THE DAY THEY DANCED IN THE STREETS

Historians say that Abraham Lincoln had an uncanny ability, one few people have. Lincoln could, in most any situation, detach himself and mentally hoover in the air above it, observing and making dispassionate judgments and evaluations concerning the issue or discussion at the moment. He wasn't entangled in the emotions of the moment, instead, he sized up the matter as if he were an observer.

That's the ability the Bible gives the mature believer. We call it "discernment," or having the "divine viewpoint." Whatever we call it, it's not due to our brilliance of our brains; it's because our intellects are bowing to Scripture, the Book which gives us God's viewpoint of man and the world.

THE DAY THEY DANCED

On June 26, 2015, they danced in the streets of America. And who were the dancers? Professor Paul Kengor calls  them, "culture-transformers" for that's what they had done--they had transformed the American culture by breaking it off from from many thousands of years of the absolute model of marriage: one man and one woman, united in holy matrimony. These culture-transformers danced in the streets because the U. S. Supreme Court had abolished that absolute standard by a vote of 5-4.

Americans saw that the culture-transformers had changed something else that day, something never before fundamentally changed in all of American history; they changed the White House. The People's House was illuminated in rainbow colors that day.

So, what was this celebration from the divine viewpoint?

Divine viewpoint gives the believer the ability to see the dancing on that June day for what it was--a joyous celebration of rebellion against God and absolute truth as revealed in His model for marriage, a model that had stood for over 200 years in America. In a historical parallel, the culture-transformers were was as Israel dancing before the golden calf in their post-Exodus rebellion against God, albeit for a different reason.

WHO WERE THE DANCERS?

The celebration was a long time coming, but no matter, the rebellious revelers have been patient. Among the ones celebrating were members of the Communist Party; they were thrilled. Marx and Engels had called for the abolition of the family back in 1848, a proposal called "infamous" back then. According to Professor Paul Kengor, Marx wrote to Engels, "Blessed is he who has no family." Marx knew Engels, he knew that he hated the family and marriage. Their intellectual descendants included Lenin, Trotsky, Margaret Sanger, and Betty Friedan, along with Bill Ayers, and Mark Rudd who also railed against marriage and the family.

THE DIVINE VIEWPOINT

From the divine viewpoint, marriage existed before the state. The biblical record shows that marriage is an institution created in Genesis 2; God instituted human government in Genesis 11. The state is to recognize marriage, not redefine it. But redefine it, it has by a vote of 5-4.

Gene Veith points out the subtle and totalitarian danger in such redefining:

"If the state can redefine marriage and enforce that redefinition, it can [redefine] the doctor-patient relationship, the lawyer-client relationship, the parent-child relationship, the confessor-penitent relationship, and virtually every other relationship that is woven into the texture of civil society. In doing so, the state does serious damage to the democratic project. Concurrently, it reduces what it tries to substitute for reality to farce."

Thus, the divine viewpoint gives us the ability to see what's really going on--the state's moving into an area(s) it has no God-sanctioned right to go, rejecting absolute truth, and making it up as it goes along.  

HOW DID THE DANCERS DO IT?

Theirs is a study in patience; such ideas as they were proposing to fundamentally change marriage would have been scoffed at as incomprehensible as late as the 1950's.

The big dance of June 26, came about as a result of patience plus our universities which educated the culture-transformers of today. Our colleges had pedagogical help--TV and the movies, the press, Facebook (Social media came into play with its power to shame the opponents of the culture-transformers publicly via high tech mobs.), and the White House all united around the cause.

The culture-transformers had some heavy-hitters on their side. Hillary Clinton recently encouraged another politician running for his party's nomination to join her in a "Pride Parade," saying, "Come on, it's fun."

Former President, George H. W. Bush was an official witness at a same sex marriage in September 2013 in Maine; the Washington Post ran a picture of his signing the license. His famous daughter-in-law, Laura Bush agrees:

In response to a question about same sex marriage, she said, "There are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that, you know, when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have, I think, the same sort of rights that everyone has."

"The Christian Post" reported the words of a speech to the National Press Club in Washington DC in June of 2009, given by former Vice President Dick Cheney: "I think people ought to be free to enter into any union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish." He said that while he was running for Vice President, he kept his views secret for political reasons. (All of which shows us the truth of Ps. 118:9: "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes." According to that Psalm, a person should take out the word "princes" and insert the name of whichever candidate he's tempted to trust, Democrat or Republican.)

A FIRST

What has been overlooked is that, for the first time, the transformers had the help of people we would describe as "mainstream." Those who advocated the abolition of marriage were earlier thought to be wild-eyed radicals, a lunatic fringe group, but because of the powerful coalition mentioned above (colleges, movies, TV, politicians, the press) that coalition came to include soccer moms on Facebook, pastors, and professors all joined with those whose main goal in life is to watch TV in dancing in the streets. Such a coalition from such disparate walks of life all had a common denominator--a rejection of absolute truth.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The believer with the Bible knows something else; he knows what the dancing was really all about. He knows that same-sex marriage advocates are using the issue for a deeper cause, an even more fundamental change. The issue is a Trojan Horse to attack what they hate most: Christianity. That's why they were dancing. Their attack has worked. For the time being.

But dancers beware: there is a day coming when "every eye shall see Him." That will be the day their dancing stops.