Jesus Christ and Chick-Fil-A

"Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant." ~ Philippians 2:5-7 ESV

Ah, a chance to anger both sides of this issue.

I heard a very disturbing quote yesterday.  Alderman Joe Moreno of Chicago has set himself as arch-enemy #1 of Chick-Fil-A.  Whether for conscience sake or because a large part of his ward is comprised of gay voters, you can be the judge.  But in response to a blog by Francis Cardinal George of Chicago, Moreno said,

“It’s unfortunate that the cardinal, as often happens, picks parts of the Bible and not other parts,” said Moreno.   "For the cardinal to say that Jesus believes in this, and therefore we all must believe in this, I think is just ingenuous and irresponsible. The God I believe in is one about equal rights, and to not give equal rights to those that want to marry, is in my opinion un-Christian.”

I don't even know where to start picking at this quote, so I'll let you the reader parse it.

What does occur to me, however, is how quick we are to choose for ourselves how God thinks, and how often we believe God thinks exactly as do we, regardless of the witness of Scripture.

In Alderman Moreno's view, Jesus must approve of gay marriage, because he does.  I'm not sure which parts of the bible he think supports his view (perhaps he reads Scripture the same way as President Obama), but obviously Jesus approves, because Jesus is a good guy, and the Alderman is a good guy, and all good guys believe the same things.

But Christian beware!  We often do the same thing.

This firestorm started because Dan Cathy, Chick-Fil-A's CEO forecasted judgment on the USA for the growing approval of gay marriage.  In an interview on the radio show "The Ken Coleman Show," Cathy stated the following opinion:

“I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage...I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we would have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is all about."

Do I believe that God punishes nations that ignore Him?  Yes, I think the Old Testament and more recent history shows this to be the case.  But I don't think any of us are in a position to declare God's intentions outside of Scripture.  This goes for Christians who believe they have special insight into God's will as well as politicians who do.

The above verse tells us that not even Jesus saw equality with God as something to be grasped.  Yes, of course elsewhere He was very certain of the fact that He Himself was God.  But let this verse serve as a reminder to us all that while Jesus may be able to speak for God, we are not, at least when the words are not straight from Scripture.