Paradoxy

Downfall, Part 5

2012-01-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

There's something very surreal about seeing a predominantly Christian audience boo a speaker for appealing to the Golden Rule. There's certainly a debate to be had over whether (and/or how) the rules that apply to individual relationships can be applied to foreign policy, but for a political movement that shouts so loudly about "biblical" values to respond so derisively to an appeal to what is arguably the highest biblical principle of all speaks volumes.

It's a small example of how thoroughly American evangelicalism has been tainted and debased by politics, but it also encapsulates the problem quite succinctly.

Life Soundtrack 29

2012-01-12T21:55:00.001-07:00

Uprising, by Muse

An apt theme song for the Arab Spring (with the hope that what comes next represents a step in the direction of freedom and human dignity). And no doubt a song that both the Occupy movement and the Tea Party would claim as their own...

(And here's a link to the official video, which was nicely produced...)

Shattering Stereotypes

2012-01-07T14:58:00.001-07:00

The process of recovering from a heavily conservative background involves a lengthy process of stripping away multiple layers of misinformation interspersed within years of baggage. Sometimes those old illusions disappear so quietly that their absence initially goes unnoticed.

Growing up I remember being taught that all lesbians were man-haters. That myth no doubt coincides (or at least overlaps) with the oft-repeated claim that all lesbians are victims of sexual abuse. I even remember once reading a quote by a lesbian activist (who knows if it was quoted in context) that supposedly proved that the political alliance between lesbians and gay men was purely temporary and borne of necessity.

Such ideas no doubt seem laughable to anyone who actually has female friends who happen to be gay. Not that individuals who genuinely hate members of the opposite sex don't exist - but they're far more likely to be straight than gay.

As I look back to the days when I accepted myths like that without question I'm torn between laughing and crying at the base ignorance that bred them. I can now count so many lesbians among my friends - people that I love and respect - that I find myself taking offense at such stereotypes. They deserve far better, not that those on the religious right would be likely to take the time to get to know one of the people they're demonizing.

As I post this, I'm getting ready to head out to spend the evening with two of my favorite people (who just happen to be lesbians). How much poorer would my life be if I were still hiding from people based on stereotypes that I was fed about them?

Fullness

2011-12-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

A much-cited text in the New Testament has frequently been misinterpreted in a pernicious way. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus is reported as saying: "You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect." The passage is sometimes interpreted as demanding a kind of moral perfection that is impossible for humans to achieve. Gays and lesbians are particularly susceptible to being caught up in the pursuit of an unobtainable perfection as a way of compensating for their difference.

But the Greek word used in the original text, teleios, does not imply moral perfection. The term, as used by Aristotle and other Greek philosophers, derives from biology and describes an organism that has come to its full potential; for example, an oak tree that has reached maturity is the teleios of an acorn.

What we are being told then, is that we must become what God intended us to be. We must become self-realized, as God is. Paul uses the same word when he exhorts us to come to the same fullness of mature humanity which was to be found in Jesus. The healthy implication of this text for gay people is that God wants them to become precisely what they are: healthy, mature lesbian women and gay men.

-John J. McNeill, Taking a Chance on God

Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Little Drummer Boy, by Jars of Clay

Truth be told, I wasn't a fan of this song until Jars released their version in 1995. As a kid, I was that six-year-old who got hung up on the logical improbability of a boy with a drum showing up at the birth of Christ - and of an infant (and his mother) appreciating said boy's loud banging noises, however rhythmic.

But the message conveyed by the song is a positive one, artistic licenses aside...

Turnabout

2011-12-18T00:37:00.000-07:00

These days, it seems like there's a new scandal involving a social conservative nearly every week. From Ted Haggard and Larry Craig to George Rekers and Herman Cain, to the most recent revelations in Mississippi and Minnesota, it's got to be an embarrassing time to be a member of the religious right.

It's hard not to feel a certain amount of vindication when stories like this break, but a far more appropriate emotion is sadness. At the very least, sadness for the families of these public figures, for the spouses and children and other relatives whose lives are turned upside down due to the double lives being lived by these public figures. Sadness for the individuals in question isn't out of place, either; behind the hypocrisy and dishonesty lies a wounded human being who, at the very least, is a victim of the mind job that fear-based, legalistic religion does on its adherents.

For the rest of us who still identify as followers of Christ, there's also sadness for the damage that such spectacles do to the reputation of the faith that in so many ways defines our own lives. Granted, the ugliness that the religious right displays on a daily basis has already tarnished that reputation even without all the scandals, but the blatant displays of hypocrisy only drive the dagger further in.

Still, whatever emotions we may feel when these incidents come to light, one can still appreciate the irony. For a group of people that spends so much time proclaiming the imminence of God's judgment with a solemn glee, the religious right seems quite blind to the possibility that these scandals are, in fact, proof that the judgment they seek has indeed arrived - just not on the 'sinners' they believe to be the ones deserving of punishment.

Life Soundtrack 28

2011-12-02T22:39:00.000-07:00

Mysterious Ways, by Kim Hill

One of my favorite songs back in the mid-90s, and a reminder that even in my days as a card-carrying evangelical I allowed myself the luxury of admitting that I didn't have it all figured out. Only on certain topics, of course, and even then I ran the risk of getting funny looks from some of my peers - but intellectual honesty and conservative religion don't always have to be mutually exclusive...

Beautiful

2011-11-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

Will it sway people? Hard to say - but I found it deeply moving...

A Complicated Life

2011-11-23T22:35:00.002-07:00

I haven't commented on movies as often as I could, but watching J. Edgar last weekend moved me to rectify that. Whatever else you may think of the movie (and the man in question), it's one that sticks in your mind for a while afterward.

Whatever else the filmmakers got right or wrong about Hoover, who's simultaneously one of the most significant and most controversial figures of 20th century American history, they did us the service of offering a nuanced take on his life. While he doesn't deserve the pedestal that some conservatives have placed him on, in my opinion, neither was he the slavering demon that the left often casts him as. As with most things in this life, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Social conservatives no doubt hate the movie for running with the longstanding rumor that Hoover and his right-hand man, Clyde Tolson, were closeted gay men and something more than friends. On the other end, there may be some who think their relationship as portrayed in the movie was unrealistically chaste. I personally found it very believable, knowing from my own experience what it's like to be that deeply repressed, and also far more powerful than simply giving them a secret sex life.

Does J. Edgar deserve an Oscar? I'm not enough of a film connoisseur to offer a convincing argument either way. But the movie kept me engaged for two and a half hours, which has got to count for something.

The Book Is Here

2011-11-15T17:30:00.001-07:00

John Shore's new book, Wings on a Pig, is now available in electronic form (a print version is promised in the near future). This is the book project I mentioned a couple months back; it contains the stories of 30 gay Christians (mine made the cut - it starts on page 122) as well as some of Shore's own essays. It's well worth the $10 price tag, and I'd say that even if I weren't a contributor...

Quotable

2011-11-01T10:52:00.001-06:00

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

-attributed to Albert Einstein

Hiatus

2011-10-25T21:15:00.000-06:00

Wow, how easily a month and a half can go by when life gets busy. I hadn't planned to take such an extended break from blogging, but I suppose this is how many a blog fades away - a week turns into a month, and soon one is so out of the habit of blogging that it ceases to be a priority.

And with all the stress surrounding the start of a new job - one that also happens to be a lot busier than my previous job - I simply didn't have the energy to worry about posting anything here. But the good news is that I am employed again; a lot of people have been out of work for far longer, and given how terrible I am at making first impressions (a fact nearly anyone who knows me will attest to if they're being honest) I attribute it to the grace of God that I got this one. It's a great fit for me in terms of my experience and skill sets, but I know I didn't get it on the strength of my less-than-mad interviewing skills.

But I digress. I don't intend to let this blog die, though the break was probably a good thing for me in any case. In recent months I could tell that I'd said just about everything I had to say, and that I was repeating myself enough that even I was getting bored with some of my posts. That's not to say that I have nothing at all left to say, just that the ground needs to lie fallow every now and then to remain productive.

In the meantime, if you live in or near the Denver area, be sure you don't miss your chance to hear Wendy Gritter and Chely Wright at Highlands Church's annual symposium on the Evangelical Church and Homosexuality. It promises to be a memorable weekend...

Inclusion

2011-09-13T10:37:00.002-06:00

Married, divorced or single here, it's one family that mingles here.
Conservative or liberal here, we’ve all gotta give a little here.
Big or small here, there’s room for us all here.
Doubt or believe here, we all can receive here.
Gay or straight here, there’s no hate here
Woman or man here, everyone can here.
Whatever your race here, for all of us grace here.
In imitation of the ridiculous love Almighty God has for each of us and all of us,
Let us live and love without labels.

-The ethos statement of Highlands Church, which celebrated its two-year anniversary last weekend.

Afterlife V

2011-09-08T15:13:00.001-06:00

For those who may have missed the previous post's comment section, John shared this link to a very helpful overview of the different views on hell that Christians have advocated over the centuries. It's a timely reminder that what we often consider the "traditional" view - of endless, conscious torment for all nonbelievers - wasn't widely held prior to medieval times, and even since then has been disputed by many theologians.

What little the biblical authors do have to say about hell is vague enough that N.T. Wright's caution against dogmatism ought to be our strongest statement on the topic. For my own part I find myself leaning increasingly toward a stance of "hopeful universalism" - we have no guarantee that everyone will spend eternity with God, and the existence of free will demands that we be given the choice to reject God, but it's still possible that even the most stubborn rebel will eventually seek (and be granted) reconciliation. I cannot know that for sure, however. All I can be certain of is that God is merciful and loving and just, and that I don't have to live my life in fear.

To those who still hold that infinite punishment is a biblical doctrine due to Jesus' references to hell, I encourage them not to forget who is depicted as being sentenced to hell in each of those cases. It's never those the church typically brands as "sinners," or those who fail to pay lip service to the correct doctrinal statement. Instead, it's always the inhospitable: those who fail to care for the poor, the widow and the orphan; those who lord their self-proclaimed righteousness over others; those who shun the outcast and offer no welcome to the traveler. Somehow that part of the story always gets glossed over - and yet how can we understand the point without it?

Afterlife IV

2011-08-23T15:50:00.000-06:00

Here's another interesting take on heaven and hell, one that makes more sense than the "traditional" Christian view. Of course, none of us really knows with absolute certainty what lies beyond this life, and the Bible is vague enough on that point to leave open any number of interpretations. But it does seem like it's past time to retire the originally pre-Christian (and decidedly non-Jewish) notion that a just and loving God would inflict infinite torture as punishment for a finite number of sins.

Not So Different

2011-08-18T15:51:00.000-06:00

Today I came across this article from the Economist that puts the recent London riots into perspective. It's a valuable reminder of how important it is to understand history. It seems that every generation since ancient times thinks that the generation rising after them is worse than they were, and that the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

One certainly sees that in the rhetoric of conservative Christian groups, who still pine for the idyllic middle-class paradise of the 1950s, notwithstanding that the conservatives of the 1950s just as loudly decried the decline of Western civilization in their own time as they yearned for some earlier utopia.

Yet there is no perfect era. Each generation makes its own mistakes, improving in some ways on its predecessors while falling short in others. Western civilization may someday pass away, as all civilizations do - but in the end its collapse will be a far more complex affair than anyone on any side of whatever political divides exist at the time will be likely to acknowledge. That event will no more lie at the feet of the youth of the day than Rome's fall was caused by the evil gays or the dirty Christians.

It's easy to focus only on the negatives (or the positives) of a particular situation. But the problems we do face will never be solved as long as we cling to such a simplistic view of the world.

Links

2011-08-09T14:40:00.000-06:00

Apologies for my longer-than-expected absence from the blogosphere. Between the job search and my recent trip (to attend GenCon, thanks in part to the generosity of a good friend) I haven't been feeling particularly inspired lately. So here are a few links to items that may be of interest...

1. It's nice to see that more evangelicals are beginning to challenge the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis. In my experience, the Bible only truly begins to come alive when you free it from the demand that it function as an encyclopedia and rulebook.

2. A friend pointed me to this story, which resonates with my own experience. From his boyhood crush on C. Thomas Howell to his concern that he may be incapable of a romantic relationship at this point in his life, I can relate.

3. Speaking of stories, there's still a little time to submit yours to John Shore for his upcoming book project on gay Christians. I've sent mine in - which is part of the reason I haven't had as much to say here in recent weeks.

4. Finally, a dissenting opinion on the latest book in George Martin's Game of Thrones series. I still plan to read the book for myself, but it's actually a little reassuring to know I'm not the only fantasy reader who isn't completely enamored with the series. It's a great and groundbreaking epic in many ways, but even the best books have their flaws.

Life Soundtrack 27

2011-07-28T22:51:00.004-06:00

You Belong With Me, originally by Taylor Swift

I personally think this song works perfectly as the story of a gay teenager pining after his best friend. At the very least, it's a common enough scenario...

Bullying for God?

2011-07-14T17:34:00.000-06:00

Mark Driscoll's recent non-apology for his "flippant comment" is, sadly, not terribly surprising based on his past behavior. While his gospel of machismo thankfully doesn't have as much support as it once did, there are still too many Christians who lack empathy and confuse combativeness for compassion. It brings to mind this now-classic scene from Saved...

Corruption

2011-07-07T14:56:00.000-06:00

One of the most eye-opening (and disillusioning) discoveries that prompted me to more seriously and thoroughly reevaluate my beliefs was a gradual awakening to the ugly (and decidedly un-Christlike) face that the religious right had placed on the Christian faith it claimed to speak for. For those who get most or all of their news from conservative and/or evangelical sources, organizations like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association appear to be bastions of truth and righteousness in a dark and chaotic world.

Unfortunately that veneer quickly peels away when subjected to even moderate scrutiny. Underneath all of these groups' stern, authoritative-sounding proclamations lies a barely concealed commitment to winning the argument at any cost. When the Gospel is redefined as a political agenda, the Kingdom of Heaven quickly becomes indistinguishable from any earthly kingdom.

In politics, winning is everything. As a result, any means are ultimately justified in achieving one's ends, and champions of "biblical morality" are thus free to demonize, distort, deceive and even ignore inconvenient laws in the pursuit of their "godly" agenda. Helping people may ostensibly be the goal of this push for power, but under this militant gospel compassion can only be shown through the forcible imposition of "God's will" on others for their own good.

Such a mindset is hardly unique to the religious right, of course, or even to fundamentalist religions. But to claim that their crusade is biblical requires a far more selective use of the Bible than any doctrine promoted by the "liberals" they despise so much.

It's a tragic irony that those who are quickest to name Satan as the author of anything they oppose (or even generally dislike) are so blind to the negative fruits of their labors against those "works of the devil". But perhaps it's no coincidence at all; throughout history, nothing has done more to discredit the church than its lust for political power. What better way, then, to corrupt and destroy it than by seducing it with promises of heaven brought to earth through the benevolent use of worldly power?

Forward

2011-06-27T23:24:00.000-06:00

Progress sometimes moves slowly, but we've come a long way in a relatively short period of time, as the victory for marriage equality in New York demonstrates. Here are a few more positive indicators:

-The growing number of conservative Republicans who recognize that the advancement of gay rights is not, in fact, a harbinger of doom. Commentator David Frum is the most recent convert.

-That growth is taking place among evangelicals as well, as demonstrated by Christian leaders like John Shore and Wendy Gritter. Wendy's recent Pastor's Conversation is now available online.

-A bit less obviously, the growing emphasis on social justice among younger evangelicals is a hopeful sign that the church may set aside its thirst for power in favor of the love and compassion that fueled its original growth spurt two thousand years ago.

Good ol' Jon Stewart

2011-06-21T15:31:00.000-06:00

The Daily Show - We're Here, We're Queer, Get Newsed to It - NY Marriage Equality & Gay Blogger Hoax
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Just in case it needs clarifying, I really am who I claim to be (as anyone who knows me through the GCN and BXG conferences can attest), and not, say, a straight woman from Cleveland...

Links

2011-06-14T16:17:00.000-06:00

A few items of interest from around the blogosphere:

1. Jim Burroway's detailed investigation into one of reparative therapy's most famous case studies. Unsurprisingly (and tragically), the reality behind the experiment is far different than the myth that NARTH and its allies continue to peddle.

2. A plug for Nakedpastor, whose site I need to add to my blogroll one of these days. His cartoons frequently echo my own thoughts and reservations about the church.

3. Another plug, this one for Jon Rowe's blog. Rowe's writings are a valuable resource for anyone looking for hard evidence to refute the "Christian nation" advocates who are still popular in many evangelical circles.

4. Kathy Baldock's tireless advocacy is always worth a mention. Her latest post is an open letter to the church.

5. On a lighter note, there's now a blog where people can share the story of their first gay crush. For the record, mine was C. Thomas Howell (laugh if you must; I make no apologies).

Downsized

2011-06-04T05:30:00.000-06:00

In an unusually clear-cut case of "be careful what you wish for," the next leg of my journey has just opened up in front of me. I have no idea what lies down this new path, but with the loss of my job I have no choice but to begin exploring it.

I was laid off from my job shortly before Memorial Day. I'd been uncertain about my future there since our new VP came on board last year, so the real blow was receiving a minimal severance package on top of the fact that my former employer doesn't pay unemployment insurance due to its incorporation as a church (which, in reality, it's not). I have savings and some small investments to live off of for the time being, at least.

On the positive side, this does force me out of the professional rut I've been in for the last several years. And it means I no longer have to partition my work life away from the rest of my life. I'm still deciding what that will look like (there are some relatives and old friends I still don't feel any need to come out to), but there's no longer a financial risk associated with living more openly.

In terms of this blog, it means I can share that I live in Denver and am an active member of Highlands Church, where I've attended since their first weekly service nearly two years ago. The name of my ex-employer will remain unstated, both for the sake of maintaining some anonymity and because I have no reason to speak ill of the organization beyond what I've already said here.

Also, I do have a Gmail account you can contact me through if you've ever felt inclined. The portion before the "at" sign is eugene followed by the number 256 (no space in between). I reserve the right to ignore messages that come across as trollish, but will make an effort to respond to those interested in a real conversation.

For now, this time off is an opportunity to rest and de-stress. I don't know what lies ahead, but as I stated in the subtitle of my blog, sometimes the journey takes you places you never dreamed existed...

Imagery

2011-05-31T17:34:00.000-06:00

"I can never know beforehand how God's image should appear in others. That image always manifests a completely new and unique form that come solely from God's free and sovereign creation. To me the sight may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every man in the likeness of His Son, the Crucified. After all, even that image certainly looked strange and ungodly to me before I grasped it."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sow and Reap

2011-05-20T23:14:00.000-06:00

Like many, I've been following the situation in Uganda since the "kill the gays" bill was first introduced there over a year ago. While that bill thankfully appears to have been shelved for the time being, it's still a fact that life is very difficult for sexual minorities in nearly all parts of Africa

In light of the massive amount of money and effort that American evangelicals have poured into Uganda, the very existence of this bill reflects directly (and negatively) on their efforts. I don't say that by any means to invalidate everything that sincere and caring Christians have done with the intent of helping the people of Africa, but it's a stark reminder that our actions don't always produce the results we intended.

Growing up I heard and read many stories of missionary work in Africa. It was exciting to see how rapidly the Christian church was growing throughout the sub-Saharan portions of the continent. In my own mind (as in the minds of many evangelicals), the eventuality of a Christian majority in numerous countries across Africa could only produce a brighter future for all the people there. Once Christians acquired the reins of government and instituted rule based on biblical principles, they would eventually transform their nations into free and prosperous lands.

Or so the line of thinking went. If anything, Africa is poorer than ever and its governments no less corrupt on the whole. That's not to say that the African church has accomplished nothing - merely that there, as here, Christians who enter politics tend to be corrupted by the system rather than becoming the agents of change that they dreamed of being. The compassion modeled by Christ becomes something altogether different when administered by the iron fist of government power.

Thus we see, once again, how rule by religious moralists tends toward tyranny as surely as the more blatant oppression of an overt dictator. There's always an evil to be stamped out (by violence if necessary), whether today's devil comes in the form of heresy, witchcraft, alcohol, wealth or homosexuality. The Ugandan government only takes such thinking to its logical conclusion when its leaders propose execution for anyone convicted of being gay.

Where the example of Christ teaches us that the ends of the Gospel are achieved through voluntary, self-sacrificial acts of compassion, the ends of any political agenda can only be achieved through some form of coercion. And while the existence of government is a necessary evil in the world we inhabit, the power it represents is a heady intoxicant that seduces those who wield it with the notion that they can solve the world's problems by employing that power against those perceived to be part of the problem.

Thus did the religious right abandon the way of Christ for utopian notions of turning the United States back into the "Christian nation" it never really was, and they enthusiastically exported that idea to the receptive churches of Africa. But where they hoped to see 2 Chronicles 7:14 put into action as Christians assumed the reins of power, they have instead ended up with a living example of Matthew 23:15:

You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T22:08:00.001-06:00

A bit belated, but the video should be just as entertaining a day or two late...

Life Soundtrack 26

2011-04-27T18:50:00.000-06:00

Nothing Left to Lose, by Mat Kearney

For me, this song evokes feelings of a fresh start, of embarking on a new journey. Leaving behind the familiar and facing the uncertainty of a universe of previously unseen possibilities can be both daunting and exhilarating. I don't know when I'll next be forced out of my comfort zone to begin a new leg of my own journey, but part of me secretly yearns for it.

Projection

2011-04-20T17:30:00.000-06:00

Kathy Baldock has generously contributed a considerable amount of her time to read and review the latest book by a Christian purporting to offer a "compassionate" response to the issue of homosexuality. Among other things Kathy observes that, while the author (Michael Brown) appears to sincerely believe he's being compassionate, she found nothing in the content of the book that any outside observer would be likely to interpret as compassion.

Based on my own experiences growing up in fundamentalistic churches, I don't find that surprising. While believers in such churches are routinely exhorted to harbor warm thoughts toward others in the name of love, compassion is inevitably divorced from empathy (and thereby reduced to an abstraction) since the idea that anyone could genuinely view and interpret the world differently than they do borders on heresy. Such differences of perspective must be denounced as either willful rebellion against "the Truth" or satanic deception. Any factual or experiential evidence that contradicts what they have defined as Truth is likewise beneath consideration.

In the twisted version of the Golden Rule that emerges from such conditioning, fundamentalists are taught to "do unto others" by first projecting their own feelings and opinions onto everyone around them and then demanding absolute conformity to that narrow vision. That they are conflating God's will with their own never occurs to them, since they have been armed with a list of Bible verses that appear to support their arguments.

While individuals trapped in this mode of thinking are not irredeemable by any means, it's not always feasible to remain in relationship with somebody who considers you to be a hell-bound apostate. But at the very least we can temper our reactions with an understanding of where they are coming from, extending the same grace we would hope to receive were our positions reversed.

What Matters Most

2011-04-07T12:00:00.000-06:00

If I'm to pass some sort of exam on what it "means to be a Christian," theology and belief aren't relevant to the test. What is relevant is what Genie and my children can tell you about what I'm like to live with, and whether my years spent on a sacramental path have made me less of a self-centered idiot. That is what faith in God is about, just as that is what being a moral atheist is about.

-Frank Schaeffer, Patience With God (page 44)

Put another way:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor. 13:1-3)

Acceptance

2011-04-02T11:46:00.000-06:00

As anyone who knows me in real life most likely knows (and as I mentioned here some years back), I'm a big fan of the Amazing Race. Although I doubt I could physically handle being a contestant on the show myself, I still enjoy seeing the world through the eyes of those who do get the opportunity to compete.

One of my favorite teams on the show's current season is Zev & Justin, two guys I could imagine hanging out with in my own circle of friends. Zev has Asperger Syndrome, a condition that, among other things, makes it a challenge to form close friendships with others. Justin is the friend who looked past those surface difficulties and embraced the valuable person he saw underneath.

In that respect, Justin has acted as a follower of Christ more truly than many who call themselves Christians. (I don't know anything about Justin's beliefs, but Matt. 25:31-46 and other passages suggest that our actions are more important than our words.) In my own life I'm deeply grateful for the Justins that have come along and accepted me as I am, sometimes at times when it wasn't easy to see that I had anything worthwhile to offer in return.

That simple act of unconditional acceptance is so much more powerful than we like to give it credit for. In the long run it's far more transformative than any number of well-intentioned efforts to force a person to change - and it ultimately earns us that platform that we so strongly covet to be an influence in the lives of those around us.

Conservative evangelicals have become our poster children for those who like to pick on other people's sins, but we've all done it at one time or another, either directly or through acts of rejection. For my own part I like to think that I've succeeded at least a few times in unconditionally accepting others (an act of self-sacrifice, to be sure), but I still have to face the fact that I've failed to do so many other times.

The world has plenty of moralists; what it really needs is more best friends.

Quotes

2011-03-24T17:55:00.000-06:00

Admittedly, following as many politically oriented blogs as I do, it's a challenge to avoid becoming permanently cynical. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts that have stood out to me recently...

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.
-Laurence J. Peter

One of the greatest things about morality is how those who claim to act on its behalf are often the ones drinking from the emptiest cups.
-Jeff Pearlman

Evangelicalism continues to be infected by a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality which immediately attempts to strangle, or stamp out, or raze any theological reflection which is deemed as beyond the bounds.
-Randal Rauser

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.
-Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

Upside Down

2011-03-17T17:00:00.000-06:00

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:9

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." - 1 Cor. 1:25

"Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools." - Romans 1:22

In these and many other passages, the biblical authors remind us of the limits of our own intellects and of our need for God in all things. Although these verses often use nonbelievers as object lessons, it would be a dire mistake for Christians to view them as cause to look down on those who don't share our beliefs (as Romans 2:1 vividly reminds us). If nothing else, the countless disputes that have occurred over the millennia over every conceivable point of doctrine should remind us how prone we still are toward error and short-sightedness.

How sad is it, then, when we conscript verses meant to call us to humility into the service of our pride by using them as weapons to silence those who disagree with us. How tragic the irony, when reminders of our own fallibilty are used instead to bolster our faith in the infallibility of our doctrinal positions. Instead of engaging in meaningful conversation with those who disagree with us and humbly considering evidence that may contradict our interpretations of God's will, we close our ears to all of those voices, attributing anything we don't want to hear to the machinations of the devil.

At the same time we demand submission from everyone around us, and cry "persecution!" when they refuse. Our self-inflicted isolation further reinforces our belief in the absolute rightness of our own dogmas, and distracts us from noticing our hearts growing cold as our own certainty replaces God as the focus of our devotion. In time we become the very nonbelievers we think we look down upon, all the while believing ourselves to be wise.

Life Soundtrack 25

2011-03-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Don't Dream It's Over, version by Sixpence None the Richer

A little encouragement for those days when the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket...

Odds and Ends

2011-02-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

A few items of interest:

-Ray Kurzweil on global warming. While his line of reasoning seems a bit simplistic, it is worth remembering the rapid advances being made in technology - and that moving forward is often a better solution than going backwards.

Are the current changes in climate a sign that modern society is unsustainable? There's certainly a lot we need to do to take better care of the planet we live on, but having grown up in the types of churches that keep the masses terrified by latching onto a new prophet of doom and destruction every couple of years, I've learned the hard way to be skeptical of anyone who claims the world is about to end.

-In the "not sure whether to laugh or cry" category, Tony Perkins' description of the Family Research Council's work: "speaking the truth in love about the most important issues facing our country." The saddest part is that he no doubt sincerely believes himself to be a loving and truthful individual, even though his "facts" about the lives of gay individuals bear no resemblance to reality and the next loving thing he says will be his first.

-On the topic of groups that claim to be speaking the truth in love, Kathy Baldock's take on Focus on the Family's so-called "Day of Dialogue" addresses the whole mess quite well. Sadly, the conservative side of the evangelical world is still far too self-absorbed to see how many people they are driving away from God with their creative definition of compassion.

-Finally, The Onion comes through again, this time foretelling the horrors sure to follow if the Defense of Marriage Act is repealed.

Weekend Reading

2011-02-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

Fortunately other bloggers are feeling more prolific than I am at the moment. Here are a few items of interest that are well worth the effort.

1. Wendy Gritter on creating space within the church for disagreeing over whether God blesses same-sex unions. Part 1 can be found here.

I've long wondered whether a day could come when the church matured to the point of allowing this issue to be a matter of personal (or at least congregational) conscience rather than one that divides. It still seems like a pipe dream, but seeing others come along to champion the cause of unity gives me hope.

2. Rob Tisinai has begun responding in depth to the latest arguments against same-sex marriage. Part 1 is here. His explanation of rationalism vs. empiricism in Part 2 is particularly useful; without understanding the lines of reasoning employed by the former approach, one can never understand fundamentalist thought.

3. On a different note, this is a beautiful story. And it's an outcome that I suspect is considerably less rare than ex-gay advocates would like it to be...

Vicious Cycles

2011-02-05T14:47:00.001-07:00

I was recently reminded, via a television show, of the fact that bullies are themselves usually deeply wounded individuals. Whether they're acting out in response to being bullied previously, to some other trauma in their past, or merely out of fear (which fundamentalist religion is saturated with), life is rarely as black and white as we'd like it to be.

What's true of kids in a schoolyard is just as true in the adult world. The main difference is that the Tony Perkinses and Bryan Fischers of the world can cause pain on a scale that no seventh grader could even dream of. Whatever old wounds and deep-seated fears motivate them to bully entire classes of people, even they may not fully understand.

The fact that they and their ilk are victims in their own right doesn't lessen the need for decent people to stand up to them and work to prevent the harm they would do, but it can at least temper the way we view them. The Golden Rule requires that we not lose sight of their humanity, even when they seek to dehumanize us - and as human beings they are still bearers of the image of God, however difficult they may make it for others to see in them.

The bullies in our world might not appreciate our efforts, but by keeping in view the humanity that underlies their angry and hate-filled tirades, we just might someday come up with a way of breaking the cycle of abuse that made them what they are.

Community

2011-01-30T22:00:00.001-07:00

In all the busyness of the past month I've become somewhat neglectful where my blog is concerned. Part of that busyness came from attending the Gay Christian Network's annual conference in Denver two weeks ago. This was my sixth GCN conference, so it's an event that's become a significant part of my journey.

Back when I attended my first GCN conference in Orlando, I was still in the process of pulling away from the last ex-gay ministry I was a part of. I already knew a few GCNers from local gatherings and several trips I'd made the previous summer, and they were the first gay people I'd (knowingly) interacted with outside of ex-gay programs. That first conference (and the next) helped me quite a bit as I was learning how to be comfortable in my own skin, and introduced me to a lot of amazing people that, looking back, I couldn't imagine not being a part of my life.

Since then the conferences have, for me, centered around seeing those friends again and making new ones. Not that the programming isn't worthwhile (the conference has had some great speakers over the years, including Jay Bakker, Tony Campolo and Philip Yancey), but it's the relationships that keep me coming back.

Were I just now attending my first conference it's hard to say how the experience would be; 430 people are a lot more daunting to an introvert than 90. Even knowing as many GCNers as I do now, I can only spend so much time in that large a crowd without needing to retreat for a while. All the same, I wouldn't miss it for the world.

GCN certainly isn't for everyone - for many it's too conservative or too liberal, too supportive of either Side A or Side B, too religious or too inclusive. But regardless of where we best fit in, we all have one thing in common: a need for community.

A lot of people who have become disillusioned with the church have retained a belief in God while discarding all institutional forms of religion. I understand the sentiment and can't argue with the fact that the church tends to be a very dysfunctional place. But I don't see how one can hope to cultivate a truly healthy spiritual life without the assistance and encouragement of others who are headed in the same direction.

Hopefully the day will come when the church as a whole has grown to the point that havens like GCN are no longer needed. That day seems to be a long way off, but there are more encouraging signs of change every year. The Body of Christ needs all of its members - perhaps especially the more "unseemly" ones. And wholeness is a dream worth pursuing.

Reflections

2011-01-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post some thoughts on the Gay Christian Network's 2011 conference, but in the midst of a hectic month I've hardly found any time to sit down and blog. So in the meantime, here are posts from three other people who attended...

Wendy Gritter (who I'm pleased to be able to consider a personal friend)
Kathy Baldock (who I'm glad is on our side - she's a force to be reckoned with)
Heidi Miller (who I didn't get to meet, unfortunately)

Quoted

2011-01-10T22:07:00.001-07:00

"Love has a critical trust in the changeability of the enemy, and a permanent distrust of the certainty of its own position."

-quoted by Philip Yancey at the GCN conference

(I can't recall the source of the quote, unfortunately.)

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T18:00:00.001-07:00

"My Uncle Kenny made me read an author named Wendell Berry. Here's what he says: 'The significance - and ultimately the quality - of the work we do is determined by our understanding of the story in which we are taking part.' For years I thought of the Bible not as a story but as a black-and-white photograph, something you could use in a court of law to prove that our doctrines and propositions were rational and true. Talk about trivializing and holding back the beauty of the Bible!

Now I see the Story more like a painting filled with glory, poetry, and even blurry lines. Paintings are trickier than photos. They're open to a wide variety of interpretation, depending on who's looking at them and the situations those viewers live in. Seeing the Bible this way could lead to things getting messy from time to time - but the Word is living, not static. Our job is to invite people to inhabit our story, to be part of what God's doing in history. And we don't need to feel constant pressure to defend it against its critics. Truth doesn't need defending. It is its own witness."

-Chase Falson in Chasing Francis, by Ian Morgan Cron

Here's to another year in the great Story that we find ourselves a part of.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Per my tradition, here is a Christmas light display synced to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Wish Liszt, specifically. I hope your holiday is a happy one, however you celebrate it.

What He Said

2010-12-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (and Must) Agree On

We all have far more common ground than most people seem to realize, if we can set aside the "us vs. them" mentality that fundamentalists of all stripes (Christian, Muslim, Atheist, etc.) hold to everyone's detriment...

Strong Words

2010-12-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

One of the tragic realities of modern American politics is that name-calling has largely replaced dialogue. When something does get accomplished in the current political climate it's more because one side had enough power to ram it through than because any worthwhile debate took place.

Name-calling may sometimes seem like the only way to be heard above the din, but it's also the quickest way to make your opponents tune you out entirely. At the same time, avoiding strong terms altogether isn't always feasible - take, for instance, the Southern Poverty Law Center's addition of five new religious right groups (some of them very prominent) to its list of anti-gay hate groups.

"Hate" is a strong term that shouldn't be hurled lightly, and predictably, the groups that have earned that label are playing the persecution card to rile up their supporters. Any objective observer can easily see, however, that the SPLC's criteria for designating an organization as a hate group are quite reasonable and even fairly conservative. Only a handful of anti-gay groups have earned this designation; merely being opposed to gay rights is not enough, regardless of the motivation (and regardless of what the Family Research Council disingenuously claims).

Indeed, a group must actively and repeatedly spread lies about LGBT individuals (or another minority group) to be labeled a hate group - and the organizations on the SPLC's list do so on an almost daily basis. In this case withholding the term "hate" for the sake of civility would be a disservice, given the bile that Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer and their fellow-travelers spit at the gay community nearly every time they open their mouths. We still need to take care to avoid overusing the word, but when dealing with those who very clearly do hate us, there's no substitute for telling it like it is.

An even stronger word that I've recently heard used in association with anti-gay activism is genocide. If a word like 'hate' needs to be used selectively, a word like 'genocide' can quickly become an even larger liability. It isn't without merit, when one considers that most conservative Christians would view the eradication of homosexuality as a good thing, but the second activists begin shouting "genocide" at rallies, we begin pushing away many of our more moderate opponents who might have been movable.

It also needs to be noted that the majority of those on the religious right envision a world free of homosexuality in terms of converting gay individuals back to their allegedly natural heterosexual state, rather than killing them. However blind their faith in the possibility of such conversion, and however superficial an understanding of sexuality that one must hold to believe that homosexuals are merely damaged heterosexuals, only the most extreme would actually endorse carrying out the mass executions that would be required to truly eradicate homosexuality (at least in the current generation).

That said, as we are able to educate such individuals about the immutability of sexual orientation (at least for the vast majority), there can be great value in helping them to recognize the parallels that exist between the religious right's treatment of LGBT individuals and historical acts of genocide. It's best done calmly and dispassionately, and without resorting to hyperbole, lest we validate the notion that we're the real haters.

The facts are on our side - the more we stick to them and reserve the use of strong labels for those that have truly earned them, the better equipped we are to help our opponents come to understand that we are not the enemies they've been conditioned to view us as.

'Tis the Season

2010-12-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

The "War on Christmas" is one evangelical cause that I thankfully never fully bought into. The way the religious right carries on about the alleged conspiracy to remove Christ from Christmas with so much anger and hostility is so antithetical to the spirit of the event they're supposedly defending that it seems at times like they're the ones that have declared war on Christmas.

Along those lines, here are two perspectives on the "war," one from another evangelical and one from an atheist, that demonstrate just how counterproductive the whole brouhaha is.

One additional observation I would add to the mix is that this crusade, like virtually everything initiated by fundamentalists, is fueled by an emotion that's very much out of sync with the message of Christ's birth: fear. Fear of a brittle, easily offended god who plans to endlessly torture the vast majority of the human beings he created, a god who won't hesitate to destroy entire nations for any one of a long list of offenses.

Given such a mindset, it's little wonder that a season conceived as a celebration of joy could devolve into an angry shouting match. Thankfully the majority of Christians don't seem to be buying into that message of fear anymore. Unfortunately far too many still do.

Cold Outside

2010-12-04T22:28:00.002-07:00

It's been a while since I watched Glee, but this is very cute...

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

Like all members of the secret gay conspiracy to destroy everything, I plan to fully indulge in my sinful gay lifestyle over the four-day weekend. In fact, as soon as I'm done posting this I will be heading down to my parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner. I'll be bringing the pie (unpatriotically sweetened with agave instead of good old-fashioned sugar). My mom also asked me to bring a DVD to watch after dinner, so I've pulled out my copy of Lord, Save Us From Your Followers to corrupt her with.

I'll be spending tomorrow at a board game day being hosted by some friends who, like me, think that sounds like a lot more fun than endless hours fighting the frenzied crowds at the mall. So if the economy doesn't recover in 2011, you'll know who's really to blame.

Saturday, after helping put up the advent decorations at church, I plan to see the new Harry Potter movie with my sister, after which we'll no doubt cast a few Imperius curses on unsuspecting Muggles in the name of the dark lord before grabbing some dinner.

After church on Sunday I'll be helping my parents put up that grand symbol of Paganism, the Christmas tree. A couple of the ornaments even depict Santa Claus. And then I'll cap off the weekend by watching the Amazing Race, which just spent the last two legs boosting the economies of Muslim countries.

In all seriousness, I do have much to be thankful for - a loving family, a great church, a stable job, reasonably good health and the freedom to enjoy them all. God is indeed good. Have a blessed holiday.

Caution

2010-11-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

A thoughtful piece on the value of doubt, a topic I've explored more than once. It's all the more timely in the wake of the recent election and the biennial spectacle of true believers on both sides of the aisle touting, with absolute conviction, the pure goodness of their candidates and the sheer evil of their opponents (I exaggerate, but only slightly).

I find my own political convictions run along lines similar to those outlined by the author - with the added caveat that the corrupting nature of power should be remembered and highlighted whenever somebody (of any political persuasion) proposes to wield large amounts of it for our benefit...

Maturity

2010-11-05T23:02:00.000-06:00

[I]f we were studying the Bible together over a period of time, we could trace the maturation process among biblical writers regarding God's character. In some passages, God appears violent, retaliatory, given to favoritism, and careless of human life. But over time, the image of God that predominates is gentle rather than cruel, compassionate rather than violent, fair to all rather than biased toward some, forgiving rather than retaliatory. In this more mature view, God is not capricious, bloodthirsty, hateful, or prone to fits of vengeful rage. Rather, God loves justice, kindness, reconciliation, and pace; God's grace gets the final word.

People who are part of what is often called fundamentalism today, whether Christians, Muslims, or Jews, often find it difficult to acknowledge this kind of progression in understanding across the centuries. If anything, they feel obliged to defend and give priority to the early, raw, more primal, less-tested and -developed views of God, minimizing or marginalizing what I am calling the more mature and nuanced understandings.

So the God of the fundamentalists is a competitive warrior - always jealous of rivals and determined to drive them into defeat and disgrace. And the God of the fundamentalists is superficially exacting - demanding technical perfection in regard to ceremonial and legal matters while minimizing deeper concerns about social justice - especially where outsiders and outcasts are concerned. Similarly, the fundamentalist God is exclusive, faithfully loving one in-group and rejecting - perhaps even hating - all others.

The fundamentalist God is also deterministic - controlling rather than interacting, a mover of events but never moved by them. And finally, though the fundamentalist God may be patient for a while, he (fundamentalist versions of God tend to be very male) is ultimately violent, eventually destined to explode with unquenchable rage, condemnation, punishment, torture, and vengeance if you push him too far.

-Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, pages 101-102

The fundamentalist God is also a being that can ultimately only be feared, not loved. Under such a deity every activity of the Christian life - worship, evangelism, charity, etc. - is an act of appeasement, driven by the need to escape unspeakable punishment (or to rescue others from that doom). Even the most conservative Christian would never verbalize it in that way, but when Hell is defined as an eternal state and salvation is viewed as the "fire insurance" that must be obtained to avoid it, declaring one's love for God becomes first and foremost an act of survival and only secondarily one of devotion.

In most evangelical churches the reality lies somewhere in between; the New Testament is given enough weight that God's love can sometimes be understood. But the Old Testament's God of wrath still lurks just beneath the surface, unwilling (or unable) to show any mercy to anyone who doesn't offer verbal assent to the correct creed. The perceived need for an inerrant Bible precludes the possibility that its early books might be the product of a more primitive understanding of God, rather than a timeless portrait to be placed on an equal plane with the example set by Christ.

If perfect love casts out fear, then perhaps any doctrines that lead to fear need to be reconsidered. Such growth in our theology need not suggest that God has changed, merely that our understanding of God has matured.

Integration

2010-10-30T20:38:00.000-06:00

It makes me hopeful that the day will come when the body of Christ stops self-amputating and finds true wholeness in the process.

Life Soundtrack 24

2010-10-26T18:00:00.000-06:00

This Is Your Life, by Switchfoot

Although dwelling too much on all we haven't accomplished can lead to depression, we do sometimes need a nudge like this before we can get out of our chairs and make the most of the time that we still have. This song came along when I was first struggling to escape the mindset of avoidance and suppression that had been drilled into me from years of fear-driven legalism and ex-gay teachings.

I don't know that I've entirely succeeded yet, but life is too short to spend hiding from the ever-present possibility that something bad could happen when we dare to experience what lies beyond our front door.

Links

2010-10-16T11:36:00.000-06:00

A few links worth sharing:

1. Philip Yancey visits a fully affirming church, and comments on the issue of homosexuality with humility and grace.

2. A lengthy but interesting examination of the doctrine of hell and its origins.

3. You've probably seen it already, but just in case you haven't: Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns' moving contribution to the "It Gets Better" series.

4. On a lighter note: via CrackerLilo, an entry for the "what were they smoking?" category: the 20 Most Hilarious Company Names on Earth.

Quotes

2010-10-08T06:00:00.001-06:00

Biblical faith is more a process than a conclusion, more a way of relating than a way of explaining.

-Richard Rohr

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.
-Wayne Dyer

"Faith without works is dead," and faith without doubts probably is, too.
-Mark Tidd

God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find within him the Creator. Now the other person, in the freedom with which he was created, becomes the occasion of joy, whereas before he was only a nuisance and an affliction.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
-Albert Einstein

Bullies

2010-10-01T21:10:00.001-06:00

I've never been they type to wear my emotions on my sleeve, but that doesn't mean I'm not deeply moved by the stories of injustice and suffering that reach us all on an almost-daily basis. Quite frankly, I'd find it a challenge to think charitably of anyone who isn't disturbed by the recent spate of suicides provoked by anti-gay bullying.

The brutal mistreatment that drove these kids to take their own lives is hardly uncommon, much less a new phenomenon, though to listen to religious right groups one might be misled into thinking that it's the gay kids who are the real bullies (a line of reasoning akin to saying that the Inquisitors were the real victims of the Spanish Inquisition). Indeed, observing how different Christians respond (or fail to respond) to this issue is a pretty effective way of separating those sincerely trying to live out the Golden Rule from those whose view of God has been so tainted by fear that they have nothing positive left to offer the rest of the world.

For my own part, I suffered less than a lot of kids in my position do. In eighth grade I returned to public school after two years in a small private school, and it wasn't too long before I became the target of some older kids (our junior high included 7th-9th grades). Fortunately for me their harassment didn't go much beyond verbal taunts - whether that was because they got bored when their efforts never provoked a response from me (I had already learned by that age how to maintain a pretty good poker face) or because I had a protector in the school that I wasn't conscious of, I don't know. But it's hard to say how things might have gone had their harassment ever become physically violent; it's not as though I could have defended myself well enough to stop them from doing just about anything they might have felt like doing.

Truth be told I don't remember that many details about the kids who harassed me, or even their names. Yet I doubt it was a coincidence that eighth grade was the year I became self-conscious about my more effeminate mannerisms and began making a deliberate effort to suppress them. Once disguised, I was able to fly under the radar (or gaydar, as the case may be), and I was mostly ignored by those outside my immediate social circle in high school. I may have hated myself (for a number of reasons), I may have been emotionally isolated with virtually no social life, but I did manage to evade the attention of those who would have hated me as much as I did.

Many kids (both gay and straight) fare far worse than that, which makes it all the more reprehensible when religious right groups decry any effort to protect gay youth from abuse as part of some sinister agenda to destroy society. Groups like the Family Research Council may not be directly responsible for the high suicide rate among gay teenagers, but only the willfully blind can pretend that words don't matter, and that being bombarded with messages about how sick and perverted one supposedly is doesn't cause harm.

Bullying is bullying, whether the perpetrator is the meanest kid on the playground or a self-styled spokesman for God in a three-piece suit. The good news is that bullies is all they are, and the brittle, spiteful god they claim to speak for is purely an idol of their own invention.

The better news is that it really does get better, as Dan Savage has been working to let everyone know. And the best news of all is that the One who made us, the Author of love - the real God who's far larger than any of our petty prejudices - really does love every one of us exactly as we are - no exceptions, no ifs, ands or buts. And no bully can ever take that away.

Quadrilateral

2010-09-25T22:05:00.000-06:00

Craig Adams posted this excerpt from N. T. Wright addressing what is commonly referred to as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (a concept I touched on at an earlier point in my own journey). Wright disparages the idea of allowing personal experience to influence our theology, pointing out how often it ends up becoming a trump card in which one's personal feelings override all other considerations.

And certainly Wright's concern is valid, if we allow something as shallow as how a particular command or belief makes one feel to dictate whether or not we accept it as valid. I would argue, though, that experience plays an inextricable role in one's theology whether or not it is consciously acknowledged. How a person interprets the Bible is going to be colored by one's culture, language, teachers, peers and personal biases as two thousand years of church history - and countless theological disputes - ought to make abundantly clear.

"The heart is deceitful above all things," Wright quotes from Jeremiah 17:9 - but that applies just as much to the sola scriptura adherent as it does to those who employ the quadrilateral. Scripture may be a Christian's primary source of information about God, but our ability to interpret scripture to correctly divine God's will is considerably more fallible. One need look no further than the abuses (and even atrocities) that otherwise devout Christians have cited "Biblical" commands to justify to recognize the danger of declaring that scripture is the sole source of our doctrine.

Hence the quadrilateral (and the Anglican church's "three-legged stool" from which it was derived). Scripture constitutes a single leg of the stool not because it is of limited value, but because we humans need additional guideposts to keep us from straying too far off course when we make errors in our interpretations of what God is trying to tell us through its pages (as we inevitably will).

The ex-gay movement is a textbook example of how focusing entirely on scripture (with perhaps a nod to tradition) can lead to harm. Based on the prevailing evangelical/fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, it seemed logical to conclude that God ordained that everyone was really heterosexual, and that homosexuality was therefore just a sinful illusion that could (and should) be dispelled through prayer, counseling and/or conditioning.

By the time that Exodus was founded, however, reason already stood in opposition to that conclusion. The APA's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders is still dismissed by some Christians as a purely political move, even though it was the "Christian" side of the debate that refused (and all too often still refuses) to even acknowledge the existence of any evidence that didn't fit its preconceived dictates.

And since that time, the experiences of countless participants in ex-gay programs have demonstrated that "freedom from homosexuality" is little more than an exercise in semantics; extremely few have experienced a genuine shift in their attractions, while far more have found that wholeness lies in self-acceptance and living openly as gay and lesbian individuals. Even most of those who remain committed to the ex-gay path acknowledge that their "change" is primarily in behavior and perhaps in the intensity of their same-sex attractions. The idea that one can name and claim one's way to heterosexuality has led to far more harm than good, as disillusioned ex-gay participants have left the church in droves.

While it is possible to sincerely disagree over whether God will bless a same-sex union, the allegedly biblical notion that being gay is merely a sinful choice or a psychological aberration has led to a trail of damaged lives and done much to undermine the church's credibility. Through such episodes we see the value of the quadrilateral:

-Scripture necessarily plays a central role in the formation of any Christian doctrine; without the Bible, Christianity could never be more than a hollow institution or a vague cultural notion. But as history has demonstrated over and over again, interpreting the wisdom contained in the Bible's pages is a considerably more problematic venture.

-Tradition, the second side of our quadrilateral, helps us to understand how we got to where we are today. Just as parents can continue to offer valuable advice long after their children are fully grown, so past generations of believers can guide us around certain pitfalls and give us a leg up in our own explorations. But an overemphasis on tradition can lead to stagnation and irrelevance; just because people did things a certain way for centuries doesn't guarantee that those methods will continue to work in our current situation.

-Without reason, we might still live as peasants subject to the whims of all-powerful kings as we burn alleged witches at the stake and kill the cats that could have stopped the latest plague from spreading. Although most churches in the West now champion the ideals of democratic society and individual rights, they came to do so in the wake of the Enlightenment, not at its onset. Human reason is not infallible by any means, but to ignore what the philosophers and scientists have to say is to surrender to superstition and impoverishment (both material and spiritual).

-Experience is, admittedly, the most easily abused of the four. If we allow experience to be shallowly used as a trump card whenever a proposed doctrine makes us uncomfortable (as Wright accuses others of doing), then we might as well quit pretending that we have anything worth taking seriously. But to dismiss experience because some would abuse it is equally shallow, and equally dangerous.

Experience is the forum in which our theology becomes practical. If we never stop to evaluate the fruits of our beliefs, then we risk becoming oppressors of the worst sort. When a doctrine of ours demonstrably causes more harm than good, it is time to reevaluate what we thought to be true rather than blaming those we have harmed for their supposed failure. Without experience as a guidepost, our mandate to love others eventually devolves into an abstraction in which the needs of the people we claim to love are not truly the focus of our concern.

By listening to experience we have one final quality test to ensure that we have not veered too far off course. We allow our lives and the lives of those around us to inform our doctrines, not because we don't value the Bible, but because we value it too highly to allow it to become a symbol for oppression and injustice. We take the experiences of others into account not because truth is relative, but because truth is complex and so much larger than our finite ability to fully grasp it.

Stated in this way, I don't know for sure how far apart Wright and I really are on this issue. Since I haven't read much of his writing I hesitate to put words into his mouth. But I would hope that he recognizes the importance of stepping outside the sterile confines of the seminary before claiming to have divined God's will for those who live in the everyday world.

Idolatry

2010-09-09T21:35:00.003-06:00

A pitfall common to all people of faith, but recognized by far too few...

Herein lies the most obvious moral danger of religious faith. In taking themselves to be guided by divinely ordained commandments, theists may be tempted to relax the rigor with which they scrutinize their actions, and are thus capable of the most unspeakable atrocities. That is, secure in the faith that God wills a certain course of action, they may be prepared to disregard any suggestion (even from their own consciences) that this may not in fact be the morally correct thing to do. … Unfortunately, it is also often a tenet of faith that to question God is itself an immoral act, and so it can become especially difficult to correct a moral error once it has been made on these grounds. This is because the difference between questioning a command of God and questioning one’s own understanding of that command is a subtle one, not at all easily recognized, and harder yet when any doubt is seen as weakness of faith and therefore sinful in itself.
…This pride is uniquely difficult to identify, for it is well cloaked in the garb of pious humility. What makes it so elusive is that it appears as a faith in God, when in reality it is a misplaced faith in one’s own judgment. It may well be that God is just and perfect and incapable of error, but we most certainly are none of these things, and to act with the firm belief that one is in perfect harmony with God’s perfectly just wishes is to lose sight of that truth. Indeed, the person who acts in this way is guilty of the greatest pride, for she puts her moral judgment on a level with God’s. She claims to know with absolute certainty that which can be known only to God. The faith here, then, is not in God at all, but in the individual’s own reliability in knowing God, and if we understand idolatry as the sin of ascribing divine significance to a human artifact, the pride involved is idolatrous when the individual believes her knowledge to be perfect in this regard.

-Tom Cantine, via Patrick Fitzgerald

Seriously

2010-09-06T19:05:00.002-06:00

I've largely stayed away from all the controversy surrounding the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque;" it seems to be a lot of hysteria over something that shouldn't have ever been interesting enough to make the news. Sadly, the uproar didn't die down even after the facts of the matter became common knowledge.

This post by Slacktivist sums up the behavior of so many people who identify as Christians in recent weeks: "This is what the hospitality of Sodom looks like."

It's a sad irony that individuals who have very likely used the story of Sodom as a club to batter their gay neighbors are, in fact, the ones whose behavior most closely matches that of the citizens of Sodom.

Update: As it so often does, the Onion sums it up all too well...

Poppycock Redux

2010-08-27T05:00:00.000-06:00

In the earlier rounds of America's Got Talent I thought, "I really like this guy, but he doesn't stand a chance of winning in the popular vote." Now I'm thinking anything's possible. He's a spectacle, he's very different, but in a good way. Win or lose I hope he ends up with his own tour; I'd pay to see it, and I haven't been much of a concertgoer since I was in my 20's.

On a side note, my posting of Prince Poppycock's first audition received a number of Google hits from people trying to figure out if he's gay. I don't know the guy personally, but I have to say that I can't imagine there's a heterosexual man anywhere on the planet who could come up with costumes this fabulous...

Life Soundtrack 23

2010-08-22T21:46:00.002-06:00

No Such Thing, by John Mayer

An anthem for anyone who's transitioned from Stage Three to Stage Four in their lives. If only it were this simple to awaken those around us to what we've seen beyond the box we once inhabited...

Seen Online

2010-08-17T06:00:00.000-06:00

via Joe My God...

Foremost

2010-08-12T22:30:00.000-06:00

One of the key turning points in my theological journey - and in the journeys of many gay Christians - was coming to realize the full implications of the law of love: if all of the biblical Law can be summed up in the command "Love your neighbor as yourself," then any commandment that does not make sense within that context must either have been misinterpreted or misapplied.

Far from being a license to do whatever feels good, as some worry, the law of love forces us to get out of our own heads and consider the needs of others - needs we can only understand as we get to know them beyond the acquaintance level. Still, not everyone is convinced that the Christian life can really be boiled down to something that seems to dismiss so much of the Bible. "Ah," they say, "but that is only the second greatest commandment. The greatest is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind."

It's a valid point, even if those making it see it as justification for retaining whatever legalistic strictures they deem important. Who could argue, after all, against the idea that a Christian's highest priority should be to love and honor God, whatever the cost? Indeed, that priority lies at the heart of ex-gay theology - that no sacrifice is too costly if it is done to please God. That the need for the sacrifice in question cannot be reconciled within the context of "love your neighbor as yourself" (except through broad speculation) is quickly dismissed, since love for God necessarily comes ahead of all other considerations.

What this argument necessarily sets aside, however, is what the biblical authors lay out as God's primary requirement from his followers:

"I desire mercy, not sacrifice." (Hosea 6:6, Matt. 12:7)

Matt. 25:34-46, Luke 6:32-38, James 1:27, Isaiah 58:6-12, Jeremiah 21:11-12, Ezekiel 16:49, Micah 6:8 and numerous other passages reiterate that God is honored by how we treat others - not by how many vices we can catalog to be avoided. That's not to say that God is unconcerned with any other aspects of our lifestyles, but those areas, when they don't overlap with how we conduct our human relationships, are left to God's direct governance through the Holy Spirit (an agent that legalistic believers inherently distrust, since the personalized nature of the Spirit's ministry leaves them without any leverage that they can use to regulate and micromanage the behavior of others).

The only topic in the Bible that comes up more frequently (at least in the Old Testament) is idolatry - which makes perfect sense when one realizes that the Israelites did not truly become monotheists until after the Babylonian captivity. Idolatry can also be understood as anything we allow to take priority over God in our lives, which takes us right back to the previous argument about the greatest commandment.

Were it really all about following a bunch of rules, one would expect the New Testament authors to have written in a style that could more easily be codified into lists of commands and restrictions. And one would have expected a far different outcome to the parable of the Good Samaritan; from our vantage point it may seem like a no-brainer that the priest and the Levite were in the wrong for refusing to aid the injured man, but in fact they were honoring the requirements of the Levitical law by avoiding any activity that would have rendered them unclean, and thereby disqualified for service in the temple until they had properly atoned.

In other words, meticulously observing the letter of the law does not produce righteousness - it gets in the way of righteousness! As Jesus emphasized repeatedly in his teachings, it's not the person who colors neatly within the lines whose conduct is pleasing to God, but the one who is extravagant in the love that he or she shows for others, especially "the least of these." I can attest from my own experience that a lifetime centered around the negative (and self-centered) goal of abstaining from a laundry list of sins leaves little energy left over for the positive goal of selfless compassion.

Again, all of that isn't to say that God doesn't care about the other aspects of our lives, but we would do well to take more care in the judgments that we make about the behavior of others. Perhaps that person isn't ready to deal with what we see as their sin - or perhaps it really isn't a sin for them. It is the Holy Spirit's job and not ours to guide each individual believer according to God's unique, personalized plan for their lives.

And for those points where individual interpretations of what constitutes a loving action begin to conflict, the church exists. Not to issue authoritarian edicts or enforce conformity, but to provide a community in which our efforts to become more compassionate can play out. The church can offer both a forum to share and debate those ideas, and a testing ground for discovering what does and doesn't work.

Within such a functional, loving community we would most likely find ourselves making greater sacrifices than we would in an institutional church - not to appease a picky deity or to earn another check mark on our list of dos and don'ts, but because we have cultivated a desire to do what we can to improve the lives of those around us according to their unique needs. Not to increase our suffering for the sake of earning heavenly brownie points, but to decrease the suffering of others.

Such an ideal community seems like a pie-in-the-sky notion most of the time. My own selfish preference is for that old list of rules, where I can still make everything revolve around me. But in the end it's not God I'd truly be pleasing.

Quote of the Week

2010-07-30T17:00:00.000-06:00

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.

-Anne Rice, on why she's leaving the church

While I still choose to participate in (and thereby identify with) a local church, it's worth never losing sight of how quickly religion can become a stumbling block rather than a help to those seeking God. No institution is so sacred that its preservation should be a higher priority to any Christian than following the example of Christ, who favored the company of "sinners" over the blessing of the religious leaders.

That's How You Do It

2010-07-23T10:40:00.000-06:00

Wish I could have been there for this. I used to attend the San Diego Comic-Con regularly when I lived in California, but haven't gone as often in recent years. It's a great event even if it is sheer chaos trying to navigate through 125,000 people.

In any case, I wonder what the Westboro folks were thinking afterward. Sure, they got the attention they crave so much, but they also got seriously upstaged by thousands of costumed geeks, most of whom weren't taking them even remotely seriously. And, quite frankly, that's the best way to deal with people like the Phelps clan: laugh. In cases like this, it's often the only constructive thing a person can do...

Quotes

2010-07-16T16:00:00.000-06:00

A few random thoughts to ponder...

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
-H.L. Mencken

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
-Oscar Wilde

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
-Blaise Pascal

But the fundamentalist reserves his greatest creativity for the fashioning of Satan, the image of his foe, in opposition to which he defines and gives meaning to his own life.
-Steven Pressfield

Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.
-Darwi Odrade in Chapterhouse Dune

Character

2010-07-09T15:00:00.000-06:00

Ever seen a religious right news outlet demonstrate this much journalistic integrity? Has Focus on the Family (or FRC, CWA, the AFA, WND, NOM, etc.) ever publicly apologized for a mistake (i.e. acted like they valued the truth) rather than quietly covering it up?

I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised, but I won't be holding my breath...

Treatment

2010-06-26T17:26:00.003-06:00

In contrast to the "holy war" tradition of the Old Testament, in which Israelites were at times commanded to kill enemies, Jesus taught, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. " (Luke 6:27-28)

Note that loving our enemies, according to Jesus, entails doing them good. It is important that we understand this because there's a long and sad Church tradition, dating back to Augustine, that divorces one's loving disposition toward an enemy from one's actions. This allowed Christians to torture and kill their enemies while claiming to love them.

In reality, Jesus doesn't leave open this possibility. Just as God demonstrates his love toward us by acting in self-sacrificial ways to bless us, so we are to demonstrate our love toward even our enemies by acting in self-sacrificial ways toward them - to "bless them." By "love your enemies," Jesus meas we must do good to them. ...

Notice this: there are no exception clauses found anywhere in the New Testament's teaching about loving and doing good to enemies. Indeed, Jesus' emphasis on the indiscriminate nature of the love rules out any possible exceptions. The sun doesn't decide on whom it will and will not shine. The rain doesn't decide on whom it will and will not fall. So too, Kingdom people are forbidden to decide who will and will not receive the love and good deeds we're commanded to give.

-Gregory Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion, pages 97-98, 100

Imagine what the world might look like if more Christians started taking the teachings of Christ more seriously...

Links

2010-06-20T22:05:00.000-06:00

A few random items that may be of interest...

1. Is BP entirely to blame for the oil spill catastrophe? Yes, but there's a larger picture to consider before implementing solutions.

2. I normally want nothing to do with people who invoke natural disasters as warnings (or punishments) from God, but in this case there's something to be said for the idea of God acting out of a sense of good taste.

3. Interesting essay on the South African political scene. The tribalism that defines so much of life in sub-Saharan Africa is foreign enough to the Western mindset that we tend to underestimate its effect on African politics.

4. Finally, this gem originally posted on Craigslist. The story seems just enough over the top that I wonder whether it really happened as told, but the homophobia depicted in it is very much a reality, and as such the author's points deserve to be heard.

Prince Poppycock

2010-06-09T22:09:00.002-06:00

This is one of the reasons I watch America's Got Talent...

Blind Spots

2010-06-03T16:45:00.000-06:00

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

-Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Tolstoy's observation likely garners a hearty "Amen!" from just about everyone who comes across it; we can all think of people who simply refuse to acknowledge any facts that contradict what they have already decided must be true. Many of us could no doubt brainstorm a long list of ways in which the above applies to most of the evangelicals we have known. Those evangelicals, in turn, would probably present us with a similarly lengthy list.

Left or right, libertarian or socialist, Christian or atheist, and so on - it's simply human nature for us to reach conclusions on certain issues and then consider the matter settled. Even those who have moved beyond Stage Three in their personal development need to guard against short-sightedness. The best any of us can do is honestly acknowledge our own limitations and strive to remain open to new information, all the while extending the same grace to our opponents that we hope to receive when we are proven wrong.

Life Soundtrack 22

2010-05-25T10:15:00.000-06:00

Haven't Met You Yet, by Michael Bublé

For the most part I'm pretty content being single these days. I've always had a strong independent streak, and I enjoy being able to come and go as I please. After all these years it would be hard to imagine having to worry about somebody else when I'm making decisions.

But for all that I still have a stubborn romantic streak, and I catch myself daydreaming from time to time about finding that one special guy, together with whom we could each become more than the sum of our parts. When I do slip into that mode, my inner dialogue sounds quite a bit like the lines of this song...

And I know that we can be so amazing
And baby your love is gonna change me
And now I can see every possibility

Somehow I know that it’ll all turn out
You'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And promise you kid I'll give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet

Whether it's wishful thinking or healthy optimism, it does motivate me to try to avoid getting stuck in too deep of a rut...

Quotable

2010-05-19T17:30:00.001-06:00

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere ... "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

-Kurt Vonnegut, as quoted in this insightful article.

Results

2010-05-14T14:37:00.000-06:00

Biblical interpretation is a controversial and often confusing field; there are as many methods for extracting meaning from the Bible as there are people who have ever tried to do so. Disagreement over interpretation has fueled countless schisms (and more than a few wars) over the centuries and arguably caused at least as much harm as good.

What, then, is the solution? As long as people are people, wherever two or more are gathered there will be disagreement. Perhaps our demand for agreement and the high value we place on being right lie at the heart of the problem. This is not to suggest that our understanding of the Bible is unimportant, simply that what we don't know will always outweigh what we do know.

A better way forward may lie within our willingness to embrace uncertainty, focusing less on intellectual agreement and outward conformity, and more on the values that Jesus emphasized: compassion, charity, humility, forgiveness and the like. Rather than worrying about whether we have the One Right Answer that will apply equally to everyone in every time and place, we could allow for disagreement while testing our doctrines according to the following criteria:

Does it contribute to a higher vision of God, a deeper engagement with Christ, a more profound experience of the Holy Spirit? Does it motivate us to love God, neighbor, stranger and enemy more wholeheartedly?
(Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity)

There's more to the study of theology than that, certainly, but if our dogmas fail to produce positive change in our lives, then perhaps we've missed the point no matter how carefully we've conjugated our Greek verbs and cross-referenced our verses. In my experience, the most zealous defenders of orthodoxy and doctrinal purity are often very unpleasant people to be around; a heavy focus on being right seems to almost inevitably stunt the development of empathy and compassion.

Similarly, those who treat the Bible as a rulebook often develop an avoidant approach to life, in which the things one abstains from take precedence over the development of positive qualities. Such individuals are often perfectly nice people (as the rules require them to be), but they rarely become catalysts for positive change in the world; such innovation requires a willingness to risk stepping outside the lines.

Expanding on McLaren's quote, we might ask some of the following questions when evaluating the efficacy what we believe:

-Does our theology challenge our prejudices and shatter the boxes we've tried to place God in, or have we merely painted a self-portrait and labeled it "God"?

-Does our theology compel us to get to know those that are different from us on their own terms so that we can better serve them, or does it validate our all-too-human desire to force those others to become more like us?

-Does our theology inspire us to make the world around us a better place for everyone, or does it drive us to create bunkers (literal or figurative) where we can wait in comfort for God to destroy everyone who isn't one of us?

-Is our theology truly invitational, or does it require fear of hell to motivate people (either directly or implicitly) to action?

-Are "sinners" irresistibly drawn to us like they were to Jesus, or do we find ourselves loudly insisting that we're actually very compassionate as they walk away from us?

-Does our vision of "freedom in Christ" truly liberate people to unleash their full God-given potential, or is our use of the term just an attempt to put a positive spin on a lifetime focused on sin management?

-Would a neutral observer agree that we're accurately answering the above questions?

While the above questions don't represent the end of the discussion by any means (and may, in fact, inspire more debate about their appropriateness), we still face one grave consideration: if we fail the test of love, what's the point in pretending that we have anything at all to offer?

Food For Thought

2010-05-08T15:39:00.000-06:00

Challenging your assumptions can be healthy...

1. Do 'Family Values' weaken families? Most evangelicals would find the very question appalling, but that's all the more reason to seriously examine whether the church might have missed the boat in its efforts to enforce sexual (and doctrinal) purity.

2. One can only suppress the truth for so long, as the religious right is continually discovering. It can come out in a healthy way or as a scandal, but either way the real "truth about homosexuality," as it plays out in the real world on a daily basis, has proven to bear almost no resemblance to the propaganda advanced by groups like NARTH and Focus on the Family. The George Rekers scandal is just the latest proof that dogma can only suppress reality for so long before the pressure leads to an explosion.

3. The left is susceptible to placing dogma ahead of the evidence as well, as the Climategate scandal suggests. Be wary of anyone who tells you the debate on this or any other issue is closed (in either direction). While it's indisputable that the Earth's climate is changing, and distinctly possible that human activity is a significant factor in how that change is occurring, it's far less certain whether the drastic (and expensive) actions promoted by environmental groups will do anything to improve the situation.

When those same advocates of massive changes in environmental law engage in suppression of dissent and carelessly glom onto any assertion that seems to support their case, they undercut their own credibility and cause people to question whether we're being railroaded into taking actions that will benefit an elite few at the expense of everyone else.

If they are in the right, the facts will back them up without the need for sensationalism. If not, then all the noise in the world will fail to vindicate them in the long run. Either way, descending into alarmism and name-calling will only send them down the same path to irrationality that the religious right so famously pioneered.

Spirituality

2010-05-02T22:07:00.003-06:00

Explaining the theoretical biological origin of spirituality has no more impact on our need for, and enjoyment of, religious experiences than explaining that water is "only H2O" strips water of its actual meaning. We know what water is. But it's also fun to jump into and play in, good to drink, beautiful to look at, exciting to sail on, capable of putting one to sleep with the sound of lapping waves, useful for baptizing babies in, responsible for inspiring Turner to paint, and wet - even after one knows that there is no such thing as "wet" or "dry" because wet is merely a set of sensations that we call "wetness" caused by a configuration of molecules that are neither dry nor wet. So here's one answer to the question "What is water?" It might also be a partial answer to [atheist writer Daniel] Dennett's claim that he doesn't know whom to thank: Lucy loves her bath!

Lucy loving her bath and smiling while she kicks and splashes all the water out of the baby tub is also "why" water exists. The pleasure we take in a baby's pleasure might be a hint of what our meaning is too: the pleasure of God enjoying our pleasure at existing in the midst of, as Dennett calls it, "all this wonderful stuff."

-Frank Schaeffer, Patience With God (pg. 66)

Items of Interest

2010-04-21T17:17:00.000-06:00

A few links to provoke thought this week...

1. An examination of the problems evangelicals face when they read the early chapters of Genesis, and how moving away from a literalistic reading of those ancient stories can deepen our understanding of the rest of the Bible.

2. What makes this travesty even more galling is the knowledge that there are people who call themselves Christians who applaud when the lives of those they deem "sinners" are ripped apart like this.

3. Speaking of such people, this is rather sad even if the only surprise is that he ever agreed to sign the thing in the first place.

4. Finally, Rob Tisinai exposes, in lurid detail, the shocking, scandalous, sinister real reason that gays want the right to get married.

Life Soundtrack 21

2010-04-15T18:05:00.001-06:00

Life in Technicolor II, by Coldplay

There's considerable speculation about the meaning of the lyrics, but the song itself has an upbeat feel that always energizes me. And the idea of living life in technicolor (or in three dimensions rather than two - or, if you prefer, by taking flight) has been one of the major themes of my blog for the majority of its existence.

Unbridgeable?

2010-04-08T17:15:00.001-06:00

I've long appreciated Timothy Kincaid's ability to get to the heart of the matter when it comes to the often turbulent (and always messy) intersection between faith and sexuality. Few conservative Christians give the time of day to any gay writers, but they dismiss Kincaid at their own peril; his insight into their perspective adds a sting to his message that can't be dismissed as neatly as most "liberal" commentaries routinely are.

That's not to say that those who most need to take Kincaid's latest essay to heart are listening, but it's precisely a lack of empathy on the part of conservative Christians (and of fundamentalists of every stripe) that has largely prevented bridges from being built between the evangelical and gay communities, as Kincaid aptly illustrates. If we begin with the assumption that everybody actually agrees with us and that any apparent disagreement is just a smokescreen for sinful rebellion, there's no possibility of real dialogue ever taking place.

Thus we fall into a vicious cycle in which conservative Christians proclaim what they have concluded in their own echo chambers is a compassionate message, only to have their message thorougly and vehemently rejected when that "compassion" is interpreted as precisely the opposite by its intended recipients. Rather than seriously reflect on why they didn't get the positive response they expected (much less the accolades they felt they deserved), the Christians in question (and in their own minds nobody who disagrees with them can legitimately call themselves Christians) immediately conclude that their own efforts were blameless and that everyone else is simply blinded by Satan.

Yet the simple reality remains that if all of your neighbors think you're a jerk, it's most likely time to at least consider the possibility that you really are, in fact, a jerk. To so quickly and completely dismiss the perceptions and opinions of those one claims to care about, as the Christian group in Kincaid's article did, can only be described as narcissistic.

This impasse doesn't have to be insurmountable; there are theologically conservative Christians who have successfully built bridges to those the church has traditionally cast out. Doing so, however, requires outgrowing the self-absorption that pervades every brand of fundamentalism and actually getting to know one's "enemies" on their terms.

In other words, it requires setting aside one's ego and personal agenda - which fundamentalists tragically think they're already doing when they close themselves off from anything that might contradict what they have been told is true. It requires empathy, and a willingness to acknowledge that we might not actually know everything there is to know after all. It doesn't necessarily require discarding what one believes, though our conclusions are likely to undergo some degree of modification as the reality of what life is actually like for the people outside our church walls begins to sink in.

It's a huge step to take; it might even seem like suicide to those who remain convinced that there's nothing more important than being right. But until more Christians are willing to truly die to themselves, the church can only look forward to becoming an ever-shrinking and increasingly irrelevant sideshow looking in on society from the outside.

Links

2010-03-30T18:30:00.001-06:00

Some food for thought for the week...

-Wendy Gritter considers the question: Did God really say? There are few tactics more effective in Christian circles than accusing an opponent of "twisting Scripture." But who really benefits when we close off an issue from debate?

-Along similar lines, Misty Irons exposes the gulf between those who are seeking answers that apply to flesh-and-blood people that they care deeply about and those who are simply concerned about being right. Unsurprisingly, the latter seldom have much of value to contribute to the former.

-Craig Adams offers a good quote about the danger of certainty: "The man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong; and he has the additional misfortune of inevitably remaining so. All our theories are fixed upon uncertain data, and all of them want alteration and support... The man who wishes to advance in knowledge should never of himself fix obstacles in the way."

-CLS shares some stories that poignantly illustrate how fear-based religion can become - and all too often is - a far greater curse on society than the "wicked gays" it so often scapegoats could ever be.

Infinite

2010-03-21T17:25:00.000-06:00

I can sympathize with those who find Christianity impossible to believe. Even aside from the rampant hypocrisy one can find in nearly any church, there are philosophical problems like the existence of evil that many are unable to reconcile with the idea of a perfect and loving God. Not that anyone has a truly satisfactory explanation for the existence of evil, but whenever a church or denomination claims to have all the answers it understandably raises a lot of skepticism.

Not all stumbling blocks are equally troublesome, however. For my own part, I've never had a problem with the idea that God could simultaneously be three distinct persons yet one being, though I know that concept has caused some to reject the faith. To the contrary, I find it far more illogical to think that a God capable of creating the universe we experience around us could be fully understandable in human terms, as such individuals seem to require.

I do understand the skepticism that many people feel when a paradox is presented to them. Adherents of the "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" school of mindless faith have used their catchphrase to justify all manner of abusive and destructive behavior, and in the process have done more to discredit the Christian faith than any external enemy could ever have hoped to accomplish.

Furthermore, when we attempt to wrap our minds around things that are beyond our comprehension, it can become difficult to draw and maintain a clear line between paradox and irrationality. By opening the door to the possibility that two apparently contradictory things could both be equally true, we seemingly run the risk of embarking on a slippery slope into a realm where any nonsensical notion must be placed on equal footing with the most well established scientific fact.

But just as there's nothing inevitable (or even probable) about societal acceptance of gay couples leading to acceptance of pedophilia, bestiality and other unmentionable things (except in the lurid imaginations of some fundamentalists), so the acceptance of paradox as a valid way of broadening our ability to describe an indescribable Creator doesn't have to leave us at the mercy of demagogues and madmen.

When two groups of Christians come to irreconcilably opposed conclusions about the nature of God, with strong arguments based on scripture, tradition, reason and experience, it becomes reasonable to argue for the existence of a paradox. Predestination vs. free will, above time vs. within time, perfect goodness vs. the existence of evil - on issues of this sort we can never hope to know for certain what reality beyond our plane of existence really looks like. Yet just as the basic forces of the physical universe (gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) can only be reconciled if we allow for the existence of multiple dimensions beyond the four that we experience, so we can imagine that theological dilemmas that don't seem to add up now may fit together perfectly when viewed from a five (or ten or twenty six) dimensional perspective.

Regarding the idea of a triune God, consider how any of us would appear to a universe of two-dimensional beings who experienced depth the way we experience time (assuming, for just a moment, that we came up with a way to interact with their reality). A person intersecting their plane of existence would appear as one or more shapes; as we moved through their plane, our shape(s) (and their contents) would change in appearance without any explanation that our two-dimensional neighbors could conceptualize. Our arms, fingers, legs, head and torso might appear at times to be separate entities capable of moving independently and disappearing and reappearing at different times. We could even remove ourselves entirely from their universe and reinsert ourselves at a different point, seemingly without traveling the distance between our previous and new locations.

Consider, then, that a Creator would necessarily be many dimensions beyond us, and suddenly the paradox of the trinity seems like it must be a gross oversimplification of the ultimate reality of such a being. Such speculations are still fair targets for skepticism, since they cannot be empirically proven, but it stands to reason that we should be far more skeptical of any deity or higher power whose descriptions fail to transcend our own four-dimensional limitations.

Thought for the Week

2010-03-12T22:50:00.001-07:00

The revolutions of the world have always been about one group trying to wrest power from another. The revolution Jesus launched, however, is far more radical, for it declares the quest for power over others to be as hopeless as it is sinful. Jesus' Kingdom revolts against this sinful quest for power over others, choosing instead to exercise power under others. It's a revolution of humble, self-sacrificial, loving service. It always looks like Jesus, dying on Calvary for the very people who crucified him.

-Gregory Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion

In other words, it doesn't look anything like this...

Links

2010-03-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

A few articles of interest for your weekend perusal:

-What would Jesus do if invited to a gay wedding? Odds are this guy comes closer to the mark than Focus on the Family ever will.

-This sort of thing is why I maintain a healthy skepticism when it comes to global warming (and most other political issues). I remain open to following where the facts leads, but when an issue's primary proponents engage in alarmism, fearmongering and demonization of opponents (see also: the religious right's anti-gay crusades), it's usually a sign that their case isn't as strong as they insist that it is.

-Speaking of the religious right, David Schaengold illustrates why societal acceptance of homosexuality is not a slippery slope toward acceptance of pedophilia.

Fascinating

2010-02-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Human civilization is older than we thought. I love discoveries like this that shake up what we thought we knew and force us to rethink our assumptions.

Not everyone does, of course. It makes me wonder how the young-earth creationists will spin (or dismiss) this to keep the age of the universe within their 6,000-year time frame.

Even more noteworthy than the age of the ruins, to me at least, is how this discovery suggests that religious observance predates every other aspect of human civilization, rather than being its byproduct. Such evidence that spirituality is an innate human trait may not prove the existence (or nonexistence) of God, but it does allow for the possibility that we long for something beyond the world around us because there's something beyond this world to long for.

Boxed

2010-02-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with the concept of apophatic theology (referenced here), it's not something I've studied much, but it makes a certain amount of sense. If God is the infinite being that Christians believe in, then any labels we apply to him (including this pronoun) cause us to create a mental construct that's necessarily finite and therefore not an accurate picture of God.

As soon as we say that God is good or loving or just, we've automatically limited God based on our own finite understanding of goodness, love or justice. Even if we don't intend to place God in a box, it is inevitable that we will do so given our inability to truly comprehend infinity. Thus the apophatic tradition of speaking of God only in negative terms: God is not evil, God is not imperfect, etc.

Ultimately such an approach has its limitations; the biblical authors used positive terms to describe God on many occasions, which suggests that there is merit in doing so at least some of the time. Furthermore, if God is as relational as he (or she, or they, or no pronoun at all if you prefer) appears to be in the Bible, then we hamper our ability to have a relationship with our Creator if we completely abandon the use of positive definitions to help us in our relating.

Thus we confront a paradox: we cannot accurately describe God using positive terms, yet at some point we need to. Unfortunately too many people are quick to dismiss the paradoxes of faith without recognizing that paradox is a necessary element of any effort to grasp that which lies beyond our comprehension. That's not to say that every apparent contradiction is a genuine paradox, but proper humility requires that we acknowledge that what appears to us to be an irresolvable contradiction may make perfect sense from a higher perspective.

Living in the tension between two conflicting truths can seem an impossibility at times: rely too heavily on positive terms to describe God, and before long God begins to look an awful lot like us, sharing our cultural biases, hating the people that we hate, endorsing the political causes we support and only loving those we view as 'sinners' conditionally. Move too far away from positive terms and God can quickly become an impersonal force in our minds, a distant power that we cannot relate to.

If there were a perfect balance that could be struck between the two extremes, no paradox would exist. But by living in the tension created by acknowledging both truths, we can self-correct as needed and continue to live in relationship with the God who defies all human definitions.

Snippets

2010-02-12T12:00:00.003-07:00

Sometimes wisdom comes in small packages. If nothing else, a good quote can make people stop and think, and that alone can be worthwhile. Here are a few thought-provoking quotes I've come across in recent months...

"A golden rule: we must judge men, not by their opinions, but by what their opinions make of them." -Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.” -ee cummings

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why ships are built." (fortune cookie)

"Sometimes I think Christianity is like an archeological dig, where you have to learn to differentiate between the real artifacts, the stuff that's covering it up, and the stuff that the locals make to sell to tourists." (source unknown - seen on Facebook)

"I'd rather have questions I can't answer than answers I can't question." (source unknown)

And finally, on a slightly less serious note, a counterprotest done right...

Evolution

2010-02-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

I think that atheism and fundamentalist religion as we know them will last barely a geological eye-blink just a few hundred or a few thousand years more. Then we will begin to understand that we are spiritual beings and animals; that the universe is impersonal and love preceded it; that we believe and we doubt; that a particle may be in one place and in another place at the same time; and that love is a chemical reaction and a revelation. Above all, I hope that we will someday understand that apophatic paradox is the blessed, creative, and freeing nature of reality, not a "problem."...

I believe that someday the celebration of the spiritual/material paradox will break down what now seems to be a "Berlin Wall" between secularism and religion in a way that transcends the boundaries of the world's monastic communities and science labs and explodes into the realm of general knowledge, just as the once far-fetched idea of a round earth revolving around the sun exploded from the theory of one or two scientists, eventually to become general knowledge.

Meanwhile, speaking as a father, I know that my concern for my children was not what they believed about me, but how they behaved and how they treated their mother, their siblings, their home, and their schools. My concern was not whether my children believed the right things about school but whether they did their homework. My concern was not whether they believed the correct things about families, but whether they were polite to their mother.

-Frank Schaeffer, Patience With God, pgs. 180-181

(For more information on apophatic theology, click here. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it - or at least it does to me.)

Those that still see the world in black and white, "us vs. them" terms will no doubt regard the above statement as nonsense at best, and dangerous heresy to be stamped out at worst. For those who have progressed beyond a Stage Three faith, the above will likely elicit a fervent prayer of agreement that humanity can one day outgrow its pettiness (and survive long enough to see that day).

That's not to say that all Stage Five individuals would agree about what that future will look like or how we can get there, but with the understanding that there is no "them" comes the realization that even major differences of opinion need not be settled violently. I'm enough of a realist (or cynic, if you prefer) to doubt whether human nature is improvable, but I cling to hope - and to my celebration of paradox - all the same.

Life Soundtrack 20

2010-01-29T17:00:00.001-07:00

Shinedown, Second Chance

An autobiographical piece about the songwriter's decision to leave his hometown to pursue his dreams, against the wishes of his parents. It's a story anyone who's walked away from a fundamentalistic background will relate to, at least to some extent. I consider myself fortunate that I was able to do so without damaging any family relationships, but it's still felt at times like leaving home in other ways...

Hearing

2010-01-25T18:43:00.002-07:00

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love for God begins with listening to his Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that he not only gives us his Word, but also lends us his ear. So it is his work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him. Christians, especially ministers, so often think that they must always contribute something, when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service that they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.

Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They will not find it among Christians because these Christians are talking when they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be listening no longer to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattling in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words. One who cannot listen long and patiently will presently be talking beside the point and be never really speaking to others, albeit he be not conscious of it. Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to be spent keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and his own follies.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Weighty Matters

2010-01-14T12:07:00.002-07:00

A few thoughtful and pertinent links:

1. Ted Olson's conservative case for same-sex marriage. Most likely everyone who reads this blog has already seen it elsewhere, but it's an encouraging enough sign to be worth repeating again.

2. On a different note, I was recently steered toward this analysis of Europe's changing demographics. Nobody really knows what the world will look like in 50 years (or even 20), but it's encouraging to note that the alarmists predicting a Muslim-dominated Europe are, in fact, alarmists. There's still room for concern, as witnessed by the riots in France a couple of years ago, but such matters are better addressed from a clear-headed perspective.

3. The tragedy in Haiti is at the forefront of the news this week, as well it should be. Donald Miller has written a thoughtful (and grace-filled) response to Pat Robertson's atrocious comments.

It's worth noting, though, that Robertson's view of the earthquake in Haiti as divine judgment is a logical extension of the belief expressed by many fundamentalists that God will destroy America if gays are given equal rights. His words don't represent an inevitable leap by any means, but the progression is logical nonetheless. And while James Dobson and most of his allies are intelligent enough to distance themselves from Pat on this one, they're really not that far apart in their conception of a God of endless anger and violence.

4. In light of the above items (and the Uganda situation and the many other negative things going on around the world), Karen Armstrong's call for the revival of the Golden Rule by people of every (and no) faith is as timely as ever. No crusade on behalf of theological or ideological purity has ever made the world a better place, but a little more compassion (genuine compassion, not another "I must save you from hell" bludgeoning) might just make a difference...

Quotable

2010-01-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

"If marriage is a sacred institution, why do you want the government to be involved in it?"

-Tony Campolo, speaking at the GCN conference this weekend

Links to Ponder

2010-01-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

A few articles of interest...

1. Timothy Kincaid's call for a more nuanced approach to addressing religious leaders. The point is not to whitewash the prejudice that still pervades much of Christendom when it comes to GLBT individuals, it's to keep in mind that most people don't recognize their own prejudices, and shouting "bigot" at them only pushes them further away and sabotages any opportunities we might have had to educate them.

2. Classically Liberal's analysis of the alleged top ten anti-Christian incidents of 2009. There are Christians in many parts of the world who genuinely suffer for their faith, but the United States isn't one of those parts, as evidenced by the fact that not one of these ten items holds up to any kind of scrutiny. Once again, the persecution complex that many conservative evangelicals cling to is doing more harm to the church in this country than any external force.

3. Andrew Sullivan's note of the growth in non-denominational churches with a political agenda. I add this one with a grain of salt, since some of the churches his reader mentions could well be part of the emergent church movement rather than the religious right - but it's also possible that things are different in the Bible Belt than they are in the northern and western parts of the US.

Prioritizing

2009-12-31T11:38:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking for some time about commenting on the Manhattan Declaration, the religious right's latest political manifesto masquerading as the Infallible Writ of God Almighty. Six years ago I would have had few if any issues with such a document; when one lives inside the echo chamber of the evangelical subculture, there are a great many things one is conditioned to take for granted. Today I see so many problems with it that it's hard to know where to even begin.

Numerous others have already responded to the declaration, so there's little need for me to go into detail about many of the document's more glaring absurdities: the persecution complex that causes conservative evangelicals to view every disagreement as a sign that concentration camps lurk just around the next bend; the narcissistic self-comparisons to great historical leaders who really did face persecution; the assumption that no good Christian could possibly disagree with any of their dogmatic claims; the conspiracy theories that thinly mask their animosity toward any gay person audacious enough to demand to be treated as an equal; the thoroughly unbiblical notion that the church's role in society is to rule over nonbelievers for their own good.

Theologically the declaration is a highly questionable work. Readers who haven't studied the Bible for themselves would be forgiven for coming away with the impression that "traditional" marriage and the nuclear family are the Bible's (and, by extension, God's) single most important emphasis, trumping all other concerns. Indeed, the brief lip service that the declaration pays to the existence of other Christian concerns has the effect of trivializing them as matters of minimal importance.

Yet the notion that marriage and family represent the centerpiece of biblical Christianity requires a highly selective reading of the Bible, one that regards Genesis 1-2 as its most important passage and a lens through which all others (including the Gospels) must be interpreted. And even then, it requires picking out scattered verses (disregarding their contexts when necessary) and cobbling them together in piecemeal fashion.

Such an emphasis also places the church at odds with Jesus, who called on his followers to leave family and familial obligations behind to follow him, and who warned that families would divide over him. And it does little better by the Apostle Paul, an unmarried man who described marriage as a concession to those too weak to handle celibacy, and who declared that there was no male or female in the Kingdom of God.

It is true that the Bible contains commands related to how spouses, parents and children treat each other; indeed, it would be odd for any religion to overlook matters so elementary to the human experience. Those commands, however, constitute a smaller percentage of the biblical text than most people have been led to believe.

Likewise, the biblical authors demonstrate a concern for sexual ethics: adultery, promiscuity and pagan fertility rites are all strongly condemned, and divorce is discouraged. It's more debatable how the passages that refer to specific types of homosexual activity should be applied to modern contexts, but either way it's clear that our sexual relationships matter to God (as do all our relationships). Even so, sexuality is not the number one concern of the biblical authors (however much the church may make it seem like it is), and arguably doesn't even qualify as a top tier issue.

I am leery of declaring that I have God pinned down so well that I can speak on his behalf. But it would be logical to assume that, if the Bible is a reliable source of information on God, that one could get a sense of his priorities based on the amount of space that the biblical authors devote to different topics. Based on that assumption, the following priorities would seem to be at or close to the top of the list.

(I am omitting the concept of holiness from this list, since that term has become conflated with sexual purity and heterosexuality, even though holiness, at its root, is simply about being "set apart" - a concept that goes far beyond the sin avoidance that consumes the attention of most evangelicals. I would also argue that holiness cannot be properly understood without taking into account all of the biblical priorities I list below.)

Justice. Justice is a broad concept that can be applied both to legal matters and personal situations, but at its most basic one can understand what is just through application of the Golden Rule (a concept most commonly attributed to the teachings of Christ, though many of its truest adherents follow other belief systems). If you would not want to be treated the way you are treating another person, then you are acting unjustly.

Unfortunately fundamentalistic thought has twisted application of the Golden Rule, since individuals driven by a fear of being cast into hell by an easily offended god logically consider any action taken (no matter how abusive) to save another person from eternal damnation to be loving and just. And indeed, the authors of the Manhattan Declaration no doubt consider themselves striving to save souls when they lobby to politically and socially oppress gays and other sexual minorities. In reality, though, if some future majority were to persecute them in similar ways "for their own good," not one of the declaration's signers would consider it just.

Humility. This is another concept that must be rescued from fundamentalistic thinking. To the fundamentalist, being humble is all about obedience, as understood by their own interpretation of the Bible. Since, by this definition, anyone who disagrees with their interpretation is not humble, it becomes entirely appropriate for them to look down on (and even persecute) such dissenters. That the resulting superiority complex is the very antithesis of humility never even occurs to them.

Likewise, the authors of the Manhattan Declaration are quite proud of their own self-proclaimed humility. From the opening of the document they waste no time establishing themselves as the sole brave defenders of Western Civilization and every single thing that is good in the world, and pile on the self-comparisons to leaders representing nearly every great social movement in history. Again, the irony is completely lost on them.

Compassion/Charity/Hospitality. Numerous actions fall under this category, including helping the poor, providing for widows and orphans, welcoming strangers, tending to the sick, showing mercy, etc. One would have to discard most of the Gospels - and much of the Prophets and Epistles - to avoid the commands related to this concept. Throughout church history, countless Christian endeavors have been launched toward these ends over the centuries, and such selfless charity was one of the qualities that drew early converts to the faith.

Such concerns seem to be secondary to the authors of the Manhattan Declaration, however. Throughout their manifesto, charity gets attention only through the lens of the nuclear family, and even then seems more to be a byproduct of marital procreation than a mandate that captured more of Jesus' attention than any other subject. Certainly no compassion can be spared for those the declaration views as enemies of God and destroyers of civilization, except within the same hell-centric paradigm through which its authors redefine justice.

Idolatry. If I were to single out one theme as the most important of all, it would be idolatry. No other subject receives as much attention in the Bible, and many other concerns intertwine with it. Anything that a person gives priority over God constitutes an idol. Even an otherwise good thing can become an idol when too much value is placed upon it. The doctrine of inerrancy is a perfect example of this, as it elevates the Bible to the status of a comprehensive rulebook free of even the slightest error (a claim never found in the Bible itself - God alone merits being described as perfect), and the only source through which God can reliably communicate with his people. With an inerrant Bible in hand, a believer need never wrestle with the doubts that drive us to press further into relationship with God.

The pedestal on which many evangelicals have placed marriage and family is another example. By elevating an institution that validates their feelings and brings them personal happiness above priorities that receive far more attention in the Bible (and this from inerrantists, no less), the authors and signers of the Manhattan Declaration conflate their own will with God's, thereby completing the very usurpation of divine authority that they accuse their "liberal" brothers and sisters of.

It would be easy to give into the notion that one could do some good by pointing these things out to the declaration's supporters, but few of them are ever likely to see the false god they have created for what it is, steeped as they are in the all-too-human notion that the infinite Creator of the universe and the Author of unfathomable wonders is small enough to be contained in a book and petty enough to share all of their likes and dislikes. Such is the tragedy of the fundamentalist mindset. And such is the legacy that created the Manhattan Declaration.

Life Soundtrack 19

2009-12-27T21:28:00.002-07:00

Because of You, by Kelly Clarkson

Much of what Kelly Clarkson expresses about growing up in a broken home also resonates with the experience of growing up in a heavily legalistic church. The net result of a childhood steeped in fear of hell, obsession over sin and a need to always paste on a happy face is a considerable amount of emotional and relational dysfunction, which is frequently passed down to the next generation as well...

It's About Time

2009-12-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Highlands Church, an evangelical congregation in Denver, is getting some major attention in the media for taking a gay-affirming stance. While Highlands isn't the first evangelical church to follow that path, it is one of a very few (if not the first) founded by a heterosexual pastor to do so.

Last month the church hosted a symposium on the issue of homosexuality that featured Justin Lee from GCN, among other speakers. No doubt the pastor, Mark Tidd, is weathering a firestorm of criticism (much of it "loving" and "concerned") from fellow evangelicals right now, so I'll just add this:

Thank you for creating a safe place for GLBT people of faith who want to worship God in an evangelical context without having to lie about who they are or pretend that they can turn themselves into something they're not.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

Per my annual tradition, a Christmas light display, this time featuring Christmas Eve in Sarajevo by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. May your holiday be warm and your electric bill considerably smaller than theirs...

War Without End

2009-12-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

Our battle is not against flesh and blood, the Bible tells us. Unfortunately too many Christians have reduced that to a meaningless catchphrase that gives them license to say and do any number of hurtful things since, after all, they're simply challenging the evil forces at work behind the scenes and not the people their venomous attacks actually wound. But in the end they fool only themselves, as victims and bystanders alike turn away from the church by the thousands.

That mentality is certainly in evidence in the war over Christmas. Even when I was a loyal rank-and-file evangelical I wasn't completely sold on the need to force non-Christians to observe our holidays, though that's the kind of doubt one is careful to admit only behind closed doors, and only to certain people.

James Hanley has masterfully pulled apart an email that continues to make the rounds in evangelical circles (and that I've received at least once from a no doubt sincere friend). The alarmism and fear-mongering contained in the original message is pure propaganda of the sort far too seldom questioned by the choir it preaches to.

On a slightly different note, Brady from Some Guys are Normal has written a rebuttal to Maggie Gallagher's recent piece on why gay marriage isn't inevitable. I hesitate to call anything inevitable, given the twists and turns that human history has taken over the millennia, but Gallagher's reasoning is so flimsy it causes me to wonder (not for the first time) how she ever rose to a position of prominence in the "traditional marriage" movement to begin with. But that, I suppose, is just one more example of the sort of thing that comes from the church abandoning its real mission to declare war on the culture it finds itself in and the people it's supposed to be showing God's love.

On an even more tangential note, these guys make an interesting point. It's not one I'd base any arguments on, but it's good for a smile or two...

Bits of Interest

2009-12-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

1. Here's one creative way of dealing with anti-gay demonstrators. At the very least, it's better than matching venom with venom...

2. One conservative shares why he's parting ways with what currently passes for a right wing in the United States. My own libertarian leanings caused me to begin distancing myself from the Republican party after the 2000 election, so I can relate.

3. Along the lines of questioning dogma, James Hanley shares how he came to the conclusion that there are no good arguments (outside of religious dogma) to be made against same-sex marriage. I remember how surprised I was when I came to the realization that the only reasonably coherent arguments that opponents of gay marriage ever made were based on appeals to the Bible (almost always one or more of the major "clobber passages," when a particular passage was even referenced).

4. Continuing on with that thought, Senator Diane Savino made a strong case for same-sex marriage (and exposed the blatant hypocrisy of opponents) during the New York State Senate's deliberations on marriage equality:

Nearsighted

2009-11-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

Recently I attended a social gathering at a local coffeehouse. It was a simple, low-key event with about two dozen people and a musician in the background, but it reminded me once again why I normally don't go to parties like that. I understand why extroverts thrive in those environments, surrounded by people and activity and free to move from conversation to conversation, but for an introvert (even one who can function better than me in a crowd) it can be very draining. It isn't long before the noise, the constant distractions and the frequent interruptions wear me down to the point that I can barely grunt at people as they flit by me.

Even in a medium-sized group I can find it hard to break into the discussion if one or more people are dominating it; the rhythms of conversation that others take for granted completely escape me. That's not to say that I don't try, but most of the time my efforts go largely unnoticed, and it isn't long before an extrovert is complaining (to me or to somebody else) about the fact that I don't talk enough. What's wrong with that guy, that he doesn't do what the rest of us take for granted? He must be deliberately holding back, since it's so simple and obvious how these things are supposed to be done. The problem is that I'm not, and it's not, and the ones doing the complaining are rarely interested in understanding my perspective; they think I should be more like them, and nothing else is acceptable.

As much as I hate being judged and written off like that, I have to take care that I don't do it myself. In my mind, there are few things better than a good board game. Who wouldn't enjoy the challenge of a little strategic competition? Even if gaming isn't a person's forte, there are plenty of good yet relatively simple games like Settlers of Catan that can be enjoyed by a wide range of people.

Yet even Settlers of Catan is overwhelmingly complex for some people. No matter how carefully you explain the rules and the strategies, they just can't wrap their minds around what they're supposed to do with the cards with the funny pictures and the dice rolling that somehow ends up with people getting more cards, or why a wood and a brick can be used to make a road. As far as they're concerned, everyone might as well be speaking in ancient Swahili; even after playing an entire game, they have no idea what just happened.

It's very frustrating ending up at a gaming table with an individual like that. How can they not at least begin to grasp what's just been clearly (and repeatedly) explained to them? Are they even paying attention? Yet it's just as wrong of me to judge them for not being better at what comes naturally to me as it is for the aforementioned extroverts to judge me for not being more adept at group conversations. Some people simply aren't wired to think strategically, and it doesn't mean that they're dumb or lazy or anything of that sort; their talents simply lie elsewhere.

We all have things that come so naturally to us that it's hard to imagine anyone not finding them equally obvious and simple. And that bias often gets reinforced as we gravitate toward those who are like us. Thus reinforced, it becomes easy to dismiss those who see the world differently and to assume that deep down they really know the same things we do. In reality, we have just reduced those people to two-dimensional caricatures. We no longer care about who they really are; we just want to transform them into variations of ourselves so that we can pay lip service to "diversity" without having to wrap our minds around what that really means.

The same problem exists when it comes to the prejudice that sexual minorities face on a daily basis. For all their talk about "biblical sexuality," very few evangelicals have actually taken the time to study the complexities of human sexuality for themselves, much less made any effort to understand the lives and perspectives of gay or lesbian (or, God forbid, transgendered) individuals.

And why should they, when society and even nature itself reinforces their feelings on a daily basis? It's all so obvious (or "self-evident," as one prominent theologian likes to say) that surely anyone who sees things differently must be suppressing their "natural" feelings in an ongoing act of willful defiance. If those rebellious gays would just surrender to God and stop acting out on their sin, they would surely find the same happiness and fulfillment in a "real" marriage that everyone else does.

Over the course of centuries, bias that goes largely unchallenged solidifies into dogma, and its adherents can claim the mantle of tradition to further squelch any potential opposition. Add in a few verses from the Bible that appear to validate the instincts of the majority, and the result is a monolith that violently rejects even the slightest possibility that any of its edicts might be anything less than infallible.

The result is an endless series of efforts by members of the majority (many of them well-intentioned) to end the "wrong" behaviors of the minority by whatever means necessary - therapy, coercion, emotional blackmail and even the force of law. Unfortunately, even if some members of the minority manage to adopt the outward behaviors of the majority, they do so at the cost of suppressing their true selves without truly becoming like the majority.

History has seen many similar drives, where members of a "wrong" group were dehumanized through efforts to make them "right," whether it be extroverts demanding more sociability from introverts, reparative therapists attempting to reprogram gays, right-handed individuals forcing lefties to use the "correct" hand, Christian missionaries commanding their indigenous converts to adopt Western cultural norms, or schools punishing students whose learning styles aren't suited to the traditional classroom setting.

Regardless of the situation, our insatiable urge to make others into carbon copies of us says more about our idolatrous fixation on ourselves than our judgments do about those we see as "wrong." And we seldom pause long enough in our crusade to consider who we are really attacking when we demand such change from a human being made in the image of God.

Our inability to see very far beyond ourselves is simple human nature and not a fault in and of itself. How we respond to those who challenge our definition of normal, and whether we trust God enough to let him take care of anything that really does need changing, is entirely up to us.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, the video doesn't actually have anything to do with Thanksgiving, but who doesn't like the Muppets? Have a restful and happy holiday.

Paradoxy

Downfall, Part 5

Life Soundtrack 29

Shattering Stereotypes

Fullness

Merry Christmas

Turnabout

Life Soundtrack 28

Beautiful

A Complicated Life

The Book Is Here

Quotable

Hiatus

Inclusion

Afterlife V

Afterlife IV

Not So Different

Links

Life Soundtrack 27

Bullying for God?

Corruption

Forward

Good ol' Jon Stewart

Links

Downsized

Imagery

Sow and Reap

Happy Mother's Day

Life Soundtrack 26

Projection

What Matters Most

Acceptance

Quotes

Upside Down

Life Soundtrack 25

Odds and Ends

Weekend Reading

Vicious Cycles

Community

Reflections

Quoted

Happy New Year

Merry Christmas

What He Said

Strong Words

'Tis the Season

Cold Outside

Happy Thanksgiving

Caution

Maturity

Integration

Life Soundtrack 24

Links

Quotes

Bullies

Quadrilateral

More Links

Idolatry

Seriously

Poppycock Redux

Life Soundtrack 23

Seen Online

Foremost

Quote of the Week

That's How You Do It

Quotes

Character

More Links

Treatment

Links

Prince Poppycock

Blind Spots

Life Soundtrack 22

Quotable

Results

Food For Thought

Spirituality

Items of Interest

Life Soundtrack 21

Unbridgeable?