Blame?

May we, the Christian community, lay all of the blame regarding Maine's legalization of homosexual marriage on to the secular community, or is there also room for us to shoulder some of the responsibility for this change as well?

I suggest that in two areas the Church has failed. First, we have often abandoned the political arena as being too secular; while on our part we continue to expect these secular politicians to behave as believers. They will pursue a secular agenda just as a believer ought to pursue an agenda based upon a Christian worldview.

The second area is within marriage itself.

Here, I believe, we have fallen short in two areas. The first, often our own marriages are not examples of what God has commanded. Christians have affairs, suffer unfaithfulness and divorce; we do have hard hearts.

Secondly, a huge component of marriage is, by God's will, children. Sadly, the Christian community has followed the world's thinking by regarding children as an expense and burden, so we have only our 1.6 or so children. Some of these children do not believe, some are religious but live as practical atheists, while a portion, but not a large enough portion to sustain a Christian culture, believes and follows the Lord.

Therefore, we have conceded to the world the political arena through our deliberate failure to have children – contrary to God's command to be fruitful and multiply. Further, we have the audacity to be upset with the world.

Other factors are involved in the process which led to this, certainly, and ultimately, God is the one who sits upon the throne, controlling not only individual hearts but the political arena as well.

May marriage be once again defined as the union of a man and a woman? Maybe, but we will continue to lose the war by our own laxness in these two areas. The Church must dig its roots deeper into the Word while raising up political leaders. Our marriages must shine brightly, not just with love, but, with the man reflecting Christ's love for his bride and the woman portraying the Church's submission to her head. While with God's blessing lots of children ought to be welcomed into our families.