Good evening.

Patricia Paddey, an Ontario-based writer responded to this morning's post with the following email:

You write, "Welcome now the new love that cannot speak its name, the love that is not loved in this world, the love of Christ. And welcome to the closet, fellow Christians, unless you have the courage to stand and face persecution," - and while I hope you are wrong, I fear you are right.

And yet, my fear is neither terrible nor deep.

Over the past year-and-a-half, I have been reading some history of our faith -- mostly the first 3 - 4 centuries. And I am reminded that in a sense, this "new love that cannot speak its name" is in fact, very, very old. We have, perhaps, just been on a bit of a holiday, we Christians, and now the holiday is over and it's time to get back to reality. For centuries, Christians were unable to speak of their love for Christ without fear of persecution - and the persecution was terrible indeed.

I have struggled with trying to come to terms with my own position regarding gay marriage. While I do believe that homosexual behaviour is sinful in the eyes of God, as you pointed out, so are a lot of other things - including gossip, lust, selfishness, covetousness and cheating on your taxes - and I don't see the church all in an uproar over those sins. Nor do I hear of political or prayer rallies being called to wipe out any of those sins - or to demand that society live up to our standards in those areas.

And while I do despair that the entire idea of marriage may be denigrated for future generations - in some ways I feel the same way about these developments, as I've felt about Christmas for a long time. (i.e., that the confessing Church should just leave society to get on with its own celebrations in whatever way it wants to - and create something entirely seperate and sacred in the way of celebration for these events for ourselves before God.) If that sounds exclusive and exclusionary - I don't mean it to.

I think we are called, as children of the King to be accountable to one another, and to urge one another on to righteousness - but I don't believe we have the right to demand non-believers live up to our standard of holiness - when they may have already chosen to reject Him and His standard. Can we expect to impose our standard on a society which has also clearly turned its back on Him?

When I reflect on the life Christ lived, I think that people were first drawn to His love and compassion. It was typically after they experienced His tenderness that they would ask for His mercy and forgiveness. Likewise, I don't think many non-believers, gay or otherwise, have been won to the kingdom as a result of all of the very public protests, prayer rallies and rhetoric shouted by the Church.

As the Son of God and King of the Universe, He yielded His right to stand up for His rights. Should we, therefore, as His Church demand that society uphold our rights? While I don't relish what this (relinquishing our rights) might mean for myself or for my children and (eventually) grandchildren - I have sometimes wondered if, as His Church - we shouldn't just keep our focus on being salt and light in this world; heeding His call to clothe the naked, heal the sick and feed the hungry - and trust God to draw men to Himself through His love poured out and channelled through us? Only hearts changed by God will result in lives changed.

*****

I think Patricia makes many valid points here. That's why I would support some kind of civil union for same sex couples, even though many believers might not. I'm not asking for a theocracy. My fear though is that the imposition is going to be going the other way. The securalist fundamentalists have their own creed and, while they don't recognize their absolutism, it is there nonetheless.

I remember interviewing a gay activist before he appeared on a television program I produced. He told me that he did believe the Bible was hate literature and he would like to see parts of it expunged and the church stopped from preaching against homosexual behavior.

I asked him whether he was concerned about the effect this would have on religious freedom and freedom of speech. He said something like this, "No. The teachings of the church are responsible for the high rates of suicide among gay teenagers. I think those are grounds to justify a restriction on freedom of speech."

I also fear that already the church in the west is losing its saltness and the light is growing dim. Not only do we not impose our standards of holiness on society, we don't even impose them on ourselves. We're lenient with ourselves, and assume that God is lenient too. He is patient. But He is not lenient.

The only way we remain salt and light is to know Jesus Christ and take hold of the precious promises in Scripture and believe them until we understand and reflect the new natures He has given us.

"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."
(2 Peter 1:3-4)

This is why, in the church, the authority of Scriptures is so important. If we don't believe it is God-breathed, then why would we believe that we have everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Jesus and His promises?

There is a strong pull in the Christian community to circle the wagons and let the outer society go to hell in a handbasket if that's what people are bent on doing. But even non-believers can benefit from a solid institution of marriage. Non-believers benefit from a sensible rule of law that is grounded in natural law, the transcendent moral laws of God. Good things follow.

When I see people arguing for the church to more for the poor instead of worrying about the definition of marriage, for example, I scratch my head, because I've read about many studies that show that the single most important variable in predicting positive economic outcomes for children is that their parents are married. And not only is marriage an antidote to child poverty, it's an antidote to high levels of juvenile crime, drug use, poor school performance and all kinds of other ills. And that's to say nothing of the long term benefits to the married man and woman in health and happiness. It's the best institution for inculcating virtue into children....but alas that's an old-fashioned word like sin these days.