Homosexual Marriage and the Church (What Are We Doing?!)

Note: This post is solely Tim Whitaker’s opinion.

Our nation is sharply divided over the idea of legalizing some form of homosexual marriage/union.  Well it’s time for Tim Whitaker to throw his view in to the mix.  I realize there are a lot of angles to approach the subject from.  Because of that, I’m going to try and keep my post focused on one angle.  Let’s face it, you could write a book on this issue, there are so many different ways to approach this subject.  I’m coming at it from the perspective of a Christ follower and what I really see in Scripture and how we as Christians are to handle the situation.  Do I have the only right way? No, I don’t think so, however one of the benefits of having a blog is that I can post my opinion on subjects.  So agree or disagree, read along.

Let me get one thing clear right off the bat for my more conservative readers; I think homosexuality is contrary to God’s design.  There you go, I said it.  I think the Bible is pretty clear on this issue.  If we take the Genesis creation account literally, then we clearly see that God’s design since day one was for heterosexual marriage.  That being said, homosexuality is simply another symptom of a bigger problem, sin in the world.  Now, if you’re reading this and you are a homosexual hopefully you’re not ready to throw stones at me.  Sure I think that the lifestyle of homosexuality is wrong, but there are two things to keep in mind.  1. I think getting drunk is wrong, and I have and know plenty of friends who love to party.  They know right where I stand on the issue and we are still good friends.  Just because two people disagree on an issue doesn’t mean that I think that they are somehow less human.  2.  You have a freedom to live your life how you choose.  This is clear in Scripture, that if you’re not a Christian, or a follower of Christ, that it is completely unfair for us to put our beliefs on to you.  God gave Adam and Eve a choice and Paul writes over and over to be concerned with matters of the church, not of the world.

But enough of that, I want to get down to the nitty gritty.  This whole marriage debate is discouraging.  It’s discouraging to see how many Christians are ready to take up arms because a secular nation that they live in is considering giving homosexual couples the same benefits in our nation as heterosexual couples.   Yes, I said secular nation because contrary to popular belief, America is not God’s chosen nation, America is not a “christian” nation, America is a nation governed by a constitution and bill of rights, not by a Bible.  How can someone who claim to be a follower of Christ say such things?  Because it’s true.   The Bible is not a book that is supposed to be used to govern, it’s meant to speak to the individual and to the Church.  I can’t stress this enough.  Regardless if people live in sin, throwing the book at them doesn’t change their hearts! Only Christ does.

Speaking of sin, if there is one big gaping problem with the way Christians are treating this issue it’s this: We are blind to the heterosexual fornication, murder, and hosts of other things that are also immoral that America has either legalized, culturally supports, or allows that is equally against God’s moral law.  This is the irony of it all. We live in a culture that is full of people who live lives contrary to the way Jesus taught us to live and then we act shocked and surprised when things like this come up.    Paul planted a Church in Corinth, one of the most vile cities of the time and do you see paul writing letters to people outside the Church? Do you think Paul stood on a soapbox and made sure people knew that Corinth was a vile city that was going to be destroyed by the wrath of God one day?  No of course not, instead Paul instructs the CHURCH on how to live.  This is key to understand, the Bible is written to believers, to people are inside the faith.   Just like the Jewish Law applied to the Jews, the Bible (especially the New Testament) is written to God’s Church, to God’s called out ones.  Are we called to evangelize? Of course we are! But we have to ask ourselves this important question: Do we want people to know that they are wrong and we are right, or are we trying to introduce people to the person of Jesus?  If our motive is to show people Jesus and who He is and how He changes our lives, then how we express that will look much different than some of the ways I’m seeing.

I don’t know where this mindset of guilty by association came about, but it’s completely contrary to the life of Jesus.  Jesus was heavily associated with the culturally immoral of His time. He offered them restored and full life, some rejected, some accepted, either way Jesus was there with, what that society deemed, as the most immoral of all.

Look, here’s my bottom line, if homosexual marriage becomes legal, so what?  Does that change your mission here on earth as a Christ follower?  If you meet two people are legally married who are of the same sex, are they somehow beyond the saving grace of our Lord? No, they are not, so why are we treating them like they are?   The devil is tricky indeed, while we Christians are obsessing about this particular issue, millions of babies are being aborted, marriages are being torn apart by infidelity, our culture worships at the alter of money and stuff, teen suicide is at an all time high, military PTSD is at an all time high, but yes let’s rally behind the issue of two people who want the same rights in our nation that other people get.  Right or wrong, it’s not our job to tell people how to live! Remember, we are the ones in a foreign land, we are the ones who are just passing through.  People, wether it’s legal or not, are going to live how they want to live and we change hearts by personally showing them Jesus, not by legislating one part of God’s law in to a nation.  Last time we turned England into a Christian theocracy it got so corrupt that secularism was born.

Some of you might be saying that I just don’t want to stand up for the truth of God’s word to which I will leave you with a very popular Scripture verse.

 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. – Ephesians 6:10-17

Notice here that Paul points everything to individual and the devil.  I don’t see any of these weapons that Paul describes meant to be used against people, I don’t see Paul saying “Our struggle is against immoral people! ATTACK!”  In fact in 1 Corinthians 5 he says quite the opposite: What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? ¹³ God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

I’ll tell you what, why don’t we put the kind of effort we put in to stopping the homosexual agenda (an outside the Church issue) in to helping the millions of men in the Church addicted to pornography, or helping the Church lower it’s staggering divorce numbers, or infidelity in the Church? I could go on and on.  We have many things we can focus on ourselves with before we go about casting judgement on the world.  Judging the world is not our job, it’s God’s.

-TW