Monday, November 30, 2009

A Purpose Driven Life?

Rick Warren gives the standard argument against same-sex marriage in these clips - a position he basically reinterates in a more recent "Meet the Press" interview. His claim is that same-sex marriage would change a "5000 year-old" definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. There's only one issue with that - it isn't true. He goes on to claim that he doesn't want a brother and sister marrying (OK, that one is covered),an older man marrying a young girl (sorry, Rick, that was not only a Biblical custom but still goes on today in many cultures), or a man with multiple wives (You mean like David or Solomon or the many cultures which still practice that today? Read Leviticus 18:18 or Deuteronomy 21:15 if you need some insight into multiple wives in the Biblical law). The idea that monogomy is the norm that has existed through all cultures and times is just false.

I have yet to hear any commentator against same-sex marriage tell me how two loving gay partners marrying threatens my 10 year-old monogamous, "traditional", one man and one woman marriage. How does it change anything? What does threaten my marriage and the so-called "sanctity" of the "institution" of marriage is the disrespect we give to it in general. Britney Spears Vegas weddings or the moral proselytizers on their soap-boxes and their 4th marriages do more damage than a gay or lesbian couple could ever do.

The slippery slope argument doesn't work for me either. As a minister of the Gospel, I call people (same or different sex) to be monogamous couples because that is the truest form of relationship and the most responsible with the mighty power that is love. I want same-sex marriage not because I want to damage marriage, but because I want to strengthen it - and because I wish to call my brothers and sisters who are LGBTQ to the same discipleship I call everyone else to - and that includes marriage for those who wish to do the hard work of relationships.

Rick - you're missing the boat. The bibical model of marriage is not the same as our mdoel of marriage, just as the biblical model of slavery is not one that we ascribe to. The cultures and times are different. We understand (some of us) that homosexuality is not a sin or curse, but the manner in which God creates some people. It is not a choice, I did not choose my heterosexuality. It is how God created me.

I appreciate the hard pastoral position that this puts ministers in...I really do. But that doesn't mean that we can walk the line so intently that we lose our prophetic responsibility to the Gospel. Jesus was comforting and also challenging. We must be the same, even when it means that those in our own congregations are afflicted. I do not believe that Rick Warren can do the good work he has done with AIDS patients and not be changed by that. I think he addresses that in the "Meet the Press" interview. But you still have to do something, Rick. If you spend time with people dying of this horrible disease and know that they did not "choose" to have this "lifestyle" but instead are victims of a sub-culture that has sprung up from people trying to be true to themselves in a world which will not accept that and therefore forces all kinds of false living, then that new awareness asks for some sort of new response from you. No one said the Gospel was easy.

And one last thing, Rick. You can't support "equal rights for everyone" but then call those rights different things. That's called "separate but equal" and it's been tried. It doesn't work. You're going to have to bite the bullet and do some soul-searching. Either a human right is just that, or it isn't.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Health Care Reform in Oklahoma


If you are wondering what the health care reform package that will be debated in Congress soon will mean to you as a citizen in Oklahoma, read this.

There are a lot of reasons to support reform, even if it isn't perfect.

We cannot afford to do nothing.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Dissention in the ranks...


As I said my prayers last night (yes, I actually do this), I said some special words for Kileen, Texas and the Ft. Hood community. I think that the President said it well when he remarked that a soldier's death in combat is tragic enough. It is awful beyond words when they come under fire on their own soil, at their own base, fired upon by their fellow soldier.

When it happened, I immediately began to wonder what the motive was and was very nervous that we would find another Timothy McVeigh at work or, worse yet, that the shooter would be Muslim. Of course those worst fears came true. It would seem that Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychologist in an ironic twist, opened fire on his fellow soldiers on the grounds of Ft.Hood. Nothing is really known about motive, though what concerns me is that the religious tradition of the "alleged" shooter instantly produces much speculation.

Why is that? As soon as the man's name is released, clearly of Arabic origin, and the nature of his religious practices are revealed the landslide of implied or bold declarations of "domestic terrorism" are released. First of all I think it odd that he is identified so quickly by his religion.

Robert Stewart, Devan Kalathat, Michael McLendon, Steven Kazmierczak, Robert A. Hawkins, Seung-Hui Cho, Charles Carl Roberts IV, Student Jeffrey Weise, Terry Ratzmann. These are all names of the shooters from the mass murders of the past 4 years. Do you know the religious practices of any of them? Was religion part of even the speculative motives for any of these people? If the answer is no (and I think it is) then is that a double-standard?

While I don't deny that religion often plays a vital role in the motivation of unstable people, such motivation is clearly not monopolized by a single religion. Islam has no special claim on motivating people to kill others. Christianity certainly has its own history with that.

So, as I pray for Ft. Hood, for the survivors and the wounded, for the families impacted in so many ways- including the family of Major Hasan, for the community wounded by this evil, I pray also for a nation which likes to pigeonhole these awful events and turn them into overly simplistic "us versus them" scenarios. The hard truth is that this may be a whole lot more of us...

Jesus once told his followers not to judge so they won't be judged. He said that the judgements we give will be the ones we get. So we'd best be aware that the standard we are establishing now is the one that will be used for us. What kind of world are we creating?