By redefining marriage to allow a union between two persons of the same sex—Spouse 1 and Spouse 2—a kind of alchemy is performed, not merely on the institution, but on human nature itself. In such a world, the distinction between men and women is denied social recognition and marriage is no longer a unique bond uniting male and female. It becomes an instrument created by the state to give official status to the relationship between two generic human beings. An easy acceptance of divorce damages marriage; widespread cohabitation devalues marriage. But so-called same-sex marriage is a graver threat, because what is now given the name of marriage in law is a parody of marriage.
We are today urged to embrace an abstract conception of human nature that ignores the reality of our bodies. Human beings are no longer to be understood as either male or female. Our culture encourages us to exalt our personal desires and choices over the created order. N o one should doubt or deny what is at stake here. To sustain the fiction of same-sex marriage, the natural family must be deconstructed.
In this brave new world, the family—the institution on which our social order rests—is being redefined as a socially constructed unit, constituted by our sovereign will, not by nature itself. For centuries, parents of adopted children have been acknowledged as legal parents.
And we warmly commend the generous practice of adoption. But this was understood as a humane exception to the more fundamental rule of natural descent. Today, however, the most basic principles of family life are being reconstructed around exceptions. Because the male-female difference must be erased to make way for same-sex marriage, the procreative potential of the male-female union must be set aside as well.
Thus, children are exposed to the risk of coming into the world as strangers, in which the biological ties that form the natural family are arbitrarily broken.
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The law no longer recognizes the primordial, complementary natural roles of mother and father. The natural family as the fundamental context defining where we have come from and who we are is set aside.
The family becomes a creation of the state, and where the family is a creation of the state, children become, in important legal respects, the property of the state. T he revolution in our marriage and family law, already well advanced, marches under the banners of freedom and equality. But these noble ideals are here gravely misapplied. When society systematically denies the difference between male and female in law and custom, our fundamental dignity is diminished, the image of God within us is obscured, unreality becomes legally established, and those who refuse to conform are regarded as irrational bigots.
But children are a gift, not a right. Forgetting this adds powerful pressure for the expansion of radical forms of reproductive technology—such as sperm and egg donation along with surrogacy, which involves contracting with a woman for the carrying of a pregnancy for intended parents. Freedom itself is severely compromised when our speech about the difference and complementarity of male and female must be policed, and any dissent from the new orthodoxies assiduously suppressed.
It is increasingly difficult to affirm that marriage is the union of a man and a woman without being ruled outside the boundaries of reasonable public conversation. And once opposition to same-sex marriage is judged to be discriminatory, no institution that declines to substitute unreality for reality will remain unaffected. Some individuals are already being censured and others have lost their jobs because of their public commitment to marriage as the union of a man and a woman. As Christians, we must state, unambiguously, that same-sex marriage contradicts the Gospel.
As we have noted, Holy Scripture teaches that marriage, as ordered by God, is a mysterious sign of the union of Christ and the Church. This sign is dependent on the profound complementarity of male and female. A conception of marriage that allows for same-sex unions denies this element of difference, rendering it unable to signify the mystical union of Christ and his Church. Moreover, we share the widespread and proper desire of Christians today to repent of injustices against those who experience same-sex attraction, and to discern more effective ways for all single people to participate in the life of the Church.
However, faithful Christian witness cannot accommodate itself to same-sex marriage. It disregards the created order, threatens the common good, and distorts the Gospel. This marital union is intended to be permanent and is fully consummated in consensual sexual intercourse open to procreation. In affirming this we do not dispute the evident fact of hormonal and chromosomal irregularities, nor of different sexual attractions and desires. As Christians, however, we must insist that our sexual desires, orientations, and proclivities do not provide a basis for redefining marriage. As is the case in all aspects of human life, our inclinations, desires, and actions must be judged by the Word of God Rom.
We must also reject the contemporary presumption—which is widespread and even influences our churches in many ways—that human fulfillment requires the satisfaction of sexual desire. Thus, with two thousand years of Christian tradition, we affirm that the integral development of the human person is possible without sexual intimacy. Freely choosing celibacy or living the single life in faithfulness to Christ offers a unique kind of service to the Church and the world.
Throughout history and across all cultures, marriage has been understood to be the union of male and female and is organized around the procreative potential of that union. Rituals and forms of marriage are extraordinarily diverse, and conditions for dissolution vary widely.
But across all cultures marriage seeks to establish a permanent bond that promotes marital fidelity, not least for the raising of children.
- The Christian Post.
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- Mark and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh..
- BibleGateway.
- The Two Shall Become One Flesh.
- The Two Shall Become One Flesh by Evangelicals and Catholics Together | Articles | First Things.
- Awesome Daughter Cross Stitch Pattern;
The truth about marriage, accessible to all and ennobled by revelation, is being systematically dismantled and dismissed as hoary prejudice. How and why such a cultural and legal revolution has taken place so quickly is for historians and sociologists to explain. Our task is different. We must say, as clearly as possible, that same-sex unions, even when sanctioned by the state, are not marriages.
Christians who wish to remain faithful to the Scriptures and Christian tradition cannot embrace this falsification of reality, irrespective of its status in law. If the truth about marriage can be displaced by social and political pressure operating through the law, other truths can be set aside as well.
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The same exaltation of false freedom used to justify abortion—the liberty to redefine the very nature of the human person—is now at work in the revolution of same-sex marriage. When the autonomous will of man dictates morality—and even reality—life will be defined for the benefit of the powerful and at the expense of the weak, the order of creation will be violated, and the Gospel itself will eventually be declared an enemy of society. And if Christians discard the most fundamental, visible, and universal fact of our bodies—that we are created male and female—we can no longer confess the words of the Creed: We thus face a difficult and dangerous situation.
A society that identifies the two parties in marriage as Spouse 1 and Spouse 2 has lost sight of a deep truth of human nature. We must do everything in our power to distinguish this falsification of marriage from its true form as the lifelong union of a man and a woman. In some contexts, consistent testimony to the truth about marriage may require clergy to refuse to serve as officers of the state by signing marriage licenses.
Whatever courses of action are deemed necessary, the coming years will require careful discernment. All Christians and men and women of good will must work to rebuild the culture of marriage and live lives that attest to the joy and beauty of marriage. On this basis alone can we succeed. T his will not be easy. The proponents of these so-called marriages are powerful, and they do not hesitate to use the tools of calumny to defeat their opponents. Keeping in mind the obligation to speak the truth in love, we must find ways to distinguish true marriage from its distortion, and we must do so without abandoning the public square.
We owe our fellow citizens a socially engaged witness to the truth about marriage, which, with the family, is the unalterable foundation of a healthy, humane society. The time is approaching—indeed, in some instances it has already arrived—when Christians in this country will suffer abuse for upholding the truth about marriage. Dominican Province of St.
Douglas Farrow McGill University. Thomas Guarino Seton Hall University.
And the Two Shall Become One – Pt 1
Matthew Levering Mundelein Seminary. Francesca Murphy University of Notre Dame. Russell Reno First Things. Dale Coulter Regent University. Joel Elowsky Concordia Seminary, St. Robert Gagnon Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Timothy George Beeson Divinity School. Peter Leithart Theopolis Institute. Vanhoozer Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Akin Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Paul Allen Concordia University, Montreal.
Mark ESV - and the two shall become one flesh.’ - Bible Gateway
Ryan Anderson The Heritage Foundation. Ernest Caparros University of Ottawa Emeritus. Clemenger Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. Maggie Gallagher American Principles Project. Mark Galli Christianity Today. Sherif Girgis Princeton University. Reinhard Huetter Duke University. Jim Liske Prison Fellowship Ministries. Meyer Concordia Seminary, St. Mezei Pazmany Peter Catholic University. Michael Miller Archbishop of Vancouver. Myers Archbishop of Newark.
Terrence Prendergast Archbishop of Ottawa. Stiller World Evangelical Alliance. Mark Tooley Institute on Religion and Democracy. Rick Warren Saddleback Church. Thomas Joseph White, O. Paul Winter Elder, Bruderhof Communities. Two members of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, Fr.
Web Exclusives First Thoughts. Intellectual Retreats Erasmus Lectures. Marriage, Christianly Considered God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Christian Teachers F or two millennia, great Christian teachers have proclaimed the biblical understanding of marriage. A sacrament is a sacred sign of something spiritual, holy, heavenly, and eternal.
It is an outward and spiritual sign of the greatest, holiest, worthiest, and noblest thing that has ever existed or ever will exist: The holy apostle Paul says that as man and wife united in the estate of matrimony are two in one flesh, so God and man are united in the one person Christ, and so Christ and Christendom are one body.
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