For conservative
Christians Virginia is the latest battleground over the acceptance of gay relationships and legalization of gay marriage. The issue is a heated one, and for many conservative Christians it is a battle to be strongly waged as if the future of the Christian faith and the church depended on the result. To say that for some it is a highly emotional issue would be an understatement.
This author recognizes many evangelical
and fundamentalist Christians take issue with using of the phrase “conservative
Christian” to describe them and their stance against gay marriage. They argue with
fervent passion that there is nothing “conservative” about them, particularly
on this matter. No descriptive term is necessary for they are Christians period, Christians
defending their faith against an ungodly dangerous lifestyle and to prevent such relationships from
being viewed by the American culture, laws and the church as a whole, as an
acceptable relationship equal to the traditional marriage between a man and a woman that
has existed from the beginning of time across diverse cultures.
Given that
evangelicalism is my faith heritage and education, I understand why many of my friends take
issue with my use of “conservative Christians”. The term is used intentionally
to distinguish my personal faith background against Christians from faith
backgrounds in which there is are higher levels of openness to gay marriages. I acknowledge that for some
of my friends the use of the term “conservative
Christian” as related to gay marriage would imply that it is possible for a true Christian, lead and sensitive to God's Spirit, and accept gay marriages at the same time. Such friends would dismiss such openness as being possible, that if these individuals Christians, then they are either deceived by Satan, or they are not being obedient to the Christ.
Some of those in this camp do go
as far as to imply, or even state openly, that anyone who supports gay marriage
that they are definitely not all Christian but individuals playing with religion. I take a different position. I will not
question the depth and nature of another's faith who is not part of my congregation. On a host of issues, whether
those issues be about smoking or alcohol consumption, church polity or worship structure,
holding that Saturday or Sunday is the proper Sabbath day for Christians, how one dresses at church, going to
restaurants or shopping on the Sabbath, views on how and who is saved or the nature
of holiness, I will not, and cannot, judge those who are outside my faith tradition. I may not agree with one's beliefs but I have no standing to judge them.
For decades I
have held onto a significant and often overlooked teaching by Paul in I Corinthians 5. In that chapter
Paul addresses the issue of a man in their church who is having an ongoing affair
with his step-mother. The tense of the verb is clear, it is not a accidental lost control type of thing. Rather than a moment in
time affair, it is an ongoing one that started well before and which appears will continue long into the future. After
Paul condemns the church leadership for not dealing with the man, he then
deals with the man. The passage is clear, the man is the member of that congregation, the woman is not. Paul judges the man and instructs the church leadership to expel the
man least his attitude infect and harm others in the congregation. At the same time Paul states this about the woman, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside
the church?...God will judge those outside.”
For Paul the congregational leadership has the right to judge their congregational
members only, and not those outside their congregation. If I take that the entire Bible is God's divine Word then I cannot overlook this instruction and go forth to judge and condemn others who are not part of the congregation to which I belong. I have to resist the temptation to put myself in the roll of God. I cannot overlook or find some way to rationalize in my mind the dismissing of what these two short passages clearly state. I shall not and will not
judge those who testify to being Christians but who are of a different tradition,
who think, believe and live differently on a host of matters.
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