No, the sky is not falling — not yet, anyway — but with the Supreme Court ruling constitutionalizing same-sex marriage, the ground under our feet has shifted tectonically.
It is hard to overstate the significance of the Obergefell decision — and the seriousness of the challenges it presents to orthodox Christians and other social conservatives. Voting Republican and other failed culture war strategies are not going to save us now.
Discerning the meaning of the present moment requires sobriety, precisely because its radicalism requires of conservatives a realistic sense of how weak our position is in post-Christian America.
The alarm that the four dissenting justices sounded in their minority opinions is chilling. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia were particularly scathing in pointing out the philosophical and historical groundlessness of the majority’s opinion. Justice Scalia even called the decision “a threat to democracy,” and denounced it, shockingly, in the language of revolution.
It is now clear that for this Court, extremism in the pursuit of the Sexual Revolution’s goals is no vice. True, the majority opinion nodded and smiled in the direction of the First Amendment, in an attempt to calm the fears of those worried about religious liberty. But when a Supreme Court majority is willing to invent rights out of nothing, it is impossible to have faith that the First Amendment will offer any but the barest protection to religious dissenters from gay rights orthodoxy.
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Asad Rustom on the Patriarch Sylvester
2 hours ago
8 comments:
So, what of this is new? Considering that the earliest North American saints were routinely martyred, either to their death or through bureaucracy, by RCs or Prots?
Just asking.
Clearly, not enough evangelism.
I am usually in cheerful disagreement with The Anti-Gnostic, but on this occasion I find myself in happy concord. Gay marriage is our fault. For that matter, pretty much everything that happens in the public life of our various "First World" countries that is contrary to the Gospel is, at least in part, down to our failure to Evangelise. We catechise, we teach, we exhort. But how often do we proclaim the Good News to the world.
Not often enough. I am guilty.
There is probably a Jewish synagogue within a couple of miles of your location; you can start there. Mosques might be harder to find, but I'm sure a few minutes on the Internet will show where they are. Hindu temples, too.
After that, there are any number of heretical Protestant sects (performing gay marriage) which you can go evangelize. Or just start on the crowd in the break-room at work. After all, what is work and social amity compared to the plan of salvation? We have GOT to get the message out: homosexual relations are sinful.
In all seriousness, your delusional, ahistorical, and juvenile view of the Church as somehow permanently fixed in 33 AD is why I hope jurisdictional unity and autocephaly stay off in the indefinite future. You don't let children play with power tools.
Anti-Gnostic, you have your own blog to whine in. Go there to complain about how Christians aren't Jewish/Hindu/racist enough.
Please... no ad hominem or personal attacks. Thanks.
In ICXC
John
Not entirely sure if A-G was responding to me. If so, I might have been misunderstood. I would rather we spend less time whittling on about sexuality in isolation and rather more time proclaiming the Gospel (in words if necessary). The obsession with sexuality is derisory. Upon reflection, I think I didn't express myself particularly clearly.
lx54 - tell me specifically and in concrete terms how you plan on "proclaiming the Gospel (in words if necessary)." As I mentioned, I can provide you with a list of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist temples, many of them in sight of Christian churches, where you can stand on the public sidewalk and proclaim the Gospel night and day.
Are there truly so many tongue-tied Christians out there unable to explain their faith? This seems belied by the number of websites, podcasts and whole TV networks I see devoted to proclaiming the Christian faith. Are there no Christian apologetics on the Internet? Am I missing all the cowed pastors hounded out of public life due to their Christian beliefs? Patristic texts being seized by the State and burned in the public square?
The idea that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists et al. (not to mention affluent Episcopalian homosexuals) are laboring under sheer ignorance of the Gospel is just delusional. Trust me, they know who you are, where you are, and what you are saying. The continuing jeremiad that there is just not enough Gospel-proclaiming, whatever that is, is frankly delusional.
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