The Marriage Ref: Born This Way

In the following post, I am about to delve into one of the most formidable topics I have yet entertained.  I have decided to include no witty quotes at the beginning of this post, no lighthearted banter to ease my way into this discussion.  Because this is a topic which I intend to treat with the utmost sincerity and sobriety.

I implore you, if you have not read my previous two posts in this series ("Foundation" and "The Great Divide"), please do so before reading this post.  I want anyone who reads this to know my heart for this subject.  All of these recent posts have been written primarily out of a love for marriage, and a fear of the attitude with which modern society looks upon it.  Please know that in writing these (sometimes controversial) words, I do not mean to condemn anyone or offend without cause.  I am simply trying to help my readers come to an understanding that marriage is a covenant, which is one of the strongest types of contracts, and therefore any mistreatment of this sacred institution is a grave matter.

Following this trend, the topic I have chosen to discuss this week is the matter of gay marriage and homosexuality.  These subjects are all but ubiquitous in the modern media, and no matter what you think about the subject of gay marriage, you cannot fail to have noticed the number of very prominent examples of homosexuality portrayed in modern publications.  The modern world has come to accept this lifestyle holistically, and even in some Christian circles it has been embraced to the degree of hiring ministers who have a homosexual partner.

Truth with Love

I am really struggling in writing this post, because I know that certain people will try to say that I am intolerantly calling down curses on the entire homosexual community.  They are wrong.  That being said, there is much I am compelled to write on this subject.

I am going to start with the most difficult statement in this whole matter- as a Christian, there are many things I cannot say for sure about homosexuality.  But what I can say with certainty is that acts of homosexuality are sin.  Let me say this again: The Bible does not say much about homosexuality, but what it does say is not pleasant.  It is these passages which I will be discussing further in the remainder of this post.

If you will recall from my post a couple of weeks ago, marriage is defined by God.  It is an institution established and maintained by Him, and no matter what society and the government has to say, He has the final word.  If you don't agree with this, there is not much point in you reading the rest of this article, because I am going to be drawing primarily from Scripture.  Also, as I have said before, if you don't believe that marriage comes from God, there is really no reason to get married in the first place, so attempting to defend your own personal view of marriage, unless you are drawing from elsewhere in the Bible, is futile as far as I am concerned.

As I attempted to explain last week, marriage is a big deal, and any deviation from its prescribed formulation is inherently wrong.  And I do mean any deviation.  When I approach the subject of homosexuality, I want you to understand that I approach it in the same way I approach any form of sexual immorality.  Adultery, lust, abuse, prostitution, pornography, and all other sins in this area cause me just as much grief as homosexuality.  I do not hate homosexuals, but at the same time I do not embrace homosexuality.  Similarly, I hate pornography, but that does not mean that I hate the man who is addicted to it.  There is no room for sin in the Kingdom of God, but all thanks be to Him and His Son that there is room for sinners.

The Bible Tells Me So

In the summer of 2008, I viewed a documentary entitled For the Bible Tells Me So, which strove to explain that the Bible more or less consented to homosexuality and that there are even a few places in Scripture where it is implied as a theme.  I honestly do not remember much about the documentary now, except that only a handful of verses were brought up as being opposed to homosexuality, and of those, only two or three were actually explicitly discussed and very meagerly rebutted.  At the time, I knew much less about the Bible, and the arguments in the film seemed reasonable.  But in hindsight, the directors of the documentary made most of their impact by painting Christians as bigoted troublemakers than by actually addressing the text of the Bible.  You are more than welcome to watch the documentary yourself and form your own opinions, but I think it would be more worth our while to actually crack open the Bible.

Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).  In Genesis 2, we get a very moving image of God's concern for man.  From among all the other creatures on the earth, no suitable companion can be found for Adam.  So what does God do?  He makes such a companion: woman.  The reason why men and women in love sometimes feel like they were "made for each other" is that they actually were!  Since virtually the beginning of humanity, woman has been the complement of man, and vice versa.  "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." (Gen. 2:24)  The first marriage was obviously between a man and a woman, and it seems as though this was meant to last.

The first place in Scripture where homosexuality is treated in explicit terms is in the Levitical law.  The Old Testament Law has become somewhat contentious over the years, but I still find it to be one of the most important parts of the entire Bible.  Whether or not these laws are being enacted in a legal sense, they still paint a very clear picture of the heart of God.  Also, it isn't like this Law has been abolished.  In fact, as Jesus says, the Old Testament is still very active. "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." (Matt. 5:18)  The good news (in fact, the Good News) is that Jesus Himself died to fulfill the Law, something animal sacrifices could never do.  But the Law was not annulled in being fulfilled, it was simply appeased for those who choose to believe on Jesus.  I'll treat this idea with more depth in a future post.

For the time being, suffice it to say that the Levitical law is still very important.  Now, many people have accused Christians of taking the following verses out of context, so I will quote them in their entire context, and provide links (as I always do) so that you can check out the source material for yourself, if you want.  We'll start with Leviticus 18:21-23:

"Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.  Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.  Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion." (italics mine)

This statement seems pretty unambiguous, right?  I have yet to hear of anyone advocating for child sacrifice or bestiality, yet for some reason people try to say that God actually does not mind homosexual practices.  Furthermore, note the adjective used to describe these homosexual acts here: detestable.  At the end of the chapter, all of the sins listed are described as detestable (verses 26, 29 and 30), but only one of them is singled out as being specifically detestable when it is first mentioned.

A couple chapters later, as a follow-up to the passage above, God then lists what punishments are to be exacted for various sins.  Again, quoting the context:

"If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, both of them are to be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.  If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.  They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.  If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked.  Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you." (Lev. 20:12-14, italics mine)

It is clear that God wants His people to understand just how serious these sins are.  Now, as I have said before, I am not advocating for a legal reinstatement of these laws.  But they do provide a good sense of the fact that homosexual acts are without a doubt sinful.  And in case you didn't notice, the word detestable is used here once again.

In with the New

Perhaps quoting the Old Testament does not convince you.  I mean, the Old Testament is, well, old.  All right then, Let's move onward to the New Testament to see what it has to say on the matter.  Paul has more quotes directly related to homosexuality than any other writer in the New Testament.  The first passage I know of which discusses the topic with any amount of frankness is in Romans.  Here, Paul is giving a list of sins being committed by a group of "wicked" people who turned away from God to pursue their sinful desires.  "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.  Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error." (Romans 1:26-27)  Note that Paul says these men abandoned "natural relations" in committing these "shameful acts."  There is no begging for apologies from Paul in case he hurt someone's feelings, no attempt to cushion this accusation in terms which were politically correct.  He intends to make it clear that these men and women had abandoned God altogether, and uses these descriptions and more to prove his point (see the rest of the passage by clicking on the link).

A similar passage occurs in 1 Corinthians 6.  Here Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, begging its members not to get into petty legal disputes with each other.  As a contrast to the love they should be showing each other, Paul reminds the church of what their lives used to look like before they turned to Christ.

"Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And that is what some of you were.  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." -1 Cor. 6:9-11

Again, Paul is not indicating that homosexuality is a worse sin than others, but what he is saying is that homosexual acts are sins.

The only other place I know of in the New Testament where homosexuality is treated explicitly is in 1 Timothy 1.  After discussing the matter of false teachers with Timothy, Paul decided to talk briefly about the Law and its significance.

"We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.  We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me." -1 Tim. 1:8-11

While this passage is not written with the purpose of condemning homosexuality, it certainly does equate it with the other sins in this list, once again indicating that the practice of homosexuality is a sin.  It seems that wherever homosexuality is mentioned in the Bible, it is treated as a sin.

There is one more point I would like to make before moving on.  While the rest of the Bible might not mention homosexuality explicitly, I believe that there are other passages where it is examined.  This is because with all the examples listed above, it would not be inaccurate to describe homosexuality as a form of sexual immorality.  Indeed, if it is considered to be a sin associated with sexuality at all, it even seems proper to categorize it thus.  And there are several passages which deal with sexual immorality.  I do not think I need to quote any of these passages to prove further that homosexuality is a sin, but I will list a few in case you want to read on: Matt. 15:16-20, Acts 15:29, 1 Cor. 6:12-20, Ephesians 5:3, etc.

But

Let me recap this post so far:  God invented marriage (and sex for that matter), so He gets to define how it works.  He defined it as being between one man and one woman.  And just to make sure everything was clear, He then spent several passages in the Book He wrote explaining that any deviation from this prescribed framework is a sin.

But that still isn't good enough for lots of Americans, and even for some modern Christians.  Two of the main objections I have heard to this matter are: "Can it really be wrong to love someone?" and "How can people be born with this desire if it is evil?"  I shall answer these questions in that order.

First, I believe that loving people is not a sin.  There are certainly examples of things which it is sinful to love (in fact, the list is nearly endless), but loving people seems to me to always be proper.  That being said, I think the idea of love in this context needs to be defined.  I believe that having a deep, personal relationship with just about anyone is a good thing.  Just look at David and Jonathan or Paul and Silas.  But the kind of loving relationships like this that we see in the Bible have no sexual connotations.  Sex and the desires associated with it are the origin of the sin, in the case of homosexuality.  And this is not unique.  Again, there is really only one circumstance in which Christianity views sexuality as being proper: in the context of marriage.  Sexual desires are sinful in cases of adultery, lust, fornication, and even in other settings, so I do not feel the least bit of concern in saying that such desires for another person are could be sin.

As far as seemingly innate desires are concerned, there is no reason why they should not be evil.  Many people struggle with many different kinds of desires that they were "born" with.  There are people who are more inclined to murdering or lying than those around them.  Many times we have clinical names for these predispositions, like kleptomania and pyromania.  But for some reason when it comes to sexual desires, we claim that there is no way a person could develop an attraction for something which is morally wrong.  Furthermore, there are tons of other instances of sinful sexual desires which people possess "from the time they were born."  Many degrees of heterosexual desires are sinful, even though we often fail to see them as such.  Therefore, stating that innate desires can be evil seems reasonable to me.

You Can't be Serious

So what does all of this rambling mean?  What is the message I want to get across to you?  First, I want American culture to realize that supporting traditional marriage and opposing gay marriage is not denying someone their rights.  There is no right to gay marriage.  By definition, there really is no gay marriage at all!  And I'm not really sure if it is proper to say that anyone has the "right" to get married.  Marriage will always be a privilege, and we should cherish it as such.

Second, it is my sincere prayer that my thoughts have been articulated well enough that there is no misunderstanding about my intentions.  I do not hate homosexuals.  In fact, I love them quite as much as I love any other person I meet.  But it pains me to see people embracing a part of them which at its core is sinful and making that into their personal identity.  It genuinely frightens me that we have become a culture which has become so obsessed with tolerance we do not know when to stand up for righteousness.

One of my goals for this blog as a whole was to address several concerns which I have with modern Western culture.  That is why I do not care if this post strikes my readers as "archaic" thinking or prejudice.  It is neither of those things.  This is simply a plea for America to stop trusting only in itself and start recognizing that there is a higher power out there who is waiting for her to return to Him.

My challenge this week is for Christians everywhere to stand up for marriage and not buy into the prevalent message that each person gets to make his own morality.  Do not be afraid to oppose same-sex marriage.  It may not be a popular stand to make, but neither are many other biblical positions.  Thank you for your patience in reading this cumbersome article, and please keep the covenant of marriage in your prayers.

"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." -Hebrews 13:4