Albert Mohler: The Coming Great Divide -- There Is No Place to Hide

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

When the California Supreme Court struck down that state's definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman it announced a great social and moral revolution. Unless reversed by means of a constitutional amendment, this decision effectively redefined marriage and set a precedent that will reverberate across the nation.

At the same time, this moral revolution unleashed by the California court will also reveal a deep divide between churches and denominations. Issues of biblical authority have divided Christian (and Jewish) denominations and churches and have been the focus of intense debates and controversies.

One unavoidable outcome of the legalization of same-sex marriage is that the great divide between conservative and liberal churches and denominations will become glaringly evident in a way that has not been the case thus far. The singular question of whether churches perform and recognize same-sex "marriages" will tell a much larger story.

At least until this new phenomenon, churches and denominations across the board shared an understanding of marriage and a vocabulary that included words like "husband" and "wife." In the world before same-sex unions, that made sense. In a world without a shared understanding of marriage, even the vocabulary falls apart.
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