Contracts or Sacraments

There has recently been considerable discussion among the political parties here in Australia about gay marriage. One party in particular is totally in favour of it, and another political party considers there should be a conscience vote by members of parliament.

In Australia legislation states that "marriage is the union of a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life". Family Law Act 1975 section 43(a), and Marriage Act 1961, section 46(1).

 

There have been calls from some politicians and sections of society to change the definition of marriage in the Marriage Act 1961.

 

I strongly support full legal protection for gay couples but I am also wary of relying on the federal and state government to bring about good and lasting change. It seems to me that the Christian church has a dangerous tendency in both progressives and conservatives to look to the state to effectively mediate theological conflicts through secular legal decisions.

Marriage, for many Christian traditions, is a sacrament, an ordinance, or an otherwise religious expression that identifies a union blessed by God through the Church.

Civil unions and domestic partnerships are legal protections granted and enforced by the state. In my view the state and the Church are and should remain distinct. The state has no claim over Christian sacraments, and the distinction between Church and state threatens to be dissolved by using the language of “marriage” too haphazardly.

Civil unions and domestic partnerships, in so far as they refrain from relying on more nearly sacramental language, are far more appropriate matters for political debate, since they are legal relationships that courts oversee and adjudicate. Marriage as a Christian framework is not so sterile as to be merely legal, and must be deliberated in a very different way than is obviously par for the course in contemporary politics, with its partisan mudslinging and sloganeering.

To find our way forward, we who are Christians must orient ourselves to Christ, in whom we have our being and to whom we are ultimately wed.

After all, if there is “gay marriage” might there not also be “gay communion” or “gay baptism”? No, for the body of Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, gay nor…

On the contrary, there is one Spirit and one body, though our parts are many. The theological issues that the universal Church has are not the domain of the state, and sorting out our ecclesial differences is not the place of the political authorities.

I believe strongly that the rights afforded by the law should be distributed equally to adult couples who display a willingness to commit to one another in sickness and in health, until death do them part.

Legal partnerships abound in civil law and domestic unions can easily be modelled thereafter, with protections and benefits enforceable through the courts. Contracts are relationally sterile, needing to be as neutral as possible in order to ensure equal representation before an impartial court.

But for Christians the determinative imagery for unions is based upon the marriage of Christ and his bride, the Church.

Jesus is anything but impartial, his mercy exceeding mere justice and impartiality. Christian relationships are not fundamentally contractual, but covenantal. Furthermore, no piece of paper adequately codifies the partnership between people, whether we call them husband, wife, partner, spouse, or any other thing.

Christians (and all Australians) should do everything we can to strengthen the full legal protections for all partnerships. We should work toward ensuring that the marginalization of gay couples and their civil rights will no longer be the rule, but the exception.

We must be careful  how we speak of our relationships. If marriage, let us mean one thing, but if union, another. In France, for example, a religious event and the legal contract are separate; one does not guarantee the other.

We need to be careful not to take our cues from the state or to be beholden to a government to define and enforce our sacraments.  We cannot place ultimate trust in our legal or political institutions, but only in God and the institutions blessed by the Church.

The line is narrow and the balance fine, but must remain distinctive enough to differentiate between the two. The haphazard language I have seen on this issue makes it hard to tell God from country, politics from religion.

There are a myriad of differences between traditions within the church, and we should not rely upon “the authorities” to enforce a flattening universal model for each and every one of us. Let us all work together to strengthen our laws to protect those who need protection, including racial minorities affected one day and LGBT people the next. In everything, let us continue to grow in love for God and learn to distinguish between law and gospel, between God and country.

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I am grateful for material on this subject written by Logan Mehl-Laituri. I have used his material fairly extensively in this blog, which does reflect my personal view on this subject. Logan Mehl-Laituri is an Iraq veteran and a student in the theological studies program at Duke Divinity School, where he is a founding member of Milites Christi. He also acts as the Executive Officer of Centurion’s Guild and is the author of Reborn on the Fourth of July (InterVarsity Press, 2012).