Yes we can
On Saturday the ruling Australian Labor Party's conference committed the Party to a policy of support for same-sex marriage. The move was supported by a rainbow coalition of activists including members of the clergy.
History teaches us that this is not the end of a long battle, just a pause before the next push begins. What was unthinkable a decade ago will soon become a reality in Australia and other parts of the Western world.
Brace yourselves for new campaigns—polygamy, group marriage, and whatever else our foolish hearts can conceive.
We shouldn't be surprised. We live in a broken world. Sin has taken its toll on the most precious of God's gifts—our sexuality. It's why Christ came to rescue us from the guilt and shame.
Or maybe there's another way. Perhaps there can be salvation without the need to face our sin. Could we remake ourselves and save ourselves from the burden we bear?
Could we recreate God in our image? Could we dictate to the Almighty our standards of sexual behaviour? Could we bow before our preferences and desires?
Yes we can.
How can I, a heterosexual who's been very happily married for 50 years, tell anyone else they don't have the right to form a loving, committed, lifelong union and enjoy the fruits of marriage as I have done? Marriage is not a club to be restricted to some. Like the Gospel, it is a blessing to be shared.
Rev Dr Rowland Croucher Baptist Minister
Recognizing same-sex unions will help return marriage to its rightful place in society.
Rev Matt Glover Baptist Minister
We haven't even really begun to ask what role the affirmation of the 'homosexual', the 'intersexual' and the 'transsexual' might play in awakening the church to its full glory as the body of Christ.
Dr Keith Dyer Professor of New Testament Baptist Theological College
I cannot understand how a man can appear in print claiming to disbelieve everything that he presupposes when he puts on the surplice [clerical robe]. I feel it is a form of prostitution.
Clive Staples Lewis, 1963 Mere Christian
In religion, Liberalism may be characterized by a progressive discarding of elements in historical Christianity which appear superfluous or obsolete, confounded with practices and abuses which are legitimate objects of attack. But as its movement is controlled rather by its origin than by any goal, it loses force after a series of rejections, and with nothing to destroy is left with nothing to uphold and nowhere to go.
Haven’t you read, that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.
Jesus King of Kings, Lord of Lords
I guess that means, No we can't.
