Christian viewers were stunned this Sunday when the Grammy Awards featured an on-air officiating of 34 weddings, which included a number of same-sex couples. Led by artist Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in a rendition of their song “Same Love”, the gathered couples – young and old, gay and straight, and of many races – traded rings while audience members cheered around them. Stars like Queen Latifah claim the event was designed to celebrate love in all its forms, but many Christian leaders are crying foul. The Church has always defined marriage as the union between one man and one woman. Any deviation from this design is not only a sin, but a danger to the family itself.
Theologian Michael Brown takes the issue a step further, claiming that “marriage equality” is paving the way for polygamy and polyamory. In a recent article for Charisma News he writes,
“…the question for gay activists and their allies remains the same: If marriage is not the union of a man and a woman (as opposed to the union of two people), why limit it to two? What’s so important about the number two unless it refers to the unique union that only a male and female couple can have? To date, I have not yet heard a single coherent answer from anyone wanting to redefine marriage as the union of two people as to why we must limit that number to two. (For a glaring example of this, see my debate with Prof. Eric Smaw at the University of Central Florida on ‘Same-Sex Marriage: Should It Be Legal.)”
Homosexuality remains one of the most contentious topics facing the church today. More and more Christians are discovering friends and family members who identify themselves as gay or lesbian, and are left unsure of how to respond. Hoping to balance Biblical authority with Christ’s grace, most Church leaders have recommended approaching others with a “Hate the Sin, Not the Sinner” mindset. Unfortunately, this stance has been less than successful. Crosswalk Editor, Debbie Holloway, emphasized this in a recent post with a quote from Pastor Jarrid Wilson,
“The ideology of, ‘hate the sin, not the sinner’ has NOT converted well in today’s culture. If you take a moment to look around, you’ll notice that we are very good at showing hate to the people whom God has called us to love. Shame on you. Shame on me. Shame on us.”
Wilson continued by saying,
“When hating the sins of others, people just simply don’t know how to separate the sinner from the sin. I encourage you to instead ‘Love the sinner, not the sin.’ Remove the word hate from your vocabulary, and start reflecting an image of Jesus that portrays him differently than a man standing on a soap-box wielding a megaphone.”
What about you? What was your reaction to the Grammy Weddings, and what should be the Christian response?
*Ryan Duncan is the Culture Editor for Crosswalk.com