Marriage existed before any government was organized. For thousands of years, people were getting married with no such thing as a marriage license
To sanction gay marriage/same-sex marriage is to approve of the homosexual lifestyle, which the Bible clearly and consistently labels as sinful.
I enter the fray with no foolish, naive illusion of grandeur. I concede with the world population quickly approaching eight billion people, my blog post will not garner much reach or influence, but I remain resolved this is one of the few meager contributions I can make to advance and defend the name of Jesus Christ. Thus, I will continue to blog, if just for an Audience of One, hoping Jesus Christ will greet my meager efforts one fast-approaching day with “Well done, Ricky. You have been faithful over a few things. Now enter into my rest!”
While I seek to be truly thankful, wholly consistent with the spirit of Thanksgiving, my spirit is vexed by many recent that is not altogether surprising given our culture’s downward spiritual trajectory. Three tragic shootings have marred this 2022 Thanksgiving season, the immoral war continues in Ukraine, and many people struggling with inflation are cause enough for grave concern. Yet, the most alarming recent development troubling my spirit was the U.S. Senate marshaling enough Republican support for the Defense of Marriage Act. The Senate now stands poised to pass the Act now that the measure has achieved cloture, which means the Senate can now pass the legislation with a simple majority. The House has already approved the legislation, and President Biden has heartily proclaimed he would most enthusiastically sign the bill into law at his first chance.
Let me express most adamantly again that I am the Chief of All Sinners presently alive on Planet Earth. So, I am not haughtily writing from a lofty perch of moral superiority. The difference between many of my Evangelicals of A.A. descent supporters of all things Democratic Party and this writer is that I am deftly ashamed and embarrassed about my sin.[1] Lately, most of my prayer time (most regrettably, never as much as it should) deals with my woeful sinfulness. More and more, I begin to internally digest what was marinating in the mind of Paul when he wrote, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out (Romans 7:15fff).”
Without the ability to blush, twelve U.S. Senators, under the cloak of Conservatism, freely choose to politically align themselves with a governmental sanction of a law that expressly rebels against one of the three foundational institutions ordained by Almighty God (Government and the Church being the other two). The Family is the Institution of Institutions. The Family is a-political, meaning the Family does not derive its origin, source, or grounding from the government. Much like the Church did not decide which books, contending for canonization, made it into the canon. When correctly understood, as I believe the Reformers of the Sixteenth Century did, the Church only accepted what God sovereignly decreed would constitute the sixty-six books of the Holy Writ. With the same force, mankind does not retain the ability to define the parameters of marriage.
Evangelical thinking ministries, like Stand to Reason, eloquently understand and proclaim this vitally important distinction over against the reasoning of someone as formidable as Dennis Prager. There is much to commend about Prager’s contribution to Conservatism in the public square, and I have benefited from time to time from Prager’s insights. Prager correctly defends the institution of traditional marriage, but he misses the point in one excruciating detail. Note this rebuttal of Prager’s strong yet incomplete defense of traditional marriage by Stand to Reason:
Prager
Every higher civilization has defined marriage as an institution joining members of the opposite sex.
Stand to Reason’s rebuttal
I don’t think marriage has been defined by culture. Instead, I think it has been described by them. The difference in terms is significant. If marriage is defined by culture, then it is merely a construction that culture is free to change when it desires. The definition may have been stable for millennia, yet it is still a convention and therefore subject to alteration. This is, in fact, the argument of those in favor of same-sex marriage—[emphasis mine].
Contrary to the Roman Catholic view on Canonization, the Church did not define what books were canon worthy. Instead, the Church merely received the books that God ordained would constitute the veritable Word of God. Evangelicals of my tradition hold to a theological position known as recipimus. While it is beyond the scope of a blog post like this to deal fully with the topic, I invite you to click on the attached resource for a deeper dive.
Suffice to say those who espouse the Recipimus tradition; their major tenets include understanding the [bolded text is, of course, this Author’s view]
Roman Catholic view: The Canon is an infallible collection of infallible books.
Classical Protestant view: The Canon is a fallible collection of infallible books.
Liberal Critical view: The Canon is a fallible collection of fallible books.
Though Protestants believe that God gave special providential care to insure that the proper books be included, He did not thereby render the Church itself infallible. Protestants also remind Roman Catholics that the Church did not “create” the Canon. The Church recognized, acknowledged, received, and submitted to the canon of Scripture. The term the Church used in Council was recipimus, “We receive.”
So, while I embrace and appreciate the contribution of Prager’s vigorous defense of traditional marriage, I believe Prager fails to demonstrate he grasps that the ultimate determiner of truth can never be decided by counting noses or nickels[2]. Prager grounds his understanding based on what every higher civilization has come to define as proper. Yet, this very higher civilization is, at its very best, still a severely flawed entity, marred by Original Sin.
Consequently, Evangelicals, everywhere and always, understand our consciences are held captive, forever yearning to make them obedient to Christ. Our concept of right and wrong never inheres within us. Right or wrong, always and everywhere, is alien, external, and foreign to us due to the Fall. Marriage is a hill Evangelicals will die upon, not because we think marriage is the best mechanism for human flourishing. Truly regenerated Evangelicals stand ready to plant our flag and die (figuratively AND literally, at least for me) on this hill because the Church has understood, always and everywhere, God has made marriage a sine qua non for human flourishing. Put frankly, society cannot survive for long if traditional marriage is just one option of many. You desire more frankness, well alrighty then. This society is not long for existence when it volitionally rejects God’s clear prohibition against same-sex relationships of any kind.
Marriage, like gender, is not a social construct. While there will be no marriage in eternity future, God ordained, in eternity past, before time began, that traditional marriage, in time and space, would be the only means for Adam and Eve to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth. Same-sex liaisons are a direct affront against both God and Nature. Same-sex relationships, if lived consistently, would inevitably lead to the extinction of the entire human race. America, with its unabashed embrace of same-sex marriage, is under the expressed wrath of a thrice-holy God per the inspired writings of Paul in Romans Chapter One.
The Supreme Court Obgerfell decision was never justly a cause for celebration, be it the Obama administration allowing one of America’s most venerable architectural landmarks [the White House] to be cloaked with the LGBTQ rainbow or Vice-President Kamala Harris boasting about officiating California’s first same-sex marriage. I might add President Biden has done the same. Both while claiming to be devout followers of their respective faith despite their respective faiths explicitly condemning same-sex marriage in clear, concise language.
Prager’s flawed reasoning should not come as a complete surprise to the observant Evangelical critical thinker. Prager is not an Evangelical. He writes from a non-Evangelical, Jewish perspective.
The thrice holy triune God and this God alone has the authority to define the parameters of what constitutes marriage, and even the youngster in this week’s Sunday school will easily grasp a passage like
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh [Gen. 2:24].
Same-sex marriage is an abomination the Bible condemns in the most strenuous manner, and I write as only one beggar trying to tell another beggar where they may find bread. There is no holier-than-thou false bravado from this writer. I know all too well if God were to render justice to me, I would be worthy of only two results: death and damnation.
Despite the Bible’s very clear communication about the sanctity of marriage, the vast majority of Evangelicals of A.A. descent will remain loyal to the Democratic Party. Topple with judicial and now legislative fiat, what has been understood for six millennia about life, marriage, and gender, and the Evangelical of A.A. descent support train just keeps chugging along without missing a beat or ability to blush.
These Evangelicals do so as if they have never bothered to take the Bible’s portrayal of God’s righteous anger seriously and wrath poured out on those who volitionally choose to disobey Him. Providentially, it just so happens that I am reading through another Year Through the Bible reading program. I have just begun the Genesis passages that deal with Sodom and Gomorrah.
There can be no legitimate reading of the Sodom and Gomorrah account where one does not reach the unassailable conclusion that God will respond to open, unrepentance sin and do so decisively. How a nation, allegedly birthed in a Judeo-Christian worldview, can devolve into such a morally debased bankrupt condition is beyond my meager acumen.
Editor’s note: I know some will object that any two people have a right to love and marry whom they love without any dissent from anyone else and that individuals like me only promote hate or suppression of others’ right to self-expression and self-rule. My reply is such an objection is a red herring. My worldview is grounded in the fact that God is Sovereign, and as Sovereign, He gets to serve as the Potter, and His creation always serves at His good pleasure. Anyone who understands American politics, even on a cursory level, understands this analogy all too well. Every member of a Presidential staff serves at the good pleasure of the President. No member of the President’s staff can unliterally make policy. That is a prerogative only of the President, not the Vice-President or any Cabinet member, the President alone!!!
How men and women, who insist they have surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, can run headlong and with full chests towards the Party of Death, i.e., the Democratic Party, is not intellectual; it is spiritual. I will even go so far as to postulate it is demonic. I would submit there can be no other plausible explanation for how one can actually read from God’s Word and then support policies that are gross rebellions against their Creator. Society cannot blaspheme the institution of marriage and believe it can do so with impunity. Just because judgment has not come yet is never a signal it will not come. I believe God, when He inspired Paul to write, God is not mocked. What a man sows, so shall he also reap! Contrary to one of Dr. King’s famous expressions, Justice delayed will not be Justice denied.
So yes, all of us share the same condemnation. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; that much is certainly true. The difference between many of you and me is that I am forever repenting of my hideous, detestable sins. I am never comfortable with my sin. My sin is not for public display. Most of my sinful behavior and attitude I do my darndest to suppress and keep hidden from public view. All the while with the full awareness that God sees all knows all and will justly and righteously judge all.
I want to circle back to something I wrote earlier to close out my musings on this subject. Romans 1 cannot be any clearer about God’s abhorrence of same-sex relationships. Romans 2 goes on to reveal those who give approval to those who flaunt their noses at God stand condemned as well. So much for the I disagree but give others the freedom to follow their own course shabby manner of exegesis.
If you are against sin, you first begin with your hatred of your own sin, and then you proceed to hate the presence of sin in others. A true Christ follower gives no quarter to sin: within and without! Thus, that dog will not hunt when you attempt to say, like President Biden and so many others, you are personally against a particular sin yet give license for others to commit the same sin.
Thus, I write as God’s Watchman as found in the Book of Ezekiel. I write warning all that to stand in political alignment with those who seek to redefine the parameters of marriage do so with the blood fully on their hands as they have been duly warned, not only here but in many other Bible preaching sites and Churches.
I do not spend the time it takes to formulate thoughts and organize ideas to write a blog because I delight in being marginalized and thought to be on the wrong side of history and out of touch with the times.
Judged by the larger society, I very well may be on the wrong side of history and out of time with the times, but as history has shown, God’s remnant has been judged in likewise manner time and time again. The larger modern society condoned slavery, the Holocaust, the ill-treatment of Native Americans, and Jim Crowism, just to name a few, so I don’t even have to venture too far back into the ancient past to make my case.
To you, my fellow Evangelical of A.A. descent, nothing I have said in the past, or in this letter will likely change your heart or mind. On some level, I cannot condemn you for that. God has not given you the spiritual ears to hear or spiritual eyes to see. The only difference between you and me is God’s benevolent grace towards me, an undeserving sinner.
All I can do is remain obedient to God’s call on my life and call you to repentance, one bearing fruits worthy of repentance. The people of God do not align themselves politically with entities that promote the desecration of marriage, period, end-of-story, full-stop.
You can crow till the cows come home about how the Republican Party is racist, how Donald Trump is a racist, or how the Republican Party does this or that. That may or may not be true, but the one interconvertible fact is the Democratic Party, as presently constituted, is a godless politico entity. Consequently, my position is unwavering. No Evangelical, seeking to be faithful to the Word of God, can, in good conscience, align themselves with the Democratic Party, as presently constituted.
Regarding the Republican Party, maybe yes and maybe no. When it becomes a No for me, then I seek to find an acceptable third-party candidate, or I simply do not vote in that election with no remorse whatsoever.
My position regarding the latter is up for debate. Maybe I will get to heaven and find out I should have always voted for the Republican candidate, like in 2008, when I consciously chose not to vote for Mitt Romney, even as the candidacy of Barack Obama biblically repulsed me.
Now, regarding the former, with fear and trembling, I believe I have correctly adduced the mind of God about the Democratic Party and its godless political ideology.
The only remaining question, for me, is why do you not come to the same position, my fellow professing Evangelical?
As always, let me know what you think. Until then, keep your hands to the plow and seek to serve for an Audience of One.
With fear and trembling,
Ricky V. Kyles Sr. DEd.Min
P.S. I agree with the sentiments expressed by Dr. Albert Mohler, the President of my alma mater, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Evangelicals should and must take note of the twelve U.S. Senators who capitulated and sold their collective souls to the sexual revolution. An entire blog post could be written about these twelve Senators’ blatant portrayal of Conservatism. Why these twelve chose to do what they did must remain a secondary consideration for Evangelical concern.
My call, our call from God, is to read His Word, do our very best to understand His Word correctly, to seek to obey His Word, and then to proclaim His Word, most prominently with the Gospel, the only vehicle at our disposal to change a person’s eternal destiny.
My final plea to Evangelicals is although no Senator from Texas voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, I nonetheless call on you, no matter your state of residence, to remember these names and hold them accountable as God providentially grants the opportunity.
Roy Blunt of Missouri
Richard M. Burr of North Carolina
Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia
Susan Collins of Maine
Joni Ernst of Iowa
Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
Rob Portman of Ohio
Dan Sullivan of Alaska
Mitt Romney of Utah
Thom Tillis of North Carolina
Todd Young of Indiana
[1] Of course, my lament is not exclusively and solely directed towards Evangelicals of AA descent. I abhor all professing Evangelicals of all ethnicities who so gullibly bend the knee to Baal. Yet, as an Evangelical of AA descent my heart aches just as the Apostle Paul ached for his countrymen most graphically and explicitly.
[2] For those slow on the uptake noses refer to people and nickels refer to money.
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