American Council of Christian Churches
74th Annual Convention, October 20-22, 2015
Reformation Bible Church, Darlington, Maryland
Resolution on the Supreme Court Decision Mandating Same-Sex Marriage
The apostle Paul concludes in regard to the sinful condition of people before the law of God that the mouth of every sinner shall be stopped, for all the world has become guilty before God (Rom. 3:19). That conclusion follows his description of two exceedingly sinful cultures of man, the pagan (chapter 1) and the moral (chapters 2-3). In either case, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” and sinners must be “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-24).
This equal guilt of every sinner notwithstanding, the pagan culture of chapter 1 knows a hopelessness that is especially intense. Foolish hearts are darkened (Rom. 1:21), sinners are degraded by idolatry (v. 23), God’s truth is turned into a lie (v. 25), and the hearts and bodies of men and women are dishonored with every form of uncleanness, including homosexuality (vv. 24, 26-27). As these conditions intensify, they become a horrific exhibition of God’s work of reprobation on a society (vv. 24, 26, 28). At the root of this problem are people “who did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (v. 28).
As our nation continues to sink into the morass of such a God-forsaken culture, the Supreme Court of the United States has made the transition to paganism official at our highest levels of jurisprudence in its June 26, 2015 decision, “Obergefell et al. v. Hodges.” With the slimmest of majorities, the court held: “The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy claimed, “Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, no State shall ‘deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’ The fundamental liberties protected by this Clause include most of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. . . . In addition these liberties extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs. The identification and protection of fundamental rights is an enduring part of the judicial duty to interpret the Constitution.” In making such a claim, the majority of the justices did not like to retain God in their knowledge.
Our founding fathers had a different approach. With the Declaration of Independence, they averred “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” In making their claim, they kept God in their knowledge. Their doctrine correctly understood that fundamental human rights are gifts of the God of heaven. They come to an individual from the Creator. They do not come from an individual’s inherent dignity or autonomy, nor from his intimate choices about his identity, as the Court’s majority believes. The Creator, whose genius designed human anatomy, human reproduction, human marriage, the human family, and human rights, never gave any individual a fundamental right to homosexuality. Nor did He give any man the right to be a woman, or any woman the right to be a man.
Therefore, the American Council of Christian Churches, at its annual convention, October 20-22, 2015, at Reformation Bible Church, Darlington, MD, declares that this decision of the Supreme Court of the United States is in evidence of and an invitation for the further judgment of a just and holy God upon our nation. We declare that the court’s majority has exchanged the truth of God for a lie (Rom. 1:25), and that professing themselves to be wise, they have become fools (v. 22). We resolve as citizens of this land to stand on the truth that our unalienable rights do indeed come from our Creator, not from ourselves, and as preachers of the gospel to call all sinners to the free grace and forgiveness through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. . . . For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:19, 23-24).
