Recently, Dr. Peter Scaer, an associate professor at Concordia Theological Seminary, a fundamentalist Lutheran Church-Missouri-Synod institution in Fort Wayne, Indiana, took to the opinion page of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette to demonstrate his Bible-driven view of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Scaer wrote:
The First Amendment guarantees our rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. Yet, college campuses have implemented speech codes and created “safe spaces” to protect people from opinions they find disagreeable. Corporations have followed suit, as have governmental agencies. Increasingly, differences of opinion are labeled “hate speech,” thus ending reasonable debate.
Now the Indiana legislature, through Senate Bill 100, is on the verge of weaponizing this politically correct movement by giving protected-class status to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. People with differing worldviews can coexist as neighbors who care for one another. This, sadly, is not where the politicized LGBT movement is leading. Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla Firefox, was stripped of his position simply for supporting a traditional marriage amendment. Kelvin Cochran, an African-American fire chief, lost his job for writing a book on marriage. ESPN commentator Craig James was fired for expressing his views on traditional morality. Government agencies and corporate America have grown inhospitable to people of faith.
I believe in marriage equality, but I hold to the definition of marriage that has itself defined civilization. Every child has a reasonable right to a father and a mother.
Parents are equal but not interchangeable. Not every couple has a child, but every child has a biological mom and dad, and for that there is marriage. While some disagree, this position is based on reason and love.
Meanwhile, as our society moves from same-sex marriage to legalized polygamy, polyamory, temporary, open and even incestual marriage, we do well to encourage public discourse. Together, we need to ask, “What is marriage?”
Our opponents seem to think that marriage is a societal construct, something we can change as we please. But any type of marriage that purposefully deprives a child of a mom or dad is unjust.
SB 100 is called a compromise by offering certain protections for churches and religious institutions. There are two basic problems to this approach.
First, SB 100 turns our inalienable rights into privileges and exemptions. Second, rights belong not simply to groups, but to individuals. The free exercise of religion is more than the freedom of worship; it is the right of every single person to live according to his conscience.…..
While Scaer doesn’t directly mention the Bible (he is much too smart for that), make no mistake about it, it is, for Scaer and his fellow Missouri-Synod Lutherans, God’s infallible word that has the final say on human sexuality. The Lutheran Church-Missouri-Synod (LCMS) denomination officially espouses Evangelical beliefs such as creationism and Bible inerrancy. Missouri-Synod Lutherans vehemently reject homosexuality and same-sex marriage, considering both to be sinful rejections of God’s version of Masters’ and Johnson’s book on human sexuality (see LCMS position papers on human sexuality).
This post is designed to briefly show that Fundamentalism is not only the domain of Baptists and Evangelicals. Every Christian sect has a wing-nut division.
Note
For further information on Indiana Senate Bill 100, please read Who’s protected — and who’s not — in Indiana’s LGBT, religious rights bill, a November 18, 2015 Indy Star article.
“The free exercise of religion is more than the freedom of worship; it is the right of every single person to live according to his conscience” he forgot to add “except if you’re gay”
I’m so embarrassed to have belonged to this organization for so long.
Yes, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is a fundamentalist denomination. It has some really scary, far-right people in it. Check out some of their websites. These “good” Christians detest and demonize gays and lesbians. Many LCMS “pastors” allow incredibly vile, bigoted comments to be made about gays and lesbians on their blogs. Here are some of the most popular LCMS websites, famous for gay-bashing.
—Cranach, the Blog of Veith
—Pastoral Meanderings
—Gottesdienst
I am a former member of this fundamentalist Church. Thanks for helping getting me out of this cult, Bruce!
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is the church I was raised in but it wasn’t fundamentalist in those days (1960s and ’70s). As liberal as it seemed, I still walked away from it when I realized that God’s existence was indistinguishable from his non-existence and that being a Christian didn’t make one a better person.
Oh, those websites are what my cousin, the pastor was posting on facebook. My sister and I had to unfriend him after he posted some stupid anti gun control meme. My sister asked where the data in the meme came from and he basically said that anyone can lie with statistics but she shouldn’t call him out because it agreed with what he thought was true. What an idiot.
Hi Bruce,
“Every Christian sect has a wing-nut division.” Sadly, this is true. Most liberal and mainstream churches have Conservative Evangelical wings. Although these people may be in a minority, they tend to make up the majority of trouble makers.
The hysteria against equal rights for gays, lesbians and trans-gender persons comes largely from these folk, though not entirely or it seems that way. Maybe it is the fact that Conservative Evangelicals make the loudest noises or kick up the most fuss.
Shalom,
John Arthur
Dr. Pete seems to ignore the fact that not every heterosexual couple makes good parents, while it seems that is not the case for most LGBT couples I have heard about. Anyway, thanks for the great graphic – just posted it to FB! Now I’ll sit back and count the “likes.”
To be fair conservatives do have a point about polygamy. Polygamy is not legally recognized in most Western countries but some human rights and Islamic organizations are pushing for legitimization and consider gay marriage as strengthening their case (“even THEY can get married so why discriminate against us?”). Then there’s the immediate issue of Syrian refugees in Islamic polygamous marriages who are currently flooding into Europe and refugees are entitled to family reunification whereby their immediate family gains access to the host country. So changes to national laws regarding polygamy are necessary.
Same sex marriage and equality laws would prevent discrimination against a women wanting multiple husbands or a man wanting multiple husbands, or a bisexual couple wanting multiple husbands and wives. So if polygamy is legally recognized nation states might just opt out of the marriage business altogether.
I don’t have a problem with polygamy. It is, after all, Biblical. 🙂
Yikes, Since when does truth get labeled in such a horrendous way. Why do people turn their backs on God and run form what has been given to us through His revelation? I am a LCMS member, not because of Dr. Luther, but because of Jesus and His teaching, his death and resurrection.
No one is running. We are resolutely standing–rejecting the “truth” preached by the LCMS. What the Bible says has no place in the discussion about same-sex marriage. The issues are justice, fairness, and equal protection under the law. allowing same-sex couples to marry in no way harms you and your church.
Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. The LCMS is pushing anti-gay discrimination based on the teachings of a mentally ill man named Saul of Tarsus, not Jesus.
It is interesting that once one has some distance from fundagelicalism, one begins to question the sanity of much in the black book.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/prophets.php?q=prophets.php
Paul might well have suffered epilepsy but he really was a patriarchal son of a meany and full of ideas that came from private meetings with Jesus in his head.
Christians of this kind are intent on harming others but have not a clue of how dangerous they are to others. They believe that they are loving homosexuals by condemning them to judgement if they do not renounce their ‘chosen’ path. The astounding blindness of groupthink allows them to believe that they are being loving and fair. What is clearly hateful judgment heaped on same sex relationships is presented as a command from the almighty mouth. This unfortunately reveals the almighty mouth to be either an extreme shitehead or just a convenient invention to allow others to spread the misery they feel inside, to mete out the punishment they feel is their due, on others. My own brother is quite fond of speaking ill of himself, what a rotter he really is without Christ whose mercy makes him whole.
“Fundamentalism is driven by a conviction that there are certain incontrovertible “truths” that are so fixed that they are not subject to debate.” Might your own statements fit this definition?