Your Brother Daniel
Same-Sex Marriage:
Coerced to Participate in Sin
Christians have been placed on
collision-course with anti-discrimination legislation, requiring them to
participant in practices that they regard as sinful. Theologian Albert Mohler
has written that in order to protect the constitution right of freedom of
religion:
·
Several states are now considering legislation that would
provide explicit protections to citizens whose consciences will not allow an
endorsement of same-sex marriage… Millions of American citizens are facing a
direct collision between their moral convictions and the demands of their
government.
For example, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association was fined
and required to rent their boardwalk pavilion to a lesbian couple who had
brought a lawsuit against this Christian association for refusing to rent them
the pavilion for their marriage. However, Kirsten Powers and Jonathan Merritt
deny that forcing Christian participation in a same-sex ceremony is a violation
of conscience:
·
“Many on the left and right can agree that nobody should be
unnecessarily forced to violate their conscience. But in order to violate a
Christian’s conscience, the government would have to force them to affirm
something in which they don’t believe. This is why the first line of analysis
here has to be whether society really believes that baking a wedding cake or
arranging flowers or taking pictures (or providing any other service) is an
affirmation. This case simply has not been made, nor can it be, because it
defies logic. If you lined up 100
married couples and asked them if their florist “affirmed” their wedding, they
would be baffled by the question.”
Powers and Merritt want to limit the
violation simply to instances where the State coerces Christians to verbally “affirm something in which they
don’t believe.” However, coercion is not
simply a matter of being forced to say
something. It is also a matter of being forced to do something.
Mohler astutely observed another problem
with their reasoning. Whether “violating conscience” has occurred should not be
determined by the public. Instead,
religious freedom has always been recognized as an issue between us and God:
·
Well, the issue is really not what “society really believes”
about baking a wedding cake, but what the baker believes. Reference to what
“society really believes” is a way of dismissing religious liberty altogether.
If the defining legal or moral principle is what “society really believes,” all
liberties are eventually at stake. http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/02/24/caesar-coercion-and-the-christian-conscience-a-dangerous-confusion/
Mohler is correct! Who is to decide whether
or not a Christian violates his conscience – whether hiring a practicing gay as
the pastor is a violation of conscience; whether being coerced to bake a cake
reading, “We are glad you stood up for gay rights” is a violation? If it is the
state, then all rights depend on their whim, making our constitutional
guarantees irrelevant.
There are certain things in which we cannot
participate, even if this participation looks benign to the State. The Apostle
Paul had warned that our participation in various rituals can powerfully impact
upon our relationship with our Lord:
·
Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation
in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation
in the body of Christ? …Do not those [Hebrews] who eat the sacrifices participate
in the altar? Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or
that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to
demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with
demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you
cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy?
(1 Cor. 10:16-21)
Likewise, we cannot be participants in the
Lord and sin at the same time. Paul reasoned that even though the sacrifices
are nothing in themselves, our participation
in them is not morally neutral. Instead, it carries weighty relational
implications. Consequently, we are not free to participate in activities that
are offensive to our Lord. They arouse His protective and loving jealousy over
our well-being. Although we can and should assist sinners, we cannot assist
them in their sinful activity or
promote their cause.
Paul warned that even when we simply ordain
people, we are morally responsible and participate
in fruits of their ministry:
·
Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in
the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. (1 Tim. 5:22)
This certainly doesn’t mean that we can’t
love people who don’t believe as we do. However, we cannot do anything that
will directly endorse sin. I would suspect that Ocean Grove understood that
hosting a lesbian marriage represented an endorsement, at least in the eyes of
God. Elsewhere, Paul warned:
·
Therefore do not be partners with them. For you were once
darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the
fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find
out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds
of darkness, but rather expose them. (Eph. 5:7-11)
However, the secular State is now demanding
that we participate in the “deeds of darkness.” Powers and Merritt insist that
our reasoning “defies logic” and that participation in a gay marriage does not
violate conscience. However, this kind of participation violates the Word of
God.
The Apostle John warned a certain unnamed
woman that by merely extending hospitality to false teachers she would be
participating “in their evil work” (2 John 11).
Is this reasoning really so illogical?
Would Powers and Merritt have sold petrol to fuel Hitler’s tanks or provisions
to build his death camps? Wouldn’t they have been complicit in his deeds?
Aren’t we also complicit in gay marriage if we agree to support it by baking
for it or by photographing it?
They might argue, “What harm does this form
of involvement bring?” On a pragmatic level, this participation promotes a
lifestyle that not only violates Scripture but also destroys people. Just look
at the stats!
