Christian Marriage (1)

A bill to legitimise same-sex marriage has passed a first vote in the New Zealand. Christians seem to be leading the opposition to same-sex marriage, just as they led the opposition to civil unions. However, Christians are only ten to twenty percent of the New Zealand population, so this is probably a lost cause. In a secular society with a democratic political system, Christians have only a very limited ability to influence the Parliament.

When Christians are a minority in their culture, they have to be careful to get their strategy. A few things can be done.

1. There is a place for being prophetic. Some Christians with a prophetic calling should get involved the public opposition in an effort to expose the risks and dangers that arise from the change I the law. However, they should be careful not to become too strident, because a public campaign to change a law can easily become a turn off for a gospel. They should understand that their efforts will almost certainly fail, and be willing to lose gracefully, if that is the outcome.
   
   Those who oppose the law change should be careful about the way that they present their message. In the last twenty years, Christians have led a number of political campaigns opposing social change. In every case, they lost the battle. Worse still, the message heard by the people of the world is that Christians want to take away their freedom and impose Christian morality on them. They assume that Christians want to use political power to impose Christianity on people who do not like it. This is the message that is usually heard, when Christians get publicly involved social issues, but it is totally opposite to the gospel.
2. When Christians are a minority in a secular society, the best way to change the situation is to preach the gospel and change the numbers. As the number of Christians increases, the Kingdom of God should spread through society and slowly change it from within.
3. The most practical solution to this problem would be for Christians to reclaim marriage. We may have to re-package and re-brand it to achieve this result. The best way to take back marriage back would to be create an alternative for Christians that aligns with God’s standards. We would probably need to give it a different name. For clarity, I will call it covenant marriage to distinguish it from legal marriage. However, it does not matter to much what the name is provided it is clear that we are speaking about something totally different from the legal marriage legislated by the state.