For the handful of folks who read
this blog, you know I take my Christian faith seriously. Now let me frustrate many of you. Two current stories are being lumped together
which are separated by a chasm of gargantuan magnitude. Both arise from Kentucky, right in the heart
of the Bible belt.
One story involves a clerk in
Rowan County Kentucky who refuses to issue marriage licenses to homosexual
couples because, she says, it violates her sincerely held religious beliefs and
her rights under the First Amendment to exercise her religion. The other story is about a volunteer Chaplain
who has been working in a juvenile detention center in Kentucky for 13 years
who was told to sign a document saying he wouldn’t teach what the Bible says
about homosexuality or quit. Both
involve Christians; one has a beef, the other doesn’t.
First, the one with the beef. David Wells was, for 13 years, a Christian
chaplain from a Southern Baptist Church at the Warren County Juvenile Detention
Center. It’s not like the state of Kentucky
didn’t know what he was doing all this time – he offered his services as a
counselor who was explicitly Christian.
Moreover, he was volunteering – so he was there out of a genuine concern
for young people, not to pick up a paycheck.
He also has a background that allowed him to empathize with these young
people, having been a victim of abuse as a child. He wasn’t coming into this with rose-colored
glasses on, idealistically assuming every young person he met would immediately
become an award winning citizen. What he
offered was a shoulder to cry on and hope through the power of healing that
truly comes from only one person: Jesus Christ.
The state of Kentucky has decided
that the biblical teaching on LGBTQ issues amounts to “derogatory language”
that “conveys bias or hatred” towards young folks struggling with these issues. Therefore, it is banned. Sign or you’re out. What could Wells do? Lie?
Sign the document knowing he wasn’t going to follow it? No, as a true Christian, he refused to
sign. Some might say, look at the good
you could have done, you’re hurting the kids.
FALSE. The message he was giving
those kids was one of hope through Christ – he can’t offer that without
honestly teaching what the Bible says.
He was given what we often call a Hobson’s Choice – take what’s offered
or nothing.
He took a principled stand – and
the state of Kentucky lost a sincere, decent counselor who can no longer impact
the lives of desperate young people in need.
In the meantime, the state of Kentucky took a step towards Orwellian madness
– it is now hateful to offer people an opportunity for eternal life in heaven
with the God of the universe. Moreover,
it is biased against Christianity (and other religions, too, by the way) to prevent
the suggestion that LGBTQ is not sinful.
There is bias either way.
Then there is the Rowan County
Clerk, Kim Davis. She has three
problems, in my view. One is biblical,
one is legal, one is ethical. NOTE: Before you get too angry at me, I do agree with Ms. Rowan that the Bible does not condone gay marriage and that it is morally wrong. Nonetheless, I don't agree with how she is handling herself; nor do I agree with the lawyers who are handling her case.
The biblical argument against her
actions arises from reviewing the actions of Daniel in Chapter Six of the Book
of Daniel. In that situation, the King
was getting ready to appoint Daniel as what we might call Prime Minister. Daniel’s political enemies got the king to
pass a dopey law requiring everyone to pray only to him for 30 days. Daniel, knowing what was going down,
nonetheless continued his normal practice of praying to the God of the
universe, not the king. He was caught and thrown into a lion’s den. You know the rest of the story (if not, read
Daniel 6). Ms. Davis is, likewise, a
governmental employee confronted with an edict with which she disagrees. Note, however, the difference: Daniel never
once went to the king to ask for some sort of exception. He didn’t croon about his rights. He simply, and quietly, knowing the
consequences, went about his everyday business, which was not related to his
actual job, by the way. Daniel obviously
had significant sway with Darius, given the position he was going to be given
(and was, in the end). He could have
made his arguments, could have attempted to use his influence to in some way
make an arrangement with the king but he did not. Ms. Davis is doing just the opposite: she’s
specifically defying “the king” and thumbing her nose at the crown all the
while. She is making demands of the
government, not humbly accepting the consequences her actions might
entail. Daniel acted in complete
understanding that God is sovereign; Ms. Davis is acting like the First
Amendment is sovereign.
Secondly, Ms. Davis cannot
properly argue, under the law, that as a public servant she can willy-nilly
decide which laws she will obey and which she won’t because of her Christian
beliefs. If such is the case, then she
undermines the very principle of the rule of law on which the United States is
based. The rule of law says that
government workers don’t get to determine for themselves what laws should and
shouldn’t be obeyed. For this reason, Jack Conway,
Kentucky’s Attorney General was rightly excoriated by some for his failure to defend
Kentucky’s marriage law during the Obergfell
case (the recent gay marriage case). One
of the very arguments made about the tyranny of the current president is that
he seems to think he can act without regard to the laws, making his presidency
one based on the rule of man, not law.
Ms. Davis is doing precisely the same thing, just from a different
perspective. In this, she is just dead
wrong.
Finally, and worst of all, Ms.
Davis has an enormous ethical problem. Before
now, did she question every person who came in about their previous marital
status? To how many divorcees who
divorced for unbiblical reasons has her office issued marriage licenses? Were her Christian beliefs not frustrated by
those marriages? These are valid
questions that many non-Christians (and at least this Christian) will ask, and
rightly so. It is an inconsistency of
the highest order to suggest one’s religious beliefs concerning marriage
concern only gay marriage and not other unbiblical marriages.
Mr. Wells did what he had to do. He acted on conscience and quietly left. Ms. Rowan is making a mockery of her position
and, unless she’s prepared to tell us she never once issued a marriage license to
an improperly divorced person, she needs to rethink her position
immediately. She’s ignoring the lessons
of Daniel, but instead is placing her faith in the First Amendment instead of
the God of the universe.
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