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Eroding Marriage
Penna Dexter
As the new year began, USA Today published a piece by two respected scholars on marriage. Dr. Ryan Anderson of Heritage Foundation and Professor Robbie George of Princeton outline the erosion of marriage over the past decade. They start with Barack Obama’s affirmation that “marriage unites a man and woman.” They take their readers through activist court rulings redefining marriage on to state ballot initiatives upholding marriage as between one man and one woman.
They describe President Obama’s “evolution” on the subject and the path of two marriage cases to the Supreme Court. In 2013, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court struck down the federal definition of marriage as a male-female union. Then, in 2015, the justices ruled, again 5-4, that same-sex marriage is legal in every state.
They write of the consequences to come: to marriage itself, to marital norms, to the family.
Theologian N.T. Wright explains that we “really should watch out” when civilizations try to change the meaning of keywords, like marriage.
Such a brazen move by men — to attempt to tamper with God’s plan.
Professor Wright describes Christianity as a grand narrative, a true story that begins in Genesis 1 with God creating the heaven and the earth. He says, “the binaries in Genesis are so important — that heaven and earth, and sea and dry land and so on and so on, and you end up with male and female.” He continues, “It’s all about making complementary pairs which are meant to work together.” And then, “The last scene in the Bible is the new heaven and the new earth, and the symbol for that is the marriage of Christ and his church.”
Arrogant men think they can erase “God’s intention;” a government cannot make black into white.
Professor Wright rightly declares that the new, alternative configurations of marriage that make it “just a convenient social arrangement and sexual arrangement” do not and cannot change reality.
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