I’m writing today in defense of marriage. I’m writing today to declare that the Spirit of God has enacted a new Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and it is a DOMA that cannot be put down by any court or any government.
And I’m writing to call the people of God to rise up in defense of marriage once again. But in order for this uprising to begin in earnest, we must stop and confess that we have been fighting the wrong battle.
June 26th 2013 was a historic day in this country in regards to the fight for the right to restrict the definition of marriage to the traditional definition of one man and one woman being joined together in holy matrimony. On that day, the US Supreme Court decided that section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), was unconstitutional, and thus struck it down. The result was the immediate undoing at the national level of California’s Proposition 8, which affirmed DOMA, and has caused quite a stir here in California over the past several years. The result of US v Windsor (the title of the Supreme Court case mentioned above), for the intents and purposes of our government and our country, is that the definition of marriage has now been broadened to include the legalized union of gay and lesbian couples, providing them with all of the rights and privileges of marriage from a legal perspective. These are the facts; this is what went down. The question for me has always been, how should the body of Christ be responding to this issue?
To answer that question, from my perspective, we must begin by acknowledging that God’s definition of marriage is not and has never been in jeopardy, and we must wake up and recognize that while we have been fighting to defend our right to define marriage as a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman, the enemy has been blatantly attacking our ability to live as man and wife. We need to stop fighting for our right to define marriage, and start actually fighting for our marriages! We need to stop protesting the desire of the gay and lesbian community to be married and start protesting the pervasive pattern of divorce among Christians! If we were any good at doing marriage right, we wouldn’t have to fight to define it!
While we are fighting to impose a biblical worldview upon people who don’t believe the bible, we are failing to recognize that we are failing at the most fundamental levels to hold believers accountable to live according to its dictates. We shouldn’t be surprised that the world wants to change the definition of this and of that. We should be surprised that the church does! How deep does our hypocrisy go?
This is the hypocrisy: we think gay marriage is an abomination that God utterly despises, but for some reason we think that divorce is ok. But didn’t God say that he hates divorce? God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16)! Jesus said that the provision of divorce was given to the Old Testament community by Moses because of the hardness of their hearts.
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “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 flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)
Yes, this passage says clearly that the Creator’s intention was for marriage to be between a man and a woman. I intend neither to dispute nor belittle that fact. I am an Evangelical Christian who believes in the biblical definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman. But I am speaking to believers right now, not unbelievers. I am not primarily concerned with correcting the world’s unbiblical views. I am primarily concerned with correcting the church’s unbiblical practices.
If we have any chance of winning the ongoing fight to define marriage in this country, we must first renew our commitment to strengthen marriages in the church. The Spirit of God has enacted a new DOMA for the people of God, for God is anointing his people to fight for their marriages. Are you ready to join the fight? Start fighting for the marriages around you! Fight for the young couple in your church that can’t seem to get along! Fight for your own marriage! Fight for the marriages of your family members! Fight the good fight by believing for marriages that seem destined to fall apart! Believe God to do the unbelievable and restore the unrestorable! Fight!!!!
Fight on your knees. Fight in the library. If your marriage is in trouble, fight off the pride that would keep you from seeking help. Fight your way to your pastor’s office. Fight your way to a marriage conference. Fight your way to a counseling center. Let’s fight to be married! Let’s fight to keep our marriages! Let’s fight to have good marriages!
Husbands, you want to act in defense of marriage? Love your wife the way Christ loved the church! Lay down your life for her! Love her even when she is unlovable. Cherish her and protect her with unconditional love and patience. Be concerned about her at all times. Respond to her cries for help!
Wives, you want to act in defense in marriage? Respect your husbands even when they are not respectable. Just as their love for you should be unconditional, so your respect for them should be unconditional!
Do I sound preachy? Its because I’m fired up right now, because I’m sick and tired of both the high profile and low profile divorces in the body of Christ! I’m sick of the biblical justifications. I’m sick of seeing the shards of broken lives and broken families littering the floors of our churches.
And I’m desperate. I’m desperate to see those who have gone through divorces get restored and healed up again. I’m not writing to demonize the divorced; its not the unforgivable sin . . . and neither is gay marriage! My cry is for restoration for both!
Its high time for us to wake up and fight the right fight in regards to marriage. The right fight is the fight of faith, and that means that we must begin to believe again for God’s creative purposes to be fulfilled in our marriages. If we are willing to fight this fight, we will win at every other level as well.
