Many Voices Responding to the Court
The United States Supreme Court voted 5-4 to affirm the right of homosexual marriage. The decision settles a question in one sense, but the debate is far from settled. Many Christians are responding from all over the landscape. It is heartening to see that those who hold to generally conservative principles of Bible interpretation are speaking with one voice on the matter, though they may be divided in other areas of theology and practice.
With this post, we offer a sampling of responses across the internet. We don’t agree with everything each writer or organization says or does, but we appreciate these statements:
Today, the Supreme Court created a threat to religious liberty for countless citizens, churches and religious organizations across the nation who should have the constitutional right to live out their faith in all facets of their lives.
General Association of Regular Baptists
… we have good cause for concern, but not necessarily for panic. God is still sovereign. Many a sinful nation has arisen and fallen in the history of human civilization. In the end they all turn to dust and ashes, but our God abides forever and He remains firmly in control of history’s confusing current. Let us not lose sight of that.
The Biblical teaching on issues of human sexuality and marriage is the final word regardless of what any human individual or human institutions, organizations or groups might contend. There is no authority that can supersede, countermand or preclude the teaching of the Word of God.
Marriage is not the ultimate battleground, and our enemies are not the men and women who seek to destroy it (2 Corinthians 10:4). The battleground is the Gospel. Be careful not to replace patience, love, and prayer with bitterness, hatred, and politics.
Also see a compilation of articles from The Masters Seminary here.
Ethics and Religious Liberty Foundation
An Evangelical Declaration on Marriage
The state did not create the family, and should not try to recreate the family in its own image. We will not capitulate on marriage because biblical authority requires that we cannot. The outcome of the Supreme Court’s ruling to redefine marriage represents what seems like the result of a half-century of witnessing marriage’s decline through divorce, cohabitation, and a worldview of almost limitless sexual freedom. The Supreme Court’s actions pose incalculable risks to an already volatile social fabric by alienating those whose beliefs about marriage are motivated by deep biblical convictions and concern for the common good.
Al Mohler, President, Southern Seminary
The threat to religious liberty represented by this decision is clear, present, and inevitable. Assurances to the contrary, the majority in this decision has placed every religious institution in legal jeopardy if that institution intends to uphold its theological convictions limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman. This threat is extended to every religious citizen or congregation that would uphold the convictions held by believers for millennia. Justice Clarence Thomas warned in his dissent of “ruinous consequences for religious liberty.”
Christianity Today: Topic Summary Page
Numerous articles on the topic – we note strong disagreement with CT in many areas, we cannot endorse the content of every article here, but offer the link as a source of information.
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More to come, including a republication of our own position statement on marriage from 2013.
Compiled by Don Johnson, pastor, Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.