Civil Vs. Religious Marriage
David French has become a notorious figure among Christians who think out loud in the public square. Though I have never entered the fray of pro or con David French, the left-ward drift of his opinions has been easy for anyone to see. He writes a weekly column, The French Press, for The Dispatch which often releases over the weekend. More than once he has released a column on a Sunday blaming our nation’s woes on evangelical pastors and churches. It is not always the most encouraging of things to read.
In his latest, he documents his “flip, flop, flip” on whether same sex marriage should be legal. He basically makes a case that “civil” marriage can be expansive while religious organizations can maintain their view, given to them by “divine revelation.” French believes that religious liberties seem to be in good hands, so a legal expansion of marriage should not bother religious types [I have a view on that]. Derek Rishmawy has a good reaction to French’s column, pointing out that everyone’s marriage effects everyone else, meaning we have good civic reasons to limit the legal definition of marriage to one man and one woman.
I have another reaction to some of what French said. He posits [free subscription required]:
And that brings me to another topic—my flip, flop, and flip back again on civil marriage. I emphasize the word civil because my view on the religious nature of marriage has not changed. It is a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman, sealed before God, and breakable only on the limited conditions God has outlined in his Word.
But declaring that religious belief is not the same thing as declaring civil law. Outside of the most hard-core integralists or dominionists, there is broad and wise consensus that importing divine standards whole cloth into civil law can be a recipe for division, oppression, and ultimate harm to the church itself. Our nation possesses an Establishment Clause for a reason.
I believe there are two mistaken assumptions in these paragraphs that carry through his argument. First, the division between civil and religious marriage is a false division. Christians, by virtue of their theology believe that all things revealed by God, both generally and specifically, are true simpliciter. In other words, divine revelation of truth is indistinguishable from truth. Additionally, if I believe in the beneficence of truth, I will not hesitate to use all my non-violent means to promote it in the public square. Not doing so leans us in the direction of making a fideistic mistake. In addition, God’s revealed design for marriage is far more than just a divine decree. It is hard-wired into us biologically, socially, and psychologically. The Christian has every rational reason, therefore, to stand against an expansive definition of marriage.
I have never understood Christians who believe their views do not belong in the public square.
Second, the assumption (something he argues for explicitly in other places) that Christians being active in the public square is equivalent to “dominionists” or Christian Nationalism, is false. I simply see no rational reason to believe that if I think the biological reality of marriage and the psychological truths of male-female relationships should be a cultural norm, that makes me a kind of cultural aggressor. French states that he doesn’t want the lives of his gay friends to be upended if Obergefell is overturned. Fine enough, but a multitude of Christian-owned businesses have already been disturbed if not destroyed because of Obergefell. So, I’m not sure his concern carries the weight he wants it to.
Every culture is always making its own decisions about what is right and wrong, moral and immoral. And if one point of view does not dominate, another will. Why should I believe that a secular, ever-expanding, view of marriage should be the default, or enshrined in law, because we are a pluralistic culture? I shouldn’t. I have just as much a voice in the public square as my neighbor, not less simply because I am a Christian.
Bioethicists Ignoring Science and Ethics
The field of bioethics has always been fascinating to me. When I used to teach philosophy for in-person classes, one of the sections I enjoyed the most is when we got to apply the various tools we were learning in class to bioethical and scientific issues. It was always fun to stir the class up with stories of scientists who were 3-D printing working chicken hearts and show them pictures of bioluminescent rabbits and rats. Once the “weird factor” was achieved, we attacked the more mundane, but more life-impacting, issues.
The creation, testing, and application of scientific tools is usually guided by some set of ethical guidelines or a board of bioethicists. To the lay-person’s ears that sounds like a good thing. After all, what could go wrong with international pharmaceutical companies keeping some kind of check and balance on their drug manufacturing process?
As it turns out, however, a large swath of the bioethical industry has been captured by corporate money, government interests, and international organizations. This is to say that bioethicists, by-in-large, exist to rubber-stamp an already agreed upon conclusion. If a drug or a procedure is good for the bottom line or for the government’s Narrative™, the “ethicists” call it good.
The universe of COVID science is replete with this kind of circular stink. Enter vaccine mandates and organ transplants. If you have ever watched a loved one go through the process of being approved for a transplant, you may feel the pain of the industry putting one more, very dangerous, mandate on their lap.
The essential Dr. Peter McCullough writes:
We have heard numerous stories of patients desperate for organ transplantation being pitted with mandated COVID-19 vaccination, which could end their life with an immediate complication versus denial of the organ transplant they have worked so hard to receive and so desperately need. The transplant physician community has assumed that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective and without question in every case, no matter how tenuous, the risks are outweighed by the benefits. Not in a single manuscript published on the topic have the transplant physicians recognized >15,000 deaths after COVID-19 vaccination in VAERS, most within 96 hours, and >1000 peer-reviewed manuscripts on COVID-19 vaccine injuries, disabilities, and deaths. Transplant physicians appear to be willfully blind to the FDA warnings on myocarditis, neurological injury, thrombosis, and blood disorders all of which are particularly deadly and complicated in patients pre- or post-transplant.
This kind of anti-science coercion is evil, pure and simple.
A Podcast For The Weekend
Speaking of the intersection of science and ethics, Malcom Gladwell’s “Revisionist History” is often worth a listen. I have been amazed several times at the nooks and crannies he finds in history. A recent two-part series on a WWII era starvation experiment is no exception. It was fascinating. You need to listen to them in order: “The Department of Physiological Hygiene” and then, “The Rise of the Guinea Pigs”.