Same-Sex Marriage and the Future
By / Jan 1

Are you and your church prepared for the moral revolution surrounding homosexuality and same-sex marriage happening across America? While human sexuality and social institutions are being redefined before our very eyes, the Bible presents marriage as an unchanging picture of the gospel through the union of one man and one woman. The gospel announces that the story of Jesus is greater than the sum total of our sexual desires.

This helpful ebook by Russell Moore helps explain what the gospel means for the future of marriage and sexual identity.

How will gay marriage impact your marriage?
By / Aug 4

NOTE: Denny Burk will be one of the speakers at the ERLC National Conference: “The Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage.” The conference is designed to equip Christians to apply the gospel on these issues with convictional kindness in their communities, their families and their churches. This event will be held at the iconic Opryland Hotel on October 27-29, 2014. To learn more go here.

If you’ve ever been in a debate with someone about gay marriage, one of the conversation stoppers that proponents often throw out is this: “How does gay marriage hurt traditional marriage?” Or more personally, “How does my gay marriage corrupt your straight marriage?” The thinking goes like this. What two people do in the privacy of their own home ought not concern you, even if they choose to reinvent society’s most basic institution. After all, who are you to judge someone else’s pairing? If some people want to call gay unions a “marriage,” what’s that to you?

The assumption in this line of argument is that marriage is a private good with no public consequences. But is this assumption valid? Is it not the case that a redefinition of marriage affects all marriages? Certainly a redefinition of marriage to allow gay nuptials will continue to sever the link between marriage and procreation. But this is not the only public consequence.

Hanna Rosin had a piece on Slate.com last year titled, “The Dirty Little Secret: Most Gay Couples Aren't Monogamous.” Gay marriage proponents frequently argue that gay marriage should be treated as equal with traditional marriage. Proponents put forth examples of gay couples and their domestic life together to illustrate the point that gay marriage is not different than any other kind of marriage. Rosin argues, however, that such examples are not the norm. She cites one study that “found that about half of all gay couples have sex with someone other than their partner, with their partner knowing.” Many gay couples are not monogamous butmonogamish.

Rosin then concludes with a profound admission:

In legalizing gay marriage, we are accepting a form of sanctioned marriage that is not by habit monogamous and that is inventing all kinds of new models of how to accommodate lust and desire in long-term relationships.

People sometimes ask me, “How does gay marriage hurt traditional marriage?” The answer is right there. Once our society abolishes the heterosexual norm of marriage, what’s to keep it from abolishing other norms as well? If heterosexuality is no longer a norm, then why should monogamy be?

Mark Regnerus argues that monogamy might very well become a casualty of legal gay marriage. Whereas the vast majority of Americans still consider adultery to be morally wrong (source), the same cannot be said for those in gay unions. Regnerus writes:

Because adultery doesn’t work the same way in a significant share of [gay] unions; instead of a single standard, couples negotiate (and often renegotiate) what their standard will be. It’s why Dan Savage can call nine extramarital partners being monogamish rather than serial cheating. Social theorist John Milbank asserts that when the definition of adultery must be tweaked, the exclusive sexual union risks ceasing to be perceived as having unique relevance—that is, not crucial—for marriage in general. We’re not there just yet, but the bridge is definitely under construction…

This, I predict, will be same-sex marriage’s signature effect on the institution—the institutionalization of monogamish as an acceptable marital trait. No, gay men can’t cause straight men to cheat. Instead, the legitimacy newly accorded their marital unions spells opportunity for men everywhere to bend the boundaries.

In short, Regnerus is arguing that the redefinition of marriage will bring with it a redefinition of marital norms. We’ve already seen this happen with the advent of legal no-fault divorce. No-fault divorce laws have given us unilateral divorce-on-demand as the norm. Thus the norm of lifelong monogamy has given way to serial monogamy over multiple marriages. That is why our culture is quite accepting of a man who has multiple wives—so long as he has them one at a time.

In the same way, I think Regnerus is on to something when he says that the legalization of gay marriage may cause a similar revision to the definition of “faithfulness” in marriage. A study published in 2010 reveals that monogamy is simply not a central feature for many gay unions. The New York Times reports:

Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result [of abandoning monogamy], they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.

Did you get that? The article suggests that “monogamish” serial adultery might be the future for all marriages. And not only that, adultery may save the institution from irrelevance! Perhaps this sounds like an absurd suggestion, but should we really be surprised by this? When we redefine marriage, everything is on the table. And there’s no reason to exclude the possibility that the monogamous norm might give way to the “monogamish” one on display here.

So as we appear to be on the precipice of legal gay marriage in this country, here’s a question everyone ought to be asking themselves: How much redefinition are you willing to allow? Is the monogamous norm up for grabs as well? The question is not whether we will define marriage in our culture and in our laws. The question is which definition we will land on. If we abolish the norm of monogamy, that will cause a revision that will affect everyone—both gay and straight.

How does gay marriage hurt straight marriage? Laws establish norms, and norms establish cultures. A thriving marriage culture will not be helped if spouses begin “renegotiating” what faithfulness means. For this reason, legal gay marriage could hurt straight marriage in ways that people never anticipated.

Does Free Exercise Require Marriage Re-Definiton? No.
By / May 2

A new twist in the battle by same-sex marriage advocates occurred in North Carolina this week. The United Church of Christ, three ministers in the United Church of Christ, a Lutheran pastor, two Universalist Unitarian ministers, and the openly lesbian pastor of a Baptist church filed suit in federal court to overturn North Carolina’s Marriage Amendment on the basis that it violates the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment. Because same-sex couples are not allowed to marry under North Carolina law, they claim their free exercise of religion is violated. “If a minister conducts any marriage ceremony between same-sex couples, he or she is guilty of a crime,” their complaint alleges.

The truth is that the United Church of Christ and these ministers are seeking to impose marriage re-definition on the State of North Carolina, contrary to the will of the voters who approved a Marriage Amendment just two years ago by a margin of 61% to 39%. While clever, the claim that marriage between one man and one woman violates free exercise of religion is absurd. This is yet another creative, yet predictable tactic in the carefully planned campaign to force same-sex marriage on the country.

There appears to be a carefully orchestrated effort between the press and same-sex marriage activists to deceive the public about what’s at stake here—religious freedom or marriage re-definition.

For example, consider this quote from Evan Wolfson,founder and president of Freedom to Marry, an organization that supports same-sex marriage.

In their zeal to pile on to denying the freedom to marry, North Carolina officials also put in place a measure that assaulted the religious freedom that they professed to support by penalizing and seeking to chill clergy that have different views. The extent to which North Carolina went to deny the freedom to marry wound up additionally discriminating on the basis of religion by restricting speech and the ability of clergy to do their jobs.

Other sources have accused the new North Carolina Marriage Amendment of prohibiting clergy from performing “religious blessing ceremonies and marriage rites for same-sex couples” under threat of prosecution and civil judgments.

These activists have cleverly turned the argument to legalize same-sex marriage on its head, using a basic right most Christians hold dear—free exercise of religion—as their mode of attack. But, how could prohibiting same-sex marriage really violate the free exercise of religion? Does this shrewd offensive on marriage have any validity?

The North Carolina Marriage Amendment which was enacted on May 8, 2012 reads in full:

Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

The Marriage Amendment simply recognizes that marriage is between one man and one woman, and that no other “domestic legal union” (whatever it is named) is legally recognized by the State. It does not intrude into the church’s authority or jurisdiction by telling the church what it must recognize as a marriage; it merely defines what the Statewill recognize as a marriage. This is not nuanced language for a marriage amendment, but language that is almost exactly like ten to twelve other state marriage amendments.

A second sentence in the Marriage Amendment makes it clear that private contracts are not covered by the Amendment. Thus, ministers are free to bless unions that are not legally recognized as marriages in North Carolina, and to even call them “marriages” and treat them as such.

The United Church of Christ’s lawsuit, however, makes its free exercise claims by bringing in a pair of statutes that date back to 1813 and 1817:

91.       If a minister conducts any marriage ceremony between same-sex couples, he or she is guilty of a crime:

North Carolina General Statute § 51-6 states: “Solemnization without license unlawful. No minister, officer, or any other person authorized to solemnize a marriage under the laws of this State shall perform a ceremony of marriage between a man and woman, or shall declare them to be husband and wife, until there is delivered to that person a license for the marriage of the said persons, signed by the register of deeds of the county in which the marriage license was issued or by a lawful deputy or assistant.”

North Carolina General Statute § 51-7 states: “Every minister, officer, or any other person authorized to solemnize a marriage under the laws of this State, who marries any couple without a license being first delivered to that person, as required by law, or after the expiration of such license, or who fails to return such license to the register of deeds within 10 days after any marriage celebrated by virtue thereof, with the certificate appended thereto duly filled up and signed, shall forfeit and pay two hundred dollars ($200.00) to any person who sues therefore, and shall also be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”

These statutes set forth the requirement, that anyone lawfully authorized to perform a marriage that is recognized by the State, including ministers, must first have a marriage license in-hand. In other words, without a marriage license, a minister is prohibited from pronouncing, “By the authority vested in me by the State of North Carolina, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Furthermore, solemnizing a marriage as an agent of the state without a license subjects the minister to criminal and civil penalties. There are obvious reasons for such a statute.

This has been the law in North Carolina for over 200 years, including the period when North Carolina had only a Defense of Marriage Act and a marriage statute that defined marriage as between a “male and female.” What’s more, these previous statutes apply equally to all ministers and only when they act in their role as agents of the State in solemnizing a marriage recognized by the State. They do not apply to a minister’s ecclesiastical authority in his or her church to bless any type of ceremony the church allows, including a same-sex commitment ceremony. Therefore, the Plaintiffs’ allegation that these statutes make it a crime for a minister to conduct a same-sex marriage in their churches is only partly true.

This is not a case of government interference in the free exercise of religion, although the Plaintiffs in the case are definitely asserting that it is. The State of North Carolina has not ordered ministers in the United Church of Christ or any other church to perform any certain type of marriages. On the contrary, this is a “violation of the separation of church and state” because the church is trying to force its religious practices regarding same-sex marriage on the State.

The United Church of Christ alleges in its complaint that: “For more than 30 years, the General Synod of the UCC has adopted resolutions affirming lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“LGBT”) persons; calling for an end to discrimination and for equal protection under the law; deploring LGBT hate crimes and violence; supporting LGBT relationships and families; . . .” It is hard to believe that the prohibition on homosexual marriage significantly burdens religious exercise. If it does, then why did the United Church of Christ and its clergy wait so long to bring this lawsuit? They could have sued years ago, when the North Carolina statutes “criminalizing” performance of a marriage without a license were adopted. Waiting centuries to sue suggests that there was no urgency and, hence, little or no burden.

The state has a valid interest in determining who can legally marry. The religious freedom claims should have no validity, because of the case of Reynolds v. United States (1878), in which the Supreme Court held that, under the Free Exercise Clause, a religious belief/duty to have more than one wife did not trump a state law that prohibited bigamy and polygamy.And just last summer, the Supreme Court in Windsor v. United States (2013) affirmed the right of the states to determine for themselves marriage and family policy, and that is what the State of North Carolina has done. It is no different than what every other state in the country with a marriage amendment has done.

In North Carolina, we are afflicted with a new tactic from the gay rights movement every week. Three lawsuits have been filed (including this one) to force gay marriage on the State. Gay military couples filed a brief in the 4th Circuit’s Bostic v. Schaefer case alleging they can’t get federal military benefits because North Carolina doesn’t recognize their marriages. The plaintiffs in the first two lawsuits have sought immediate injunctive relief against our marriage laws, because they claim to be experiencing health difficulties that only being married will resolve. Finally, gay couples go to courthouses across the state almost weekly, as part of the “We Do” campaign asking for marriage licenses; being politely refused; then staging a sit-in or an arrest because they won’t leave. This lawsuit is truly “the gay-marriage tactic of the week,” instead of some newly discovered First Amendment right to same-sex marriage.

North Carolinians had good reason to protect marriage in their Constitution, recognizing that the union of a man and woman plays an irreplaceable role in the health of society, first of which is the protection of children. It is both ironic and sad that an entire religious denomination and its clergy who purport holding to Christian teachings on marriage would look to the courts to justify their errant beliefs. These individuals are simply revisionists that distort the teaching of Scripture to justify sexual revolution, not marital sanctity.

In 2012, when many of us across North Carolina were working fervently to pass the Marriage Amendment, the United Church of Christ made public denouncements of the Amendment, staged rallies and protests against it, organized phone banks and precinct walks to defeat it, and raised money to finance the defeat. Their clergy were at the heart of their efforts. They lost at the ballot box, and so now, they have taken the fight to the federal courts and out of the hands of the millions of voters in North Carolina who voted by 61% to put marriage protection in the State Constitution. The question is, will the courts see through this new tactic? Will they realize it is really about marriage re-definition, not religious liberty?

Is Homosexual Orientation Sinful?
By / Feb 18

In contemporary discussions of homosexuality, it is commonplace to distinguish homosexual orientation from homosexual behavior. Usually, the distinction goes something like this: Orientation refers to one’s inner disposition while behavior addresses one’s moral choices. John and Paul Feinberg state it this way:

Homosexuality as a sexual orientation means that a person has a strong and abiding preference for members of the same sex and desires to act on that sexual preference… Homosexual behavior refers to specific sex acts between members of the same sex.[1]

Some Christian ethicists take this observation a step further and argue that we must make a moral distinction between orientation and behavior. On this view, homosexual behavior is a choice and thus morally blameworthy. Homosexual orientation is not a choice and thus not morally blameworthy. This point of view has become routine even among some who identify themselves as evangelical. A couple examples to illustrate the point. Dennis Hollinger writes:

I would suggest that orientation is not the primary ethical issue. From a theological perspective, it is a result of the fallenness of our world… But orientation is not usually a result of a person’s willful, sinful choice. Hence, the ethical judgment on homosexuality is not about orientation or homoerotic impulses.[2]

Likewise, Joe Dallas and Nancy Heche write:

If a person’s primary sexual attractions are toward the same sex, the person’s orientation is homosexual… If a person’s sexual attractions are toward both sexes, the person’s orientation is bisexual… The Bible does not condemn homosexual or bisexual orientation as a deliberate sin, but any deliberate expression of homosexuality, through actions, sexual fantasy, or lust, is biblically prohibited.[3]

I do not dispute that there is a legitimate distinction to be made between orientation and behavior. I do question, however, whether the Bible supports the notion that only homosexual behavior is sinful while homosexual orientation is not. Evangelicals would generally agree with Hollinger that homosexual orientation in some way stems from the Fall. But in what way? Does homosexual orientation comprise a natural evil only? Or is it also a moral evil? Is it something that primarily requires healing (like cancer), or is it something that requires vigilant repentance (like pride)? How we answer these questions has enormous pastoral implications for those brothers and sisters who experience same-sex attraction. What follows is my attempt to answer these questions biblically and to suggest some pastoral implications.

Does the Bible address sexual orientation?

It is sometimes claimed that sexual orientation is a modern concept that would have been completely foreign to the writers of scripture.[4] But is that really true? It depends entirely on how one defines the term “orientation.” The American Psychological Association defines sexual orientation in this way: “Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic and/or sexual attractions to men, women or both sexes.”[5] Notice that orientation involves a person’s enduring sexual attractions and that sexual attraction is a virtual synonym for sexual desire.[6] Thus sexual orientation is one’s persistent pattern of sexual desire/attraction toward either or both sexes.

If that is the definition, then the term “orientation” does not somehow take us to a category that the Bible doesn’t address. The Bible says that our sexual desires/attractions have a moral component and that we are held accountable for them. Jesus’ remarks on the nature of heterosexual desire are a case in point:

Mathew 5:27-28 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

The word that Jesus uses for “lust” is the exact same term used in the tenth commandment’s prohibition on coveting: “You shall not desire/covet your neighbor’s wife” (Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21 LXX).  Thus both Jesus and the tenth commandment censure not merely adulterous behavior but also the desire that precedes the behavior. The locus of such desire is the “heart.” As Jesus confirms elsewhere, adultery and every other kind of sexual immorality proceed from the heart (Mark 7:21).

The married man who experiences an adulterous lust for another woman is a man who experiences unwholesome attractions. His attraction may indeed be spontaneous and uninvited. It may indeed reflect his sexual orientation to be attracted to the opposite sex. But that married man may not appeal to his heterosexual “orientation” to absolve him of having feelings that he ought not feel. Jesus says such feelings are adultery within the heart. Likewise, a man who experiences a sexual attraction to another man may be experiencing feelings that are spontaneous and uninvited. His attraction may well reflect what he perceives to be his natural “orientation.” But that does not absolve him of having sexual feelings he ought not feel. The Bible judges such attractions as sinful lust—as coveting someone sexually. Thus the scripture does in fact speak to one’s enduring pattern of sexual attractions.

Is there a difference between desire and lust?

Sometimes it is claimed that we must make a moral distinction between mere desire and active lust—the former being morally neutral and the latter being sinful. But this is not a particularly biblical distinction. The word Jesus uses for lust in Matthew 5:28 (epithumeō) is used elsewhere in neutral and even positive ways.[7] For example, Jesus says that “many prophets and righteous men desired (epithumeō) to see what you see, and did not see it” (Matthew 13:17). The word clearly means “desire,” and in this case the desire is a good thing. Whether the desire is good (as in Matt. 13:17) or evil (as in Matt. 5:28) depends entirely on what it is a person desires. That is why the same Greek term is rendered “desire” in some texts and “lust” in others. If you desire something good, then the desire itself is good. If you desire something evil, then the desire itself is evil. Same-sex attraction is clearly a desire that God forbids. How then can we possibly treat a persistent and enduring desire for the same-sex as morally neutral? Biblically, we cannot.

The apostle Paul also addresses the propriety of same-sex desires in Romans 1:26-27. To be sure, Paul says that homosexual behavior is sinful:

Romans 1:26-27 “Women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman… men with men committing indecent acts.”

But he also says that the desires themselves are equally morally blameworthy and stand as evidence of God’s wrath against sin: “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions… and [they] burned in their desire toward one another” (Rom 1:26-27). Sexual desire that fixates on the same-sex is sinful, and that is why God’s judgment rightly falls on both desires and actions. Again, the issue is not merely sexual behavior but also one’s enduring pattern of sexual attraction.

Answering an Objection

A common objection to the foregoing goes like this: “If a person cannot control whether they have same-sex attraction, how can that attraction be considered sinful?” This objection bases moral accountability upon whether one has the ability to choose his proclivities. But this is not how the Bible speaks of sin and judgment. There are all manner of predispositions that we are born with that the Bible nevertheless characterizes as sin: pride, anger, anxiousness, just to name a few. Why would we put same-sex attraction in a different category than those other predispositions that we groan to be delivered from and that we are morally accountable for? As we mentioned above, Jesus says that all such sins proceed from the heart and that we are therefore morally accountable for them (Mark 7:21). And this assessment is in no way mitigated by the fact that we come by it naturally or were born that way. As Richard Hays writes,

The Bible’s sober anthropology rejects the apparently commonsense assumption that only freely chosen acts are morally culpable. Quite the reverse: the very nature of sin is that it is not freely chosen. That is what it means to live “in the flesh” in a fallen creation. We are in bondage to sin but still accountable to God’s righteous judgment of our actions. In light of this theological anthropology, it cannot be maintained that a homosexual orientation is morally neutral because it is involuntary.[8]

Pastoral Implications

My conclusion is that if sexual orientation is one’s enduring pattern of sexual attraction, then the Bible teaches both same-sex behavior and same-sex orientation to be sinful.[9] If this is true, there are numerous pastoral implications. I will mention just two:

1. This truth ought to inform how brothers and sisters in Christ wage war against same-sex attraction. Sin is not merely what we do. It is also who we are. As so many of our confessions have it, we are sinners by nature and by choice.[10] All of us are born with an orientation toward sin in all its varieties. Homosexual orientation is but one manifestation of our common experience of indwelling sin—indeed of the mind set on the flesh (Rom. 7:23; 8:7).  For that reason, the Bible teaches us to war against both the root and the fruit of sin. In this case, homosexual orientation is the root, and homosexual behavior is the fruit. The Spirit of God aims to transform both (Rom. 8:13).

If same-sex attraction were morally benign, there would be no reason to repent of it. But the Bible never treats sexual attraction to the same sex as a morally neutral state. Jesus says all sexual immorality is fundamentally a matter of the heart. Thus it will not do simply to avoid same sex behavior. The ordinary means of grace must be aimed at the heart as well. Prayer, the preaching of the word, and the fellowship of the saints must all be aimed at the Holy Spirit’s renewal of the inner man (2 Cor. 4:16). It is to be a spiritual transformation that puts to death the deeds of the body by a daily renewal of the mind (Rom. 8:13; 12:2). As John Owen has famously said, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”[11]

This is not to say that Christians who experience same-sex attraction will necessarily be freed from those desires completely in this life. Many such Christians report partial or complete changes in their orientation after conversion—sometimes all at once, but more often over a period of months and years. But those cases are not the norm. There are a great many who also report ongoing struggles with same-sex attraction.[12] But that does not lessen the responsibility for them to fight those desires as long as they persist, no matter how natural those desires may feel.

Wesley Hill is a Christian who experiences persistent same-sex attraction, and he describes his struggle in such terms. He writes,

For me and other gay people, even when we’re not willfully cultivating desire, we know that when attraction does come… it will be attraction to someone of the same sex. And in those moments, it feels as though there is no desire that isn’t lust, no attraction that isn’t illicit… Every attraction I experience, before I ever get to intentional, willful, indulgent desire, seems bent, broken, misshapen.[13]

Wesley goes on to describe his experience as a daily struggle against indwelling sin. His sexual orientation, therefore, is an occasion for vigilant repentance and renewal through the Holy Spirit:

My homosexuality, my exclusive attraction to other men, my grief over it and my repentance, my halting effort to live fittingly in the grace of Christ and the power of the Spirit—gradually I am learning not to view all of these things as confirmations of my rank corruption and hypocrisy. I am instead, slowly but surely, learning to view that journey—of struggle, failure, repentance, restoration, renewal in joy, and persevering, agonized obedience—as what it looks like for the Holy Spirit to be transforming me on the basis of Christ’s cross and his Easter morning triumph over death.[14]

The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit can bring about this kind of transformation in anyone—even if such progress is not experienced by everyone in precisely the same measure. As the apostle Paul writes, “Thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed” (Rom 6:17).

2. This truth ought to strengthen our love and compassion for brothers and sisters who experience same-sex attraction. For many of them, same sex attraction is something they have experienced for as long as they can remember. There is no obvious pathology for their attractions. The attractions are what they are even though they may be quite unwelcome. It is naïve to think that these people are all outside of the church. No, they are among us. They are us. They have been baptized, have been attending the Lord’s Table with us, and have been fighting the good fight in what is sometimes a very lonely struggle. They believe what the Bible says about their sexuality, but their struggle is nevertheless difficult.

Is your church the kind of place that would be safe for these dear brothers and sisters to come forward to find friendship and community? Does your church have its arms wide open to them to come alongside them, to receive them, and to strengthen them? Jesus said that the world would know us by our love for one another (John 13:35). One of the ways that we show love for one another is by bearing one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2). Can you bear this burden with your brothers and sisters who are in this fight? Is your church ready to offer help and encouragement to these saints for whom Christ died? If not, then something is deeply amiss. For Jesus has loved us to the uttermost, and he calls us to do the same (John 13:34).

[1] John S. Feinberg and Paul D. Feinberg, Ethics for a Brave New World, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 364.

[2] Dennis P. Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 173.

[3] Joe Dallas, “Terms, Definitions, and Concepts,” in The Complete Christian Guide to Understanding Homosexuality: A Biblical and Compassionate Response to Same-Sex Attraction, ed. Joe Dallas and Nancy Heche (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2010), 98-99.

[4] E.g., John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 109, 117.

[5] “Answers to Your Questions: For a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality,” American Psychological Association, 2008, http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx.

[6] In this essay, I will treat sexual attraction as a synonym for sexual desire. I believe this is justified by common usage of these terms in the literature. For example, Hollinger says that persons with homosexual orientation experience “ongoing affectional and sexual feelings toward persons of the same sex” (Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex, 172). Likewise, Grenz describes homosexual orientation as “the situation in which erotic feelings are nearly exclusively triggered by persons of one’s own sex” (Stanley J. Grenz, Sexual Ethics: An Evangelical Perspective [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997], 225). See also Jenell Williams Paris’ book in which orientation, attraction, and desire are all three used as virtual synonyms (Jenell Williams Paris, The End of Sexual Identity: Why Sex Is Too Important to Define Who We Are [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011], 99).

[7] BDAG confirms that the preponderance of this term’s use in the New Testament mean’s simply “desire,” not “lust.” See BDAG, s.v. “ἐπιθυμέω” 1: “to have a strong desire to do or secure someth., desire, long for.”

[8] Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (New York: HarperOne, 1996), 390.

[9] Feinberg and Feinberg, Ethics for a Brave New World, 385: “We stand firmly committed to the position that Scripture teaches that homosexual and lesbian orientation and behavior are contrary to the order for human sexuality God placed in creation. Hence they are sinful.” So also James B. DeYoung, Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2000), 293-94: “Homosexual orientation was known in the generations in which Scripture was written. Paul gives no indication that it does not fall under the general condemnations of homosexuality in Romans 1, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy.”

[10] E.g., The New Hampshire Baptist Confession, III: “All mankind are now sinners, not by constraint, but choice; being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil.”

[11] John Owen, “Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers,” in Temptation and Sin, The Works of John Owen 6 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1967), 9.

[12] Mark A. Yarhouse, Homosexuality and the Christian: A Guide for Parents, Pastors, and Friends (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2010), 93-95.

[13] Wesley Hill, Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 136-37.

[14] Wesley Hill, Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 145.

Denny Burk
Denny Burk is an Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Ethics at Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He also serves as an Associate Pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church, which is in Louisville as well. He also writes a daily commentary on theology, politics, and culture at DennyBurk.com. He is also the author of What Is the Meaning of Sex? (Crossway, 2013).

 

The Political and Apolitical C.S. Lewis
By / Jan 30

Even fifty years after his death, evangelicals continue to look to C.S. Lewis for wisdom on a host of topics for four simple reasons. First, and most important, Lewis was a thoroughgoing Christian, describing himself as believing in Christianity as he believed in the sun, not only because he saw it, but because by it he saw everything else. Second, Lewis himself was an enormously gifted and creative thinker and communicator. Third, Lewis drew deeply from the most profound and substantive philosophers, poets and theologians in the Western tradition and beyond. Finally, Lewis attended to the most crucial and perennial of ideas and themes common to humanity. If we continue to look to him, it is not because he is infallible, but because he identified and addressed eternal realities and lasting earthly concerns.

It might seem Lewis does not offer much for evangelicals looking for wisdom on politics, an arena fraught with peril and controversy for as long as evangelicals have sought to be salt and light in the culture. Lewis was known to avoid and indeed disdain newspapers. He turned down an honorary recognition from Winston Churchill so as to avoid encouraging those who would dismiss him as politically partisan. He did not keep up with the latest political news, and I suspect he would find our twenty-four-hour news cycle and social media conglomerate a particularly modern abomination. One might imagine the incomparable G.K. Chesterton on Twitter, perhaps trading witticisms with Bernard Shaw. But not Lewis.

Yet much depends on how we define politics. If we accept the typically negative connotation of politics as consisting of sausage-making legislative deals, bureaucratic and institutional power structures, and the seemingly constant state of electoral campaigning, then we will not find much political thought from Lewis. He disdained this side of politics, at one point referring to government in a private letter as at best a necessary evil.[1] Americans would seem to agree, if Congresss approval ratings are any indication.

We have good reason, however, to think of politics as more than the merely instrumental hurly-burly maelstrom of self-interest and cynicism we see on the news and blogs. The word politics comes to us from the Greeks, whom Lewis knew and read intimately (Lewis remarked that he sometimes found himself thinking in Greek). Politics refers to the business of the polis, the almost-untranslatable Greek word describing their understanding of community, which combined spheres and identities we moderns tend to keep separate: religion, government, family, school, business. The polis, Aristotle tells us, is established and maintained with a view to some good. That is, the political in this sense refers to perennial questions that pertain to human beings as such. What is the good life? How should we live together? What things are so good as to be required, by force if necessary, and what things are so evil as to be prohibited, by force if necessary? Do human beings have a deeper purpose than mere survival or pleasure?

Conceived of in this way, politics is inextricably tied to the most fundamental questions about human nature and purpose. Unlike the graduated income tax, Lewis had a great deal to say about these matters, and we can take from him four lessons that remain salient for contemporary Christian thinking about politics.

The first lesson is that politics is not everything, nor is it nothing. Lewis noted that the people who did the most for this world are those who had their minds most on the next.[2] This world has a built-in purpose; history has a direction to it that leads to God and a coming reality that frames everything we do in this already-but-not-yet phase of life. Lewis grounds his view of second things on the priority of the first thing, and in doing so follows Jesus command to seek first Gods kingdom and then all these other things shall follow. Politics is one of these second things, as it is a practice necessary to protect and promote the good earthly gifts God has provided. The dignity that rightly pertains to political matters depends on our recognition of its limits.

Lewis believed those limits to be rather robust for two reasons, and this is our second lesson. Men and women are made in Gods image, and destined to a future existence that dwarfs this earthly sojourn. At the same time, human beings are fallen. These bedrock truths about the human condition limit the scope of government.

Lewis supported democracy, he wrote in his essay Equality, because he believed in the Fall.[3] Bringing to mind Lord Actons maxim about power and corruption, Lewis wrote that human beings are so fallen that they cannot be trusted with untrammeled power, and democracy, for all its faults, better checks this dynamic than other systems.

We also should see governments as limited given their respective mortality. In his sermon The Weight of Glory, Lewis reminds us that human beings have an eternal destiny, whether of unimaginable joy or abject horror and misery.[4] In contrast, the lives of governments, businesses, cultures and even taxes have the lifespan of gnats. Governments are temporary, people are eternal. This is a potent reminder for us, then, that the former should always be seen as subservient to the latter. For these reasons, then, in his essay Membership, Lewis described governments mandate as modest, though still important:

As long as we are thinking of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economies, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save insofar as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of the spirit. Collective activities are, of course, necessary, but this is the end to which they are necessary.[5]

If these first two lessons help us situate politics, what does Lewis say about what should guide our political activity? Lewis famously defended both biblical truth and a version of natural law, what he called the Tao. Lewis believed that while God revealed political ends, or goals, in the Bible, He did not usually prescribe the specific means to achieve these ends. God tells us to feed the hungry but leaves it up to us to learn how to cook. We must protect and provide for the widow and orphan, fight oppression, and pursue justice; but the Bible does not provide details on whether a bicameral legislature or proportional representation will be best suited to achieve those ends.[6]

The best Christian political thought and action will be accomplished, then, not by clergy per se but by Christians engaged in the practice of politics as financiers in finance and doctors in medicine. Politics is a craft, a discipline, and so a genuinely Christian politics will be practiced by Christians who apply the Golden Rule to the varying contingencies and messiness of politics.

The fourth consideration from Lewis is both a warning and an encouragement. In an essay titled Meditation on the Third Commandment, Lewis considers the dangers of conflating Christian involvement in politics with a formal Christian party or attempting to Christianize an existing party.[7] The problem is that politics is, in part, about means to achieve ends, and Christians can and do disagree in good faith about the best means. The result will either be a party that fundamentally disagrees about means (which cannot function as a party), or a group of Christians purporting to represent all Christians in matters on which the Bible is not clear (which risks violating the third commandment). This is the warning, then, but what did Lewis encourage Christians to do instead?

Lewis did not think retreating from the public square was an option. The practical problem of Christian politics is not that of drawing up schemes for a Christian society, Lewis wrote in another essay, but that of living as innocently as we can with unbelieving fellow-subjects under unbelieving rulers who will never be perfectly wise and good and who will sometimes be very wicked and very foolish.[8]

The alternative to quietism is, in part, for Christians to clearly articulate their non-negotiable convictions, in the hopes that in a pluralistic society parties wishing to garner the support of Christians will take care not to alienate them. Yet Lewis concluded his meditation with more powerful advice, reminding us again how putting God first can impact the second things. In language that evangelicals in particular will harken to, Lewis notes that the best way of being salt and light in the culture is to share the Gospel. After all, He who converts his neighbor has performed the most practical Christian-political act of all.

This is not to say that Lewis would have us evangelize merely for the sake of politics. Far from it. Rather, Lewiss final encouragement to us is that while political schemes and practices have their place, the truly Christian witness in the political world will be found in the sort of people we are: fallen, redeemed, loved, and living for the love of God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Politics is about our shared conception of the good life, and that includes earthly matters. Our Father in heaven knows we need these things. Yet our witness to the earthly good life only works in the light of our witness to the good life, for those who aim at heaven get earth thrown in: those who aim at earth get neither.[9]

 
[1] Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis, ed. W.H. Lewis (Harcourt Brace & World, 1966), 473.

[2] Lewis, Mere Christianity, (Harper Collins, 1980), 134.

[3] Lewis, Equality, in Present Concerns, ed. Walter Hooper (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), 17.

[4] Lewis, The Weight of Glory, in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, ed. Walter Hooper. (Macmillan, 1980).

[5] Lewis, Membership, in Weight of Glory, 121.

[6] Lewis, Mere Christianity, 82-83.

[7] Lewis, Meditation on the Third Commandment, in God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper. (Eerdmans, 1970), 196-99.

[8] Lewis, The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment, in God in the Dock, 292.

[9] Lewis, Mere Christianity, 134.