(Gabriel Hughes – Junction City) So there was a royal wedding this weekend. Did you know that? You’ve probably had little contact with the outside world in the last several weeks if you hadn’t at least heard about it. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan Markle, an American actress, were proclaimed husband and wife yesterday during a fairy-tale wedding at Windsor Castle in the English county of Berkshire.
As you might expect, it was quite lavish: the bride wore a 16-foot veil, the couple rode in a 1968 Jaguar E-Type Concept Zero converted to electric, and they had a wedding cake worth more than I’ve ever made in a year. An estimated 1.9 billion people tuned in to watch worldwide. Yet I was not one of them.
I’ve always been fascinated by royalty, and Britain’s is one of the oldest monarchies in the world (after Japan as the oldest, followed by Cambodia, Oman, and Morocco for your trivia pleasure). I’ve even watched the show Suits a few times (it was on right after Psych) and knew who Meghan Markle was. But I had other things to do on a Saturday. Hey, it’s an internet age, and I can always catch it later.
Though I didn’t watch the whole wedding, a brother told me that Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon was great and I should listen — it would only take me 10 minutes, he said. Actually, according to the YouTube video, the whole message was exactly 13 minutes and 37 seconds long, but who’s counting (that was still considered long-winded to Piers Morgan).
No offense to my brother, but I was not impressed with the sermon. It was the kind of sermon a 60s era hippie would love. George Clooney and David Beckham had no problem being all-smiles during Bishop Curry’s repeated refrain, “Love is the way!” Anyone can say that. Elton John says that (yes, he was among the 600 guests at the chapel). As Saturday Night Live joked last night, the Bishop’s message could have been a Subaru commercial.
What is Love?
The Scripture that Bishop Curry opened with was Song of Solomon 8:6-7: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” (I’m not sure what translation he read from, but his version didn’t include “the very flame of the Lord,” and not every translation does.)
Bishop Curry went on to say that we were made for love. “Ultimately, the source of love is God himself,” he said, “the source of all of our lives. There’s an old medieval poem that says, ‘Where true love is found, God himself is there.'” Is that correct? Surely it is! The Bible says, “God is love.” The Bishop went on to quote that passage as well, saying those who do not love do not know God, for God is love (1 John 4:7-8).
But again, anyone can believe that and not have to give up much to believe it. Without clarifying what godly love is, a person will believe that whatever they love must be of God. You can sleep with your boyfriend or girlfriend outside of marriage, and God is alright with that as long as you love each other. Hey, a man can sleep with another man as long as they love each other.
Lest you think I’m being hyper-critical of Bishop Curry’s sermon, that’s exactly what he believes. Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, an Episcopal priest, is a gay-rights activist. Why else would Vanity Fair be so praising of him? Or the leftist Vox.com, who pointed out Curry’s liberation theology? Or the gay publication Pink News, who also loved that Bishop Curry quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?
Do not be led astray, my beloved: friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). Not everything the world calls love is truly loving. Many pair the words “love” and “God” yet do not know the love of God, for it is not loving to encourage people to engage in sinful behavior that God has promised He will judge with fire!
Bishop Curry says that Jesus “sacrificed His life for the good of others” and that His love was “redemptive.” But Bishop Curry’s idea of sacrificial love is the kind that sets aside the sound teaching of the word of Christ and encourages a man and another man to sodomize each other or pretend to get married. His idea of redemption is gaining possession of something you previously weren’t allowed to have, like gay marriage.