The Wittenberg Door

Should the Church Get Out of the Marriage Business?

The State’s primary interest in marriage is that it is the best way for it, the State, to perpetuate itself. Mommies and daddies are from where the next generation of citizens will come. And the best environment for the raising of responsible citizens is a married, monogamist, heterosexual household. Married and monogamist because that brings stability to the home; heterosexual because both the mother and the father bring something in particular to the childrearing enterprise.
This unit is the best way to secure society’s future. Therefore, the State has an interest in favoring and protecting marriage between a man and a woman. It has no such interest in same-sex unions.

The above is my public policy argument against the redefinition of marriage. It’s meant to protect the institution from attacks by secular forces. But this argument does not protect marriage from forces within the church . . .

Christians are frequently tempted to excuse themselves from the kerfuffle over same-sex marriage by insisting that the church should get out of the marriage business altogether. Many suggest that we should separate the conception of marriage into the "sacred" and the "secular." These evangelicals aren't questioning the Scripture's teaching on homosexuality. Some Christians just want to bypass debate and focus on weightier matters within the church's walls—like preserving the theology of marriage from being corrupted by democratic fiat.
This argument assumes that Christians can maintain and safeguard their own definition of marriage by refusing to impose a particular viewpoint in the public square. Often with good intentions, some Christians wish to privatize marriage into a strictly ecclesial practice, treating it like we would the Lord's Supper or baptism.

So now we are in a place where arguments against both sides are needed. Andrew Walker, director of policy studies at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, provides a thoughtful response to those Christians who think it’s best for the church to get out of the marriage business. Here’s an excerpt . . .

While marriage may be ultimately Christian, it's not exclusively Christian. Arguments that conflate theological meaning with direct public application ignore this division and treat a theology of marriage as akin to a theology of baptism. How a church administers baptism, however, is an ecclesial ordinance where the church marks out its members. The same cannot be said about marriage. It is entirely permissible for the government to uphold a view of marriage that comports with theological truth, but that is not held or promoted for theological reasons.
When we speak of marriage as only a theological construct, we do a disservice to the institution's public significance. There aren't two kinds of marriage—one secular, one sacred. There's only one marriage with one purpose, regardless of how different religious traditions handle or interpret the institution. Government does not uphold a particular theological interpretation of marriage; it upholds a view of marriage that differing theological and non-theological systems rightly accommodate. That's why civilizations across human history—some of them irreligious—have acknowledged marriage.
As Christians, we understand that marriage reflects the deepest truths of the gospel. As Christians in America, we also understand that government has an interest in promoting marriage as a social policy apart from any theological backdrop.

You can read the entire article here.

--The Catechizer

Labels: Cultural Mandate

Thought of the Day: Separation of Church and State

If we are to use the term “separation between Church & State,” we must do so honestly, remaining faithful to the original context: Thomas Jefferson was writing to Baptists who were being persecuted by an officially Congregationalist state government. Thus, he was not calling for a wall that protected the government from the church, but the church from the government. Something to keep in mind when discussing this issue.

--The Catechizer

Labels: Cultural Mandate

Is Christianity Left, Right, or Nether?

Dr. Brian Lee, pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Washington DC, wrote an interesting opinion piece over at The Daily Caller. It’s part of a series where one writer makes the case for Christianity being politically conservative, one that it’s liberal, and one that it’s neither (Rev. Lee’s view).

Warning: If you go on to read the “liberal” article I recommend a belt of whiskey first. It’s a long, rambling invective that offers no discernible arguments; all we learn is that the author hates Christianity, even though the Christianity he hates is a product of his own imagination.

Here’s how Rev. Lee kicks it off . . .

Both the Christian Right and the Christian Left get the question of Christianity and politics wrong.
Christianity is not politically conservative or politically liberal — though Christians may be either. Christianity is not political at all. It is in a sense politically agnostic. But in another sense it calls into question the basis of every earthly power, including politics.

You can read the entire article here.

--The Catechizer

Labels: Cultural Mandate

The Puritans, Work, and You

It seems easy to fall prey to our culture’s negative attitude towards work. We say that we’re “off to the salt mines,” or we claim to be “working for the weekends.”

The Puritans, however, held a very different view. They believed that work should be kept in high esteem. They believed this because they were theologically committed to an integrated view of life: all was spiritual; all was worship; all was service unto the Lord.

A true believing Christian . . . lives in his vocation by his faith. Not only my spiritual life but even my civil life in this world, and all the life I live, is by the faith of the Son of God; He exempts no life from the agency of his faith.
John Cotton (1584–1652)

Work was also a way for Christians to obey God by fulfilling the Cultural Mandate, which is found in Gen. 1:28. In that passage God tells us, via our first parents, to “be fruitful and multiply” and to subdue the earth. The first is a command to create cultures; the second is a command to build civilizations.

God hath made man a societal creature. We expect benefits from human society. It is but equal that human society should receive benefits from us.
Cotton Mather (1663-1728)

The Cultural Mandate was given prior to the Fall. Man was created to work with joy and with satisfaction. It was only after the Fall that weeds entered the garden, that work became toil.

I believe we modern Christians would do well to recover the Puritan view of work as service unto God, and also as service unto men. This is not only good, but good for us—for great joy is found therein.

The main end of our lives . . . is to serve God in the serving of men in the works of our callings. . . . Some man will say perchance: What, must we not labor in our callings to maintain our families? I answer: this must be done: but his is not the scope and end of our lives. The true end of our lives is to do service to God in serving of man.
William Perkins (1558-1602)

--The Catechizer

Labels: Cultural Mandate, History, Puritans

You Never Marry the Right Person

In an article for RELEVANT Magazine, Pastor Timothy Keller points out that many in our culture are looking for the wrong things when considering a future spouse:

. . . they are looking for someone who will accept them as they are, complement their abilities and fulfill their sexual and emotional desires. This will indeed require a woman who is “a novelist/astronaut with a background in fashion modeling,” and the equivalent in a man. A marriage based not on self-denial but on self-fulfillment will require a low- or no-maintenance partner who meets your needs while making almost no claims on you. Simply put—today people are asking far too much in the marriage partner.

Not only that, but many are shocked to find thorns in their marital rose garden. “This marriage-thing shouldn’t be so tough! I must have married the wrong person.” Pastor Keller answers, “You’re right.”

. . . Any two people who enter into marriage are spiritually broken by sin, which among other things means to be self-centered—living life incurvatus in se. As author Denis de Rougemont said, “Why should neurotic, selfish, immature people suddenly become angels when they fall in love ... ?” That is why a good marriage is more painfully hard to achieve than athletic or artistic prowess. Raw, natural talent does not enable you to play baseball as a pro or write great literature without enduring discipline and enormous work. Why would it be easy to live lovingly and well with another human being in light of what is profoundly wrong within our human nature? Indeed, many people who have mastered athletics and art have failed miserably at marriage. So the biblical doctrine of sin explains why marriage—more than anything else that is good and important in this fallen world—is so painful and hard.
The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the Gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The Gospel is—we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. This is the only kind of relationship that will really transform us. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.

You can read the entire article here.

--The Catechizer

Labels: Cultural Mandate

What Does it Mean to be Salt and Light?

Phil Johnson penned a fine article for Table Talk on what it means to be salt and light (Matt. 5:13-16). He has also posted it at the Pyromaniacs blog. Here’s an excerpt:

That text [Matt. 5:13-16] is often cited as if it were a mandate for the church to engage in political activism—lobbying, rallying voters, organizing protests, and harnessing the evangelical movement for political clout. I recently heard a well-known evangelical leader say, "We need to make our voices heard in the voting booth, or we're not being salt and light the way Jesus commanded."
That view is pervasive. Say the phrase "salt and light" and the typical evangelical starts talking politics as if by Pavlovian reflex. But look at Jesus' statement carefully in its context. He was not drumming up boycotts, protests, or a political campaign. He was calling His disciples to holy living.

You can read the entire post here.

--The Catechizer

Labels: Cultural Mandate, Sanctification

The Wit and Wisdom of C. H. Spurgeon

From Christian History magazine . . .

The preaching of Christ is the whip that flogs the devil. The preaching of Christ is the thunderbolt, the sound which makes all hell shake.

The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on His shoulders. If He bids us carry a burden, He carries it also.

As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to comprehend the Eternal God.

Few preachers of religion do believe thoroughly the doctrine of the Fall, or else they think that when Adam fell down he broke his little finger, and did not break his neck and ruin his race.

I am certain that I never did grow in grace one-half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain.

The heart of Christ became like a reservoir in the midst of the mountains. All the tributary streams of iniquity, and every drop of the sins of his people, ran down and gathered into one vast lake, deep as hell and shoreless as eternity. All these met, as it were, in Christ’s heart, and he endured them all.

I would rather lay my soul asoak in half a dozen verses [of the Bible] all day than rinse my hand in several chapters.

There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write damnation with your fingers.

It is a grand thing to see a man dying full of life . . . God makes his dying people to be like the sun, which never seems so large as when it sets.

A sermon wept over is more acceptable with God than one gloried over.

On Acts 26:28—Almost persuaded to be a Christian is like a man who was almost pardoned, but he was hanged; like the man who was almost rescued, but he was burned in the house. A man that is almost saved is damned.

The most useful members of a church are usually those who would be doing harm if they were not doing good.

--The Catechizer

Labels: Cultural Mandate, History

Notable Quotes: John Calvin and Albert Wolters

On redeeming culture . . .

The liberal arts and sciences have descended to us from the heathen. We are, indeed, compelled to acknowledge that we have received astronomy, and the other parts of philosophy, medicine, and the order of the civil government, from them. Nor is it to be doubted that God has thus liberally enriched them with excellent favors that their impiety might have the less excuse. But, while we admire the riches of his favor which he has bestowed on them, let us still value far more highly that grace of regeneration with which he peculiarly sanctifies his elect unto himself.
John Calvin

The new humanity, God’s people, is called to promote renewal in every department of creation. If Christ is the reconciler of all things, and if we have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation on his behalf, then we have a redemptive task wherever our vocation places us in his world. . . . In the name of Christ, [the] distortion [of sin] must be opposed everywhere—in the kitchen and bedroom, in city councils and corporate boardrooms, on the stage, [on the silver screen], and on the air, in the classroom, and in the workshop. Everywhere humanity’s sinfulness disrupts and deforms. Everywhere Christ’s victory is pregnant with the defeat of sin and the recovery of creation.
Albert Wolters

Labels: Cultural Mandate, Quotes

Notable Quote: Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer (1912 – 1984) on the Christian’s obligation to culture …

Most fundamentally, our culture, society, government, and law are in the condition they are in, not because of a conspiracy, but because the church has forsaken its duty to be the salt of the culture. It is the church’s duty (as well as its privilege) to do now what it should have been doing all the time—to use the freedom we do have to be that salt of the culture. If the slide toward authoritarianism is to be reversed, we need a committed Christian church that is dedicated to what John W. Whitehead calls “total revolution in the reformative sense.”

A Christian Manifesto

Labels: Cultural Mandate, Quotes

Girl and Snake to Wed - Part 1

Not too long ago I came across an article about a girl, 15, in India who desires to marry a snake. Here’s the skinny: The girl, Kusum, was bathing in a river when a cobra began to wrap himself around her. Although panicked, the girl was able to shake off the reptile.

Upon her return to the village, Kusum told her father that she must marry the snake. Her family, of course, tried to dismiss her nuptial desires, but to no avail: the girl insisted on having her man, err, snake. To make matters worse, the snake kept coming around! (I’m not sure whether or not the reptile has actually asked for her hand yet, but I’ll keep you posted.)

The family took Kusum to a doctor, and then to a witch doctor, but nothing would stop the wedding bells from ringing in her ears. Finally, the father had to come to terms with the budding relationship of these young lovers: "Maybe it is the wish of the God."

Will Any-old Marriage Do?

Not only in our country, but all over the world, cultures are beginning to redefine marriage. Once marriage is no longer just between a man and a woman, anything goes.

The prevailing argument seems to be that if two people love each other, they should be allowed to marry. Here’s the trouble with such an argument:

All we need is love?
I love the Beatles; and this is a great song; but it makes lousy social policy. Can I marry my neighbor’s wife as long as we love each other? How about my sister if we promise not to have kids? No? BUT WE LOVE EACH OTHER!

Can I marry myself? (How can you say no, you singlephobe?!?) How about a reptile? (Why not!?! Are you some kind of speciest?)

The truth is, having “love” as the standard doesn’t work. There must be some other standard; and it must be a standard that makes the state take interest.
All we need is a contract?
The State only has interest in two types of contractual relationships: corporations and marriages. The first because the State is required to regulate commerce (section 8, clause 3 of the constitution); and the second because it is the best way for it to perpetuate itself.

Mommies and daddies are from where the next generation of citizens will come. And the best environment for the raising of responsible citizens is a married, monogamist, heterosexual household. Married and monogamist because that brings stability to the home; heterosexual because both the mother and the father bring something in particular to the childrearing enterprise.

This unit is the best way to secure society’s future. Therefore, the State has an interest in favoring and protecting marriage between a man and a woman.

Stay tuned for part 2 to find out the fate of our slithering Romeo and his head-strong Juliet.

Labels: Apologetics, Cultural Mandate

New Blog: The Broken Messenger

Yesterday, I happened into a local “Christian” bookstore. It was all too typical: lots of trinkets, little substance. (I looked long-and-hard to find the “Theology” section. I finally found a few books—very few—under the heading “Finances.”) They had “gospel” tee shirts, bumper stickers, bubble gum, etc. But truly, how many of the store’s shoppers really know what the gospel is?

Protestants today have become overcome by Arminian theology, anti-creedalism, and anti-intellectualism. Because of this, most Protestants have no idea what the gospel is, hence the gospel boxer shorts.

It is within this vacuum that a misplaced political activism has grown. After losing the true message of the doing-and-dying of Christ, Christians are instead turning to moralism and legislation. Don’t get me wrong, we are to fulfill the Cultural Mandate and participate in our society, and that includes trying to further just and moral legislation. But it is not a replacement for the Great Commission, nor is an ungodly intermixing permissible.

The Broken Messenger

It is with delight that I ran across the blog, The Broken Messenger—a blog that features great theology and insightful commentary. Along the lines of what I was just writing is a post titled, Religious Right Hypocrisy. Here’s an excerpt:

In all this it seems that we have chosen the lesser, easier route. And we are completely hypocritical in several ways. First, we exalt politics over Christ. We have placed Kingdom work under civil work. Second, we work for the sake of morality, rather than performing the joyful work of faith for the sake of Jesus. We are perfectly content in having a Desperate Housewives Democracy (just stuff it down, put on a good front and keep all that evil in the bedroom of your heart) while giving the appearance of godliness while denying its power. Third, we carry a message that reveres a political party while remaining mute about the greatest Name under heaven. It’s all about the party, stupid. Making much of Jesus is thought to be best left to the preacher in the pulpit and that old peeling bumper sticker on the back of your Jetta.

You can read the rest here.

Labels: Cultural Mandate

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Thursday, April 16, 2015

Should the Church Get Out of the Marriage Business?

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Thought of the Day: Separation of Church and State