By Dr. Mark Creech, executive director
Christian Action League
March 29, 2013
Wednesday, North Carolina’s US Senator Kay Hagan declared her support for gay marriage. Hagan said, “We should not tell people who they can love or who they can marry.”
Nonsense! Does Sen. Hagan actually believe such a spurious conclusion? If she does, then is she ready to also say she supports legalizing polygamy? Is she ready to commit to legalizing incestuous marriages between consenting adults? If not, why not? Is she not ready to also say that they have a right to love and marry who they want? One may argue those other relationships involve harm and should be prohibited. But so do homosexual relationships. Moreover, as Ed Vitagliano in “One Flesh” has rightly noted, marriage doesn’t exist simply for the emotional satisfaction of two individuals but for the greater good of the community and its posterity. Societies that concentrate on emotional pursuits before right actions and principles eventually slip into a multitude of addictions and deep corruptions and collapse.
In this announcement, Sen. Hagan has set herself against sixty-one percent of North Carolinians who made it clear during May of last year that they believe marriage should be between one man and one woman. In fact, sixty-one percent of North Carolinians believe traditional marriage is so fundamental to life they passed an amendment to their state’s constitution that declares they will not even suffer any counterfeits to marriage such as Civil Unions or Domestic Partnerships.
Finally, I will add that it is my understanding Sen. Hagan has been an elder and Sunday School teacher in her church. If her church would do what is biblical in this matter, they would require her to renounce and repent of her declaration in favor of gay marriage or be disciplined.
Meaning, if she is unwilling to turn from this sin, she should be stripped of any church offices she may hold and removed of church membership privileges.
If our churches were operating on principles of sound doctrine, mainline protestant churches would use disciplinary measures to reclaim wayward members. Although I am not a Catholic, I think Catholic churches might refuse politicians who support abortion from receiving Holy Communion. That would be an appropriate disciplinary action.
An important principle of being a member of a church is the accountability factor. Believers are accountable to one another to live right before God. Yet all-to-often, churches end up a reflection of the culture rather than providing a strong moral compass.
And please don’t annoy me with uninformed arguments that churches should never judge, equating it with intolerance. Roger E. Olson in a Christianity Today article got it right when he wrote:
“Many people are unaware of balancing texts about judging in the rest of the New Testament. These include Jesus’ command “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24, NRSV), and Paul’s rhetorical question “Is it not those who are inside [the church] that you are to judge?” (1 Cor. 5:12). Clearly not all judging is forbidden. If that were the case, the church could have no boundaries; the body of Christ would not be a body but a gaseous vapor! Paul urged the Corinthian church to exclude the man who was living with his father’s wife; he ordered them not to associate with people who claim to be Christians but live blatantly sinful lives without repentance (1 Cor. 5).”
Sen. Hagan is wrong – very wrong! Sen. Hagan should lose her Senate seat to voters in the Tar Heel state in 2014. What is more, unless she is willing to repent, she ought to be disciplined by her church.
I am genuinely saddened in making these arguments. And I am not motivated by anger or hate. But I declare to you that marriage belongs to God, it is his first institution, and to suggest a redefinition of it on such ridiculous grounds as “We should not tell people who they can love or who they can marry” is grossly sinful and irresponsible.