Posted on by Bernie Nord

But It Does Take Theology

Saturday’s story in the LA Times reporting on how support for Mitt Romney has grown among Christian evangelicals says “It doesn’t take a theologian…to figure out which presidential candidate is closer in line with biblical principles as (evangelical pastor Barry Farah) describes them – principles that translate into opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage and support for school choice and limited government.”

It occurs to me the challenge progressive faith communities have these days is to say that it does take theology (and theologians) to help us understand that the most important biblical principles translate into support for Roe v. Wade, marriage that works for all loving relationships, support for increasingly effective public education, and government that protects and advances the rights and privileges of all who are governed.

Take the institution of marriage as it’s popularly understood these days, for example. The back page of Section A of Sunday’s Raleigh News & Observer was a full-page ad by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association containing a photo of Dr. Graham and his message urging Americans to support “biblical values” and “to vote for those who…support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman.” Christian evangelicals are very good at re-framing (or maybe just initially “framing”) the discussion we’re having at the moment in this country about marriage and who qualifies to have it as a conversation about a biblical principle or value.

But, in fact, marriage isn’t either of those. Rather, marriage is a social institution by which societies – almost all societies, almost throughout all human history — have ordered themselves and provided protection to individuals within a society’s communities and families, it seems to me. Indeed, our own Presbyterian hero John Calvin saw marriage as a good gift of God that is best certified and attended to by the state, which he also understood as God’s good and necessary gift.

Marriage is a phenomenon that precedes and predates even the most ancient religions, even those in the Bible. Marriage is an institution of cultures and has various forms and definitions. For evangelicals to claim that only the form and definition that they experience as good and useful – the form of being between one man and one woman and only one of each – is the only useful form there is, is simply wrong. Marriage’s purpose is to give protection and hold commitments firm even when the makers of commitments give in to sin, weakness, or just change. And that sort of protection is needed in every society, community, and household, whether straight, gay, or multiple in the number of participants.

Just as progressive Christians must re-frame the Jesus only discussion that evangelicals would like to force on us to something that reflects a broader understanding of God’s love, we’ve also got to more successfully and boldly affirm another understanding of what marriage is, one that emerges from the purest and most important biblical principle of all – love. Jesus is calling us to do that, I’m pretty sure.

Posted on by Bernie Nord · 11 Comments

Hello, World.

Or…world of Presbyterians, or world of Reformed Christians, or just Christians, or — even better — world of people of faith who hope for (and expect) things to get better.

That’s a bunch of folks, I think. And since you’re reading this, let me introduce myself in hopes that you’ll stick with me, at least for a little while.

I’m a 70-year-old Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister (“teaching elder” — what an awful term), recently retired after 45 years of doing it professionally. In that time I’ve had a bunch of experience, some it interesting stuff, some of it boring, and a hell of an education. I guess I’d like to share some of what I’ve noticed. Some you might agree with me; a lot you won’t probably. But I’d like to talk and see what happens.

So here we go.

Let’s start with same-sex marriage, a topic with which the PC(USA) has itself and its underwear in knots, as demonstrated by the inability of the PC(USA) General Assembly last month to redefine marriage in its book of rules (the Book of Order) from something that happens between “one man and one woman” to a contract between “two people” (regardless of gender, notice) that is so important that the state, which we Presbyterians affirm as being a gift of God and as good, gets involved by certifying the relationship as good and that it must last or there will be consequences to the parties.

Which seems to me where we Presbyterians and all us Protestants, for that matter, have gotten confused…or maybe just forgetful. We’re confused or have forgotten just who it is that does marriage.

It’s the state, God’s gift for ordering humankind and compensating for humankind’s invariably fallen nture, and not the church that does marriage. We clergy are functioning as agents of the state when we perform weddings and sign marriage licences. We Protestant clergy ought not to sacramentalize or romanticize what we do because what we are officiating over isn’t sacred or sacramental. We ought not to pretend that it is. (Agreed, for Roman Catholic clergy, marriage is a whole nuther matter. For them it is a sacrament.)

Nevertheless, marriage is important. It’s purpose is to protect weaker parties in family relationships and those who are dependent on those relationships from abuse by the stronger — or crazier — parties. And which marriage doesn’t have one party that isn’t stronger or a little crazier? Remember, as Reformed Christians, we all affirm our fallen nature and that we all fall short of the glory.

So marriage works…because, by law, it compensates for our shortcomings. If you abuse, you go to jail, regardless of the gender or age of the one you abuse. If you break the covenants of the legal family contract of marriage, you pay alimony or child support or both…big time sometimes. It’s how it works and should.

The kind of contract that marriage is, is good. It’s for the well-being of humankind. But it has nothing at all to do with gender. It simply recognizes the tendency of all of us…all of us, straight, gay, or otherwise…to sin. And it seeks to take care of that tendency. Thank you, Calvin.

And thank you for listening

— Bernie Nord