Fearless in Seattle

Two American pastors in Seattle, Washington, USA, who have both hosted AiG seminars in their churches, offered comments recently to the Seattle Times about the sanctity of marriage.1 The story was a follow-up to a rally that was held in support of traditional (i.e. biblical) marriage on 1 May at Safeco Field near downtown Seattle, where about 20,000 people gathered in this baseball park—with about 3,000 opponents (according to the Times) protesting outside.

The article about the rally preceded the news reports of 17 May, when the US state of Massachusetts began handing out marriage applications to same-sex couples, thus becoming the first state to legalize such unions. Massachusetts joins three Canadian provinces and two European countries that have now legalized same-sex unions. To read AiG"s perspective on the origin and definition of marriage, see Jesus wrote all of the Bible! (PDF)

Pastor Wayne Taylor of Calvary Fellowship (of Mountlake Terrace) and Pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church (in Redmond) were cited by the Times as Christian leaders who used the book of Genesis when defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman. Interestingly, both churches have hosted major teaching meetings featuring AiG-US president, Ken Ham, who had told their churches that the Bible is the authority in all matters of life, including the origin and purpose of marriage.

The paper summarized Pastor Taylor as saying that when he supports traditional marriage, “he points … to the book of Genesis, which, he says, makes it obvious that marriage between a man and a woman is how God wants humans to use the gift of sexuality.”

Pastor Taylor told the paper that marriage between a man and a woman “was the first human institution that God created … . God is saying this is His ordained plan for how (sex) is to be enjoyed and entered into, and when you go outside those boundaries, you"re in for trouble.”

Pastor Hutcherson presented arguments, the reporter summarized, that “go all the way back to the Book of Genesis, which, in describing God"s creation of the world, says ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’”

In the same piece, the paper also interviewed Rev. David Shull of the University Congregational United Church of Christ in Seattle. He and his “partner” of 18 years, the Rev. Peter Ilgenfritz, have sued King County after they were denied marriage licenses. Rev. Shull declared: “I see absolutely nothing in Jesus’ life, ministry and teachings that lead me to believe that he would do anything but celebrate same-sex commitments.”

Actually, Christ Himself defined marriage when he spoke in Matthew 19:4–6:

And He answered and said to them, have you not read that He who made them at the beginning “made them male and female,” and said, “for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?

So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Christ quoted directly from the book of Genesis as literal history to explain the doctrine of marriage as being one man for one woman. Because Genesis is real history, Jesus Himself, contrary to the opinion of the two “gay” pastors, directly dealt with this issue of “gay” marriage when He explained the origin and doctrine of true marriage.

We praise God for these Bible-defending, AiG-supportive pastors who are not ashamed to use Scripture in defending morality in this and other spiritually decaying countries.