10 Things Christian Leaders Had to Say on the Issue of Gay Marriage

1. Russell Moore

“Following Jesus will mean taking up a cross and following a hard narrow way. It always does. If we’re going to preach that sort of gospel, we must make it clear that this cross-bearing self-denial isn’t just for homosexually-tempted Christians. It is for all of us, because that’s what the gospel is …

Same-sex marriage is headed for your community. This is no time for fear or outrage or politicizing. It’s a time for forgiven sinners, like us, to do what the people of Christ have always done. It’s time for us to point beyond our family values and our culture wars to the cross of Christ as we say: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

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2. Kirk Cameron

"Marriage is almost as old as dirt, and it was defined in the garden between Adam and Eve. One man, one woman for life till death do you part. So I would never attempt to try to redefine marriage. And I don't think anyone else should either. So do I support the idea of gay marriage? No, I don't."

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3. Rev. Franklin Graham

"There is also sin involving the misuse of sex. God created sex and gave it to us to enjoy, but tells us in His Holy Word that it is to be reserved for a marriage relationship between a man and a woman. Any kind of sexual activity or sexual relationship outside of that is sin.

The world would like to redefine marriage and other boundaries for sex, but it's not up to us to define," he added.

Almighty God, the Creator, set the standard at the beginning of time. The enemies of God would like for you to be deceived, but God wants the best for your life; He wants us to know the truth."

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4. Pastor John Piper

"My sense is that we do not realize what a calamity is happening around us. The new thing — new for America, and new for history — is not homosexuality. That brokenness has been here since we were all broken in the fall of man. (And there is a great distinction between the orientation and the act — just like there is a great difference between my orientation to pride and the act of boasting.)

What’s new is not even the celebration and approval of homosexual sin. Homosexual behavior has been exploited, and reveled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalization and institutionalization. This is the new calamity."

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5. Bishop T. D. Jakes

"I'm not really as concerned about this as a lot of people are. I'm really not as concerned about it. I think that we should not lose our mind about the world being the world and the Church being the Church. This is not a news flash. The world is gonna be the world and the Church is gonna be the Church, and you have to understand the difference.

But what we do need to watch is that our religious freedom is also respected and protected so that we don't have to get caught up in the winds of the world and go the way the world is going. So we need to watch that as we grapple with an ever-changing society, and our society is becoming more and more pluralistic."

6. Jen Hatmaker

"So whatever the cost and loss, this is where I am: gay teens? Gay adults? Mamas and daddies of precious gaybees? Friends and beloved neighbors of very dear LGBT folks?

Here are my arms open wide. So wide that every last one of you can jump inside. You are so dear, so beloved, so precious and important. You matter so desperately and your life is worthy and beautiful. There is nothing 'wrong with you,' or in any case, nothing more right or wrong than any of us, which is to say we are all hopelessly screwed up but Jesus still loves us beyond all reason and lives to make us all new, restored, whole. Yay for Jesus! Thank God he loves us. He is not embarrassed of any of us. I am not a scandal, you are not a scandal. We are not 'bringing down his brand.'

Anyhow, my message to you today is simple, LGBT gang and all those who love you: You are loved and special and wanted and needed.

7. Pastor Rick Warren

“Gay marriage is a very personal question. I have biblical views regarding what marriage is about. I am not in favor of redefining marriage, I’m not. It’s not illegal to have a gay relationship, so it’s not a big issue to me.

I don’t happen to believe in everything that my gay friends believe, but when they want to end AIDS, I’m a co-belligerent with them. We have given millions of dollars to fight AIDS from around the world, and we have worked with both gays and straights. I can work with an atheist, I can work with a Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist, Jew — and that’s one of the issues we have to work on.

“The problem is that ‘tolerant’ has changed its meaning. It used to mean ‘I may disagree with you completely, but I will treat you with respect.’ Today, tolerant means – ‘you must approve of everything I do.’ There’s a difference between tolerance and approval. Jesus accepted everyone no matter who they were. He doesn’t approve of everything I do, or you do, or anybody else does either. You can be accepting without being approving.”

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8. Pastor John McArthur

"No, it's not sinful for a cake maker to make a cake for a gay wedding anymore than its sinful for a guy who runs a restaurant to serve dinner to somebody who is gay, sits in a booth and eats the food, or goes to the market and buys a loaf of bread and you own the market. What the issue is, is not whether that's sinful. It's whether the federal government can demand that people do certain things, which goes against their Christian conscience.

I actually think that we need to show love to everyone and particularly, we need to do good to all those that are outside the kingdom, as well as inside the kingdom, as much as possible — a gesture of kindness toward some unregenerate person is in itself not a sin."

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9. Pastor Tim Keller

"Because our culture teaches us that the meaning of life is found primarily in sexual fulfillment and satisfaction, within that view of life the biblical prohibitions on homosexuality may seem harsh and cruel. Indeed, God’s will in Scripture often seems to frustrate many of our deepest longings (not just sexual ones). But if we are faithful to his Word, we find that each divine demand is really a summons into a transformative process in which we discover deeper levels of peace, joy, and fulfillment in God and in Christian love than we could otherwise have known."

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10. Ravi Zacharias

"The most daunting question for us today is how do we live as Christians in such times? The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States sent tremors around the globe...The spectrum of views that were immediately expressed said all there was to say. When the law passed, the first thought that came to my mind was Chesterton’s prophetic comment more than half a century ago: 'For under the smooth legal surface of our society there are already moving very lawless things. We are always near the breaking-point when we care only for what is legal and nothing for what is lawful. Unless we have a moral principle about such delicate matters as marriage and murder, the whole world will become a welter of exceptions with no rules. There will be so many hard cases that everything will go soft.'"

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Publication date: July 19, 2017