A good friend who always has a balancing and healthy perspective on the issues I address, pointed out to me that yesterday's post about the SCOTUS decision seemed dismissive of the gravity of the situation. And as usual, I could not argue as she was right.
I did not address any of the possible, and I believe inevitable, negative outcomes this will create for the Church. There is no doubt in my mind that things are going to get a whole lot uglier before they get better, and I think that as Christians we should be prepared for what is around the bend.
Now, I am in no way claim to be a legal expert, nor do I pretend to be familiar with all the intricacies of the laws of our land. What I offer is my opinion based on my knowledge as a student of the Bible and history.
What I do know about our nation’s laws is that they can be rewritten to be acceptable to the changes of time and culture to better reflect the social attitudes of our day. The ability to make these changes was integral part of the design from the start and has been used to make some very positive changes in our country. Women’s right to vote and racial equality are just two issues that come to mind without a second cup of coffee. My point is laws change, even constitutional laws change, and to bank on them as the source of our security is absurd and naïve.
And it isn’t always that the laws have to change, it is simply that interpretation of the laws are changed. After all, if you compared many of the selfies posted on social media, they clearly fit the standards of pornography of the Comstock Act of 1873 and would have been grounds to arrest about half our nation. However, over the years styles and fashion changed so the definition lewd and obscene changed and as such laws had to be changed to accommodate public demand. Now you can show your butt online as long as you have a string over the crack, and by law it is not considered to pornographic.
There is a very similar evolution going on in our laws that dictate the relationship between church and state, and the SCOTUS decision is going to accelerate that evolution.
The first, most obvious reason, is that the Bible teaches homosexuality is wrong. I know there are a ton of convoluted arguments to the contrary, but let’s go with the plain reading of the text as offered in Scripture.
Now if we believe that freedom of speech is a protected act in the US then you have never studied censorship laws – speech is only as protected as it is deemed proper under societal dictates. Whereas Clark Gable once caused a scandal by “not giving a damn”, no one even blinks at such phrases today. However, say that for a man to lie with another man as woman is an abomination, and presto! You have crossed over into hate speech, and do you know what isn’t protected under freedom of speech?
If you guessed hate speech, you are right.
Freedom of religion also will not spare us the consequences. All that is needed is apply the term abusive to any religious practice and it can come under fire, particularly when it involves minors, and this isn’t a bad thing. When we have men like Warren Jeffs marrying off teenage girls to the men his church, legal action should be taken. However, where do we draw the line and who determines what abuse is? In California, reparative therapy for a child dealing with same sex attraction is considered abusive and has been banned. Other states are sure to follow as homosexuality is now considered to be normal part of our society and culture.
To me the almost obscene footnote in all of this has become a major issues among Christians, and that is the idea that churches will lose their tax exempt status. Ladies and Gentlemen, I hate to break to break it to you that is going to happen. When we have churches who voluntarily decided to run themselves corporations instead houses of prayer we asked for it, and I am not going to waste time feeling sorry for reaping the consequences of what we have sown. There are greater issues on the line than money, and if you think that God has to have a tax break to be present in this world, your god is pretty small and probably not worth worshipping, and definitely not able to handle the real issues of our world.
So what are we supposed to do? Well, for starters, don’t sit around wringing your hands as if the world has come to an end. What if it has? Isn’t that the hope and longing of all creation? Our job is to be preparing for it, and I don’t mean by stockpiling a bunch of food and ammo. I mean we should be helping those around us to see God’s glory and goodness so that they might be inspired to seek him, and let’s face it, if we are only showing them a defeated God, why would they want him?
We dive deeper into his Word and we follow the outline he gave a persecuted church so many years ago. For their persecution was far greater than any we face now, and yet, he gave them not only the keys to survival, he showed them how to thrive! He told them how to live their faith in the face of oppressive laws and intolerance for their religion. He didn’t lie to them about how believing in him would make their lives all lollipops and rainbows. Instead, he said that we are blessed in persecution and that we would be reviled and that we should rejoice in it.
We become intentional in seeking our King. For it is in knowing him that we find the strength and humility to live transformational lives. Lives that are not full of self-pity or fear, but lives that recognize the darkness makes the light shine even more brightly.
We surround ourselves with other believers, but we remain available to the rest of the world. We find strength and encouragement through the love and support of those who share our faith, and we use those times as a springboard to live our faith boldly before others.
We educate ourselves on the issues that touch the lives of our loved ones, believers and non-believers alike, so that we can have a ready answer in due season. We have been called to be wise, and wisdom is difficult to cultivate in a desert of ignorance.
We walk in grace and compassion, not anger and bitterness. God has done this for us and when we fail to extend it to others, we fail to deny God’s gift to us.
We speak truth, but we do it in love, fully recognizing that the love that has been given to us is also offered to any who would receive it.
But most of all, we share our stories of how God changed us. For some of us this means being real about struggles in our sexuality, for some this an admission that we don’t know what it is like to face that challenge, but for all of us it call to celebrate the goodness of God’s grace and mercy extended to us no matter what we have faced in our lives.
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