When I was graduating from junior high and transitioning over to the local high school, I heard rumors about a couple that was attending that high school. A homosexual couple. Teen girls who were dating. The rumor mill was working over time that summer and by the time the first day of school came I expected to see several couples like this on campus. That wasn’t the case. It was just one couple and once we realized that the topic of homosexuality didn’t come up at all during my four years in high school.
I didn’t think too much of it for the next several years until we ended up in a fundamentalist church where it was preached about quite often. More celebrities were coming out of their closets and more preaching followed. Now we’re in the twenty-first century and the conversation about homosexuality is not going to go away, neither are the homosexuals. They’re here among us and we can’t deny that. No amount of preaching is going to make them go away and the more preachers condemn them the more the communities will struggle with being a community with them.
Each of us lives in a community and each community has divisions. That’s a part of life, but to be a healthy community we need to learn to live together in balanced harmony for the benefit of the whole community.
The church I came out of two years ago got involved in their first political rally when Prop 8 hit the ballot in California. The Prop 8 group couldn’t find a church that was willing to host the rally in our area. So the pastor took it on. It was quite impressive actually. I was amazed to see how many people came out for it. People from several counties all around ours. That was about a year before we left that church. Looking back now and remembering the things that were said, how it was handled, and looking at the US Constitution diligently, I came to change my mind about Prop 8.
My first thought about the Marriage Act is that the government should never have been given ‘marriage’ to begin with. If ‘marriage’ is truly of God then why is the government making a law about it? There was a generation of Christians that dropped the ball on protecting their religious traditions when they allowed the state to license marriage in the first place. I could go ever further by addressing the fact that Christianity also has allowed the state to license a pastor, but I’ll save that one for another article.
Now my second thought is about homosexual individuals as US citizens. The US Constitution is there to protect them as well. Is the US Constitution only protecting the right to pursue happiness for heterosexual couples? As I think back on our nation’s history I can remember there was a time when it didn’t protect women as individuals, nor African Americans. Our nation went through tremendous battles to bring about the freedom of women and African Americans. The idea that the US Constitution only protects the rights of white men would be preposterous!
Upon a closer look at the state’s individual constitutions we see that there is indeed a civil union law that gives homosexual couples rights in their state approved union. There are a lot of disagreements about the benefits that come with both civil unions and marriage. Are they equal?
Since Christianity gave ‘marriage’ over to the state’s authority they now run the risk of seeing it redefined to keep up with the Constitutional rights of all American citizens. This is where the problem rises to the surface and it is met with a lot of hostility.
A lot of the argument about homosexual marriage is coming from the religious community.
I find it interesting that before Prop 8 hit the ballot Fundamental Baptists and Mormons were sharply divided, but become quite unified to stop homosexual equality for marriage. All kinds of churches that otherwise have absolutely no communication, fellowship, or otherwise have suddenly agreed upon something. Enough of an agreement to send their money to the Prop 8 campaign to fight for marriage in court. If marriage was this important to them, why not just take marriage out of the state constitution and give it back to the religious community where they claim it belongs?
Then the state can have civil unions for all people regardless of their orientation and the church’s can maintain their own definition for marriage aside from the state.
There’s something very interesting brewing when the religious community actually wants the state’s approval on their religious ceremonies, pastors, and ministries.
For now we have this issue and each state has varying laws about this controversy, but aside from that there is this ongoing conversation taking place with churches and pastors all over the nation.
Are homosexuals allowed to become members of churches?
Can a homosexual couple attend a couple’s class?
Is it appropriate to allow a homosexual to teach God’s grace to a group of people?
For some people the argument becomes one of the Law. The Law was given to the Jews, not the Gentiles. I’m not a Jew and I think it would be fair to assume that most churches that consider themselves “New Testament Churches” aren’t Jews either.
We aren’t required to live by the Law, but if we choose to live by the Law we have to live by all of the Law. If we offend just ONE law we are guilty of ALL the Law. Each church certainly has the freedom to live by the Law, but if they do they need to uphold all of it and I’m quite certain they won’t be changing their Sunday services back to Saturdays any time soon.
Living in the New Covenant with Christ, there is this new way of living. It’s called living by faith. To live by the Law is opposite to living by faith.
We see an example of this when Paul is explaining the wisdom of allowing one another to eat certain meats that others might claim is a sin. The argument was that the Law forbade it, but under grace it’s allowed. I believe his thoughts in Romans 14 is quite fitting for this discussion.
In the New Covenant we reap what we sow. There are consequences in this life, therefore major decisions should be taken seriously.
I believe there is a balance for this ongoing conversation about the homosexual community and the religious community and I think we need to take this entire conversation very seriously, full of grace, and in the wisdom of God under the New Covenant of Christ.
I will close with these thoughts and another article is to come soon.
- Each church has the freedom to live by their convictions as interpreted by their denomination.
- The US Constitution is supposed to uphold the rights of all it’s citizens.
- Not all Americans are religious, therefore should not be made to living according to religious convictions.
In my upcoming articles I will be examining the words in the Hebrew and Greek in the popular passages that many churches use to uphold their convictions about homosexuality and bring them into the Light of the New Covenant life in Christ.
I welcome comments, but I reserve the right to withhold publishing any comments that are belittling or condemning. I do hope you will let me know what questions and concerns you have so I can prayerfully consider those things while I am studying this topic.
