Safeguarding God’s Ancient Landmark

There is a reason God gave us boundaries and landmarks. And when they’re removed, trouble isn’t far behind.
​​Not many know his name today, but Russell Kirk was a 20th-century American author, historian, thinker, and advocate of social and moral conservatism. His 1953 seminal work, The Conservative Mind, defined and revitalized conservatism at a time when radical ideas had largely taken hold.

Kirk explained that to be a conservative means to have “an inclination to cherish the permanent things in human existence,” to recognize that “the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions of humanity”¹ (emphasis added). In contrast to the conservative, Kirk asserted, “The radical, when all is said, is . . . in love with change.”²

Kirk’s idea of conservatism mirrors two verses in the Bible: Psalm 11:3, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” and Proverbs 22:28, “Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set.”

Ancient landmarks, or boundary stones, were used to demarcate personal property limits. Removing them showed a disregard for previously recognized limitations and a disrespect for whom and what had gone before.

Unfortunately, when it comes to biblical marriage and God’s design for it, destroying the foundations and removing the ancient landmarks are exactly what’s taking place in our society.

Removing and Revamping
On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in favor of same-sex marriage in all 50 states. The United States was not the first country to recognize such unions as marriage, but it influenced those that followed. The ruling reverberates today because it officially, formally, and institutionally authorized the undermining of biblical, God-ordained marriage.

The Supreme Court’s majority opinion never explicitly changed the definition of marriage, but it nevertheless transformed marriage by reconceiving who gets to participate. In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts responded, “The real question in these cases is what constitutes ‘marriage,’ or—more precisely—who decides what constitutes ‘marriage.’”³

It is noteworthy that, to answer that question, both the majority and dissenting opinions quoted various sources as authorities—from Confucius to Cicero to legal scholar William Blackstone to philosopher John Locke. But none quoted the Bible.

The answer to Justice Roberts’ question concerning who decides what constitutes marriage is not the U.S. Supreme Court but, rather, the heavenly “Supreme Court.” Jesus Himself defined marriage and told us who gets to participate:

Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh (Mt. 19:4–6).

By quoting the book of Genesis (Gen. 1:27; 2:24; 5:2), Jesus confirmed that marriage is God-ordained and designed and that it is exclusively between one biological male and one biological female.

The U.S. Supreme Court justified its ruling by stating, “The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest.”⁴

Marriage has long been regarded as the foundational unit of any civilized society. By radically changing this ancient institution, the 2015 Supreme Court effectively destroyed the foundation of American society.

Roberts agreed: “As a result [of its ruling], the Court . . . orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia. . . . Just who do we think we are?”⁵

Considering that Jesus said, “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (v. 6), yes, just who do we think we are?

Repercussions
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, conservative talk-show host Dennis Prager wrote an article titled “The Formal End to Judeo-Christian America,” where he stated, “The same-sex marriage decision has essentially completed the state’s secularization of American society.”⁶ Prager was right.

But that was not the only repercussion of the court’s destructive decision. The court fundamentally removed an ancient landmark that had served as a social restraint since the Garden of Eden. It opened a Pandora’s box full of unbridled, degrading passions (cf. Rom. 1:26–27). Once people reject God’s definition of marriage, they see everything as permissible.

The ripple effect has produced nothing short of a societal detachment from objective reality. Today, people even find it hard to define what constitutes a man or woman. (A U.S. Supreme Court justice declined to define woman in her confirmation hearing.⁷)

Gender-identity confusion or outright denial is rampant. Identifying spousal relationships in marriage has turned into a Gordian knot-like puzzle. An American Bar Association article reflected this fact: “A transgender [TG] may enter an opposite-sex relationship, but after transition be in a same-sex relationship. Or the TG person may begin in a same-sex relationship, and after transition be in an opposite-sex relationship.”⁸

Another effect of the Supreme Court ruling has been the escalating, cultural indoctrination of our children and young adults to uncritically accept identities and views of marriage that are contrary to God’s biblical design—so much so that a 2017 Pew Research Center survey revealed that in the United States alone, 74% of 18- to 36-year-olds support same-sex marriages.⁹

In addition, a 2023 Pew survey found that only 29% of all Americans believe unmarried couples living together will negatively impact our country’s future, and merely 23% believe that being married is important to living a fulfilling life.¹⁰

When a society insists on tampering with the definitions, foundations, and landmarks God has decreed, it sets itself up for disaster: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5:20).

As Russell Kirk declared, “We have no right to imperil the happiness of posterity by impudently tinkering with the heritage of humanity.”¹¹

Removing God’s landmark may also lead to persecution of those who cling to it, Bible-believing Christians in particular. Authorizing sin, as the U.S. Supreme Court did in 2015, popularizes sin and emboldens sinners. Biblical and historical precedent informs us to expect societal and governmental pressure to conform. That is, a movement may arise to push those who disagree to a position of acceptance, then assistance, then approval (Gen. 19:4–11; Judg. 19:22–26; Rom. 1:32).

Restoring God’s Ancient Landmark
How should Bible-believing Christians and others who hold to traditional marriage respond to our culture’s self-destructive, downward spiral? How do we restore God’s ancient landmark? Here are three recommendations:

1. We need to know and use our legal civil rights for as long as we have them (see Acts 22:24–25; 25:10–11). This includes voting for political representatives who support God’s design for marriage.

2. We need to pray that the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage will be overturned. Even so, this will only decelerate our nation’s decline. Overturning a ruling doesn’t change minds, as the aftermath of overturning Roe v. Wade regarding abortion has shown us. People must be persuaded, not coerced.

3. We need to demonstrate and speak of biblical marriage as never before. The primary means of convincing others of the value of biblical marriage is by exemplifying it in our own lives. Simply put, “Obey the divine design.”¹² Following that, speak the truth in love.

Although the current surveys look discouraging, it’s possible that many people, like the biblical prodigal son, will become so tired of the present cultural pigpen they find themselves in that they’ll want to return to a more satisfying alternative. As Russell Kirk wrote, “In a revolutionary epoch, sometimes men taste every novelty, sicken of them all, and return to ancient principles so long disused that they seem refreshingly hearty when they are rediscovered.”¹³

All that being said, what ultimately would restore biblical marriage to our society is the regeneration of people’s hearts through the preaching of the gospel. We must pray fervently for revival. There is no other lasting solution.

May God give us the grace to rebuild, reinforce, and safeguard the biblical institution and design of marriage—His ancient landmark.

ENDNOTES

1. 1. 1. 1. Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, 7th rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2001), xv, 8.
         2. Ibid., 10..
         3. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 688 (2015).
         4. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 647 (2015).
         5. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 687 (2015).
         6. Dennis Prager, “The Formal End to Judeo-Christian America,” townhall.com, June 30, 2015 (tinyurl.com/DP-America).
         7. Tyler O’Neil, “Ketanji Brown Jackson, Biden’s Supreme Court pick, refuses to define the word ‘woman,’” FOX News, March 23, 2022 (tinyurl.com/Womann-2).
         8. Phyllis Randolph Frye, “Obergefell and Transgender Marriage,” American Bar Association, June 1, 2016 (tinyurl.com/ObbTrans).
         9. “Support for Same-Sex Marriage Grows, Even Among Groups That Had Been Skeptical,” Pew Research Center, June 26, 2017 (tinyurl.com/Pew-SS-3).
         10. “Public Has Mixed Views on the Modern American Family,” Pew Research Center, September 14, 2023 (tinyurl.com/Pew-ModFam).
         11. Kirk, 57.
         12. Ibid.
         13. Ibid., 11.

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Bruce Scott is the director of Program Ministries and a Bible teacher for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. He is also the author of The Feasts of Israel: Seasons of the Messiah.