Multiply Justice

Celebrations erupted today as news broke that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act violated the constitution. Supporters of same-sex marriage proclaim “justice” has been done.

Followers of Jesus must remember that the Creator alone defines what is right and good.

Justice is restoring God’s shalom well-being to broken people, setting free children of God held captive by an evil dominion bent on destroying them. Broken people may change the rules by which their society is governed, but the Creator’s intent for human sexuality is hardwired into his creation. A man can dress as a woman, a doctor may even surgically alter his physical attributes, but gender is in his DNA, not his feelings. Justice for broken souls is helping them find healing in Jesus and moving them toward the abundant lives God has in store for them. Love is welcoming other broken souls into the fellowship of the forgiven. I do not become whole simply by declaring my brokenness is now normal. I become whole only as I accept the Creator’s design for my life and allow his power to begin re-creating me from the inside out.

In striking down DOMA, the court today merely reflects a society that has decided to redefine what is right and good — including sexuality and marriage — on its own terms. Our society has concluded that refusing to accept homosexual behavior as normal is no different than racial prejudice, and a majority of the justices agree.

Much is being said and written about the DOMA and Prop 8 decisions. I commend to you articles written by Russell Moore, Trevin Wax, Denny Burk and Albert Mohler.

I particularly like what Dr. Moore says, that this ruling “gives Christian churches the opportunity to do what Jesus called us to do with our marriages in the first place: to serve as a light in a dark place,” that “we have the opportunity, by God’s grace, to take marriage as seriously as the gospel does, in a way that prompts the culture around us to ask why,” and that “the increased attention to the question of marriage also gives us the opportunity to love our gay and lesbian neighbors as Jesus does.”

“As we stand with conviction, we don’t look at our gay and lesbian neighbors as our enemies. They are not,” Dr. Moore says. “Same-sex marriage is headed for your community. This is no time for fear or outrage or politicizing. It’s a time for forgiven sinners, like us, to do what the people of Christ have always done.”

Of two things you can be sure:

– Believers and congregations must decide whether they will pay the price of discipleship and follow Jesus, or go with the flow and accommodate a culture that refuses to walk in God’s righteous path. When biblical faith convictions are labeled “hateful,” the full force of government power will be brought to bear on the “hater.”

– In a society where feelings rule, no one has the right to reject even the most perverse feelings. The same irrational logic that normalized homosexuality will do the same for polygamy — and any other sexual proclivity society can be persuaded to accept. You cannot begin to imagine the depths to which this society can sink but, I promise you, not only are those depths being imagined, but some are working today to make their dark fantasies a reality for us all — under the banner of “justice.”

We must do justice. We must affirm love. But when we follow God’s definitions, rather than the world’s, we will find ourselves on a narrow road to a small gate.

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