Breaking Christian News on The Gospel Herald

First, let me just say that to assert “Christianly” thoughts on the topics of Islam, Muslims, and the Ground-Zero mosque is by no means to suggest that this is the authoritative biblical view on these matters. Merely, mine is an earnest attempt to filter these subjects through the lens of a consciously Christian worldview in hopes of finding that way which may be most pleasing to God, both for myself and the church at large.

As we once again approach this national day of thanksgiving, I thought it necessary to reflect upon our nation’s long history of acknowledging and giving thanks to Almighty God.

I received many responses to last week’s article, Marriage Survives! Can it Endure? Some revealed the very problem I was addressing: the next generation, including many Christians, are either confused or compromised on the issue of homosexuality and, by implication, biblical authority.

It is an ironic fact that this phrase appears on our currency when so often it is money (or financial security) and not God that we trust in first. In these uncertain economic times, the tendency of our frail flesh is to be fearful. However, if the church is to be a faithful witness in such times this, fear must be replaced by confident faith in the sovereign God who causes all things to work together for good.

When I began this series, I said the battle to define marriage is not over — and I’m still convinced that is true. However, the issue in America has clearly passed the eleventh hour and I fear the clock has already begun to toll. The outcome of California’s Proposition 8 this November, which seeks to amend the state constitution in order to establish that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”—thus reversing the state Supreme Court’s recognition of same-sex marriage in May—will figure prominently in the future of marriage in America. If the measure is defeated (and barring any intervention by God), I predict it will be nearly impossible to halt the homosexual movement and with it the radical redefinition of sexual morality.

In the wake of the California Supreme Court’s audacious decision to legitimize marriage between people of the same sex, media outlets have been dominated by discussions on the topic. Frustrated by the lack of any cogent arguments defending the Judeo-Christian conception of marriage, a friend challenged me to pen a more thorough apologetic so that the church might be better equipped to offer an articulate and rational defense of this essential institution.

As discussed last week, the noted anthropologist, J. D. Unwin conducted what is arguably the most exhaustive examination of sexual ethics and their affect upon society. In brief, Unwin discovered that throughout history, the state of a given society was directly related to its sexual ethic. Monogamous cultures prosper and those disinclined to restrain sex to monogamous marriage remain primitive or, if once successful, they decline. Unwin also observed that legally recognized and socially reinforced marriage was the only effective means for regulating sexual behavior. Where marriage is strictly defined and reinforced, monogamy rules.

Thus far we have established that monogamy is central to the health and prosperity of a given civilization, and that marriage has proven the only effective means for regulating monogamy. Additionally, we countered the charge that homosexual monogamy would prove equally beneficial by demonstrating that procreative acts are essential to defining marriage and that it is only marriage defined by such essentials that proves efficacious to society.

Marriage is designed for sex and sex is designed for marriage. Nonmarital sex ultimately harms the individual and society. Marriage, as I have already shown, is also exclusively heterosexual in that it conforms to the biological design for human sexuality and fulfills the reproductive principle. While same-sex couples may enjoy an emotional bond and engage in sexual acts, they are unable to achieve this one-flesh union because there is no biological communion such as that achieved through procreative acts. In the absence of this biological principle, sex becomes merely instrumental for self-satisfying pleasure and therefore falls into the same destructive category of self-centered acts that characterize all nonmarital sex.

All right, you say, so cohabitation is a poor substitute for marriage and may even undermine those marriages preceded by cohabitation. But how does allowing persons of the same sex to marry harm the institution of marriage? As advocates of same-sex marriage (SSM) are quick to point out, “the sky hasn’t fallen” since SSM became legal in Massachusetts in 2004, apparently convinced that four short years is adequate to produce the predictable and deleterious public consequence of redefining marriage. Remember, however, that Unwin’s research demonstrated that the effects of such modification would occur over generations and not be immediate. Nonetheless, there is some empirical evidence already emerging that indicates the acceptance of SSM will, in fact, harm the institution of marriage and, subsequently, society.