We need to keep in mind:
John 16:12-15 (NIV)
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”
So, after my lengthy post (read the receding post), my protagonist continued to ask:
“I kindly invite you Bob G+ to provide sufficient detail on the particular forms of same-sex behavior that you believe are not forbidden by God.â€
I thought and wrote and thought some more in an attempt to come up with a new way of presenting the “material” that just might make a dent in his armor. I decided to ask how he thought I would respond. You can read his responses (posts #125 & #126).
Here is how I finally responded:
——-
Truth Unites…Truth Divides –
You wrote: “My hope and prayer, as you meet and are led by the Holy Spirit in prayer and in His Word, is that you are led by intellectual honesty and spiritual integrity…”
This part of your sentence is exactly what I have done over the past 30 years. And that searching, seeking, praying, studying, discerning, listening, humbling myself, wrestling, more studying, more praying, has lead me with all integrity and intellectual honesty to conclude that Scripture, rightly divided and rightly understood in proper context and intent, does not say what anti-inclusion folks want/demand it to say. Scripture does not condemn all forms of gay relationships.
Now, if you can’t accept that this is where the Spirit of God has lead me (and an increasing numbers of people in all Christian communities), I can’t help it – as you alluded to in your second post directly above, my judge is my Savior (thankfully), and in His providence and grace I commend my soul, my future, my hope, my salvation, my joy, my sorrow, my life. In Him I live and move and have my being.
I’ve been having another debate on Titusonenine. It all started with comments made by the Archbishop of Canterbury about the Church needing to be a safe place of gay people.
Here is the link to the whole thread.
Here is what I final wrote to a sarcastic challenge to prove what I think.
Someone wrote in another blog, commenting on The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops resolutions this past week:
“We are witnessing the decline and fall of Christianity in Western culture…â€
I don’t buy this. First of all, it sounds as if the presumption is that God will not be able to cause the Church to survive in Western culture. Sure He can, and will.
We may no longer have our privileged position of state-sanction (whether explicit or implicit), but Christianity will survive and flourish. Flourish, because I think what will happen is that Christianity will become something that people participate in because they truly believe it and desire to do so, not because it is culturally expected or demanded. This will give us a much stronger Church, although the membership numbers will probably be less. It will also give us a far less culturally determined Church – less influence from both the political and social left and right.
This is God’s Church, and He will do what He will do. We are not in control of it nor can we determine its outcome. Our House of Bishops will be shown to have acted correctly or incorrectly, as will our Church and our whole Communion, in time. IN TIME. God’s time is not ours, and his timing is not our timing. Why do we so worry and think that we humans are God’s only means of defense?
An additional observation: We are blind if we think that the conservatives are any less influenced by our culture than are the liberals. We both are, and we both reflect the negative and positive aspects of the political and social positions of left and right.
To say that the conservatives or liberals are more or less influenced by our culture positivity or negatively simply shows the difference of what we choose to focus on. Hyper-individualism and consumerism of the right, or political-correctness and hyper-inclusion of the left.
The Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, has become a prominent voice in conservative Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity in the U.S. I have seen him quoted not only by Southern Baptists or Pentecostals but even by conservative Episcopalians. He is articulate and unapologetic concerning his particular view of what Christianity is and what is not – and along with that who is and who isn’t a Christian. He is a Fundamentalist.
Last week, we wrote an article in which he seemed to acknowledge that homosexuality will probably be proven to have a genetic or physiological link – not just a decision made by sex-crazed guys. This caused quite a stir in-and-of-itself among a slue of conservative-religious-politicos. He also stated that while he will probably be against some sort of gene-tinkering or therapy, he might be inclined to support a “hormone patch” to be worn by the mother during pregnancy in order to change the unborn baby’s homosexuality.
The Washington Post reports that Mohler in a Friday interview stated:
In an interview on Friday, Mohler said that Christian couples “should be open” to the prospect of changing the course of nature — if a biological marker for homosexuality were to be found. He would not support gene therapy but might back other treatments, such as a hormonal patch.
“I think any Christian couple would want their child to be whole and healthy,” he said. “Knowing that that child is going to be a sinner, we would not want to make their personal challenges more difficult if they could be less difficult.”
Since it will be a terrible thing to know that one’s child is going to be a “sinner,” then we should do all we can to make sure that doesn’t happen. Imagine, being able to weed out the sinfulness of us all! Wouldn’t that be great – we will no longer be “sinners.” If we can do it for the sin of homosexuality, why can we not do it for all sins? Lying, adultery, hypocrisy, murder, gluttony, pride, sloth, not loving God with our whole heart nor loving our neighbors as ourselves – all could be done away with through a patch or genetic/hormonal tinkering. Man will truly be his own salvation at that point, right?
I wonder what that will do with the whole issue of the necessity of Grace, Salvation, and the Passion-death-resurrection of Jesus. God should have just waited until our science progressed to the point where we could genetically or hormonally “change nature” to rid us of sin, rather than Jesus’ self-sacrifice on our behalf. Oh well. I know this is not what he means or intends, but it is a logical progression of the idea, is it not?
Link to the Washington Post article
Link to Truth Wins Out commentaries over this issue. TWO was founded by Wayne Besen, author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth†(Haworth, 2003).
Link to Albert Mohler’s original article: Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?
Link to Albert Mohler’s follow-up article
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 1:1-3)
Something that we want, but we cannot have?
Security!
It is common to desire to be secure, to be safe, to be free (or at least according to what we can conceive of “freedom” being). An expectation has been perpetuated among the population that we have a RIGHT to be secure and to have no harm beset us. This expectation plays on our desire for security, but has been used to perpetuate political and legal careers, economic wealth, and ideologies. The problem is, we will never be secure or safe from harm. We demand it, but we do not receive it because it is outside the realm of possibility to live into such an expectation. We demand it and temporally do stuff in our attempts to have it, but we do with wrong motives – in order to benefit only ourselves, our own “pleasures.”
We cannot demand that soap will not cause us to fall in the bathtub, resulting in a broken pelvis. We try to demand such things, and we sue the soap manufacturer and the distributor and the packaging company when such things happen and wonder why no warning was on the label, “CAUTION: This product is slippery and if you step on it in the bathtub dire consequences could result.” What we want is to not be held responsible for our own actions. What we want is millions of dollars that we think we can get because of “their negligence.” …never our own fault, never simply an accident, never our own negligence.
We cannot reasonably expect that we can be completely safe from terrorist attacks (whether homegrown or foreign) or that citizens of other nations will not do to us what we do to them. We want safety, but we do not want to do what is necessary to secure the highest level of safety genuinely possible. Instead, we demand that the world and cause-and-effect work the way we want them to, not the way they really do. So, in order to try to delude ourselves into feeling more secure or safe, we give up some of our own freedom, we invade other countries, we destroy other societies, we exploit other peoples, and yet we never realize our desires – security, safety, peace, freedom. As a matter of fact, we make things worse.
We ask, but do not receive because we ask in order to please ourselves. We demand security. Why? What are our motives? To perpetuate a nation-state? To secure the notion that we can be happy by buying more stuff? To protect our mountain-o-things? To protect our families from harm – that I can see, but the others above, I cannot accept as a follower of Jesus Christ.
Our security, our peace, our freedom, our life can be found in God, but we delude ourselves if we think they can be found in guns, wars, envy, pride, arrogance, selfishness, nationalism, and the like. Let’s invade more countries. Let’s invade Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba or Syria or maybe even Russia, and let’s see how much more secure we become.
James writes that there are two kinds of wisdom.
“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” (James 3:17-18)
We don’t hear too much about these kinds of attitudes or this kind of living from hawks seeking empire or the Religious Right. We want security, so we wage war. We want safety, so we send armies to kill in order to be safe. “Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” Perhaps, if we took responsibility for our own actions, if we did not live only for our own pleasures, if we found true inner security by way of the true source of security, rather than through manufacturing means of self-deception, we would not need wars to attempt to be “secure.”
I’m not naive. I know that there are loads of people out there who are willing and wanting to kill every one of us even as they destroy themselves, too. It is reasonable to try to stop them. BUT, what caused them to want to kill themselves in order to kill us in the first place? As a Christian, it ultimately makes no difference to me whether the U.S. continues to exist, whether certain economic theories continue to rule, whether I live in plenty or want.
What makes a difference is that I love God with my whole self and, and, and that I love my neighbor as myself! What makes a difference is my motive for wanting or asking for anything. What makes a difference is whether I ask for my own pleasures or for the betterment of humankind, made in the image of God.
I’m going to see Into Great Silence this evening. I am so excited! Watch the trailer here. The ending gives me goose bumps.
It seems there is a fight brewing between a couple dozen Religious Right organizations lead by James Dobson and Jerry Farwell and the National Association of Evangelicals, representing approximately 30 million American Evangelicals. The Religious Right organizations are demanding the resignation or firing of the Rev. Richard Cizik, who directs the NAE’s Washington office, because of his “relentless campaign” against global warming.
You can read the article on Christianity Today online.
“The issue that is dividing and demoralizing the NAE and its leaders is related to global warming,” wrote the leaders, none of whom are members of the association. “If he cannot be trusted to articulate the views of American evangelicals on environmental issues, then we respectfully suggest that he be encouraged to resign his position with the NAE.”
I thing the Ted Haggard incident may be a bit more demoralizing that global warming. None of the Religious Right organizations are members of the NAE, yet they demand the NAE abide by their demands. The NAE is moving in directions that these Religious Right groups do not accept. Since they believe that they themselves define who and what American Evangelicalism is, then a departure from their political, social, and moral agenda cannot be tolerated, especially when the challenge comes from the organization that represents far more Evangelicals than do the Religious Right organizations. Of course, there is cross pollenization.
Regrettably, some of the comments are just comical.
“The letter’s signers, who included American Family Association Chairman Don Wildmon and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, charged that Cizik has a “preoccupation” with climate concerns. Referring to a January USA Today article on evangelical identity, they said, ‘We believe that some of that misunderstanding about evangelicalism and its ‘conservative views on politics, economics, and biblical morality’ can be laid at Richard Cizik’s door.'”
Now, the accusation that Cizik is preoccupied with anything is laughable considering the Religious Right’s decade’s long preoccupation with same-sex marriage, with homosexuality, or with sex period. Then, to assert that the general public misunderstands evangelicalism because of Cizik’s emphasis on global warming is just absurd. If there is a general misunderstanding of evangelicalism, is comes directly from the Religious Right organizations who have abandoned their spiritual mandate and have take up nationalism, right-wing politics, and laissez-faire economics.
The battles between the fundamentalists and the more progressive-evangelicals for the soul of American Evangelicalism have begun. Who truly represents American Evangelicals? We shall see whether the NAE gives in to the bullying tactics of the Religious Right demagogues. Anglicanism is not the only faith tradition with looming battles. Anglicanism may pull itself apart, but we are not the only ones.
So, I was reading the New York Times at the Tea Lounge in my neighborhood this morning, and starting reading an article on the changes happening to social networks, you know, like MySpace and Facebook. There is a growing trend for more interactive and inter-connected social networks. An example of “Ning” was given, so I thought I would troll over and see what it was about.
There are several of us clergy that gather every Thursday at The General Theological Seminary on Thursdays for Evensong and then dinner. We hang out. Most of us have high-church, if not Anglo-Catholic, sympathies. I am a Curate and a wonderful and growing Anglo-Catholic parish. (I feel the need to specify that his parish is more progressive than some that have become quite reactionary against womens ordination, etc.).
Anyway, my clergy group has been discussing what kind of future Anglo-Catholicism has within the Anglican Tradition, and more specifically within The Episcopal Church (TEC). Anglo-Catholicism has alway made up a small minority in TEC. I read recently about an extensive study done by and issued by The Alban Institute, an Episcopal tank-tank dealing with issues of church growth, among many other things. Anyway, the report covered future growth trends and evangelism. From what I understand, Anglo-Catholicism is regarded as one of the very positive avenues of growth within TEC, particularly among the young and I suspect among immigrant populations. Go figure (actually, from what I’ve been reading about the younger generations and what I’ve experienced over the past several years, this doesn’t surprise me!)
Alright, I went to Ning and created a new social network called “The Monastic Fling.” The purpose may be anything, but I stated that it is a place where those who are frustrated with American Christianity might find the ancient monastic traditions a bit more helpful in our desire for a deeper experience of God and our faith than the trendy and sometimes shallow American Christian experience.
Check it out, if you want. I created the space to just kind of play around, but it may turn into something – who knows. The Monastic Fling
Retreatants Hear of Guises of the Antichrist
What do you think about this?
There are some interesting points, even if the examples he gives may rub some the wrong way.
Via: Drell’s Descants