Change of heart.

I’m getting a little bit of flack on a Christian forum that I participate in. There is a lot of hair-pulling and sackcloth wearing about the California decision to legalize gay marriage (mazel tov, Ellen). A lot of my conservative, evangelical friends are talking like the sky is falling and urging us to get out and do something to keep gay marriage illegal (kind of hard to do when the courts are making legal what the voters have voted to keep illegal, as in the California case).

My take is a little different. Of course I’m concerned that our culture has drifted so far away from our Christian roots that we are making legal something that is clearly unbibilical (though I might point out that we are sticking to our roots of freedom and equality; it’s hard to balance our Christian roots with our equality roots sometimes). Of course I think that gay marriage is morally wrong simply because homosexual acts are biblically wrong (no need to argue with me, I know that some folks interpret the bible to allow for homosexual acts, then again, you can argue about anything from the bible if you want, this is my interpretation based on a lot of study). Ok, that being said…

I don’t think that the Christian response to an unbiblical law is to immediately rush out and write letters to the editor, march in protest, or call a Senator. Sure, we have a civic duty to let our legislators know what we want and we should go and vote our morals (as I just mentioned in a previous post). All of those responses are certainly valid as American citizens.

But if we really want to make a change, our first and most important response should be to change hearts, not just laws. We will not lead one person out of a life of homosexuality by making gay marriage illegal. But if we lead a person to Christ and they are convicted that homosexual acts are wrong they will repent and change their actions.

The same is true with any other issue. Take abortion. It’s legal now and I think we should work to make it illegal. Yet I know that even if abortion were illegal there would still be abortions and even if there weren’t there would still be people having sex who are unprepared to raise a child (so we might end up with less abortions and more neglected and abused children). I’m all for working to make abortion illegal, but I think that the Christian response first and foremost would be to lead people to Christ so that they will not have sex outside of marriage and if they did end up with an “unwanted child” that they would seek another option instead of abortion.

I think the temptation to win the world through laws and coercion is a lot like the temptation that Satan offered Jesus: to give him the whole world with just a word.  We could make people act like we believe they should with laws and enforcement, but would that really change a heart?  Instead, we should lead people to follow Christ, knowing that their lives will change as a result.  And really, in the end, are we trying to end homosexual acts, abortion, drugs, violence, etc. or are we trying to win souls to Christ?  The changed behavior is the byproduct of a changed heart.