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A message for Christians.
We cannot redefine marriage.
With the Respect for Marriage Act, we can ease the fear that millions of same-sex and interracial couples have that their freedoms and their rights could be stripped away. By passing this bill, we are guaranteeing same-sex and interracial couples, regardless of where they live, that their marriage is legal and that they will continue to enjoy the rights and responsibilities that all other marriages are afforded.
And I know what you're saying here, right? You say we can't redefine marriage, but haven't we redefined marriage?
The procedural vote passed 62 to 37. The Republican senators who voted to advance the bill were Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Shelley Moore Capito, Susan Collins, no surprise there, Todd Young, Joni Ernst, also no surprise, Cynthia Loomis, Lisa Murkowski, another no surprise, Rob Portman, same, Mitt Romney, same, Dan Sullivan, and Tom Tillis.
Those are the senators who jumped on board with the federal government redefining marriage.
No, no, no, we haven't redefined marriage. We've blasphemed the God who created marriage, but we haven't redefined it.
We live in a culture where even 12 members of the Republican Party voted in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify into law the idea that same-sex marriages are actually and legitimately marriages.
Even just a couple decades ago, the concept of same-sex marriage was a fringe idea, even within the Democratic Party. But now it is unanimously supported within the Democratic Party, and even a large percentage of Republicans support it.
And even more shockingly, many of the most popular Christian teachers today do not stand strongly for the biblical definition of marriage.
Will a gay person be accepted into heaven as you see it?
Well, I believe they will. I think I've been good. I think part of my, if you want to call it success, is I've stayed in my lane, and my lane is lifting people's spirits, and there are issues that good Bible-believing people see on both sides of the fence.
Trust me, I've talked to enough LGBT, they are not all the same. Oh, for sure. Any more than all Christians. No, no. But how do we, first of all, is your thinking involved in this? Evolved and evolving.
Evolved and evolving.
About five, five and a half years ago, she discovers that he's in a relationship with another guy. And it's devastating, of course. And it breaks her heart. But your partner, he's still married. So, see, this is just good old-fashioned adultery.
Like, you're in a sexual relationship with someone else's husband.
But Stephen Furtick's ministry does not model this in any way. Elevation Church is virtually silent on every single issue that may get in the way of growing their church. And I don't think that's a mere coincidence, ladies and gentlemen.
I think it's a fruit of a ministry that has the wrong focus. It's sad, it's disingenuous, and it's unbiblical.
But why, exactly, is the concept of same-sex marriage such a problem for Christians? Matt Walsh recently debated same-sex marriage with Joe Rogan. And while we are glad Walsh is boldly defending the institution of marriage in the marketplace of ideas, pay attention to exactly how Walsh defends marriage as being between a man and a woman.
I think of marriage as a certain thing, which is the context for procreation, for the building of the nuclear family. But isn't that just a personal choice?
I mean, you can have a very fulfilling life if you just follow your pursuits and your dreams and your interests and you find someone that shares those interests with you and you share time together. It's very fulfilling and loving.
Yeah, it's a personal choice in that I'm not advocating for a law that says if you're married you have to have X number of kids.
But then why are you opposed to two gay people doing that?
Well, because, again, it's not about choice. It's about what this institution, marriage as an institution, and what is it, and what purpose does it serve? And I do not agree with tearing down or changing this definition, especially because the people who have changed the definition haven't come up with a new one.
Walsh's argument against same-sex marriage seems to rest upon the idea of procreation, or the possibility of procreation. So when he is challenged by Joe Rogan concerning couples that can't have children or don't want to have children, Walsh seems to struggle to answer why it's still okay for them to get married.
Walsh seems to be trying to defend his view of the institution of marriage using secular, naturalistic arguments. But if, according to Walsh, marriage primarily rests upon the idea of procreation, Rogan's counter-arguments seem to have some merit.
What's striking about Walsh's answer to Rogan is that he never talks about marriage being an institution created and defined by God.
Truth number one, God designed marriage, not man. Marriage was God's idea, not man's. Adam did not come to God and say, God, I have an idea. Why don't you make me? No, that's not the way it happened. God says it's not good for the man to be alone.
The man doesn't know that he's alone. Why would Adam know alone? Why would he know need? These are concepts that he would have been oblivious to. He's created by the hand of God. He walks with God in the cool of the day.
He knows nothing of alone. He knows nothing of need. So God makes him aware that he's alone and that he has need. How? By making him name the animals and showing him that there's no corresponding part for him.
Marriage is God's idea, not man's. And then, just to make it clear, God puts the man to sleep so that he has nothing to do with it, can't take credit for it, and won't mess it up. Amen, somebody? Can you just hear that argument?
See, see, Eve? I remember the day God and I made you. No, you were asleep.
Marriage is God's idea. What Rogan and Walsh need to understand is that the definition of marriage is dependent upon what's objectively true. Christians argue that because the Christian God of the Bible is the true God of the universe, then that means marriage originated from and is defined by this God of the Bible.
And if people want to redefine marriage to mean something else, they need to justify their own belief system and explain the origin and definition of marriage within their own belief system, which we would argue they simply cannot do.
When marriage is redefined to be whatever a person wants it to be, then the idea of marriage hasn't really been redefined, but rather obliterated. This means that the attempt to redefine marriage is really an effort to destroy the very idea of marriage.
We are living in a culture that is making a complete effort to destroy men, to destroy women, to destroy children, to destroy families, to destroy marriage. This is an all-out massive assault. So if we want marriage to have any significant meaning at all, we need to be able to explain both where it comes from and what it is.
This is something we as Christians can do, but we can only ultimately do this because God has revealed these things through the Bible. If we try to defend marriage using secular and naturalistic reasoning as Walsh tried to do, we will ultimately fail.
When Rogan asked Walsh about why it would be a problem for marriage to be between two gay people who love each other, Walsh gave a vague answer that didn't sound very convincing. Instead, there are a number of far stronger arguments against why both homosexuality and gay marriage are problems.
Homosexuality is harmful because it harms the gospel. Marriage is a living, breathing picture of the relationship between Jesus Christ and his bride, the church. Marriage says something about the gospel.
Marriage paints a picture of the gospel. And when we turn our idea of marriage into something that is directly opposed to what God says about us and about himself, then we are doing harm. We're doing harm to the message of the gospel.
We're doing harm to the name of Christ. So again, it's a false premise, the idea that you can have sinful practices that don't harm anyone. They harm the people who engage in them, and they harm the message of the gospel.
Of course, the natural response to this from non-Christians will be, but what if I don't believe in your Bible?
I don't believe in Christianity, which means that you do not get to dictate the way I live my life based on your religion. I don't care what the Bible says.
However, the idea that only Christians are trying to impose their belief system and morality upon everyone else is completely wrong. People like Joe Rogan and Anna Kasparian are not Christians. Yet, they are supporting laws that go completely against what Christians believe.
Christians don't believe in their secular, naturalistic view of the world, which means they should not be able to dictate to Christians what marriage is and when life begins. If we simply believe that abortion is murder and evil and should be stopped, you do not get to tell us to simply accept it as being okay.
Christians are the only ones who are told to check their worldview at the door before they vote, before they teach. Secular progressivism is not neutral. It's what characterizes our curriculum. It's what characterizes much of our legislation today.
It's what characterizes corporate policy today. It's not neutral. It has its own theological claims. It's pseudo-religious claims. And it's only when Christians say, well, you know what? I've got a worldview too, and I think it's better.
And so I'm going to bring my ideas and my faith to the table when we're having these discussions. All of a sudden, that's scary Christian nationalism.
So Christians, we need to stop letting the culture tell us that the Bible has no place in public discourse. The Bible has just as much a place in public discourse as secular, naturalistic ideologies, which are not at all neutral and not at all a place of common ground.
Secular ideologies, while not explicitly called religions, are extremely religious and biased in nature.
Many have said, and I have said, I call it the cult of anti-racism. It is a religion. It is a religion. They have their own doctrine. They have their own saints. They have their own canon. They have their own priests, theologians.
If our foundation isn't the Bible, God's revealed Word, then the foundation will be just as shaky as the non-believers who fight against everything that the Bible teaches. What we need to do is to not put away the Bible and argue on the same playing field as everyone else who is hostile to the Bible, but rather we need to make the case for the Bible, for the truth of the Bible.
As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10, 5, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
But what if you're talking about somebody who doesn't believe the Bible? Then you've got to prove what you believe without using the Bible because they don't believe the Bible. Says who? Says who? They don't believe the Bible, so I don't use my Bible?
That sounds like their rule. Why would I do that? You know what that sounds like to me? You know, I'm a knight in medieval times and I walk up to my opponent, unsheathe my sword, and he looks at me and says, I don't believe in your sword.
Allow me to speak to thee about the science of metallurgy so that thou mayest believe in my sword. No! I don't believe in your sword. Either he starts believing or you just win. In fact, when we are arguing biblical truth with someone who doesn't believe the Bible, if we give up the Bible, they've just won because we've agreed with them that there is a source greater than the Bible and that we don't need the Bible for truth.
The last thing you do is give up your Bible. Why on earth would I allow that person to dictate how God's truth is communicated? It's alive, it's active, and it's sharper than any two-edged sword. So whatever I'm going to use that's not the Bible is not as authoritative or powerful as the Bible.
Therefore, I do not relinquish it.
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