One of the chief reasons young Christians aren’t fighting against gay marriage is they have so many more gay and lesbian friends.

For some reason, where I’m at, the link won’t open. I think it’s because the only browser working for me is IE6.

But as for why younger Christians don’t fight against gay marriage, I can’t speak for all but I have an idea. Many of us young fundamentalists don’t care about that fight because we see the merger of patriotism and conservative politics and Chrisitanity as detrimental to Christianity. We need to be about the Gospel and Christ not about preserving a “godly” (in name only) culture.

Pagans will be pagans, and the lost need Christ not more rules to tell them they are sinners. Christianity is misconstrued in people’s minds today to be all about legislating morality and making others have to abide by our rules. But that is so not the point about Christianity. Instead we need to share a cure for sin and sinners — Jesus Christ. Yes gay marriage is wrong. But why do I think I have the “right” to demand no one do that? A few hundred years ago, I didn’t even have freedom to worship as a Christian. There are such bigger fish to fry…..

Bob,

If we never confront the sin issues that are prevalent in the culture around us, in what way do ever interact with the world as salt and light? Simply proclaiming the good news of salvation is only half of the message. The world must see its sinfulness before it can perceive its need of the Savior.

Chip,
You are right, but I think you are missing Bob’s point. I actually do have some gay friends and people interact with from my employment with the FD. I treat them just as I do the ones who are heterosexuals that are living together. IMO, many times we have been more loving in handling cohabitating non gays than we were to gays.
I think confronting lost people with the gospel (and no Gospel presentation is complete without teaching that sin is an offense to God) is way more important than trying to legislate morality. That does not mean that I don’t give my opinion on gay marriage, I do. But I don’t make it the center piece of what I do. My biggest problems with the Christians that promote social issues is that that social issue has been put on par with Gospel and sometimes above it.

From the article:

Because gay marriage is immoral, the logic goes, then it should be illegal. But many younger Christians now believe they can hold to an orthodox view of sexuality without necessarily opposing same-sex unions.

Yes, many in my generation (thirty-somethings, so it’s not just the twenty-somethings) hold this view. It behooves The Church to encourage civil liberties for everyone. I frequently hear Christians talking about how hostile the government is becoming toward Christians. But we can’t have it both ways. Either we ALL (Christians and non-Christians) have civil liberties to live and speak as we believe, or Christians WILL find themselves being increasingly civilly persecuted.

If we never confront the sin issues that are prevalent in the culture around us, in what way do ever interact with the world as salt and light? (snip) The world must see its sinfulness before it can perceive its need of the Savior.

I don’t believe that civil laws are an effective way for people to perceive their need for a Savior.

[rogercarlson] Chip,
You are right, but I think you are missing Bob’s point. I actually do have some gay friends and people interact with from my employment with the FD. I treat them just as I do the ones who are heterosexuals that are living together. IMO, many times we have been more loving in handling cohabitating non gays than we were to gays.
I think confronting lost people with the gospel (and no Gospel presentation is complete without teaching that sin is an offense to God) is way more important than trying to legislate morality. That does not mean that I don’t give my opinion on gay marriage, I do. But I don’t make it the center piece of what I do. My biggest problems with the Christians that promote social issues is that that social issue has been put on par with Gospel and sometimes above it.

I agree with all of this

Have we failed so dismally to teach the young generation (and the not-so-young generation) what marriage is that they have come to believe homosexual marriage is a civil right? The issue is changing the definition of marriage – to call a marriage what is not and can never be marriage, and to teach that false view of marriage to every child in America from now to the end of our once noble country. We are talking about the meaning of most foundational institution which God has given us, and our own young people are casting it away without a blush? In terms of our civilization, there is no “bigger fish to fry” than that. It is unprecedented in the history of humanity to make this change. And Christians believe that is small stuff? It’s almost unbelievable. Homosexual marriage is not a civil right, but once society says it is, religious rights will decline rapidly. That is already happening in states that have adopted Same Sex marriage. Can anyone really believe they will honor our civil liberties because we stood by while courts invented civil liberties for them?

I can understand the younger generation being turned off by the heavy handed, constant political thrust of some churches and ministries, and yes, the Gospel is always the most important thing, but has our love grown so cold that it does not include our country and our culture, which was indeed founded on Christian principles? Where did such an extremely individualistic view of spirituality come from that it does not embrace the culture? When did love grow so cold that it feels nothing for all the children who will become victims of the homosexual agenda, whose very understanding of gender will be snatched from them before they can even reason? God help us.

As Christians, our primary duty is to the Gospel, but as citizens, our duty is to establish righteousness in the land. We must care about both. This is because God blesses a righteous nation and judges unrighteous ones. “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Prov 14:34 That’s what animates the pro-life movement, and animated the long battle against slavery, and racial discrimination. God judged us for slavery, or so thought President Lincoln. (Read his Second Inaugural address sometime, enshrined in marble at the Lincoln memorial. It’s the greatest political speech ever made) Sin is a disgrace to any people. We have this great gift the first century church didn’t have – we can vote. While we can, we must use that vote to preserve what is morally foundational to any society – justice, righteousness and truth. To hear that many Christian youth don’t care about the country anymore is almost beyond comprehension. The pagans will never believe in righteousness if we don’t. I believe Prop 8 passed here in liberal California because literally tens of thousands of Christians came together all over the state to pray…yes, pray to Almighty God to move the hearts of the voters to protect marriage. And then we went out and voted, and asked everyone else to do the same. Are homosexuals turned off from the Gospel because we stood for righteousness? No. They may say they are, but they are turned off by righteousness. Christians were extraordinarily loving during the Prop 8 campaign…all the screaming, property destruction, and obscenity came from the other side. They consider Christians hateful because they hate righteousness, and will until the Holy Spirit changes them (and may He do so to many). Love and truth must stand together – but truth must be proclaimed and fought for. Gospel truth to the individual soul, righteousness to the nation.

Very well said Jim

[Bob Hayton]
But as for why younger Christians don’t fight against gay marriage, I can’t speak for all but I have an idea. Many of us young fundamentalists don’t care about that fight because we see the merger of patriotism and conservative politics and Chrisitanity as detrimental to Christianity. We need to be about the Gospel and Christ not about preserving a “godly” (in name only) culture… But why do I think I have the “right” to demand no one do that? A few hundred years ago, I didn’t even have freedom to worship as a Christian. There are such bigger fish to fry…..

I believe this view, which may represent a certain percentage of under 40’s, that such protests of civil concerns are tantamount to a “merger of patriotism and conservative politics and Christianity” is just as erring as the Falwellian profile during the last 30 years.

While the proposition America=Christianity or Christianity=America is not true neither is America=Not the Concern of Christians. A poorly developed understanding of the divine institutions observed in Scripture and their divine boundaries, scope and accompanying imperatives for all people regarding their participation in such institutions (particularly that of government by the current mass of younger believers due in large part from the ignorance of their teachers both past and current) I believe leads to this kind of over correction which results in misguided ambivalence or the idea one has been freed from such possible necessities.

One’s country is a rather big fish. It is true that believers are to be about the gospel but that is not all believers are to be about. Just as we attend to the institutions of self, marriage, family and the church we are to attend to the institution of government, this is a duty all humans have. And it is not a distinctively Christian one though it is reiterated in the NT, it is a human one thrust upon us far before the institution of the church and the gospel imperative. We have a dual citizenship with its realities, duties, privileges and rights.

It is one thing if believers make the mistake of believing moral codification alone will convert the sinner or win favor with God but it is just as grave an error for the believer to abandon his or her attendance to good civil government which as been instituted by God for the regulation of society.

Now it might be in the course of things a believer has decided that this issue, in light of their privileges, duties, and liberties both as an Ambassador of Christ and a citizen of America is not one for them to approach and to that I would say they have fully exercised their conscience.

i’m sort of shooting from the hip, but i think it is very, very important for christians to be involved in political things that effect laws. I think it’s biblical because, for example, God charges us to take up for the foreigners, the poor, widows, orphans. So much of taking care of those people is legal action.

yes, there are instances where it’s weird and not done well, but after living in a very unjust and impoverished society and close to other unjust, impoverished societies, some of these issues are a little more glaring.

although, sadly, living in a place like this, a law doesn’t make that much of a difference. However, it does make some difference, and that’s important.

but then, evangelism should be the main thrust of our social action on a personal level.

and i think that’s important to differenciate, too—what’s done on a personal level, and what’s done on a group level. a group might be more oriented towards legislation, awareness, etc. But as individuals, we should always keep the personal relationships with our opponents in such a condition that we could always conscientiously share the gospel.

Dave,

“And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace. ” Jeremiah 29:7

When Christian political activists get just as outraged and active about the divorce rate in our country, which is certainly a mockery and an affront to the divine institution of marriage, then I’ll believe that they’re motivated purely by the desire to honor God and His institutions. Shouldn’t we be fighting in the courts to have casual divorce and remarriage outlawed? Isn’t that destroying the fabric of society and endangering our children? Or maybe we’re just not as personally offended and grossed out by that particular abomination, so we’ll give America a legal pass on that one?

In this debate we constantly hear: “God defines marriage as one man and one woman for life.” Why are we suddenly so militant about legislating the first part of the definition, but we’ve given up on the last part? Open question: Was there a time in American history when Christians fought for legislation about divorce?

If our mission as salt and light really is to make people moral through law, then we have been failing miserably for some time.

(BTW, temper these thoughts with the fact that I agree whole-heartedly with Jim in post #8, and also with Alex’s point in post #10 that we must not over-correct into ambivalence when avoiding the Christianity = America crowd.)

This book that I read on world missions - I forget its name - talked about the value of elders, literally older men, in societies, and about how it is the wisdom of elders (in matters both religious and “secular”) that helps keep societies from falling into chaos. The idea that younger people are smarter, wiser, more moral and provide better leadership than elders is extremely new, quite radical, a rejection of the Biblical worldview expressed in both testaments (more on that later) and you see the results.

With the Bible, Old Testament Israel was literally a tribal society, led by tribal elders. God did not overthrow that system, but actually worked through it. Even Moses heeded the advice of his stepfather (albeit a Yahwist priest and son of Abraham, though not of Isaac and Jacob) when he set up the legal/political organization of Israel, and Moses was at the tender young age of 80-something when he received that advice from Jethro! Also, the divided kingdom occurred when and because Solomon’s child refused to heed the advice of the elder counselors and instead chose the brash advice of the youngsters. But that was the old covenant, right?

Now it is true that Jesus Christ was challenged in no small part by the Jewish religious establishment because he was considered a young untrained upstart relying on His own authority. Still, no less than Paul had to wait until he had matured several years in the faith in Tarsus before he departed on his first missionary journey, and did so under the tutelage of the elder brother Barnabas. After this Paul himself became an “elder brother” who mentored Timothy, Titus and several others. And we also have the fact that one of the terms for “pastor”, “teacher” or “church leader” in the New Testament is literally ELDER. “Presbyteros” in the New Testament is the equivalent of “zaqen” in the Old, and it was the counsel of the “zaqen” that Rehoboam rejected.

Now, thanks to this 1960s mindset, we have people like Jonathan Merritt (the favorite Southern Baptist of CNN and USA Today because he does such a great job of telling everyone how bigoted and intolerant those Bible-believing Christians are) lecturing elders in the faith (breaking in the process 1 Titus 5:1, 1 Titus 5:19, 1 Peter 5:1-5 among others). What is it that makes the younger generation so convinced that they are so much wiser, so much HOLIER than the younger generation? Either they reject the doctrines of the work of the Holy Spirit on the Christian, or they believe that the Holy Spirit has worked faster and better on them and them alone than on the youth in every age of Christianity that preceded them, including the early church that produced the New Testament.

And by the way, I say this being a member of “Generation X” myself. This is not necessarily to say that Christians should be embroiled in the homosexual marriage fight. Instead, as usual, Merritt’s reasonings for not doing so - that the Christians of his generations are more loving, open, tolerant, wiser, etc. than the ones past - are all wrong.

I mean, seriously, look at http://jonathanmerritt.com/ Merritt’s webpage (which features a large picture of Merritt, along with Merritt’s biograpy and Merritt’s booking information and Merritt’s community and Merritt’s store …) He has the “Mark Driscoll” haircut, the whole “hipster Christianity” vibe thing going on, not to mention the sullen semi-smile/scowl that you might see from one of the “Twilight” vampires … it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. Folks convinced of their own coolness and have the conviction that it makes them better at evangelism and “influencing the culture.” It is a delusion, it really is. The REAL “hipsters” (not that they call themselves that anymore) look at guys like this and laugh at them, except that these guys who try to hard to be cool only to fail get to pretend that it is their being Christian makes their trying to be cool and failing OK. (Reality check, it doesn’t. And they know it. But they do it because trying to be cool means more to THEM than it does to the very world that they claim to be trying to reach and influence. To them, having that haircut and striking that pose is more about not being the Baptist pastor down the street than baptizing or discipling more people, or for that matter anyone at all.) Still more evidence that the 2000 year long attempt to find a gospel that doesn’t offend the world only winds up exalting a false Jesus Christ.

[Eric R.] In this debate we constantly hear: “God defines marriage as one man and one woman for life.” Why are we suddenly so militant about legislating the first part of the definition, but we’ve given up on the last part? Open question: Was there a time in American history when Christians fought for legislation about divorce?

But do you think that there some more fundamental distinction here than just one sin’s badness = another’s sin’s badness?

I’m just thinking that God Himself did make allowances for divorce in the O.T. Yes, it’s a result of sin. But He didn’t anywhere make allowance for homosexuality.

Also, i have also considered that, really, if we are a “free society” then we all should be allowed to do whatever we are inclined to do. But i don’t think that living in a free society means that we, as a society, should allow all things. Then it’s not free really.

my mom took part in a sponsored group (mostly unsavd people) who studied religion in a democracy, and the group came to the conclusion that a democracy really will not survive without religious underpinnings.

anyway, i think there are a lot of things to think through. it’s probably a lot bigger issue than just christians and homosexual marriage laws.