Since my wife and I were asked to sign the sanctity of marriage petition a couple of times at the Chapel, and we declined, I thought it might be good to explain myself. This also gives me a chance to share my concerns regarding politics and the Church. Please know, my expressed opinions do not, in any way, cause me to think less of you and your commitment to Jesus. It only means we have a difference of opinion. 

I have long had a concern that Christians can be too involved in the affairs of this life, to the extent they undermine the real purpose of their ambassadorship. Consider these scriptures I am referring to:

2 Corinthians 5:20 "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God."

Tim.2:4 "No man that warreth entangles himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier".

When I search the scriptures, I see two different views of political involvement; the Old Testament view, and the New Testament view. In the Old, the religious were entirely involved with their national politics. In the New, I can't find a hint that that Christians involved themselves in the secular politics. I'm sure they had their opportunity to be militant, as (Mark 15:7) "And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection...", but the early Church were a different sort. It wasn't until Constantine that we see politics as an issue. And every scholar I've read believe the Church suffered because of it.

As for being ambassadors, I see this as our calling. An ambassador, like missionaries, are to be good citizens, but as a group, they don't take sides in local politics, seeing they are from another country. Imagine if the American ambassador to Spain, feeling strongly about a particular issue, adamantly campaigned for one party or the other. Mightn't he loose his ability to lobby for the country he represents? At least he would to those on the opposing side. Any missionary will tell you that one must be careful about cultural issues. If he is not careful, he will alienate the entire group he intends to reach. The Laws of Human Nature almost assures this will happen. If I am an ambassador and I take sides on a particular issue that doesn't really fall within the scope of my home nations agenda and I alienate fifty percent of my host country's populace, I may be satisfied with that amount, but soon another issue will come up within that fifty percent and it will be divided by fifty percent again. Now I only have influence over twenty five percent of the total populace. Now another issue comes up and if I stay the course on my cultural involvement, the Laws of Human Nature will now only allow me to influence twelve point five percent of my original mission! Yes, this is an exaggeration of the problem, however, a missionary/ambassador must take in account the inability of humans to accept more than one contrary opinion before dismissing the proponent as a heretic, and one to be shunned. This is the clear reason for most of the division throughout the world, especially among the religious. Therefore, a Christian must be selective in what he puts forth as important.

This isn't to say we stand without opinions on important issues. I'm sure for the first century Christians there were some important ones, including slavery, women's rights*. It is just we must be careful about how we deal with issues. As our pastor said in his Memorial day message, regarding our relationship with God, 'it does us no good having a thick book of rules, if we don't love Jesus' (paraphrase). I'd carry this principle right into the way we deal with cultural issues; what is the value of changing a few cultural issues, only to undermine our ministry to those who face an eternity without God? So what if we are able to win the vote on the sanctity of marriage, if in the process the Church is seen as condemning, political, and really only concerned about their community being conformed to it's standards.

Finally, I don't criticize any individual who votes for the sanctity of marriage; what bothers me is the Church, as a group, being identified as a coalition for these purposes, which cannot scripturally be justified. We'll never succeed in reaching a lost world if we systematically, one by one, make the lost our enemies. We must not be pro-active in fighting evil or any particular behavior, but be pro-active regarding righteousness, not keeping the darkness of evil our focus, but rather the light of the gospel. John 3:17 "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." 

One last note on liberty of conscience. Is it not interesting, the church never had true liberty of conscience until  the American Bill of Rights. Up until that time, the political church used coercion to forbid behaviors it deemed inappropriate to the various political/religious kingdoms. This was largely true throughout Europe and Britain. In my mind, if we insist on being a "political church", who in history are we aligning ourselves with- the invisible true church of God, or the Papists and church of England who found it convenient to burn any at the stake who did not worship according to state mandates?

* History tells us there were many reasons to be involved with local politics of Rome; the early Church suffered greatly until the time of Constantine.  Until that point Christians had no religious rights. Yet prior to Constantine Rome had a type of Democracy that allowed for political involvement. Can you imagine a Christian coalition forming to overthrow Nero? Perhaps one that specifically fought to ban tar covered human torches, death by wild beasts, or crucifixion as a means to punish social criminals. Yet the Apostles of the New Testament, who lived in these terrible time, never mention politics, or rebellion to solve their social ills. 

"The human conscience is immune to coercion" (unknown)

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