Redefining Marriage
Simmering for decades, the social issue of homosexuality now comes to a boiling point with the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts legally sanctioning the marriage of homosexual couples. This predictably has raised considerable alarm among "conservatives." It is said that legalizing the marriage of two people of the same gender amounts to "redefining marriage," and there is great urgency in the call that we must not allow this to happen. As a result there are movements in various States to enact "defense of marriage" legislation as well as talk of a Constitutional amendment. This is yet another case in which "conservatism" ineptly waxes conservative long after the passing of that which really needed to be conserved. Drawing a hard (legislative) line prohibiting the marriage of two homosexuals does not conserve anything. Homosexual marriage today is but a logical conclusion of a radical redefinition of marriage that already was complete decades ago. The urgent push for legislation to prevent the redefinition of marriage demonstrates that "conservatives" are blind to the radical redefinition of marriage already accomplished while they slept. In order to find our way out of this quagmire it is most needful to review how we got where we are today. Let us begin at the beginning.
Having created Man, and having placed him in the wonderful world that He had made to be his habitation, God declared, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." (Gen 2:18) God fashioned the Woman to be this suitable helper for Man, and He charged them with multiplying and ruling over the Earth (Gen. 1:28). In naming the animals, keeping the sheep, tilling the soil, creating culture and wealth, and rearing generations to fill the Earth and do likewise, Man and Woman glorify their God and fulfill their purpose. Rightly construed, marriage is a socio-economic institution wherein children are born and raised, forming the basic social and economic unit involved in pursuit of our mandate to rule over Creation under God. Sexual excitement and the electricity of romance comprise an adornment of marriage. Romance is not our main end, in pursuit of which we may also happen to create wealth, culture, and to subdue the Earth; romance is an adornment a man and wife may enjoy together along the way of carrying out the work their God has called them to do.
Sin has corrupted Creation, but sin cannot radically overturn the basic nature of Creation. Marriage, rightly construed, still is what God created it to be, and sex still rightly serves the purpose God created it to serve. Now with difficulty and amid temptation we must go on in grace in pursuit of our original purpose. Throughout this struggle we are charged: "But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers…" (Dt. 8:18). But sinful men deny God and deny that they are His creature. The original impetus of unbelief was to accept naive perception as indicating a world of reality, but to strive for some other reference point of interpretation besides God, whom the unbeliever is dedicated to fleeing. So, Ancient and Medieval philosophical emphasis was on Metaphysics over Epistemology. The main questions were What is Being? and What is Man's Place? Knowledge was regarded as controlled by the answers to these questions. In keeping with the emphasis of finding man's place in the world, for thousands of years following our lapse into sin the basic idea of marriage persisted as a socio-economic institution. Corruption of marriage occurred mainly on the level of corrupt goals: not the pursuit of God's mandate, but the building of our own name, our own fortune, our own empire, our own glory. The corruption of sexuality occurred by way of removing sexuality from the context of marriage and pursuing it instead in the perversions of fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) fathered a dramatic shift in Philosophy. Unbelief gave up on Metaphysics, for the Metaphysical questions never can be answered apart from repentance of unbelief. The emphasis shifted to Epistemology. Now the main questions became What is Knowledge? and How do I Know? Contemplation turned to the inner space of the human mind. This shift of emphasis was useful in fostering the ideals of individual political rights and freedoms - the ideal that man is something in himself rather than nothing outside his place in the political state. But radical individualism soon begat also its rotten fruit. Rather than to consider man's place in the world, modern philosophers came to debate whether there was any reality to an external world at all. One implication of this is that the subjective experience of the human individual became of ultimate importance. Consider the implications for the idea of marriage: Modern man throws off the idea that his life ought to conform to an objectively defined and externally imposed purpose. So much the more he rejects the notion that there are certain appropriate social and economic institutions, such as marriage, in context of which this purpose ought to be pursued.
Marriage in human life persists under centuries of cultural momentum, but in Modern times has been completely redefined from the ground up. No longer seen as an institution primarily of socio-economic importance adorned by romantic fulfillment, now it is viewed as an occasion for the personal satisfaction of two individuals, each of whom seeks romantic fulfillment as an individual adornment. The mass media of motion picture, television, and popular music, relentlessly sound this theme. Marriage has become a pretext for the fulfillment of a romantic ideal. In this new idea people are drawn into marriage by the electricity of romance, each expecting the complete fulfillment of a private and nebulous yearning. Nowadays the criteria for qualifying a candidate for spouse is personal happiness: does the candidate produce the requisite "magic" that is the goal of romance? Whereas by its very nature this is entirely a subjective matter, therefore no one is allowed to serve as judge of another's choices. The only allowable advice is universally propounded in the mass media and faithfully parroted in the general population: "follow your heart".
Modern Christendom ought to have been in a position to have countered the worldly wisdom with biblical wisdom: "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool" (Pr. 28:26). However, generally speaking, this witness was not borne. The late 19th Century and early 20th Century Church was itself caught up in its own focus upon the individual. Revivalism of this era was entrenched in Wesleyan and Arminian theology, and so popular piety acquired an inward focus that was mainly concerned with the personal experience of the individual. As a result, modern Christendom for the most part joined in the radical redefinition of marriage, adding only a religious vocabulary. Marriage was allowed to become a quest to find that certain magical someone, and Christian counsel focused on an idea that this certain someone was selected by God and on methods to discern this Divine selection. This sort of nebulosity meshes well with the generic spirituality embraced by the world and provides no basis for ruling out anyone as a potential marriage partner. Once marriage is divorced from its true biblical content, biblical counsel concerning marriage necessarily is muddled.
Modern Christendom and "conservatism" have accepted the Modern, radical redefinition of marriage in the individual romantic ideal. In principle there is no basis for continuing to object to homosexual marriage. Now a lot of alarmed "conservatives" wish to apply the legislative brakes. The inner motive of such concern is sound, because homosexuality is a bane on human life. However, launching an attack on the level of laws or amendments prohibiting homosexual marriage is just another example of the same ineffectiveness that accommodated the redefinition of marriage that made homosexual marriage thinkable in the first place. Adoption of such measures will not prevent the redefinition of marriage; marriage already has been redefined - and redefined in such a way as perfectly supports what the homosexuals wish to do. Legal sanction of homosexual marriage is but a logical conclusion of the redefinition of marriage that "conservatism" already has embraced. If marriage basically is the means by which a person finds romantic fulfillment, then why should he be prohibited in searching every conceivable avenue for that certain someone? To be sure, biblical condemnation of homosexuality remains clear. But if "conservatism" has accepted the overturning of the biblical ideal of marriage in favor of the Modern romantic ideal, and now that homosexual cohabitation has become commonplace, how can there any longer remain any objection to homosexual marriage? There can be no credible or effective objection without full cultural repentance and rededication to the biblical definition of marriage. This cannot occur incrementally, but is possible only via the crisis of fundamental spiritual, cultural, social, and economic revolution.
Having created Man, and having placed him in the wonderful world that He had made to be his habitation, God declared, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." (Gen 2:18) God fashioned the Woman to be this suitable helper for Man, and He charged them with multiplying and ruling over the Earth (Gen. 1:28). In naming the animals, keeping the sheep, tilling the soil, creating culture and wealth, and rearing generations to fill the Earth and do likewise, Man and Woman glorify their God and fulfill their purpose. Rightly construed, marriage is a socio-economic institution wherein children are born and raised, forming the basic social and economic unit involved in pursuit of our mandate to rule over Creation under God. Sexual excitement and the electricity of romance comprise an adornment of marriage. Romance is not our main end, in pursuit of which we may also happen to create wealth, culture, and to subdue the Earth; romance is an adornment a man and wife may enjoy together along the way of carrying out the work their God has called them to do.
Sin has corrupted Creation, but sin cannot radically overturn the basic nature of Creation. Marriage, rightly construed, still is what God created it to be, and sex still rightly serves the purpose God created it to serve. Now with difficulty and amid temptation we must go on in grace in pursuit of our original purpose. Throughout this struggle we are charged: "But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers…" (Dt. 8:18). But sinful men deny God and deny that they are His creature. The original impetus of unbelief was to accept naive perception as indicating a world of reality, but to strive for some other reference point of interpretation besides God, whom the unbeliever is dedicated to fleeing. So, Ancient and Medieval philosophical emphasis was on Metaphysics over Epistemology. The main questions were What is Being? and What is Man's Place? Knowledge was regarded as controlled by the answers to these questions. In keeping with the emphasis of finding man's place in the world, for thousands of years following our lapse into sin the basic idea of marriage persisted as a socio-economic institution. Corruption of marriage occurred mainly on the level of corrupt goals: not the pursuit of God's mandate, but the building of our own name, our own fortune, our own empire, our own glory. The corruption of sexuality occurred by way of removing sexuality from the context of marriage and pursuing it instead in the perversions of fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) fathered a dramatic shift in Philosophy. Unbelief gave up on Metaphysics, for the Metaphysical questions never can be answered apart from repentance of unbelief. The emphasis shifted to Epistemology. Now the main questions became What is Knowledge? and How do I Know? Contemplation turned to the inner space of the human mind. This shift of emphasis was useful in fostering the ideals of individual political rights and freedoms - the ideal that man is something in himself rather than nothing outside his place in the political state. But radical individualism soon begat also its rotten fruit. Rather than to consider man's place in the world, modern philosophers came to debate whether there was any reality to an external world at all. One implication of this is that the subjective experience of the human individual became of ultimate importance. Consider the implications for the idea of marriage: Modern man throws off the idea that his life ought to conform to an objectively defined and externally imposed purpose. So much the more he rejects the notion that there are certain appropriate social and economic institutions, such as marriage, in context of which this purpose ought to be pursued.
Marriage in human life persists under centuries of cultural momentum, but in Modern times has been completely redefined from the ground up. No longer seen as an institution primarily of socio-economic importance adorned by romantic fulfillment, now it is viewed as an occasion for the personal satisfaction of two individuals, each of whom seeks romantic fulfillment as an individual adornment. The mass media of motion picture, television, and popular music, relentlessly sound this theme. Marriage has become a pretext for the fulfillment of a romantic ideal. In this new idea people are drawn into marriage by the electricity of romance, each expecting the complete fulfillment of a private and nebulous yearning. Nowadays the criteria for qualifying a candidate for spouse is personal happiness: does the candidate produce the requisite "magic" that is the goal of romance? Whereas by its very nature this is entirely a subjective matter, therefore no one is allowed to serve as judge of another's choices. The only allowable advice is universally propounded in the mass media and faithfully parroted in the general population: "follow your heart".
Modern Christendom ought to have been in a position to have countered the worldly wisdom with biblical wisdom: "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool" (Pr. 28:26). However, generally speaking, this witness was not borne. The late 19th Century and early 20th Century Church was itself caught up in its own focus upon the individual. Revivalism of this era was entrenched in Wesleyan and Arminian theology, and so popular piety acquired an inward focus that was mainly concerned with the personal experience of the individual. As a result, modern Christendom for the most part joined in the radical redefinition of marriage, adding only a religious vocabulary. Marriage was allowed to become a quest to find that certain magical someone, and Christian counsel focused on an idea that this certain someone was selected by God and on methods to discern this Divine selection. This sort of nebulosity meshes well with the generic spirituality embraced by the world and provides no basis for ruling out anyone as a potential marriage partner. Once marriage is divorced from its true biblical content, biblical counsel concerning marriage necessarily is muddled.
Modern Christendom and "conservatism" have accepted the Modern, radical redefinition of marriage in the individual romantic ideal. In principle there is no basis for continuing to object to homosexual marriage. Now a lot of alarmed "conservatives" wish to apply the legislative brakes. The inner motive of such concern is sound, because homosexuality is a bane on human life. However, launching an attack on the level of laws or amendments prohibiting homosexual marriage is just another example of the same ineffectiveness that accommodated the redefinition of marriage that made homosexual marriage thinkable in the first place. Adoption of such measures will not prevent the redefinition of marriage; marriage already has been redefined - and redefined in such a way as perfectly supports what the homosexuals wish to do. Legal sanction of homosexual marriage is but a logical conclusion of the redefinition of marriage that "conservatism" already has embraced. If marriage basically is the means by which a person finds romantic fulfillment, then why should he be prohibited in searching every conceivable avenue for that certain someone? To be sure, biblical condemnation of homosexuality remains clear. But if "conservatism" has accepted the overturning of the biblical ideal of marriage in favor of the Modern romantic ideal, and now that homosexual cohabitation has become commonplace, how can there any longer remain any objection to homosexual marriage? There can be no credible or effective objection without full cultural repentance and rededication to the biblical definition of marriage. This cannot occur incrementally, but is possible only via the crisis of fundamental spiritual, cultural, social, and economic revolution.
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