Protestantism and Evangelicalism, unlike Catholicism, often are prone either fulsomely to endorse social trends or apocalyptically denounce them as harbingers of societal collapse. There is among Protestants and Evangelicals often too little of the Catholic sensibility that understands the subtleties and tragedy of our fallen world while also confident of God’s ongoing redemption of the world.
A recent example is Evangelical commentator David French’s support for the “Respect for Marriage Act” (RMA) codifying the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Obergefell” affirmation of same-sex marriage. He believes that, with its ostensible religious liberty protections, it’s the best arrangement in a pluralist society in which religious doctrinal beliefs cannot be imposed in civil law. French wrote that his views on church marriage as male and female remain unchanged.
Liberal Mainline Protestants of course back same-sex unions both in the church and in civil law. But some traditionalists like French distinguish between Christian teaching and social application. A Christianity Today article enthusiastically reported about the U.S. Senate’s RMA passage: “All in all, RMA is a modest but good day’s work. It shows that religious liberty champions and LGBT advocates can work together for the common good.”
Cardinal Dolan of New York, speaking for the U.S. Catholic bishops, responded differently:
“The Catholic Church will always uphold the unique meaning of marriage as a lifelong, exclusive union of one man and one woman. In doing so, we are joined by millions of what the Obergefell Court called ‘reasonable and sincere’ Americans – both religious and secular – who share this time-honored understanding of the truth and beauty of marriage.”
Dolan called the bill’s religious liberty protections inadequate, but the objection transcends just that issue. The Catholic Church does not support redefining marriage in civil law. Protections for the church are desirable only as a tragic necessity. Supporting the redefinition of marriage is not an option for Catholicism, nor should it be for any orthodox Christian. (Catholicism, as a global church, often has a broader perspective than Protestant national denominations or parachurch groups.)
Christianity has always taught that marriage is not only a church rite, like baptism, but a public institution transcending cultures and religions, rooted in creation. Christianity has always affirmed marriage while also, across centuries, working to refine it in society, banning polygamy and concubinage in law, elevating wives as legal equals in society, and protecting children.
It has never been the universal church’s position that society’s laws about marriage are inconsequential, and that the church should only defend its liberty to define marriage inside the church. The church does not exist for itself but to serve and uplift humanity. Christianity’s insights about marriage as a lifelong union of male and female, sustaining family and nurturing children, have benefitted hundreds of millions across 2000 years. The church cannot be the church if it rejects its own teachings, protects only its own, and celebrates a “pluralist” approach in which marriage has no concrete definition, leading society astray.
No, the church must be the church, and proclaim the truth about marriage in society, as about so much else, even when unfashionable and dangerously controversial. Of course, the church usually exists in situations where some of its ethical and social insights are unpopular. These situations gift the church opportunity to shine its light amid public disapproval. Some of the church’s greatest moments are when its witness is steadfast in adversity.
Church teaching on marriage in society is currently the minority view in American and Western society. But the church with all the more vigor should proclaim what it knows to be true, which will eventually prevail in the fulness of God’s own time. Its minority witness in the interim will convict and redeem many who heed the church’s message.
Christians should never surrender to the supposed consensus of any time or culture. Nothing of this world is permanent, and the church’s perspective is eternal. Too often, Christians, especially Protestants, in their haste to be relevant, want to sanctify the present moment. These efforts, which seem urgently imperative at the time, never age well, and later are recalled with embarrassment. The church must always expect and be comfortable as a minority witness in every society.
While some Christians shortsightedly see support for redefining marriage as a protection for the church, others see the redefinition of marriage as signaling societal collapse. Civilization is ending! The church will be severely persecuted! Advocates of redefining marriage want to kill Christianity!
There are certainly many radicals today who want to marginalize traditional Christianity. Every society has plenty of powerful people who resent the church’s message on particular issues and who work to sideline or even persecute the church. There has never been a time anywhere, even at the height of Christendom, that all of Christianity was universally applauded. The Gospel’s demands are nearly always exacting and controversial. Yet the church survives, and its message prevails.
The redefinition of marriage is harmful but is not likely our civilization’s finale. (Only about one third of one percent of Americans are in a same sex marriage, signifying that the debate is about much more than just marriage.) We have endured and will endure far worse. The church should defend its liberties, and freedom of expression for all, while striving for approximate social harmony. But self-protection and social toleration are not the church’s ultimate goal, which is to proclaim the Kingdom of God. An authentic social harmony cannot be purchased by the church’s self-censoring its own witness to the Gospel.
Christians in all places and times must live in the tension of witnessing to society, and gradually, by divine grace, transforming society, but also incurring controversy, unpopularity and even danger. We entrust the vindication of our witness not to immediate public opinion but to Divine Providence.
We live in troubled times, as all times are troubled. But most of us who live in the year 2022 in America and in Western society, or even in most of the world, are living with more comfort, advantages, and freedom than nearly all humanity in previous times. As we approach Thanksgiving, we can thank God for all His undeserved bounty. And we can ask His mercy and wisdom as we strive to live up to His standards and witness to them in a world that is always in, some sense, rebelling against them.
Comment by David on November 22, 2022 at 12:33 pm
Thank you, Mark. I think you’ve struck the right balance here.
Comment by David on November 22, 2022 at 4:12 pm
The image that accompanies the article shows another division in values. It shows Jesus turning water into wine when many denominations consider that sinful. Prior to 1923, Methodists could be expelled from membership for touching demon rum. Of course, this is contrary to scripture which urges Christians to take some wine for their digestion (1 Tim 5:23).
Comment by Jeffrey Walton on November 23, 2022 at 11:05 am
It’s also contrary to the practices of John Wesley, who drank both wine and ale, but warned against excessive consumption, especially of spirits. I understand the teetotalism of the period (gin houses were a big problem in 18th century London) but routine public intoxication declined in the United States with Prohibition.
Comment by PFSchaffner on November 23, 2022 at 6:45 pm
I wonder whether there is perhaps a divide, perhaps one within the Evangelical wing itself, on this seemingly uncontroversial line: “The church does not exist for itself but to serve and uplift humanity.” In at least part of the Baptist/Anabaptist tradition, as well as a good deal of the Calvinist tradition, improvement of the world is no part of the church’s mission, which is meant to be devoted to creating a holy people, called apart from the world. I.e., the church, while dedicating itself to God, does in effect exist for itself, not for humanity at large. This tradition (the church as Ark) can lead to separatism and withdrawal — but then the opposing tradition (the church as social improvers) might be said to lead to the social gospel and the tempting faux religion of politics.
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on November 27, 2022 at 10:24 pm
I do not agree with David French’s support of the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act” (RMA), but it is unclear to me whether the author of this article understands what his position is and why he has it.
French believes the church should continue demonstrate and promote a biblical conception of marriage in American society–but not entirely through the law. He believes that the protections of religious liberty in the RMA will enable the church to do that.
If one reads his explanation, one will see that he has not “compromised” or “surrendered”, but gone to a social libertarian position which is the same as or almost the same as one he held previous to the *Obergefell* decision.
As I said, I do not agree with him, but I am concerned that he is being misunderstood, misrepresented, unfairly criticized, and unjustly condemned.
Comment by Richard Bell on November 27, 2022 at 11:51 pm
Mr Tooley’s advice about Christian political action outside Christendom is dubious. Here are a few problems:
1. “Christianity has always taught that marriage is not only a church rite, like baptism, but a public institution transcending cultures and religions, rooted in creation.”
Christianity has recognized as a fact that non-Christian cultures and religions have public institutions similar to marriage; that is not to teach that Christian marriage is a public institution or that every public institution similar to marriage is Christian marriage.
2. “It has never been the universal church’s position that society’s laws about marriage are inconsequential, and that the church should only defend its liberty to define marriage inside the church.”
Christianity has lobbied successfully to have its marriages recognized and fully respected by public authorities, which is not to claim that society’s laws about marriage ought to be modeled on Christianity’s laws about marriage.
3. “The church cannot be the church if it rejects its own teachings, protects only its own, and celebrates a ‘pluralist’ approach in which marriage has no concrete definition, leading society astray.”
Jesus affirmed that marriage is a union of two persons so perfect that it is, metaphorically, a becoming “one flesh.” So, Jesus, pointed out, marriage cannot be a work of man but must be a work of God. The definitions of marriage by non-Christian cultures and religions are irrelevant to God’s blessing his people with marriages of his making.
4. “Church teaching on marriage in society is currently the minority view in American and Western society. But the church with all the more vigor should proclaim what it knows to be true, which will eventually prevail in the fulness of God’s own time.”
In the fulness of God’s time, there will be no marriage. Meanwhile, what about marriage should Christianity urge on non-Christian cultures and religions? Paul forbade a Christian to marry any unbeliever – to be unequally yoked – and commanded that a Christian just let an unbelieving spouse leave; should the church urge in American and Western society that interfaith couples be disqualified for marriage and that interfaith spouses have summary divorce at will?
Comment by Tom on December 1, 2022 at 10:22 am
Interesting points and as good a rejoinder to French as can be made.
I wonder though whether the realist perspective involves taking the world as it is, not as we may want it to be. In which case, one cannot deny or dismiss the fact that there are now hundreds of thousands of people who are legally married in the US in marital relationships that are contrary to the traditional Christian perspective. And then there are the children/dependents who now exist in those legally recognized familial relationships.
So the setting in which we find ourselves is not pre-Obergefell or pre-gay marriage in the US but one in which it already exists, whether we like it or not.
At that point, I think we still do all that we can to promote the institution of marriage as traditionally understood, but beyond that I think an effort to legally de-recognize hundreds of thousands of marriages & families seems fraught. I think French recognizes that functionally these marriages in the legal context are more civil partnerships and the conferring of various legal benefits that our society affords to married couples (which have good historical justification, in terms of supporting family formation and linking children to their parents). But today there are increasingly diverse types of families–so what sort of legal provision should they receive and on what basis should legal protections be denied? On the other hand, I think advocates of redefining marriage have to grapple with the reverse question–who should not receive the legal protections of marriage. What’s the difference between a marriage and forming a family contractually of any number of consenting persons?
Lastly, an unaddressed point–if we follow the author’s logic, should Christians also be advocating for more biblical/traditional standards in terms of divorce laws. The implication is that we should be advocating for far more strenuous legal justifications in order to obtain a divorce–namely, only in the cases of abuse or abandonment.