God & the State — Cranach: The Blog of Veith
God & the State — Cranach: The Blog of Veith
The family and hence marriage, which can be defined as starting a family, are certainly part of the civil order. In fact, it is the foundational vocation of the civil order and of the state itself. Marriage comes under the laws of the civil order; that is, the state. It was objected in the discussion that God made Adam and Eve married before there was a state. First of all, Adam and Eve in Eden constituted a state! Second, it is ALWAYS God who joins men and women in holy matrimony so that, as Jesus said, no man should put them asunder. God doesn’t have to work through means. But now He has chosen to work through means, including human vocation. It’s God who gives us our daily bread through farmers, heals us through physicians, creates new life through parents, and protects us–and establishes marriage–through the authorities He has established in the state. To make the church rule in marriage gives the church a temporal and civil authority it must not have. Yes, Christian marriages are better, just as all vocations become true callings and more than mere offices in the light of faith, but God works through the earthly realm, including the state, just as He works through the church, though in different ways.This is the fundamental problem with the ELCA Sexuality document. It utterly confuses the two kingdoms. Gay marriage? So what? We don't have to bless them. But the ELCA thinks the must obey the whims and fancies of our degraded culture. Why? Love, they say. Sorry, love says "I forgive you," it does not say "It's okay, don't worry about it." It still calls sin a sin, all the while caring for the sinner.
