Come Out of Her, My People

Revelation 18:4

Recently, e-Harmony was involved in a lawsuit where homosexuals demanded that they be served on the popular "match-making" website.

e-Harmony Lawsuit

This reinforces a distinct trend I am seeing in the political realm. Social liberals never seem satisfied with the rights they've been given. And it will be only a matter of time before Armando and Lucius drive by a quaint little country Baptist church and think, "Awwww. Wouldn't that be a nice place to be married?"

But when the pastor refuses, based on the moral imperatives taught by his respective religion, suddenly his right to adhere to a religious doctrine will not be shown the same tolerance the legal system will have given to homosexuals. He will be accused of discrimination and be forced to acquiesce to the couple's request to use his church, and perhaps even be forced to conduct the ceremony himself.

Yes, I know this may sound far fetched, but so did the whole idea of "gay marriage" a mere twenty years ago. Consider the recent lawsuit against e-Harmony. This lawsuit will certainly be cited in such a lawsuit against a Church and its pastor.

Why should e-Harmony be forced to match up homosexuals? Indeed, why can't some enterprising and creative homosexual create an online dating website explicitly for homosexuals? Because that isn't enough. They want to impose upon our lifestyles with their alternative. They think that by imposing equality through the avenue of the legal system, they will gain the social acceptance of their fellow citizens, in spite of the fact that legislation ( like Prop 8 ) shows that popular opinion still isn't ready for this level of "tolerance". So, they insist on imposing their lifestyle on the community via the legal system.

But it doesn't work that way.

This lesson should have been learned in the 1800's during the emancipation of the slaves. If slavery had been allowed to die out of natural causes, then all the bad juju between the races would have died along with it. Popular opinion, even in parts of the north, was opposed to total emancipation at the time. Even "honest Abe", the great emancipator himself, said, "I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

But they insisted on driving it home, in spite of popular opinion. The byproduct? Racism is prevalent even now, 160 years later.

So, the homosexual agenda, by forcing this stuff into the political limelight, may eventually get gay-marriage passed on a large scale, but as a byproduct, they are sowing the seeds of hatred and intolerance of their lifestyle that will propagate from generation to generation, very much the same way racism has propagated. And pretty soon, companies will be forced to hire a certain amount of homosexuals, and there will be government, taxpayer subsidized, programs catered to homosexuals, which will only compound the problem. The moral and ethical fabric of such legislation is nigh irrelevant. Simply put, pushing through legislation that politicians feel to be right and moral, but the populace hasn't embraced en masse as such, will create an enduring angst, and will actually slow the social acceptance of the behavior or attribute in question. This angst will exist in spite of the moral and ethical grounds for the legislated legality of the behavior or attribute.

The signal this sends is clear. Now is the time for the Church to seek "separation" from secular society! We need to "come out of her". As a church, we need to identify every area where we have ties in the secular world. We don't need to preserve the sanctity of marriage, we need to restore it. We should adopt de facto marriages, to ensure our definition of marriage stands in sharp relief to the world's. We need to sever all ties to the world's ideology, and return to the Scriptures and trusted writings. It may sound like I am condoning a rigid ascetic Christianity, similar to the monks of the middle-ages, or a communal Christianity like the Amish of the Eastern United States. Perhaps I am. Modern Christianity, especially in the west, disproportionately equates the "joy of the Lord" with the pleasures of the world, and uses such things as spiritual barometers. This ideology is one rooted in secularism, and has been a unseen malignancy in the Church ever since its inception.

I will admit I am very concerned. We don't want to find ourselves so entangled in the secular world that we are unable to extricate ourselves when the time comes that it does indeed become imperative to do so in order to retain even the faintest resemblance of one who is following Christ. Indeed, when the Anti-Christ comes, we've always assumed it would be in such a way that all the world gravitates toward him. But I am beginning to think that his appearance will be to a world already primed for him, so all he has to do is move chess pieces already positioned for a mate. Personally, I believe that the day of a profound separation is already here, but it is obvious that the remainder of the Church does not, or they'd already be taking steps in that direction.

For Christianity to remain in its current state is to conform to a profound description of modern Christianity observed, and penned, by none other than a atheist acquaintance of mine, who called it "A superstitious meme that is spread generation to generation, validated by placebo and confirmation bias, that builds an emotional stake in its hosts by encouraging evangelization and discourages doubt using guilt and social pressure." This atheist was attempting to describe how he felt about Christianity in general, but in so doing, profoundly described modern, pretentious, western Christianity to a tee. We attend church as a cultural nuance. And we go expecting to feel something, instead of eating the flesh and drinking the blood as we're supposed to. We go home and lay our Bibles down until the next service. We pray 5 minute "nighty-night" prayers, that scarcely have any substance, much less prayers that qualify as the "effectual and fervent" prayers urged in the Scriptures. We are Christians who are trained to feel a certain way, and as long as that criteria is met, grace is supposedly established and assumed to exist in the adherent's life. No change required. The stringent requirements of discipleship have suddenly become the foundation of legalism.

But grace and obedience runs together. As James put it, Faith without works is dead.

I recommend reading Part One: Grace and Discipleship of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship, to see how you, and your respective church's doctrine, measures up to what is now widely considered an "archaic", "obsolete", "idealist", and "out of touch" Christianity. One that renounces all forms of secularism and is a stinging and fundamental reminder that secularism and the lack of obedience is incompatible with a real, biblical, Christian disciple.

To whet your appetite, allow me this quote from the book...

"If grace is God's answer, the gift of Christian life, then we cannot for a moment dispense with following Christ. But if grace is the data for my Christian life, it means that I set out to live the Christian life in the world with all my sins justified beforehand. I can go and sin as much as I like, and rely on this grace to forgive me, for after all the world is justified in principle by grace. I can therefore cling to my bourgeois secular existence, and remain as I was before, but with the added assurance that the grace of God will cover me. It is under the influence of this kind of 'grace' that the world has been made 'Christian,' but at the cost of secularizing the Christian religion as never before. The antithesis between the Christian life and the life of bourgeois respectability is at an end. The Christian life comes to mean nothing more than living in the world and as the world, in being no different from the world, in fact, in being prohibited from being different from the world for the sake of grace."