Marriage: Tearing down a false definition

A sojourners discussion, after one poster belittled marriage as depending on the good intentions of the nearest male:

http://blog.sojo.net/2011/08/11/im-not-that-kind-of-feminist/

The definition of marriage that has been attacked by self-styled “feminists” for decades, and which is still under attack, is not marriage as established by God. Marriage, like all of God's Law, is not designed to promote one sex over the other, or even one human religion as “the best.” It is part of God's loving design to bless all of His good creation. Abraham was promised that His seed would bless all the earth. This promise has come true exactly to the extent the blessing has been accepted. But our society has substituted a secular religion (or religion-equivalent, if you insist). The practice of this dominant religion obviously isn't working, yet the blame falls on Christianity, unjustly, and Christians, occasionally with good cause. All of the world's major religions have surprisingly similar definitions of what marriage is and isn't. Those who believe in common grace aren't surprised, but they are saddened that our culture, almost alone across the globe, has such open scorn for what a loving God created and pronounced "very good"

Why theology matters

OK, I can't really prove that theology matters, but I can share how meditating on infinity helped me. Remember those old time preachers who would intone “God loves you so much that he would've died for you even if you were the only one? I think when I first heard this I accepted it with youthful credulity, but later when depressed I made the obvious inference: “Yeah, well, I'm NOT the only one—so what? I 'm still depressed.” Gradually, I thought of the math, and it not only helped, but led me to the theology: if you split 10 million dollars ten ways, you've made ten millionaires! If you split one thousand trillions among a million people, each is a billionaire! But infinity is so large that no piece into which it can be split is even slightly smaller than infinity. So, the assertion by the preacher that I thought was sentimental, even treacly, turns out to be mathematically precise: God already DID die just for me! The infinity of his grace, split among all humans that have ever lived, and ever will, is STILL infinity: all of God, just for me. (Not because there are an infinite number of infinitely insignificant gods, but because the one true God is infinite.) That's why God really is waiting to hear us pray, and is incapable of distraction. It is WE who are distracted, while his eye is upon us, waiting for us to look back at him. A child understands this merely as “God is really big” and if that still works as an adult, fine! But this is for the skeptic or the doubter. This leads to the openness of God. I've read next to nothing about it, but still have my doubts. Everything in Scripture, and even the Greek philosophers speculating about God (see Hermann Bavinck on this), agree that he is infinite. That must mean infinite in wisdom and power and all dimensions of space, including time. “Now his Glory has filled all the Earth. Holy is God the LORD” (Infinity of space followed by infinity of power) And if that's just poetry, it's not very glorious. A self styled “progressive” might admit: “We proud humans just say that to the little god we have invented so he feels good” which is nonsensical and almost blasphemous! And idolatry is blasphemous, although it would be better to think of it as petty and ridiculous, as when Isaiah said: Cut down a tree. Burn half of it for fuel, and worship the rest. I suppose the good motivation behind openness is to make our prayers and actions matter. God has already revealed to us that they do! I supposed if meditating on HOW, and why, they matter in a world with a Sovereign God helps your faith, do it. But there is a lot of vain speculating that doesn't help at all. Yes, most early Pentecostals threw out the wisdom of theology along with the futility, but you and I needn't go in the other direction and forget that every theologian that ever lived once wore diapers, and probably will wear them again if he or she lives long enough! More to the point, we are sinful, and so are our speculations if we think they are even half as important as God's self-revelation through Scripture. Even Karl Barth summed up hundreds of thousands of his own words with a Sunday School song: Jesus Loves Me This is know, for the BIBLE tells me so! Naturally, we need to understand how to interpret and apply Scripture, but with humility, not arrogance and self will. Or a “Progressive” agenda. What is progress if there isn't a timeless standard to measure against? What's next, removing the age limit on elders? You've probably read Webb's “Slaves Women and Homosexuals” in seminary. I haven't finished it, but the first half makes his point pretty well, and it's nothing new, really, just using contemporary hot button examples. End of sermon;-) P.S. You can't talk theology w/o footnotes, right?! Here they are: FOOTNOTE: Think of the universe: if you could split it in half, you could still go on infinitely in that direction. No matter how many 'Halves” you split it into, it still is infinite if you go away from the split. Split again, and it's still infinitely large. There is no measurement you can take where length times width times height would be any smaller than infinity. And, of course, if you travel back towards the imaginary “split” you can go infinitely far into that “half” too. Each half is exactly as large as the whole! Your “Division” of space is imaginary, as is any conception of God that is finite. But our God is real!

The Radical Middle

Isn't there a Beatles song about dreaming about....please enlighten me with a comment, anonymous or otherwise. Anyway, my dream is buried in this exchange from sojourners
http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/2009/01/16/look-whos-praying-at-the-inauguration/?disqus_reply=5378002

A frequent problem is the oppressed becoming the oppressor. By framing gay issues as civil rights issues rather than religious disagreements, the trends you mention could well end up with me being despised as a bigot, much as many people now look down on a good 'ole boy with a Confederate flag on his pickup(i.e. assuming he's a racist). Legally, a sermon on the Ten Commandments could be viewed by a court sympathetic to GLBT issues as an incitement for a drunk to beat up a gay person in a bar nearby that evening. If such a crime actually occurred, the victim could sue and compel the pastor/church to spend a fortune on a legal defense. In California a fertility clinic was successfully sued for referring a lesbian couple to a different clinic for religious reasons. Also in California, people are being denied their right to vote in citizen petitions. So as fervently as I want you to be physically safe, I don't support much of what is now occurring. Your psychological well-being is important, but freedom and the democratic process are important to the nation as a whole.
A plea for Christians to work for the physical safety of GLBT folk overseas even as we oppose gay marriage here in the US for religious reasons. This is the sort of radical middle thing that should appeal to Sojourners Magazine; unfortunately they are more just the Christian left these days. Which is their right, of course, but a disappointment to folks like me who were big fans of Jim Wallis back in the 1980's

I would also like to affirm JamesM: "So many people dehumanize others and think that that is what they are called to do. Maybe if they had a real heart-to-heart with people who have experienced what you have, they would change their tune."///More on hate crimes:Perhaps you[a person I'm debating on sojo.net] support hate crimes legislation for honorable reasons. I oppose it from the reasons given by this Jewish letter writer, published in response to Cornel West: September 29, 2007
CORNEL WEST and Sylvia Rhue's arguments about hate crimes legislation border on hatred itself, such as when they accuse people who oppose this legislation as being guilty of "falsehoods and bigotry" ("Fabricated fears about hate crimes legislation," Op-ed, Sept. 25).
Hate crimes legislation is unnecessary. A crime is a crime. Hate is a motive. Making a motive a crime is legislating thought. Matthew Shepard was murdered. That was the crime. Perhaps hatred of homosexuals was the motive. Every crime has a motive. Greed can cause theft. Jealousy can cause people to kill the lovers of their mates. Anger can lead to assault and battery. Anger, jealousy, and greed are not crimes. Assault and battery, murder, and theft are crimes. Hate also should not be a crime. We need to keep our senses, even if we don't like the reason that someone commits a crime.
B. M. C.

Wait, wait it gets even better

Ashpenaz came up with some more creative twists of his gay theology[see post about King David below], including the unwarranted substitution of "homosexual" for "eunuch" in one of Jesus' sayings. My considered reply:
Ashpenaz, my friend: This is a discussion of helping the poor not about gay theology. But if the Bible isn’t true, if the Ten Commandments aren’t for today, why should we help the poor? If our science teachers get it right, the only logical conclusion is that the unfit and the poor are a drag on our evolutionary progress. Only if the Bible is true does each individual have value. If with perfectly pure scientific motives, I do triage on a global scale, who are you to judge me and my pals the Darwinists? On what basis? You can only judge if you believe in the one Jesus of Scripture, not the 6 billion personal Jesus’s that liberal Episcopalians such as yourself offer us. "I’m right, you’re right, we’re all right" and the poor die. But no, Mother Theresa and the Bible are right. That godly lady continued to obey the Bible even though she didn’t get the warm fuzzies we expect when we invite a lonely neighbor over for Christmas. I am humbled by the thought of my sister in Christ, now at the feet of the historical, biblical, flesh and blood Jesus she served so well.
And I admit it: I still want a few of the warm fuzzies. I’m weak, really weak…………
I posted the above, and then prepared this comeback:
You’ve garbled something Jesus said about eunuchs into a loophole that fits your purposes. Why can’t I garble "The poor you always have with you" into an excuse for inaction? The same Jesus that said plainly that marriage is between a man and a woman tells me to serve the poor. He calls me to obey him, even when I don’t feel like it. I’m sorry and without a good explanation as to why some people have a harder time with these two teachings of Jesus than others do. Why are there poor people in the first place? Why not manna every morning? Why can’t every boy grow up with a loving affirming father, committed for life to a godly woman? I don’t know. There is pain, sorrow and sin. But I will not twist Jesus’ words to make it easier on me, or you, or the rich people in that huge air conditioned house across the street with one SUV, one sports car, and who never seem to walk to any of the little shops around here. Jesus calls each of us to follow him. I don’t know their story, and I don’t really know yours. But I know that Jesus said about the law, and I lovingly invite you to follow that Jesus. To the cross, and to wholeness.

"The fellowship of the Beatitudes is the fellowship of the crucified" Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyr and signer of the Theological Declaration of Barmen.

Was King David a homosexual?

http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/12/being-poor-is-a-lot-of-work-by.html
An online friend made the assertion in the title, and then said this as further justification
"Everything is permissible" and "Love is the fulfillment of the law." We each have to work out our own salvation by determining what our conscience tells us is the loving thing to do. If you still believe in law, then you are among the foolish Galatians.
Lack of compassion for the poor, the sick, the homeless, the undocumented, and the gay is all the same lack of compassion--trying to impose a dead legalism where the law of love should be the foundation for our actions.
I wrote:
The law is not the means of righteousness, but it is still the measure, for it is not subjective and arbitrary like your utterly sentimental appeal to what you call "love." Love is the FULFILLMENT of the law. If you love someone, you WILL see their need and meet it. Whatever you feel like, whatever your motivation or lack thereof.
If my motives are good, and I still ignore the poor, does that get me off the hook? Of course not. If I have withheld wages, I am stealing. Even if I really, truly think ten cents an hour is all I can afford. Who says I’m not sincere? You can’t know my motives, nor I yours. But you can see my actions and judge rightly. Jesus said we are to judge all people the same, i.e. according to revelation, not our personal, internal, inaccessible whims.
Your appeal to Galatians ? 14When I [Paul] saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
Peter was accommodating the Judiazers, who compelled circumcision and ritual observance of the law. These are the parts of the law which have been fulfilled. As for the rest—the shameless adultery and other breaking of the Ten Commandments you falsely accuse David, Jonathan, and Ruth and Naomi of—not one jot or tittle will pass away. You quote King Saul as your authority: here is exactly the one who does as he pleases, offering sacrifices from a sincere, well-intentioned impatience. Later he claims to "love" David, then tries to murder him. The Law judges King Saul, the Law judges me, the Law judges us all. Without throwing ourselves on Christ’s mercy we all are lost. The standard has ever, only been this: are we as perfect as Jesus? Are you? I know I’m not. I rely on his perfect fulfillment of every part of the law as my only salvation. My motives are nothing. My sentimental appeals to "love" and pity are nothing. Jesus, as revealed in the Scriptures, is everything, my righteousness, my holiness, my redemption.

Oh no, not another letter to the Globe

Yup, here it is. I'm also working on a column on something I know very little about, humble astrophysicists. Stay tuned!
Here's the link. Don't blame me for anyone who decides Cornel West should be read outside of the hip-hop media! http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/25/fabricated_fears_about_hate_crime_legislation/

To all but the most credulous reader, Cornel West's column defending "thought crime" legislation ought to be anything but comforting. Intentionally, or by inexcusable neglect, West and Sylvia Rhue have dismissed a wide body of literature on gay politics and theology that is anything but hateful. This literature, full of thoughtful criticism, and not shying away from difficult question such as "Well,what if people really are born gay?" comes from a wide variety of traditions, including Judaism, Catholicism,conservative Protestantism (Walter A. Elwell:Evangelical Dictionary of Theology), mainstream Protestantism, (Robert A. J. Gagnon of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Homosexual-Practice-Texts-Hermeneutics/dp/0687022797/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-1496179-4277215?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190846077&sr=8-1 ), and psychotherapists working in secular settings.By baldly and indiscriminately labeling opinions he personally hates as "condemning and dehumanizing"Prof. West signals to lovers of liberty his intent to eventually allow their prosecution as "hate crimes." If not West and his sort, leave it to those the mere thickness of a condom farther left to fabricate a connection between a sermon one day and a fight in a nearby bar the next. For all his faults, Larry Summers' wisdom in allowing Harvard to "lose" CornelWest and his shoddy lack of scholarly inquiry to Princeton has been vindicated.