It is all too easy, when dealing with a rather crafty devil, to lose sight of the real battle. As we witness the broader unbelieving culture sink ever more deeply into foolishness we exhibit our own foolishness when we think this is the end game of our enemy. The devil has precious little interest in making an unbelieving culture more unbelieving. In the great war between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman we know this- the seed of the serpent is already blind, enslaved, dead. Thus the serpent has no need to blind them, to bind them, to kill them.
If we would rightly understand the end game of Obergfell we would understand this not as an issue of Republican versus Democrat, not even as an issue of just how far unbelieving Americans might sink. Instead we would see it for what it was, not an assault on marriage, but an assault on the church. The relationship of Jesus and His church is the reality of which human marriage is the reflection. Men who practice perversion in private taking their perversion public isn’t much of a victory for old Scratch. Getting Christians to give up on marriage, now that is something to crow about.
With each passing week we have one of Big Eva’s ladies in waiting kissing a biblical sexual ethic goodbye, some progressive evangelical bemoaning their friend’s deconstruction of their faith over mean traditional evangelicals, some Big Steeple People coming to a new understanding that just happens to jibe with the prevailing cultural winds. What the devil is exploiting isn’t our own feeble understanding of manhood and womanhood but our prancing, mincing lack of masculinity. He knows we are cowards who run from battle, and harlots in the pay of the world.
In the meantime we have respectable conservatives acting respectably conservative. Like politicians who say one thing to their base and another when on the world’s stage, we spit and pulpit pound at CPAC while we stroke our beards and write nuanced think pieces for the New York Times. We keep backing up and drawing new lines in the sand while the enemy marches unflinchingly at us.
I remember like it was yesterday “World” magazine insisting that the day the Republican party turned its back on marriage they would turn their back on Republicans and encourage us all to do the same. It was about three election cycles ago. I remember thinking two things- first, no you won’t. Second, I know you won’t because you continually support candidates who promise to work to protect the rights of some parents to murder some unborn children. Anyone willing to bend on the murder of babies will not stand in defense of marriage.
What has our reasonableness, compromise, kowtowing won us? Defeat after defeat after defeat. It takes Matt Walsh, a bold non-evangelical blogger, to stump the heathen with his simple question, “What is a woman?” We continue to offer incense to our patron saint, Gamaliel.
Our calling, however, is to do the right thing, the speak the simple truths that make God’s enemies hate us. The results are in His good hands. He has called us to be faithful, not successful. When we forget this we join the forces of evil. The good news is that God is able to bring to repentance even the worst of sinners.