The Relationship between Gay Marriage and Divorce:

How the Shaping of Young Attitudes concerning Divorce Ensures the Inevitable Success of Gay Marriage

The irony is nearly impossible to miss for those who have exercised their spiritual senses. I have observed what I believe is the schizophrenic behavior of Church leaders in modern times with amazement and utter bewilderment. Schizophrenic behavior manifests itself in hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking and speech. It seems to me that modern Church leaders are manifesting, to one degree or another, every one of these symptoms. The Church is in the middle of a heated battle for the institution of marriage. Just as she lost the battle over abortion, she will eventually lose this battle as well. Any field general will tell you that a million M-16 riffles are very intimidating on the battlefield. However, once the enemy determines there are no bullets in them or that the weapons were disabled for the parade, a man with a pocketknife would not be warned from the object.

The Young Generation’s Attitude toward Gay Marriage

According to Pew Research people in their forties and fifties oppose gay marriage by a two to one margin. If you look at people in their sixties and seventies, that number moves to four to one. You have to move to people in their early thirties before the numbers turn positive and the younger one is, the more likely they are to favor the idea down through the teenage years. When you pass through the teenage years, the numbers turn negative again. This is likely due to parental influence.

I have a friend who works as a nurse and is strongly in favor of the autonomous homosexual lifestyle. When confronted with the numerous health risks related to the homosexual lifestyle she concludes that the reports are the result of mere biased Christian propaganda without even the slightest bit of investigation. She is in her thirties. She has never bothered to research the issue for herself. She simply believes what she wants to believe and no amount of objective evidence is going to change her mind. The younger generation, both in and out of the church, in western culture has severed nearly all authority. They believe they know better simply because they want to believe they know better. They have no compunction to engage in critical thinking or to present a reasoned debate for why they are right. This is a generation raised to do whatever it wanted to do. They were taught unbridled tolerance, that self-esteem is god, that you can be or do whatever you want, and that you have a right to have it your way, and that unbridled hedonism is part of the American dream which they are free to pursue without restraint. They have taken these ideologies very seriously and quite literally, and we are beginning to see the fruit of this labor. The most important thing to the younger generation is the same as it was when they were children: what they want. They are determined to have what they want when they want it, and now that they are adults, no one or nothing will stand in their way.

Contributors to the Younger Generation’s Attitude toward Marriage

In Matthew chapter five, Jesus informed us that we, the true church, are a light on a hill, a city that cannot be hid. One of the natural functions of the true church is to serve as a restrainer of sorts in all things ethical and moral within its respective culture. We help preserve that moral fingerprint God has impressed on the individual conscience within the framework of the culture. While the individual will never entirely lose this fingerprint, they do tend to wander from it. In fact, they will wander as far as the culture wanders. The culture is that outward, visible limiting force that helps keep society morally ordered. As more individuals slowly push those limits and the culture moves its boundaries, morality slowly erodes under the pressure. Enter the Church! But all is not well with the church. Several years ago, how the church viewed the reliability, authority, and credibility of Scripture slowly began to change. What were once small elements of radical beliefs and praxis in the church began to gain prominence and respectability. Soon these radical beliefs were just as respectable as the norm. Then, before we realized it, they became the norm. The view of Scripture was reduced considerably, in practice if not in confession. Along with this, people’s behavior, unrestrained by the sacred text, which was not so sacred any longer, also changed. One of the most devastating changes was the church’s refusal to hold members to the confession. Church membership was reduced to signing a card and pledging along the broadest of lines. In some cases, an atheist could qualify for church membership. Doctrine fell into disrepute as cultural relevance and relationship along with hedonistic entertainment became the goal. Pastors abandoned the old-time gospel and began to see themselves as spiritual professionals. They would spend more time studying church management, marketing, and growth than they would Greek and Hebrew. This trend continues to this very day. Church became a place for relationships, entertainment, and self-help. Jesus became my personal self-help guru. Those who wanted simple bible-study were and are accused of bibliolatry.

What has contributed the most to the young generations view on gay marriage?

Given the pathetic and miserable conditions in the church where there is no discipline, no discipleship, no genuinely biblical relationships, no accountability, no sound preaching, very little bible study, it only follows that conditions in the home would only worsen. And worsen they did. Kids would observe mom and dad attend church and put on a fake smile and fake piety and then witness no effort whatever to live as godly examples in the home. If a young teenager read the bible, they would quickly realize that almost no one really believes this, because no one really lives it. And then, the divorce rates inside and outside the church began to rocket upward. Dad would get caught cheating. Mom would demonstrate no regard for her husband, the father of her children. There is abuse and all sorts of evil and almost no display of godly love. Marriage, along with nearly every other Christian distinctive became a joke in the home and kids stopped taking it so seriously. In essence, for this younger generation, Christianity looked good on paper, but no one really believed it because no one really did it. Why should the younger generation believe in the institution of marriage if they can’t even believe in the institution of the church? Without a credible church, there can be no credible institution of marriage! When the church abandoned Scripture in pursuit of self-help, hedonism, entertainment, popularity, relationships, and everything except Christ, then whatever institution required Scripture as its foundation inevitably was doomed to collapse. Marriage, in no small degree, rests squarely on the revelation of God. This is God’s design for humanity. Make no mistake about it: gay marriage will not lead to the dismissal of divine revelation. Rather, it is precisely this dismissal of divine revelation that has led to the collapse of the institution of marriage and the subsequent success of the gay agenda to legalize same sex marriage.

Contributors to the Contributors to the Younger Generation’s Attitude toward Marriage

Outside of the dismissal of Scriptural authority in all things pertaining to life, the single greatest contributor to the younger generation’s attitude toward marriage is the attitude of the Church itself toward the institution of marriage. When the church refuses to get involved in the divorce crises that confronts western culture, she injects fuel into the tank of the gay marriage initiative so that the engine can continue to operate. The church argues that gay marriage is wrong because it compromises the institution of marriage, which God Himself has established. Yet the world will answer, “You do not take this institution of marriage any more serious than the rest of us.” What can the church answer to this charge? The world is right. Every church that sits by idly and does nothing to confront the sin of divorce can be placed on the list of “largest contributors” to the gay marriage agenda. You are a hypocrite of the first rank if you condemn gay marriage and engage in unbiblical divorce. You have no more respect for the divine institution of marriage than the homosexual. The church that sits on the sideline in the face of divorce and is passive when couples head to court to end their marriage is hypocritical when she attempts to stand up and condemn gay marriage. When the church allows members to divorce without publically dealing with it, she sends all sorts of unacceptable signals to the young men and women in her community. Marriage is not really that important! Divorce really isn’t that bad. And if this is the case, why then is gay marriage such a bad idea? Such churches are powerless to provide any truly rational and meaningful response to such objections.

The church loses her credibility to speak out and influence when she refuses to openly demonstrate her commitment to that thing she says she is really committed to. Moreover, the issue becomes reduced to a political one. And when that happens, the whole idea is reduced to a matter of one preference versus another. In the end, the church, the one who fights against gay marriage more openly than any other entity, can largely be said to be the one entity that is mostly responsible for the inevitable legalization of gay marriage or unions. That is a very sad commentary on the undeniable state of affairs that have obtained in the modern, visible church of the west.

However, there is the true church that has not been defeated, is not exhausted, and she does not sleep. She is a adversary to her antagonist unlike anything he has ever encountered. She is tenaciously bound to the truth and will discharge her last ounce of blood to preserve it. She is overflowing with God’s Spirit and incased in His righteousness. This church, the true church takes action when people’s marriages encounter trouble. She is there as an ever present help in time of need. And when leaven move stealthily in and rejects God’s design, this church is not frightened to read the names of the obstinate before the world. God’s commandment is more important to her than conciliation. She is both a gentle loving influence in her communities as well as an immoveable force refusing to compromise and bend to the sinful whims of her culture. There are men of God in these Churches who are humble lovers of Christ and His word, as well as His people. They will bend over backwards to help a sheep regain its footing, but not an ounce to please the sinful sensual desires of ungrateful sinners whose lives remain in darkness. Love, truth, and unity are the hallmarks of these churches. They care for one another enough to maintain truth and unity within a framework of godly accountability. When these churches condemn homosexual marriage, they have a reputation that lends credibility to their argument. God grant us all grace to walk as true believers, worthy of the calling by which we have been called.