40,000 denominations

There are essentials and there are nonessentials.

A handful of theological issues are so closely linked to the Gospel that they are nonnegotiable—to redefine them is lethal to the Gospel’s meaning. The Trinity, Human Depravity, the Hypostatic Union, the Atonement, the Resurrection, etc.—these truths wrap closely around Christ and form the heart of the Gospel. It is the duty of all Christians to protect such essential doctrines from those who would tamper with them.

Yet, beyond these, the Christian should accept a multitude of doctrinal perspectives. Members of different historical traditions of Christianity should remember the improbability that any single denomination of Christianity has the only valid understanding of the smaller details of the Bible. In fact, the differences benefit us, because they keep our individual and cultural biases in check, and compound into a kaleidoscope of perspectives through which men better behold the multifaceted and mysterious glory of the Gospel. God is so beautiful that he should be viewed from every angle.

Furthermore, God wants his children to be bound in a unity of love. Jesus prayed “that [Christians] may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23). This unity calls for a generous and loving acceptance of believers with many different forms of Christian practice. Therefore, the modus operandi of the Christian is to content with those who differ essentially on the core doctrines, and to embrace as a brother all those differ nonessentially on the core doctrines.

What is the core essence of the faith we hold? What is essential about your church and mine, and what is just optional? Have we confused the two?

There are about 40,000 denominations of Christianity. I wonder what would it would be like if we came together around Jesus, Redeemer, God With Us, and let our simple, vibrant love for Him and for our spiritual family blow the world away.

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

Authority and the origin of names

I wrote a paper a while back in my Theories of Language class that I dug up today. The topic still gives me a sense of awe at the power of language. Language is perhaps the greatest privilege of being human, and the most remarkable way that we are made in the image of God. There’s something mysteriously glorious and significant about our ability to communicate through language. If you’re feeling nerdy, here’s my paper. You can also see it in PDF form here.

The Locus of Name Origination as Ultimate Authority

Language is a crucial part of us. It helps us put handles on our perceptions, enables communication with others, and builds communities and cultures. As language is such an integral part of our reality, what we believe about language is a part of our explanatory framework—the way we make sense of things—our worldview.

This holds true for the ancients. Their worldviews, which have helped shape the modern world, are informed by their views on the origin of language. The Authors of the Bible, Plato, and Jean Jacques Rousseau all ascribe an origin to language, or in its most rudimentary form, simply “names.” We will find that in their writings, the things the authors identify as the origin of names strongly resemble the things they believe to hold ultimate authority. In fact, I will suggest that there is a synonymy between name-making and power.

The Bible

Let us first consider the Bible, comparing naming ability and authority according to its perspective. As God creates the world in Genesis 1, he names his creation. “God called the light day, and the darkness he called night” (Genesis 1:5). He also defines the names for heaven (1:8), and earth and sea (1:10). There is no mention of God specifically naming living creatures. Then God delegates naming to man. He brings the animals (and subsequently Eve) to Adam, and he names them.

Compare this with the biblical extent of human authority. God bids man to “rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (1:28). These things over which God has given Adam power, he allows him to name shortly thereafter. However, God retains authority over the things He named, i.e. the heavens and earth themselves. “To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it” (Deuteronomy 10:14). The Bible says that naming began with God and was partially apportioned to man. This is in clear parallel to the division of authority we see evidenced here (which is concordant with normal Christian theology), that God rules over creation, but has also entrusted rule of the earth to man as a steward.

Plato

In Cratylus, Plato concludes that there is a truth to names (Cratylus, p. 429, line 391). He says that he who gives names is the “legislator, who of all skilled artisans in the world is the rarest” (p. 427, line 389). This legislator is he who is able to discern the true form of something and express it in letters and syllables (p. 429, line 389). When his discourse turns to Cratylus, Plato reiterates his position saying that naming is an art, of which legislators are the artisans, whose skill is judged by their giving names that reflect reality. The wise man who is able to discern the natural form and essence of something and describe it is he who has the right to give names.

In Plato’s Republic, he ranks the “philosopher king” as the ideal leader of society. Power ought to rest in the hands of the discerning and wise, who can be trusted. This corresponds well to Plato’s concept of the wise and discerning linguistic legislator. Again, here is a parallel between the prescribed roles of the authority-holder and the name-giver—Plato gives the right to name to the philosopher, who is also his favored trustee of authority.

Rousseau

Jean Jacques Rousseau claims that names had their nascence in natural man. Names evolved slowly from animal utterances before they grew by common consent. They began in the bosom of nature, as the savage man freely responded to its impulses. “The first language of mankind…was the simple cry of nature” (A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p. 60). Furthermore, names were the convention of man, not reflective of a higher truth, “owing their original institution to merely human means” (p. 63). Therefore, original man and his mother nature were the origins of names.

Consider Rousseau’s views on where authority lies (or ought to). He is a staunch humanist. Man in his natural state is good. Man in modern society is corrupt, artificial, enervated of strength and courage, and degenerate (p. 52). The savage man is free from wants, carries his robust body “whole and entire,” and is innocent and at peace (p. 48-9). Thus, he upon whom Rousseau bestows authority to rule man, is man himself, in the state of nature. Social conventions are in rebellion against this proper order. The parallel continues—by Rousseau “man in the state of nature” is both the true guide of society and the originator of names.

Conclusion

The worldviews of these ancient writers clearly appear in their treatment of the origin of names. The Bible says that names started with God, who has ultimate authority, and were passed down to man. Plato says that the philosopher-legislator makes names as he discerns true forms, by virtue of the authority afforded to him by his intelligence. Rousseau says that names evolved from original man, who is himself the ultimate authority. The golden thread is this: whomever you see as the source of names, the one who first called things what they are, that is the person you also see as the continuing authority that has the right to determine reality. Gold is well and good, but in truth, he who has the names makes the rules.

Shame on shamers

In discussion related to my last post on modesty, several women, my wife included, have told me that they have experienced significant messages of shame from the evangelical community. They have been told (in essence at least) that their bodies are a source of temptation, and they have been sinning unintentionally by allowing men to see things other than their face. Certain leaders in the church have apparently been putting the responsibility on women to keep men from temptation, and making them feel lewd for not doing so. I had been ignorant to the severity of this dynamic before, but let me say something now that I’m aware: Shame on the people who have shamed women thus!

Men, if you have been telling women that they should cover up because they’re being bad, shame on you. Don’t you know what that does to a woman’s psyche? If a sister’s body is a source of temptation for you, you are probably not the one to confront her. In my opinion, you may sometimes describe to women what’s going on in a man’s mind (like my last post, sort of), but it should be squarely about you, and it should be generic. Do NOT directly confront a girl who is presently contributing to temptation. Even in a church context, if you are a leader and you see a sister making it difficult for some of the brothers, find a female leader.

Ladies, spiritual leaders and mothers, I cannot speak much into your circles or hear what you say to younger daughters of God, but I will say this: shame is not the right way to go about motivation. The right motivation is to value the immense beauty and worth that women have both internally and externally. It is their honor, not their shame, that should be communicated. The need for modesty is because sin has damaged the relationship between women and men, not because one or the other has become inherently bad. In particular, men’s intentions and glances toward women are no longer to be trusted, as they might have been in the Garden. Those of us redeemed who will admit the blackness in our hearts warn our sisters because we know what thoughts go through men’s heads, and it ain’t pretty. So, I think conversations with younger women on modesty should be framed in terms of the protection of valuable things from potential abuse. Let us honor, not shame, the dignity of the beauty of woman.

A plea concerning modesty

I just read a blog post on Christianity Today which was originally published in 2011. The post was blasting the phrase “modest is hottest” and the “traditional Christian rhetoric” surrounding modesty, calling it the objectification of women. In other words, it argued, Christians using shame to make women feel like their skin should be hidden is just as bad as non-Christians using pressure to make women feel like they should show some more skin. Why? Because both are focusing on the body. Modesty is unto God, not unto men. How your dress affects a man is of no consequence – modesty is about you and God. The female body should be celebrated, not shamed. Here’s one memorable quote that lots of people liked:

Women’s bodies are not inherently distracting or tempting. On the contrary, women’s bodies glorify God. Dare I say that a woman’s breasts, hips, bottom, and lips all proclaim the glory of the Lord! Each womanly part honors Him. He created the female body, and it is good.

I agree that women’s bodies are created by God and they are good – very very good! The pinnacle of creation, some say. I agree that women are not equal with their bodies, and they should not be objectivized or considered agents of temptation, their visible skin as forbidden fruit. And I’m quite sorry for the generations of men who have quarantined women instead of accepting the proper share of responsibility in the equation of avoiding temptation. On the other hand, I it seems the article is attacking the importance of how a woman’s manner of dress affects men. This is an issue where both brother and sisters must consider each other in love in the Body. Let me make several points to support this, and then I will conclude with a plea to men for ownership in this area, and a plea to women to help us.

Scientific research has shown that the amount of female skin that a man is exposed to has an affect on his sexual and mental response. (This response is unique to humans.) So, although tribal or less cultured people groups seem to break the mold, we cannot say that the physical definition modesty is entirely derived from culture.
We live in a fallen world. Maybe women’s bodies were not “inherently distracting or tempting” before sin entered the world, but now they are. The first act of awakened Adam and Eve was to cloth themselves.
I can affirm from personal experience that it matters what a woman wears, what curves and parts of her body my eye catches, not just the “spirit of modesty” I perceive. I have spent some time around groups of Muslim women in hijab, and frankly, I’ve noticed a difference in my brain chemistry. Even hair makes a difference. Thank you, Muslim ladies.
Granted, modesty is ultimately to God – “against you and you only have I sinned” – but our relationship to God and our relationships with humans, our brothers and sisters in Christ especially, are extremely intertwined. “And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:21) In fact, what way is there to show true modesty of spirit if not accompanied by a physical modesty toward our brothers and sisters?
It is precisely because the parts of a woman’s body are beautiful and special and altogether good that they should be protected and saved. You don’t hang your diamond earrings out the window, and you don’t show the most beautiful treasures of the body to passersby. The practice of covering doesn’t scorn a woman’s body, it exalts it to higher value.

So here is my plea:

Brothers, let us take ownership of our eyes and learn to patrol the boundary between “seeing” and “looking“. If the eye is the door to the soul, let us not blame any woman for what passes through that sacred gate to lodge in our minds – guard it with vigilance. As Job did, we must “make a covenant with our eyes not to look on a woman lustfully.” After all, we have eyelids.

Sisters, take us at our word that it really does help when you wear a little more. Consider us the “weaker brothers,” and make it a bit easier in your company than in the visual minefield we must navigate every day. “Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” (1 Corinthians 8:13) After all, have you ever seen a Lamborghini in a TV ad? They don’t need to advertise, because they are of such quality. And so are you. Be attractive to the men who are drawn to the “imperishable beauty” of your modesty. The rest of us are jerks and you wouldn’t want us to pursue you anyway.

Child sacrifice? Justifying the binding of Isaac

In Genesis 22, God told Abraham to go to Mount Moriah and sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham obeyed until he was about to plunge the knife, when God intervened. That story seems like a real moral problem for Christians. Wasn’t it cruel and immoral of God to tell Abraham to kill is own son, especially considering this is the God who decries murder (10 Commandments) and the child sacrifices of the Canaanites? Paul Copan makes a good argument against such accusations in his book Is God a Moral Monster?. Here is my take on this challenging issue, based on selected ideas he presented.

The Covenant Context

The command to sacrifice Isaac was given in the context of God’s covenant promise to Abraham that he would multiply him and give him many descendants through Sarah’s son. Isaac was the child of the promise (not Ismael). His living was the only hope of this promise being fulfilled.

The Conditions of Wrongness

Our judgment of the moral “wrongness” is based on a certain set of assumptions about the world. The reason that theft is wrong is because it robs someone of their right to their property. The reason that murder is wrong is because it (permanently) robs this person of their right to life.

However, what if the rules of reality were suspended? Imagine a world where stealing $100 from a man’s wallet in the subway caused $200 to appear in his wallet several minutes later. Would theft then be wrong? I think the temporary harm to the victim would be permissible in light of the immense benefit they would receive. (“Thanks for stealing from me, sir!”) Next, imagine a world where killing someone over the age of 18 caused them to be immediately resurrected the next morning with a completely restored body—and the power of flight! Would murder then be wrong? I think the overnight harm would be permissible in light of the immense benefit the next morning.

Abraham’s Faith that God’s Covenant Suspended Nature’s Laws of Life and Death

If Abraham believed that God’s promises were true, he must believe that God would give life to his son, either by providing a way out before he killed his son (which was how it turned out) or after he killed his son, by resurrecting him. Thus, if Abraham was going to obey, he had to believe that either God was going to keep his promise even by resurrecting Isaac, or God was not going to keep his promise, and was being fickle and masochistic.

If Abraham believed that God would keep his promise, then he was operating in a world where the normal moral parameters were suspended by the explicit intervention of God. Nature says, “You kill someone, they stay dead.” And it’s wrong to deprive them of the right to life. But if Abraham believed that God would make Isaac a prosperous nation, and by implication, preserve his life, then murdering him was not to deprive him of that right, at least not permanently. Killing without the context Abraham had is wrong. Killing is by default wrong. But if you believe that God must be going to miraculously reverse the death, and if you trust that He knows what he’s doing, then God’s special command plus his covenant promise equal a situation which trumps and suspends the natural moral circumstances which define the wrongness of killing. The covenant context makes this an issue of trusting the triumph of God’s promise even over the death of the beloved son. It’s not an issue of appeasing some sort of divine blood-lust through child sacrifice. The situation is fundamentally different from the Canaanite practices, which did not promise the resurrection of the children.

The Greatest Test of Faith

God’s command to sacrifice Isaac was the ultimate faith test. “I will give you your life’s one great hope—a son in your old age. I will give you the greatest of gifts—a legacy and innumerable children. Then I will see whether you believe I am Lord of death and life, or whether you will disobey me to protect the gift I have given you.”

Abraham passed the test and proved his faith. The same faith in God’s power to raise from the dead is at the core of our belief in Christ’s victory over death. (It’s no coincidence that the mountain where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac was possibly also the mountain where the Temple of Solomon was built.) Abraham became the father of the three greatest religions in the world because his faith was so great that he believed God would fulfill his promises even through death –that even when God told him to do something seemingly cruel and contradictory, he expressed ultimate trust in God’s goodness and his faithfulness to keep his promises. The sacrifice of Isaac is not a point to eschew or be shy about—it is a triumph of faith and a precursor to Christ, a moment of great glory in the redemptive history of the Bible.

Future tense and good intentions

The basic form of the future tense in English is [will + verb], as in I will rake my neighbor’s leaves. Interestingly, this modal is homograph and homophone for will (n.): determined intention, or the act of asserting a choice, and will (v.): to exercise the act of volition in attempt to accomplish something. I bet that at some distant point in the past, intention and futurity were commingled in this word.

The other form of the future tense in English is [be going to + verb], as in I am going to rake my neighbor’s leaves. Interestingly, this has the syntactic form of a present progressive tense, as in I am typing a blog post, occurring on the verb go (to travel or move toward a destination), followed by an infinitive. The progressive expresses a current state of ongoing action or process, and the infinitive is a truncated verb phrase that is always used to talk about uncompleted future goals or targets. Therefore, we can say that the second form of the future tense could be interpreted as “being in a current state of process of going towards a yet-unrealized future goal.”

I think it is no coincidence that our two ways of expressing future tense are intention and targeted movement. We obviously cannot make declarative facts about the future because we cannot know what will happen. What we can do is make statements of intention (will) or prediction based on extrapolations from the present (be going to).

My question is, can one of the forms expression be true without the other? Will you rake your neighbor’s leaves if you are not going to rake your neighbor’s leaves? Semantically, it’s a contradiction.

And yet I let this contradiction slip into my life all the time. My grammar betrays the difference between my alleged intentions and my real priorities. I say I will do this or that, but I don’t make any motion towards the goal.

“I will spend more time in prayer with God.”

“I will reach out to that lost friend.”

“I will invite them over for dinner.”

Oh God, give me the strength of mind to unite my will and the motion of my hands and feet, even as I write this. Let me show the sincerity of my resolutions by the immediacy of their visible effects in my life. Let my future intentions be present tense.

An apology to the gay community

To my LGBTQ friends and the LGBTQ community,

If I have communicated that I hold the “moral high ground,” I am sorry. I am no better than you.

If I have shown disgust and wrinkled my nose, I am sorry. That was not love.

If I have spoken too much about your sin, and too little of my own, I am sorry. I am convicted by the words of Jesus, that it is easier to see the speck in your eye than the log in mine.

If I have avoided befriending you, or simply not sought out your friendship when I could have, I am sorry. It is easy to fear what you do not know. But it’s not okay to fear and leave bridges burnt.

If I have been too political, I am sorry. I admit that some of my words have come from knee-jerk defensiveness. I have felt threatened by the more extreme proponents of the gay agenda, but that is no reason to retaliate with acidity. And I get why some gay activists are pissed—they themselves feel like they have to defend against the ridicule and hate of many conservatives. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that so many people bearing the name of Christ have been throwing stones. They don’t speak for me. (And conservative ≠ Christian.)

You have asked for me to consider you normal, to include you in the same category as every other person. I will confess that has been hard for me to do. If I’m being totally honest, I get this uneasy feeling when I’m around flamboyant gays and transvestites. I guess I’ve been raised in an evangelical Christian bubble that has put me in very little contact with you, and taught me to think negative thoughts about you. But recently, since I made my first open LGBTQ friends two years ago, I’ve seen that gay people are just people, with hearts and needs just like straight people. Even the movies J. Edgar and V for Vendetta, which I have watched recently, have helped to remind me that you are just people in a messed up world searching for love and a sense of identity. That sounds quite like my own story. I totally agree that there is nothing essentially different between us. I’m sorry if I ever conveyed an implication to the contrary. I welcome you as my equals and companions on the journey we all have in common—looking for love, acceptance, belonging, and identity in a world full of pain, relational wounds, and unfulfilled longings. We’re all in the same human boat.

But what can stop up that boat’s leak? Where can we find this love, acceptance, and identity? I believe that you are so passionate about your sexual freedom because you believe that the relationships with the gay partners you love, and who love you, will bring you freedom and satisfaction. This is the concern I have for you, because I do greatly care about your wellbeing, and because I believe this is not true. I believe with all my heart that nothing in this world can ultimately satisfy our need for love. We were made to only work when we are in relationship with our creator, not because he is selfish, but because he knows by nature that he is the only real source of all-satisfying love, the water from which our hearts must drink to be whole. All other joys are illusory, being real only to the extent that they contain part of that divine love.

If we make a human love or greatest joy and freedom, we miss the love that does not disappear in death.

If we make a human love our greatest security, we miss the peace that burgeons from totally unconditional love, which only God can give, on the merit of Jesus’ sacrifice.

If we find our greatest identity in a human love, we miss the meaning that rushes in through relationship with the One who made us and knows us better than we know ourselves.

If we only satisfy our need for companionship and intimacy with a human love, we miss the mingling of our spirit with the divine Comforter, who alone can penetrate to the deepest part of the soul.

I do not desire that you stop a behavior or break a relationship or suppress an emotion. I want you to know God, know the joy of relationship with him that comes when you cry out to him with open, empty hands and a humble, broken heart. Let him say to you whatever he will about who you are, and how you should be. (That is his spirit’s job, not mine.) It will be the truth that you need, and it will quench your soul.

So if I have communicated any other message than Jesus Christ, the rescuer and satisfier of every human soul, I’m sorry. He, and what he accomplished on the Cross, is what I believe in, not a political stance or a moral recipe for righteousness.

If I conveyed that there was something different between you and me, I’m sorry. We are human, just the same, in desperate need of the love, grace, and truth of God.

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

— St. Augustine

Marriage is a social institution

“What right do members of society have to enforce a particular view of marriage on other members of society?” This is one of the essential questions raised by Nate Dellinger in this thoughtful article. I’m going to write a post shortly to the gay community, apologizing for any miscommunicated hate. I don’t hate them, I love them with Christ’s love (or at least aspire to). However, in this post I will show that the thoughtful gay-community-loving Christian can still and should still simultaneously disagree with their being married under the laws of our country. If that’s impossible, tell me how after you’ve followed this train of thought:

The issue is the definition of marriage.

The role of government is to uphold the individual rights of citizens. If some members of society say, “Only we get cookies,” the Bill of Rights says, “No, we all share the cookies.” The homosexual community appeals to the government that they are being treated unfairly, and their right of equality is being violated. However, the homosexual marriage debate is not ultimately about rights—it is about the definition of marriage. Here’s why: if we assume that “marriage” is something that only characterizes the union of a man and a woman, then two men do not have the right of marriage, so no right is being withheld from them. However, if marriage happens between any two consenting adults, then I would be the first to say that their rights are being deprived. Thus the debate is one of definitions, not of rights, because our definitions define our rights.

At this point, Nate and many of my fellow Christians affirm that the Biblical God exists and that marriage is truly only the union between man and woman. However, they ask, “What right does the government have to enforce this view on others?” By way of clarification, the government is not the real issue, per se. The law of the land has neither authority nor ability to affect society’s presuppositions; it simply reflects them. Our democratic government was ingeniously designed to resist a “mind of its own”, an independent will—rather, it is just the mouth of the people to govern themselves. The U.S. government simply formalizes and protects the “marriage” that society recognizes. Therefore, the question quickly becomes “What right do members of society have to enforce a particular view of marriage on other members of society?” My answer is that members of society have not only the right, but the responsibility, to respectfully yet wholeheartedly advocate for the definition of marriage that they espouse, because marriage is a social matter, and they are members of society. I have four points.

1. Marriage is a social institution.

This foundational part of humanity is not just between the two individuals. As newlyweds admit when they say “you marry the family,” marriages are not made in vacuums. Marriage is a social construct in which two members of a society not only grant privileged status to each other, but are granted a privileged and protected status by their community. The benefits include laws protecting tax benefits, property rights, adoption and childrearing rights, medical decisions, legal action against adultery, etc. And above all these, they receive the dignity of public approval and affirmation. Is a marriage that is not recognized by anyone but the couple really a marriage? If you answer yes, I bet you are appealing to some sort of “in the eyes of God” argument (which is unavailable to a pro-gay perspective); otherwise, what is different from simply living together out of wedlock? There is a significant part of the essence of marriage that is intertwined with, defined by, and protected by the larger context of people surrounding that marriage, including you, me, and that guy over there.

It is these social facets of marriage that the gay community is asking for. Of course no one has the right to interfere with two people’s relationship, but they gay community is not asking to be allowed to have a relationship (they already have that)—they are asking for equal treatment in the public sphere, equal adoption laws, equal tax privileges, the dignity of society’s approval. All of those things are precisely the parts of marriage that have to do with society.

Nate compares withholding marriage from some individuals to making laws forbidding people to have extramarital sex, get drunk, etc., but that’s not the right comparison. The comparison would be granting tax breaks or special rights to people because they have had sex, or because they have gotten drunk a lot. I don’t believe we have such laws. It’s one thing to avoid taking legal action toward a potentially destructive private behavior; it’s another thing to recognize such a behavior as an institution which society honors with privileges and rights.

2. Marriage is human, not just Christian.

Nate draws a line between several of the Ten Commandments that seem to be a part of natural law (“You shall not kill” etc.) and those which seem to be only for Israel, therefore not necessarily for America (“You shall have no other gods before me”). He says that if we are not willing to force the Mosaic law onto our citizens, neither should we be willing to force a definition of marriage on them. However, how we treat marriage and how we treat the laws of the Old Testament are two different things.

Why? Marriage was created not under the Mosaic covenant, but under the perfect natural order of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1-3). There are three things that God gives man before his Fall: life, language and marriage. Marriage is profoundly linked to what it means to be human. Marriage should be treated differently from later moral covenants because it, unlike them, has applied to all of us since the beginning. (Most Bible scholars release New Covenant believers from the laws of the Mosaic covenant anyway.) Romans 1 and Matthew 19 further support the point that the Bible regards marriage as a part of the God-created natural order.

If one doesn’t accept the Bible as authority, we can still tell from a brief glance at history that marriage is a core part of being human. Virtually every society, civilization, and people group that has ever existed has practiced marriage. Granted, there are some varying details, such as polygamy, but it’s clear that marriages are the core building blocks of human culture, both biologically (we all came from a man and a woman’s union) and culturally (we are all profoundly influenced by the home environment in which we were raised). Marriage is not a convention, it is a pervasive facet of humanity. Can you show me any culture that doesn’t have some form of marriage? (Odd short-lived commune experiments do not count.)

3. Society inevitably holds some definition of marriage.

Since marriage is social institution, society inevitably does enforce a view of it. Men cannot marry trees. Take a game of baseball for example: say the umpire yells “Strike!” on a high ball and the batter asks him, “Why did you give me a strike, Ump? It was too high.” The umpire replies, “Oh, I don’t look at whether the ball is inside the strike zone, I just shout out calls.” Is he really umpiring? Neither can society declare something to be a marriage without having some view of what that means. The question, therefore, is not “Does society have the right to enforce a view of marriage?” but “Since society by definition enforces a view of marriage, is this society enforcing a view of marriage in line with its true definition or not?” Is the cultural umpire of the United States calling marriage pitches accurately?

4 .We are (part of) society.

There is no neutral gear here—some set of standards will guide our country. We have the privilege and duty as members of society to take part in directing our course. The most beautiful truth of our free country is that, as citizen, I have a right and responsibility to speak up about what I think marriage should be. Society is the sum of its members. Society is not “them,” it’s “us.” We the people! Each person must contribute his/her voice and vote to shape the nation as he/she thinks it ought to be. Collectively, our voices become the will of the people. This is the beauty of America, the freedom that has been fought for since the Magna Carta. This means that gay rights activists are justified in calling all of us to the definition of marriage they think our society should have, and the same is true for heterosexual marriage activists.

There you have it. The train of thought in summary: The right for gays to marry is about the definition of marriage. The definition of marriage is the business of every member of society, because marriage is a social convention common to all humans. Society must have some definition of marriage because marriage is upheld and, in a sense, created by society’s consent. The definition that society has for marriage is the sum of the views of its members. And society’s members include you and me. Therefore, what right do we have to publicly fight for the definitions underlying the foundation of our society? I ask instead, what right do we have not to?

Bigger questions

A Response to Lauren and Nate on Abortion and Gay Marriage

I spent the last weekend wrestling with some very good comments I received by Lauren, Nate and others from my Open Letter to Christians Concerning the Presidential Election. I am grateful to them for the thoughtful responses that made me really think twice about things. I offer the following response in hopes that it will be as helpful/challenging/insightful as their thoughts were to me. If you prefer, here is a PDF form of the article:

On Abortion

My friend Lauren says, “Economic stability, especially for the lower and middle class, is what’s going to reduce abortions.” She says that fewer abortions happen by “reducing unwanted pregnancies, and unwanted pregnancies are reduced by providing women and girls with educational [sex ed] and economic opportunities.” This is true, but I think it is a red herring, not the real issue.

I totally agree that sex ed can help reduce unwanted pregnancies. No cultural event short of the Second Coming will totally halt illicit sex, so I am in favor of teaching safe sex to the young and undereducated. That is, providing that real alternatives to sexually active lifestyles are presented, and the dangers of sexual activity are discussed. (I don’t think that sexual activity should be merely assumed, but presented as a choice.) Yet, however well sex ed may be taught, some unwanted pregnancies will persist. The question is, what to do with these?

As for economic stability, yes, poor socioeconomic conditions increase the rate of unwanted pregnancies. However, I think it impossible to argue that people who are economically stable and well educated will not have any unwanted pregnancies, and therefore will not want to get abortions. Rich people sometimes want to get abortions too. What do we do with these cases?

So we agree that it is good to work to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies. But the real sticky question is, what do you do with those pregnancies that are still unwanted?

Before answering this, let me take down a pair of straw men. Lauren defended that pro-choice people don’t “support abortion”—they think there should be less abortions. I never meant to communicate otherwise. I don’t think that pro-choice people are happy when babies die—they simply see the woman’s choice as more important. And on the other hand, some people assume that pro-life people don’t care about the women who get abortions. I confess that I, for one, usually don’t show enough gentleness toward the difficult, sometimes harrowing personal situations surrounding abortion decisions. I admit that I need to do more to help them and show that I care. However, the pro-life position does care about the women; it’s just that they see the baby’s life as more important.

So the right course of action in those pregnancies that are unwanted depends on which is more valuable: the woman’s choice or the life of the baby? This question in turn depends on whether it is really a baby, a person—or simply a fetus, a nonperson. The issue of abortion thus depends on how we define personhood, which follows from the worldview that we are looking through.

From a humanist or materialist worldview, a human being becomes a person when it reaches some point of self-awareness or sentience, or when it is able to feel a certain amount of pain, or by some other subjective standard determined by a judge or by popular vote. So no one can say exactly when a fetus becomes a person. The definition is wishy-washy. (I once had a friend who thought that infanticide was permissible until around age two.) A “possible-person” or a “pre-person” has less rights than a full person, so, under a materialist view, the adult mother’s right to choose naturally trumps the rights of the “baby” prior to a certain point. A materialist has to support the right of the woman to choose.

From a Christian worldview, a human being is a person from the moment of conception. In fact, it is really a person before conception (but I suppose it would be difficult to kill someone prior to their conception). Consider the following scriptures.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13-19)

God gives identity to human beings even before they come into physical existence, and it is he who forms them in the womb. If we believe this, then the thing we abort is a person whom God has ordained and known and named and begun himself to shape. Thus human life takes on sacredness. That child is God’s as much as it is the woman’s. It is more than a person; it is a son or daughter of God. Therefore, it seems to me, the Bible allows no other position than that fetuses in the womb are persons, and are thus entitled to the right of life. If the unborn are entitled to the right of life, yet unable to defend their lives themselves, then it is the responsibility of our government to make laws protecting that right.

Lauren says that Roe v. Wade did not increase the number of abortions—it just gave safer options to women who would have gone to drastic measures anyway. She mentions some uncited research. I’m curious about the degree of conclusiveness that this research can reach as to whether legalizing abortion did not in any way increase the number of abortions. As she says, abortions were not documented before, so how can we know for sure? Someone close to me has had two abortions. She told me recently, “I probably wouldn’t have had those abortions if they were illegal. I was scared, but I don’t think I would have gone looking for ways to do it. You don’t think through things like that when you’re pregnant, you’re just scared.” I’ll admit that, possibly, a very significant number of people found ways to have abortions when they were illegal, but I question whether legality doesn’t have a significant curbing effect for many women. And if that curbing effect is all the law can produce, it is nonetheless worth making the law.

Ultimately, I think the solution to abortion is both to reduce unwanted pregnancies, and also to advocate for the lives of the most defenseless children in our society. This is about helping mothers and saving their babies. It’s an issue of social justice as important as any—they are “invisible children” too.

On Gay Marriage

The other hot topic about which I received excellent replies is the legalization of homosexual marriage. Lauren makes the point that opposing gay marriage communicates hatred to gays. Both Lauren and Nate argue that, as far as the government is concerned, marriage is merely a social contract, and the law should be blind to any moral or religious dimensions of marriage. I will respond to these two points below.

1. Opposing gay marriage communicates hatred

Lauren says that vocalizing a political stance in opposition to gay marriage makes the gay community feel like Christians hate them. Saying that gay marriage is wrong “alienates people when I’m supposed to love them….It automatically throws up barriers to loving and serving a community that is in desperate need of love and truth.”

First, I want to admit that I’m not very good at loving the gay community. Neither are most evangelicals (n.b. I apply the label to myself with certain reservations). I want to change that. Making some of my first gay friends at GMU during the last two years has been very enlightening. I totally agree that Christians need to stop sending the vibe that homosexuals are heinous, beyond-redemption perverts who are single-handedly responsible for the moral demise of our country. We need to develop bridges of communication and friendship. Jesus hung out with the tax collectors.

But if gays are indeed a community “in desperate need of love and truth,” as Lauren says, then loving them while tip-toeing around the truth they desperately need is no love at all. The gospel first empathizes and identifies with your brokenness until you can admit “I have a problem.” Then it says, “Jesus is the answer to your problem.” This is the gospel for every one of us guys who has had a problem with porn, and every couple who is living together, so a gay couple is not exempt. When Jesus hung out with tax collectors, he explained it by saying, “It is not the healthy who need a physician, but a sick.” I feel that the homosexual political agenda (maybe not all gays themselves) is asking me to agree that “nothing is wrong.” Well, nothing is more wrong with you than with me, but that is still a lot of wrong. If I hold the Christian worldview, it is the most hateful thing I can do to smile and nod when gays say that they’re “born this way and they don’t need to change.” It is the most loving thing I can do to embody the tension between truth and love that exists in the gospel. Living this tension will probably make enemies with many conservatives, and it won’t be enough for gays who want exoneration from any moral standard other than “being true to their hearts.” But I feel like that is the line God has called his people to walk in our culture today.

2. The government has no right to define marriage

The second thrust of Lauren’s argument about gay marriage is that the government should not be concerned with any sanctity of marriage. “Marriage” to the government is simply a social contract that “ensures joint property rights, right to decide medical care issues, etc.” Any so-called sanctity is only within the walls of the church. (I presume she means like how the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches “recognize” marriages.) This connects with Nate’s point that the purview of the government is to interfere with someone’s freedom only if it violates someone else’s. The U.S. is not Israel, he observes. It is not built to enforce Christian mores, but to tolerate the maximum number of mores. Lauren and Nate essentially agree that the government should be blind to all but the economic and social privileges due to any two people who are willing to enter into a contract of life cooperation.

This is the point I almost agreed with. I agreed with it for most of the weekend; I kept thinking about it while helping to paint my parents’ house. I annoyed my wife by playing devil’s advocate with both positions back and forth. Our government was built on the right of every man to the “pursuit of happiness”. What right does it have to define what may or may not make him happy? Isn’t that counter to the heart of the American experiment? As Nate implied when he referred to the “red scare,” if people want to be communists, they are allowed. Likewise, if people want to be gay, they are entitled to all the rights otherwise due to them by the government—including the privileges conveyed by marriage laws.

This reasoning, however, makes an assumption. It assumes that the authority exercised by the civil government is derived solely from the consent of the citizens, and that there is no greater authority than those citizens themselves. Is there a greater authority?

The Declaration of Independence says that authority of the government is derived from the rights that “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle” to man. It holds the these truths to be self-evident: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….” The authority that our government exercises is derived from the combination of the “consent of the governed” and the Laws of Nature. Without the laws of nature, I suppose we would have a simple majority rule—whatever the majority of people voted on at any one time, would be right. An appeal to individual rights in the Natural Law gives minorities a voice, protects the marginalized and powerless, and forms the foundation of social justice. Crucially, such the Natural Law cannot be divided from a Lawmaker, God, since no rule exists without an authority enforcing it with proper jurisdiction.

Furthermore, if the standards of the Creator were revealed to us in ways other than Natural Law, then these revelations too would hold sway, just as the Natural Law does. Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845), then Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University, captures this perfectly:

“the Law of Nature…lies at the foundation of all others laws, and constitutes the first step in the science of jurisprudence…” but, “the law of nature has a higher sanction, as it stands supported and illustrated by revelation. Christianity, while with many minds it acquires authority from its coincidences with the law of nature, as deduced from reason, has added strength and dignity to the latter by its positive declarations….Thus Christianity becomes, not merely an auxiliary, but a guide to the law of nature, establishing its conclusions, removing its doubts, and elevating its precepts. (A Discourse Pronounced Upon the Inauguration of the Author)

Therefore, if government is built on the Laws of Nature, and the Laws of Nature descend from God, the Lawmaker, and if Christianity is the revelation of God, then the principles of Christianity ought to inform and constrain the principles of civil law.

If we accept that God is the ultimate sovereign, then we must believe that governmental strata that steward his authority must be structured to acknowledge the sovereignty of God.

It just so happens that the authority to which government answers has defined marriage. God has painted a pretty clear picture in his word about homosexuality and marriage. He calls homosexuality wrong and unnatural, while urging that marriage be kept holy (1 Corinthians 6:9, Jude 1:5-6, Romans 1:24-27, Leviticus 18:22, etc.). I won’t get into this in detail because I don’t think we disagree about what the Bible says on this topic.

If homosexual marriage thus violates Divine Law, which informs the Natural Law, and if right civil statutes derive their authority by conformance to the Natural Law, then civil homosexual marriage also violates right civil statues. It is the obligation of good citizens who have a Christian worldview to vote for representatives who will create right civil statues that adhere to the Divine law.

What is ultimate, democracy or deity? We are faced in our culture with the tacit elimination of God’s authority in the public sphere. The humanist believes that people’s freedom is limited by nothing but their desires. The Christian believes that people’s freedom is limited by God’s laws. And we gladly fight to keep the knee of our country knelt before God. “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).

Bringing Change

The questions of abortion and gay marriage summon deeper questions. Who defines personhood? Who has sovereignty over man? These questions lead us down to the bedrock of worldviews. Do we believe that God exists? Do we believe all of His implications, in all the spheres of life? Are we willing to stand up for these beliefs?

I will end by discussing one of Nate’s points. He says that making laws against a certain immoral practice will not stop the practice from happening. Legislation will not bring about change. He says, “I don’t think we can charge people with being moral when they don’t understand the real reason why it’s needed. Christ produces morality and fruit, and not vice-versa.” I admit that it is the Holy Spirit who makes the ultimate change in hearts, but this is not a reason to abdicate our seat at the cultural roundtable. In fact, quite the opposite. We are Christ’s representatives. If he is to get into people’s hearts, it will be through us—through our speaking the truth in love. (And in love is crucial.) We need to be like Christ, unswerving in his condemnation of sin in the Jewish culture, yet recklessly compassionate in his dealings with the broken, sinful Jews. As I said regarding abortion, this is the tension we are called to walk as believers. We need to fearlessly advocate toward a culture that honors and obeys God, while loving and being a part of a culture that isn’t there yet. We may never see direct fruit of our efforts, but by God’s grace, they will not be in vain.

An open letter to Christians on the presidential election

Dear fellow Christians,

When I found out that my choices for the 2012 presidential election were between a Mormon and the current administration, I admit that I lost interest. I don’t consider either man a role model who embodies the ideals, faith, and values that I espouse. And I don’t think I should blindly hold to a party line. I don’t want to be one of those Christians who mistake a particular political ideology (conservative, liberal) or party (Republicans, Democrats) for the Kingdom of God. Ultimately, the kingdoms of earth will come and go, but the King of Kings will remain. So generally, I don’t care much for politics. I think we citizens of the Eternal Nation should maintain some perspective.

Nevertheless, too many of my ancestors have died to purchase my right to vote for me to say, “whatever” and write the whole political scene off as corrupt. So, what am I supposed to do with my vote? What are you supposed to do with yours, since “Jesus” is not one of the names on the ticket?

Although economic issues and foreign policy are certainly important, God warns his people countless times against pursuing financial stability above obedience to God. If we “seek first the Kingdom” he will “add all these things.” If we trust in God more than we trust in our country’s leaders, then our job is to vote for righteousness, not for the plan that will create more jobs, or ensure us the best healthcare, etc. These are extremely important, but they’re just not priority. God doesn’t speak about medical policies, but he does say, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).

So how the heck do you “vote for righteousness”? Well, what does God care about? What does he legislate about? Well, he seems to care a lot about the value and dignity of human life. And he also cares about marriage. How so? He created those two things back in the Garden of Eden, and called them good. God hated it when the Caananites sacrificed their children (dignity of human life) and he punished the Israelites for intermarrying with them (marriage). He said when you care for the “least of these” (who is lesser than the unborn child?) you cared for Him. He called homosexuality immoral and unnatural (1 Corinthians 6:9, Jude 1:5-6, Romans 1:24-27, Leviticus 18:22, etc.).

Maybe you see what I’m getting at. I think that the social-moral issues represented on the ballot, chiefly, abortion and homosexual marriage, are more important than who’s the better debater, who pays more taxes, or who can ensure me a larger tax return. I think they are utmost importance. I think God cares about them. And I think that our attitude toward these practices affects whether we will be a fragrant smell to God, or a reproach to Him.

(I also must interject that taking Mr. Biden’s stance, “I believe abortion is wrong but I’ll not push that on others,” is a farce. If you actually believe that those embryos are humans, then you are an accomplice to murder because it was in your power to stop it. No one would exonerate someone who passively witnessed a stepfather rape of his stepson because “it was his son”.)

Perhaps you’re reading this and you’re not a Christian, or if you hold to a foggy, pick ‘n’ choose theism. If so, you should know that, if I held your worldview, I would certainly support the right of the mother or of the two gay lovers, to choose. But to my brothers and sisters, who have read the Bible and who really accept it as more than niceties and folklore and antiquated ecclesiastical power plays: how can you vote for a candidate who supports abortion and homoesexual marriage? Please do explain it to me.

For me, anyway, these moral issues trump. Although I don’t particularly like either candidate on a personal level, basing my voting decision on my faith in Jesus and on the Bible has made my decision this November a little bit simpler.

In Christ,

Ben Taylor