I hear it all the time:
“Christians in years to come will be just as ashamed over the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage today, as we are now about slaveholders in the South using the Bible to support slavery.
So very wrong: and yet so close to the truth. I’ll explain why.
First, here’s what’s wrong in it. It’s what I call an argument from future opinion:
We ought not do x today because in the future we’ll find out that x was wrong.
…
Book Review
Think Christianly: Looking at the Intersection of Faith and Culture by Jonathan Morrow
I have an all-too-large “guilt shelf,” which is what I call the list of books I know I should be reading. They’re books that I want to read—that’s why I have them—but I can’t seem to get to all of them as quickly as I would like. Think Christianly has been on that list for several months. The timing …
Early yesterday morning Robert Jones asked a good question about same-sex “marriage” and its opponents’ strategies, on a thread that unfortunately did not go well. His question deserves a better home for discussion.
Back in October I explained why I think it is that same-sex “marriage” (SSM) makes so much sense to so many people. It’s because so many—not just SSM advocates—have bought into a distorted definition of marriage that goes something like this:
Marriage is the legally-recognized faithful, uniquely committed, loving, social, economic, and sexual union of two non-blood-related consenting adults of opposite sex….Marriage carries with it certain legal, economic, and social benefits, not least of which is the social approval accorded to the …
Further on why same-sex “marriage” makes sense to so many:
Marriage is under attack from multiple directions. It has been for decades. The current push for same-sex “marriage” (SSM) is the full flowering of that attack.
The essential problem since at least the 1960s has been this: that marriage has been too often regarded as an institution of, by, and for the couple. It has been for the fulfillment and happiness of the many and the woman who entered into it.
From the beginning …
My post this afternoon on same-sex “marriage” (SSM) might help you deal with two common objections to man-woman marriage.
The first goes something like this: “Why can't gays be married? Why do men and women get all the rights and they get none?” That question comes from a wrong starting point. It starts with the assumption that marriage is about the couple. You can gently point out that marriage was always intended to be bigger than that. It was intended to be love …
I think I ought to be open about what I’m trying to accomplish in the same-sex “marriage” (SSM) debate.
There are essentially three groups of people: those who are convinced SSM is wrong/impossible, those who think it is a great idea, and those who are potentially persuadable either way.
For the first group, I hope to offer encouragement, and to equip them to be more effective in presenting their position, especially with the persuadable. See also below for a further goal of mine.
The third …
Commenter Fleegman has come to the conclusion that
All I’m saying is – as you agreed – the primary motivation for Christians [to oppose SSM] is accepted Christian dogma on the subject. Since this is irrelevant as far as the law is concerned, you have to come up with secular reasons.
There are at least four errors here related to “dogma:”
An error concerning what dogma is An internal contradiction in Fleegman’s thinking A further misconception about Christian thinking Bigotry
The fourth error may …
I was at a meeting not long ago discussing what it would take for sanity to prevail on the question of same-sex “marriage.” I pointed out what I have also said here on this blog: what we face is not so much a successful set of arguments against real marriage. It’s more a case of successful branding. We will not really reclaim sensibility on this until we can carry bumper stickers saying (for example), “Marriage is a distinctive human good,” and have it mean …
"The New Atheists claim to be the party of reason.... The problem is, they're not very good at it." — Discover the provocative ebook True Reason: Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism.