goers or others. The law was passed almost effortlessly.
It is of great concern to me that in the space of just one generation, samesex unions have gone from being an unacceptable and often illegal violation
of the institution of marriage, to a union which is not only acceptable but is
regarded by its very many supporters as simply a lifestyle choice.
Just a very few decades ago, the major challenge to marriage was heterosexual
couples “living together” without the commitment of marriage. Now a worse
threat to marriage has transpired, namely the acceptance of same-sex unions
as just an ordinary, everyday lifestyle choice. It is hard to conceive of greater
opposition to New Church values than that of same-sex unions becoming a
legal and acceptable form of marriage.
Only the New Church knows that “conjugial love ... is the very plane of
Divine influx” (Heaven and Hell 370, 371); that conjugial love is only possible in
the marriage of one man with one woman; and that such a marriage descends
from the union of the Divine and the Human in the Lord, and through the
marriage of good and truth in heaven.
The New Church membership, small though it is, has a critical job to do
in upholding the institution of marriage that descends from God out of heaven
against this terrible attack of the hells.
What can the New Church do to uphold true marriage? Organize rallies
to proclaim the right way? Letters to newspapers? Talk to people – especially
our children? With the exception of that last, which will influence the next
generation of New Church adults, I think that many forms of opposition might
have some effect but suggest that it would be small.
The way that will have huge effect is to keep the sanctity and purity of true
marriage in our minds and lives. This is not just another small way, just a little
way within the silence of our minds, chipping away minutely at a seemingly
gigantic evil. This way is an immense challenge to the hells because it brings
the Lord and the whole of heaven, with the whole of the Lord’s infinite power,
into action.
Although I think that the Lord and heaven will be in most opposition to
same-sex marriage, I think that the presence will be stronger, more immediate,
when the challenge is made by harnessing the strength of the Lord’s own
directions to us. That is, that we should love the marriage that is between one
man and one woman, that the partners should strive to unite in thought and
will and in good and truth, strive to have a union that is holy, pure and clean,
and strive to love the Lord supremely. Those who, like myself, are unmarried,
are not exempt for we are to strive for those same ideals so that they will be
actual in the spiritual world.
The Lord is asking us to put hearts, minds, souls and strength into
regenerating to the celestial degree as the only way to attain the fullness of true
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