July 9^th

Cal Thomas discusses the result of the “culture wars” today. Those quotes are his, not mine; although I think I know what he means by the expression. He begins by asking “what do we do now… in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision striking down state laws reserving marriage for heterosexual couples.” He answers that Christians must recognize that, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” The issue concerns what is properly part of that “kingdom” and what isn’t and that has been a recurrent problem.

This country has dealt with the problem of keeping the religious camel’s nose out of the public’s tent since the republic was founded. When I said the Pledge of Allegiance as a kid the words “under God” weren’t there. They were put there in 1954 by Eisenhower who had very recently joined the Presbyterian Church; he also added “In God we trust” to our coinage.

Southern Baptists were well known supporters of slavery and the “lost cause.” Plenty of Bible verses can be cited to support slavery (although they are usually called servants or handmaidens) and none seem in opposition to it. Southern Baptists have only recently (2009) apologized for their support of slavery. I guess they felt no need for precipitate action.

In 1967 SCOTUS finally got around to declaring miscegenation laws unconstitutional. Who supported that nonsense? A Virginia fundamentalist judge claimed, “The Almighty God put the yellow, black, white and brown races on different continents to keep them apart…” obviously, according to him, they shouldn’t be allowed to get married. When the appellants got their case to the Supreme Court the ruling was that any two people had the constitutional right to marry. Could this ruling have affected the gay marriage decision? In any event there is no accepted Biblical prohibition against inter-racial marriage. The restrictions that existed were the result of bigots looking for religious support of their preconceived beliefs.

About the time of the Civil War there was an upsurge in pornography and a corresponding increase in the reaction to it. One man, Anthony Comstock, went on an anti-pornography crusade. He showed members of Congress some of the material then being sent through the mail and Congress deputized him to intercept and confiscate such material and arrest the principles. He took this responsibility very seriously, and indeed expanded the scope of his mandate to include any sex instruction and any mailing of information about contraception. In fact married couples in Connecticut where the “Comstock Laws” lingered could not possess contraceptives. Finally, in Griswold vs Connecticut, SCOTUS decided that this law was an intrusion on personal privacy.

Religious beliefs about the appropriateness of contraception are various: Catholic doctrine prohibits it; Presbyterians have no problem with the practice. About as close as Scripture comes on this topic is the admonition to “Be fruitful and multiply;” one could claim, however, that multiplying incessantly isn’t required.

Where does this brief explication leave us? From gay marriage to contraception many Christians have strong opinions about how their religion instructs them on these issues. This in spite of the fact that there is little, or no comment from Jesus himself about any of them.