Two articles on gay marriage have appeared recently that you need to take note of if you haven’t already. Both of them are written by men who believe in traditional marriage in the same way that I do. Yet both of them are suggesting that social conservatives can no longer stand against gay marriage as a matter of public policy. They are not saying that social conservatives shouldn’t stand their ground. The are saying that social conservatives can’t stand their ground. There simply isn’t a viable political coalition to make it happen. Legal gay marriage in all 50 states is inevitable at this point, and so social conservatives need to reconsider how to move forward.
Rod Dreher’s article is extremely insightful as to where we are as a culture. Even if you don’t agree with him about “retreating” from the issue, his cultural analysis is dead-on right. Dreher argues that social and religious conservatives have lost the argument over same-sex marriage and that they “would be smarter to retreat behind defensible borders.” By that he means three things:
1) We should understand that this was not an argument we were going to win, in part because the elites, especially in the media, were dead-set against us, but mostly because SSM makes sense given how most people today, especially younger Americans, think about marriage and sexuality…
2) The Republican Party is not going to do anything significant to protect traditional marriage…
3) SSM opponents would do well to abandon the fight against SSM, and instead focus on the threat SSM poses to religious liberty — this, while there is still the prospect of energizing a majority of people to protect religious liberty.
The latter part of Dreher’s piece is going to frustrate a lot of social conservatives, but they need to read it anyway. I think there are too many good conservative folks who are unaware how far-gone our culture is on this issue. On that much, Dreher is right, and that must inform what we do moving forward.
Interested in learning more about Southern Seminary?
More than 250 Southern Seminary students received degrees – ranging from certificates to doctorates – during commencement exercises on the seminary lawn, May 17, 2013. “This great assembly is humbled by the knowledge that you will go where so many of us have never gone,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Seminary, told the [...]
Veteran Southern Baptist journalist James A. Smith Sr. has been named seminary executive editor and chief spokesman of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, school officials announced May 15. “Jim Smith is one of the most respected journalists and writers in the Southern Baptist Convention. He is a man of great gifts and tremendous experience,” R. [...]
Southern Seminary honored Russell D. Moore for his nearly 10 years of service, April 16, when he preached his last chapel sermon as dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration. Earlier this year, on March 26, trustees of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist [...]
And so, you graduate. The Seminary Lawn is filled with hundreds of graduates, faculty, family, and friends. Everyone is playing his or her part. Parents are proud, spouses are glad, friends are happy, and a good number of infants are hungry. The faculty is feeling old and the graduates are feeling wise. And you are [...]
The doctor is a murderer. The trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell ended yesterday, with the infamous abortion doctor convicted of three counts of first degree murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter. The doctor’s abortion clinic, described by a Philadelphia prosecutor as a “house of horrors,” is no more, but the truth revealed in his [...]
Looking for evidence that our society is losing its mind? Just look at the controversy over so-called “emergency contraceptives” and a federal judge’s effort to make these drugs available, over the counter, to girls of any age. Last month, Judge Edward Korman of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York [...]
Mother’s Day is a particularly sensitive time in many congregations, and pastors and church leaders often don’t even know it. This is true even in congregations that don’t focus the entire service around the event as if it were a feast day on the church’s liturgical calendar. Infertile women, and often their husbands, are still [...]
In the beginning was the Word. Christians rightly cherish the declaration that our Savior, the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, is first known as the Word — the one whom the Father has sent to communicate and to accomplish our redemption. We are saved because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Believers [...]
George Jones has died, and I am afraid a lot of people will think he was a hypocrite. George Jones was no hypocrite. He was the troubadour of the Christ-haunted South. The raw emotion, and even whispers of torture, in his voice can teach American Christianity much about the nature of sin and the longing for repentance. [...]
We should have seen it coming. Back in 1989 two young activists pushing for the normalization of homosexuality coauthored a book intended to serve as a political strategy manual and public relations guide for their movement. In After the Ball: How America Will Conquer its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s, authors Marshall Kirk [...]
Jesus once told of a wealthy man who went on a long journey. Before the man left, he entrusted his wealth to three servants. To one he gave five units, to another just two units, and to the last he gave only one. Each received “according to his ability,” Jesus said. The servant with the [...]
