Not a True Christian response to Marriage equality. Rather, a bitter and miserible response to marriage equality from a woman who happily is not a literalist when it came to her own ordination, but, being comfortable with bigorty, expects the PCUSA and the USA and a whole to embrace the prejudices she is comfortabel with.
Good for her she is not PCA. But, she would be comfortable with its position on marraige equality.
Sad.
It is, and has been a GREAT opportunity for us in the church to theologically educate those who, despite not being literlist on SO many issues in the church, have been comfortable with it on this issue. With education, prayer, and understanding, conservatives can, as the PCUSA has, grow in their understanding. Just as we have on womens ordination…which allowed Carmen to be ordained, even though literalists would say (wrongly) she should not have been.
This is indeed a great opporunity for Carmen, and other conservatives to let go of their prejudices, and, just as we have moved on from the shackles of literalism that prevented women and blacks from serving as pastors, being equal, and yes, even marrying in the church. As with the other issues, the church (which not all that long ago could not IMAGEINE the other changes I mentioned ever happening actually happening) which has rightly decided to bless marriage equaity in its congregations, will embrace this.
And we will be the better for it.
And far more importably, God will be pleased.
Gene, you seem to be a self-worshipping and rationalizing child. Please do not attempt to tell ANYONE what will and will not please God. You are far lacking in qualifications to do so. Someone the other day said…and I have to agree…if you can truly study scripture and yet believe there is joy in heaven for two men celebrating and consumating their “marriage”, then there is no point to anything….to trying to live a live worthy…to trying to follow the teachings of the Word……because there are no standards….anything you desire at any time can be rationalized as being good and acceptable. Yes, it is obvious that Christ’s kingdom is not of THIS world.
Good point….I lost respect of the court long ago with the trashing of personal property rights in the “Kelso” case. These people are as ideologically blinded as any small town mayor. They decide what they want to rule, then go about contructing and stretching to justify….some of their reasons have to even sound ridiculous and manufactured to them!
With the benefit of hindsight, I’m already wondering how we could have thought it would turn out differently. We should really have expected this decision from this Court. But now I wonder whether federal legislation couldn’t be proposed, protecting, in advance, the ministers who won’t perform same sex wedding ceremonies, and Christian bakers and florists who won’t take part on account of their religious beliefs, and everyone else who, because of their religious scruples, refuses to go along. They should be protected by their First Amendment rights, but without such legislation, they could be charged with an offense under, let’s say, a state’s anti-discrimination laws, and be required to go to court, possibly losing, and taking the matter back up the ladder of courts till they get back to the Supreme Court. They shouldn’t have to do that, to vindicate their own constitutional rights. What congressman or senator, or presidential candidate, will first propose such a thing?
Why is all of the defense of marriage equality only from the side of stating what is “affirmed” with marriage in the Bible. Why as a Christian response is sin never addressed?
Why in a Christian response to this decision are we using Genesis 3 as a defense of “religious freedom”? Adam and Eve sinned….they didn’t “exercise” religious freedom. It was a failure to believe what God said. The fell into the deception of “Did God really say….”
I hear all of this talk about being a living demonstration of the “gospel”. Why are we not speaking about sin and the forgiveness that the gospel provides? Even as regenerated believers we still sin daily in thought, word, and deed. Why do we not proclaim the good news in a Christian response to this issue?
“This is indeed a great opporunity for Carmen, and other conservatives to let go of their prejudices, and, just as we have moved on from the shackles of literalism that prevented women and blacks from serving as pastors, being equal, and yes, even marrying in the church.”
Gene,
You seem to be mixing your standards here. You lump in womens ordination with other clear “prejudices” which we don’t find in the Bible. You seem happy to hold to the standard that disqualifies Carmen from being ordained, but you try to further your argument by foolishly implying that the Bible encourages racism. Race and gender can not be equated in this argument. I agree with you that women’s ordination is a compromise of the Bible….however, the rest of your argument is based on a false caricature of the Bible.
Unless I am mistaken, this ruling will open the door to challenge certain verses as hate speech. The extension of law enforcement will be to ban the Bible, mandate a rewrite, or padlock the doors of any and all churches who refuse to comply with the federal orders.
How many battles have looked hopeless and yet ended with the greatest victories. To capitulate on this point is to deny Christ and His Word. We forget we are not to win battles, that is Christ’s work. We are only to be faithful and serve truth. If the whole world goes to hell and immorality and denies the Word of God we will not go with it. Remember what is said to the Church of Smyma 10’Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11’He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.’
We fight that the Word of God is preserved even if our lives are taken. Cream puff preachers and lay people, leave if you do not want to fight for Truth, John 17:17.
“This is indeed a great opporunity for Carmen, and other conservatives to let go of their prejudices, and, just as we have moved on from the shackles of literalism that prevented women and blacks from serving as pastors, being equal, and yes, even marrying in the church.”
You are following the megalomanic thinking of the left not knowing what your are talking about.
I merely point out that as a woman called by God to the pulput, she should be ordained…although a literalist reading of the Bible would say otherwise, and most of the Christian world (all catholics and orthodox, and the vast majority of reformed Protestants) would say ( wrongly ) that she should not be. that’s the flaw of literalism. She sees it where it applies to her…but…with those whom she is comfortable excluding…that approach to scriptural interpretation…lets not use it then.
It’s ironic, at best
Oh, and its not just progressive who see this, or real conservatives in the PCA who see this. Google Al Mohler..yes, Al Mohler, the president of the largest Southern Baptist seminary on earth, and read what he has to say about it. In a nutshell, he says that the theological understandings and approach to scripture that lead to Womens ordination, will, indeed MUST, lead to GLBT ordination.
When the progressives and the conservative Reformed, And one of the great voices of the Southern Baptists agree, I feel pretty safe in my assessment there.
Actually, I will leave that to the voting members of the church, who, by a large margin, voted both to allow GLBT ordination, AND marriage equality. Each of them was an ordained person in the Presbyterian Church. The Pastors among them all having theological degrees, and the elders, not slackers. Being an Elder is not easy work. After years and years of study, advice from the large majority of professors at our seminaries who make their lives studying scripture, and prayer, they voted in a manner that agrees with what I said about marriage; it can be opposite gender, or same gender. In 121 of our Presbyteries. THEY have the qualifications..and, I agree with them.
It has never happened in any other case. and that wont happen here. And just as no one has ever been able to force a Presbyterian pastor to marry a jew to a catholic in our churches, or a Presbyterian to a Lutheran..or…anyone to anyone, against his or her will, it wont happen here either.
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Now, a justice of the peace who serves the WHOLE public, will have to do just that. Serve the WHOLE public. Or quit. Period. If you cannot do your job properly, then that is the honorable thing to do. There have been countless cases where a three time divorced man with thee living ex wives was married to a woman with 2 divorces and to living ex’s, but, I never have heard of a county clerk refusing to marry such couples (nor would it have been right or just or legal to do so). Pastors and the churches will not have to marry anyone they do not want to. they never have. and, believe it or not, people who are getting married and want a church wedding don’t want a pastor who would be doing the job under duress.
Its a straw man argument. and, just as the claims that hate crimes laws would “fill the jails” with pastors and conservative Christians, this phantom menace wont happen either in any Church.
AND marriage equality. Marriage inequality, marriage is only between 1 man and 1 woman, the first marriage performed in the Garden of Eden by the Triune God in Christ.
You stated also: “In a nutshell, he says that the theological understandings and approach to scripture that lead to Womens ordination, will, indeed MUST, lead to GLBT ordination.”
That is why Biblically, women should not be Elders if your logic is correct. I prefer women never to be Elders, maybe deacons, but Paul is specific, 1 Tim 3:2, an Elder the
Husband of 1 wife. Husband is a male, wife is a female unless you are perverts, than you can have what you want, confusion. So, you made the case for Men Elders only, thank you.
Gene…is your tongue in your cheek as you write this?…Then how about all the times these things were voted on and failed….were the elders at that time not praying and studying the word properly?….only now is it a meaningful, accurate vote?…..If you can indeed rationalize that way, you are even farther gone than I thought. The part about seeking advice from all the professors was especially comical for this elder. It isn’t a coincidence that this denomination is going the way of the world. At least it has its cheerleaders in those like Gene as it goes off into meaninglessness.
“Believe it or not, people who are getting married and want a church wedding don’t want a pastor who would be doing the job under duress.”
Or a wedding photographer or cake baker?
Believe it or not, there are same-gender couples who are getting “married” just to make a political statement, and they would just as happily drag a pastor or church to court who declined to accommodate their “wedding” on the grounds that the Bible condemns homosexual intercourse.
I really don’t think that you’ll see that in our lifetimes. However, I would not be surprised if it were to happen in my young daughters’ lifetimes, assuming that Christ does not return first.
You are EXACTLY correct on this, Loren. MANY couples and in fact many of the gay rights organizations do MOST of what they do for ‘effect’ and to be ‘in your face’….this has been demonstrated beyond argument over decades.
And contrary to what Gene said, somewhere right now there are gay couples picking out which vocal ministers they are going to try to force….they will pick their targets and cases carefully for most effect and publicity. This is indeed just the beginning.
You are missing my point. Yes, I agree with the argument put forth by Al Mohler. I agree that women’s ordination uses the same logic that leads us to same sex marriage.
You were mixing in race issues into this debate. You equated womens ordination with the racism that prevented blacks from being married or ordained in the church. That is a faulty comparison. Race and sex are not the same thing.
Amen, and follow up proclaiming the good news of our forgiveness of sins in the gospel. Something we don’t hear much of in our “response” to this issue.
Carmen’s first assumption is that being governed by the “Word of God” means receiving the multiple English translations of the Bible as the literal Word of God. As if in doing so we do not translate and interpolate, and we do not interpret through the lenses of our own culture and language. As if we do not interpret words that were first put on paper and parchment in Aramaic or Hebrew or Greek to Middle Eastern tribes, 2 and 3 thousand years ago. As if they could possibly have the same meaning to us today as they did to them back then.
It’s a blatantly false and even arrogant assumption upon which every argument that follows is based.
God did not speak to us once back then and shut up afterwards evermore, like the Muslims say of Mohamed and the Koran. If anything, the Scriptures attest to the fact that Jesus is with us in the eternal present, and that the Holy Spirit teaches us in the eternal present. It is the only reason the Text makes any sense at all, today. But trying to project politically motivated interpretations into the Text and then claiming they are the immutable Literal Word of God, set in stone, is the worst kind subjective autocratic authoritarian double speak arrogance one could possibly devise.
Just as the Holy Spirit told Peter to rise, kill, and eat, from a table cloth holding every manner of unclean food forbidden as sin in the OT, because He had declared clean what was previously called in Scripture unclean, so in recent times God has given us a new table cloth of marriage and declared clean that which in previous times we read and understood as unclean.
But there were those who nevertheless went to their graves rejecting those new teachings as being impossible to accept and there will be those who today will do the same.
Our job is to baptize and make disciples of Jesus even those we previously thought to be unacceptable in the eyes of God and men.
That is the full meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the ball we must keep our eyes upon. The rest is a distraction that serves only to diminish the Gospel in the eyes of those who hunger for it the most.
The time has come to put this polemic behind us and move on with the Wind of God’s Holy Spirit to the new beginnings laid out before us.
“As if in doing so we do not translate and interpolate”
Uhm of course we “translate”….isn’t that obvious from the word translation? Regarding interpolating….where exactly are you claiming that something has been added or introduced to the translations that are relevant to the issue at hand?
“As if they could possibly have the same meaning to us today as they did to them back then.”
So what’s the solution? Simply pretend we can never know what the text means? You seem to be implying that no one can know….but you are stating your opinion’s with authority as if you speak for God.
“But trying to project politically motivated interpretations into the Text and then claiming they are the immutable Literal Word of God, set in stone, is the worst kind subjective autocratic authoritarian double speak arrogance one could possibly devise”
And this fresh “Wind of God’s Holy Spirit” is not politically motivated? People speaking as if they are speaking for God are in no way arrogant or authoritative?
“so in recent times God has given us a new table cloth of marriage and declared clean that which in previous times we read and understood as unclean.”
You are comparing your experience to Peter? Should we add these thoughts you are projecting to the Bible? You are claiming direct revelation from God?
“Our job is to baptize and make disciples of Jesus even those we previously thought to be unacceptable in the eyes of God and men.”
And how are we all made “acceptable”? Does your making “disciples” include the good news of the gospel?
“ The time has come to put this polemic behind us and move on with the Wind of God’s Holy Spirit to the new beginnings laid out before us.”
So you reject any literal understanding of the scriptures….but you have no problem with dogmatically proclaiming that we all need to get on with this new “Wind of God”? Seems your arguments are filled with ironies.
“So in recent times God has given us a new table cloth of marriage and declared clean that which in previous times we read and understood as unclean.”
God has done no such thing. There is no new revelation from God that now contradicts His revelation in the Bible.
To use Peter’s vision from Acts 10, in which the Lord declares foods previously declared to be unclean (Lev. 11) to be clean (cf. Rom. 14) as a pretext to undermine the Bible’s proscriptions against homosexuality is to undermine the Bible’s authority as the Word of God. Or have you not read that the Lord Jesus Himself said that He came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them (Mt. 5.17)? “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt. 5.18-19)
The Levitical dietary restrictions were imposed by the Lord to give the Ancient Israelites a tangible example of what it means to be ceremonially unclean, and He strictly commanded them to abstain from these foods because they were called to be holy as He is holy (Lev. 11.44-45). They, along with the restrictions in Leviticus 12-15, constitute the core of the Ceremonial Law, which taught the Israelites that they were not permitted to approach the presence of the Lord in the Tabernacle (later the Temple) in just any way they pleased, for He is a holy God, and all who would come near Him must regard Him as holy (Lev. 10.3). Moreover, the definition of ceremonial uncleanness in Leviticus 11-15 pointed to the moral uncleanness that truly offends the Lord that He outlined in Leviticus 18. Leviticus 18 expressly forbade twelve kinds of incest, intentionally engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period (which is distinct from the ceremonial law in which a man who had been laying with a woman when her menstrual period began became ceremonially unclean, Lev. 15.24), adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality. The Lord told the Israelites not to make themselves unclean by them, “for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.” (Lev. 18.24-25) The Lord nowhere indicates that He was driving out the Canaanites from the Promised Land because they committed violations of the ceremonial laws in Leviticus 11-15.
Now, you are claiming that the Lord has somehow given us a “new table cloth of marriage”, by which He has declared homosexual practice to be clean. “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Mt. 19.4-6) You will notice in those words that the Lord Jesus made no provision for the sexual union of two persons of the same gender. God’s definition for marriage, as reiterated by Christ, encompasses only one man and one woman; all other definitions are perversions of His original declaration in Genesis 1.26-28, 2.18-25. The Ceremonial Law passed away with the Old Testament Sacrifice when Christ became the one sufficient Sacrifice for all time (Heb. 10). If you are to claim that the proscriptions against homosexuality are now also passed away, when the New Testament very clearly reiterated them (Rom. 1.24-27, I Cor. 6.9-11, I Tim. 1.9-10, Jude 7), then you must show the salvific act wrought by God that fulfills the Biblical basis on which God the Holy Spirit through Moses and Paul expressly forbade the practice.
Finally, you must understand that God’s call to discipleship absolutely demands repentance from sin, and that includes the sin of homosexuality. “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'” (Mt. 4.17) “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'” (Mt. 28.18-20; emphasis added) “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6.1-4) “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality (the two Greek terms translated by this phrase refer to the passive and active partners in consensual homosexual acts)… will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.” (I Cor. 6.9-10; emphasis added) And that is a major omission from your “full meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Just wait for the response from the Muslim community. Don’t forget they are throwing homosexuals off buildings in the newly-conquered territories of the middle east. It should be interesting to see how they handle this. The news has centered on the Christian response but the Muslims have an even stricter code of refusal. Stand by.
Your exegetical approach is very mechanistic with lots of moving parts. It does have its elegance.
Historically, the approach you are taking was made popular with the advent of Classical Physics with its Socratic roots, and the success of the Industrial Revolution. In that approach, reading the Bible is like studying the sky, and studying the Bible presumably leads to learning God’s Laws much like Isaac Newton learned the laws that govern planetary motion and that F=Ma
But it was a short snapshot in time that came and went. Nature is much more complex than Newton ever imagined, and so are God’s ways. Physics has moved on, and so has Theology.
REVELATION 7:9
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were bolding palm branches in their hands.
It’s a lovely picture. When darkness fell upon them, they went for the light.
Being the minister at a wedding is being PART of the wedding. he or she does not do it for everyone, and as it is not a public accommodation, they can and do say no. Making a cake or selling flowers, well, if you do it for some, you do it for ALL. No “no blacks..sorry, my religion wont allow it” (not that long ago in the south that was said) or “no Muslims…I don’t believe in it”. Fair, is fair. And the law.
and WHO is getting married to “make a statement”? that’s just..there are not words to express how sad I am your homophobia has you in such a lather as to believe THAT. Sad
straw man argument…all it proves is how over the top anti gay you are. WHO wants to get married by a clergyperson who does not want to do the job? seriously.
respectfully, the comparison between womens ordination, ethnic minority equality, and GLBT ordination and marriage ALL were seen and decried as “liberals not taking the word of the Bible Literally”. And, the same approach to scripture that lead to one, will lead to the other two.
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My main point was just to point out the hypocritical nature of an ordained woman working so hard to prevent others from rightly serving by demanding a level of Biblical literalism that would have prevented her from ever having been ordained. and it was first pointed out to me by a person I know who attends a PCA church and is an elder there.
If you feel that way about womens being elders, you have a poor theological training, and must belong to one of the churches that is comfortable with maintaining its prejudices against women, who can and do make excellent pastors. You need to raise your standards. I don’t need to lower mine. And yes, the arguments and understandings that DO lead to the correct ordination of women, DO, as no less than Dr. Mohler pointed out, lead to GLBT ordination, as well as a fuller and more complete understanding of our loving and gracious God. Using that “It says EXACTLY that approach, you cant eat shellfish, you can’t wear mixed cloth, forget bank loans or mortgages, on and on. May I ask, are you from some background or society where women are comfortably (for men) subservient to women? just curious as to why you would be so comfortable with just injustice. Thanks
the Bible was used, specifically (read Robinsons old works) to justify racism, especially in the old south. It was rampant. It also was used to justify not ordaining women. both approaches used a literalist interpretation approach to the Bible. many still use it. Its nice that, in the 90s, the PCA did finally get around to apologizing for its racist past, and using it in just such a manner. better late than never. they still use it with women..to their loss, for no doubt many of the women in the Church would make fine pastors. And, others…the PCA and the minority in the PCUSA for example would use the same approach to preventing both GLBT ordination and marriage. that a woman who benefited from the approach that even true conservatives admit will lead to GLBT ordination is very ironic, that was all I was pointing out there.
P.S. Marriage, as defined by the Constitution of the United States of America, is between any two adult consenting people.
Marriage, as defined by the Presbyterian Church, after decades of Biblical study and debate, including among the majority of the best of our scholars in out seminaries and institutions of higher learning, and after voting by the ministers and elders in the Presbyteries, is between two adult consenting people, and any congregation and pastor that choose to perform such marriages may do so (or not, their call).
that is the legal definition
that is the church definition, based on study of the Bible, prayer, discussion, and the vote of the Church.
Thanks for the previously unknown information that “God’s ways” are complex. In fact, it is his mind that is unfathomable to me or you. Fortunately, he has revealed himself to us in the written Word and the living Word — both explicitly affirming his plan for marriage as being between a man and a woman. You may apply your up-to-date theological methods to your heart’s content in order to discover new “truths”. But God — to use language from the unfashionable Shorter Catechism — is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable.
Not new “truths”. Just new understanding, and still just scratching the surface. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (II Tim. 4.3-4)
Mr. Hahn, your theology is full of the wisdom of the world. But as the Apostle Paul pointed out, the world does not know God through wisdom (I Cor. 1.21).
The author of Hebrews wrote that the things here on the earth serve as “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” (Heb. 8.5, 10.1) In like manner, the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments speak of the covenant of marriage as representing the union of God and His people, or of Christ and the Church (Is. 54.5-8, Ezek. 16.8-14, Hos. 2.14, 3.1-5, II Cor. 11.2, Eph. 5.22-33, Rev. 19.6-9, 21.9-11,18-21), where God in the Old Testament and Christ in the New is represented in the husband, and the people of God in the Old Testament and the Church in the New is represented in the wife. These roles are nowhere reversed. It is a beautiful portrait that God has painted and a high calling, especially for husbands, who are to love their wives as Christ loves the Church and gave Himself for her (Eph. 5.25). Against this backdrop, same-gender “marriage” is seen as perverse, for it says that the Church can do very well without Christ, and it blasphemously tells Christ what He can go and do with Himself.
Now your “theology” that has “moved on”, as you put it, would posit that “God has given us a new table cloth of marriage and declared” homosexuality to be “clean”. And so your “theology” has done away with the image of Christ in the husband and the Church in the wife to present us with some kind of glorious tapestry instead that covers up the offense of homosexuality.
But where is God in this “new table cloth”? How does homosexual “marriage” point to Him? Or bisexuality or transgenderism? In the Biblical imagery, it is clear how marriage points to Him; in your “new table cloth”, it is not. Moreover, the Apostle Paul enjoins us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Rom. 13.14) So while it is not at all clear that your “new table cloth” points to Christ, it does vividly portray how we can make manifold provision to fulfill the desires of our sinful human flesh.
So how is it, then, that you believe this “new table cloth” to be a new revelation from God?
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.” (Rom. 1.21-24)
So a minister has the right to exercise his or her constitutional freedom of religion, but a florist or cake baker does not? A minister is not obligated to celebrate a union that he believes is contrary to the Word of God, but a florist or cake baker is? I was unaware that there was such a double standard in the U.S. Constitution.
And do you know the thoughts and intents of my heart well enough to judge me of being guilty of homophobia?
The Apostle Paul, when quoting the story of marriage from Genesis, clearly states that the true meaning of the Text is to foreshadow the relationship between Christ and the Church. Thus, human marriage in the Middle East in the year 1000 BC is the metaphor, and the relationship between Christ and the Church is the reality. Beyond that, he seemed to have no use for marriage at all, except to cure passion.
Now we know that the Church is made up of men, women and children, and we know that the relationship between Christ and the Church is not a sexual one. Thus, marriage, at its core, is neither about gender nor about sex. How can people of the same sex be married to each other? The answer to that question is another question: How can Christ be married to the men, women, and children that make up the Church?
The true definition of marriage in Scripture opens the boundaries of marriage beyond sex, beyond gender, beyond even the boundaries between creator and creation, for even of Creator and Creation, the “two shall become one”. It’s a core teaching of our Faith. Just as it took a tablecloth vision from God for Peter to understand what was always true, that even an unclean Roman Centurion, a destroyer of the Temple, and a torturer of Christians and Jews, could be baptized by the Holy Spirit, it took the People and the Supreme Court of the United States to explain to us the true meaning of Egalitarianism, first laid out in Scripture by the pen of the Apostle Paul.
It’s not really a “new” revelation. It’s just a more complete understanding of the old.
Gene….are you REALLY this naive?…..MANY want to force pastors (and many others) to accept them and yes, marry them….yes FORCE….if you deny or do not know this, you have been asleep approximately two decades.
The first bad Supreme Court decision was the Dred Scott case, where despite that fact that the Constitution always referred to slaves as “persons,” the Court determined that persons from Africa were not persons at all, but property and even if freed, could never become citizens. They have been twisting the Constitution ever since. The latest two rulings are prime examples. In the ACA case, they redefined the word “penalty” to mean “tax” and redefined the phrase “the state” to mean “the state or federal government” but only in one of the twenty places it occurs in the law. In the marriage case, they stretched the meaning of the fourteenth amendment to the breaking point to amazingly discover a constitutional right that had been hidden in the Constitution for 225 years. We now have a corrupt Supreme Court that can change any law at will and create rights out of thin air. The “winners” will be overjoyed — until that corruption slaughters one of their sacred cows.
I want to thank the Layman.org for helping us stay calm, focused on God, and for allowing a format for expression. Letting off steam helps diffuse the boiling point some of us feel. Refocusing our faith on a God who has everything under control is so helpful. Seeing opportunities, instead of walls going forward, is powerful. Thanks to the Layman team and especially Carmen.
Respectfully, Al Mohler is coming from one viewpoint, but an equally distinguished scholar, Dr. Ken Bailey, can put together a very Biblical case for women’s ordination.
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In most of Paul’s letters, he references women who are leaders in their churches, often they were the founders of the local church.
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The problem with women’s ordination in the PC(USA) was that it was made as a ‘social justice’ issue, with mandated requirements for ‘inclusion’ of women in all PNC/APNC deliberations. This actually has hurt more orthodox women pastors because this has made many orthodox congregations suspect a female minister applying for a call.
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If the effort was based on Biblical exegesis, and allowing women to apply on their own merit, more orthodox women would be accepted as solo pastors.
Mr. Hahn … your eisegesis of what the Bible states is overwhelming.
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You’re saying that God had no idea what he was inspiring the writers of the Bible to put down on paper. That he desired not to make his laws easily understood to all. That God used the SCOTUS to give ‘new revelation’ or a ‘better understood revelation’ to the world.
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You’re saying that more than 3 to 4,000 years of moral teaching has been wrong.
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So, if our understanding of God’s moral laws are wrong, what else is wrong in our understanding of the Bible? Was Christ born of a virgin without sin? Did Christ really rise? Did the Holy Spirit actually come on Pentecost? It could have just been a windstorm and too much wine, as those in the street believed.
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What else does this ‘new understanding’ tells you?
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For what I get from your ‘new understanding’ is that the Holy Spirit has not been with the church for the past 2,000 years. That Paul did not understand what contemporary historians of his time understood about homosexuality, even though Paul was a Greek Jew, who fully understood Greek culture.
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Please tell us exactly what some pro-gay theologians have wrong when they say that the Bible has no support for same-sex marriage.
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It would be safe and humble to assume there is quite a bit we do not know about the Bible or about God’s Laws. For what we think we know is filtered by our own abilities to perceive, our language and our own culture, and doctored by our own projections upon them of what we think we should be perceiving. But even so, it should not be too disconcerting to you if you received the Spirit by hearing with faith instead of by the works of the Law.
I am pretty sure Paul understood his Greek culture, it is we who do not. We try to apply what he said to the Greeks as if he had said them to 21st Century Americans. That is breathtakingly anachronistic. It is interesting to speculate what he would have said to us, but instead we have the Paraclete to help us out. And yes, we also have SCOTUS. After all, didn’t even Abraham the prophet receive the Word of God from the mouths of strangers and the rulers of strange lands?
“It would be safe and humble to assume there is quite a bit we do not know about the Bible or about God’s Laws.”
But it would be safe and humble to assume that the SCOTUS ruling and present cultural trends are unmistakable revelations of God’s will on the matter of the non-sinfulness of homosexuality and homosexual “marriage”? Your inconsistency is “breathtakingly astonishing”.
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Not a True Christian response to Marriage equality. Rather, a bitter and miserible response to marriage equality from a woman who happily is not a literalist when it came to her own ordination, but, being comfortable with bigorty, expects the PCUSA and the USA and a whole to embrace the prejudices she is comfortabel with.
Good for her she is not PCA. But, she would be comfortable with its position on marraige equality.
Sad.
It is, and has been a GREAT opportunity for us in the church to theologically educate those who, despite not being literlist on SO many issues in the church, have been comfortable with it on this issue. With education, prayer, and understanding, conservatives can, as the PCUSA has, grow in their understanding. Just as we have on womens ordination…which allowed Carmen to be ordained, even though literalists would say (wrongly) she should not have been.
This is indeed a great opporunity for Carmen, and other conservatives to let go of their prejudices, and, just as we have moved on from the shackles of literalism that prevented women and blacks from serving as pastors, being equal, and yes, even marrying in the church. As with the other issues, the church (which not all that long ago could not IMAGEINE the other changes I mentioned ever happening actually happening) which has rightly decided to bless marriage equaity in its congregations, will embrace this.
And we will be the better for it.
And far more importably, God will be pleased.
Remember one thing about the Supreme Court: it isn’t.
Gene, you seem to be a self-worshipping and rationalizing child. Please do not attempt to tell ANYONE what will and will not please God. You are far lacking in qualifications to do so. Someone the other day said…and I have to agree…if you can truly study scripture and yet believe there is joy in heaven for two men celebrating and consumating their “marriage”, then there is no point to anything….to trying to live a live worthy…to trying to follow the teachings of the Word……because there are no standards….anything you desire at any time can be rationalized as being good and acceptable. Yes, it is obvious that Christ’s kingdom is not of THIS world.
Good point….I lost respect of the court long ago with the trashing of personal property rights in the “Kelso” case. These people are as ideologically blinded as any small town mayor. They decide what they want to rule, then go about contructing and stretching to justify….some of their reasons have to even sound ridiculous and manufactured to them!
With the benefit of hindsight, I’m already wondering how we could have thought it would turn out differently. We should really have expected this decision from this Court. But now I wonder whether federal legislation couldn’t be proposed, protecting, in advance, the ministers who won’t perform same sex wedding ceremonies, and Christian bakers and florists who won’t take part on account of their religious beliefs, and everyone else who, because of their religious scruples, refuses to go along. They should be protected by their First Amendment rights, but without such legislation, they could be charged with an offense under, let’s say, a state’s anti-discrimination laws, and be required to go to court, possibly losing, and taking the matter back up the ladder of courts till they get back to the Supreme Court. They shouldn’t have to do that, to vindicate their own constitutional rights. What congressman or senator, or presidential candidate, will first propose such a thing?
Why is all of the defense of marriage equality only from the side of stating what is “affirmed” with marriage in the Bible. Why as a Christian response is sin never addressed?
Why in a Christian response to this decision are we using Genesis 3 as a defense of “religious freedom”? Adam and Eve sinned….they didn’t “exercise” religious freedom. It was a failure to believe what God said. The fell into the deception of “Did God really say….”
I hear all of this talk about being a living demonstration of the “gospel”. Why are we not speaking about sin and the forgiveness that the gospel provides? Even as regenerated believers we still sin daily in thought, word, and deed. Why do we not proclaim the good news in a Christian response to this issue?
“This is indeed a great opporunity for Carmen, and other conservatives to let go of their prejudices, and, just as we have moved on from the shackles of literalism that prevented women and blacks from serving as pastors, being equal, and yes, even marrying in the church.”
Gene,
You seem to be mixing your standards here. You lump in womens ordination with other clear “prejudices” which we don’t find in the Bible. You seem happy to hold to the standard that disqualifies Carmen from being ordained, but you try to further your argument by foolishly implying that the Bible encourages racism. Race and gender can not be equated in this argument. I agree with you that women’s ordination is a compromise of the Bible….however, the rest of your argument is based on a false caricature of the Bible.
“And far more importably, God will be pleased.”
Which (g)od are you speaking of?
Unless I am mistaken, this ruling will open the door to challenge certain verses as hate speech. The extension of law enforcement will be to ban the Bible, mandate a rewrite, or padlock the doors of any and all churches who refuse to comply with the federal orders.
How many battles have looked hopeless and yet ended with the greatest victories. To capitulate on this point is to deny Christ and His Word. We forget we are not to win battles, that is Christ’s work. We are only to be faithful and serve truth. If the whole world goes to hell and immorality and denies the Word of God we will not go with it. Remember what is said to the Church of Smyma 10’Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11’He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.’
We fight that the Word of God is preserved even if our lives are taken. Cream puff preachers and lay people, leave if you do not want to fight for Truth, John 17:17.
“This is indeed a great opporunity for Carmen, and other conservatives to let go of their prejudices, and, just as we have moved on from the shackles of literalism that prevented women and blacks from serving as pastors, being equal, and yes, even marrying in the church.”
You are following the megalomanic thinking of the left not knowing what your are talking about.
I merely point out that as a woman called by God to the pulput, she should be ordained…although a literalist reading of the Bible would say otherwise, and most of the Christian world (all catholics and orthodox, and the vast majority of reformed Protestants) would say ( wrongly ) that she should not be. that’s the flaw of literalism. She sees it where it applies to her…but…with those whom she is comfortable excluding…that approach to scriptural interpretation…lets not use it then.
It’s ironic, at best
Oh, and its not just progressive who see this, or real conservatives in the PCA who see this. Google Al Mohler..yes, Al Mohler, the president of the largest Southern Baptist seminary on earth, and read what he has to say about it. In a nutshell, he says that the theological understandings and approach to scripture that lead to Womens ordination, will, indeed MUST, lead to GLBT ordination.
When the progressives and the conservative Reformed, And one of the great voices of the Southern Baptists agree, I feel pretty safe in my assessment there.
Actually, I will leave that to the voting members of the church, who, by a large margin, voted both to allow GLBT ordination, AND marriage equality. Each of them was an ordained person in the Presbyterian Church. The Pastors among them all having theological degrees, and the elders, not slackers. Being an Elder is not easy work. After years and years of study, advice from the large majority of professors at our seminaries who make their lives studying scripture, and prayer, they voted in a manner that agrees with what I said about marriage; it can be opposite gender, or same gender. In 121 of our Presbyteries. THEY have the qualifications..and, I agree with them.
It has never happened in any other case. and that wont happen here. And just as no one has ever been able to force a Presbyterian pastor to marry a jew to a catholic in our churches, or a Presbyterian to a Lutheran..or…anyone to anyone, against his or her will, it wont happen here either.
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Now, a justice of the peace who serves the WHOLE public, will have to do just that. Serve the WHOLE public. Or quit. Period. If you cannot do your job properly, then that is the honorable thing to do. There have been countless cases where a three time divorced man with thee living ex wives was married to a woman with 2 divorces and to living ex’s, but, I never have heard of a county clerk refusing to marry such couples (nor would it have been right or just or legal to do so). Pastors and the churches will not have to marry anyone they do not want to. they never have. and, believe it or not, people who are getting married and want a church wedding don’t want a pastor who would be doing the job under duress.
Its a straw man argument. and, just as the claims that hate crimes laws would “fill the jails” with pastors and conservative Christians, this phantom menace wont happen either in any Church.
AND marriage equality. Marriage inequality, marriage is only between 1 man and 1 woman, the first marriage performed in the Garden of Eden by the Triune God in Christ.
You stated also: “In a nutshell, he says that the theological understandings and approach to scripture that lead to Womens ordination, will, indeed MUST, lead to GLBT ordination.”
That is why Biblically, women should not be Elders if your logic is correct. I prefer women never to be Elders, maybe deacons, but Paul is specific, 1 Tim 3:2, an Elder the
Husband of 1 wife. Husband is a male, wife is a female unless you are perverts, than you can have what you want, confusion. So, you made the case for Men Elders only, thank you.
Gene…is your tongue in your cheek as you write this?…Then how about all the times these things were voted on and failed….were the elders at that time not praying and studying the word properly?….only now is it a meaningful, accurate vote?…..If you can indeed rationalize that way, you are even farther gone than I thought. The part about seeking advice from all the professors was especially comical for this elder. It isn’t a coincidence that this denomination is going the way of the world. At least it has its cheerleaders in those like Gene as it goes off into meaninglessness.
“Believe it or not, people who are getting married and want a church wedding don’t want a pastor who would be doing the job under duress.”
Or a wedding photographer or cake baker?
Believe it or not, there are same-gender couples who are getting “married” just to make a political statement, and they would just as happily drag a pastor or church to court who declined to accommodate their “wedding” on the grounds that the Bible condemns homosexual intercourse.
I really don’t think that you’ll see that in our lifetimes. However, I would not be surprised if it were to happen in my young daughters’ lifetimes, assuming that Christ does not return first.
You are EXACTLY correct on this, Loren. MANY couples and in fact many of the gay rights organizations do MOST of what they do for ‘effect’ and to be ‘in your face’….this has been demonstrated beyond argument over decades.
And contrary to what Gene said, somewhere right now there are gay couples picking out which vocal ministers they are going to try to force….they will pick their targets and cases carefully for most effect and publicity. This is indeed just the beginning.
Actually Gene,
You are missing my point. Yes, I agree with the argument put forth by Al Mohler. I agree that women’s ordination uses the same logic that leads us to same sex marriage.
You were mixing in race issues into this debate. You equated womens ordination with the racism that prevented blacks from being married or ordained in the church. That is a faulty comparison. Race and sex are not the same thing.
We need to get down on our knees and ask God to forgive us.
Amen, and follow up proclaiming the good news of our forgiveness of sins in the gospel. Something we don’t hear much of in our “response” to this issue.
Carmen’s first assumption is that being governed by the “Word of God” means receiving the multiple English translations of the Bible as the literal Word of God. As if in doing so we do not translate and interpolate, and we do not interpret through the lenses of our own culture and language. As if we do not interpret words that were first put on paper and parchment in Aramaic or Hebrew or Greek to Middle Eastern tribes, 2 and 3 thousand years ago. As if they could possibly have the same meaning to us today as they did to them back then.
It’s a blatantly false and even arrogant assumption upon which every argument that follows is based.
God did not speak to us once back then and shut up afterwards evermore, like the Muslims say of Mohamed and the Koran. If anything, the Scriptures attest to the fact that Jesus is with us in the eternal present, and that the Holy Spirit teaches us in the eternal present. It is the only reason the Text makes any sense at all, today. But trying to project politically motivated interpretations into the Text and then claiming they are the immutable Literal Word of God, set in stone, is the worst kind subjective autocratic authoritarian double speak arrogance one could possibly devise.
Just as the Holy Spirit told Peter to rise, kill, and eat, from a table cloth holding every manner of unclean food forbidden as sin in the OT, because He had declared clean what was previously called in Scripture unclean, so in recent times God has given us a new table cloth of marriage and declared clean that which in previous times we read and understood as unclean.
But there were those who nevertheless went to their graves rejecting those new teachings as being impossible to accept and there will be those who today will do the same.
Our job is to baptize and make disciples of Jesus even those we previously thought to be unacceptable in the eyes of God and men.
That is the full meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the ball we must keep our eyes upon. The rest is a distraction that serves only to diminish the Gospel in the eyes of those who hunger for it the most.
The time has come to put this polemic behind us and move on with the Wind of God’s Holy Spirit to the new beginnings laid out before us.
Gene, you use the words “the church”. How are you qualified to speak for it: and what can your definition of the term??
Carl Hahn….
“As if in doing so we do not translate and interpolate”
Uhm of course we “translate”….isn’t that obvious from the word translation? Regarding interpolating….where exactly are you claiming that something has been added or introduced to the translations that are relevant to the issue at hand?
“As if they could possibly have the same meaning to us today as they did to them back then.”
So what’s the solution? Simply pretend we can never know what the text means? You seem to be implying that no one can know….but you are stating your opinion’s with authority as if you speak for God.
“But trying to project politically motivated interpretations into the Text and then claiming they are the immutable Literal Word of God, set in stone, is the worst kind subjective autocratic authoritarian double speak arrogance one could possibly devise”
And this fresh “Wind of God’s Holy Spirit” is not politically motivated? People speaking as if they are speaking for God are in no way arrogant or authoritative?
“so in recent times God has given us a new table cloth of marriage and declared clean that which in previous times we read and understood as unclean.”
You are comparing your experience to Peter? Should we add these thoughts you are projecting to the Bible? You are claiming direct revelation from God?
“Our job is to baptize and make disciples of Jesus even those we previously thought to be unacceptable in the eyes of God and men.”
And how are we all made “acceptable”? Does your making “disciples” include the good news of the gospel?
“ The time has come to put this polemic behind us and move on with the Wind of God’s Holy Spirit to the new beginnings laid out before us.”
So you reject any literal understanding of the scriptures….but you have no problem with dogmatically proclaiming that we all need to get on with this new “Wind of God”? Seems your arguments are filled with ironies.
“So in recent times God has given us a new table cloth of marriage and declared clean that which in previous times we read and understood as unclean.”
God has done no such thing. There is no new revelation from God that now contradicts His revelation in the Bible.
To use Peter’s vision from Acts 10, in which the Lord declares foods previously declared to be unclean (Lev. 11) to be clean (cf. Rom. 14) as a pretext to undermine the Bible’s proscriptions against homosexuality is to undermine the Bible’s authority as the Word of God. Or have you not read that the Lord Jesus Himself said that He came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them (Mt. 5.17)? “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt. 5.18-19)
The Levitical dietary restrictions were imposed by the Lord to give the Ancient Israelites a tangible example of what it means to be ceremonially unclean, and He strictly commanded them to abstain from these foods because they were called to be holy as He is holy (Lev. 11.44-45). They, along with the restrictions in Leviticus 12-15, constitute the core of the Ceremonial Law, which taught the Israelites that they were not permitted to approach the presence of the Lord in the Tabernacle (later the Temple) in just any way they pleased, for He is a holy God, and all who would come near Him must regard Him as holy (Lev. 10.3). Moreover, the definition of ceremonial uncleanness in Leviticus 11-15 pointed to the moral uncleanness that truly offends the Lord that He outlined in Leviticus 18. Leviticus 18 expressly forbade twelve kinds of incest, intentionally engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period (which is distinct from the ceremonial law in which a man who had been laying with a woman when her menstrual period began became ceremonially unclean, Lev. 15.24), adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality. The Lord told the Israelites not to make themselves unclean by them, “for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.” (Lev. 18.24-25) The Lord nowhere indicates that He was driving out the Canaanites from the Promised Land because they committed violations of the ceremonial laws in Leviticus 11-15.
Now, you are claiming that the Lord has somehow given us a “new table cloth of marriage”, by which He has declared homosexual practice to be clean. “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Mt. 19.4-6) You will notice in those words that the Lord Jesus made no provision for the sexual union of two persons of the same gender. God’s definition for marriage, as reiterated by Christ, encompasses only one man and one woman; all other definitions are perversions of His original declaration in Genesis 1.26-28, 2.18-25. The Ceremonial Law passed away with the Old Testament Sacrifice when Christ became the one sufficient Sacrifice for all time (Heb. 10). If you are to claim that the proscriptions against homosexuality are now also passed away, when the New Testament very clearly reiterated them (Rom. 1.24-27, I Cor. 6.9-11, I Tim. 1.9-10, Jude 7), then you must show the salvific act wrought by God that fulfills the Biblical basis on which God the Holy Spirit through Moses and Paul expressly forbade the practice.
Finally, you must understand that God’s call to discipleship absolutely demands repentance from sin, and that includes the sin of homosexuality. “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'” (Mt. 4.17) “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'” (Mt. 28.18-20; emphasis added) “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom. 6.1-4) “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality (the two Greek terms translated by this phrase refer to the passive and active partners in consensual homosexual acts)… will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.” (I Cor. 6.9-10; emphasis added) And that is a major omission from your “full meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Just wait for the response from the Muslim community. Don’t forget they are throwing homosexuals off buildings in the newly-conquered territories of the middle east. It should be interesting to see how they handle this. The news has centered on the Christian response but the Muslims have an even stricter code of refusal. Stand by.
Your exegetical approach is very mechanistic with lots of moving parts. It does have its elegance.
Historically, the approach you are taking was made popular with the advent of Classical Physics with its Socratic roots, and the success of the Industrial Revolution. In that approach, reading the Bible is like studying the sky, and studying the Bible presumably leads to learning God’s Laws much like Isaac Newton learned the laws that govern planetary motion and that F=Ma
But it was a short snapshot in time that came and went. Nature is much more complex than Newton ever imagined, and so are God’s ways. Physics has moved on, and so has Theology.
REVELATION 7:9
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were bolding palm branches in their hands.
It’s a lovely picture. When darkness fell upon them, they went for the light.
Being the minister at a wedding is being PART of the wedding. he or she does not do it for everyone, and as it is not a public accommodation, they can and do say no. Making a cake or selling flowers, well, if you do it for some, you do it for ALL. No “no blacks..sorry, my religion wont allow it” (not that long ago in the south that was said) or “no Muslims…I don’t believe in it”. Fair, is fair. And the law.
and WHO is getting married to “make a statement”? that’s just..there are not words to express how sad I am your homophobia has you in such a lather as to believe THAT. Sad
straw man argument…all it proves is how over the top anti gay you are. WHO wants to get married by a clergyperson who does not want to do the job? seriously.
respectfully, the comparison between womens ordination, ethnic minority equality, and GLBT ordination and marriage ALL were seen and decried as “liberals not taking the word of the Bible Literally”. And, the same approach to scripture that lead to one, will lead to the other two.
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My main point was just to point out the hypocritical nature of an ordained woman working so hard to prevent others from rightly serving by demanding a level of Biblical literalism that would have prevented her from ever having been ordained. and it was first pointed out to me by a person I know who attends a PCA church and is an elder there.
If you feel that way about womens being elders, you have a poor theological training, and must belong to one of the churches that is comfortable with maintaining its prejudices against women, who can and do make excellent pastors. You need to raise your standards. I don’t need to lower mine. And yes, the arguments and understandings that DO lead to the correct ordination of women, DO, as no less than Dr. Mohler pointed out, lead to GLBT ordination, as well as a fuller and more complete understanding of our loving and gracious God. Using that “It says EXACTLY that approach, you cant eat shellfish, you can’t wear mixed cloth, forget bank loans or mortgages, on and on. May I ask, are you from some background or society where women are comfortably (for men) subservient to women? just curious as to why you would be so comfortable with just injustice. Thanks
the Bible was used, specifically (read Robinsons old works) to justify racism, especially in the old south. It was rampant. It also was used to justify not ordaining women. both approaches used a literalist interpretation approach to the Bible. many still use it. Its nice that, in the 90s, the PCA did finally get around to apologizing for its racist past, and using it in just such a manner. better late than never. they still use it with women..to their loss, for no doubt many of the women in the Church would make fine pastors. And, others…the PCA and the minority in the PCUSA for example would use the same approach to preventing both GLBT ordination and marriage. that a woman who benefited from the approach that even true conservatives admit will lead to GLBT ordination is very ironic, that was all I was pointing out there.
P.S. Marriage, as defined by the Constitution of the United States of America, is between any two adult consenting people.
Marriage, as defined by the Presbyterian Church, after decades of Biblical study and debate, including among the majority of the best of our scholars in out seminaries and institutions of higher learning, and after voting by the ministers and elders in the Presbyteries, is between two adult consenting people, and any congregation and pastor that choose to perform such marriages may do so (or not, their call).
that is the legal definition
that is the church definition, based on study of the Bible, prayer, discussion, and the vote of the Church.
Thanks for the previously unknown information that “God’s ways” are complex. In fact, it is his mind that is unfathomable to me or you. Fortunately, he has revealed himself to us in the written Word and the living Word — both explicitly affirming his plan for marriage as being between a man and a woman. You may apply your up-to-date theological methods to your heart’s content in order to discover new “truths”. But God — to use language from the unfashionable Shorter Catechism — is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable.
Not new “truths”. Just new understanding, and still just scratching the surface. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
“Physics has moved on, and so has Theology.”
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (II Tim. 4.3-4)
Mr. Hahn, your theology is full of the wisdom of the world. But as the Apostle Paul pointed out, the world does not know God through wisdom (I Cor. 1.21).
The author of Hebrews wrote that the things here on the earth serve as “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” (Heb. 8.5, 10.1) In like manner, the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments speak of the covenant of marriage as representing the union of God and His people, or of Christ and the Church (Is. 54.5-8, Ezek. 16.8-14, Hos. 2.14, 3.1-5, II Cor. 11.2, Eph. 5.22-33, Rev. 19.6-9, 21.9-11,18-21), where God in the Old Testament and Christ in the New is represented in the husband, and the people of God in the Old Testament and the Church in the New is represented in the wife. These roles are nowhere reversed. It is a beautiful portrait that God has painted and a high calling, especially for husbands, who are to love their wives as Christ loves the Church and gave Himself for her (Eph. 5.25). Against this backdrop, same-gender “marriage” is seen as perverse, for it says that the Church can do very well without Christ, and it blasphemously tells Christ what He can go and do with Himself.
Now your “theology” that has “moved on”, as you put it, would posit that “God has given us a new table cloth of marriage and declared” homosexuality to be “clean”. And so your “theology” has done away with the image of Christ in the husband and the Church in the wife to present us with some kind of glorious tapestry instead that covers up the offense of homosexuality.
But where is God in this “new table cloth”? How does homosexual “marriage” point to Him? Or bisexuality or transgenderism? In the Biblical imagery, it is clear how marriage points to Him; in your “new table cloth”, it is not. Moreover, the Apostle Paul enjoins us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Rom. 13.14) So while it is not at all clear that your “new table cloth” points to Christ, it does vividly portray how we can make manifold provision to fulfill the desires of our sinful human flesh.
So how is it, then, that you believe this “new table cloth” to be a new revelation from God?
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.” (Rom. 1.21-24)
So a minister has the right to exercise his or her constitutional freedom of religion, but a florist or cake baker does not? A minister is not obligated to celebrate a union that he believes is contrary to the Word of God, but a florist or cake baker is? I was unaware that there was such a double standard in the U.S. Constitution.
And do you know the thoughts and intents of my heart well enough to judge me of being guilty of homophobia?
Loren,
The Apostle Paul, when quoting the story of marriage from Genesis, clearly states that the true meaning of the Text is to foreshadow the relationship between Christ and the Church. Thus, human marriage in the Middle East in the year 1000 BC is the metaphor, and the relationship between Christ and the Church is the reality. Beyond that, he seemed to have no use for marriage at all, except to cure passion.
Now we know that the Church is made up of men, women and children, and we know that the relationship between Christ and the Church is not a sexual one. Thus, marriage, at its core, is neither about gender nor about sex. How can people of the same sex be married to each other? The answer to that question is another question: How can Christ be married to the men, women, and children that make up the Church?
The true definition of marriage in Scripture opens the boundaries of marriage beyond sex, beyond gender, beyond even the boundaries between creator and creation, for even of Creator and Creation, the “two shall become one”. It’s a core teaching of our Faith. Just as it took a tablecloth vision from God for Peter to understand what was always true, that even an unclean Roman Centurion, a destroyer of the Temple, and a torturer of Christians and Jews, could be baptized by the Holy Spirit, it took the People and the Supreme Court of the United States to explain to us the true meaning of Egalitarianism, first laid out in Scripture by the pen of the Apostle Paul.
It’s not really a “new” revelation. It’s just a more complete understanding of the old.
Gene….are you REALLY this naive?…..MANY want to force pastors (and many others) to accept them and yes, marry them….yes FORCE….if you deny or do not know this, you have been asleep approximately two decades.
The first bad Supreme Court decision was the Dred Scott case, where despite that fact that the Constitution always referred to slaves as “persons,” the Court determined that persons from Africa were not persons at all, but property and even if freed, could never become citizens. They have been twisting the Constitution ever since. The latest two rulings are prime examples. In the ACA case, they redefined the word “penalty” to mean “tax” and redefined the phrase “the state” to mean “the state or federal government” but only in one of the twenty places it occurs in the law. In the marriage case, they stretched the meaning of the fourteenth amendment to the breaking point to amazingly discover a constitutional right that had been hidden in the Constitution for 225 years. We now have a corrupt Supreme Court that can change any law at will and create rights out of thin air. The “winners” will be overjoyed — until that corruption slaughters one of their sacred cows.
I want to thank the Layman.org for helping us stay calm, focused on God, and for allowing a format for expression. Letting off steam helps diffuse the boiling point some of us feel. Refocusing our faith on a God who has everything under control is so helpful. Seeing opportunities, instead of walls going forward, is powerful. Thanks to the Layman team and especially Carmen.
Respectfully, Al Mohler is coming from one viewpoint, but an equally distinguished scholar, Dr. Ken Bailey, can put together a very Biblical case for women’s ordination.
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In most of Paul’s letters, he references women who are leaders in their churches, often they were the founders of the local church.
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The problem with women’s ordination in the PC(USA) was that it was made as a ‘social justice’ issue, with mandated requirements for ‘inclusion’ of women in all PNC/APNC deliberations. This actually has hurt more orthodox women pastors because this has made many orthodox congregations suspect a female minister applying for a call.
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If the effort was based on Biblical exegesis, and allowing women to apply on their own merit, more orthodox women would be accepted as solo pastors.
Mr. Hahn … your eisegesis of what the Bible states is overwhelming.
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You’re saying that God had no idea what he was inspiring the writers of the Bible to put down on paper. That he desired not to make his laws easily understood to all. That God used the SCOTUS to give ‘new revelation’ or a ‘better understood revelation’ to the world.
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You’re saying that more than 3 to 4,000 years of moral teaching has been wrong.
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So, if our understanding of God’s moral laws are wrong, what else is wrong in our understanding of the Bible? Was Christ born of a virgin without sin? Did Christ really rise? Did the Holy Spirit actually come on Pentecost? It could have just been a windstorm and too much wine, as those in the street believed.
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What else does this ‘new understanding’ tells you?
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For what I get from your ‘new understanding’ is that the Holy Spirit has not been with the church for the past 2,000 years. That Paul did not understand what contemporary historians of his time understood about homosexuality, even though Paul was a Greek Jew, who fully understood Greek culture.
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Please tell us exactly what some pro-gay theologians have wrong when they say that the Bible has no support for same-sex marriage.
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Dear Mr Catholic,
It would be safe and humble to assume there is quite a bit we do not know about the Bible or about God’s Laws. For what we think we know is filtered by our own abilities to perceive, our language and our own culture, and doctored by our own projections upon them of what we think we should be perceiving. But even so, it should not be too disconcerting to you if you received the Spirit by hearing with faith instead of by the works of the Law.
I am pretty sure Paul understood his Greek culture, it is we who do not. We try to apply what he said to the Greeks as if he had said them to 21st Century Americans. That is breathtakingly anachronistic. It is interesting to speculate what he would have said to us, but instead we have the Paraclete to help us out. And yes, we also have SCOTUS. After all, didn’t even Abraham the prophet receive the Word of God from the mouths of strangers and the rulers of strange lands?
“It would be safe and humble to assume there is quite a bit we do not know about the Bible or about God’s Laws.”
But it would be safe and humble to assume that the SCOTUS ruling and present cultural trends are unmistakable revelations of God’s will on the matter of the non-sinfulness of homosexuality and homosexual “marriage”? Your inconsistency is “breathtakingly astonishing”.
Hello baby
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