For some years I have been challenged on the matter of homosexuality, gay marriage and the full range of LGBTI issues. How should I as a Christian and the Church more broadly respond to this community? From all that I have seen I would suggest we have done so rather badly. It seems that we prefer to wrap ourselves up in our own insecurity blankets rather than reach out with friendship and support.
Does that mean we should change our position on what it means to be married within a Christian context? I believe not for the reasons I give below.
Before you read this however I have one request. Please do not judge me just on what I say below. At the end of this piece I have provided links to previous essays I have written on this subject in chronological order. They continue to represent my view and I hope they can be accepted in the spirit in which they are written - as an honest seeking after a Jesus focused response. Please feel free to respond in a way that encourages greater understanding.
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| My Parents |
When asked if a man should “be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason” Jesus took His questioners back to Genesis 1 and 2. “Haven’t you read” He asked “that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.” He then said “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” (See Mat 19:3-4).
Any discussion of a Christian perspective on marriage should, I believe, start at “the beginning”, that is Genesis 1 and 2.
Genesis 1:27 records that men and women were created in the image of God. Today we accept that differences between the sexes are both physical and psychological. Neither male nor female alone were created as the reflection of the Divine.
In Genesis 2 Adam is said to have been created first. Yet, as he surveyed all that was before him, the various animal species he was given to name, he realised he was on his own. He was incomplete. All other life was capable of reproducing, of fulfilling the Divine command to multiply and fill the earth. Adam could not. So Eve was created, taken from Adam’s side to stand by him, to support him, and to be “united into one” with him.
Now the Divine command to multiply and fill could be obeyed. Now, in the union of male and female, the image of God in humanity was complete as together they ruled over the Creation as the Creator’s representatives, or co-regents.
What do we make of God’s statement in Genesis 2:18 “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him”? Should we conclude from this that the ideal is marriage for every adult?
In context, Adam is the only human of whom it can be said was truly alone. He was the only one of his kind in the Garden. With the creation of Eve together they were able to create community, to fill the earth with beings like themselves. Within this ideal no man or woman would ever be alone.
God does not mandate marriage for all. Paul, for example, recognised that there are circumstances in which it is better to remain single (1 Cor 7). Whether married or single however, the Church as God intends it to be is the community in which we all find comfort, support and companionship.
Remember the command Jesus gave His disciples after He washed their feet, thus demonstrating that true service to God is seen in the service of others John 13).
34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
Just a short time later Jesus would pray for the unity of all believers throughout the ages to come (John 17).
20 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.
22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.
This is the restoration of the image or likeness of God in humanity. This is what God intended in the beginning - that people live together in loving unity. It is this community ideal that Jesus said would show the world what it meant to be His followers (John 13:34 - see above). Sadly, when the world today looks at the Church not too many see evidence supportive of the claim of Christianity.
But what of marriage within the traditional Christian understanding of one man, one woman, as long as both shall live?
Perhaps if the Pharisees in Mat. 19:3-4 (above) had understood Malachi 2:13-16 they would not have asked Jesus about the legality of divorce. These verses, I believe, affirm the traditional one man, one woman understanding.
13 Here is another thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, weeping and groaning because he pays no attention to your offerings and doesn’t accept them with pleasure. 14 You cry out, “Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?” I’ll tell you why! Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows.
15 Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. 16 “For I hate divorce!” says the Lord, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.”
It was, and I suggest, remains, God’s will that from the union of man and wife He would see “Godly children” - and please don’t misconstrue what I am trying to say to mean all couples should produce children. Our first teachers are normally our parents and that which they model to us goes a long way in shaping our futures. And this is where two halves do not necessarily make a whole.
Throughout history children have been raised in far less than ideal circumstances. So called ‘straight’ couples can be extremely destructive parents. Children have been raised by single parents, uncles or aunts that may themselves be single or share the caring role with another sibling, or older siblings. These less than ideal circumstances can and do produce better outcomes than do some biological parental couples. But there is one thing lacking.
The ‘Godly’ couple, that is the parental union which reflects the image or likeness of God, remains the ideal. In this relationship the children can see modelled what it means to be both a father and a mother and what it means for parents to help one another, to succour, support and serve one another. If Dad lives out what it means to be a ‘Godly’ man, his sons will learn what it means to be a man and his daughters will see the qualities they should expect in a man. Likewise, if a ‘Godly’ woman lives out what it means to be a woman, her daughters will learn what it means to be a woman and how to relate to the men in their lives. For modelling is the greatest teacher.
For all their best intentions, same sex couples can essentially only model what it means to be a man or a woman, for the union of two men or two women does not present the full image or likeness of the Creator. While no two people in this fallen world can ever claim to be the perfect image, it nonetheless remains that the image or likeness of God is seen in the union of male and female as one flesh.
Quotes from the New Living Translation.
Links to Previous Essays
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