FreeTruth

Just a follow up to my recent post with this same basic title. Since the Miss California brouhaha began some weeks ago, I'm afraid that my concerns about moral incongruities in the Christian community have been provided more (frankly unwanted) support.

This young lady has had more embarassing details emerge about her moral inconsistencies, but that is the lesser of my concerns (while this woman's moral issues are a serious matter between her and God, I feel in my bones no sense of self-righteous indignation or condemnation toward this woman. After all, I realize that any of us can become a mass and mess of spiritual inconsistencies).

What is more to my point is the ongoing confusing outrage over the abuse this woman has received from the liberal/gay world, with no corresponding outrage over the immorality of brazen immodesty and the mental and spiritual adultery it causes. My concern is mostly with the way that the Church has defined "bad sins" in terms of what others are doing (to paraphrase Jerry Bridges) rather than in terms of what God calls bad.

Somehow we have decided that homosexual marriage is really bad, while all the other ways that marriage has been wrongly defined and violated are not quite so bad. Christians scream out against gay marriage but then violate and dishonor marriage in a hundred other ways themselves. Ask yourself: Am I as opposed to other forms of unbiblical marriage as I am to gay marriage?

Let me state my thoughts in this way. As one commenter on this blog put it, rightly tweaking/improving a phrase I had used in my post, we're straining out camels while swallowing camels. Let us beware how we fight against one false view of marriage (gay marriage) while we tolerate with hardly a whisper of outrage other false views of, and attitudes toward marriage that have done far more damage to the sacred institution than gay marriage ever will do.

What is marriage? As I read various conservative family focused statements defining marriage here's the kind of phrasing I find: "Marriage is a social unit bringing together male and female." Or, marriage is "a union of one man and one woman".

Folks: that is not an adequate understanding of marriage. Marriage is not just a union of one man and one woman; it is a covenanted relationship between the same man and the same woman for life. The failure to define marriage in this fully biblical way has contributed far more to the breakdown of this sacred instituion than gay marriage has ever done or ever will do.

When the same man and the same woman do not covenant to stay emotionally, mentally, and physically faithful in impassioned, affectionate, spiritually invigorated and kingdom-committed union with each other so long as both shall live, marriage has been redefined and desecrated. The damage done by infidelity to this God-ordained marriage ideal by straight people far surpasses any damage ever done by gays.

Yet I have been around long enough to know that Christians consistently fail to live by this ideal, and seem to accept without much sorrow or criticism those who do the same, and yet rise up in indignation when they perceive that "the gays want to destroy marriage."

Think of it this way: Are we as concerned when people who have been unbiblically divorced and remarried (a social evil far more common and destructive to marriage than gay unions will ever be) receive special legal privileges (like tax breaks because they're married) as we are when gays want to be married so they can receive those same privileges and breaks? I think not.

Is my question valid? And is my assessment accurate? What am I missing?

O that we could see our glaring inconsistencies as well as the world does! May all who are married or ever hope to be, settle for nothing less than doing their part to pursue a passionate, faithful, mentally and physically pure, life-long covenanted union. Then we will at least be consistent as we have to oppose gay marriage (which we do).

One hundred Christian couples passionately committed to Christian marriage as biblically defined will do far more for the cause of marriage in our society than one thousand Christian couples who protest gay unions while simultaneously falling far short of that ideal.

At least that's my take on it for now. I'm open to input.

Labels: christian life, Culture War, Family, Homosexuality, Marriage, Modesty, Purity

By now most of us know of the firestorm generated by the Miss USA contestant's "stand" against gay marriage. As I reflect on the fall-out from her apparently faith-based comments daring to say that she was not in favor of gay marriage I'm struck by the moral incongruities and hypocrisies of folks on both sides of this moral debate.

Of course those of us who side with this young woman on the gay marriage issue are quick to notice the hypocrisy of the left as we once again witness the glaring intolerance of those who proclaim tolerance so vociferously. Once again we are confronted with brazen inconsistency among those who want to be accepted by all, but who are willing to accept none who are different from them. The left-leaning voices of our society (at least the ones among them who make the most noise) are--in my judgment--so transparently inconsistent and dishonest at this point, that it is hard to credit them with any integrity or take them at all seriously in these moral discussions. But let's face it: that's old news.

But what I think those of us on this side of this particular debate need to be more aware of is the moral hypocrisy and incongruities of all those who are praising this woman's moral courage, and are tempted to place her on a pedestal of virtue. Something is very wrong here.

I do not know this young lady, nor do I know anything of the validity of her faith claims, nor do I hold myself up as a model of virtue. I am very much aware of my own weaknesses and temptations and sins. But has anyone noticed what is wrong with the picture of recent days? Think back to the news reports you've seen. As the voices have discussed the whole episode what video have we seen in full view of millions? It's been a video of this woman parading her body, with almost nothing on, for countless eyes to see.

For the sake of a prize and fame she has essentially prostituted her body (for any time one uses her/his body in any kind of sexually active or provocative way for personal gain, a form of prostitution has occurred). Millions have seen her body in such a way that only a husband should see. The most charitable judgment we can make about this is that this young woman is astonishingly naive about what she has been a part of. More realistically she is one more example of a cultural set if sins that has permeated the church: lust, unblushing immodesty, mental and physical adultery, pervasive immorality.

Folks, when we can feel moral indignation over one sexual sin while looking at video clips leading us into a different sexual sin, and not even think about the moral incongruities, it's not a good sign. When a young woman in the name of faith can say that something is morally wrong while at the very same time she is doing something which--unless she's utterly naive--she knows is going to cause many who watch to at least be tempted to sexual sin, is almost shockingly hypocritical.

Something's very much amiss friends. We strain at gnats and swallow camels. We attempt to take out specks from others' eyes while planks protrude from ours. This kind of hypocritical moral outrage is just the kind of phoniness that Jesus decries in Matthew 7:1-5 and is also just the kind of "witness" that makes the world crazy with justifiable outrage against us.

Folks: homosexuality is sin. But so is physical and mental adultery; so is pornography; so is immodesty, so is showing parts of the body for others to see, that should only be seen and enjoyed by one's spouse; so is the obscenity of pageants and programs that are little more than peep shows.

The way of purity in Christ charts a different course than all this. What is most troubling to me is the sense that many who profess Christ are not morally aware enough either to know they are walking a far different path, or to care if they do know. God have mercy.

Labels: christian life, Culture War, Modesty, Purity