Love wins
A conservative evangelical friend of mine felt unsettled and challenged today when he read this personal narrative from a homosexual Christian:
Since puberty, I've been conscious of an exclusive attraction to persons of my own sex. Though I have never been in a gay relationship...I have also never experienced the "healing" or transformation of my sexual orientation that some formerly gay Christians profess to have received. But I remain a Christian, a follower of Jesus. And...I accept the Christian teaching that homosexuality is a tragic sign that things are "not the way they're supposed to be." Reading New Testament texts like Romans 1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 through the lens of time-honored Christian reflection on the meaning and purpose of marriage between a man and a woman, I find myself -- much as I might wish things to be otherwise -- compelled to abstain from homosexual practice. As a result, I feel, more often than not, desperately lonely.
This man's view that he is fundamentally deficient is, of course, tragic. To me, as a heterosexual Christian who supports the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in church and civic life, there is no debate. I don't "struggle" with the topic. There's nothing to "wrestle" over. The matter is settled.
And despite temporary setbacks in California and elsewhere, those of us who support gay rights can take solace in the apparent fact that the future is already written on this issue. Vast majorities of young people support absolute, uncompromised equality for homosexuals -- from serving in the military to getting married to anything and everything else. The consensus is emerging and inevitable.
I am reminded of a story that Jim Wallis likes to tell about a sermon he saw Archbishop Desmond Tutu deliver in Cape Town just before the fall of apartheid:
The place was surrounded by soldiers and police who outnumbered the worshipers three to one. They came into the sanctuary. He was preaching. They stood along the walls...with tape recorders and pads, writing down what he was saying. They had already put him in jail. They were saying to him in effect, "Go ahead, be bold, be prophetic, and we'll put you right back in jail." He looked at them and pointed his finger and said, "You are very powerful, but you are not gods. And I serve a God who cannot be mocked. You have already lost, so I invite you today to come and join the winning side!" The place erupted.
And that, indeed, reflects the triumph of the ultimate article of Christian faith: love wins.
This post originally appeared at jesselava.com.
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Beautiful post, Jesse. Sad and beautiful at the same time.
March 10, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Thera.
March 10, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amazing. As soon as someone puts a face on something, humanizes a political/religious issue, the whole perspective changes, at least for some.
Fascinating. Terrific blog of course, but you always have good blogs.
March 10, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed.
And a good argument for determinging whicn parts of the Bible are essential/eternal truths and which are the clear biases and prejudices of a particular time and place.
Paul had lots of hangups about sex and not just gay sex. Too bad too. The western world might have been a lot less nuerotic had he not been so uptight about the subject.
March 10, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
If YOU have to "determine" which parts of the bible are essential/eternal truths, and which are total bullshit, doesn't it make you think you should probably not consider the bible to be a great reference manual for behavior or spiritual enlightenment at all.
I mean, think about it oleeb. You are way too smart to say, "Oh, a certain percent of this revered, inspired, 'written-by-god' book, is well...wrong; mistaken; biased; prejudiced; without any evidence of an all-knowing hand in its writing," but that OTHER percent -- pure holy scriptures -- no doubt!
March 10, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
CVille, you really just don't understand or have any familiarity with the progressive strain of Christian thought, which views the Bible as a library of documents -- often contradictory -- that each expresses how a certain community wrestled with what God is and means. Calm down and maybe read a book or two.
March 10, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Progressive strain of Christian Thought?" You're right. I don't know about it.
You say "progressive christians" view the bible as a contradictory library of documents?
I don't think I need to calm down, but if you have some recommendations of books I will consider them. BTW: I have probably read a "book or two" more than you have...although I don't limit myself to books that discuss the progressive strain of christian thought.
March 10, 2009 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you want some books on the subject, there are many. Heck, a good starting point would just be to find the Wikipedia entries for "progressive christianity" and "liberal christianity" and see what thinkers are listed. But in terms of books, maybe try an anthology of Paul Tillich, who's very accessible as theologians/philosophers go. For more recent biblical scholars who write for a popular (rather than academic) audience, you may also want to try Marcus Borg (The Heart of Christianity, or Reading the Bible Again for the First Time), or maybe John Shelby Spong (The Sins of Scripture), or a variety of others.
March 11, 2009 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to break this to you, but Spomg isn't a Christian. He has more or less stated that he doesn't believe in a theistic God (as in one with personal attributes). Perhaps you can argue that everyone picks and chooses what parts of the Bible to believe, I don't think that a personal God is a negotiable issue.
March 11, 2009 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Spong. I meant Spong.
March 11, 2009 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I did gather from the comment thread on the last post that we have different ideas of the acceptable limits of Christianity. Same debate here.
March 11, 2009 2:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Incidentally, I find it interesting you didn't single out Tillich, too, as a non-Christian, even though he's Spong's favorite theologian and also has something of a post-theistic view of God.
March 11, 2009 2:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't single out Tillich because I don't know much about Tillich. Spong has been on a lot of TV shows, so I am more familiar with him.
March 11, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK. Well, he's probably the biggest Christian theologian of the 20th century, so if we're going to call people like him outside the acceptable limits of the faith, we'd lose an awful lot of intellectual depth in our tradition.
March 11, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, he's probably the biggest Christian theologian of the 20th century
Spong or Tillich?
so if we're going to call people like him outside the acceptable limits of the faith, we'd lose an awful lot of intellectual depth in our tradition.
Perhaps.
But if we are to make belief in a personal God optional, we will lose the tradition itself.
What Spong, and it seems, Tillich, want to do is essentially to put a Christian veneer over secular humanism and call it Christianity.
March 12, 2009 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
No actually. I don't see it that way at all.
Like Jefferson, I think the truth is there and it has been corrupted and misinterpreted over many centuries thus necessitating a search for the truth vs the adulteration of same. I think what is necessary is an evaluation of the content with an evenhanded understanding of it's long history.
March 10, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I'd like to hear more from you about that, because I think I can learn from your way of thinking. Are you saying that the bible was corrupted over time, or that our understanding of it has been corrupted because we see things in such a different way?
March 10, 2009 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would say the bible was corrupted from day one when the Council of Nicea selected which religious documents of their day were The Word and which could be tossed aside as inconvenient in the effort to legitimize Constantine's new-found faith. I find Thomas Paine to be more credible on the subject of the Bible than Thomas Jefferson, however inspired his thoughts on society and government may have been.
March 11, 2009 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
CVille, I read your comments and wonder whether they are based in a decision there is no God, or faith that there is. It's a mind vs. emotion issue, IMHO. I agree with Oleeb and JEM that the truth is there and it is for us to discern wherein it lies. I also believe there is truth in many other works and, like Jesse, would have faith that even the atheist will state a truth.
What disturbs me as my own kinduva Christianity, is that you predicate your position on the supposition that all Christians MUST have a complete and total agreement in every word in the Bible. That perspective came about not so long ago and it, I believe, a uniquely American perspective brought about by simplistic minds who need to ignore the entirety of Church history, or the history of Christianity, if you will.
JEM makes an excellent point that the Nicean Councils began the dismantling of what the written texts contemporary to Jesus left for posterity, but that Council was also human and much of what they selected carries a great deal of that truth, again, IMHO. There were a few more councils following that as well.
My suggestion, and I chuckle as I think this sounds pontifficating and I am not exactly of that ilk, would be to open yourself up to the entire breadth of Christianity because the Bible Belt is hardly the last word on the issue, although they may have the most recently diluted sense of Jesus, and I have to say, adding more water has not made it any more potent, no matter how loudly they may scream and fling themselves about the floor.
March 11, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well put!
I would again recommend to any and all Fosdick's sermon from the twenties "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?". It isn't that long and is very illuminating in my opinion.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5070/
March 11, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
If political conservatives found it necessary to re-interpret and extrapolate text drafted just 221 years ago to better reflect the realities of a post 9/11 world, then why not text written 2000 years ago?
March 10, 2009 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great question, great line.
March 10, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
.
The history of the Bible? And interpretations?
Oh brother ... Don't get me started.
From ancient beginnings in the ancient oral traditions (myth?) transliterated to cuneiform tablet texts of the polytheistic religion of the Sumerian culture, to Akkadian, to Assyrian, and Babylonian, and much, much later (even after Abram's/Abraham's time) to Hebrew.
Archaic - from archaic Hebrew, to Aramaic and Greek.
Antiquity - from the first exile in Babylonia to the 5th century
Middle Ages - to the mid 15th century
Reformation and Early Modern period - 16th century
Modern translation efforts - 17th century to current
And currently coming to a total of approximately 2,400 languages.
Take you pick.
Thanks for the subject matter here Jesse.
It beddy bye time for grandpa here.
~OGD~
March 11, 2009 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I once read a book about a gay couple called, "The Lord Won't Mind", taking its title from a quote in the book where a Christian woman tells one of the protagonists, "Honey, if it's love, the Lord won't mind".
And as far as I'm concerned, He shouldn't.
March 10, 2009 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
.
Well . . .
As far as I'm concerned s(he) shouldn't.
(I tend to purposefully stay clear of paternalism)
Love you poin though LisB . . .
~OGD~
March 11, 2009 4:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
.
Oopsie . . .
Should read: Love your point though LisB . . .
(typing with webbed-feet and all -- ya' know)
~OGD~
March 11, 2009 4:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with you Lis B.
One of my favourite quotes was from Ed Bacon, a Christian minister, on the Oprah Show this January when he said "Being gay is a gift from God".
March 10, 2009 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great blog, Jesse. As a committed agnostic with a preference for Thomas Paine in these matters, I recently learned a startling truth about the evangelical community. A perspective I never had the curiosity to appreciate before. I blogged about the event that prompted the new understanding in August of 2008.
I am actually making a film called Faith-based Neighbors that shows the alternative view to Jesus Camp and Religulous. I am trying to show the truly progressive nature of most neighborhood churches. I also think secular liberals are missing a huge opportunity to change hearts and minds if they can't look beyond the exceptions to the rule among American Christians as depicted in the two films I mentioned.
Voice like yours certainly help in that effort since the "left" also seems to have difficulty with this message from those of us on the "right."
March 11, 2009 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Jason. I agree with you that a lot of neighborhood churches are progressive in the sense that they focus on helping their neighbor rather than converting them. I do think the majority tend to be theologically conservative, but in terms of actual church behavior, there's this perception among liberal secularists that all they do is screech about heaven and hell and then hand out tracts to people on the street. Churches do more than any institution I know of to help the most vulnerable members of society.
March 11, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. There are three or four churches within one square mile of the DC neighborhood where I live. Each and every one of them is engaged in supporting their community with social services the government hasn't provided since before Bill Clinton's welfare "reform" efforts followed on the heels of two neoconservative administrations.
March 11, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't that something forgotten when we recall it is also the institution that has led to more deaths then any other institution.
Great post, Jesse.
March 11, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gregor, where are you getting that figure? The institutions in modern history that have led to the most deaths have been secularist and/or nationalist governments: Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Rwanda, Sudan, etc. These genocides were not based on religion. If we're talking about ancient history, fine, but in those cases there was no distinction between religion and the state, so it's hard to determine causality. Today there's a distinction, and most of the deaths seem to be coming from one side of it. (Islamic terrorism, e.g., as awful as it is, hasn't even come close to approaching the scope of these other sources of violence.)
March 11, 2009 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
And by the way, just to clarify one thing: the Nazi genocide was religiously rooted in that certain religions and religiously-based ethnicities were singled out for destruction. But the point was not to spread Christianity, but rather to exalt the German nation / Aryan race.
March 11, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
While I am not one to consider myself well read and able to refer you to particular books and authors, Hitler had a radical religious view that catapulted his propaganda into action by the Nazis. In short, six million Jews might argue that point, as will I. If one asserts it was not to "spread" Christianity, how does one argue his soldiers were missionaries making the world Lutherans? One cannot. But if one was to say we will purify Germany for the Christians, as he understood the meaning of that term, and while it was what we would consider radical today, it seems to have been quite popular in Germany at the time, it's very debatable religion was not one of his tools to provoke his people in that genocide. I'm not arguing eligion promoted Hitler as much as Hitler promoted an extremely bastardized religious perspective, and I will go so far as to say it has similarities with how the Ku Klux Klan provokes their followers to action as well.
March 11, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, if we're sidetracking your post. But I think it’s important to identify the root causes of conflicts ("those who forget history…"). Whether ethnic, nationalist or religious, most hostilities originate in tribalism, don’t they? It is always an attack on the Other. National identity is often ethnic or religious. And I don’t know that a body count, religious causes vs. national, represents the malevolence done in either case.
Throughout the history of the West, Judeo-Christianity has dominated as the biggest "tribe." The rationale for the subjugation, enslavement or extermination of countless small tribes around the world was that they were “savages,” “barbarians,” “heathens,” etc. -meaning they were not Christian. But it isn't defaming Christianity to admit the history of manipulation of religion to evil ends.
The problem with religious hostility, whether a crusade, mission, war or the torture of heretics, is that it goes against the very foundation of most any religion (aptly pointed out in your title). Nations sometimes rightly, sometimes not, go to war for a cause that they consider just (protection of its populace, defense of humanist ideology, reclamation of territories, etc.); but religion founded in peace love and tolerance cannot logically justify aggression.
The struggle in the M.E. today, the whole WOT, is directly related to religious fundamentalism on both sides, really. Simply look at the I-P conflict (national, yes, but religious at heart), which has a domino effect radicalizing the Muslim world. As a supporter of Israel, we are involved in a religious war. Of course, it’s really just a “clash of civilizations;” the enlightened West trying to reform the "barbaricans.” I seem to recall the Crusades being referred to as a clash of civilizations, too.
March 11, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I agree with everything you're saying. The only thing I'd add is that "othering" can have many pretexts, whether religion or ethnicity or ideology or culture or something else. The issue I have is that people see these instances of "othering" and then put down religion on principle when it's merely the excuse -- even though these people won't put down ethnicity, culture, or ideology (at least if it's progressive) on principle when their role is the same.
March 11, 2009 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, Jesse. And I could have emphasized that more. I don't think it's an attack on the tenets of religion or anyone’s beliefs to criticize historical violence perpetrated in a religion's name, but there are those who do just that. Certainly, a particular religious organization (i.e. the Catholic Church) can be condemned for its actions.
March 12, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't that something forgotten when we recall it is also the institution that has led to more deaths then any other institution.
You mean the state? It seems to me that the single biggest killer for the twentieth century at least has been government.
Perhaps it should be abolished.
March 12, 2009 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. We've got problems, but nothing so significant we need to destroy what we have. Tsarist Russia was a faltering state and was destroyed. One hundred years later, they are only now getting their act together. What would have been the US will not return to it's glory in my lifetime. I want no part of that prospect.
March 12, 2009 1:13 AM | Reply | Permalink