So God created mankind . . . male and female he created them.

I probably would have never written on this subject had it not been for an article by Kyle Henderson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Athens, Texas who wrote a column for Baptist News Global in which he said, "Pastors, stop signing those marriage licenses. They should stop immediately."


I apologize in advance for it's length but the subject can hardly be covered (and is not here) in such a small space.

The present conflict surrounding marriage in America arose out of the fact that people who were living in relationships that were not recognized by the state or the church as "marriage" began to  advocate for access to the "special" benefits that marriage afforded those who possessed a State issued "Marriage Certificate."  Simply put, they wanted the same tax benefits, inheritance rights, insurance provisions, parental privileges and other rights that are automatically are given to people who marry.

As these rights were sought and the various State laws regarding marriage were challenged the federal courts regularly and consistently said that these were matters for each State to regulate. State courts in turn overwhelming ruled that State laws as enacted were constitutional and thus upheld them. This effectively blocked the effort to gain equal access.

I want to make it clear that marriage should not provide benefits from the various federal and state governmental agencies than others do not also get. In short, marriage should not bestow or take away any rights in which others do not share.  I would warn those who are wanting to redefine marriage that the consequences of a failed marriage can be a bitter, painful and costly.  

Those who wish to redefine marriage are really advocating for open and equal access to the benefits given by the state to married individuals. They want tax benefits, inheritance rights, spousal privileges and parental privileges that automatically are given to people who marry.

Sorry, I have digressed a bit.

Then, a federal judge in his opinion upholding the States right to regulate marriage offered a piece of advice. Essentially he suggested those seeking equal access should not challenge the equanimity of access to privileges provided by the State to those with a "marriage certificate." Instead they should challenge the meaning of marriage under the law in light of federal laws regarding equal access etc.

Since the foundation of the country there has been an alliance between the state and the church regarding marriage.  Since there was a homogeneity of thinking regarding marriage between the state and the church such alliance of convenience made sense.  I might add that from the view of convenience and cost it still makes sense. 

In the earliest days the church provided the license and the ceremony for all weddings. There were virtually no civil unions (marriages). The marriage documentation was all done through the church. This was an advantage to the state because it meant there was no civil bureaucracy. The state simply recognized what the churches did regarding certification and registration of marriage. Where there was no church or state offices (judges) on the frontier marriage were self-done and a couple after living together publically as husband and wife were deemed married by what is called "common law." This is still true to this very day.

Now before I react to what he has to say as to why we as ordained ministers should stop officiating weddings a little background regarding the relationship between marriage, the church, and the state.

From the earliest days marriage was a function of the church the result of  which was conveniently  accepted by the state as a "contract of marriage."  That means the religious ceremony (not just the certificate issued) constituted a binding contract between a man and a woman to live together as husband and wife and be bound by the laws of the several states regarding such a contract.

This arrangement worked fine for the first 200 or so years of the nation. The historical meaning of marriage was not questioned. That being that marriage was essentially and fundamentally a covenant or contractual relationship between an man and a woman both of whom had reached their respective ages of majority.

That however, is now history. More and more people are challenging our ancient understanding that marriage is a covenant relationship between a man and a woman to live together privately and publically as husband and wife. The courts, especially federal courts, are increasingly ruling that the traditional definition of marriage under our equal rights laws must be broadened to include more than just a man and woman relationship.

This redefining of marriage runs contrary to Christian doctrine and the historic understanding of what constitutes a marriage. This in turn is placing ministers more and more in a situation where if they refuse to officiate any marriage that is not between a man and a woman in legal jeopardy over a conflict of conscience.

I began by saying that the officiating marriage ceremonies by the church staff (ministers) was accepted by the state as a convenience to the state not a concession to the churches. It was simply convenient for many years for pastors to officiate weddings and then for the state to recognize those marriages. It was easy simple; it was easy; and it was widely accepted an applauded by the populace in general.

However, with the redefinition of marriage by the state that is contrary to what the New Testament teaches about human relationships. This redefinition makes it impossible for the church to reconcile its doctrinal and spiritual mandates with that new state imposed definition of marriage that makes the old that formula of convenience impossible to maintain.  During the first 200 years this relationship this formula of convenience was a mutually beneficial and one that placed no burden on either party. Now the state through it's courts is asking and may soon demand that the church abandon it doctrinal and spiritual mandates.

I , personally have never referred to marriage as "Biblical marriage." The reason is simple. Like Kyle Henderson, I cannot overlook all the various machinations of marriage found in Scripture - particularly the Old Testament.  I have to wonder which of the Old Testament models we should use.

The Scripture never "whitewashes" its characters. The Bible is filled with the lives of broken people. . . . people who get it wrong more often than they get it right.  The church recognizes the frailty of our flesh and offers help and deliverance. It recognizes our brokenness and offers healing. As one youth once put it to me after an Evangelist had preached a rather dogmatic sermon on Christian purity, "I thought the church was for sick people not perfect ones." Indeed it is.  The Scripture recognizes our frailty and yet still holds up the ideal as our goal.

 As Christians we accept God's principles and commandments as the best design for our lives and our relationship with Him. God, through the Scripture, teaches us about all aspects of human life and relationships and that includes marriage.

The basic Scriptural understanding of marriage is found in Ephesians 5:20-33. This passage compares the relationship of a husband and wife to the love relationship Christ has for the church. Kyle Henderson got it exactly right when he said, "It begins in mutual submission. It is characterized by love, respect and devotion. It honors God’s intent in creating male and female. It is unabashedly pro-sex. It sets the parameters of covenant marriage. It is sacrificial, loving, lasting and committed."

In every instance where Scripture discusses marriage, whether directly or in a metaphor, it has at the very least a basic understanding that marriage is a relationship between a male and a female.  That has not changed since the creation of Adam and Eve to this very day. Any other kind of relationship is an anomaly and  fails God's test for whether it is a marriage or something else.  Every other human relationship has its own noun to identify it.

 

Henderson is also correct when he  takes notice of the fact that society in general has been moving away from the model for marriage defined in Ephesians 5 for a long time now.  Privacy laws, divorce for no particular reason (no fault), optional cohabitation, recreational sex, separate property and a whole range of other items. The state and the church have been using the same word of a long time but somewhere along the way the meaning changed for the state. Legally the term "marriage" is still evolving while religiously is remains fixed.

As a result of the legal evolution taking place regarding the meaning of "marriage" we are fast reaching an impasse between the church and the state that is going to require action by both the state and the church. 

Given the wide range of laws and regulations that a triggered by a government issued and registered certificate of marriage we simply cannot expect the state to not offer a definition of what constitutes a legal marriage.  Because from the foundation of the nation until the present day that definition was consistent with the view of the populace and the church there was no need for action by either party. The rule of mutual convenience worked well.

Today, as a consequence of citizens whose relationship does not meet the definition of marriage as "one man and one woman" seeking for themselves the rights and privileges under the law and by governmental regulations afforded those persons whose relationship meet that test we find ourselves as a nation divided.

To solve this divide the state, through its system of courts, has chosen to redefine marriage rather than reform laws and regulations that deny a portion of our citizenry rights and privileges that should be applicable to all citizens. (Note: there are ways and legal language to rectify many of these without a redefinition of marriage)

It is just a short jump from the present situation to one in which the state will require that ministers who choose to officiate ceremonies to do so for all persons regardless of whether those persons meet the minister's (church) standard for what constitutes a marriage. 

So where do we go from here? I suggest we go back to doing what we used to do. What is that you ask? The church will only permit its ministers to officiate a religious marriage ceremony based upon the standards of that church's definition of a marriage.  This will be done, not as a service to the state, but as a part of the "free exercise of religion" under the Second Amendment. The state can attach whatever legality (certify the certificate) it chooses to the certificate issued for such a marriage.

However, the certificate is not issued by the state or returned to the state for filing. It is files in the records of the church and delivered into the hands of the couple choosing a religious service. It is an affirmation by the church and for the church that the persons whose names appear thereupon have been joined in Christian matrimony. It carries no inherent legal rights.  Essentially removing the minister (church) as an agent of the state for certifying that the couples actually were married within the time constraints of the certificate and law.

As for its part the state may do with such a certificate as it pleases:

• It can use it as it does other non-legal documents to establish that a marriage relationship exists in the same way it uses old Bibles to establish birth dates for people without a state issued certificate of birth.
• It can ignore it completely and require all couples to also obtain a state issued, certified and filed Certificate of Marriage that meets the state's legal requirements for marriage.
• Or it can provide an option such as that of the State of Texas with its “Declaration of Marriage.”  Couples should get married according the tenets of their beliefs and then merely register their relationship with the state.

The church, likewise, is under no obligation to recognize a state issued marriage certificate if the people whose name appear thereon do no meet the church's requirements for a religious ceremony consistent with the church's doctrine of human relationships: 

• The church recognizes that the state may deny any legal standing to its certificate of marriage,
• And recognizes that the state issued certificate only gives the State's blessing on a union,
• And further acknowledges that only certificates certified by the state make available to the couple all state rights, responsibilities and privileges linked to such a certificate,
• But also affirms that State issued certificates that are inconsistent with the church's view of marriage may be rejected by the church for religious purposes such as church membership, participation in the ordinances and/or sacraments of the church, etc.

I am advocating that Jefferson's "Wall of Separation" as expressed in the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States be applied by both the church and the State to marriage. This is especially true since legally the nation seems to be moving away from a Christian world view to a more thoroughly humanistic one.  I find this fertile ground for applying Jesus' rule of  "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar and to God the things that are God's."

We are standing at one of those moments of which James Russell Lowell wrote when in 1845 he penned the words to his immortal hymn, Once to Every Man and Nation.

Once to Every Man and Nation by James Russell Lowell*

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

 

 

* Lowell, James Russell, LL.D., was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22, 1819; graduated at Harvard College, 1838, and was called to the Bar in 1840. Professor of Modern Languages and Literature (succeeding the Poet Longfellow) in Harvard