Don Carson Responds to the SCOTUS Ruling on (So-Called) Same Sex Marriage

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Today the Supreme Court voted five to four

00:00:08.120 | to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

00:00:12.360 | And here to talk about the fallout,

00:00:13.940 | we are joined by guest Dr. Don Carson

00:00:16.800 | for a special weekend episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast

00:00:20.320 | and we will run long this time, about 20 minutes or so.

00:00:24.200 | Dr. Carson, I wanna get your thoughts on some specifics

00:00:26.480 | about what today's ruling means for the church.

00:00:29.500 | But first, more generally speaking,

00:00:32.200 | what would you say to someone who came up to you

00:00:33.760 | and asked for your initial thoughts

00:00:36.440 | about the SCOTUS ruling?

00:00:38.360 | - A lot would depend, to be quite frank,

00:00:40.240 | on who was asking me.

00:00:41.500 | If it were an unbeliever in favor of the decision

00:00:44.880 | and this sort of thing, then I would say,

00:00:47.920 | I think that it is not well-grounded

00:00:51.840 | in the Constitution itself.

00:00:53.720 | Really, it's taking the 14th Amendment

00:00:56.440 | and trying to expand it by appeal to equal rights.

00:01:01.440 | And it's in some ways a bizarre ruling

00:01:04.720 | that probably will do damage on the long haul

00:01:07.480 | to freedom of religion in the First Amendment.

00:01:10.220 | Kennedy does have a paragraph in there

00:01:13.200 | about the importance of religious freedom

00:01:15.880 | and this sort of thing,

00:01:17.000 | but follows it up with a sentence saying

00:01:19.580 | that where the exercise of that freedom

00:01:22.460 | seems to harm the rights of others,

00:01:24.840 | then government has the right to curtail it,

00:01:27.440 | which really means, as far as I can see,

00:01:30.080 | that he wants the kind of religious freedom

00:01:34.840 | that is allowed in church buildings and worship,

00:01:36.960 | but not in a broader cultural view.

00:01:40.600 | So on the other hand, if somebody came up

00:01:42.480 | and were part of the loony right-wing fringe

00:01:45.080 | that is full of hate and raising money

00:01:46.980 | and this sort of thing,

00:01:48.080 | what I'd want to say is don't buy into

00:01:51.560 | the secular culture's insistence

00:01:54.400 | that this is the inevitability of history.

00:01:56.920 | We know who's in charge of history.

00:01:58.760 | On the long haul, the truth will out.

00:02:00.640 | On the long haul, every knee will bow

00:02:02.840 | and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

00:02:05.480 | Short term, there are going to be

00:02:06.680 | some difficulties and challenges,

00:02:08.140 | but this is no time for panic or resentment,

00:02:12.800 | and it is certainly no time for hate.

00:02:15.200 | We're still to love our neighbors as ourselves,

00:02:17.760 | and that doesn't matter whether they're gay or not,

00:02:20.720 | whether they're Muslim or not,

00:02:22.260 | whether they're sectarian or secular

00:02:24.840 | or fundamentalist or leftish or whatever.

00:02:27.480 | We're still to be a community of the transformed,

00:02:30.900 | of the redeemed.

00:02:31.740 | We will be courteous, we will be kind,

00:02:33.660 | and so somewhere along the line,

00:02:35.660 | we need to take great pains to make it clear

00:02:38.100 | that our views on marriage do not come

00:02:42.220 | from within a community that's merely traditionalist

00:02:45.280 | or merely old-fashioned,

00:02:47.960 | or from a community that's driven by hate

00:02:50.740 | or judgmentalism, but it's tied finally

00:02:53.580 | to what we hold to be revelation from God

00:02:57.660 | and how God made us in the first place

00:03:00.900 | and how marriage is supposed to mirror

00:03:05.900 | the relationship between Christ and His church.

00:03:08.180 | And therefore, regardless of what happens

00:03:10.620 | in terms of tax penalties or anything else

00:03:14.460 | or being criticized by the left or the right,

00:03:17.080 | we simply don't have the option to change those values

00:03:21.040 | from the beginning.

00:03:21.880 | It was not so.

00:03:22.880 | And so our stance must be resolve, determination,

00:03:27.640 | perseverance, faithfulness, courtesy, love,

00:03:30.520 | displaying a better way and recognizing

00:03:34.000 | that this is not the first time

00:03:35.520 | the church has confronted those kinds of things.

00:03:38.200 | In Rome in the first century, after all,

00:03:41.080 | although homosexuality was not, so far as we know,

00:03:45.280 | hugely common in every sphere of life,

00:03:48.480 | in some spheres of life, it was very common.

00:03:50.720 | And especially in the upper classes, it was very common.

00:03:53.760 | And Christians stood over against that,

00:03:57.720 | just as Christians insisted on the exclusiveness of Christ

00:04:00.440 | in a society that had many, many, many ways

00:04:03.820 | to God or to the gods.

00:04:05.500 | And Christianity was black-billed then

00:04:07.840 | as being right-wing and narrow-minded

00:04:10.360 | and exclusivistic and hate-filled.

00:04:12.500 | And Christians, by the quality of their living,

00:04:16.120 | gradually overcame those kinds of things,

00:04:19.260 | even though it took about three centuries

00:04:20.780 | of persecution to get there.

00:04:22.640 | So what will take place, who's to say?

00:04:26.460 | My guess is that there will be a lot of individual things

00:04:31.160 | now about taxes and education and exemptions and marriages

00:04:36.040 | and what can be allowed and what can't be allowed

00:04:38.200 | and whether something's denominational

00:04:39.880 | or not denominational and so on.

00:04:41.160 | All those kinds of things, I suspect,

00:04:42.840 | are gonna get tested in the courts,

00:04:44.400 | many of them all the way up to the Supreme Court.

00:04:46.480 | So we're going to be facing an array of challenges

00:04:50.360 | for years to come.

00:04:51.740 | And how that will all play out,

00:04:53.280 | well, I'm either a prophet or the son of a prophet.

00:04:55.640 | What I am sure about is Jesus is Lord.

00:04:58.080 | This is a time to be faithful and gentle and firm

00:05:02.080 | and evangelistic and loving and principled

00:05:05.540 | and not driven by malice or hate or condescension or anger.

00:05:11.120 | But simply to be Christians.

00:05:13.180 | - Amen, I wanna talk more about religious freedom

00:05:16.440 | in just a moment.

00:05:17.580 | So this Supreme Court ruling today

00:05:19.160 | really opens up a big can of worms.

00:05:22.480 | - Knowingly, in other words, I don't think

00:05:25.400 | they're naive about what they've done.

00:05:27.280 | - Would you say this landmark ruling today

00:05:31.520 | marks a new era for the church in America?

00:05:35.080 | - I'm always nervous about these new era things,

00:05:37.380 | to be honest, because in some ways,

00:05:39.600 | this is merely an extension of a change

00:05:43.760 | in public perceptions of anthropology, sex, science,

00:05:48.760 | a lot of things.

00:05:50.480 | One could say that some of it begins with a pill.

00:05:53.380 | We could say that some of it begins with Roe versus Wade.

00:05:58.760 | We could say that some of it begins

00:06:00.360 | with the loss of confidence in the heritage

00:06:03.920 | of a widely accepted, in some ways, Christian morality.

00:06:08.520 | So in one sense, this is just one more step.

00:06:11.800 | Those who have thought of America

00:06:14.320 | as being more distinctly Christian than it is

00:06:17.840 | will view this as a massive new thing.

00:06:20.680 | And it is new in certain respects.

00:06:22.420 | There's no doubt about that.

00:06:23.960 | But it's new only in the sense that state after state

00:06:27.600 | after state after state has insisted

00:06:30.120 | that gays and lesbians can marry each other.

00:06:32.920 | And what has happened now is that this has been affirmed

00:06:36.080 | by the Supreme Court for the whole 50 states.

00:06:38.660 | What makes it so desperately new?

00:06:41.400 | Well, not much, really,

00:06:42.880 | except that it's a little more universal.

00:06:45.060 | So it depends how you look at things.

00:06:46.840 | You can use it as a marker if you like,

00:06:49.240 | but there has been a transmogrification of perceptions

00:06:54.120 | about sex and anthropology and fertility

00:06:59.120 | and family and children and so on

00:07:02.640 | that has been going on a long, long time now.

00:07:05.840 | - Yeah, what would you say to Christians

00:07:08.640 | who feel angry right now and who feel betrayed

00:07:12.600 | by the courts for today's ruling?

00:07:14.500 | (laughs)

00:07:16.120 | - I'd be inclined to say

00:07:16.960 | you haven't been reading your newspapers.

00:07:18.400 | - Right, yes.

00:07:19.240 | - In other words, this was largely predictable,

00:07:24.320 | granted the decisions of the courts on recent decisions.

00:07:28.840 | I mean, I can't see how anybody who's well-informed

00:07:31.920 | on recent history would be surprised by this.

00:07:34.560 | Betrayed, that language presupposes

00:07:38.120 | that we have always been a deeply Christian country,

00:07:41.600 | and our history is more complex than that.

00:07:45.040 | There have been some hugely wonderful Christian values in it,

00:07:49.760 | but some things of which to be ashamed, too.

00:07:52.080 | And in any case, the locus of the people of God

00:07:54.920 | is not America and it's not Israel,

00:07:57.340 | and it's not Britain in this new covenant age.

00:08:01.920 | It's the genuine church of Jesus Christ.

00:08:05.600 | And so it really is very important to keep saying

00:08:08.640 | that our first allegiance is not to being American

00:08:12.440 | or to being Western.

00:08:13.760 | Our first allegiance is to being Christian or Christ.

00:08:17.140 | And insofar as a gauntlet is being laid down to say,

00:08:22.140 | choose between the Supreme Court and Jesus,

00:08:25.360 | we'll follow Jesus.

00:08:26.720 | And then whatever falls out of that in terms of sanctions

00:08:30.540 | or opprobrium or difficulty or accreditation

00:08:33.560 | or tax exemption or whatever,

00:08:35.520 | we'll work those things through

00:08:37.720 | and try as well and honestly as we can to handle them.

00:08:42.720 | And if we lose on them, so, the apostles were glad

00:08:47.440 | because they were counted worthy to suffer for the name.

00:08:50.380 | It's just not the sort of thing

00:08:52.320 | that is well-answered by anger.

00:08:55.240 | It's the sort of thing that is well-answered

00:08:58.640 | by a certain kind of serenity, confidence in God's sovereignty

00:09:02.920 | in his ability to make us stand,

00:09:06.120 | to be wise, persevering, clear on these matters

00:09:11.120 | and eager to teach the new generation growing up

00:09:16.260 | in our churches that we're not fuddy-duddy,

00:09:18.680 | so this is what the word of God says,

00:09:20.120 | and that's non-negotiable.

00:09:22.040 | - All right, this ruling hit on Friday,

00:09:24.100 | and Sunday is coming.

00:09:26.160 | If you were to preach on Sunday, what text would you choose?

00:09:29.920 | - As it happens, I am preaching this Sunday

00:09:33.160 | at a church in South Carolina

00:09:35.760 | that probably should remain nameless,

00:09:37.400 | but it's got two services, and between the services,

00:09:40.000 | they had asked me to give a public lecture

00:09:44.040 | of about 50 minutes on current trends in culture.

00:09:47.200 | Well, probably in South Carolina after this Friday,

00:09:50.520 | I can find one or two cultural things to comment about.

00:09:53.440 | - Yeah, no problem there.

00:09:54.360 | - So it promises to be an interesting Sunday.

00:09:58.800 | That in-between one is more of a lecture

00:10:01.360 | where I will end up with Acts chapter 17

00:10:05.120 | and Paul's address to people

00:10:07.440 | who are biblically illiterate in his own day

00:10:09.720 | and who have all the reins of power

00:10:13.320 | and whose views are very different from his own.

00:10:16.800 | I will probably end up there.

00:10:18.320 | For the two morning services,

00:10:21.400 | I'm simply preaching from one of the parables.

00:10:23.960 | I've decided not to change the text.

00:10:26.000 | It's an evangelistic approach,

00:10:28.840 | partly because although you want to answer wisely

00:10:32.600 | and address the current debacle,

00:10:34.760 | you don't want to set your agenda by SCOTUS decision.

00:10:39.400 | It's important, but it was predictable.

00:10:42.280 | It doesn't change much.

00:10:43.800 | It merely universalizes trends

00:10:47.160 | that have been going on for quite some time.

00:10:48.600 | And so something has to be said,

00:10:50.120 | and in this case, they've given me an hour to say it,

00:10:52.520 | but the regular preaching of the word of God

00:10:54.800 | in the morning services, I'm not going to change.

00:10:57.080 | - That is really good counsel for pastors.

00:10:59.800 | Back to religious freedoms.

00:11:01.880 | What do you predict will be the fallout

00:11:04.560 | from this SCOTUS decision for religious freedoms in America?

00:11:08.800 | - I'm not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet.

00:11:11.960 | I'm not a legal scholar.

00:11:12.920 | My guess is that there will be fewer threats for churches

00:11:19.800 | than for para-church organizations.

00:11:24.000 | I don't think somebody's going to come down and say,

00:11:29.880 | you can't officiate at heterosexual weddings

00:11:35.520 | unless you're also going to officiate

00:11:37.040 | at homosexual weddings.

00:11:38.440 | I doubt very much that that's going to happen,

00:11:40.740 | precisely because when things are really tightly tied

00:11:45.840 | to church, the first amendment is probably still strong

00:11:49.320 | enough in the foreseeable future to preclude a decision

00:11:54.320 | that would take that away.

00:11:56.640 | What will be in jeopardy probably sooner or later

00:12:03.600 | is tax exemptions of a religious sort.

00:12:06.400 | And there will probably be more threat for,

00:12:08.640 | well, for example, tertiary education institutions,

00:12:11.480 | especially if they're independent.

00:12:14.520 | I suspect that they'll be a little safer

00:12:16.880 | if they're tightly tied to a denomination,

00:12:19.080 | but the farther out you go into the para-church world,

00:12:23.160 | the Church of Rome will not seem in law

00:12:25.800 | to be exactly the same as an independent seminary

00:12:30.440 | or an independent Bible college.

00:12:32.640 | There's going to be a big shakedown before this one's over.

00:12:37.000 | In the worst possible case,

00:12:39.720 | the state could eventually bring in legislation

00:12:45.000 | that might ultimately be justified by the court

00:12:47.920 | that would treat Christian institutions

00:12:51.040 | the way Bob Jones was treated over its racism decades ago.

00:12:55.880 | That is, all financial support would be taken away.

00:13:01.120 | That's possible, but by no means inevitable or certain.

00:13:05.520 | Partly it was one institution, whereas in this case,

00:13:08.840 | there are thousands of institutions,

00:13:11.000 | and it's not just evangelicals, it's Catholics,

00:13:13.440 | it's Mormons, it's Muslims.

00:13:15.680 | It's a far more complex situation.

00:13:17.560 | And moreover, if that's the price to be paid,

00:13:22.040 | then it'll be the price to be paid.

00:13:24.160 | What can you say?

00:13:25.920 | It should have no bearing on what Christians do.

00:13:30.440 | That is to say, we follow Jesus, we follow Scripture,

00:13:34.560 | and we will try to be courteous and respectful,

00:13:38.400 | but disagree with those who are

00:13:41.360 | redefining marriage in this way.

00:13:43.560 | And it's quite possible that the Lord in his mercy

00:13:47.280 | will bring along a change in the pendulum in the culture,

00:13:50.720 | even possibly reformation that could swing

00:13:53.920 | the country in another direction.

00:13:55.960 | Who knows?

00:13:57.080 | I have no idea.

00:13:58.440 | But as it stands right now, it's hard to imagine

00:14:02.360 | that there won't be some shakedown

00:14:04.960 | that will affect some Christian liberties.

00:14:07.280 | Yes, I think that's probably right.

00:14:09.040 | - Finally, you travel extensively across the world.

00:14:13.880 | As the international community watches

00:14:16.280 | so-called same-sex marriage become

00:14:18.920 | the law of the land in America now,

00:14:21.440 | how is the international community

00:14:22.760 | viewing the United States right now?

00:14:25.120 | And especially from the perspective of the global church,

00:14:29.400 | what are they thinking?

00:14:31.760 | - Well, it depends what country.

00:14:33.880 | There are Christians in Canada,

00:14:35.920 | which is farther down the pike than we are,

00:14:38.120 | and in Scotland, who look at us somewhat bemused

00:14:40.920 | and say, "Why are you making such a big deal of it?

00:14:42.520 | "I mean, we've learned to cope with it, why can't you?"

00:14:45.080 | And there is a sense in which there are things

00:14:48.320 | to be learned by talking to Christians

00:14:50.160 | in some of these countries that have gone

00:14:52.520 | a little farther down this road than we have.

00:14:56.240 | What is more discouraging is, oh, countries in Africa,

00:15:00.560 | for example, I could name, where increasingly

00:15:03.960 | American aid has been tied to policies

00:15:08.160 | in those African countries that will soften

00:15:12.040 | their stances on homosexuality and the like.

00:15:14.400 | So in other words, aid is increasingly being tied

00:15:17.920 | to manipulation of majority world countries,

00:15:22.360 | adopting our changing moral standards.

00:15:25.840 | There's something shameful, I think, about that.

00:15:28.600 | But I'm sure that those who support this decision

00:15:31.400 | view this as a way of using our financial power

00:15:35.840 | to do what is right.

00:15:37.760 | So internationally, people are going to look at us

00:15:43.000 | out of a framework that will vary enormously

00:15:45.760 | from country to country.

00:15:46.640 | I mean, some countries are really very secular

00:15:49.120 | in their outlook.

00:15:50.160 | Russia's not gonna be affected in the slightest

00:15:53.960 | by any of this.

00:15:55.160 | European countries are moving in this direction

00:15:57.360 | or have gone farther than we have in this direction.

00:15:59.520 | Many countries from which we get aid

00:16:01.240 | that are in fact culturally more conservative,

00:16:03.520 | in some cases, actually more Christian,

00:16:07.160 | some cases not, feel manipulated by the American government.

00:16:11.240 | It's a complex set of reactions,

00:16:13.520 | depending on what country you're talking about.

00:16:16.080 | The Muslim world will see this as further confirming

00:16:21.080 | evidence of America's moral decay.

00:16:24.360 | Much of the Muslim world thinks of the West

00:16:29.040 | as essentially and deeply sleazy,

00:16:32.480 | and who's to say that they're entirely wrong.

00:16:35.760 | On the other hand, it has to be said

00:16:37.400 | that at least in some of these countries,

00:16:38.860 | there is a lot of a double standard that's operating too.

00:16:42.520 | But it certainly gives grist for the popular press

00:16:46.240 | in their own countries.

00:16:47.620 | - It does, yeah.

00:16:49.760 | And just to be clear, you're not just talking about ISIS

00:16:52.280 | and radical Islam right here.

00:16:54.400 | - No, no, it's not just ISIS, but, oh,

00:16:56.480 | for example, the Wahhabis or Salafism,

00:17:02.400 | and just a lot of conservative Sufis and Sunnis

00:17:07.600 | view the moral standards of the West

00:17:10.160 | as being one of the least attractive elements here.

00:17:13.100 | They like our technical prowess, and they like the jobs,

00:17:15.640 | they like the technical skills and the science

00:17:17.440 | and this sort of thing, but are frankly appalled

00:17:20.480 | at the nudity and the sexual innuendo.

00:17:24.480 | And I've just come back from two Middle Eastern countries

00:17:27.440 | that will remain nameless

00:17:28.640 | and turned on their television and so on.

00:17:30.800 | It's amazing what they block.

00:17:32.600 | And I have a certain amount of sympathy

00:17:35.880 | for what they bleep out and block

00:17:37.960 | just because it's sleazy, it is sleazy.

00:17:42.000 | So this will confirm their perception

00:17:45.520 | of American sleaziness.

00:17:46.800 | - It sure will.

00:17:48.840 | Dr. Carson, thank you for your time today.

00:17:50.400 | That was Dr. Don Carson speaking with us from his office

00:17:53.520 | at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois.

00:17:56.960 | Dr. Carson is the author of many wonderful books

00:18:00.280 | over the years, and most recently,

00:18:01.980 | he served as the general editor

00:18:03.800 | of the forthcoming NIV Zondervan Study Bible.

00:18:07.200 | We'll be talking more with Dr. Carson later this summer

00:18:10.280 | on the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:18:12.520 | For everything you need to know about this podcast,

00:18:14.440 | go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:18:19.440 | Thank you for listening to this special episode.

00:18:21.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:18:22.560 | We return on Monday with John Piper.

00:18:24.600 | (upbeat music)

00:18:27.180 | (upbeat music)

00:18:29.760 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Don Carson Responds to the SCOTUS Ruling on (So-Called) Same Sex Marriage

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