The issue of same sex marriage is heating up again in Washington state. A group is pushing Washington to become the seventh state in the country to legalize same sex marriages. Proponents claim the this is not a religious issue. They said yesterday, on the Ken Schram radio show, that they freely respect the rights of those who are opposed upon religious grounds to abstain from practicing same sex marriages. The example I heard on the radio show was from Schram's guest who said that he was Roman Catholic and completely understood that his priest would be unwilling to perform his wedding. Speaking of Ken Schram, (himself a professing Catholic) he chided his audience not to send him emails claiming that "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve," calling that "trite."
So I began to think about the difference between a religious argument against homosexual marriage and a theological one. It is obvious that religious arguments are powerless in our day. Very few people these days care what any church thinks about any thing. Here were two Catholics aggressively opposed to the message of their own religion. They weren't even bothered that their religion comes out on the opposite side of a position they are passionate about. The position of their religion, though still their religion, just does not matter to them. Therefore a religious argument is a hopeless argument. But what about a theological one? What if we argued that God Himself is opposed to homosexuality?
I realize most people would not see the difference. For most people religion has replaced God. They do not know God, they only know their religion and they have come to see their religion as fallible. Their own opions are as good as any opinion of their church. So, in order for my proposal to have any effect, two things would have to happen:
First, religions would have to get out of the way of God. We would need some honest to goodness real believers who meet with the Lord and hear from Him day by day. We would have to find some Christians who worship the Lord when they assemble rather than merely practicing their church form.
Second we would need a message from God so we know His views on issues such as homosexuality and etc..
Oh yea, I have heard about some Christians like that. These were those that refused to join up with Constantine when first he proposed to put religion above God. These have been a hated and persecuted people since the crucifixion of Christ. But they have also been a tenacious people, persisting through flame and flood.
• They have worshiped God in barns and meat-houses.
• They have preached in cathedrals not built by human hands.
• They have met in secret places and heard their preacher in hushed tones.
• They would not enter into the established churches knowing that those places only smothered out the heart for God.
They are the Baptists.
Not those who like to use the Baptist name but are really just Protestants who immerse; I am speaking of those Baptists who have, through the ages, lived and died by this one rule; their faith was in a resurrected Saviour and not a system of religion.
Hey, and that same people did have a message from God. Their Bibles gave us a family of Biblical manuscripts that were untainted by the perversions of Romanism. They saw the Bible as more than an instrument to control the masses for their purposes, but as indeed the very word of God. That message has been faithfully preserved and passed down to in the King James Version of the Bible.
The Baptist people have the message Washington State needs to hear. It is not that our church that opposes homosexual marriages; it is that God Himself is offended when His creation defiles the order He created. He has clearly said so, not in a religious document that has been written and re-written by men, but in the breath of God, recorded and supernaturally preserved.
The state of Washington may very well legalize homosexual marriages. But they will do so in defiance, not of a church, but of the very God of heaven.
And God have mercy if they do.
Marvin McKenzie
In the fields
So I began to think about the difference between a religious argument against homosexual marriage and a theological one. It is obvious that religious arguments are powerless in our day. Very few people these days care what any church thinks about any thing. Here were two Catholics aggressively opposed to the message of their own religion. They weren't even bothered that their religion comes out on the opposite side of a position they are passionate about. The position of their religion, though still their religion, just does not matter to them. Therefore a religious argument is a hopeless argument. But what about a theological one? What if we argued that God Himself is opposed to homosexuality?
I realize most people would not see the difference. For most people religion has replaced God. They do not know God, they only know their religion and they have come to see their religion as fallible. Their own opions are as good as any opinion of their church. So, in order for my proposal to have any effect, two things would have to happen:
First, religions would have to get out of the way of God. We would need some honest to goodness real believers who meet with the Lord and hear from Him day by day. We would have to find some Christians who worship the Lord when they assemble rather than merely practicing their church form.
Second we would need a message from God so we know His views on issues such as homosexuality and etc..
Oh yea, I have heard about some Christians like that. These were those that refused to join up with Constantine when first he proposed to put religion above God. These have been a hated and persecuted people since the crucifixion of Christ. But they have also been a tenacious people, persisting through flame and flood.
• They have worshiped God in barns and meat-houses.
• They have preached in cathedrals not built by human hands.
• They have met in secret places and heard their preacher in hushed tones.
• They would not enter into the established churches knowing that those places only smothered out the heart for God.
They are the Baptists.
Not those who like to use the Baptist name but are really just Protestants who immerse; I am speaking of those Baptists who have, through the ages, lived and died by this one rule; their faith was in a resurrected Saviour and not a system of religion.
Hey, and that same people did have a message from God. Their Bibles gave us a family of Biblical manuscripts that were untainted by the perversions of Romanism. They saw the Bible as more than an instrument to control the masses for their purposes, but as indeed the very word of God. That message has been faithfully preserved and passed down to in the King James Version of the Bible.
The Baptist people have the message Washington State needs to hear. It is not that our church that opposes homosexual marriages; it is that God Himself is offended when His creation defiles the order He created. He has clearly said so, not in a religious document that has been written and re-written by men, but in the breath of God, recorded and supernaturally preserved.
The state of Washington may very well legalize homosexual marriages. But they will do so in defiance, not of a church, but of the very God of heaven.
And God have mercy if they do.
Marvin McKenzie
In the fields
