Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 2019 · 67th Convention, Tampa › Page 544

LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 544

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

544

CHURCH AND CULTURE

Resolved, That the Wyoming District in convention memorialize
the LCMS to uphold the integrity of the Holy Estate of Marriage by
adopting this resolution at the 2019 Synod convention.
Wyoming District
Ov. 11-09

To Give Witness That Same-Sex Unions
Are Not Marriage
Preamble
Cultural and legal definitions of marriage, life, and family are in a
state of rapid flux. Not only has a radically different view of
marriage been recently ensconced in judicial precedent (United
States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 [2013]; Obergefell v. Hodges, 576
U.S. 135 [2015] et al.), regulatory rules (see May 2016 “Guidance”
from the
US
Depts. of Education
and
Justice,
justice.gov/opa/file/850986/download), and the laws of various
states, but these new definitions are by no means static. No sooner
had the Supreme Court decreed the nation-wide recognition of
same-sex “marriage,” than transgender activists challenged the
immutable nature of male and female itself, polygamists challenged
the exclusive nature of the married estate, and polyamorists
challenged to the twoness of marriage requirements under the
Obergefell decision.
We have the “Everlasting Gospel” (Rev. 14:6) and seek a city not
of this world, “which has foundations whose builder and maker is
God” (Heb. 11:10). But since the current cultural change not only
passively ignores the basic truths of human existence and wellbeing, but seeks by force to alter reality itself, Christian
congregations are being compelled to interact with an everchanging legal and social landscape.
The very first challenge the church encounters is the vocabulary
itself. Love calls a thing what it is. Since Christ has given us to
preach His word in all its truth and purity, our task revolves around
words and around truth. Even before the refugees of the sexual
revolution come into our sanctuaries seeking shelter from the storm,
we must daily deal with the logical structure and verbal inventions
of the sexual revolution.
When language itself is being invented, redefined, and perverted,
the Church of God must speak clearly and unanimously concerning
words or terms which cannot be rightly used in the confession of
the Gospel and concerning legal assertions which cannot be
recognized as legitimate by the holy people of God. Toward this
end, we bring the following overture.
WHEREAS, “God created man in his own image, in the image of
God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27).
Therefore, male and female existed before man defined them.
Hence, they cannot be understood as social constructs, or human
creations (e.g. transgenderism), but of divine origin with deep
theological content; and
WHEREAS, “God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens
and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Gen. 1:28).
Hence, by the blessing of God male and female are ordained for
bearing the fruit of the womb (Apology XXIII 7) and for the
multiplication of God’s own good creatures, contrary to pagan
views that children are sometimes a curse. In marital unity, mankind
was ordained to have dominion over “everything that moves on the
2019 Convention Workbook

earth.” Thus, the distinction of the sexes is given by God to form
married homes which, in turn, are a blessing to the entire earth; and
WHEREAS, The Holy Spirit deepens our understanding of these
mysteries in Genesis 2: “the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up
its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from
the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. And the
man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’”
(Gen. 2:21–23). The institution of Holy Marriage was given before
the fall, and hence has paradisal meaning. The creation of Adam’s
bride points to the crucifixion of Jesus (John 19:33–34), even before
the Protoevangelium (Gen. 3:15); and
WHEREAS, By Adam’s words, “she shall be called woman, for
she was taken out of Man,” (Gen. 2:23) we are taught to receive
God’s works by confessing what He has done. Accordingly, what
God creates and gives is objective and immutable for the whole
world. But to name the creations and institutions of God with their
proper names is to receive them in faith. Likewise, this pattern is
repeated after the Fall into sin and the giving of the Gospel promise.
Adam receives the promised Seed by calling “his wife’s name,
‘Eve,’ because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20); and
WHEREAS, The Church is still called to speak God’s Word back
to Him in faith and thanksgiving, so the institutions of marriage, and
family, are faithfully received when we name them by God’s names
and receive them as images of Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5).
Such confession is included in St. Paul’s exhortation, “if you
confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9);
therefore be it
Resolved, That the Wyoming District in convention memorialize
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s (LCMS) 2019
convention to commend all people, whoever they are, that recognize
and bear witness to the truths written into creation which “God has
made plain to all,” through “the things that have been made” (Rom.
1:19–20), and thank God for those who refuse to “approve” (Rom.
1:32) the debased lies of Satan concerning man, woman, and human
matrimony; and that the LCMS encourage Christians, in particular,
to speak and act in such love for all people that they neither affirm
Satan’s lies, nor withhold the Spirit’s hope from any single person
for whom Christ has shed His precious blood. For the love of Christ
controls us (2 Cor. 5:14); and that the Synod in convention reaffirm
2016 Resolution 14-02 “To Confess the Sanctity of Marriage,” and
publicly confess that since same-sex “marriage” perverts God’s
institution of Holy Marriage so completely as to render it
unrecognizable, Christians can neither concede the use of the term
marriage to such non-complementary unions, nor participate in
solemnizing them.
Wyoming District
Ov. 11-10

To Encourage Our Church to Faithfulness
Regarding Marriage
WHEREAS, By confessing the truth of marriage, we confess God
as the one who created us male and female (Gen. 1:27); and
WHEREAS, Christ himself affirmed the truth of marriage, saying,
“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning
made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave