Author: Frank

I left off with the notion that we discard the whole Bible, since if it’s culturally irrelevant in a few things doesn’t that make it irrelevant in all things? That’s not really what the Newsweek author meant. A better way of putting it would be that the specifics of the Bible aren’t culturally relevant, but the general themes are. That’s a dangerous argument to make, for where do you draw the line? Many want to discard Paul for his teachings about women’s roles in church. But if you throw him out completely, you lose the linchpin of Evangelical theology regarding salvation- faith alone. Martin Luther actually wanted to get rid of the book of James because it focused too much on works- “faith without deeds is useless” (James 2:20) And Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the Gospels omitting all of Jesus’ miracles and claims of deity, leaving Jesus as no different than Confucius. And if Jesus is just a good man who taught some good things that we should generally apply to be good people, then I’m wasting my time on Sundays and hundreds of martyrs throughout history died for nothing.

• The definition of marriage

If the Biblical definitions of marriage are culturally outdated (Ms Miller calls them “throwaway lines”), and the teachings of Jesus are reduced to good advice, then how do we define marriage? Ms Miller would argue that we cannot rely on the Bible for our definition since neither Jesus nor the Bible as a whole “explicitly define marriage as between one man and one woman.” Although she quotes where the Bible does, in fact, define marriage: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (Gen 2:24, Mt 19:5, Mk 10:7, Eph 5:31) If this doesn’t define marriage as between a man and a woman, then I don’t know what does. But Ms Miller makes the strong statement that, “scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married- and a number of excellent reasons why they should.” Yet, I failed to see these numbers of excellent reasons. Instead I only saw justifications and reading meaning into the text that isn’t there.

But she does bring up a good point that marriage has two definitions- civil and religious. Let’s look at each.

• Civil marriage

The article does well to spell out the civil benefits to marriage, none of which by the way are denied where there are “Civil Unions”. And the only Biblical references to civil marriage are related to dowries and divorce laws. Neither of which are good examples. Dowries were common at the time (and for a few more centuries) but are rare now. (I know I’m contradicting myself on the argument of cultural relevancy, but I’ll go into this more when I talk about the Old Covenant.) Yet our Biblical definition of marriage is of the man leaving his family, contrary to the custom of a dowry and even contrary to our current convention of the wife taking the husband’s name. As for divorce, it was never meant to be an easy option, and definitely not “no fault” as it’s legally argued today. In fact, Jesus had to correct the current practice of divorce because it strayed from its original intent. And I can’t help but agree the author that we, as Christians, don’t exactly set the bar high with our own marriages. But I don’t think that means we should have no say in the matter.

• Religious marriage

This one is hard to define Biblically, especially since good examples are few and far between. So we need to look beyond example and look at the theology of marriage. Ms Miller calls it the “frustrating, semantic question,” which I certainly agree. She goes on and asks, “should gay people be married in the same, sacramental sense that straight people are?” What’s important here, is how you choose to define ‘sacrament’. (And I admit in advance, that I am as far as you can get from a seminary student.) If you’re Catholic, there are seven sacraments during which (and I can’t think of a better way to put this) something supernatural happens. More generally, sacraments are earthly attempts to participate in spiritual ‘mysteries’. This eliminates Holy Order, Anointing of the Sick, and Last Rights which leaves us with Baptism, Communion, Confirmation, and Marriage.

For the sake of this argument, I’ll lump Confirmation in with Baptism. Each of these are physical rights, or ceremonies, that reflect spiritual realities that are beyond (easy) explanation, hence, a mystery. In the case of Baptism, this is a physical act that represents our spiritual transformation as being ‘born again’ (reference Romans 6:3-4 among others). (I’ll spare the baptism for salvation argument.) For Marriage, the physical relationship between a husband and wife reflects the relationship between Jesus and his church. Ms Miller defines it where “two people promise to take care of each other, profoundly, the way they believe God cares for them.” This is a great definition, except that it intentionally leaves out genders for the sake of her argument. But Ephesians 5 specifically relate the role of the husband to Christ (sacrificial, providing) and the wife to the Church (submission and respect). In gay marriage, there is no husband and wife, so the definition breaks down and the sacrament can’t reflect the spiritual truth of Jesus and the Church.

So from this I the case can be made that there is no Biblical justification for gay marriage, in the religious sense. A case could be made however for gay marriage in the civil sense, or at least you can’t make a clear-cut case against it. But there’s still more to the story- the relationship between David and Johnathan, Old vs New Covenant, and both Jesus and Paul preaching about inclusion. I’ll cover those next time.

The Cover Story of this week’s Newsweek is titled, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage.” Of course we should expect magazine covers to invoke sensationalism in order to catch our eye, and there’s really no more sensational a headline than using the inspired word of God to defend a social change that I believe is contrary to not only the letter of God’s Word, but also the Spirit. It would be one thing if that was the headline on a journal of theology, where such a headline would be appropriate, but this is one of the “big three” main-stream media news magazines. The headline raises this issue to the same level of newsworthiness as war or the economy. By doing so, requires Christians to be able to defend their opinions on this issue and we cannot do so unless we know our Bible.

The portal, On Faith, has several responses to this article from authors, ministers, rabbis, and theologians. For a balanced and reasoned response, I recommend reading Susan Jacoby’s and Irwin Kula’s. I read Al Mohler’s first, expecting to agree with his case. But I think he glossed over the arguments and as several comments noted, he also cherry-picked his use of scriptures to justify his position. Truth is, both sides are cherry-picking, and neither acknowledges the broader theological implications of gay marriage.

In an effort to avoid cherry-picking myself, I’m going to address “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage” point by point. In advance though, I need to define my own ground rules. I’m not a Sunday pew-filler, or a cafeteria Christian. Nor am I a literalist fundi, or a Bible-thumper. I do believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, but that doesn’t mean I take it all as literal (for example, see this post from one of the primary debates). I also hold to the scripture that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Heb 13:8) And that “the word of the Lord stands forever.” (1 Pt 1:25, Is 40:6-8) Most importantly, I believe the underlying purpose of the entirety of the Bible is to relate God’s attempt to have a heart-felt relationship with his creation. Because of that, I don’t look at it as a set of rules, or of ancient anecdotes, but instead of a comprehensive history of the relationship between Him and his people.

I also want to throw out a couple quotes from On Faith that also helps set the tone:

“Faith-based arguments on behalf of gay marriage actually give aid and comfort to the sort of right-wing religious groups… because they legitimize the idea that religious belief is a proper test for determining legal rights.” –Susan Jacoby from On Faith

“There is a difference between what the Bible prescribes and what it describes.” –Leith Anderson from On Faith

“Here is the sad truth about the unimportant, uninteresting, irrelevant, add no value and unfortunately polarizing and divisive way in which religion and scripture is used in contemporary culture. Everyone simply brings their religious views and their scriptural passages to prove, legitimate, and affirm their already held political and psychological positions. This is religion as apologetics and proof texting.” Which, he later says, “basically makes contemporary religion a whore for political positions whether liberal or conservative.” -Irwin Kuls from On Faith

All that said, I humbly submit my takes on the points Lisa Miller makes in the article. This ran long, so I’m going to split it up.

• The Old Testament Example

Lisa Miller opens up by giving the examples of Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon as a case of the Bible not endorsing what we consider today to be “traditional marriage”. Each were polygamists and in some cases were deliberately unfaithful. But as the quote above notes, just because it’s described, doesn’t mean it’s permitted. In fact, the polygamy of David led directly to his struggles with his sons and Solomon’s willingness to marry for political gain compromised Israel’s spirituality and ultimately resulted in the country’s split. There are more examples than can be counted of God’s people not obeying God’s Law. She tries to turn the argument around when she uses the cases of Moses and Esther who disobeyed God’s law against marrying foreigners as examples of breaking convention that ultimately benefited the greater community. But these cases are the exception, not the rule, as there are several books in the Bible dedicated to the poor examples of Israel’s kings who, more often than not, disobeyed these rules on marriage.

• The New Testament Example

Just because Jesus wasn’t married doesn’t mean that he didn’t value marriage. Remember his first miracle was at a wedding (I don’t believe in coincidences in the Bible) and also that an angel had to intervene to convince Joseph to marry his pregnant fiance, Mary (so marriage was obviously important to someone). And Jesus’ statements “against” family (Mk 3:31-35, Lk 9:57-62) were really to stress the importance of the spiritual over the temporal.

As for Paul, it is argued whether he actually was married at one time. But despite that, why would he speak so strongly against marriage in only one of his letters (1 Corinthians) yet give explicit instructions regarding marriage in several (1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Timothy) if he was opposed to it? Any an examination of what Paul writes about marriage (beyond what Ms Miller limits to 1 Corinthians 7) affirms, not denies, traditional marriage.

• The cultural example

Ms Miller asks who in this day and age would “turn to the Bible as a how-to script?” But isn’t that what every couple who is married in a church does? Isn’t there a sermon, or a brief message, or at least an invocation in every religious marriage ceremony that uses the Bible as a guideline for marriage? And I also know from personal experience that some denominations recommend The Song of Songs (or Solomon, depending on your translation) as honeymoon reading.

She later comments that, “the Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it’s impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours.” This is a common argument for everything from gay marriage to ordaining women and even including the abolition of slavery. But think about what this statement implies. It is essentially saying that since our world is so far removed from what God intended, that God’s word is irrelevant today. But if we are striving to do God’s will and seeking a relationship with him, shouldn’t the opposite be true? Shouldn’t we long for the world to be as God intended and shape our lives to conform to that? (This is different than forcing others to conform, which is a fundamental difference from the Religious Right.)

This is sobering, considering how far our world today as strayed from God’s ideal. Gay marriage aside, regardless of denomination, liberal or conservative, fundamentalist or casual, it’s hard to argue that our culture isn’t overly materialistic (you can’t argue recent headlines), sexual (turn on prime-time TV, or listen to popular music), and selfish (do you know your neighbors by name). Does that mean we should just throw out the Bible altogether? From Ms Miller’s argument, we might as well.

More to come later….

Last time I wrote about the incident in the Castro District in San Francisco. I want to relate a similar instance that happened to me. This wasn’t a case of persecution, but instead of how to answer those who would seek to twist my faith for their purposes.

I was part of the wedding party for one of my best friends and his reception was downtown. We had to park in a parking structure across from the reception site. As we were getting ready to cross the street we saw a parade coming our way. It was a Saturday in the summertime, so it could’ve been anything. We rushed as fast as we could to cross the street before the ‘parade’ passed by. As we did so, the crowd gathered opened up in cheers. You see, the parade was a march for gay rights and a group of guys in tuxedos obviously were taking part in the march for the sake of gay-marriage. Um, no.

So we got to the reception, and the Evangelist who ministered the wedding was holding the door for us with his right hand while his left clutched a Bible. As the crowd passed and they saw the Word in his hand, they began to shout obscenities towards him and some even started throwing things at him. Then a gentleman came up to us with a video camera and asked him about his thoughts regarding homosexuality. In my mind, I was itching for a fight, but the brother responded by simply saying that we should love the homosexual community just as much as Jesus does and not treat them any differently because “we all sin and fall short of the Glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) The cameraman jumped on this opportunity to pontificate about the sins of homosexuality. This guy claimed to be a Christian! I figured from his arguments that he was possibly part of Fred Phelps church, but I didn’t see a counter demonstration.

He argued that we should not tolerate sin and should be vocal against it. The evangelist countered by pointing out that we should condemn sin, not the sinner and reach out to others with love. The cameraman responded with the example of Jesus’ harsh words regarding sin and that he wasn’t afraid to get under others’ skin. But the example he used was where Jesus was speaking out against the religious hypocrites in the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law (Matthew 23) and a better example would be how Jesus reached out to the woman at the well (John 4) or the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11). The cameraman then tried to use the example of Jesus losing his temper in the Temple courts (Jn 2:12-17). But again, his righteous indignation was against the religious legalists and those taking advantage of others.

Eventually the cameraman ran out of examples and arguments, thanked the Evangelist for his time, and walked away. This brother earned a new level of respect from me, and humbled me in my attitudes and willingness to fight instead of reason. This was a perfect example of “be[ing] prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15)

I’ve written before about how Christians in this country suffer a persecution complex. A good example of this is the book Persecution by David Limbaugh, where he opens with a very well-written summary of the role religion played in this country’s early years but then spends the second half of his book listing anecdotes of trivial cases of persecution. The example that always comes to mind is of a public librarian who was reprimanded for wearing a Cross on her necklace. You see, the public library is an institution of the State and I guess the librarian is an authority figure so had to leave the Cross at the door. I’m sure that’s the exception, not the rule. Compare that with the physical life-threatening persecution Christians suffer across the globe. Remember, when Jesus sent his disciples out to evangelize, he instructed them to shake the sand of their feet if they were rejected and walk away (Mt 10:14). Hardly the example of the legal, political and media retaliation we see today.

But sometimes persecution in this country can turn violent. Take the case of the recent “riot” in the Castro District of San Francisco. If you haven’t seen the video or heard Bill O’Reilly rant on about it, the story goes that a group of Christians who weekly reach out in the Castro District were “assaulted” by a larger group of gays about a month ago. The girl heading it up was hit with her own Bible, knocked down and kicked repeatedly, and I guess hot coffee was also poured on others. The videos don’t capture the incident, but instead follow the group as they’re being led out of the area by police escort.

So is this what the Culture War has become? Should we expect violence in response to the Gospel of Jesus? Instead of asking, “what would Jesus do?” in this circumstance, I ask “what would you do?” How would you go about sharing the Gospel in a predominantly gay community right after the passage of Proposition 8? How would you fight on this front in the Culture War?

The girl, Christine Cloud, was on a local talk station recently and the host opened it up for calls of encouragement and support or questions about the incident. One gentleman called and asked exactly what their form of evangelism was there, since in the video it doesn’t look like they’re acting Christ-like. I’m not sure what he was talking about since I don’t see any actual interactions with the Christian group. But the host turned the question around by asking what he’d do, if he was a Christian at all. Pretty insulting if you ask me. But the gentleman responded much like I would.

He encouraged those reaching out in such an area to live there and let their light shine, not to street-preach or cause confrontation, but to invite others into their homes and practice hospitality, express love instead of condemnation, and let their lives reflect the Gospel. Sound doctrine if you ask me, and this group did just that. They were singing Amazing Grace when they were assaulted, not street preaching and the girl lives near the area, has friends there, and frequents the coffee place where this all happened.

So in this battle, it sounds like the Christian group was fighting fair, so to speak. But the other side? Police were required to get the group out of the area. The mob repeatedly tried to push past the police, disrespecting their authority, and hundreds followed the group out chanting, “shame on you!” Shame on them? Really? If you watch the full video, you even see someone trying to overturn a car. Shame on who?

On this particular front in the Culture War, the only effective weapon is the love of Jesus. The video bears out the hostile party. Could things have been handled differently? Hard to say without being there, but the Christians handled the aftermath correctly. They turned the other cheek. The girl even refused to press charges and offered forgiveness. Contrast that with the curses from the mob.

Truth is, something like this is unlikely to happen to Average Joe Christian (no relation to Joe the Plumber). But we should look at it as an example of a compassionate ministry turning the other cheek.

For the “official” story from the ministry, you can go here.

So Thanksgiving has passed so we’re now officially in the Holiday Season. If you braved the crowds on Black Friday, you no doubt saw the Salvation Army bell-ringers in front of your favorite store, indicating that Christmas is right around the corner. If you’re like me, your neighborhood is increasingly illuminated by Christmas lights, but yours aren’t up yet. And soon we’ll be facing one of the hardest decisions we’ll have to make before the New Year. No, not what to get our wives or children for Christmas. Instead, the struggle over how to great people we meet in the checkout lines, at work, and even at church. Do we say Merry Christmas, try and guess by wishing others a Happy Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, or stay PC and just wish others a Happy Holidays?

That’s right, it’s peak season in the Culture War, where we’ll be bombarded with headlines about Christmas trees being taken out of airports, Nativity scenes being stolen, and renewed calls to “keep Christ in Christmas.” So I’ll be doing a series of posts regarding the Culture War and how we should fight it.

The Culture War has many fronts:

• Politics
• Finances
• Possessions
• Pop-Culture
• Language
• Ministries
• Evangelism
• Persecution
• Example

This isn’t comprehensive or authoritative or in any particular order. But between now and Christmas, when the battles in the Culture War seem most fierce, I’m going to describe each of these and give examples. By doing so I hope to prepare ourselves for the battles ahead, encourage our hearts with the Word of God, and train our minds to see the battles the world wants us to take for granted. And through all of this, the ultimate goal of the Culture War is to “be holy because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16, Lev 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7).

Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. We should all set aside some time to pray for those brothers and sisters in Christ who don’t live in countries with the religious freedoms we enjoy here in the United States. I posted earlier about how we take our freedoms for granted and suffer a persecution complex and gave a couple of examples of real persecution. I want to add to that that the American Church (TM) is also lazy and comfortable. And our faith suffers for it.

Below is a controversial sermon brought to my attention a while back by another blog. If you don’t have the patience to watch the whole hour of it, I posted an interview of this brother (that’s right, I’m calling him ‘brother’) with Kirk Cameron that’s only ten minutes. And if YouTube isn’t your thing, check out his ministry.

And the interview that cuts right to the heart of it (check out Kirk Cameron’s reaction at the end!)

And if your faith isn’t challenged enough by all of that, check out what’s really going on overseas, where it’s not comfortable to be a Christian. Voice of the Martyrs catalogues persecution in the global church and HOPEworldwide gives inspirational stories of Christians serving where it’s least comfortable to do so.

Today is a day to challenge our comfort level, to challenge our faith. Pray not only for the Persecuted Church, but also for our own faith, and for God to provide the opportunity to be uncomfortable for the cause of Christ. That’s a hard prayer, and we might not like His answer, but that’s the only way for the American Church (TM) to grow, Christ to be preached, and God to be glorified.

“Everything is possible for him who believes.”

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mk 9:23-24)