Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Defending...
John Mark Reynolds recently hit the nail right on the head defending marriage. The context of his post is writing or the WaPo/Newsweek web feature "On Faith." The question concerned the societal definition of marriage in a society where marriages so frequently fail, a fact which started "redefining" the institution long before homosexuals began their attempt. Here are some excerpt from JMR's excellent defense:
How many churches marry couples living in sin because it is better than letting them continue that way forgetting that absent penance of some type, such also sanctifies what they have been engaged in?
How many church staffers have divorced with nothing but a "let us know what we can do to help" from the ruling boards?
How many people are "restored to ministry" after adulterous affairs?
Do these actions defend marriage?
It is good that the church has, finally, chosen a line of defense. But to hold it we have to buttress the line, we have to build defense in depth. In football terms, we need a secondary, heck, I'll start with linebackers. We need to clean up our act about these "lesser" creeps in the defense of marriage. Such is not punitive, it is loving. As JMR closes, so shall I:
Love for the traditional Christian is a place where we are willing to lay down our very lives for the sake of the one we love. Such love is radically incompatible with demanding, tyrannical, selfish desires.Much of the marriage debate we now face is a self-inflicted wound. The church has not stood by marriage. The gender line for defense of marriage does, actually, appear relatively arbitrary given how little we have defended it against infidelity, divorce, and fornication.
If our religion is not teaching this, religion has not failed us; we have utterly failed our religion.
[...]
This is why abuse of the marriage commitment should never be excused and tolerated. Other institutions in society, church and state, must stand vigilant guard against the tyrant in the household, just as the family is a check to the tyrant in the family and the state.
The problem is not love or the marriage covenant that love demands. Part of the solution will come from support and protection for anyone failed by marriage, but there are no easy answers. The hypocrite exists because of the hope for virtue, but it would be too high a price to get rid of hypocrisy by removing the dream. [emphasis added]
How many churches marry couples living in sin because it is better than letting them continue that way forgetting that absent penance of some type, such also sanctifies what they have been engaged in?
How many church staffers have divorced with nothing but a "let us know what we can do to help" from the ruling boards?
How many people are "restored to ministry" after adulterous affairs?
Do these actions defend marriage?
It is good that the church has, finally, chosen a line of defense. But to hold it we have to buttress the line, we have to build defense in depth. In football terms, we need a secondary, heck, I'll start with linebackers. We need to clean up our act about these "lesser" creeps in the defense of marriage. Such is not punitive, it is loving. As JMR closes, so shall I:
The Bible says our religious words and actions are nothing without real love. A marriage based on tyranny, anger, and selfishness cannot be a Biblical marriage because it has no love. When we see the pain we cause, the even greater pain that exists in the world, we can almost despair about the possibility of love, were we were not reminded that though “now we see through a glass darkly,” if we persist in true love, we will someday see Love face to face.
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