Friday, September 22, 2006
'Together with homosexuals'
By The Erudite Redneck
These are some of the most honest, rational yet grace-filled comments on the tangled subject of homosexuality and the church that I've ever seen.
They come from Open Source Theology.
The thread is "Homosexuality and the Renewal of Creation."
"There are, of course, all sorts of ways in which we fall short of the creational ideal - the widespread breakdown of Christian marriages, from that point of view, is as much an affront to the original and originating goodness of God as homosexuality. Whatever the state of our sexual relationships, we participate in the church as broken people. Shouldn’t we confess that to one another, share it - homosexuals and heterosexuals alike? Isn’t that the proper ground for unity in Christ?"
And,
"To the extent that homosexuality is an inescapable part of this creation, whether biologically or culturally, the responsibility of the heterosexual church is now not to exclude but to struggle together with homosexuals to represent both the difficult process and the elusive end-product of creation renewal. The process calls for grace; the end-product calls for clarity of witness."
I am not necessarily "comfortable" around homosexuals. That is not the point, though. I'm not comfortable around brusque, loud-mouthed Yankee types, either. Or anybody who talks too fast for my Southern ears, for that matter.
Or, to be perfectly honest: when I'm the only white person in a crowd of (fill in the blank with *any* other ethnic group).
But, so what?
Neither Jew nor Greek, nor erudite nor redneck, nor male nor female, nor homosexual nor heterosexual IN CHRIST.
Homosexuals and transgendered people are the "others" of this era of the church (along with rank-and-file Muslims) -- the neighbors we're called to love.
A side thought:
I grew up hearing that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. Talk about splitting hairs! If God is Love, and God *is* LOVE, then He grieves over sin -- ALL sin -- and loves the sinner, especially the sinner most tangled up in sin.
The other day in what passes for Oklahoma City's "alternative" paper, a homosexual man wrote in, in response to an article talking about a cetain church's openness to LGBTs, to declare that he was NOT a sinner and that he resented being mentioned in the same breath as "prostitutes, lepers and others," other historically marginalzed people that Jesus reached out to.
I don't blame him. We're clumsy sometimes when we talk about marginalized people and how Jesus's example shows us to accept them unconditionally and let God sort out the Big Questions. The church *has* marginalized people -- and many churches still do. But the whole point of the article apparently was to extend a welcome. I hope the gay guy *gets* that eventually. And I hope that he *gets* that we're all sinners.
--ER
These are some of the most honest, rational yet grace-filled comments on the tangled subject of homosexuality and the church that I've ever seen.
They come from Open Source Theology.
The thread is "Homosexuality and the Renewal of Creation."
"There are, of course, all sorts of ways in which we fall short of the creational ideal - the widespread breakdown of Christian marriages, from that point of view, is as much an affront to the original and originating goodness of God as homosexuality. Whatever the state of our sexual relationships, we participate in the church as broken people. Shouldn’t we confess that to one another, share it - homosexuals and heterosexuals alike? Isn’t that the proper ground for unity in Christ?"
And,
"To the extent that homosexuality is an inescapable part of this creation, whether biologically or culturally, the responsibility of the heterosexual church is now not to exclude but to struggle together with homosexuals to represent both the difficult process and the elusive end-product of creation renewal. The process calls for grace; the end-product calls for clarity of witness."
I am not necessarily "comfortable" around homosexuals. That is not the point, though. I'm not comfortable around brusque, loud-mouthed Yankee types, either. Or anybody who talks too fast for my Southern ears, for that matter.
Or, to be perfectly honest: when I'm the only white person in a crowd of (fill in the blank with *any* other ethnic group).
But, so what?
Neither Jew nor Greek, nor erudite nor redneck, nor male nor female, nor homosexual nor heterosexual IN CHRIST.
Homosexuals and transgendered people are the "others" of this era of the church (along with rank-and-file Muslims) -- the neighbors we're called to love.
A side thought:
I grew up hearing that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. Talk about splitting hairs! If God is Love, and God *is* LOVE, then He grieves over sin -- ALL sin -- and loves the sinner, especially the sinner most tangled up in sin.
The other day in what passes for Oklahoma City's "alternative" paper, a homosexual man wrote in, in response to an article talking about a cetain church's openness to LGBTs, to declare that he was NOT a sinner and that he resented being mentioned in the same breath as "prostitutes, lepers and others," other historically marginalzed people that Jesus reached out to.
I don't blame him. We're clumsy sometimes when we talk about marginalized people and how Jesus's example shows us to accept them unconditionally and let God sort out the Big Questions. The church *has* marginalized people -- and many churches still do. But the whole point of the article apparently was to extend a welcome. I hope the gay guy *gets* that eventually. And I hope that he *gets* that we're all sinners.
--ER
Comments:
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Very well put, ER. I think being graceful in the spirit of our faith is oftentimes more difficult than most of us could imagine.
Where I grew up, words like "faggot" and "nigger" were thrown around easily. They cameout of my mouth, too, because I was ignorant. The KKK marched outside our school when I was in junior high, and I saw the fear in the eyes of my black friends. They didn't go outside, which was the norm, and they stayed away from windows, I guess figuring the protesters were armed.
I began to realize that spring morning what hate can do. I did not hate the black kids. Quite the opposite. Because football practices ended after the school buses were gone, my mother often gave seven or eight of my friends rides home -- yes, we all piled into that 1971 Ford LTD and scooted everyone home.
But the truth is, when I was hanging out with my white friends, I easily called everyone of them a nigger, mainly because I wanted to "fit in" with the biggots I was with. I could even justify it, saying, "If he was white, he'd be an asshole. But since he's black, he's a nigger."
Throw that name out and replace it with whichever nickname you wish when talking about any gay person. I can only hope my spirit has grown. But I'm a human, and I'ma sinner.
Where I grew up, words like "faggot" and "nigger" were thrown around easily. They cameout of my mouth, too, because I was ignorant. The KKK marched outside our school when I was in junior high, and I saw the fear in the eyes of my black friends. They didn't go outside, which was the norm, and they stayed away from windows, I guess figuring the protesters were armed.
I began to realize that spring morning what hate can do. I did not hate the black kids. Quite the opposite. Because football practices ended after the school buses were gone, my mother often gave seven or eight of my friends rides home -- yes, we all piled into that 1971 Ford LTD and scooted everyone home.
But the truth is, when I was hanging out with my white friends, I easily called everyone of them a nigger, mainly because I wanted to "fit in" with the biggots I was with. I could even justify it, saying, "If he was white, he'd be an asshole. But since he's black, he's a nigger."
Throw that name out and replace it with whichever nickname you wish when talking about any gay person. I can only hope my spirit has grown. But I'm a human, and I'ma sinner.
Dude, I heard, and said, the same thing, also in ignorance: "If he was white, he'd be an asshole. But since he's black, he's a n-----."
I still have to fight the impulse to use such racially charged language, in my mind and in supposed "OK" situations, to be totally honest.
Old habits and cultural customs do, indeed, die hard.
I think using those thoughts and words, even privately, is a poor reflection on oneself. Your words "can never hurt me." My *own* words can do me in easily. There's that whole "unbridled tongue" essay in James, ya know.
I still have to fight the impulse to use such racially charged language, in my mind and in supposed "OK" situations, to be totally honest.
Old habits and cultural customs do, indeed, die hard.
I think using those thoughts and words, even privately, is a poor reflection on oneself. Your words "can never hurt me." My *own* words can do me in easily. There's that whole "unbridled tongue" essay in James, ya know.
Sometimes we all just try too hard to take offense.
A "colored" elevator operator in the 1920's bumbs into a white girl in the crowed elevator. Next thing it's rape and the North side of Tulsa has been burned down and x hundred Blacks killed.
A Christian and a Muslim get into an argument about Allah knows what and the Christian "insults" Mohammed, hundred die in the ongoing riots. Five years later three Christians are excuted by firing squad. That was yesterday.
Rodney King said right but it has become a joke; "Can't we all just get along?"
Hell, no!
No we can't.
Not so long as our lizard brains are functioning better than our powers of reason.
So get ready for the Holy Wars and the Crusades and the Purges and the Pogams.
No not here in America. We will do it over there so we won't have to do it here. Thank God for good transportation systems and satellite TV.
The forth turning will be seven years long and equal in effect to something like a seven year long blizard. What's in your store house?
A "colored" elevator operator in the 1920's bumbs into a white girl in the crowed elevator. Next thing it's rape and the North side of Tulsa has been burned down and x hundred Blacks killed.
A Christian and a Muslim get into an argument about Allah knows what and the Christian "insults" Mohammed, hundred die in the ongoing riots. Five years later three Christians are excuted by firing squad. That was yesterday.
Rodney King said right but it has become a joke; "Can't we all just get along?"
Hell, no!
No we can't.
Not so long as our lizard brains are functioning better than our powers of reason.
So get ready for the Holy Wars and the Crusades and the Purges and the Pogams.
No not here in America. We will do it over there so we won't have to do it here. Thank God for good transportation systems and satellite TV.
The forth turning will be seven years long and equal in effect to something like a seven year long blizard. What's in your store house?
# posted by 
: 1:37 PM
: 1:37 PM
Pills, what pills?
Oh yes, those pills.
Might be a day or so behind on them.
Maybe I'll wait till WalMart declares them a generic and then do a $4 refill though.
Maybe the V.A. will fill the anti-psychotic ones.
The Fourth Turning?
A book by two Historians I think.
Ah yes!
The Saecular Winter:
"Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts for several years,....Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter."
http://www.fourthturning.com/html/fourth_turning.html
If memory serves me correctly Dr. ER has an autographed copy on her book shelf.
So the disaffected homosexual you spoke of would do well to make all the friends and connections possible for future use.
Drat it , where did I put those pills?
Oh yes, those pills.
Might be a day or so behind on them.
Maybe I'll wait till WalMart declares them a generic and then do a $4 refill though.
Maybe the V.A. will fill the anti-psychotic ones.
The Fourth Turning?
A book by two Historians I think.
Ah yes!
The Saecular Winter:
"Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts for several years,....Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter."
http://www.fourthturning.com/html/fourth_turning.html
If memory serves me correctly Dr. ER has an autographed copy on her book shelf.
So the disaffected homosexual you spoke of would do well to make all the friends and connections possible for future use.
Drat it , where did I put those pills?
# posted by : 4:25 PM
: 4:25 PM
I know what you're talking about with the Fourth Turning. My minister often refers to it in his sermons. Very interesting.
And is there just a touch of irony that the race issues addressed here come on the 100th anniversary of the Atlanta race riots in which uncounted numbers of blacks were killed?
I guess I can thank my parents and a hard line they both chose to hold to about issues of race. Racial slurs were never spoken or allowed in my home growing up. I was not allowed to play with kids who used such language -- rather, such language had to stop if I were to continue spending time with them. It was not much of an issue. Instead, in my home town it was American Indians who were more often the target of such slurs. I never saw any truth in the negative statements so again it was something I didn't pick up. The kids were all just my friends.
At the time I had no idea, either, that so many of my friends were gay and growing up coping with that issue in many different ways. Some were quite obvious even in grade school, but no one cared. I bet that is the case more often than any of us knows, too.
And is there just a touch of irony that the race issues addressed here come on the 100th anniversary of the Atlanta race riots in which uncounted numbers of blacks were killed?
I guess I can thank my parents and a hard line they both chose to hold to about issues of race. Racial slurs were never spoken or allowed in my home growing up. I was not allowed to play with kids who used such language -- rather, such language had to stop if I were to continue spending time with them. It was not much of an issue. Instead, in my home town it was American Indians who were more often the target of such slurs. I never saw any truth in the negative statements so again it was something I didn't pick up. The kids were all just my friends.
At the time I had no idea, either, that so many of my friends were gay and growing up coping with that issue in many different ways. Some were quite obvious even in grade school, but no one cared. I bet that is the case more often than any of us knows, too.
When I first read The Fouth Turning, I was very skeptical. It sounded for all the world like Issac Asimov's central character in the series of science fiction books 'The Foundation Trilogy', Hari Seldon. Seldon was a Historian that invented the science of PsychoHistory as a method of predicting the future using mass social change in history as the predictor.
But these 4th Turning guys are real good in their theory structure.
I wonder if that make Asimov a prophet as well?
But these 4th Turning guys are real good in their theory structure.
I wonder if that make Asimov a prophet as well?
# posted by : 10:25 PM
: 10:25 PM
I have issues with the shame-loading that almost inevitably seems to come with "we're all sinners," although i understand how there is a deeper and more subtle way to interpret this, perhaps.
but i agree that the man in question might at some point extend his mercy for himself to the prostitute and everyone else. grace is universal, yes. if you truly want it. and can offer it. i think.
but i agree that the man in question might at some point extend his mercy for himself to the prostitute and everyone else. grace is universal, yes. if you truly want it. and can offer it. i think.
Belle, I agree that the concept of sin is misused by those who want to judge others. It's a fine old word, though, and I think it deserves to be kept, although reinterpreted thusly:
The key verse is "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
Seen in the right way, I think that verse repeats itself. In other words, "we're all sinners" means, "none of human creation is the creation God intended."
WHY that is is a matter of deeper theology.
The remedy for it, I believe, is God's love and grace -- and the chief evidence that one has received God's love and grace is that one gives it away, or at least strives to.
BTW, something in these thoughts remind me that my favorite verse is John 3:17 (not a misprint). :-) ... I think it's the idea of guilt loading, which is so totally not necessary to sharing the Gospel, but sadly, is about the only vehicle some people know.
The key verse is "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
Seen in the right way, I think that verse repeats itself. In other words, "we're all sinners" means, "none of human creation is the creation God intended."
WHY that is is a matter of deeper theology.
The remedy for it, I believe, is God's love and grace -- and the chief evidence that one has received God's love and grace is that one gives it away, or at least strives to.
BTW, something in these thoughts remind me that my favorite verse is John 3:17 (not a misprint). :-) ... I think it's the idea of guilt loading, which is so totally not necessary to sharing the Gospel, but sadly, is about the only vehicle some people know.
And of course the Leper's Anti-Defamation League is wondering what they did that was so sinful anyway.
"Shame loading", I love it. Now I know what to call what my mother did all those long years ago! Shame Loading: neat.
# posted by : 2:04 PM
: 2:04 PM
And your church marhginalizes whom? The very Christians whose convictions have built and maintained this great nation!
No idee what yer trying to say. What part of radical hospitality do you not get? You'd be welcome there. But you wouldn't like it. One, you might have to sit next to one of "them." Two, there's not nearly enough condemnation and judgmentalism to suit ya. And three, we take the Bible seriously -- much too seriously to take it all literally.
BTW, you need to find a way to connect the convictions of our Christian American forefathers with land theft, cultural genocide, group murder masqerading as "Indian war," lying, cheating and going back on its word, that is, if you really want to talk about what made this nation "great."
Some of us don't bash certain aspects of this nation's history because we're anti-American. We're not anti-American. We're anti-bullshit when comes to this nation's history -- and much of its present, for that matter.
It wasn't God who blessed this nation. It was Mammon, plunder, and ill-gotten gains. "Christian nation," my butt.
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Some of us don't bash certain aspects of this nation's history because we're anti-American. We're not anti-American. We're anti-bullshit when comes to this nation's history -- and much of its present, for that matter.
It wasn't God who blessed this nation. It was Mammon, plunder, and ill-gotten gains. "Christian nation," my butt.
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