A thought on Gay marriage and the State

I am not saying this is right, these thoughts should be tested before excepted, but I thought I would share them (and I would love to hear counters to this):

God defines marriage as between a man and a woman. And there are deep theological truths and beauty of why this is so. The unbreakable truth of this definition comes from the marriage of the Jesus with the Church. It is set in the very fabric of redemptive history. And to tear that fabric is to be in rebellion with God. Homosexual marriage is a sin.

However, I think it is dangerous when the State gets involved in defining marriage. The State, historically, is not going to have the same principles as the Church. I think the definition of marriage is the jurisdiction of the Church. One thought is if I am a single person before I die I might want to pass on an inheritance, just because I am single should not stop me from choosing an inheritor. We are free to adopt and should be free to choose an inheritor as well. Civil unions or something similar could serve this purpose. State (justice of the peace) would be responsible for this. Marriage would be up to the church to define.

I am not saying that it is a bad thing when a State's definition of marriage coincides with God, but I think because our State is secular and corrupt, I don't trust them to define marriage.

Here are some possible harms in the State defining marriage. Since it is no longer the jurisdiction of the church, it could fail to be a religious matter and becomes a secular matter and our religious beliefs could be challenged by the state. The state starts claiming it is discrimination and illegal to not reckognize homosexual marriage. Basically, it could shoot us in the foot.

Another concern is that homosexuals see themselves as the worst sinners. That can't be true, because I am the worst sinner. When confronting a culture, we must do so in a way that presents the Gospel. Yes, homosexuality is a sin and evil and rebellion against God, but so is divorce, greed, and my own sin. And for this Jesus came and died. There is hope for the sinner, there is hope in the struggle against sin. We must not treat them as some ostracized part of society. The problem is not that we take sin to seriously. It is that we don't take it seriously enough and focus on one group. And on the other hand we don't introduce them to Jesus. They need to hear the Gospel from us. I wrote more on this here: link.

I am not going to pretend like I know what the solution is on this. But I do think, we have to thoroughly examine how as a church we should approach this subject in a way that presents sinners to Jesus.

One more thought: The Church should be a prophetic influence on society. It is not necessarily bad if State laws coincide with scripture. The State who understands that it is subservient to the scriptures will be stronger for it. However, in general States are not. And this is where the Church must be have a prophetic influence on society. The prophetic message being the Gospel.

We are ambassadors

When engaging and confronting our culture, we (as fellow sinners) must patiently exhort in manner that introduces people to Jesus. In this, people will be called both to conviction (as men who have rebelled against God) and to the hope of the work and worth of Jesus.

The church is not the place to have our needs met.

The church is not the place to have our needs met. It is the place where we council each other to stop looking to other things to satisfy and remind each other that our needs are only met in the work and worth of Jesus.