Dear Robin,
While I agree with you that Christianity must by its very nature
live in tension with “secular” culture, and that it is not our calling to “govern”
our culture, neither are we obligated to cast off our rights as participants and
indeed as fellow citizens within our constitutional and democratic
republic. What is happening in the current
fad pertaining to the redefinition of marriage is not merely a spiritual
matter. It also involves matters of rationality
(and irrationality) at the core, and politically, the betrayal of the democratic
process that ought to include every citizen all along the journey. We who are conservative ought not to run from
the charge of bigotry, but to the contrary hold up the mirror of bigotry to the
faces of every voice that insists, in the name of “tolerance” that only
redefinition advocates possess a sound and moral mind. On
matters of rationality alone, according to the very standards they herald, I
charge that advocates of the redefinition of marriage deserve no credit at
all. By standards of rationality they
deserve a solid “F.”
“Religion” is consistently denigrated by the secular movers
of our culture in favor of “enlightened science.” Anyone who knows me knows I lift up science
as a laudable field of study that deserves protection from the encroachment of
religion. Advocates of science, on the
other hand, ought to in turn highlight and clarify their own parameters
according to the rules of science. And
it ought to demand that wherever claims to “scientific
enlightenment” are made, that the promises that fall under that banner are
kept. In matters of “pure” science, the scientific method
insists on proposing every hypothesis that can conceivably address a given
range of facts. And then it insists on
the weighty task of seeking to disprove each one of these hypotheses until only
one remains standing. The scientific method
does NOT fixate on gathering friendly and confirmatory evidence alone (ignoring
the counter-evidence), but, to the contrary, goes out of its way to the expose its proposals
to the most intense challenges. In
matters of “applied” science, for
example the building of a bridge across an environmentally sensitive area, it
is demanded (and rightly so) that the ramifications to the environment be
studied with serious deliberation. Only
after it is determined that there will be no negative effects, will the
building of that bridge be allowed.
The obvious question with respect to the redefinition of
marriage is, what single serious question (under the standards just described) concerning
the ramifications of this move, especially to children, are ever seriously
considered? I say not one. Self-centered ambition without concern to the
damage to the environment is driven by the herd-mentality known as political
correctness. This current trend fails to
represent enlightenment at all. It is
utterly shameful. It fulfills to a “T”
the Apostle Paul’s warnings of a downward spiral in the disintegration of
rationality laid bare in Romans 1:18f.
I am a Christian who stands under the authority of the Bible. I am also a citizen. I am also a human being. And I have been granted the same thinking
capacity that God has granted to every human being, should we all determine to
use it. The Bible indeed states that one standard of judgment against which humans will be held accountable will be the refusal to think by the deliberate suppression of the facts (Rom. 1:18f). For these reasons I care about
the grave fallout from a contemporary fad that is so poorly thought through. What I care about myself in this matter is
that I don’t care enough. God help me to
care more.
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