Recently Bill OโReilly, host of The Oโ Reilly Factor on Fox News, irritated some conservative radio show hosts and thousands of Christians when he opined that those who favor so-called gay marriage have a compelling civil rights argument while โthe other side hasnโt been able to do anything but thump the Bible.โย The โother sideโ is, of course, Christians. Rush Limbaugh responded by declaring the OโReilly had โmarginalizedโ many Christians who are regular Fox News viewers.ย In a contentious discussion with talk-show host Laura Ingraham, OโReilly denied that he had insulted anyone and that the term โthumping the Bibleโ was simply an accurate description of reality and that โYou donโt win a policy debate doing that.โย He also said that those who support traditional marriage must make the argument โoutside the Bible.โ
OโReilly, like so many others in America today, wants a clear separation of private beliefs and public policy.ย In other words, there is no room in the public square for religious points of view.ย No matter what the subject is, Christians must say nothing about their private beliefs if they are formed by Biblical principles.ย The debate must always be secularized.ย For a Christian to proclaim that marriage must be between a man and a woman โbecause Godโs word is clear on the subjectโ is anathema and not to be tolerated.
How history has changed. The ban on Biblical references did not exist when Dr. Martin Luther King was fighting for civil rights.ย Only a rare few blinked an eye when he often referenced the people and the words of Scripture or great religious thinkers to make his point regarding the plight of blacks in America.ย Private beliefs and public policy were inextricably linked.ย To prove the point, letโs examine Kingโs famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, written to fellow clergymen in 1963.
Early in the letter, King responded to the question of why he is in Birmingham jail to begin with:
I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.ย Just as the prophetsย of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried โthus saith theย Lordโ far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as theย Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesusย Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am Iย compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own homeย town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian callย for aid.
Later, after reciting a litany of abuses that blacks have endured for two centuries as a cause for his willingness to break the law, King wrote:
I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws.ย One has not onlyย a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.ย Conversely, oneย has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.ย I would agree withย St. Augustine that โan unjust law is no law at all.โ
King then explained the difference between a just and an unjust law:
A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or theย law of God.ย An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with theย moral law.ย To put it in terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law isย a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
To further justify his use of civil disobedience, King refered to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and their refusal to obey the laws ofย Nebuchadnezzar and the many Christians who faced martyrdom rather than submit to the unjust laws of the Roman Empire.
Responding to the accusation that Kingโs actions were precipitating violence, he wrote, โIsnโt this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to Godโs will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?โย He elaborates, โHuman progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers [sic] with God . . .โ
When Kingโs critics accused him of being extreme, he gave the following examples of โextremismโ:
Was not Jesus an extremist for love: โLove your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray forย them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.โย Was not Amosย an extremist for justice: โLet justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.โย Was not Paul an extremist forย the Christian gospel: โ I bear in my body the marks of the Lordย Jesus.โ
To those ministers who challenged King by declaring that the civil rights movement was a social issue that had no connection with the gospel, King wrote, โ . . . I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.โ
Finally, King made this prophetic criticism of the Christian churches:
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before.ย If ย todayโs church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the earlyย church, it will lose itโs authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, andย be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for theย twentieth century.
Of course, it would be helpful if supporters of traditional marriage are capable of debating from a secular point of view, but no one should be condemned for using the word of God to support oneโs position on the matter. Dr. King saw the church and the Gospel as having not only a right to be heard in the public square but a duty to proclaim the truth from within the public square.ย Like St. Paul, he was not ashamed of the Gospel.ย Woe to those who are ashamed, for it is these timid souls who allow evil to triumph.
April 7th: Just want to add a bit – I don’t think that we should use just biblical references because they probably won’t sway the anti-religion crowd. A simple argument against gay marriage is that a man having sex with another man or a woman with another woman is unnatural. However people may think we were created, it is obvious that our bodies were formed male and female – to fit and to complement each other. Just as a key was formed to fit into a lock…manipulate all you want but it does not change the purpose for which we were formed.
April 7th: While Bill O’Reilly defends children vigorously, he really does not have a thorough understanding of the teachings of the Catholic Church. He is arrogant and shouts down his guests all the time, asking a question and then answering it himself while his guest sits there mouth open trying to get a word in. O’Reilly’s ego is huge…he takes credit for all the great happenings in the world if he had mentioned them on his show…but the fact that he defends children is a great thing…but he should stop trying to speak on behalf of the Church or explain her teachings…and he does not back down when proven wrong. He says he will ‘get you’ for disagreeing with him. Someone should take Bill aside and gently explain where he is wrong in his faith explanations and hopefully he will listen and pass that information along to his viewers.