The Marriage Pledge

The debate over the marriage pledge has died down, but it shouldn’t be dismissed. It still has a useful function, a clarifying function.

Those who signed the marriage pledge were refusing to sign state marriage licenses. The point behind the pledge was to distinguish between what the law now calls “marriage” and what the church has always called, and must continue to call “marriage.” It’s a statement that what the law now calls “marriage” isn’t, by Christian definition, because “in the beginning” marriage meant the union of a man and woman.

Now, what happens when we blur that distinction? What happens when “marriage” gets re-defined, wholesale, to include same-sex couples? Churches that don’t maintain the distinction between legal and Christian marriage will have to admit that same-sex couples are “legally married,” and they’re likely to follow that admission with a host of other concessions. 

Church members move in a culture that tolerates no moral objections to homosexual practice, and increasingly accepts the redefinition of marriage. Unless the churches make the difference between the church and the world as stark as possible, Christians will likely be blown this way and that. Not everyone will sign the marriage pledge, but churches that refuse to address this issue at all are abusing the sheep. 

Clarity is a matter of faithful pastoral care.