Insights from guys in big hats

I'm developing a deeper respect for the Catholic church, and it's coming through some writings released by both the current Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor John Paul II. And I've gotten some insights from them on the subject of sin in general, and homosexuality specifically. Here's the low down.

I read Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical letter, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) earlier this semester, and I have to say it's brilliant. It's essentially an exploration of biblical love, what it looks it like in Christ and, thus, what it should look like in His followers. In it, the Pope suggests that Christians ought to focus on showing people that we love them. This is the approach Christ takes to us, and in a lot of ways, is probably the reason anyone responds to His beckoning. If He simply revealed to us the depth of our sinfulness, going down His list of all our vices, describing how absolutely wicked we all are, our response would probably be to set ourselves on fire because of how horrible we are. Instead, He comes and says "I love you. I want to show you that I love you, how I love you, why I love you. You know you don't have it all together, and I want to replace your shortcomings and disappointments with strength and power and fulfillment. Come with me and find life forevermore." Yes He brings conviction to our hearts regarding our sin. Yes it is important to Him that we recognize our depravity and turn from it in true repentance. Yes He will show us things about ourselves we don't want to confront, and will call us to choose to lay those things down. But He does all of this in the context of perfect and complete compassion. He earns our trust and our faith by being true to His promises, by never leaving us, by always forgiving, always accepting us. If that is a good description of Christ's love reavealed in scripture and in our own experiences with Him, then it should also describe the way we love others. And this applies to Christians as much as non-believers. The professing Christian who has grown up surrounded by the church, but has never really been exposed to the transforming love of Christ needs people to show that to them as much as another who has never been inside a church building. And I can't help but believe that a large part of the reason that the church has so much trouble loving other people is because there is a huge, loving-relationship-with-God-shaped hole in the body that has been haphazardly filled with so-called absolute truth and tradition and enough insulation to keep "sin" out of our midst. Jesus didn't try to keep sin away from himself, He put Himself in the midst of sinners. And He didn't do so in order to convince them that they were rotten people; He did it so that He could touch the leper, affirm the human decency of the prostitute, and bridge the gap between the "in" crowd and the the rejects. How much different would things be today if the church had responded this way to the growth of the gay community in the past 30 years? How many of these men and women might have found real love and real acceptance and real hope and real fulfillment in Jesus if His body had listened to His Spirit? If we had been willing to sacrifice ourselves, even our own lives, to help people grasp the love of God for them, as Benedict points out in the example of Christ, things would certainly be very different. Now, I realize that the past is the past, and I only bring this up insofar as we can learn from it and make deliberate efforts to avoid the mistakes of our fathers. We need to pray that God would give us the grace to love people no matter what their sin may be, no matter how unlikely we think they are to turn to God. This, Benedict says, comes out of our realization of the commonality of mankind. I'm not so different from you, or a murderer, or a theif, or a terrorist, or anyone else. This is what Jesus was trying to communicate when he said anyone who is angry is guilty of murder. We're ALL guilty of murder, and adultery, and theft, and envy, and gluttony. No one is innocent, we just each find a unique way of expressing and concealing those things. If we approach people as simply people, all on equal footing, rather than the categories and groups and various degrees of goodness and evilness we have created for them, then it's not so hard to love, because we realize that to "do unto others as you would have then do unto you" really means "do unto others as they would have you do unto them." We all want essentially the same things, and it is those things that we are called to give one another through the love of Christ.

Alright. So this has been a lot more generally applicable than the last post's specific questions about homosexuality. But honestly, there's not a lot of reason to discuss is separately from other sin, because it ultimately isn't so different. Like anything else, it's a dead-end avenue we choose in seeking for the love and intimacy and peace and fulfillment we are meant to find in God. If that's the case, then our response should be to offer God's love to them by demonstrating it ourselves. That's outreach. That's evangelism. That's the gospel. It's the same gospel for the guy who wonders if he's gay, the girl who wonders if she has any value, the mom who feels incapable of raising her kids well, the man who can never live up to his own expectations, the dying woman who's not sure if her life counted for anything. Jesus came to give us life.

Ok, I'm gonna hold off on the stuff from John Paul II, because this post has grown much longer than I thought it would. That's what happens when all you do is write term papers... As usual, thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Big, important, and as yet unanswered questions

Disclaimer: Long post below. I claim no responsibility for time lost reading this post. If you are cooking something, finish it first before you read this. It's long. Real long. Unexpectedly long. But hopefully thought-provoking. Read at your own risk.


A conversation came up the other day (after the previously blogged fashion show which was actually tons of fun) between Tiara, myself, and another of our close friends. Like most really deep conversations, it wasn't planned, and we have no idea how our line of discourse led us there, but somehow we ended up talking about homosexuality and why it is (or isn't) wrong in the context of biblical morality. I'll make this clear first and foremost, I don't think it's right. My understanding of the scriptures and the character and purposes of God has led me to the strong conviction that God didn't design us for homosexual relationship, and that such relationships really skew the image of God in human beings. I should also make it clear that I don't see homosexuality as a different kind of sin, or somehow any more or less evil than any other sin. Just like sins of selfishness, envy, anger, gluttony, unforgiveness, murder, theft, etc., homosexuality, or, for that matter, unhealthy heterosexual relationships, portray God and His children in a false light. God created each of us to be essentially like Him, to reflect His image in a unique way that can't be found in anyone or anything else. While we're here on the earth, He desires to use us to show Himself to other people incarnationally, as the adopted brothers and sisters of Christ. Any sinful action, petty or felonious, not only affects one's own ability to hear, see, feel, and understand God, but has tremendous impact on other people too. This is especially true for those with whom one has a close relationship. If this relationship is founded on truth and love, and is centered on God and directed by the Holy Spirit, God can work through our mistakes and redeem our relationships in spite of our shortcomings. But if a relationship is founded on something other than the truth of God, whether it's a homosexual relationship or an abusive relationship or a relationship of manipulation, deception, etc., it will have extremely limited potential to reflect the image and character of God. In such a situation, it is the very foundation of that relationship that must be redeemed and replaced with truth before it can bear good fruit.

So that's my ideological perspective on the situation. In the conversation, we didn't all have the same opinion on that. For whatever reason, the bible isn't entirely clear on WHY homosexuality is a sin. And unfortunately, a large portion of the church has been content with a "because the bible says so" explanation, which I think falls tragically short of what God really wants for us. He doesn't want us to simply accept His rules because they're the rules; He wants us to know Him, to understand Him, to embrace the truth because we have seen it to be true, to reject lies because we see them to be lies. He wants us to come to Him with questions of why. He's our Father, not some autocratic dictator, and He wants our love as well as our obedience. And I believe that when we come to Him with these questions, and ask them with an open heart and an open mind, He has promised to answer. I believe this is part of what Jesus suggests in Matthew 7 when He says "Ask, and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you." It's part of what God speaks to Israel through Jeremiah in chapter 29, saying "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

So here's what I'm asking, and hoping to receive.

How do I explain this to someone I love who is struggling with homosexuality, without coming across as judgemental or condemning or holier-than-thou? I know that a part of loving someone is talking to them about things they are doing that hurt themselves and others. But in this, where is the balance between the cold, hard truth and compassion? How do I communicate to that person, "I love you unconditionally, and that will never, ever change, under any circumstances. But I think you are hurting yourself by doing this." Largely because of the way the church has dealt with homosexuality, along with what I see as the natural human defense mechanism, the "I think you are hurting yourself" comes across as judgemental, even when spoken in love, and the "I love you unconditionally" gets lost in the fray. I think part of the answer that God has been showing me revolves around the necessity of deep, loving, transparent relationships with people, both Christian and non-Christian. For example, if I walk up to someone I know from a class whom I know to be homosexual, and start talking to them about how I think what they are doing is wrong and hurtful, that person will probably not receive me very well. Even if I express to them clearly and repeatedly that I am doing this out of compassion and love, and I just want to see them take hold of the best God has for them, my words are probably falling on deaf ears. I don't have much credibility with someone I barely know. I haven't spent time with that person, invested in that person, shared my life with that person, made myself vulnerable to that person. In short, I haven't been Christ to that person. I've been a prophet and a judge, but not a brother or a friend or a servant. And honestly, even in my group of friends at school, there are only a few people with whom I feel like my relationship is close enough and strong enough to bring confrontation like that. To me, the key, as Paul points out numerous times, is that the relationship itself is the most important thing, because it represents the unity of the Body of Christ. If the relationship isn't deep enough to withstand such a confrontation, I should probably wait. Not only because I risk alienating that person, but because that probably indicates that I am not close enough to really see what is going on in his/her life. I've probably taken an incomplete picture and filled in the blanks with assumptions. But if that person has let me in and allowed me to see who he/she really is, and I've done the same in return, I will be able to see and understand what is really going on, and I will know how to approach him/her in a way that won't offend or insult. If I know that the bonds between us are deep and strong and rooted in real love, I have the responsibility to confront issues of sin. And in doing so, I know I'm not risking the unity of our relationship, because I know that the other person knows I really love him/her, and that anything I say is out of that love rather than judgement or self-righteousness.

I think this is true on the level of group to group relationships as well. Right now, there is very little room for constructive dialogue between the church and the homosexual community, because there is not much mutual respect. The church sees homosexuals as liberal lust-driven perverts who want to corrupt their children and destroy their cities. The homosexual community sees the church as a group of fire-breathing, judgemental, right-wing conservative bigots whose preferred method of confrontation involves pitchforks and hangman's nooses, or at least picket signs and streetcorner sermons. Both groups have formed these images based on a small sample of the other, and love and value for their shared human-ness has disappeared from the equation. Now, the church tends to automatically discount the questions and points of view of homosexuals. Homosexuals similarly brush off most anything the church says because it's presumed to be judging or self-righteous. The only way to break down these walls is to prove that they aren't based on truth. If Christians realized that their first duty was loving people, not fixing them, then we would see more success in building relationships with homosexuals. If we looked at them as people who need love rather than problems who need solutions, we would see that we aren't really very different. If we really got to know people, and let them really know us, we would find that there is amazing ability to help each other get through our struggles and come out on top. We have to realize and accept that it will be a two way deal; we need them as much as they need us.

So here's a few questions for which I don't yet have many answers. When (not if) same-sex marriage/civil unions become more widespread in the US and the world, how should the church respond? If two men/two women who are legally married to each other become Christians and start getting involved in the church, should they be forced to split up? Can the church maintain it's moral integrity and still allow them to be together? If they are required to split up, should that include legal divorce/termination of their civil union? Legally, would churches who required such couples to split up risk losing non-profit status on the grounds of discrimination? How should the church approach people who are born hermaphrodites, and are not clearly one gender or the other? Should these people be denied the option of marriage? Should they be forced to "choose" to be treated as either male or female, or is it better to encourage them (and ourselves) to embrace the way that God created them? What about those who are transgendered? If someone who has had a sex change becomes a Christian and wants to marry, what should the church do? If someone was born physically male, and had surgery to become female, is it acceptable for them to marry a man, despite having been born male, or a woman, despite their current physical status?

When it comes down to it, I guess this is just a whole lot more complicated than most Christians think it is. We would like it to be a simple black or white, true or false, right or wrong, good or evil equation, but it just isn't that easy. And we would like it if there was a clear, explicit scriptural instruction for each of these situations, but there isn't. Maybe it's just a matter of simply loving people the way God has loved us. If that were simply black or white, good or evil, every one of us would fall on the evil/black side, and I gotta say I'm glad that's not the case. I'm glad Jesus loves a bunch of people who haven't done a single thing to earn it, who fall squarely in the gray area, and loves them enough to get tortured and killed so they have a shot at realizing who they really are.

This has been a bajillion times longer than I intended. If you made it this far, it's probably either because you think I'm a crazy liberal relativist who may not even be saved, or because these questions/potential answers have made you think. If you're in the second group, please post your thoughts. I don't by any means think that I have all the answers, or that the ones I have written here are bulletproof. Poke holes in these thoughts, pick them apart, dissect them. God speaks through constructive dialogue, and I wouldn't mind hearing what He has to say here.

So this is kinda weird...

...but I'm actually excited about a fashion show. Haha. It's actually being put on by a good friend of mine. I'm doing the videography for it...should be pretty cool. She has done some pretty awesome designs, at least in my grossly uneducated and fashion-ignorant opinion. Anyway, check out the article above, and I will post some pictures later.

Here's a cool thought...

This is an excerpt from a response I posted on Kelly's blog today, when I should have been working on a paper. Click the link above to check it out. To give a little context, there's been a really intersting discussion of gender and church leadership on Kelly's blog over the past few weeks. Surprisingly, it's been (so far...) an entirely civil, 'I see what you're saying, here's my take on that issue' kind of dialogue, very constructive. In discussing whether women should hold the position of 'pastor,' Kelly brought up the point that in today's Church, the 'pastor's' job description is probably not very strongly rooted in scripture. Pastors often take on or are given more duties and responsibilities than any one person should have, and are held in higher esteem than other members of the communities they lead. This results in pastors feeling over-worked and un-fruitful, not just because they are too busy, but because many of the responsibilities require gifts they do not have. Because the pastors are doing almost everything, many lay people feel like their gifts are not needed or appreciated, so they hesitate or neglect to offer their gifts to the body. In some cases, when they do offer their gifts, they are politely told that there is currently no need for that service, but we do have a few more spots in the choir.

Anyway, I didn't intend to write this much here, but my response basically agreed with Kelly's assessment, and added a reference to the "one body, many members" passage in Romans 12, 1Corinthians 12, and throughout Ephesians. If each member of the body isn't functioning properly, the body as a whole is not healthy. If one or multiple parts of the body are taking on the roles of other parts, or are passing their role off on others, they either go dormant or end up wearing themselves out and failing.

All this to lead into...

...the really cool image-narrative that sort of ended up on the screen as I kept typing. I thought it was worth sharing, because I think it illustrates part of what motivated Jesus to take our place on the cross. Let me know your thoughts.


"Here's a cool thought. The Church wakes up tomorrow, and for the first time in a long, long, long time, Her hands don't worry about trying to chew Her food; Her tongue doesn't argue with Her feet over who gets to do the walking; Her heart doesn't try to jump out of Her chest and pick up the newspaper, while fixing breakfast, watching the news, and pumping blood through Her veins; and Her mind, Her senses, Her emotions, Her reproductive system, and Her soul remember the days when they weren't numbed, locked up, or paralyzed, and once again take hold of the roles they were created to fill. And She doesn't just get up and limp and hobble and fall back down again. She remembers how to run, to jump, to swim, to dance, to make love to the Lover she can once again embrace. She sees again how He longs to use those senses She had allowed to die to awaken her to real love, real life, real passion. She pauses for a moment to reflect on the foolishness of Her mistakes. Then He takes Her hand, looks Her square in the eyes with a passion that would frighten a lesser Woman to tears, and says, 'I've got so much more to show You.'"

Starting fresh, finishing up, starting fresh

My subscription to Squarespace ended last week, and since I'm, as they say, poor, I have decided to go with a blog service that is more of the free persuasion. And this is it. That's the first "starting fresh."

As for the "finishing up," I'm almost finished with my last semester at William and Mary. While that is most definitely without hesitation a good thing, it does feel kinda weird. Williamsburg has been home for the past 5 years. For that matter, Hampton Roads has been home for the past 19 years. And in about a month, it won't be anymore. Now don't get me wrong, that is some of the best news I've had the privelege of announcing. I am absolutely ready to be out of Williamsburg and Hampton Roads, and I look forward to getting out of Virginia and the US eventually. But even for those of us who have (suffer from?) wanderlust, change is a weird thing. Exciting-weird, but weird nonetheless.

So it looks like I'll be moving up to the DC area sometime in May. That's the second "starting fresh." I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet for a job, or where I'll be living. Well, sort of. One thing I plan to do this summer is get the ball rolling on starting my own business. I was thinking about things a few weeks ago, what I like to do, what I'm good at, what's important to me, etc., and I figured that there's no reason those things shouldn't all come together in what I do for a living. For me, one thing I love doing the most is audio recording and production. I've been doing it since high school, and (if I do say so myself) I've gotten fairly good at it in the past few years. It's something that allows me to flex my creative muscles, while helping other artists achieve the sound they want to create with their music. To me it's both a career and a ministry. It would give me inroads to the music community, a great way to meet people and form relationships through which I can demonstrate the love of God. The reason I got into this as seriously as I have is because people used it as a ministry/relationship tool and taught it to me. The reason I had a professional quality CD recorded 2 years ago is because someone who could have charged a whole lot of money wanted to help me out as a young artist, and did it for free. THAT is exciting to me. I want to pay that forward, several times over.

So if you pray, mention me and this new endeavor when you're talking with God. I really believe this is an idea from Him, and I know I'm gonna need a whole lot more help from Him if it's gonna work. You can pray that He would connect me with the right people, those who need this service as well as those who want to support me in this. I'm not really equipped to do any kind of large scale projects yet, and the equipment for that is far from cheap. Also pray for direction on employment for me starting this summer, because I obviously won't have enough business from this to pay the bills right off the bat.

So that's it for today. I have aspirations to update this regularly...we'll see what actually happens. May His face shine upon you today.