Luke Girgis is the CEO and Founder of Seventh Street Media and a practising Christian. Below are his personal views on the same sex marriage postal plebiscite.
It’s an old Christian adage, “The world changes, but God doesn’t”. So yes, it seems that most believers and non-believers agree that the world we live in is ever changing, and there’s no denying it.
Time marches forward, and trends, ideals, and attitudes toward almost everything will change. However, it will surprise a lot of Christians to hear about how dramatic the church has changed its position on many topics over the time, and also their emphasis on how serious certain sins are or are not.
Yes, God never changes, he is outside of time, but maybe God is pulling humanity forward? Asking Christians globally to “Get with the times”. Take ACTS 10:9 as one of hundreds of examples of this happening in the ancient world.
“Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.
He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
“Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.””
An icon of Saint Peter featured in Acts 10:9
See what happened here? God gave Peter something to eat that every religious person for centuries thought was a “sin” to eat, and Peter argued with God. Why? It was in the bible, it was clear that eating unclean meat was a sin.
But think about that for a second, he was telling God what was and wasn’t a sin while God was trying to say “Hey buddy! Get with the times!”
You think God didn’t know what was written in the bible?
You know you’ve become way too legalistic with your religion when you start arguing with God about what is and what isn’t a sin. It’s absurd to think about.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to get into the whole “is homosexuality a sin” debate here, it’s out of the scope of this ramble as, in my view, we’d need to really dive into theological definitions of both “homosexuality” and more importantly, “sin”.
However, I also think it’s out of the scope of relevance when it comes to the upcoming Australian same-sex marriage postal plebiscite. Regardless of what you as a Christian believe about homosexuality, your view on the topic theologically should not come into consideration for one key reason;
Christians have already accepted marriage outside of the church. Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, pantheists, polytheists, and even Satanists all get married every day. The church is clear about which marriage is recognised within it, and which isn’t, so why should same-sex marriage be any different? If we do want to stop one demographic from marrying outside the church while we allow many others to, that is the very definition of discrimination.
So, let’s see how Christians now look back on events from over the course of history, just so we can compare how ridiculous it will be to one day look back on how same-sex couples were discriminated against for thousands of years.
Christians looking back at the ancient world;
“Remember when we cared heaps about circumcision and thought that those who weren’t circumcised were going to hell? Lol we were tripping.”
Christians looking back at the late 1800’s;
“Remember when we cared heaps about interracial marriage and thought all interracial marriages were an abomination? Lol we were tripping.”
Christians looking back at the 1940’s;
“Remember when we cared heaps about preventing the secular community from getting divorces we forgot about showing grace and love to those who were divorced? Lol we were tripping.”
Christians from the future looking back at 2017;
“Remember when we cared heaps about preventing gay people from getting married the same year there were 250,000,000 children working in sweatshops making the clothes we spent a small fortune on?
This was the same time the globe had recently suffered a huge financial crisis which was caused by the bankers who greedily paid themselves 80 billion dollars in bonuses but got the government to cut 60 billion dollars from the budget so we could “all share the burden”. This meant that more people entered poverty while the rich didn’t even notice the GFC, and welfare and foreign aid were slashed so significantly that people with very little support now had nothing.
Remember we didn’t even take to the streets once?
Oh wait, remember we did actually take to the streets but each time it was about stopping secular homosexuals from getting married rather than actually bringing a voice to the voiceless and protection to the unprotected? Lol we were tripping.”
