A few weeks ago, my wife, Jane, was asked by one of the friends of our church about a looming problem concerning a wedding she was invited to attend. The wedding would be between two females. This woman wanted to know if she and her husband should attend the wedding when they returned to Michigan in the Spring. My wife’s answer was almost verbatim what is written below in an email from Geoffrey Thomas who also quotes from the answer of Albert Mohler to a similar question. I felt no need to augment my wife’s answer at all because it dealt with the question perfectly in my opinion. All of that happened before the very recent bruhaha in conservative evangelical circles over the same question. Thus, in this week’s email I am simply borrowing from my good friend, Geoffrey Thomas, with whom I enjoyed several mission trips to Russia for the Russia Pastors Conference which I used to hold. Next week, I will give some lessons that I learned from teaching a course on the History of Christian Missions. I hope you enjoy and profit from the quotes below.
“Dear Friends, Sunday, February 4, 2024
“One hundred years ago, February 2, 1924, James Joyce’s novel Ulysses was published in Paris on the author’s birthday. Ezra Pound, the poet, was very excited at its appearance hailing the publication of the book as the birth of a whole new age, announcing. “The Christian era ended at midnight on October 29 last year when Joyce finished writing Ulysses. You are now in the Year One, P.S.U. (Post Scriptum Ulysses).” Well, we are still here in spite of everything and everyone who has been announcing the terminal decline of Christianity. The Bible sales are at least 1000 times the sum of the sales of Ulysses each year.
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“One of the marks of the decline of Christian ethical influence is seen in some denominations in the professing church endorsing same sex ‘marriages.’ Even the Pope has spoken of priests ‘blessing’ such couples. In Friday’s DailyBriefing, written by the Principal/President of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky (the largest seminary in the world with 5000 students), Albert Mohler addresses a question sent to him of whether Christians should attend the wedding of a same sex couple. He wrote as follows with very strong convictions,
“‘Someone wrote in asking about what to do when you’re invited to a same-sex wedding. And this is where I simply have to say, I’ve spoken of this at far greater length and written about it, I don’t believe that faithful Christians can go to celebrations in which they cannot join in the celebration.
“‘And remember, the whole context of the wedding as a public event is the public exchange of vows and the public declaration of the rightness of this relationship. Just look at the historic language used in the Christian wedding, and that includes language asking if anyone here present knows any reason why this man and this woman should not be joined together in holy matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace. Well, when it’s not even a man and a woman, then you have an even bigger problem holding your peace. To be present at a wedding, just remember that the traditional word used of those who are attending a wedding is that they are celebrants. They are there to celebrate the wedding. It is virtually impossible to go to a wedding, say, a wedding of a same-sex couple and go and smile and not give affirmation to what you believe to be fundamentally contrary to nature and injurious to human flourishing.
“‘But in conclusion, another reason you can’t go, if you are consistently biblical in your thinking, you simply can’t go to a wedding that actually isn’t a wedding, for a marriage that you don’t believe is actually a marriage. One of the principles that has guided the Christian church through the centuries is that the church cannot sanction and Christians should not celebrate weddings that are illicit or unlawful according to Scripture. Now, that can include some situations in which it would be a man and a woman standing at the altar, but we would believe there are biblical reasons why they should not be joined together, why it would not be a biblical marriage, it is not a rightful wedding. You extend that to the LGBTQ revolution and we have a whole new set of complexities, but in reality, this isn’t a new question.
“‘A part of Christian wisdom is actually an understanding that the Christian church, guided by scripture, has had to think through so many of these issues before. It’s important for us to trace that thinking, make sure it’s biblical, and then stand on biblical truth.’” Geoffrey Thomas
Dewey Roberts, Pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Destin, FL