A Response to the First Republican Senator to Support So-Called Same-Sex Marriage
00:00:00.000 | Rob Portman, a Republican senator from Ohio, wrote a commentary published today in the
00:00:09.520 | Columbus Dispatch.
00:00:10.880 | Formerly, Senator Portman opposed marriage for same-sex couples.
00:00:14.200 | Now today he has switched his view on this and claims he changed his view in part because
00:00:18.000 | of his faith and because of what he reads in the Bible.
00:00:20.680 | As you can imagine, this is causing quite a stir online.
00:00:23.360 | Pastor John, what are your thoughts on Senator Portman's editorial today?
00:00:27.320 | Rob Portman has said that for conservative reasons, like the Prime Minister David Cameron,
00:00:36.880 | now he's going to switch his view from supporting traditional man-woman marriage to supporting
00:00:43.880 | so-called same-sex marriage.
00:00:46.840 | It's a very sad article and I just want to flag two things that he said which I think
00:00:57.640 | are very serious for us to think about, watch for, be aware of, that are swaying people
00:01:06.080 | in that direction.
00:01:09.600 | His son came out as having same-sex attraction and he says that, this is a quote, "I'm
00:01:20.120 | a dad who wants all three of his kids to lead happy, meaningful lives with people they love,
00:01:29.480 | a blessing Jane and I have shared for 26 years."
00:01:33.960 | He infers from that that for his son to be happy, he must be given the right to marry
00:01:46.760 | so-called another man.
00:01:50.560 | So he's elevating happiness, as he understands it, above biblical guidelines of what makes
00:01:59.080 | you happy.
00:02:00.080 | The first observation I have is the absolutizing of self-defined long-term happiness as opposed
00:02:08.800 | to God's definition of long-term happiness is right at the heart of how people are changing
00:02:15.080 | their minds here.
00:02:16.800 | They're simply abstracting the term happiness out of its biblical context and definition,
00:02:23.680 | giving it a meaning that they want and then using it as a warrant to justify a certain
00:02:29.600 | kind of relationship that the Bible proscribes.
00:02:33.400 | That's observation number one, absolutizing self-defined long-term happiness as you see
00:02:40.680 | it over against God's definition.
00:02:42.720 | Here's the second observation.
00:02:45.280 | He then goes on to say, "For me, it came down to the Bible's overarching themes of love
00:02:54.080 | and compassion and my belief that we are all children of God."
00:03:03.880 | What's happening there is that a hermeneutical strategy, a way of interpreting the Bible,
00:03:09.840 | is being used.
00:03:11.040 | I would call it the absolutizing of self-defined biblical themes in such a way that they nullify
00:03:20.240 | biblical particulars or biblical commands.
00:03:23.520 | So he takes compassion and he takes love, he defines them his own way, then he brings
00:03:31.120 | that definition to 1 Corinthians 6 where it says that those who act out their homosexual
00:03:38.160 | desires will not go to heaven, and he says, "We won't live by that.
00:03:44.400 | It can't mean that, or I won't accept that."
00:03:46.560 | But he's nullifying biblical commands and biblical particulars by absolutizing his definition
00:03:53.960 | of broader biblical themes.
00:03:55.920 | So those two things are what is at work over and over again in this whole debate, and have
00:04:01.680 | been at work, of course, for generations.
00:04:04.240 | I just want to alert the folks who listen to this to watch for that.
00:04:08.640 | Where is there a self-defined view of happiness that is then used to justify making a person
00:04:15.840 | happy without regard to biblical guidelines?
00:04:19.240 | And secondly, where is there a way of interpreting the Bible so that self-defined big biblical
00:04:26.480 | themes are used to cancel out particular biblical commands?
00:04:31.040 | So I think if we Christians are alert to the kind of illegitimate uses that are being made
00:04:39.240 | of the Bible in this way, we might be more cautious, more careful, and not be swept away
00:04:45.560 | quite as easily into unbiblical ways of life.
00:04:51.080 | And what's so tragic about this is that if the Bible is really true, according to 1 Corinthians
00:04:58.280 | 6, for example, 9 and 10, that those who do such things, that is, those who go ahead and
00:05:03.240 | practice same-sex sexual relations, will not enter the kingdom.
00:05:09.440 | This is not love, it's not compassion, and it's not going to lead to happiness, and that's
00:05:15.400 | tragic.
00:05:16.400 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:05:18.280 | Senator Portman's editorial was published today under the title "Gay Couples Also Deserve
00:05:21.840 | Chance to Get Married," and it was published at Dispatch.com.
00:05:24.480 | Thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:05:26.560 | You can find thousands of other free resources online from John Piper at DesiringGod.org.
00:05:29.960 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.
00:05:31.920 | Thanks for listening.
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