Our Position On Same Sex Marriage

Modern people think of the world in the same way people tend to think of a blank sheet of paper. They feel they should be free to write whatever they please upon it. At least that’s the case when it comes to meaningful living. They believe we make our meaning through our actions and intentions.

That’s why they consider all meaning to be subjective. Certainly that’s what the most influential artists, educators, and politicians in the modern world believe. And because of this, not only do they think we should not judge other people, they do not believe there is any basis for judgment. Meaning only exists in the eye of the beholder. You know how it goes, you have your truth and I have mine.

Perhaps this is most clearly seen in modern attitudes towards sex and marriage. These are what we make them. There is no right or wrong—we just want what we want and that’s the end of it.

But this is wrong because it leaves out a very important piece of information. The world has a Creator. Reason makes that sufficiently clear and scripture fills in the rest. And in something of a surprise—even for many Christians—the scriptures reveal that the identity of the creator is Christ himself.

The problem with many modern Christians is that they are more modern than they are Christian. They are just as likely to believe the world is a blank page as their unbelieving neighbors. This means they can be just as guilty of thinking that social institutions are just arbitrary products of human will. But if the world has a creator, even our social institutions should in some sense reflect the purposes of that creator. That doesn’t mean they will always reflect those purposes as well as they should—it just means we have a basis for determining whether they do or not. This brings us back to marriage and Christ’s purposes for it.

Marriage plays a significant role in Christ’s purposes for both this world and the world to come. Let’s start at the beginning. According to Genesis 2 the human world began with one man. Soon he is given a woman and the two of them are told to become “one flesh”. This is a clear reference to a conjugal union. Those people who would like to interpret this in some other way are playing tricks with words. It is not a reference to a spiritual union, or some sort of emotional bond. And by means of this union a man and a woman may become one flesh in a fuller way. Each makes a contribution of flesh at a microscopic level. If the man and woman are blessed, these two portions of flesh become the flesh of a child.

The purpose of Christ in all of this is explained in the passage—the fruitfulness of the couple will fill the earth with the image of God. The term image here was a fairly common one in the ancientnear east and it always denoted regency. When someone was an image of another, he was that person’s representative. So a child is not merely the image of his parents, he is connected to a higher source. He or she is an image of God.

This is why, among other reasons, marriage has always connoted the union of a man and a woman. While this should be enough to satisfy our curiosity, there is another reason for Christians. The conjugal union of a man and a woman not only serves Christ’s purposes in this world, it also points to the next. In Ephesians chapter 5 we are told that conjugal marriage points to something even more significant than we can now fully appreciate. We are told it mysteriously adumbrates the union of Christ and his body, the church. It is because Christ is the head of his body, like a husband is the head of a wife, that we can be confident that Christ’s resurrection will bring about the resurrection of believers. And because Christ is now in glory, we can be sure that believers will also be glorified. Conjugal marriage is more than a metaphor in the way we normally think of metaphors. It is a reflection of an eternal reality, something above and beyond any program of cultural change.

This means that Christianity cannot be whole without conjugal marriage. It also means that people who attempt to equate so-called “same-sex marriage” with conjugal marriage are undermining the Christian faith. This is why our church rejects so-called “same-sex marriage” without qualification. Any compromise in this regard is a betrayal of Christ himself.

What does this mean for congregational life at the Presbyterian Church of Manchester? It means the leadership will not solemnize, honor, or in any way recognize the vows of same-sex couples, even when those vows were solemnized by a civil or ecclesial authority. Like any visitor, we will endeavor to treat a person in such a relationship with kindness, but we will not recognize a “same-sex” marriage as legitimate.