Yeshua Explored
19th September 2022
Authority
How has law making changed since Moses?
Previous articles are still available on the Premier Christian radio website – https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Blogs2/Yeshua-Explored – (until they finally pull the plug!)
And God spoke all these words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Exodus 20:1-2)
He is establishing and reminding us all of the authority that will undergird what follows. If these instructions are going to be obeyed in reality, then it had to be made clear Who was declaring them. It is all a matter of authority and this is a good place to consider the laws that we currently live under in 21st Century Britain. We will do so by looking at a case study, a controversial one, but one that will bring to light many pertinent points in our discussion.
On the 17th July 2013, the British Government passed the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act. This now gives same-sex couples the opportunity to get married, just like any other couple. Subsequently, the first same-sex marriages took place in England and Wales on 29th March 2014, with Peter McGraith and David Cabreza from North London leading the pack. Here are the processes that brought about such an outcome.
Maria Miller was the Minister for Women and Equalities in David Cameron’s Conservative government. She is happily married, with two sons and a daughter, so no axe to grind for her. Also she had previously been non-committal over LGBT issues, yet, in May 2012, she urged Cameron to continue with proposals to introduce same-sex marriage in England and Wales and announced, in December that year, that same-sex marriage legislation would be introduced ‘within the lifetime of this Parliament session’. In fact, the whole process only took a few months, with a First Reading of the Bill (proposal) in January 24th 2013, followed by a Second Reading two weeks later, which was passed by a large majority, of 400 to 175. The Bill was then examined by a committee, having received advice from the Church of England, the Catholics, the Church in Wales, two top QCs (one of whom was in my class at school!), various LGBT pressure groups, Liberal Judaism, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Quakers, Unitarians, Methodists, the United Reform Church, a few prominent individuals and the Coalition for Marriage, a Christian anti-‘same sex marriage’ group. No amendments were made and the process continued.
The Bill was then examined by a group within the House of Commons and a few amendments were made. It then received its Third Reading on 21st May and passed with a majority of 366 to 161. It was then passed over to the House of Lords on the same day with a First Reading, followed by a Second Reading on 4th June, when an attempt was made to scupper it by Lord Dear, which failed miserably. The Bill was passed to a House of Lords committee later in June and a few more amendments made, then it passed to the Report Stage, where a few more tweaks were implemented. On 15th July it had its Third Reading, where it passed simply by a voice vote, a cascade of ‘ayes’. The final Bill was approved the next day by the House of Commons and the Queen gave her Royal Assent the day after. It was now enshrined in the Law of the Land. The whole process took six months, about half the time an average Bill would take, from First Reading to Royal Assent.
So that’s how we do things these days. There is a perceived need to address a situation, usually motivated by “progressive” thinking, of moving society forwards on a path dictated by such concepts as ‘equality’ or ‘inclusion’. Although a wide consensus is sought, as we saw from the experts consulted on the same-sex marriage issue, there seems to be a gathering momentum to push certain issues through. Yet, at the end of the day, we have laws passed from the mind of man. Does God get a look in? Was He consulted on this issue? Certainly there was a strong “religious” input, not just from the Church (in various forms), but from Jewish concerns as well and concessions were made in the form of amendments for Churches to “opt-out” according to their convictions. Yet the Bill itself passed despite the efforts of a dwindling Christian presence among our “ruling classes”, although nine Anglican bishops (including Justin Welby) joined Lord Dear in trying to scupper the Bill (five other bishops abstained). At the time of writing, Northern Ireland is holding out. Their Assembly has voted on it five times to date and each time the Same-sex marriage Bill has been vetoed by the Democratic Unionist Party, staunch and uncompromising Christians. They are also the only political party who unanimously opposed the Bill in its various Readings in the House of Commons!
We have come a long way from the “Ten Commandments” and the rest of the Torah. This is an extract from the book, Sinner’s Charter: Are the ten commandments for today?, available for £10 at https://www.sppublishing.com/the-sinners-charter-260-p.asp
As you say, God was not consulted. However He has the ultimate say!