A culture that will not accommodate conscience

Each week, The World and Everything in It features a “Culture Friday” segment, in which Executive Producer Nick Eicher discusses the latest cultural news with John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Here is a summary of this week’s conversation.

The incarceration of a Kentucky county clerk who refuses to issue marriages licenses to gay couples has many Christians wondering, what’s next? Can Christians propose a workable solution to accommodate their personal convictions?

“The bigger question in all of this is not whether it’s workable. Of course, it’s workable. It’s whether it’s culturally viable,” said John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Stonestreet and I talked this week about the cultural implications of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ stand for biblical marriage.

“This county clerk’s name finds itself on these marriage licenses that she’s issuing. She’s not just handing over paperwork for somebody else to sign; her name’s actually on there. There should be a way to accommodate that,” Stonestreet said. But increasingly, the culture will tolerate no dissent from the full acceptance of same-sex marriage.

“My commitment, first and foremost, on something that God invented, is to God, not to man,” Stonestreet said. “I can be completely loyal to a speed limit because that’s something that we invent. Marriage, that’s something that God invents, and so I have to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar—marriage belongs to God.”

Christians should use all available legal means to ensure their rights of conscience are protected, but, Stonestreet said, “At the end of the day, we might just have to stand and take the consequences.”

Stonestreet and I also talked about the ninth video in a series exposing Planned Parenthood’s role in trafficking baby body parts. Released this week, the video by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) did not contain many shocking pictures or details, but seemed targeted at making a prosecution-style case that Planned Parenthood and partners are breaking laws. Pro-lifers should be just as committed to promoting the most recent videos as the earlier ones, Stonestreet said.

“If we get bored with this story and if we stop pushing it and if we stop sharing it and if we stop talking about it, I’d say the responsibility, primarily, is on us, not on the Center for Medical Progress to give us another video that will kick us out of our slumbers,” he said.

Listen to “Culture Friday” on The World and Everything in It.