Back in school, our physics teacher used the principles of a magnet to hammered a point. He taught that the like poles of the magnet repel and the unlike ends attract. In English language, I was perturbed by the numerous exceptions to various laws — laws like the past tense of fight is fought but the past tense of light isn’t in the “-ought” family; it’s lit. Here, we the students argued with our teachers and we only got defeated with the phrase, “that is just how it is meant to be; some exceptions are accepted.”
When the Pope made a declaration that same sex marriage should be approved, I realized that even some exceptions have an exception. In the year 2010, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who now bears the regnal name Francis, once spoke against the institution of same-sex marriage [1][2].
However, when he became Elected as Pope Francis, his ideation transformed from segregating homosexuals to accepting them as humans that they are. But there is more to this than what he thinks about making this endorsement.
The holy father, Pope Francis stated that the LGBTQ Catholics should not be ostracized; he made it known that they are children of God. But the fact is that he didn’t stop at saying that the homosexuals should as well be loved and prayed for just like the straight, he publicly announced their full acceptance of their sexual orientation in the church.
What does the bible say?
Love your enemies and pray for them. Matthew 5:44
The Homosexuals are not our enemies — their ways are! The bible never said that we should accept their norms in the guise of “love and whole acceptance.”
In Mark 2:13–17, it was recorded that Jesus dined with sinners. But he didn’t accept their ways in the name of trying to prove he had ‘‘love and acceptance’’ of them. His dining with them meant that he said ‘‘No’’ to discrimination and welcomes them despite their shortcomings in morality, but it ends there. If a woman, say Mrs. Dorcas, loves her husband so passionately yet she hated the fact that he sniffs in cocaine every night and smokes his life out at the corridor. Would Mrs. Dorcas make her husband change his ways by joining him or endorsing his actions by doing what he does too?
Effect of This Endorsement On the Marriage of the Church
My mother once told me something. She said, ‘‘If Mrs. Horse knocks on your door during a cold night and asks, ‘could I just put my head inside your house so it can be warm?’’ you would probably agree, saying it is only a little favor. And again she would ask for one of her legs in and then another, and soon, her whole body is suddenly in the house!’’
What I am trying to say is that when an endorsement like this is made, it would only lead to greater issues — we shouldn’t be surprised when some set of people start pleading to marry dogs and cow or even inanimate objects.
In addition, the endorsement of the same sex marriage lucidly gives room for biblical disobedience. The bible, in Ephesians 5:31, unanimously states that a man would leave his parents and marry a woman he would call wife. The bible never said ‘‘a man would leave his parents to marry a person of the same sex. Contrasting even the life manual of Christians places a comma on such pronouncements made by Pope Francis. Endorsing same sex marriage can be likened to the endorsement of idol worship with pagans to show our ‘‘love and acceptance’’ of them.
The institution of the Christian marriage is clearly threatened. When a particular action is legalized by the Pope, the bishops and priests are obliged to follow through and when they are licensed to do so, they would have more ‘‘candidates’’ who openly want to share vows with a same-sex spouse. The sad thing about this is that is not only promoting sin, it is also promoting a trend which other churches may soon start to follow leading a large number of Christians astray. One disastrous thing about a leader being wrong is that a lot of followers just follow — and the follower could be ridiculously large in number.
This is similar to a case that happened during the COVID-19 outbreak. Many Americans died due to carelessness of their leader. Donald Trump, the then president of USA administered Chloroquine as a cure for the virus [3]. Although many people knew chloroquine as a drug for Malaria, they still took it anyway. Why? Because Mr. Trump is a leader and leaders are most often listened to.
Way forward
-Christians need to unitedly pray for the religious leaders to make the right decision.
– Christians should set their priorities right — obedience to Jesus over religion.
– Marriages in the church should solely remain as one man and one woman as instructed by our creator.
– The church should make rules based on biblical doctrines and care should be taken to avoid contradiction of the word of God.
– The church should adopt the preaching of love and care for all without endorsing non biblical standards as a buttressing point for doing so.
Bad things happen when rules, set especially by God, are bent. It would only be viewed as abnormal when like poles are allowed to attract. The same-sex marriage is totally against the law of God. And its endorsement, no matter what, wrongly shows superiority in knowledge over God. This is a terrible start as God’s wrath could be a very bitter thing to invoke. And so, we should let the unlike poles attract and the like repel as God has designed them. If we are to love the homosexuals, it should be from our heart, and not made a general issue by incorporating their sexual orientation into the church.
REFERENCES
[1] Park Paul (2015) ‘Why Do Popes Change Their Names?’ Mental Floss (September 28, 2020).
Retrieved at: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/69072/why-do-popes-change-their-names
(Assessed: November 11, 2020).
[2] Wikipedia (2020) ‘Pope Francis and Homosexuality’ Wikipedia (November 2020).
Retrieved at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis_and_homosexuality
(Assessed: November 10, 2020).
[3] Imran Khan (2020) ‘I took chloroquine. This is what it did to me’ Aljazeera.
Retrieved at: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/blogs/americas/2020/05/chloroquine-200520113051506.html
(Assessed: November 11, 2020).
Ebube Ezeadum wrote in via ezeadumebube@gmail.com
