I returned home from a hiking trip on Friday to learn that earlier that day, the US Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage had been handed down. Like many, I’m saddened and concerned, though not surprised, by the decision.
I do believe this decision opens the door for religious people to be targeted and important religious freedoms (not to mention freedom of speech) to be curtailed. It truly looks like a hard road ahead.
But I don’t really want to write about politics or how our freedoms are evaporating. Because here’s the thing:
Our most important freedoms have nothing to do with laws. Laws do not actually change much on the grand scale of things. They don’t change truth. They don’t change human nature. This law doesn’t change what marriage is. And if the Son has set us free, we are free indeed.
Because all of THAT is true, I hope that we as Christians will step up and recognize the enormous responsibility — and opportunity — in front of us.
This ruling should remind us that our culture is headed into deep waters that will leave many desperately needy people grasping for a rescue, a way to avoid drowning. Again, the ruling itself doesn’t really change the direction our culture was heading, though it may accelerate it. But the sexual ethics of our day are destructive, and they will destroy human beings — precious, beautiful human souls.
More than ever, the world around us needs what we have: The truth, the gospel, and the unconditional love of God which we are commissioned to herald and to represent.
I hope that we won’t react to this decision with fear, anger, or isolationism. I hope we’ll recognize that greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. I hope we’ll remember that the kingdom seeds in us are meant to grow into a tree that shelters all around us, a bit of yeast that winds up transforming the whole loaf.
Yes, more than ever we need to hold the line on morality, because immorality is a rot in the bones that destroys real people. But we need to do more than that: while holding that line, we also need to be light, to be salt, to be a hand reaching out to a drowning culture and drowning people and saying, “Come, there’s a solid ground and a place of shelter and healing for you here.”
Our culture is not any darker or more immoral than the culture in which the church was born. The early Christians transformed their world. We can do the same.
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