Do Ideas Have Consequences? Indeed They Do!
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In 1948 an English professor at the University of Chicago penned a book whose main idea resonates well into the modern world and into today’s news headlines. The professor was Richard Weaver and his book was Ideas Have Consequences.

The main thesis of Weaver’s book is that philosophy undergirds all of society. What we believe about reality matters. What we say or think is real matters. Language, and how we use it is important.

In 1948 many intellectuals in Europe and America were left dumbfounded as to how such atrocities could have been committed by Germany in WWII. In the 1930’s, Germany was one of THE most literate nations in the world, so it wasn’t that Germans were ill-informed or unintelligent. After all, Germany had produced such brilliant musical luminaries as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and hugely influential philosophers like Hegel, Kant, etc…

The problem, as Weaver saw it, wasn’t literacy or education per se, it was the KIND of philosophy that was informing the German view of reality.

Weaver believed that the root problem was the philosophy of nominalism. What is nominalism?

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A Titanic Failure: Never Learning from Our Past

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Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this, – that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

~ Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel, from his lectures, On the Philosophy of History (1837)

Just recently my son has become keenly interested in the story of the Titanic, the steam ship which hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic on April 14, 1912. These past few days we have watched a number of very interesting documentaries, some of which recount eyewitnesses to the disaster who were passengers on board the night it sank. On board the ship that fateful night were some of the world’s most famous and prominent people – among them were the American millionaire John Jacob Astor IV and his wife Madeleine Force Astor, industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, Macy’s department store owner Isidor Strauss and his wife Ida among many others. Throughout the documentaries there were historians and letters cited from people who lived at the opening decades of the 20th century. Historian Carroll Quigley in his book Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time writes that, “The 19th century was characterized by (1) belief in the innate goodness of man, (2) secularism, (3) belief in progress, (4) liberalism, (5) capitalism, (6) faith in science, (7) democracy, (8) nationalism.”[1]

Although most people today think of the Titanic as the award-winning movie of 1997, in 1912 it was the symbol of the hopes and dreams of thousands of people around the world. For the wealthy it represented the pinnacle of technology and the triumph of science, to the poor, it represented a chance for a new life in America – itself a symbol of hope for millions of immigrants. On the evening of April 15, 1912 the huge ship struck an iceberg ripping open a huge section of the hull. In 2 hours, 40 minutes it was on the bottom of the Atlantic. 1,514 lives were lost. The world was in shock.

Sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic, April 15, 1912

The sinking of the Titanic was the first of several shocks the world of the early 20th Century would receive. Just two short years later, (July, 1914) for the first time in history, the entire world would be engulfed in the First World War. In 1918 when the war ended, over 10 million Allied & Central command soldiers were dead, not including civilians. The results of WWI set in motion the gears which led to the Second World War when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.[2]

WW I also had a profound effect on some of the greatest artists (Picasso, M. Duchamp, etc…) and literary minds of the 20th century. Among them was J.R.R. Tolkein whose Lord of the Rings series came right out of his gruesome experiences of fighting in the trenches on the Western Front. One of his biographers makes a telling comment. He writes:

This biographical study arose from a single observation: how strange it is that J.R.R. Tolkein should have embarked upon his monumental mythology in the midst of the First World War, the crisis that disenchanted and shaped the modern era.[3]

“The crisis that disenchanted and shaped the modern era…”

What can we learn from this and the other tragedies of the last century?

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

In conclusion, I would like to ask if there are any lessons we can learn from these opening decades of the 20th Century? Are we, in the 21st Century, still clinging to 19th century ideals which lead to the disillusionment of so many? I assert that we certainly are. We are holding on to at least three of them and we are once again setting ourselves up for even greater disillusionment or even worse:

(1). Belief in the innate goodness of man. (Is human nature basically good?)

“The belief in the innate goodness of man had its roots in the eighteenth century when it appeared to many that man was born good and free but was everywhere distorted, corrupted, and enslaved by bad institutions and conventions. As Rousseau said, Man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains.

Obviously, if man is innately good and needs but to be freed from social restrictions, he is capable of tremendous achievements in this world of time, and does not need to postpone his hopes of personal salvation into eternity.”[4]

If the Twentieth-Century and our own experience has taught us anything, it is that man is not innately good – but has a fallen nature. People automatically don’t do the right thing and despite all of their valiant efforts[5], atheists & materialists fail to ground absolute goodness in reality. Similarly, if there is no God – no absolute standard, then there is no ultimate grounding for right and wrong (morality). If there is no God (in reality) then (in reality), there is no difference between Mother Theresa and Hitler.

(2). Secularism (Is ‘religion’ just a hangover from our past?)

Secularists have a strictly materialistic & mechanistic view of human nature and because of this they utterly fail to account for man’s religious nature which they will never eradicate nor will they understand with the methods of the sciences. For most of human history people have had the desire to worship. This is certainly not to say that all religions are the same or that they are all equally true, but merely to point out that the desire to worship and the desire for transcendence is part of what it means to be truly human.[6] Secularism just doesn’t get it! The ultimate question is which religion is true? Which religion corresponds to reality? If the laws of logic apply to all of reality then they apply to religious claims as well. Only one can be true.

(3). Faith in science (Will “science” solve our problems?)

“Science” is touted by many today as the only true view of reality and an inoculation against the claims of religious masses who still live in ignorance & stupidity. These are the ones who still believe that “science” will answer all of our burning questions and solve all of humanity’s problems. But lest we forget, we have the 20th Century as a guide. It is intimately familiar to us. We have lived through much of it. It is analogous to all of human history because of the simple fact that human nature remains the same and many are still trusting that “science” and the scientific worldview is the way forward.

Why are things not improving now in the first decade of the 21st Century – the most well-informed, well-educated and scientifically minded centuries to date?

Surely the sciences and technology have brought us much good (curing diseases, saving lives, etc…), but they are ill-equipped to solve our greatest problems which are spiritual & moral in nature.

Many critics will surely point to religious extremism and the turmoil happening in the Middle East as the prime example that “religion” is at the core of the world’s problems. They fail, however, to make vital distinctions between contradictory religious truth claims (especially in the Theistic religions of Judaism, Islam & Christianity). Yet it is only in the religion of Christianity – whose message is the reconciliation of fallen humanity (made in God’s image) to the Creator by the God-Man, Jesus Christ who died on a cross for the sins of the world – that there is hope for the future.

There simply is no unity, order or peace apart from Him.

[1] Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1966), pp. 24-5.

[2] And of course, WW2 ended with the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

[3] John Garth, Tolkein and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003), xiii.

[4] Summary of Quigley, p. 24.

[5] One of the latest is Sam Harris’s, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (New York: The Free Press, 2010).

[6] For an excellent study on the relationship between science and human nature I strongly recommend Brendan Purcell’s excellent work, From Big Bang to Big Mystery: Human Origins in the Light of Creation and Evolution (Hyde Park, New York: New York City Press, 2012).

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A Not So Bright Future: Technology, Atheism & the Death of Man

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Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900

Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900

It is widely believed that the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche ushered in the twentieth century with his famous phrase, “God is dead…”[1] Nietzsche himself died in 1900. Obviously, atheism didn’t start in the twentieth century with Nietzsche. In fact, he was the culmination (the pinnacle) of a long line of thinkers which reached back into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[2] The European Enlightenment promised grand and wonderful things when human reason finally divorced itself from the shackles of faith.[3] Using the newly found tools of the “scientific method,” (via Bacon & Spinoza); a humanistic morality which was becoming increasingly devoid of God (via Nietzsche); and the burgeoning industrial revolution with its new technologies, the twentieth century was set to take mankind to new heights never before dreamt of – a utopia of sorts. Some who were wise, however, could see that “wicked things were written in the sky.”[4] The next century (the 20th) would either be wonderful or it would be a nightmare. Enter H.G. Wells novel, A Modern Utopia (1905), the book which inspired Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future in Brave New World (1932), and later, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

Both of these novels predicted a future in which mankind would be destroyed either by external oppression by a despot using technology (the big-brother of Orwell) or through technologies which would make us lazy and undo our capacity to think (Huxley).[5] In both instances, technology would somehow be used to lead to our undoing.

If there is no God (or at least since He died in the 19th century) then humans must put their hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future in something. Enter the Enlightenment 2.0 – 21st-century edition – human reason, science, and technology will surely help us solve all of the world’s problems. How are we doing 13 years into this century? Not very well. Do we ever learn? Usually not.

Neil Postman makes a brilliant observation in, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992). An observation that we should etch into our heads.

Our most serious problems are not technical, nor do they arise from inadequate information. If a nuclear catastrophe occurs, it shall not be because of inadequate information. Where people are dying of starvation, it does not occur because of inadequate information. If families break up, children are mistreated, crime terrorizes a city, education is impotent, it does not happen because of inadequate information. Mathematical equations, instantaneous communication, and vast quantities of information have nothing to do with any of these problems. And the computer is useless in addressing them.[6]

The scientific, atheistic and materialistic worldview is utterly incapable of ensuring civilization. It can’t be trusted. Why? Because the last century has been one gigantic experiment in what it is capable of and also of what it is incapable of.

In my next post A Titanic Failure: Never Learning from Our Past, we will take a look at some epic examples of the complete failure of the European Enlightenment and materialistic atheism and what it could teach us about our future – if anything at all.

[1] See, “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” in Walter Kaufmann, Editor & Translator, The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Penguin Books, 1982).

[2] For an excellent book on the philosophical battles which ensued between various German thinkers on the role of reason during the era of the Enlightenment see, Fredrick C. Beiser’s, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987); for a Christian analysis of the Enlightenment see, James Collins, A History of Modern European Philosophy (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1954).

[3] Interestingly, the modern Internet & Wikipedia had its birth in the Enlightenment with the idea of the Encyclopédie which was published in France 1751-1772.

[4] To borrow the line from Chesterton’s poem “The Ballad of the White Horse” – a poem about England’s Saxon king, Alfred the Great.

[5] I am indebted to Neil Postman for this observation in his excellent book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985). Postman’s thesis is that Huxley was right. History has proven that he was correct.

[6] Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), p.119.

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How Will Same Sex Marriage Hurt You?

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If you think that push for same sex marriage and so-called “non-discrimination” laws are all about love and tolerance, you couldn’t be more wrong.  A decision out of the New Mexico Supreme Court this week couldn’t be more intolerant and un-American.  According to the court, a Christian photographer violated a New Mexico non-discrimination law by politely declining to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony.  She now must pay nearly $7,000 in court costs to the Lesbian couple who brought the complaint.

Attorney Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case for Elane Photography, will be on our radio program next week to explain why this decision violates First Amendment rights, and what it means for the future of religious freedom in the United States.  In the meantime, you can see his interview with Shannon Breem here:

 

Let me make four quick points here before I discuss it on radio today and next week with Jordan:

1) Refusing to photograph a same sex wedding is not the same as refusing to service on account of race.  Race has no bearing on one’s behavior, but homosexuality does have implications on behavior.  Race can’t hurt anyone– it has no moral dimension.  But sexual behaviors can and do hurt people, and that’s why morality is intrinsic to them.

2) Elane Photography was not refusing service because the clients identified as lesbians.  She was not refusing service on account of attractions (sexual orientation).  She declined service because she did not want to use her artistic talents to advocate homosexual actions that went against her moral and religious beliefs.  Elane Photography was happy to work with lesbian clients on other projects that did not involve advocating homosexual behavior.

3) The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was put in place to prevent exactly what the New Mexico Supreme Court has done:  forcing citizens to advocate (not just tolerate) ideas and behaviors that contradict their deepest religious beliefs.  If you don’t like Elane Photography’s religious or moral position, be careful:  imagine a homosexual photographer being forced to video a speech that a conservative makes against homosexual behavior and same sex marriage.  Should that homosexual photographer be forced to do so?  Of course not!  Then why Elane Photography?

4) This is just another in a long line of examples where people of faith and conscience are being discriminated against in the name of “tolerance” and “non-discrimination.”  This is not tolerance or non-discrimination.  It is exactly the opposite.  It is totalitarianism– see it our way, or else!  And unless the church and other people who love freedom begin to speak up and get involved in politics, education, the media, and the law, we will lose the very freedoms that allow us to live our lives as Christians.  Soon you will not be able to even preach the Gospel without paying a very heavy price.

 

 

 

 

 

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An Atheist Asks About Morality, Cosmology and Hell

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At the University of Dallas last month, a polite atheist (Carter) had four major questions/objections to my “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” presentation.  Our nine minute exchange covered the following questions/objections:

    1. Your moral law argument is offensive because by it you are asserting that atheists can’t be moral.
    2. Why are you assuming that God is the cause of the universe?  Couldn’t something in another dimension cause the universe?
    3. Why do we have to worship the cause of the universe?
    4. If we don’t worship the cause of the universe, God will send us to Hell.  So we really don’t have a choice.

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You Can't Preach the Gospel without Freedom

You Can’t Preach the Gospel without Freedom

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When I hear Christians saying we ought not get involved in politics but just “preach the Gospel,” I show them this satellite picture of the Korean peninsula.  Here we see a homogenous population of mostly Koreans separated by a well-fortified border.  South Korea is full of freedom, food and productivity—it’s one of the most Christianized countries in the world.  North Korea is a concentration camp.   They have no freedom, no food, and very little Christianity.

What’s the primary reason for the stark difference between these two countries? Politics. The South politically allows freedom, while the North does not.

Ironically, Christians who shun politics to supposedly advance the Gospel are actually allowing others to stop the Gospel.  How so?  Because politics and law affects one’s ability to preach the Gospel!  If you think otherwise, visit some of the countries I have visited—Iran, Saudi Arabia and China.  You cannot legally “preach the Gospel” in those countries—or practice other aspects of your religion freely—because politically they’ve ruled it out as they have in North Korea.

In fact, politics affects virtually every area of your life through the laws made by government.  So if you care about your family, business, church, school, children, money, property, home, security, healthcare, safety, freedom, and your ability to “preach the Gospel,” then you should care about politics.

Politics affects everything, which is why leaders throughout the Bible—including Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Nehemiah, Mordecai, Esther, John the Baptist, and Paul— “went political” to influence civil governments to govern morally.  Even Jesus himself got involved in politics when he publically chastised the Pharisees—the religious and political leaders of Israel—for neglecting “the more important matters of the law.”

Unfortunately, our lawmakers today are doing the same thing.   They use the force of law tell us what light bulbs to use and what the school lunch menu should be, but neglect to put any restrictions on the taking of human life by abortion!  What could be more important than life? The right to life is the right to all other rights.  If you don’t have life, you don’t have anything.

But what can Christians do?  After all, we can’t legislate morality, can we?  News flash: All laws legislate morality!  Morality is about right and wrong and all laws declare one behavior right and the opposite behavior wrong. So the question is not whether we can legislate morality, but “Whose morality will we legislate?”

The answer our Founding Fathers gave was the “self-evident” morality given to us by our Creator—the same Moral Law that the apostle Paul said that all people have “written on their hearts.” In other words, not my morality or your morality, but the morality—the one we inherited not the one we invented.  (This doesn’t mean that every moral or political issue has clear right and wrong answers.  It only means that “the more important matters of the law” – life, marriage and religious freedom for example—do have clear answers that we should heed.)

Notice our Founders did not have to establish a particular denomination or force religious practice in order to legislate a moral code.  Our country justifies moral rights with theism, but does not require its citizens to acknowledge or practice theism. That’s why Chris Matthews and other liberals are wrong when they charge that Christians are trying to impose a “theocracy” or violate the “separation of Church and State.”  They fail to distinguish between religion and morality.

Broadly defined, religion involves our duty to God while morality involves our duty to one another. Our lawmakers are not telling people how, when, or if to go to church—that would be legislating religion. But lawmakers cannot avoid telling people how they should treat one another— that is legislating morality, and that is what all laws do.

Opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage, for example, does not entail the establishment of a “theocracy.” Churches and the Bible also teach that murder, theft, and child abuse are wrong, but no one says laws prohibiting such acts establish a theocracy or are a violation of the “separation of church and state.” In fact, if the government could not pass laws consistent with church or biblical teachings, then all criminal laws would have to be overturned because they are all in some way consistent with at least one of the Ten Commandments.

Second, there are churches on both sides of these issues. In other words, some liberal churches, contrary to scripture, actually support abortion and same-sex marriage. So if church-supported positions could not be put into law, then we could not have laws either way on abortion or same-sex marriage.  Absurd.

Finally, most proponents of same-sex marriage argue as if they have some kind of moral right to having their relationships endorsed by the state. They claim that they don’t have “equal rights” or that they are being “discriminated” against.  Likewise, abortion advocates claim they have a moral “right” to choose an abortion.  None of these claims are true, as I have explained elsewhere.  Nevertheless, their arguments, while flawed, expose the fact that independent of religion they seek to legislate their morality rather than the morality.

If you have a problem with the morality, don’t blame me. I didn’t make it up. I didn’t make up the fact that abortion is wrong, that men are not designed for other men, or that natural marriage is the foundation of a civilized society. Those unchangeable objective truths about reality are examples of the “Laws of Nature” from “Nature’s God,” as the Declaration of Independence puts it, and we only hurt others and ourselves by suppressing those truths and legislating immoral laws.

When we fail to legislate morally, others impose immorality.  For example, totalitarian political correctness is already imposed in states such as Massachusetts where the implications of same-sex marriage override the religious liberties of businesses, charities and even parents.  As documented here and illustrated here, same sex marriage prevents you from running your business, educating your children, or practicing your religion in accord with your Conscience.  And soon, as is the case in Canada, you may not be able to merely speak Biblically about homosexual behavior. That is because those who say they are fighting for “tolerance” are often the most intolerant.

Unless Christians begin to influence politics and the culture more significantly, we will continue to lose the very freedoms that enable us to live according to our beliefs and spread the Gospel all over the world.  That’s why you should not vote for candidates because of their race or religion, but because they will govern morally on the more important matters of the law—life, marriage and religious freedom. (To see where all the major candidates stand visit the non-partisan website http://www.ontheissues.org.)

If you are a pastor who is worried about your tax-exempt status: 1) you have more freedom than you think to speak on political and moral issues from the pulpit; 2) if you do not speak up for truth now, you will soon lose your freedom to speak for anything, including the Gospel; and 3) you are called to be salt and light, not tax-exempt.

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The Moral Argument for the Existence of God

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The moral argument for the existence of God refers to the claim that God is needed to provide a coherent ontological foundation for the existence of objective moral values and duties. The argument can be summarised in the following syllogism:

Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

Since this is a logically valid syllogism, the atheist, in order to maintain his non-belief in God, must reject at least one of the two Premises. By “objective” morality we mean a system of ethics which universally pertains irrespective of the opinions or tastes of human persons: for example, the Holocaust was morally wrong irrespective of what Hitler and the Nazis believed about it, and it would have remained morally wrong even if the Nazis had won World War II and compelled everyone into compliance with their values. This view, known in philosophy as “moral realism,” contrasts with “moral relativism” which maintains that no-one is objectively correct or incorrect with respect to their moral values and judgments.

Most people want to uphold premise 2 of the moral argument. After all, if there are no objective ethics, then who is to say that Hitler was objectively morally wrong? Humans have an intuitive sense of right and wrong. The moral argument requires only that at least some actions are objectively right or wrong (e.g. torturing children for pleasure is objectively morally wrong). Premise 1 relates to the perfect standard against which everything else is measured. God, being the only morally perfect being, is the standard against which all other things are judged. Moreover, in the absence of theism, nobody has been able to conceive of a defensible grounding for moral values.

Moral Argument – An Important Distinction

It is important to bear in mind that the moral argument pertains to the ultimate source of objective moral values and duties (moral ontology) and not how we know what is moral or immoral (moral epistemology) and not ‘what we mean’ by good/bad or right/wrong (moral semantics). The theistic ethicist maintains that moral values are grounded in the character and nature of God.

Those who are divine command theorists maintain that moral duties are based on what God commands. Philosopher William Lane Craig puts it this way:

    “Duty arises in response to an imperative from a competent authority. For example, if some random person were to tell me to pull my car over, I would have absolutely no legal obligation to do so. But if a policeman were to issue such a command, I’d have a legal obligation to obey. The difference in the two cases lies in the persons who issued the commands: one is qualified to do so, while the other is not.”

Moral Argument – Euthyphro’s Dilemma

Plato, in his dialogue Euthyphro, presents a fictional dialogue between his philosophical mentor, Socrates, and a character by the name of Euthyphro. Euthyphro explains to Socrates that he has come to lay manslaughter charges against his father, because of his involvement in the death of a worker. This worker himself had killed a slave who had belonged to the family estate. This worker was found dead, gagged, and bound in a ditch. This gives rise to a lengthy dialogue between Euthyphro and Socrates, which eventually leads to the famous “Euthyphro’s Dilemma.” Socrates says, “But I will amend the definition so far as to say that what all the gods hate is impious, and what they love pious or holy, and what some of them love and others hate is both or neither. Shall this be our definition of piety and impiety?” Euthyphro goes on to say “Yes, I should say that what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious.” Socrates subsequently inquires of him, “The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.”

The question is posed this way: Is x the right thing to do because God commands it, or does God command it because it is already the right thing to do? I take the former option. Normally, the problem with accepting the horn is that there is a presumption that the commands in question from God are arbitrary (i.e. God could have commanded that we ought to lie). But that’s just false. The theist wants to say that God is essentially loving, honest etc., and therefore, in all worlds at which God exists, his commands are going to be consistent with his nature. And therefore, in all worlds, he will disapprove of lying.

Moral Argument – The Shortcomings of Utilitarianism

There are various nontheistic systems of ethics, none of which succeed in providing a robust ontological foundation or objective moral values and duties. One of these systems, popularised recently by Sam Harris in his book The Moral Landscape, is called utilitarianism, and (in its most common formulation) refers to the view that ethics are determined by what constitutes the greatest happiness for the greatest number. One difficulty lies in the fact that it attempts to balance two different scales employed to assess the moral virtue of an action (i.e. the amount of utility produced and the number of people affected). This can often lead to conflicting answers—in some cases an activity might be considered better for a greater number of individuals whereas a different activity might create a greater overall utility. Utilitarians try to maximize with their actions the utility of the long-term consequences of those actions. However, short of possession of omniscience, it is impossible to evaluate the respective long-term results of different activities. Utilitarianism also does not take into account the individual’s intent—Activity X could be done sincerely by an individual who believes that what he is doing will create the maximum utility. But if activity X turns out in the long-term not to produce the desired utility, then his action, under the philosophy of utilitarianism, would be considered less moral than an activity that created more utility.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the moral argument is a robust argument for the existence of God. It is important to distinguish between moral ontology and epistemology when engaging in this debate since these categories are frequently conflated by atheist critics. Humans, being shaped in the image of God, have an intuitive sense of right and wrong. It is not at all clear how the atheist, except at the expense of moral realism, can maintain an objective standard of ethics without such a being as God as his ontological foundation.

This article was originally published on AllAboutPhilosophy.org.

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Why I Will Not Support Same Sex Marriage

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Same sex marriage has been a very topical subject in Scotland over recent weeks, with the launch of a consultation by the Scottish National Party (SNP) — which closes this Friday — on whether marriage in Scotland should be redefined to effectively legalise gay marriage and religious ceremonies for civil partnerships.

The Scottish government has stated that it was its original position that marriage should be redefined, though Nicola Sturgeon — the Health Secretary — has said that religious organisations should not be forced to perform same-sex weddings should they not want to. We’ll see how long that lasts. After all, SNP MSP John Mason — a Christian — sparked a row earlier this year following his support for a parliamentary motion that no religious group should be compelled to approve of or facilitate same-sex unions. According to Nicola Sturgeon, a survey of Scottish Social Attitudes has revealed that over 60% of Scots endorse the proposed change, with 19% dissenting.

The curious thing about this whole controversy is that same sex couples can already enter into a ‘civil partnership’ which effectively offers them all the same legal recognition and rights that marriage does. The only real difference is that the ceremonies are not able to be performed in religious premises. It is also curious that most homosexuals with whom I have spoken concerning this issue have no desire for a religious marriage ceremony. For those reasons, I am inclined to be skeptical that this controversy was ever really about marriage — it’s about legitimisation. It’s about making a declaration — a statement — that homosexual and heterosexual relationships are equally valid.

For the record, it is my position that there is no Biblical warrant or support for homosexual relationships. And while I think that generally Scripture ought not be the dictator of public policy, this case strikes me as different because they are seeking to involve Christian — or otherwise religious — institutions. Christian organisations ought to base their activity on Christian principles. It is thus very relevant what the Christian worldview entails on the matter.

Now, there are various  reasons why a revision of the current (traditional) view of marriage, in my opinion, would be overall non-conducive to society’s best interests. For one thing, if the definition of marriage is fundamentally malleable, then are we to expect to hear next from those seeking “equal rights” for polygamous marriage (as is already seen in Canada)? How can you grant legitimacy to one and not the other? After all, they use essentially the same arguments. Indeed, The Guardian recently published an interesting article entitled “Polygamy in Canada: A Case of Double Standards”, observing,

“What the polygamists argued is that this new definition discriminates against them because it continues to insist on monogamy in the same way that the previous definition insisted on both monogamy and heterosexuality. It was a logical argument that was rejected by Bauman who in his judgment gave a spirited defence of the virtues of monogamy as being a fundamental principle of western civilisation.

Bauman said that the preservation of monogamous marriage “represents a pressing and substantial objective for all of the reasons that have seen the ascendance of monogamous marriage as a norm in the west,” and that “the law seeks to advance the institution of monogamous marriage, a fundamental value in western society from the earliest of times.” He also launched an all-out attack on the concept of polygamy, which he said “has been condemned throughout history because of the harms consistently associated with its practice”. “There is no such thing as so-called ‘good polygamy’,” he added.

Now, I agree with Bauman in his defence of the importance of monogamous marriage to society. But I find it difficult to see the logic of defending monogamous marriage as the historic norm in the west when the laws of Canada have already departed from the principle that it is heterosexual, monogamous marriage that is essential to social stability. Put bluntly, if heterosexuality is no longer legally, morally or socially relevant to marriage, why should monogamy continue to be so important?” [emphasis mine]

Furthermore, schools will be expected to promote and endorse same sex marriage as just as legitimate as heterosexual marriage. As Frank Turek has pointed out, in his book Correct, not Politically Correct: How Same Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone, “The law is a great teacher — many people think that whatever is legal is moral and, therefore, should be accepted. We only need to look at two of the most divisive issues in the history of our country — slavery and abortion — to see the power of the law to influence attitudes and behavior.” As Frank Turek discusses here, there is a correlation between legalisation of same-sex-marriage and the number of children born outside of wedlock. He writes,

“We can see the connection between same-sex marriage and illegitimacy in Scandinavian countries. Norway, for example, has had de-facto same-sex marriage since the early nineties. In Nordland, the most liberal county of Norway, where they fly “gay” rainbow flags over their churches, out-of-wedlock births have soared—more than 80 percent of women giving birth for the first time, and nearly 70 percent of all children, are born out of wedlock! Across all of Norway, illegitimacy rose from 39 percent to 50 percent in the first decade of same-sex marriage.

Anthropologist Stanley Kurtz writes, “When we look at Nordland and Nord-Troendelag — the Vermont and Massachusetts of Norway — we are peering as far as we can into the future of marriage in a world where gay marriage is almost totally accepted. What we see is a place where marriage itself has almost totally disappeared.” He asserts that “Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.””

Already, Stonewall’s “Education for All” education pack for teachers promotes the reading of pro-homosexual story books in class and acting out as plays, and even contains explicit recommendations that students should be taught to be resilient to the views and values of their parents.

Men and women are not interchangeable. I believe that each plays an important role in the upbringing and raising of a child. In his book, Frank Turek quotes David Blankenhorn’s The Future of Marriage, in which he writes, “Across history and cultures . . . marriage’s single most fundamental idea is that every child needs a mother and a father. Changing marriage to accommodate same-sex couples would nullify this principle in culture and in law.” Another important point is that same-sex parents are liable to confuse their child’s sexual/gender identity. As Dr. Michael Brown notes here, it is already official school policy in San Francisco that a boy who identifies as transgender can turn up to school wearing a girl’s dress and utilise the girls’ bathroom and locker room.

Religious liberty is also, it would seem, a target. Take, for example, the relatively recent case of Mr & Mrs Bull. They were fined £3,600 for declining to rent a double room to a gay couple, despite the fact that it had been against their long-term policy statement to allow unmarried couples to share a room.

An organisation called “Scotland for Marriage” recently emerged in an effort to combat the proposed redefinition of marriage in Scotland. You can visit their website to sign the petition or participate in the Scottish consultation (Scots only in both cases). There is also a petition that has been set up on ipetitions, which you can access here (again, Scots only).

Recommended further reading

Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples (Dr. Timothy J. Dailey) – Looks at various relevant studies and concludes that (a) heterosexual marriages last longer as compared to homosexual ones; (b) partners involved in heterosexual relationships are more likely to remain faithful than partners involved in homosexual ones; (c) where gay marriage or civil partnership is legal, the overwhelming majority of homosexuals do not register their union; (d) individuals involved homosexual relationships are at a much higher risk of contracting disease or other health problems than are heterosexual relationships; (e) Intimate partner violence is more frequent in homosexual relationships than in heterosexual ones.

Correct Not Politically Correct: How Same Sex Hurts Everyone (Dr. Frank Turek) — Persuasively argues that same-sex-marriage is not conducive to the best interests of society. This is also the book which recently cost Dr. Frank Turek his employment with Cisco and Bank of America!

Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting (Glenn T. Stanton and Dr. Bill Maier) — Convincingly defends the traditional view of marriage and parenting.

What is Marriage? (Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George & Ryan T. Anderson) — A paper in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (43 pages in length) which builds a powerful secular case against same-sex-marriage based not on religious tradition or ‘holy writ’, but on publically accessible argumentation.

Christianity Today: Same Sex Marriage: A compilation of lots of interesting articles on this subject.

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Kortney Blythe Gordon: Short Life, Timeless Impact

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The measure of a life is not its length but its impact.  Kortney Blythe Gordon made a timeless impact in her 28 years here on earth.  In fact, she did more in 28 years than most people even think about in 80.  Kortney was a fearless Christian and abortion abolitionist who saved souls and thousands of babies from abortion and their mothers from regret.  She and her unborn child, Sophy, died when their car was struck by another car on October 8.

The outpouring of support from the Christian and pro-life communities has been overwhelming.  God’s grace is evident in the lives of those who loved her.  That’s why, despite their grief, her father Larry (a close friend and member of the CrossExamined team), husband Ben, and Uncle Don sat down with me only four days after the tragedy to tell story after story of how Kortney impacted everyone with her unique ability to blend uncompromising truth with inviting grace.  (She was so good at what she did that she even became a mentor to her Uncle who originally got her into pro-life ministry!)  You can listen to their inspiring reflections about Kortney, and what she would want us to do now, on the October 15 CrossExamined radio program podcasted here.

Here is Kortney in 2009 speaking truth to power (Michelle Obama attended this event).

One question that we are all thinking: Why would God allow something like this to happen to someone sold out for Him?

Here are few thoughts.

1.  We know that we live in a fallen world where evil exists and no one is guaranteed 80 healthy years (in fact, contrary to what you hear on most “Christian” TV, Christians are called to suffer like our Savior).

2.  We know that God rights all things in the end, and that this is made possible by His own perfect sacrifice on the cross.

3.  While we don’t know the specific reason why this event occurred, we know why we don’t know– we are are finite and God is infinite. We see a small part of the picture from our limited time-bound perspective, but God sees it all. God knows how this tragedy will be used to bring about good at some point in time and certainly in eternity.  In fact, how you and I respond to this tragedy may be some of the good He will accomplish.

To learn more about Kortney and her organization go to http://www.studentsforlife.org/.

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180: The Best Pro-Life Question Ever

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Ray Comfort has done a masterful job with this video. With one question, he will help change minds and save the lives of many. Yes, I know it is 33 minutes long, but it is well worth your time.

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