Dick Palmer's Nov. 23 comments on same-sex marriage got me wondering how many Americans have been struck, as I have, by an incredibly sad historical irony. It is that the latest step toward legalizing homosexual marriage in America transpired in, of all places, Massachusetts.
The "latest step" referred to is, of course, the Nov. 18 ruling by the state's rogue Supreme Judicial Court, which basically gave the state legislature six months to accommodate homosexual marriage-license applicants "or else."
How utterly unimaginable to Massachusetts' colonizers this ruling would have been. What a reckless foray in a direction 180 degrees opposite to the hopes, dreams and intentions of the Pilgrims who first set foot on Massachusetts soil roughly 400 years ago, whose pioneering spirit and determination we recall and admire as we observe Thanksgiving.
Most of them were fervent Bible believers who'd come to America "for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith," as their governing agreement called the Mayflower Compact puts it.
One of their leaders declared that their intent in founding the "plantation," which was a precursor to the state of Massachusetts, was to establish a holy "city set upon a hill that cannot be hid." His reference was to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus' reference was to living a life of exemplary righteousness and love -- righteousness and love, that is, as biblically defined.
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For the Pilgrims, such a definition would have had not one particle of common ground with the counterfeit of marriage so vigorously being sought nowadays through judicial fiat by couples of the same sex. It's also sadly ironic to contemplate how two institutions, each established by Massachusetts' founders with the intent to instill moral discernment in their descendants, have fared in the interim since the advent of the Pilgrims.
The first is Harvard, America's first university, founded in 1636. Above every other objective, its founders declared that this institution existed to, in their words, "let every student be plainly instructed ... [that] the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life." Nowadays, for the vast majority of Harvard's grads, such an objective would likely be far from their mental list of "The Top 10 Reasons Why I Went to Harvard." The present institution has drifted so far from the humble, piety-oriented college whence it sprang that it bears virtually no resemblance to its original.
The other institution, which long ago slipped its original moorings in the godly heritage of early Massachusetts, is public education. In 1647, Massachusetts -- then the Massachusetts Bay Colony -- mandated public education for towns with 50 or more families via a statute enacted by the colony's general court. That statute was "The Ol' Deluder Satan Act." The overarching concern of the colony's governing officials in framing such a law is readily evident from its title. They believed in a literal incarnation of evil called the devil, whose driving passion was to drag men's souls after him into a literal, eternal hell. Thus, they were desirous of training children to become competent in the area of moral discernment -- desirous of equipping them to discriminate between God's truth and delusion, between the real McCoy and a convincingly deceptive counterfeit.
Alas, how many in Massachusetts -- or elsewhere in the United States, for that matter -- believe in the Ol' Deluder anymore? Or in the reality of hell? Little wonder, then, that the Deluder marches on undetected, "blinding (as the Scripture says) the minds of those who believe not" -- among them the majority on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and numerous others of like liberal persuasion.
As for the Pilgrims, in consequence of the recent goings-on in Massachusetts, they might be rolling over in their graves -- were their spirits not otherwise joyfully occupied in the presence of God.
Chuck Cox is a worship leader and deacon at Glad Tidings Church of Duluth.
