on religious grounds, and it does not, in any way, shape or form, weaken anyone's religious freedom, in fact, by extending this freedom to those who are non-religious in a Judeo-Christian context, it strengthens the principle of religious freedom. If someone can be discriminated against, or persecuted, because their religious beliefs are either different, or aren't in the same realm as the majority, then no one's religious beliefs are protected and safe.

Personally, with Jesus' definition of marriage being between one man and one woman, which clarified not only the polygamy argument, but the gender one as well, I am not inclined to believe that the church should perform same-sex ceremonies. I think that endorses sin, bypasses the need for repentance and consigns gays and lesbians to hell more than any Bible-thumping fundamentalist preacher does, because it prevents them from seeing their need for repentance and grace. But the US constitution was not written to direct people to salvation, it was written to protect the rights of the nation's people.

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy, I'm trying to understand your argument about same sex marriage leading people to hell. I guess what I'm having trouble with is understanding your soteriology.

I don't agree with you that same sex sexual behavior is a sin in a committed context. But lets for sake of argument say that I did. Are you suggesting that if someone commits a sin that they don't know is a sin but otherwise lives the Christian life following Jesus that this one unknowing sin would prevent them from going to heaven?

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

Prevenient grace.

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

I Timothy meant "sin" in the sense of "salvation"

[Haruo]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy,

For me the issue of what your talking about really isn't homosexuality. I'm concerned that you think that someone who has already confessed Christ as savior and commits a sin that they don't know to be a sin would go to hell.

We can only and ever repent of sins we know about. And in our human frailties I think it is hardly likely that we know of every sin we have ever committed. Your assumption that the spirit will reveal all sins to us so that we can repent seems pretty iffy to me to me in that it still falls to the human frailty of being able to always know when the spirit is leading you one direction or another and remembering each and every sin to repent from. It appears to me to assume a necessity of perfect communication between God and humans for that knowledge to exist.

Further it appears to me to remove salvation by grace through faith and replace it with salvation by being cleansed from all sin as the means of salvation. It is grace that washes away my sins not my identifying all my sins to bring grace.

It all appears to pre-suppose a level of human involvement in our own salvation that I don't think is humanly possible.

Look at the thief on the cross. He never had opportunity to confess all of his sins. He professed faith in Christ and was given paradise.

I don't believe I can possibly diagnose all of my sinfulness and lay it out before God. He is the great physicians and I am the one who is sin sick in need of a savior. He bring the cure. I just receive it.

As far as I'm concerned the prayer of confession is "Lord be merciful to me a sinner." Not "Lord, let me catalogue my sins so you can tick them off the list and make sure you forgave them after I list them."

He knows what I did and didn't do even when I don't. And to use the language of my Baptist forebears, He has covered me in the blood of the lamb.

[Sandy]

I'm not saying that a person who has confessed Christ as savior would go to hell for committing a sin that they didn't know was a sin. I'm saying that being unrepentant when brought to conviction by the Holy Spirit prior to their confession of Christ, or their salvation, would prevent them from receiving grace. If the Holy Spirit has provided the conviction for sin, which must occur before a person confesses Christ, and the individual doesn't respond to that conviction, but remains unrepentant, they are not confessing Christ.

I believe in an indwelling Spirit that brings conviction of sin, so I don't think it is possible for an individual who has been genuinely repentant, and who has confessed Christ, to remain ignorant of sin for very long. It's not just a matter of intellectual understanding of scripture, it is a matter of the dynamic interaction of the Holy Spirit with the human soul. It has transforming power, and providing someone with teaching or advice that something which is sinful isn't really sin is a barrier to the work of the Spirit in convicting people of their sin.

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy you seem to really gloss over the human condition known as ignorance.

There are whole hosts of things that we now know to be sin that few believed were sins in previous generations and yet I'm not going to think all those folks went to hell.

For example owning a slave is a sin but did everyone who owned slaves in the south know it was a sin? If they owned a slave when they became a Christian are they now in hell since they were sinning owning a slave? That's a lot of southerners in hell who claimed to be Christians.

It is a sin treat women as property and not people yet I hardly believe that all Christians who misunderstood God's plan for women in the 1st century are now in hell.

Being able to confess and know all your sins isn't what being a Christian is about. Being a Christian is about a relationship (not a transaction) with Jesus Christ and seeking to follow him. If you have to follow Jesus perfectly to be a Christian then you didn't need Jesus in the first place. If every minute of every day you have to have all your sins confessed and forgiven you you are in danger of hell any time a moment goes by between a sin and asking for forgiveness.

You are more than welcome to believe what you want since I don't believe a mixed up soteriology will keep you out of God's kingdom. But your soteriology is quite unorthodox.