Male and Female — Incomprehensible?
By Dr. Peter Jones
Hakuna Matata, “don’t worry”: same-sex marriage will not harm ordinary marriage. But way back in 1970, the Gay Revolution Party Manifesto declared: “The gay revolution will produce a world in which all social and sensual relationships will be gay and in which homo- and heterosexuality will be incomprehensible terms.”
In other words, the biblical terms for the sexual binary (male/female) will have become “incomprehensible.” Impossible, you may say, but forty-two years later:
- a gender-neutral pronoun has been proposed for use in Sweden’s public schools;
- “M” and “F” are disappearing from birth certificates and passport applications in Western countries, and;
- “parent A” and “parent B” are replacing mother and father.
While some Christians downplay the discussion of sexuality in order to survive more comfortably in today’s context, pagans, on the contrary, see its immense importance. In the twentieth century, Carl Jung stated: “Sexuality is the sine qua non of spirituality—one only exists through the other.”
But not to worry, right? We will all be a one big happy spiritual family, whatever family means.
The sharp contours of our future are coming into focus—a future inhospitable to Christian truth. The literature and language of the two-thousand-year-old “Christian” civilization, which assumed the normative male/female distinctions, will become homophobically unspeakable, culturally silenced and legally prohibited.
Cultural leaders, in spite of all they have achieved, are even now being demeaned as worthless homophobes. Billy Graham (93), who filled Madison Square Garden with 20 thousand people every night for six weeks and preached in Yankee Stadium in 1957 to a crowd of 100,000 and who was a respected counselor to many of the world’s political leaders in the second half of the 20th century, is now vilified by same sex activist Wayne Besen, who calls Graham a “one-time anti-Semite,” a “fraud,” a “totalitarian preacher…trying to jam his own church’s rules and doctrine down my throat.” Graham’s crime? In an ad supporting heterosexual marriage in North Carolina, Graham merely said: “God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman.” Graham is now considered a dangerous homophobe to be insulted and silenced.
But this sort of treatment is not limited to nonagenarians—Dan Cathy, 69, and COO of Chic-fil-A, was foolhardy enough to state his support for the biblical view of marriage, which sent homosexual activists into a frenzy and caused government officials in three major US cities to vow battles against Chic-fil-A’s right to open restaurants in their town. For the sake of a radical ideology, healthy successful businesses (and the much-needed jobs they create) must be sacrificed.
Gays invited to the White House this summer (2012) by President Obama, took pictures of themselves as they sashayed down the hallowed halls, giving the finger to the portrait of one of the most revered presidents in history, Ronald Reagan. The past was trashed with hardly a thought while their futurist dreams of dancing with their same-sex partners at the White House were realized during President Obama’s Gay Pride reception.
Hakuna Matata. Don’t worry, nothing will change—except the very Two-ist creational and ethical foundations of a culture, once drenched in the principles of the Bible—except normal social relationships, which will be drastically altered to make room for people like Robert Lopez who grew up in a “genderless” gay household learning “few recognizable social cues…[for] how to act, how to speak, how to behave” in the outside world.
The normal heterosexual world will be demeaned, sidelined and then condemned to silence. In California, SB 48 requires all public schools to include positive discussions of transgenderism, bisexuality, and homosexuality. For California school children, all other viewpoints are now silenced, so gender distinctions will indeed become “incomprehensible.” The same goes for the college campus. The Director of Religious Life at venerable Vanderbilt University declared, in the name of diversity, that traditional Christian views “are now forbidden.”
Are we ready for Christian witness in a culture so hostile that it may cost us our livelihood and our freedom? Are we training our children to uncompromising boldness in the face of the intimidating lions of an all-is-one, gender-less pagan civilization? For Christians, this future will not be business as usual, but it will, by God’s grace, be a time of unusual spiritual revival, since we will have to learn to depend entirely upon Him. As Scripture says, Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good (1 Peter 4:19).
But we need not suffer in silence. We put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:13ff), which includes wearing with honor and humility the badge of divinely created heterosexuality and its particular expression in marriage (Ephesians 5:32), because we know that Two-ism is the key to the cosmos and the essence of the Gospel of grace.
Excellent article. Few christians understand the consequences of what you point out. Thanks!
Look, I’m not Christian – but I will explain this ‘political’ (not religious) issue to you Christians. Living in Canada, I don’t have one friend against gay marriage, and in my Political Studies lab 2 years ago it was the ONLY issue that was debated where everyone universally agreed that gays must be allowed to marry.
Marriage has tax benefits with it that, on average, save couples 6000$ in taxes a year. In many states, homosexuals can’t get these benefits, obviously. In other words, heterosexuals have the ‘option to marry’ and save money, but homosexuals don’t. If this is the case, why don’t we just remove the tax benefits of marriage entirely and impose a 6000$ tax to all people who are gay? The answer, obviously, is we don’t because then we’d be supporting economic inequality as a society; entitling some people to make more than others simply because of their sexual orientation.
This is why there is no gay marriage debate. Anyone with an understanding of politics understands this. Anybody who takes a Conservative position on this issue and supports the status quo is supporting a ‘gay tax’ essentially.
That’s why I dislike Billy Graham. That’s why I dislike Dan Cathy. To them, the definition of a word is more important than the principle of equality. Anybody who thinks like that needs to join the Twenty First century and stop being so childish.
If it were merely an issue of politics and fairness, I think you would find that Christians have been in the forefront of the struggle for political equality for millennia and were, for instance, the leaders of the abolitionist movement in the 19th century. I do not think Christians wrote the present-day tax laws over which we could doubtless have a fruitful discussion.
However, down stream from politics is how we all understand the very definitions of life, including human rights, human dignity and the nature and meaning of sexuality. We all do this, Christians and non-Christians alike. Christians believe in an all-wise Creator who created the entire cosmos and created human beings with dignity in His image, male and female, to form a life-producing communion of difference, otherwise called marriage. This human institution joining union with difference reflects the being of God as Trinity. So marriage precedes the state, modern and ancient, as the fundamental human relational structure which Scripture calls “good.” Defending this is a creature’s responsibility–to God and to fellow human beings. It is not being unfair and differing over a mere word. It is seeking to maintain the very dignity of human life whose ultimate and eternal significance is to reflect the person of God the Triune Creator.
IMHO, deciding this issue on the basis of a discutable tax law does not do the subject serious justice
Ryan, anybody can get married! They always could! Your uni-lateral redefinition of a word does not make anything “marriage” just because you or anybody else says so. If a practicing homosexual wants to get married, all they have to do is find a willing partner of the opposite gender, buy a marriage license, and find someone to perform the ceremony! If you have a problem with the tax laws, work to change them. In the U.S. most married people pay a tax penalty for being married. From the dawn of time, marriage has been ordained of God between one man and one woman. If that’s a problem, take it up with the One who created the institution. I for one will fight this avalanche of marriage obscenity as long as I have breath. Yes, it does affect my marriage. It affects the very fabric of our society.
“There are not standards of valuation apart from human and divine”…what’s in your wallet?
Thank you for your excellent post, Peter.
To Ryan (looking at this purely politically), governments are in the discrimination business when it comes to taxation. Taxation has been used throughout history as a legitimate means to promote certain behavior that the political leaders deem beneficial to society. The government exempts interest earned on treasury bills from taxation to encourage citizens to lend the treasury money.
The US government provides tax exemptions to people with children, as having children is deemed beneficial to society. In contrast, the Chinese government has heavily taxed families with more than one child because the wanted to limit population growth in the country.
By your logic, Ryan, a marriage tax deduction is also a single tax, a child deduction is a childless tax, a self employment expense deduction is an employee tax, etc. I think the flaw in this logic is obvious.
That leaves the question whether our government and our society have an interest in promoting traditional marriage over homosexual unions. You are correct that this is a political question. Politicians in a democracy ultimately represent the electorate majorities influenced by election financiers hopefully within the limitations of the constitution. This is where Peter’s article becomes highly pertinent. It speaks to recent changes in culture and shifting opinions, their underlying causes, and future implications to society as a whole and Cristians in particular.
President Obama is clearly counting on significant financial support from LGBT organizations who accounted for 80% of his fund-raisers during a recent campaign trip to CA. There is a concerted effort to marginalize all members of society who do not agree with the LGBT agenda. Prop 8 recently showed over 50% of the voting CA electorate to be opposed to a redefinition of marriage. But I fear that the continuous barrage of LGBT propaganda will continue to shift opinions. For Christians used to having their values embraced by a majority of the US society for over 200 years, there are difficult days ahead.
All i can say is good!
The lunatics have taken over the asylum !
Ryan and John, Christians have, from the beginning of Christianity, believed that pagans and other unbelievers are entitled to their moral opinions, poor though they may be. Christianity is founded on the belief that the truth, if it is allowed to be spoken and practiced, will win out in the end. That is why this country, which was founded by Christians, adopted a right to free speech and freedom of association.
The left (progeny of the detestable Karl Marx) have learned that the greatest enemy to their concepts of moral propriety is free speech, and that the best way to stop speech that they do not like is to label it “hate” speech. We Christians are perfectly willing to let you gender-confused pagans babble on endlessly about the benefits of your perverse ways of life, but we are not obligated to agree with you. Furthermore, we insist on being able to articulate our own arguments, in public, out loud.
The absolute freedom from moral judgment that you crave is nothing but anarchy with a happy face stapled to it. Every society on earth establishes moral laws to control human behavior. If Christian morality is eliminated from consideration, another morality will fill the void. In a free country such as America, we are all entitled to fight for the morality we want to govern our fellow creatures. That is what you fear, and why you savagely battle the will of the people when we VOTE to keep marriage defined as between a man and woman. It is why your kind flee to activist courts to protect you. Admit it. The will of the people which you regularly invoke on your leftist behalf is against you on this issue.
You hate the very thought, don’t you?
Think about this: in reality, Christians do not hate pagans, gender confused people, or leftists, despite our fundamental disagreements. Our religious doctrine forbids it. We just think that you are morally wrong, and we would like the opportunity to explain why. But you pagans hate us and try to silence us. We know that you hate, because true haters try to forcibly silence those they hate. And you really hate us, right down to your core being. And what’s more, your hatred is quite all right with you.
That’s the difference.
That was very well said Peter. Christ taught us, ” Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpants, and harmless as doves.” Mattthew 10:16
So if God instituted marriage of the one woman/one man variety at the beginning of time, why did he then go on to provide instructions about how to take a second wife? Why did he regard polygamists like Abraham, Moses and Solomon as ‘righteous’? Why does he ‘inspire’ the author of Timothy to tell church leaders to have only one wife, when they should have known this already? Get real – God did not initiate marriage; it is a human social arrangement that has evolved, and is continuing to evolve, whether Christians like it or not.
Nos:
Your question is an appropriate one, one that Jesus answered Himself. In Matthew 19:8 “Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning…” This was His answer in response to a question about why divorce and remarriage was permitted during Old Testament times, through the laws written by Moses.
Jesus shows the distinction between what God allowed to happen because of “hard hearts” and His plan.
As it concerns Abraham, Moses, Solomon, et al., isn’t it interesting that the Bible does not try to white wash the lives of it’s revered characters? One of the major themes of the Bible is that “all have sinned”. But what you see in Timothy, in the New Testament after the ushering in of Jesus’ Kingdom, is a realtering of the moral laws in order to more closely align the Christian church’s beliefs and practices with what the Creator had orignally intended.
Jesus answers both your affirmation and your question, Nos.
You affirm that “God did not initiate marriage. It is a human arrangement that has evolved.” Here is what the wisest man in human history said. “He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said,…a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:4-5). I believe “getting real” involves placing oneself under the authority of the wisest teacher humanity has ever known. The reality is that many things do not evolve. They devolve, they get worse.
Jesus said marriage had not evolved. It had devolved, much to the detriment of otherwise pious people, and their example gives us great hesitation. Solomon the wisest of men, became a serial polygamist and his son, Rehoboam, broke up the kingdom that seemed to have such promise under his father, from which Israel never recovered.
Jesus, in wisdom, “greater than Solomon,” said: “‘…they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’ The Pharisees said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.'” (Matthew 19:6-8).
Jesus here answers you question and teaches his disciple (then and now) the God-intended ideal–male/female monogamous marriage. He sees Israel’s history as a falling away from that standard. God does not stop working with his people when they sinned, but let’s not make that a new ideal standard. Jesus will not let us, and neither will his close disciple, the apostle Paul. Paul understood his teacher perfectly, even citing the same Old Testament text (Genesis 2:24), as he also taught about marital love and fidelity: “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:28-32).
Christians try to avoid making up stuff about such major issues concerning the nature of human life, so they place themselves under the authority of time-tested spiritual teachers like Jesus and Paul who both claimed, with impecable reasons, to be revealing God’s truth about life. At this level, there are really only two options–God’s truth or human opinion. This is the deep “reality” that our exchange of ideas uncovers.
Dear Dr. Jones,
Thank you for presenting a clear and concise picture of colliding worldviews that calls every follower of Christ to teach the Law that calls believers to the Cross for Salvation and to the Church for Worship of the One and Only True and Living God.