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Cover Art

The background images are Let freedom ring (19019878849).jpg by Robert Couse-Baker and Wedding Rings.jpg by Jeff Belmont of Cuiaba, Brazil; both are used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 - found on Wikipedia sourced from Flickr. The trimming, merging, and adding of text is by Ernest Bywater. All rights to the cover images are reserved by their individual copyright owners.

6 June 2019 version

Table of Contents

The Prodigal Appears
Church Leadership Meeting
Religious Ripples
Registry Games
Give unto Caesar
Flow-on Effects
More Changes
Registry Games
Won the Battle and Lost the War

I use a Chapter Title, a Sub-chapter Title, and a section title.

Author’s Note: I’m very much aware there are many varying views on Christian theological issues. One is the concept we no longer need the Old Testament of the Holy Bible due to the content of the New Testament. It is my personal view the Old Testament is a very useful historical work as well as a good back up for what is in the New Testament, and the Old Testament also helps to provide some things in easier to understand detail. Based on many of the scriptures quoted in this story it’s also my personal view where Jesus states something it overrules anything in the Old Testament said by a prophet, but not the direct word of God. It is also my personal view the statements by the prophets do not override anything noted as the direct word of God or Jesus in the scriptures.

The Prodigal Appears

The Sunday morning service is finished and Pastor James Phillips is at the door to greet the people when they leave the church. Most of the people are regular members of the church who attend most of the services and, as is usual, there are a few visitors today. The last in line is a tall man who’s almost as tall as Pastor James. After bending down to shake hands with, and talk to, the one and half metre tall Mrs Walters Pastor James looks up at the next person. His hand is already up to shake hands, his normal smile is on his lips, and it suddenly gets a lot bigger. Grabbing the hand offered to him Pastor James pulls the man to him as he reaches around to give the man a hug while pounding his back. This change in the pastor’s behaviour is noticed by the regulars waiting to speak with him after the greetings are done. The very staid pastor is being extremely physical today, so they wait and watch the two men.

The stranger looks a bit familiar, but no one can place him. The new man says, “Glad to see you looking so well, James. How’s the family?”

“They’re all well, and they’ll be happier on seeing you, Gary! What are you doing back here? I thought we’d never see you again! I also thought you’d given up on the Church and God!” is Pastor James’ response, and all of the watchers wonder who this man is.

“I never gave up on God, or the Church. I only gave up on the Church leadership taking the people astray, as I saw it.”

“Well, come meet our members.” Pastor James turns to the waiting people, “This is my brother, Gary. I’ve not seen him for twenty years.”

Suddenly it’s a semi-organised pandemonium while they all meet him and head to the hall for refreshments at the same time. Many ask him how he’s doing and how things are going, but none ask why he’s here today. They all want to know, but they don’t ask as they’ll leave that up to Pastor James to find out. Most of the scene is repeated when they get to the hall and Gary can meet the rest of the people as they went straight to the hall to prepare it for the post service refreshments period. A long time is spent talking about what’s gone on in the last couple of decades.

Night Talks

Many hours later, after a simply dinner, Gary and James are sitting in the lounge room of James’ house when he asks Gary, “Now, brother, why are you here?”

“James, I’m here to convince you to refuse a job I expect you to be offered next week or soon after that. I also hope to get you to back off on your talks to the media. I don’t expect you to change your views, just how you present them to others and the media.”

“I see! Since my only media comments, at the moment, are on the same sex laws before Parliament I gather that’s what you’re on about.”

“Yes! And before you start, I agree with you that same sex marriage is not allowed by the Bible or God. However, neither is the way you and the Church leadership are dealing with the issue.”

Pastor James sits up straight, “What do you mean by that?”

“James, it all comes down to whether you’re a Christian following the teachings of Christ, or a hybrid Jewish-Christian following the Old Testament with a smattering of Christ’s teachings, or a Faux Christian who replaces most of Christ’s teachings with Church Doctrine made up in the middle ages to increase the power of the Church. Which is it?”

“I’m a Christian, but why do you say there’s a difference?”

“You know I got High Distinctions doing my Doctorate of Theology and then I had a falling out with the national leaders soon after I went to my first assignment!” He gets a nod yes in reply. “Did they ever tell you what the problem was?” A shake of the head no this time. “We had some big issues with people attacking locals in same sex relationships so I gave a few sermons on the teachings of Christ and the acceptance of people for what they are. One of the members who absolutely hated homosexuals, and I believe he was behind the attacks, complained to the State Council and I was removed from the assignment after I refused to change my point of view on the issue of same sex couples.”

“Oh, dear! Knowing you I can understand how hard you dug your heels in when they spoke to you. But I don’t see how you support the view from the scriptures!”

“I’ll totally ignore the possibility of translation changes or errors because the Church leadership do that too, so I’ll use the King James version of the Holy Bible. The main quotes against homosexuality are Leviticus eighteen, twenty-two and twenty, thirteen; with Deuteronomy twenty-three, seventeen; plus Isaiah three, nine, as they all speak of same sex sexual relationships as being an abomination. There’s no dispute with that.” He gets a nod yes from James. “These are from the Old Testament and are what are relied upon as the source scriptures in the Epistles. In the New Testament Jesus gives us the Two Great Commandments in Matthew twenty-two, thirty-six to forty, which say,” and he quotes:

‘36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law?’

‘37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’

‘38. This is the first and great commandment.’

‘39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’

‘40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

Gary is pacing while he talks, he stops, turns to look right at James, and says, “They summarise God’s laws as ‘love God’ and ‘love your neighbour.’ Nothing about any restrictions in there, and they’re what all of the laws hang on. Also, in Matthew five, seventeen he tells us he fulfils all of the old laws, thus they’re complete and ended.” Then he quotes:

‘17. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.’

Resuming his pacing Gary says, “However you try to slice things everything in the Old Testament is now null and void by Jesus because he fulfilled them, thus they have no relevance to Christians. When you obey the two commandments of Jesus you also obey all of the laws from the Old testament, although the Old Testament still makes a good guide to follow in life. Then you throw in the parable of the Good Samaritan helping a traditional enemy. Also, in John eight, seven Jesus said, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast a stone at her.’ The teachings of Matthew seven, two and three on not judging and having a mote in your eye. Nowhere in the Bible does it say marriage before God must be linked with marriage in the civil community. In fact, Jesus tells us the opposite!”

James butts in, “What’s that! Where does he say that?”

“I’m sure you remember Matthew twenty-two, twenty-one!”

James quotes from memory:

‘21. They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.’

He shakes his head, “I’ll give you that one, but marriage is God’s.”

“Yes and no. Marriage before God and in a church or by a minister is God’s; but marriage before Caesar is Caesar’s, not God’s. The Christian Church went almost a millennium without any marriage ceremony or service at all. Then the Church leaders found they had more power if they approved, held, and recorded the marriages, because that gave them power over the inheritances of the rich and powerful. That took hundreds of years to spread to the poor. The details of the changes and why are all there in the history books.”

James stands and paces the floor for several minutes while he thinks on all of this. He knows all of the passages mentioned, but he hadn’t linked them in this way until now. He turns to Gary, “There’s got to be more to this, or you wouldn’t have come so far to talk with me!”

“True, brother, true. This very public dispute in the media is causing dissension amongst the people and a lot of anger. The public heads of both sides will become targets for the more militant and angry of the other side. The National Council knows this, so it wants someone else to be the target. They claim the lead should be by a grass-roots minister, but the real reason is they’re afraid of reprisals against themselves. I’m telling all of the ministers I know not to lead this fight, and you’re the first. You can’t win the fight and all you’ll do is cause trouble. Stop the vote today and it only comes up again in a few years’ time. Now is the time to end all of the anger and the trouble. Let them have their civil marriage. After all, the current laws give them the exact same rights, anyway!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“All the state and Commonwealth laws on de facto or common law marriages recognise same sex relationships as legal because they don’t require the relationship to be heterosexual. Also, the Family Law Act had an amendment by Kevin Rudd to give same sex couples the same legal rights to property and custody as those with marriages made under the Commonwealth Marriage Act. What the same sex couples don’t have right now is the piece of paper saying they’re married before the court.”

“There must be more to it than that!”

“Oh, yeah! There is! Once this new law is passed the laws on discrimination apply to marriages to their fullest extent. When a same sex couple is refused the right to be married by a registered marriage celebrant they’ll be able to sue that person’s arse off for discrimination. If that person has the authority to permit the use of a hall, then they can sue for not being allowed to use the hall as well. It’ll take a few court cases to establish it all, but that’s how it’ll go. It’s what the activist want from it.”

“Damn! What can we do about it?”

“That’s very simple, James. Write a letter to the relevant agency and resign as a Marriage Celebrant under the Commonwealth Marriage Act. That means you won’t be able to conduct a marriage under the law, only before God. All of those you marry in the church will then need to get a civil celebrant to conduct a marriage under the Commonwealth Marriage Act, or they can just ignore it and go with their church issued certificate while they save some money. That will mean you can legally refuse to conduct a marriage for a same sex couple while you can also legally refuse to use your private hall for their service because you are not the semi-public servant you are as a registered celebrant under the civil law.”

“I think I need to talk to our local Church leaders about this.”

“I’m sure you do. I also have the details of what we just talked about in a set of papers you can give them to read.” After some more small talk they both head to bed for the night.

Church Leadership Meeting

The next Wednesday evening is when the local Church leadership have the special meeting called by Pastor James. All of them have read the document he gave them on Monday, and none of them like it or its contents. But none of them can dispute the scriptures, the analysis, or the recommendation. It just bugs them because it goes against what they were taught and believe to be the proper Church Doctrine. All of them have had informal discussions with others on the matter, and they all see no alternatives to the way forward suggested by Gary.

The meeting is called to order and the current committee chairman says, “Much as I hate to admit it, what Gary Phillips has laid out for us is a very good analysis of the situation. What we need to discuss is how this is likely to affect our Church and members, as well as what we should do about it.” They talk for another twenty minutes before they vote on some actions.

Later Pastor James summarises the actions by saying, “I want to confirm you all agree on the following points. I’ll resign as a marriage celebrant for the government. All future media statements I make will be along the lines of: the Church disagrees, but accepts the legislation is a matter for Parliament and not for the Church. We do not approve of, and will not conduct, same sex marriages on our property, as is our legal right. All agree?” They all give a verbal agreement to those actions and positions.

The chairman says, “I don’t like this, but it does offer our members the best protection, and it’s in line with the scriptures. This meeting is now closed.”

The next day Pastor James sends in his letter of resignation to the government agency administering the register of marriage celebrants.

Note: Pastor James also sends all of the other ministers of religion he knows copies of his letters, minutes of the meeting, and Gary’s documents on the subject.

Religious Ripples

After consulting their local Church leadership all of the ministers of religion contacted by Pastor James or Gary Phillips take the same actions as James did. For some weeks the papers are travelling about from minister to minister at the local level. Many also copy them and send them on to the others in their area. It’s over two months before the information starts to find its way further up the Church hierarchies. The first to hear of the actions is a Catholic Bishop when a member complains to him because they have to have a second wedding for the civil side. Most of the priests within his authority have already resigned as civil celebrants, so the Bishop asks the priest concerned why. The Bishop is not happy when he’s given a copy of the papers. He reads it all, and he can see why the actions have been taken to protect the local churches, but he still feels the Church should fight it. He copies it on to the other bishops and up the church’s line of authority. He also contacts his equivalents in the other churches to let them know about the issue.

Within a few more months seventy percent of all ministers of religion in the local churches are no longer registered marriage celebrants. Some high level Church leaders think this is a good idea because it protects the Church and its property while still allowing the upper levels to fight the law. A few of the Churches send out instructions to their ministers to resign as civil celebrants under the civil laws.

Six months after Gary speaks with James there’s not a minister of religion in Australia who’s authorised as a marriage celebrant under the Commonwealth Marriage Act, or any other civil law. The high level Church leaders are still fighting a media campaign against the law change, but no one on the local level is saying much about it.

Note: One oddity arising from the situation is the number of marriages in a church goes up only a little while the number of registrations for marriage certificates under the act drops by twenty percent.