Many leaders disagree on the USA Court decision on homosexual marriage
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| English: Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Evangelical leaders are now speaking out in response to the ruling that changed American history forever.
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention urged Christians not to panic.
In a blog published on The Washington Post website, Moore wrote, “The Supreme Court can do many things, but the Supreme Court cannot get Jesus back in that tomb. Jesus of Nazareth is still alive. He is still calling the universe toward his kingdom.”
He continued, “The church will need in the years ahead to articulate what we believe about marriage; we cannot assume that people agree with us, or even understand us. Let’s not simply talk about marriage in terms of values or culture or human flourishing. Let’s talk about marriage the way Jesus and the apostles taught us to — as bound up with the gospel itself, a picture of the union of Christ and his church (Eph. 5:32).”
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse president Franklin Graham said that the Supreme Court does not have the authorities to redefine marriage.
“With all due respect to the court, it did not define marriage, and therefore is not entitled to re-define it,” Graham wrote on his Facebook page.
"Long before our government came into existence, marriage was created by the One who created man and woman—Almighty God—and His decisions are not subject to review or revision by any manmade court. God is clear about the definition of marriage in His Holy Word:’Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24),” Graham said.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council also condemned the decision. He said, “Five justices on the Supreme Court have overturned the votes of 50 million Americans and demanded that the American people walk away from millennia of history and the reality of human nature.”
“No court can overturn natural law. Nature and Nature’s God, hailed by the signers of our Declaration of Independence as the very source of law, cannot be usurped by the edict of a court, even the United States Supreme Court,” Perkins finished.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler responded with a call to action.
"We must contend for marriage as God’s gift to humanity — a gift central and essential to human flourishing and a gift that is limited to the conjugal union of a man and a woman. We must contend for religious liberty for all, and focus our energies on protecting the rights of Christian citizens and Christian institutions to teach and operate on the basis of Christian conviction.
"We cannot be silent, and we cannot join the moral revolution that stands in direct opposition to what we believe the Creator has designed, given, and intended for us. We cannot be silent, and we cannot fail to contend for marriage as the union of a man and a woman," he said.
Evangelist and founder of desiringGod.org John Piper mourned the brokenness of the United States in a sorrowful blog.
“My sense is that we do not realize what a calamity is happening around us. The new thing — new for America, and new for history — is not homosexuality. That brokenness has been here since we were all broken in the fall of man.”
“What’s new is not even the celebration and approval of homosexual sin. Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalization and institutionalization. This is the new calamity.”
