The Illegitimate Supports of Obergefell—Pillar Number 1: A Faulty Worldview, Part 1
If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
—C. S. Lewis—
In a previous entry, we observed that Obergefell, the Supreme Court ruling that granted marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, is “like the seat on a three-legged stool.” While probably most three-legged stools are sturdy and reliable, Obergefell is not, because all three supports on which it rests—“judicial activism, a faulty worldview, and bullying by militant homosexual activists”—are illegitimate.
Now, Obergefell would not have to be supported by all three of these to be illegitimate; the judicial activism alone that lies beneath it renders it fully unconstitutional. Still, the ruling’s additional two supports reinforce its illegitimacy. Despite this, we likely will not see widespread recognition of the ruling as invalid without persistent creative activism from those who understand the counterfeit nature of all three of the decision’s supports. I use the term “creative activism” to convey the need for communicating the truth in innovative and vivid ways—ways that stick in hearers’ minds and compel them to think. The non-violent protests of the civil rights movement serve as an example for one facet of this potential effort, but we recall that the civil rights movement involved much more than peaceful protests. It also included appeals to justice in letters to editors of local newspapers (a forerunner to today’s social media), legislative efforts, litigation, sermons, public debates, and private conversations. All of these avenues will need to be used in the effort to restore natural marriage.1,2,3 Of course, we will need courageous leaders in this movement. We already can be thankful for leaders like Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, for taking a bold stand recently to restore natural marriage in his state.4,5 Although you’ll hear otherwise from the mainstream media, Chief Justice Moore’s action was and is fully constitutional.
This week and next I’d like to focus on the faulty worldview on which Obergefell rests—as well as the erroneous conclusions it espouses. In subsequent entries, we’ll give consideration to judicial activism and militant gay bulling as the additional two legs of the ruling.
A worldview is a set of assumptions through which a person interprets life and everything else around him. Thus, a person’s worldview informs him or her about God, life, sin, death, eternity, right and wrong, human relationships, and a host of other issues. Often an individual embraces a worldview without consciously thinking about its components. People acquire or “pick up” beliefs from various sources, not the least of which is the culture surrounding them.
As we noted in a previous post, some worldviews have theistic implications while others have atheistic implications. While it’s true God’s existence can’t be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, it can’t be disproved, either. All worldviews, therefore, are faith systems. Individuals who espouse an atheistic worldview may praise the virtues of “science” and decry what they see as the negative effects of “religion,” but from a practical standpoint, they actually are promoting an atheistic religion, one that places its faith in science and human wisdom rather than God.
For many years, the prevailing worldview in America was Christianity.
The inaugural prayer of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 20, 1953
For more information, click here.
Even people who weren’t Christians embraced and upheld biblical teachings about right and wrong and the value of human life, to name just two important arenas. Today Secularism and a related worldview, Secular Humanism, prevail. Secularism is “an atheistic and materialistic worldview that advocates for a public society free from the influence of religion.”6 Yet, as we have just indicated, those advocating these beliefs are promoting just that—beliefs. Theirs is a faith system, too!
Secular Humanism is
A religious and philosophical worldview that makes mankind the ultimate norm by which truth and values are to be determined; a worldview that reveres human reason, evolution, naturalism, and secular theories of ethics while rejecting every form of supernatural religion.7
Secular Humanism and Secularism so overlap that we will consider them to be one and will refer to this belief system by both names. It is this worldview that has led to Obergefell and on which Obergefell rests. A key component of this set of faith assumptions is moral relativism, which exalts the individual and upholds the individual’s right to make up his or her own truth, including standards of right and wrong. By extension moral relativism can manifest itself in the culture as well—with a cultural consensus of beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad. The point is that according to Secularism, there are no objective, absolute standards of right and wrong, no unchanging moral principles outside of individuals and society that apply to all people, at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. Does the belief that absolutes don’t exist coincide with what we observe in the world around us? This is a vital question!
Abraham Lincoln is credited with this insightful quote: “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
It might be humorous to call a canine tail a leg, but marriage is a serious issue. Secularism, however, is both attractive and intoxicating, even blinding societies that embrace it. Unfortunately, our society has become so blinded it is pretending a same-sex relationship can be a marriage—but of course the fantasy never will make it one. It will, however, bring severe consequences, since it seeks to change an unbending reality in nature and in human relationships. As we said last week, “Reality is our friend if and only if we cooperate with it and conform our perspectives and actions to it.”
In next week’s post, rather than attempting to refute Secular Humanism’s assumptions, we will present some of its conclusions manifested in the Obergefell decision and discuss how they conflict with reality. This means we will look at ways the Obergefell decision is harmful to both individuals and society at large, and why we must reverse course. Be sure to return for that important discussion!
Part 2 is available here.
Copyright © 2016 B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Check out the new category of articles in Breaking Bread (a feature that is easily accessible from the menu)—Foundational Principles of the Christian Faith.
Notes:
1http://www.colsoncenter.org/the-center/columns/talking-points/16516-glow-without-blaring
3See item #6 in https://wordfoundations.com/2015/05/28/discernment-needed-part-2/
5http://www.nomblog.com/40846/
6Jeff Myers and David A. Nobel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2015), 76.
7Ibid., 80.
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