Marriage is “a God-given institution between a man and a woman.” Homosexual unions “are based on a lie rather than the Word of God … and cannot constitute a marriage,” says a statement adopted Feb. 21 by the national Lutherans For Life Board of Directors.
Making frequent reference to Scriptural passages, the board traces marriage back to Adam and Eve.
“He who bore the image of God needed someone who also bore the image of God in order to have a God-like relationship,” the statement says. “So God made woman.”
“Adam and Eve were capable of becoming one flesh and in that relationship could mirror their relationship with their Creator,” it says. “God brought them together in this relationship called marriage.”
The board’s statement says that marriage “was given as the foundation for the one flesh relationship [and] was also the relationship through which procreation would occur.”
“What God intended marriage to be in the beginning, He still intends marriage to be,” the statement says.
“Lutherans For Life affirms the great blessing of the institution of marriage as revealed in God’s holy Word,” it says. “We affirm that marriage is a God-given institution between a man and a woman. We affirm that this one-flesh union reflects our relationship with our Creator and Redeemer. We affirm that it is the means God has chosen for procreation.”
“Based on this,” the statement continues, ” we are … compelled to reject homosexual unions as contrary to the Word of God. … Such unions do not and cannot reflect our relationship with our Creator and Redeemer. Such unions are based on a lie rather than the Word of God.”
The statement also says that “living together without the public promise of mutual love, respect and fidelity dishonors marriage and is fornication” and that “adultery breaks the marriage vow.
“We must reject as contrary to the Word of God these and all practices which would not keep the marriage bed pure,” the statement says, adding that such practices include “impurity of thought, word or deed (e.g., the use of pornography). We also reject as contrary to the Word of God any reproductive technologies that violate or circumvent the institution of marriage (e.g., donated eggs or sperm and cloning).”
“We believe, as God says, ‘Marriage should be honored by all,'” the board says in the statement’s conclusion.
To read the entire document titled “A Statement on Marriage by Lutherans For Life,” go to http://www.lutheransforlife.org/marriage.htm on the Web.
Posted March 26, 2004
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