CS Lewis on Marriage...

A friend of mine passed this on to me in regards to the recent legislation in Canada which allows for gay marriage. My take on this whole issue has been that regardless of what the government says marriage is, God is the one who ultimately defines marriage. And He has made it clear that in His eyes marriage is only between one man and one woman. I think our first mistake was to ever let the government into this discussion. Our role needs to be to affirm what marriage is in the eyes of God and call all believers to show the world what Christian marriage really is. But enough about what I think. Here's what CS Lewis wrote over 60 years ago...

"Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question - how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not." (emphasis mine) (C.S. Lewis, Christian behavior, 1943)

Very relevant. And very challenging - calling the church to live out the truth in the midst of a culture that is opposed to the truth. Sounds a little bit like the book of Acts to me.