Why Christians should not prohibit same-sex marriage¶
You may believe, deep in your heart, that same-sex marriage is something evil. But please keep in your mind that Jesus calls you to love those who believe something else, deep in their heart.
Toomas Jürgenstein, a social democrat member of Estonian Parliament, explains why he is against a project initiated by conservative party EKRE that tries to change the Estonian constitution to explicitly prohibit homosexual marriages.
He quotes a statement formulated by Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski (1927-2009), who said that
turning “Christian values” into laws is a pagan and ideologist endeavour.
This reminds him a statement by C.S. Lewis,
A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for everyone. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives.
He then extends both ideas into “A good and right law should prohibit neither divorce nor same-sex marriage”.
But the most important is his last sentence where he confirms his readiness to reconcile:
At the same time I understand a religiosity that holds firm to traditional views for society. And as unbelievable as it sounds, in the end I believe that both sides are able to understand each other.
Well spoken, Toomas Jürgenstein! Now I know for whom I am going to vote in the next elections.
One thing disturbs me in your last sentence: it suggests or seems to assume that religious people are more likely to be traditionalists. Which is so utterly wrong! The Gospel doesn’t call us to value traditions, it calls us to love each other! Many traditionalists in Estonia are very alien to Christianity! Jesus himself was the opposite of a traditionalist!
I guess that it was simply a lapsus. You probably know that theologically there is no correlation between Christianity and traditionalism. I don’t blame you for your lapsus; if somebody is to blame, then it is us, the Christians, because obviously our behaviour leaves a wrong impression in public opinion. It is our job to explain the Gospel to others, and if non-Christians have a wrong image of the Gospel, that’s our mistake, not theirs.
Thursday, September 17, 2020