Moral Authority?

In the past I’ve had the occasional go at the hierarchy of the Christian Church, not normally at Christians themselves, whom I nowadays tend to see as an oppressed minority. Yet when it comes to moral authority, I do believe that the church when it speaks upon what God intends, speaks with a far more authoritative voice than say politicians and pressure groups who want it to ‘change’ its rules.

Mail.

David Cameron yesterday promised that gay marriage will be legalised by 2015, as he compared Church opposition with Conservatives who once ‘locked out’ homosexuals from the party.
The Prime Minister also paid tribute to Tony Blair for paving the way by introducing civil partnerships.
In remarks that will concern some Tory traditionalists, he said: ‘I am absolutely determined that this Coalition government will follow in that tradition by legislating for gay marriage in this Parliament.’
Praising the institution of marriage, he added: ‘It’s something I feel passionately about and I think if it’s good enough for straight people like me, it’s good enough for everybody and that’s why we should have gay marriage and we will.’
Mr Cameron, who was speaking at a Number 10 reception for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community, has promised his MPs a free vote on the issue.
But the Lib Dems will be whipped to vote in favour of it.

Now the Church has several scriptures with regard to homosexuality and its response these days tends to be rather humanitarian with regards to something that God himself doesn’t approve of. However in the case of ‘marriage’ the church is on very firm footing, ‘marriage’ is an institution between a man and a woman in Gods sight in order to produce and nurture children into the world. It’s not something the church is going to change and it would require a re-write of the Bible to do it. Because if Churches are forced to marry gay couples then it means that the church is put in the position of approving sin. At the moment the current policy is about as good as it gets, love the sinner, hate the sin, which means gays are accepted into the church, but are expected like all Christians to do their best to live as God wants. Not that I’m saying Christians are perfect, I’ve no doubt that we could bring up several thousand examples of Christians acting in very unchristian ways. Yet when Cameron promises legalisation of gay marriage, he’s setting himself against a very basic biblical principle and it’s not something Christianity is going to give way on, nor indeed Judaism or Islam. It does not matter what the LGBT community want either, again I believe the religious card should trump theirs it’s not like they haven’t got equivalent equality via civil partnerships anyway. But no, what they want is for the Churches to marry them (same as hetero’s) in the sight of God on Holy ground and in this instance I believe that the Churches have right on their side. (or at least a written rule book)

So when it comes to Moral Authority, in this instance I’m going to side with the Church, I have no axe to grind with the LGBT community, other than perhaps their militancy in wanting everything their own way. But when it comes to politicians trying to force the religious community to do something which is expressly forbidden in their scriptures then I have to side at least this time with the Church.