Gay ordinance activists Marcus Ellsworth, left, and Krista Cooper chat at a city hall rally in 2013.
By David Tulis
The grace with which defenders of marriage are treated suggests at Chattanooga News & Review on Facebook how things will go if the supreme court declares marriage can be whatever the pretended participants want it to be. If gay theory prevails at the high court, it will be alleged constitutional and state definitions are nullified. What then? We will see bakers, wedding photographers, journalists, defenders of marriage, godly people in society who want to obey God’s law and defend it — we will see them hounded, vilified, reproached, sued, harassed and called ugly names.
[Today I share my comments with a bevy of critics at a local Internet meeting place. — DJT]
This spirit is slightly audible in the way Bill Ensinger, a local farmer and a dad, and I have been handled by you moderns and your megaphone. My side is the weak, quiet side, in whispers; yours is that of the roar and the bellowing. Your biceps are showing, and you set the volume on high.
Now, on another point, I want to thank Lana Sutton for her detailed rebuke of the Bible, which she declares is not law, but a contrivance of an emperor. Well, it is law for the entire human race, whether it likes it or not. Reality operates in terms of it, like it or not.
The Bible is a comprehensive whole, with the Old Testament having the same validity as the New. What you need to realize is that the laws that applied to ancient Israel were abrogated with the arrival of Jesus Christ and the church. Not all laws recorded in the Old Testament, but particularly the laws of worship and ceremony. Laws that prefigured and foreshadowed Christ as the holy and righteous sacrifice for sin are past with His death and resurrection.
Therefore, the dietary laws are abrogated — remember the vision of Peter about foods being now allowed that formerly were not. Many other laws are abrogated that taught the Israelites the distinction between holy and unholy, clean and unclean. The commandments of God that His people exterminate the Amalekites, for example, or all the people of Jericho were particular to that time and that occasion. No orders stand today for God’s people to do any such thing to any pagan, nonbelieving people.
Instead, Christianity teaches that the Holy Spirit is the moving party in all conquest. The conquest, in the end, is propositional, not with swords of steel but swords of words. The gospel of Christ by grace will conquer every heart. Through the passage of time, the Bible teaches, the gospel will win tongues, tribes, nations, kingdoms, fields of study, endeavors of every kind. This expansion of Christendom is a promise of the holy scriptures, and the credit for it will be God’s sovereign grace, and His grace alone by the power of the Holy Spirit. Christianity is a total claim upon mankind. It has a picture of God’s total government. My understanding of Christianity is that it is much favoring of organic society vs. the mechanical contrivance of civil government which must rest atop it to deal with the public effects of the sin problem. Christianity, because it envisions local economy and private means, presents us with the goal of horizontal society vs. the vertical and impersonal society we have today in every single nation on earth.
I represent the biblical argument for the authority of the 7th commandment, which forbids adultery and requires clean thoughts and holy living. I represent the integrity of marriage, which we need to understand is in nature between one man and one woman. I represent ancient laws such as common law. Marriage is a common law right, and though states erect statutory marriage, it remains a common law right, and that only between one guy and one gal. I am a rare Christian who advocates common law marriage as the best sort, as common law unions are exercises of right and stand apart from any state privilege or favor. Marriage precedes any state, any government, any court; it is a creational ordinance, from God Himself in the garden. Efforts to redefine marriage are culturally suicidal, and those systems of law in the hands of the state are most vulnerable to being redefined by lugbutt and queer (LGBTQ) theory.
Give a time to my site, Nooganomics.com. Under Gollum’s bedroom I explain marriage and family in terms of capital and law. If we want to prosper, we need to favor marriage and oppose any effort, even if only symbolic, to discriminate against it. Such as the ordinance for domestic partnership benefits.
Note: Here is the critique of Lana Sutton, editor of CNR. The Bible is not our law, David. Nor should it be.
In the Bible, slavery is legal. Women are not to take part in political debate or be in leadership positions, as they are to be subordinate to men. And we’re all supposed to be stoning adulterers right now, not wearing clothes of more than one fabric, not eating shellfish and not sitting in chairs that women who had their periods sat in recently (which I guess means women need to either report when they’re having their periods, or just not leave the home, or only sit in certain chairs, or some other absurdity to comply with the Bible).
The Bible has some bizarre rules, and conflicts with itself throughout, such as where the old testament tells us to judge others, and the new testament tells us not to, and to do unto others, as we’d have done to us, and to love each other as we do ourselves, and to take care of the planet, not exploit it for a quick profit. The old testament tells us to kill folks of other religions, kill their children, kill their animals, and salt the Earth where they live so nothing ever grows there again.
The new testament says turn the other cheek.
The Bible was commissioned by an Emperor to get his people, who were divided by their different faiths, to accept one religion. Hence, the Bible combined the stories from Christian and pagan history into one book, so that people fighting over the stories would stop fighting each other, and be more controllable to fight outsiders, to expand the empire.
The Bible was a political tool to control the population, much like religion has been used to control the masses throughout history. It’s a way to get the masses to follow their leaders, not turn on them, even when they’re being oppressed by their leaders.
The conflicts in the Bible are insidious. If the Bible teaches love, why does so much hate come out of people whose Bible tells them to love each other? One could notice that religious people are among the most warlike, judgmental and grabby, perhaps because their holy book is used to turn them into legions for certain leaders, because it has so many conflicting rules about judging and not judging each other, about being the “chosen ones” and “forgiven,” no matter how you sin, about having the right to stomp those who are different.
It’s a deeply flawed document, too flawed to be used as a legal instrument. It should be recognized for that shortcoming, even though it’s also recognized as a compilation of some of our species’ most revered teaching stories.
It’s very important to teach what’s right with these stories, not to teach hate and hypocrisy. The stories should not be used to elevate ignorance and compliance and greed over doing what’s right for everyone. A true holy book, a true religion, should teach tolerance and love, not excuse hate and war and selfishness. A Bible, a religion, should not turn societies into complicit armies and slave labor for evil men and women.
