Tuesday, March 15, 2016

"I Don't See Man Clothes and Woman Clothes" -- Evangelicalism and Most of Fundamentalism Agree

Why are professing Christian leaders opposed to same sex marriage?  Sure, God the Father in Genesis 2 and God the Son in Matthew 19 teach marriage only between one man and woman.  It's God's only way.  Yet, what is the major problem with same sex marriage?  It is the rebellion against God's design, which is what we read in Romans 1:18-25.  The creation rebels against Creator. Someone cannot both love and please God as well as rebel against Him.  Those activities are mutually exclusive.  The person may say he loves God, but he only rebels against God.

Someone cannot really oppose same sex marriage and accept rebellion against God's design.  The latter actually is what leads to the former.  If you want the former to stop, you stop it at the latter.

Everything for a believer is about pleasing God.  Pleasing God is pleasing God.  You either want that or you don't.  You can't want pleasing God in the elevation of the design of God for the glory of God in marriage, but not support it everywhere God teaches it and expects it.  What I'm saying is that if you don't want to please God in it all then you don't want to please God in it at all.

If God brings up a particular support of His design that He desires, wants, and requires, then believers, one should assume, would eagerly support just like God requires.  For all of the history of the church, believers kept unique designed distinctions between men and woman.  This was like breathing.  The church just did it.  God expects it.  The departure from this is a very serious departure.

For a long time, American culture was so biblical that it followed the Bible on designed distinctions in dress between men and women.  The symbol of male design was pants and the symbol of female design was the skirt or dress.  This really was just assumed. As the country rebelled against creation, it also moved away from God's design, as manifested in women wearing the male symbol.  The culture rejected it and then the culture began to accept it, but the church still rejected it.  Then like many other aspects of biblical practice, the church began to capitulate too.  Now the same trajectory is occurring with marriage.

Jaden Smith, Hollywood actor and 'son' of Hollywood actor Will Smith, was interviewed for British GQ Style magazine, which was picked up as an article for ET Online and posted at Yahoo.  In those locations, he said the following:
I feel like people are kind of confused about gender norms. I feel like people don’t really get it. I’m not saying that I get it, I’m just saying that I’ve never seen any distinction. I don’t see man clothes and woman clothes, I just see scared people and comfortable people.
Is what he said true?  Is there no distinction?  Is there no man clothes or woman clothes?  There are man clothes and woman clothes, but American society and the American church already surrendered on the distinction.  Evangelicalism for sure views the world here as Jaden Smith does. Fundamentalism is not far behind.

I think Jaden Smith would just be ignored as an issue, because in principle for sure evangelicalism takes his same position on this issue.  Evangelicals join him in mocking those who don't see life the same way as he does.  I'm talking about all evangelicals:  John Piper, John MacArthur, Albert Mohler, and everyone to the left of them.  Even revivalists like Paul Chappell are capitulating on this issue today.  Like the evangelicals, he calls these types of beliefs, non-essentials, like them to preserve a coalition.

Same sex marriage is not the only abomination to God.  The women who wear the male garment and the men who wear the female one, all who do so, are an abomination to God.  Same sex marriage gets a lot of play still among evangelicals.  It is even a political issue and a Supreme Court justice issue. Why isn't this an issue?  Evangelicals and most fundamentalists already gave up.  Their women already began wearing the male garment.  That's no answer from them for Jaden Smith.  He says, "I don't see man clothes and woman clothes."  Evangelicals and most fundamentalists don't either.

If there are no man clothes and there are no woman clothes, then no one has an answer for Jaden Smith.  That's why for the most part he won't hear an answer.  You won't get a special podcast from Albert Mohler.  There won't be a series of articles from prominent evangelicals.  You are more likely to hear one of them mock an article like this instead.

There is not hope for the marriage issue if churches, if believers, will not stand on the fundamental principle behind it, God's created design.

5 comments:

Gary Webb said...

Amen. If there are no man clothes and no women clothes, I guess God was confused when He had Moses write Deuteronomy 22:5.

Joe Cassada said...

On the brighter side, thanks to Jaden Smith, culottes will be considered trendy. Look for them soon on a fundagelical college campus near you.

Joshua said...

I used to say to folks that they wouldn't like it if they saw their Dad in a dress, but figured it was a mere thought experiment that was never going to happen. Now I explain to them that one day they will see their grandson in a frock, and when that day arrives, they will shut their mouths because Satan already carried the day on that issue with women, and it would be rank hypocrisy for them to start arcing up about men doing what women had been doing for so long.

When the history of the sexual chaos of the 20th-21st century is written, the rejection of distinction in dress is going to get it's own chapter, and will be directly linked as the herald of the coming destruction of gender roles entirely.

I was talking to a lady the other day who was thinking of tossing in the towel because "we've lost and it's over now." Looking at the surge of transgenderism rising - NOTHING could be further from the truth. World War 2 wasn't over because Poland was lost. It had just got started. Pants on ladies was just the first skirmish in the developing war. You'll be fighting for your sons and brothers to maintain gender distinction within a mere decade if not before.

Your choices boil down to three:
1. Maintain gender distinction in our culture to the Glory of God, starting with ladies and continuing with men in the coming years.
2. Cave on gender distinction with ladies, and then have to carry out an embarrassing reversal when your hypocrisy is exposed as you resist men wearing women's clothing.
3. Roll with ladies in pants, and then roll with your sons in skirts using the culture excuse.

Kent Brandenburg said...

Thanks for the comments.

It boggles my mind that people don't get this. They have no answer. They just ignore it and don't care. I have to assume they must support same sex marriage then too, to be consistent. They are against same sex marriage for reasons of personal taste. It grosses them out. Besides that, it's OK, because they can't argue from God's design. God's design doesn't matter.

Joshua said...

Fascinating: http://mic.com/articles/139113/rapper-lord-jamar-appears-in-new-video-slamming-jaden-smith-and-the-rise-of-girly-men#.sIusabhlc

Now there is a chap who hasn't figured out this is a morally neutral preference thing. Give it 30 years...