The messy boundaries between church and state got messier in the last month. By now you almost certainly have heard of Kim Davis. She is the county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, about an hour’s drive east on I-64 from Lexington. June 26 was the date of the important Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision that mandated the legality of same-sex marriage for the entire country, sweeping aside all state laws and practices. By a 5-4 majority the court found the right to same-sex marriage in the 14th Amendment.
Mrs. Davis objected to the decision and on her authority decided to refuse applications for same-sex marriage licenses in Rowan County (and male/female licenses as well). She was sued by two gay couples, assisted by the ACLU. The federal judge for Eastern Kentucky, David Bunning, ordered her to resume granting licenses. She refused, appealing to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals also agreed that she needed to follow Judge Bunning’s directive. She still refused, stating that she “was acting under God’s authority.” Bunning held her in contempt of court and held her in detention in a facility in the town of Grayson. After five days she was released. She was allowed to have her name removed from now on from county marriage licenses, which will now be issued by her six deputies (one of whom is her son).
One of the many ironies in this story is that she really doesn’t have a boss. The Kentucky “commonwealth attorney” can indict just about every other kind of local official in the state but for some reason county clerks are not one of them. She is an elected official, and as such could be removed from office only by impeachment by the Kentucky house and then tried by the Kentucky senate.
Gay rights advocates of course condemned her immediately. Conversely right-wing politicians view her as a hero and martyr—Mike Huckabee called this incident a “criminalization of Christianity.” Biblical Christians, however, have some very hard thinking to do about how to live their faith in a secular business or secular government job. Is Kim Davis a hero and martyr for the cause of heterosexual marriage? I believe that the Bible is very clear about man/woman marriage and the spiritual danger of living a homosexual lifestyle. But I don’t believe that a county clerk’s office is the hill to die on, and I don’t believe that Kim Davis is who I want carrying the flag for the biblical teachings. Here’s why:
1. Mrs. Davis works for the government, not the church. The government’s operations are governed by the law, not by the Bible. The United States Supreme Court is the final authority in the land, like it or not and agree with it or not, and county clerks are sworn to uphold not the Bible but the law. Government employees cannot be allowed the luxury of selective enforcement only of such laws as they find agreeable to their religious beliefs.
2. Mrs. Davis is right to say that God is an authority higher than Kentucky’s or even the Supreme Court’s. There is no spiritual shame in suffering for your beliefs, even suffering imprisonment. She could have chosen to resign and go work for a church where biblical principles prevail, thus keeping the moral high ground.
3. Government employees are expected to keep their personal religious beliefs out of their bosses’ job instructions. For instance, Christian cops can’t arrest cohabiting couples, no matter how much they are convinced God may disapprove of that kind of lifestyle. County clerks can’t refuse to process divorce documents no matter how much they are convinced that the divorce was not for biblical reasons. For a business to sell wedding cakes or photography services for gay marriages does not have to mean that they approve of the practice. Nurses in public hospitals usually receive strict orders to keep their religious beliefs to themselves, even with dying patients (although I’ve heard some stories of how Christian nurses, when requested by their patients, will speak words of Christian comfort and pray with those who have but little time left).
4. Mrs. Davis’ conscience is not at risk. She is free to believe as she wishes. She is free to form religious associations with whomever she wishes. Her church may believe and teach according to its convictions. She is free to advocate publicly for her views. What she is not at liberty to do is single-handedly overrule our country’s arbiters of law.
5. I’d be pretty cautious about having Mrs. Davis as the point person in the nation for the biblical view of marriage. Mrs. Davis is a fairly recent arrival as a Christian. She traces her conversion only as far back as 2011. She is on her fourth marriage; her third husband is the father of her twins, who were born while she was still legally married to her first husband.
6. It is a dream of some Christians to “take America back,” i.e., return to an age where the wealth and power of government were in service to and aligned with the church and its agenda (i.e., right-wing Protestantism). First of all, America was never a theocracy; America is not the new Israel. Second, the church and its message have always been corrupted when it has too much power. It’s better to stay on the outside and stay prophetic. We will let God sort out weeds and wheat.
Originally posted by Time of Grace.
