PublicChristian

Did you see the recent comment from “Donna”? It stirred me up! Come on people! Christian integrity and humility should compel you to allow that those who voted for Obama are NOT thereby proven to be ignorant or reprobate!

I know that my response refers to the behavior and attitudes of the “religious right” as if they could be sterotyped. But in fact, in my experience, these problems VERY consistently show up in people who get their input from those sources – they are stereotypical responses. On the other hand my experience with Christian Democrats shows them almost always to be much more welcoming and open to information and to real discussion.

Here’s my response (The numbered headlines are quotes from Donna’s comment.):
» Continue Reading »

Through LibraryThing.com I now and then get review copies of books newly or nearly published, in exchange for writing a review. This is one of those. It’s not very political, to say the least, but it does have a lot to do with humans living in society together.

The book is Essentials of Premarital Counseling: Creating Compatible Couples, by Sandra L. Ceren, Loving Healing Press, 2008

I enjoyed reading this book, profited from it, and will certainly use it as a reference, and to help me keep perspective in my own counseling situations. » Continue Reading »

Focus on the Family has now put put online a comment about Foley’s “alleged” behaviors that have perhaps damaged some families. (Dobson is not the author.)

That’s good.

Unfortunately I’m less impressed by their article than I’d hoped.

Seems to me:
They still are not outraged at top-level corruption if it happens to be Republican corruption.
They are following their talking points, and they are still encouraging deep political polarizations against, and false characterizations of, “those on the left”.
They are trying to minimize any political fallout.
They are not acknowledging or dealing with their long-term pattern of vigorous (virulent?) support of any and every Republican who can walk and talk – regardless of “sexual orientation” or any irresponsibilities or corruptions.
And they are not acknowledging or adjusting their pattern of assault on any Dem (especially, of course, any Dem named Clinton), regardless.

Here are excerpts from a letter JeanValJean posted in a comment. See the full letter here.

I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people. I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda� and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My first born son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay. He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fagâ€? incessantly, starting when he was 6 …

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair …

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you …

Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul, a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermontersâ€? …

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant.

[See also, What Was The Sin of Sodom?]

Some of my friends think I’m too cynical about this adminstration. Part of their logic is “everybody does it” or “that’s politics.” Well, maybe. But it is past the point of being very dangerous to all of us.

• Our economy is being sold to China.
• Our federal treasury is being looted by Halliburton.
• Our troops are dying in Iraq in increasing numbers for reasons as yet unexplained.
• Our government justifies torture and murder.
• The administration is making enemies all over the world at a rapid pace.
• Criminals and criminal behaviors are coddled and protected by the White House.
• The health care system, including health (non)insurance, is facing major crises.
• North Korea is still rattling nuclear sabres.
• New Orleans lies in ruin while a new hurricane season approaches.
• But the big boys in oil are doing ok!

As you well know, that list includes no exaggerations and it could be a lot longer.

This is from CNN Anchor Jack Cafferty.

Guess what Monday is? Monday is the day President Bush will speak about an issue near and dear to his heart and the hearts of many conservatives. It’s also the day before the Senate votes on the very same thing. Is it the war? Deficits? Health insurance? Immigration? Iran? North Korea?

Not even close. No, the president is going to talk about amending the Constitution in order to ban gay marriage.

This is pure politics. It has nothing to do with whether or not you believe in gay marriage. It’s blatant posturing by Republicans, who are increasingly desperate as the midterm elections approach. There’s not a lot else to get people interested in voting for them, based on their record of the last five years.

Did you read that last line carefully? Playing politics has crossed over the line into playing with our lives, our fortunes (such as they are), and our sacred honor.

“Gay marriage” is not a threat! It is not. It’s an issue being used as a power-grabbing technique by some very power-hungry people. I’m sorry to be so negative and cynical about Christian motives and moral qualifications here, but I’ve been around the block a couple of times and I have a clue as to what’s going on out there.

On the other hand heterosexual marriages in the churches are a very ripe field for harvesting some serious “defense of marriage.”

• Reduce unfaithfulness,
• reduce workaholism,
• reduce physical and emotional abuse,
• reduce coldness, preoccupation and disconnection,
• reduce inattention to the kids,
• reduce indebtedness,
• increase pay for the working poor.

Any of those would be a legitimate focus for “defense of marriage” activity. But to focus on the gay couple that may or may not live somewhere in your neighborhood – that is NOT defense of marriage. That is cowardice and hypocrisy.

The “world” sees it; why can’t the church?

[See another post here on hypocrisy in this area. And a list here.]

James L. Evans, pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church in Auburn, Alabama, recently wrote about the sins that cities (and nations) might be judged for in the light of Biblical complaints about Sodom.

He points out that Sodom, or “Sodom and Gomorrah” are commonly used as shorthand for homosexual licentiousness pervading a culture, and that

“Nearly everyone agrees that what the men of Sodom had in mind was homosexual rape … Many Bible interpreters believe that what really got God going was the homosexual element in the story. After all homosexual practices are called an “abomination,” in the book of Leviticus. But then, so is eating shrimp, so we have to wonder how far does an abomination go?”

“One way to answer that question is to observe how large the homosexual issue seems to be in the rest of the Bible. For instance, Jesus doesn’t say anything about homosexual practices at all.”

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I am an advocate of defense of marriage. But to me it does not seem a good strategy to try to defend marriage (or marriages) by being preoccupied with the private sexual behavior of a small minority of people.

I wish Christians (and churches and voters in general) could quit worrying so much about a few real or imagined homosexual activities going on somewhere and start worrying much more about the health of real marriages in our own churches and families. This would be much more productive, and much more honest, than most current “defense of marriage” activity. It would also be much more valuable than voting for candidates or legislation solely on the basis of this issue. Marriage IS a major issue, but gay activities are of little impact compared to what is going on (or not going on) in many heterosexual marriages.

If we put as much energy into

• investing in our own marriages and marriages within our churches,
• increasing faithfulness, friendship, courtesy and responsible behavior within our own marriages,
• reducing sports obsession (and other time- and money-eating obsessions),
• reducing porn addictions
• or helping helping alleviate extreme financial pressures and overcome financial ignorance or irresponsibility in our churches and homes

we would be doing much more to defend marriage than is currently being accomplished with all the anti-gay agitation.

This is very serious. I’m not promoting any “homosexual agenda” or “homosexual lifestyle.” I’m saying that if we care about the health of marriage we should put the energy and effort FIRST into the marriages we live in or are close to. Any other course starts quickly to smell of political dishonesty and manipulation and religious hypocrisy.

Further, obviously, people who are practicing homosexual behaviors (or other sexual practices that are outside Biblical standards), or who have close friends or family members who are involved in such practices, need to be especially careful to avoid dishonesty or mean-spiritedness in their conversations or activites related to this issue.

Jesus did not say that the woman brought to him (in John ch8) was blameless. But Jesus DID insist that she be punished only when “he who is without sin” would cast the first stone. Jesus, if our take on him is right, was the only one there who was without sin. BUT HE REFUSED to pick up a stone to punish her. Then, AFTER he publicly embarrassed her accusers and they all left, he told her, “Go, and sin no more.”

That is a very helpful example of moral activism!

Below is part of an article recently submitted to this site. I have not personally looked into some of the author’s claims about other recent events (we’re talking about the last 20 or 30 years), so those parts are not being posted here. But the Gannon/Guckert stuff is very much in current public record and deserves serious attention by Christians concerned about the ethics of this White House and this Administration.

This gay male prostitute, Gannon/Guckert, was running ads for his services on the internet, with nude photos, WHILE having frequent, fraudulent and unexplained access to the Bush White House. (When the explanations we are offered are manifestly fraudulent, then the events are still unexplained.) Something really stinks here.

I don’t like talking about stuff like this. After all, MANY people are suffering or dying because of Bush actions regarding Iraq, government debt, personal bankruptcy, the environment, veteran care, provision for our active duty soldiers, etc. etc. I prefer to focus on those things.

But these peoples’ hypocrisy and manipulation in matters of sexuality have been powerfully effective.

Even today, in this part of the country at least, any mention of Clinton brings nasty sex jokes, scowls, or the most vicious hatefulness and slander. Clinton’s heterosexual misconduct and this issue of homosexuality are major reasons Bush has such strong support from certain segments of society, including the very vocal religious right. But it looks like they picked the wrong hero – someone whose White House welcomes both homosexuality and adultery.

If these stories continue to come out, it’s going to get very humiliating and confusing for those who have accepted the “Christian moral values” political preaching of right wing pulpiteers. We need, if we can figure out how, to help them to make this coming transition that is being forced upon them.

The past few years have been a dismal sight in the church, watching believers tear one another apart over inflammatory personal issues (e.g. abortion, gay marriage), while failing to adequately question the government which keeps tossing the public these questions.

It’s time to take a closer look at the Bush administration, so Christians will perhaps see what hypocrisy is at work about sexuality. The goal is not to attack the emperor, but to disable the propaganda which has been poisoning the church.

First stop on our ‘real’ tour of Washington, D.C. might be an emerging scandal known as “Gannongate� regarding “Jeff Gannon� (not his real name), a gay male prostitute posing as a journalist who turned out to be a fraud. He happens to have been a frequent White House guest who often visited the White House on days when no press briefings were held (read reports here and here).

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) obtained logs of his access to the White House from the Secret Service through a Freedom of Information Act request, and those logs reveal that Gannon (aka Guckert) had remarkable access to the White House. (See Secret Service documents here).

This is not the first time the Bush family have been charged with consorting with male prostitutes ….

What Christians need to be paying attention to here is the emergence of a government which mirrors the Caesar family (as in, Ancient Rome) in crucial ways. As with all decaying civilizations, a homosexual culture emerges among the leaders …. It’s good cover for a fascist regime to espouse family values and condemn homosexuality. It’s been done before.

I write this with profound apologies to all gays who are honest. I am no one to condemn honest people for private choices.

But this case is more than that. This is about people loudly, publicly lifting up the Gospel for corruption. They take the Lord’s name in vain, and deceive much of the church. The people who are tossing all the fights at the public and the church are not who they pretend to be. Some things need to be unmasked. Their lies are destroying people’s personal and worship lives, and setting the church on fire with fights.

So as honest gay people say: “out them.� Expose them. Let no Christians be deceived anymore. (It might be worth your while to explore the intense effort honest gays are making on the internet to expose some of this.)

[Summary thoughts from Rob, lifted from a comment on the "Gay Marriage Amendment Fuss ..." thread.]

Biblical viewpoint. No excuse. No tolerance.

But somehow, no LEGALISM.

If people wanted to think that America is so great, why do they want so badly to give back to a growing government the powers that were given to them after being wrestled from Britain?

And as a Christian,
• I know that the ungodly will certainly not inherit the kingdom of God,
• and I sincerely believe that trying to force the world to follow the written law (while wrecking and minimizing the law of liberty, in both the religious and the democratic senses) is ungodly.

I, like many of the people around (well it seems, I’m not the spokesman or anything) do not condone or support or seek the justification of homosexual lifestyles. We oppose the persecution of such lifestyles by those who misrepresent Christ… remember this one? “”Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Followed by, “Woman, where have all your accusers gone? … Go, and sin no more.”

It all fits together pretty neatly from where I’m standing.
• We can preach life for repentant sinners,
• or just focus on preaching death for sinners.

“TRUE LOVE”

This is copied by permission from a “Devotional” on a Colorado-based young adult ministry site ignitedspirit.com (Rocky Mtn Conf, United Methodist Church). The author is Ben Kendrick of Boulder.

… Often times we, as Christians, are more concerned with avoiding God’s wrath than doing his actual work.

A Christian man can walk down the street condemning religions and lifestyles, but never even see the true work of a follower of Christ … I was walking with a friend recently on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. We were only two guys walking, very heterosexually, down the street, when a man sitting on a bench looked over at us and yelled out “Romans 12 says [gays] are stupid” (he also used a much more vulgar term than “gays”).

What I haven’t told you is that in order to get to the bench that he was sitting on, the man had to pass someone in need, no matter which end of the street he came from. Situated on one end of the block was a small man, a father of three, who was suffering from a degenerative skin disease similar to leprosy, who was politely asking for change. On the other end of the block was a woman in a wheelchair with no legs, a skinny dog sat patiently next to her. She was offering a smile and a prayer in exchange for change. Whether or not this man helped either of the individuals in need is unknown to me.

My friend and I had to get on to a dinner we were already late for. Either way, this man chose to condemn my friend and I, who were not exhibiting any particular evidence that would lead the man to believe we were lovers, rather than sustain and encourage the people truly in need of Christian love.

So what is it that I take from this story? I, as was described, saw a man pass up the opportunity to show Christian love; instead he chose to spread religious intolerance. I believe that this kind of relationship to serving God is the very thing that keeps people from participating in church. It is the very thing that causes people to be “spiritual” rather than Christian. This man’s inaccurate and somewhat perplexing interpretation of scripture, might have lead a less experienced Christian seeker to give up. They might say “I love God, but how can I grow closer to him when the people that claim to know him are so ill-mannered?”

It cannot be through force and fear that hearts are brought to God. Threats and ultimatums are of no use. A person has to want to be better, a person has to wish to seek God; it is an active endeavor. We need to set a better example. We need to return to an attitude that has long since faded – where love and support is at the forefront of a Christian life. Where we give more to not only our church, but also people who are less fortunate, whether they know Christ or not.

By exemplifying a Christian life of love and support we can show the world that we know a God of love and care, a God that we do not fear because we are people that show our own love and care. By spreading compassion and support we will be better suited to inspire the hearts of others.

Good luck being the people that can see where God’s love is needed.

Peace, Ben Kendrick

Today the good citizens of Kansas are voting on legislation designed to take people’s attention away from the moral quality of their own marriages and the health of their own churches.

So, surprisingly, they think of it as a “defense of marriage” act. It is not. If we as churches and as Christians were half as concerned about the quality and sanctity of marriage as we say, marriage would be a FAR healthier institution in our churches – and thus in this nation – than it is today. As it is, the rebuke of Jesus is very appropriate: “You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Lk 6:42)

If you spend your time throwing rocks into your neighbors’ crops instead of cultivating your own – guess what? EVERYbody’s crops suffer. You are not acting in defense of agriculture, even if those neighbors happen to have some very unusual or unproductive agricultural practices. But, you say, marriage is a MORAL issue, not an agricultural one. That, my friend, is all the more reason for us to attend to the moral health of our own lives, families, and churches. THAT will spread holiness. This kind of superficial and dishonest – often hateful – agitation will NOT spread holiness.

Instead, it is calculated to further undermine the moral health of our society. It is calculated to distract us from great evils going on in our nation. It is not a service to God or to the world. We have work to do, assignments from God, and irresponsible obsessions like this keep us from attending to it. That is a very serious matter.

(Here’s my other “first” Christian Democrats paper, from the early days of this site, on why many Christians cannot support the Republican party. It includes several Bible references at the end.)

The very reasons for being a Republican Christian are also the reasons for worrying about the Republican party as it is currently functioning.

A conservative writer (Cal Thomas) mentioned “Biblical principles of freedom, justice, equality, integrity, honesty, and hard work.” These moral guidelines are fundamental and raise several areas of concern about current Republican party leadership and spokespersons.

neglect of major biblical moral themes

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Congressman Ed Schrock (Republican of VA), who holds a 92% approval rating from the Christian Coalition, announced his resignation Monday. He has been very much on the bandwagon against ‘gay marriage’ and in favor of barring people with past homosexual experiences from serving in the armed forces. Why did he resign? People have come to believe (on the basis of good evidence) that he has been regularly engaging in homosexual activity.

It is never pleasant to see someone trapped by their own hypocrisy. It hurts us all. But homosexual behavior is a major emphasis of this administration and of the ‘Christian right’. When they get as pushy and dishonest as many anti-gay Republicans have been in the last 15 years it does seem appropriate when their hypocrisy comes back to bite them.

It’s sad that so many good-hearted people will be hurt by such revelations; I know some of those people and treasure them. But these are realities, and need to come into public consciousness.

How deep is the taint of this kind of hypocrisy? Well, we may find out — there are people vigorously committed to making it clear. My earnest prayer is

• that we find out within the next month and a half the profound extent of Republican and Christian Coalition hypocrisy,
• (that is, that the truth be known, for a change).
• that the information become very widely known,
• and that ‘we the people’ vote such corruption out of office.

Will you join me in that prayer?

“Value a man who speaks the truth,” the ancient proverb says.(1)
In that case we need to value Sen. John McCain.

The current radicals running the Republican party into the wall (again and again) are making a major mockery of themselves in the Senate over this gay marriage amendment thing. Do they realize how silly and entertaining they really are? Well, it WOULD be silly and entertaining if they were not being so irresponsible. They neglect and avoid their utterly crucial duties up there in order to play transparent political games.

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Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused.

The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question — how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the [Muslims] tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine.

My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.

(from Mere Christianity, the chapter on “Christian Marriage”, c 1952, 1980 by C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd., Harpercollins Edition, 2002, p112)

April 27, 2004

Shadia Drury writes of “…the sort of perverse masculinity…for [which] fatherhood is a totally foreign ideal. Instead of being fathers and husbands, men are the inhabitants of ‘guy land where life is one large sports network, supplemented with fast cars, guns, and an endless parade of ‘gal pals’ – lovely women who are programmed to satisfy male sexual fantasies and then magically disappear without a trace, let alone a child.”

“…men are easily “seduced by the social Darwinism of the political right, with its vision of the world as a vast playing field for superstar linebackers and heroic entrepreneurs.” In the absence of the Nanny State (the anathema of right-wing politics), men live out their days in fantasyland, using public funds only for bombs and spaceships, while women spend their lives caring for children and the elderly. In this way the political gender gap grows, not because women are different, but because men have turned their backs on the human race.”

What do you think of that?

This is taken from Shadia Drury’s book Leo Strauss and the American Right (p166). Drury is commenting on Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Whose Gap Is It, Anyway?”, Time (May 6, 1996, p43).

April 21, 2004

Dear Representative Nozzollio.

It has come to my attention that you and other Republican representatives are co-sponsoring a DOMA bill for NYS. (DOMA S.2220) That is a Defense of Marriage Act. I must let you know that as a married heterosexual mother, I find the efforts that you and your fellow representatives expend in this exercise to be disingenuous and totally misguided.

My marriage of 13 yrs has never been in danger from, and does not need to be defended from any person of any sexual orientation securing equal rights. What my marriage does need to be defended from is the outsourcing of jobs from the United States. (It’s hard to raise a family on unemployment benefits).
My marriage needs to be defended from not having a working wage for everyone. (When both parents have to work outside the house just to pay bills, children suffer because there is a lack adequate child care available.)

I could list all the other things that put stress on my marriage and other heterosexual marriages and lead to the high divorce rate we have in this country, but no where on that list will you find that having John and Bill or Susan and Jane living down the street from me and entering into a loving and caring marriage and raising children in such an environment is something that I and my husband need to be “defended” from. I hope that you and the rest of my representatives can stop this obvious effort to divide our country and its citizens and get back to the job of truly representing all of us and securing equal rights for all.

Sincerely,

Vicki

This was “Posted by Vicki upstate Ny” April 21, 2004 09:03 am on blogforamerica.com, and is reproduced here with her permission. In her blog post, Vicki prefaced her letter with this: “I recently got a letter to the editor printed in my local paper about gay marriage. I also sent a copy to my NYS Senate Representative (Republican).”