HH: As we speak, marriage is up, it’s a knockout punch that is being aimed at marriage in California.

PH: Yes.

HH: The consequences of that, do you have any opinion?

PH: Well, I think it’s immensely serious, and it’s also rative of a fight, because those who fight it on the grounds on which the left have chosen to make it a battle, can very easily be portrayed as bigots and intolerant and cruel, because it’s always an issue of allegedly giving something to somebody, and why are you against giving something to somebody? Are you a cruel person? Are you a nasty person? Are you a vindictive person? And it’s turned into that development. And this is partly, of course, because the battle over divorce, which both in your country and in mine, was made so ridiculously easy in the 1960s. The battle over divorce has already been conceded, and therefore marriage among heterosexuals is so weakened, that this assault on it is not seen for what it is, namely a further blow at what I regard is the constitution of private life, that the marriage contract is the basis on which private life can be lived. And the moment the state becomes more important, and the moment big corporations become more powerful than the marriage bond, then private life is over, and we’re all slaves. And this is the difficulty. You need to find, and the conservative movement on both sides, I think, need to find a language in which to fight this war without it being easy for the other side to portray them as bigots.

(Quote comes about 2/3 of the way through the interview)

Most of my readers are probably aware that this is a present battle for the essential building blocks of human society.

Recently, I conducted the ceremony for my sister and her husband. Two comments highlight how much on the front lines of the battle real Christian marriage is.

• The unsaved acquaintances of both my sister and brother-in-law were astonished that they wouldn’t live together first. I think cohabiting first is the norm in our west coast Canadian culture. That is where we are.
• In the ceremony we used (with very little modification) the original of Thomas Cranmer’s wedding ceremony from the first Book of Common Prayer. Notable in that ceremony in particular is the promise of the wife ‘to obey’ her husband. One of my sister’s friends came to her after the ceremony with the wish that the submission be ‘mutual’. That is where we are.

One blog that regularly comments on matters matrimonial and male/female issues is that of the Bayly brothers, David and Tim, called “Out of our minds too…” (The name is in honour of a column the Bayly bros’ father, Joe Bayly, used to write, ‘Out of my mind…’). I would encourage you to be a regular reader. You may not agree with everything (they’re Presby’s, for one thing), but you will gain some understanding of the seriousness of the issues we face.

Every Christian marriage is a victory in the face of an onslaught against mankind at the very foundation of human society. This campaign is waged by the evil one who hates God and all that God has made. May we have the courage to promote true Christian marriage and guide those who come to us seeking marriage in the scriptural principles upon which it rests.

I am convinced that at least two doctrines deemed non-essential by the conservative evangelical majority are more essential than at first meets the eye, viz., cessationism and young earth creationism, which will be the topics of my next two posts. Ambivalence to these blind spots, in my mind, does not serve Christian unity, but rather functions to erode biblical authority. And that is something fundamentalism most definitely stands for.

I agree with him on these points.

These are some of the reasons I am so concerned about the push towards closer ties with conservative evangelicals by some professing fundamentalists.

I would like to suggest another area of concern, which is evangelical feminism. I realize that not all conservative evangelicals are egalitarians, but some outside the “togetherness boys” certainly are, or at least are very sympathetic to egalitarian views. I believe that Carson and Moo are among these. And some of the “togetherness boys” will work with those who support egalitarian points of view as I have highlighted here in the past.

The attacks on the Bible today are very subtle. They are not the full-scale frontal assaults of early 20th century modernism. They are the insidious creeping infiltration of otherwise conservative minds with openness to issues that on the surface seem to be about anything but inspiration and the authority of the Bible.

Mark adds more to this in part 5a of his series. I commend them to you as good examples of why there is still a need for old-fashioned fundamentalism.

Here’s Tim’s introductory paragraphs:

In a month and a half, Dr. Diane Langberg will be preaching at the Princeton Regional Conference on Reformed Theology co-sponsored by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and she’ll be sharing the conference pulpit with Don [Carson] and Al [Mohler]. This ought not to be, right? Who governs this national parachurch organization?

Among others, Bob, Lig, Al, John, C. J., Alistair, Mark, Phil, R. C., and Gene– you know, men we all know as stalwarts in the battle for orthodoxy. So why are they approving and publicizing on their web site a conference where a woman will preach to men? A conference on “reformed theology,” mind you.

Why, indeed. Could it be that these men are CINOs?

What, you may ask, is a CINO? You have no doubt heard of the term RINO? That’s a politician who is a Republican In Name Only. So a CINO would be a preacher who is a Complementarian In Name Only. A Complementarian is one who holds to the biblical view of male/female roles in church and home (and in society in general, although there is some divergence here). The term is kind of unwieldy and always needs explaining, so it has limited use, but the men mentioned at this conference and in the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals are (as far as I know) professing Complementarians.

I ask again, could it be that these men are CINOs?

Lest you think I am too harsh or critical in asking this question, you should first read my friend Tim’s post! Tim is an evangelical, we disagree at various points. Sometimes significantly. But he is fierce in the cause of God’s order in human relationships. And I would say he is right. So give his post a read.

But even more interesting to me is this question: Will the FINOs respond with letters and criticism directed at the CINOs?

Now who are the FINOs? I think you can figure that one out if you read me regularly.