Faith does not augment Baptism

"Faith does not establish baptism nor enhance it, and unbelief does not diminish or reduce it.  God’s Word establishes it.  It is the factor that makes baptism work [(caussa baptismi efficiens, the efficient cause of baptism)]."

"Fides non constituit baptismum et eum auget neque incredulitas ei quicquam adimit et minuit, sed verbo Dei constitit, illud est caussa baptismi efficiens."

     Martin Luther, Second sermon on Baptism, Third Sunday after Epiphany, 27 January 1538, as reported by Johann Stol(t)z and trans. Robert Kolb ("'What benefit does the soul receive from a handful of water?': Luther’s preaching on Baptism, 1528-1539," Concordia journal 25, no. 4 (October 1999):  355 (346–363); WA 46, 155 ll. 30-32).

God's Word is more certain than my faith in it

"Choose whether you wish to risk being saved on the basis of God’s Word and institution or on your faith!  I say, 'Certainly I believe today, but I do not know what tomorrow will bring.'  God’s truth is more certain than my heart, and his Word is more certain than my faith."

"Elige, an velis salutem tuam wagen auff gots wort und ordnung an tuam fidem?  Ego dico:  certe hodie credo, sed nescio, quid eras.  Dei veritas est certior corde meo et verbum eius certius mea fide."

     Martin Luther, Sermon on the afternoon of Septuagesima Sunday, 9 February 1528, as trans. Robert Robert Kolb in "'What benefit does the soul receive from a handful of water?': Luther’s preaching on Baptism, 1528-1539," Concordia journal 25, no. 4 (October 1999):  355 (346–363).  =WA 27, 45 ll. 9-11.
 

"Why? Because the command of God is not there."

"Huren et buben siꜩen auch bey samen, zeugen kinder, samlen gu^eter.  Das wesen und leben ist ehnlich matrimonio, ut nihil &c. et tamen huren und buben ut . . . Quare?  quia Dei befelh ist nicht da."

     Martin Luther, "Pridie Sebastiani.  Secundus sermo de baptism," Sermon on the Second Sunday after Epiphany, 19 January 1539, WA 47, 647 ll. 2-5.  Robert Kolb (paraphrasing), in "'What benefit does the soul receive from a handful of water?': Luther’s preaching on Baptism, 1528-1539," Concordia journal 25, no. 4 (October 1999):  350 (346–363):  "Whores may have boyfriends [(Huren et buben, in modern German Whores and boys/knaves/fornicators)] with whom they live and by whom they bear children, but similarity to marriage is not marriage.  Their way of life lacks God's support and command."

The "pure relationship"

"There are few signs of contemporary liberalism disappearing from the human scene.  Even after decades of the most prominent contemporary liberals conceding to their critics that their supposedly neutral theories are not neutral, judges, lawyers, and theorists alike continue as if nothing has happened.  The 'wise' are 'wise' who the 'wise' say are wise.  If today’s 'wise' say that liberalism is neutral and that neutrality is good, that is wisdom.  The apotheoses of contemporary liberalism in public life have coincided with the greatest contemporary liberal thinkers conceding that their theories legislate a particular form of morality and have no claim to universality.  Even the author of The Myth of Autonomy embraces a vision of the family based on autonomy.  That’s their story and they are sticking to it."

     Scott Yenor, The recovery of family life:  exposing the limits of modern ideologies (Waco, TX:  Baylor University Press, 2020), 139.  Autonomy or the "pure relationship" (Anthony Giddens, 130- ).  Who is "the author of The Myth of Autonomy"?

Treating "different things differently"

"the truth is that many lesbians and gay men are quite attached to the concept of sex as a natural, biological, material thing. Yes, we are very well aware that sex can be expressed in many different ways. A drag queen and a rugby player are both biologically men, with different expressions of gender. Indeed, a drag queen can also be a rugby player and express his gender identity in a variety of ways, depending on time and place. But he is still a man. . . .  Transgender people pose no threat to us, and the vast majority of gay men and lesbians wholeheartedly support protections for transgender people. But transgenderist ideology — including postmodern conceptions of sex and gender — is indeed a threat to homosexuality, because it is a threat to biological sex as a concept.
     "And so it is not transphobic for a gay man not to be attracted to a trans man. It is close to definitional. The core of the traditional gay claim is that there is indeed a very big difference between male and female, that the difference matters, and without it, homosexuality would make no sense at all. If it’s all a free and fluid nonbinary choice of gender and sexual partners, a choice to have sex exclusively with the same sex would not be an expression of our identity, but a form of sexist bigotry, would it not?"

     Andrew Sullivan, "The nature of sex," "Interesting times," "Intelligencer," New York, 1 February 2019.  Has Sullivan grappled elsewhere with what the gay/lesbian and the transgender identities would seem to have in common, though?

"no meaningful difference"

     "To accept same-sex unions as 'marriage' is thus to commit officially to the proposition that there is no meaningful difference between a married man and woman conceiving a child naturally, two women conceiving a child with the aid of donor semen and IVF, or two men employing a surrogate to have a child together, though in the latter cases only one of the legally recognized parents can (presently) contribute to the child’s hereditary endowment and hope for a family resemblance. By recognizing same-sex ‘marriages’ the state also determines once and for all that ARTs are not merely a remedy for infertility but a normative form of reproduction equivalent to natural procreation, and indeed it has been suggested in some cases that ARTs are an improvement upon nature. Yet if this is true, it follows that no great weight attaches to natural motherhood and fatherhood and that being born to a father and mother is inessential to what it means to be human, or even to the meaning of childhood and family. These are not fundamentally 'natural' phenomena integral to human identity and social welfare but mere accidents of biology overlaid with social conventions that can be replaced by 'functionally equivalent' roles without loss."

     Michael Hanby, "The brave new world of same-sex marriage," The Federalist, 19 February 2014.

True, steadfast, well-grounded, Christian and sincere reply to the shameless, calphurnic book of infamy and lies by the godless, accursed, execrable defamer, evil-working Barabbas, also whore-addicted Holophernes of Braunschweig, who calls himself Duke Heinrich the Younger (1541)

      Johann Friedrich I, Kurfürst von Sachsen [1503-1554].  . . . Warhafftige, bestendige, ergründete, christenliche vnd auffrichtige Verantwortung, wider des verstockten, gottlosen, vormaledeieten, verfluchten ehrenschenders, bösthetigen Barrabas, auch hurnsüchtigen Holofernes von Braunschweig : So sich Hertzog Heinrich den jüngern nennet, vnvorschempt, calphurnisch, Schand vnd Lügenbuch.  Wittemberg:  Georg Rhaw, 1541.

     Title (only) translated in Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther:  1517, printing, and the making of the Reformation (New York:  Penguin Press, 2015), 299-300.