The Supreme Court Decision last month has been a cause of
concern for many evangelical Christians before and after they gave their 5-4
decision that made gay marriage legal in all 50 states. Many evangelical
Christians believe that gay marriage goes against the clear teaching of
Scriptures, and point to Gen 2 and Matt 19, and several Old Testament and New
Testament texts commonly considered to be concerning homosexuality. I would
place myself in their ranks, but rather than posting a blog defending traditional
marriage, or warning America that they are departing from the godly principles
that have brought our country blessing, I would like to call my fellow
right-leaning Evangelicals to a little introspection.
What is it that makes gays and lesbians our favorite
targets? Some of Jesus’ teachings may apply to the issue of gay marriage, such
as the aforementioned Matt 19, but in sort of a second-order way; by inference.
There is another modern issue about which Jesus had some
rather direct things to say, with no inference needed (Matt 19; Mark 10). Jesus
confronted divorce and remarriage head-on, in no uncertain terms. Through the
prophet Malachi, the LORD says rather clearly, “I hate divorce (Mal 2:16).” The
Torah allowed for divorce (Deut 24:1), but Jesus submitted that it was only
because of the stubbornness of the Israelites, not because it was something God
approved. I could give more examples of biblical texts that speak against
divorce, leaving behind, divorce and remarriage. Evangelical biblical scholars
have performed exegetical gymnastics to relieve the offense and discomfort that
these texts may cause to their divorced and remarried constituents in a similar
way that a number of scholars have bent backwards to say that the biblical
texts that condemn homosexual acts are not relevant to the modern phenomenon of
gay marriage. With few exceptions, I have not heard many pronouncements about
the evils of divorce and remarriage.
If all of the gays and lesbians got married tomorrow, the
societal effect, and I think that there could be SOME deleterious effect, would
be miniscule to the devastation that our modern heterosexual divorce culture
has wrought. Yet, the church seems to have accepted it with little difficulty,
with my own denomination even allowing divorced and remarried persons to be
ministers. I am not calling for a purgation of divorced and remarried persons
from our midst, but reflect on this in order for us to get to motivations,
seeing that divorce and remarriage is probably even more clearly condemned in
scripture, by Jesus no less, than gay marriage.
But back to my question about why gays and lesbians are our
favorite targets. Unlike divorced and remarried folk, who make up a little over
one half of our church constituencies, gays and lesbians hardly darken the
doors of our churches, and if they did, they would be a relatively small
demographic, as they are in society at large—we can seem holy by confronting
the sin of homosexuality without risking a mass exodus from our churches and
our coffers beginning to run empty. I submit to you, then, that it is an issue
of money and attendance rolls as much as it is about the teaching of
Scriptures. Right-leaning Evangelicals, take a moment and think about it.
