Churches Recognizing Gay Marriage are Undermining the First Amendment

         Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky has decided to allow gay marriage ceremonies.  The Louisville newspaper reported this on the front page of its recent Sunday edition (ironically?) as if such decisions are big news anymore.  At this point, it is clear gay marriage is going to be the law of the land in the United States.  Churches like Highland, however, are doing something unfortunately insidious – they are helping undermine freedom of religion under the First Amendment.

       You see, the church should stand in distinction to the culture, not with it.  When churches like Highland fall into line with the secular thinking about an issue, it’s not “progress” for the church, it’s progress for those with secular beliefs who want their beliefs to reign supreme.  I don’t begrudge Highland it’s self-determination – I am a Southern Baptist, after all, and believe in the autonomy of the local congregation.  The difficulty, however, is nothing Jesus said or did seemed to go along with the culture at the time.  He spoke of lust as adultery, for instance.  The Jewish tradition generally required the act before sex outside marriage became adultery; the Roman tradition went further, not only allowing for sex outside marriage, but publicly acknowledging wives were to bear heirs, other women were for sex, prostitutes in particular.  Jesus denied validity for either the Jewish or Roman view.

          How then is Highland and others like it undermining the First Amendment?  The point of the First Amendment was to permit free religious exercise, as well as restrain the government from establishing a state run religion.  When Highland and so many other churches give in to the wider, secular culture, what they are saying is their free religious exercise doesn’t matter.  If they believe what the world believes, then why is this part of the First Amendment necessary?  The new hermeneutic which the Obama administration has been touting since President Obama came into office is “freedom of worship.”  This is a very restricted view of the First Amendment that claims each church may “worship” how it pleases – within its own four walls, of course!  Religious belief has no place in the public square or in public discourse.  Unwittingly, churches like Highland, in making public pronouncements which acknowledge a cultural attitude as biblically acceptable, are saying we’ll keep our worship within our four walls and our public presentation will mirror the world’s values.  The more the church does this, the more it becomes utterly irrelevant and the more any kind of robust understanding of the First Amendment withers.

        While Highland may claim its views on other matters remain uniquely Christian, gay marriage is a major cultural issue of our time.  It matters enormously that outsiders see the church capitulating on this issue, as it becomes a much smaller step to marginalize the church on the next matter.  For instance, what will Highland say when someone comes wanting to have two spouses?  It’s not biblical?  If so, Jack Black and other such Hollywood types will cry out “hypocrisy” and point to Abraham’s two wives, Jacob’s multiple wives, and Solomon’s harem, just like they pointed out that “you can’t eat shellfish or you’ll be stoned to death” as grounds for disallowing the Levitical pronouncement of homosexual behavior as an abomination.  While Highland may not give in on this point, other churches will (and may have already).  As the slide towards secularism continues, the need for the First Amendment’s establishment and freedom of exercise clauses becomes less apparent.  If the church and the culture look the same, then religious exercise really means nothing more than singing a different song, saying different prayers, or having a different liturgy.  All this can be done comfortably within the four walls of a building – where no one ever has to hear or see any of it.  It utterly privatizes religion.  The First Amendment was never designed to privatize religion – it was designed to keep government out of religion – in all senses.

        While some might point to the recent Hobby Lobby decision as undermining this argument, there are two problems with that view.  First, Hobby Lobby was decided under a Federal law, not the First Amendment; second, Justice Ginsburg’s dissent shows that intellectual/political elites either really don’t understand orthodox Christian belief and practice, or are prepared to misrepresent it in order to get their way.  Don’t think that Justice Ginsburg’s “lack of comprehension” is only a liberal matter.  This is an intellectual/political elite matter –few in the machinery of government care one whit about religious liberty except as a means of garnering votes from Christians in periodic elections.  Orthodox Christians need to be prepared for upcoming assaults on the First Amendment – there will be calls from this time forward that the First Amendment’s religion clauses need re-working.  One of the prominent arguments will come from those claiming that since the church looks just like the culture, the freedom of exercise clause really doesn’t mean anything. 

        When this starts happening you can thank Eugene Robinson, the Episcopal Church, PC-USA, Highland Baptist, and others like them for unintentionally but foolishly clearing the path.