Former Republican presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, has declared August 1st as National Chick-fil-A Support Day. I think I will plan to lunch at one of their restaurants on Wednesday of this week. It is something I can do to express my personal advocacy of CFA president Dan Cathy’s outspoken validation of Biblical marriage. Here is what he said, word for word, “We’re inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than You what constitutes a marriage.’ And I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude; that has the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about.”
The knee-jerk response from the liberal community has been predictable, dramatic and reactionary. Elliott Spitzer [and everyone knows what a credible source he is] was one of the first calling for a boycott of Chick-fil-A…. so much for freedom of speech and ‘tolerance’ from the left. Then the mayors of Boston and Chicago jumped in and took turns vowing to keep Chick-fil-A out of their cities. Big talk. Of course, this restriction of commerce, based on Dan Cathy’s honest expression of a personal conviction, cannot be supported legally. Even the ACLU came to the defense of Chick-fil-A on this one! It is strange indeed when the ACLU defends someone who has made a statement of Biblical conviction. I was encouraged that even after the back-lash from some Hollywood ‘celebrities,’ Cathy pled ‘guilty as charged’ and continued to be very ‘supportive of the family – the Biblical definition of the family unit.’
The core issue here is the difference between those who believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ/the authority of the Bible vs. those who do not. Jesus said in Matthew 19:4, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh?’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together [male and female], let not man separate.” There is clearly an assertion here about what constitutes marriage in God’s sight; and there is also included here a warning about changing it. Can we disregard the teaching of Jesus? Sure. Can we disobey it? Certainly. Will there be personal and societal consequence? Yes, as there always is with all sin. Am I an unloving person for saying so? No. In fact, the true-lovers are always the truth-tellers.
Same-sex marriage is a ‘hot-button’ issue only because it is the current ‘lightening rod’ for the two fundamentally different worldviews: the Biblical and the carnal, Christian and pagan. Here is the thing…. Gay activists, politicians and the media have succeeded in making the definition of marriage a political issue. It is not a political issue. It is a moral issue. It is not a question of rights. It is a question of right and wrong. But, as a nation we are quickly retiring words like sin/righteousness, moral/immoral, truth/lies, good/evil.
I am called to be a pastor, and I am also called to be a prophet…. A pastor, trusted to gently apply Word of God as a healing balm; but also a prophet, trusted to wield the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, in contemporary spiritual warfare.
Pray with me…. Our Father, it has always been the responsibility of your people to contend for the truth and walk in the truth, in a world of lies, under the control of the Father of lies. Help us to be wise about when to speak and when to be silent. We want to know how to truly love our generation into the Kingdom of God while upholding the Word of Life. In the name of the One who is the Living Word and the Life we pray. Amen.
Blessings,
Pastor Ken
No comments:
Post a Comment