In the aftermath of last week's SCOTUS ruling, I see a lot of fear from my fellow Christians. Fear that their ideals, their values, will be alienated.
And I get it. I really do. And there's a part of me that sympathizes with them more than my liberal friends would like to know.
But in the midst of all of the hubbub, after the dust had settled, something occurred to me.
That alienation they are feeling today? I've had to live with that same alienation for 26 years, as I've tried to find my place within the evangelical church. Not because of the lifestyle I've lived, nope...I've been married for 20 years to the same woman, have never betrayed that covenant, I've raised my kids to the best of my ability, and I have always tried to be an agent of compassion and grace.
No, the alienation comes about from so many because I'm not condemning enough. Because I don't judge people on welfare without knowing them, because I won't agree with the idea of kicking undocumented workers who've committed no crime out of the country...but mostly because I refuse to condemn my LGBT neighbors.
And if you're looking for me to change in those positions, it's not going to happen.
I believe, and I remain firm in the belief that conviction is the job of the Holy Spirit. It is not mine. And I really do not want to be subject to the kind of judgment I believe I'm due. As such, I refuse to subject others to that judgment.
The one, the single objection that I have heard repeatedly from others within the church is that their refusal to marry homosexuals might cost them their tax exempt status.
To that concern, I have to ask the question: who do you serve, God or Mammon? Scripture is clear that you cannot serve both.
For 3 years, out of my own pocket, I have self funded a very small, one person ministry. It's not near what I would like it to be, but I chose at the outset to refuse nonprofit status. I chose it because it is important that my motives in this particular ministry never become financial.
I say that not to brag, I am saying it simply because, in the absence of tax exempt status, you find a way. And while it will be hard, it does not mean the end of any ministry.
I beg my brothers and sisters in Christ to remember that at the core of this rather contentious issue are people who are simply trying as best they can to live out their faiths. And that refusing to condemn another person for their failings is not a sin.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Friday, June 26, 2015
Thoughts on the SCOTUS Marriage Decision
I have hesitated in writing these thoughts. I don't want to, as they will almost certainly cost me friends.
But I feel I must.
With the Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage coming down today, it puts me in the middle of a decision that has, in the minds of some, left this country deeply divided. I pray for healing, and want to make my position as clear as possible.
From my earliest years, I have been an outcast. I have never fit in in any social group. Ever. It has cost me, it has cost my family dearly. To the point where I have actually wondered if taking my own life would help my family experience a normalcy that they never can with me.
In September, 1988, I made a life changing decision for Jesus. For my atheist friends, please respect that and leave it there. It made a fundamental change in my life.
What it didn't do was solve the social problem. In church after church, town after town, I have always been a sort of pariah. I know the prayer of Jabez well (and it's not the prayer you think it is), because I, too, have prayed that God would cause me not to cause pain on those I love.
In the midst of it, though, I have found that the people who have always been there for me, without fail, have been the people I have found outside the church. The drunks, the druggies, the LGBT community, Wiccans, atheists, agnostics, and Unitarians alike. And yes, some Christians...just not the ones that tend to be front and center within the church.
To the church, I have, more often than not, been an inconvenience. In my diverse group of outcasts, I have found one thing I never did within the church house walls: a family. And that family is quite literally the only reason I've survived this long.
In the church, I have found judgment. I have found believers willing to embrace Genesis 19, but not Ezekial 16:49; a group, by and large, of people who have called me a communist and worse, for citing James 5:1-6 as justification for a living wage. A group who, despite my being married 20 years to the same woman, despite my willingness to help in a variety of capacities, has never quite considered me "good enough". Among the outcasts, I just am.
So it begs the question: Why, then, would I reject these people who have stood with me, when they ask me to stand with them? It's not a matter of "us vs. them"; there's room for all of us. And if you want to encircle us and throw stones, first give us the chance to read off YOUR failings, your shortcomings. Although, truthfully, we won't. We'll probably just offer you cake (an idea stolen unabashedly from my friend Angie!)
This decision does not strip away your right to worship. This decision does not affect your right to preach the Gospel without apology and without conviction. While it may affect your right to remain tax free, it seems to me Jesus did have something to say about paying taxes being our duty.
This decision was the right one, and it doesn't in one way diminish the sovereignty of God. If God can be diminished by 9 folks in robes, then He really wasn't sovereign to begin with.
I love the church, and I love my friends outside the church. Because that is the simplest and most important commandment that is asked of me.
If that makes you feel I am not Christian, so be it. You are not the judge to whom I will answer. If that makes you feel that you can no longer be friends, I wish you nothing but the best on your journey, and I will be waiting if you ever desire to change that. But I will not leave the side of those whom I love.
And if that costs me your friendship, then I realize simply it was never mine.
But I feel I must.
With the Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage coming down today, it puts me in the middle of a decision that has, in the minds of some, left this country deeply divided. I pray for healing, and want to make my position as clear as possible.
From my earliest years, I have been an outcast. I have never fit in in any social group. Ever. It has cost me, it has cost my family dearly. To the point where I have actually wondered if taking my own life would help my family experience a normalcy that they never can with me.
In September, 1988, I made a life changing decision for Jesus. For my atheist friends, please respect that and leave it there. It made a fundamental change in my life.
What it didn't do was solve the social problem. In church after church, town after town, I have always been a sort of pariah. I know the prayer of Jabez well (and it's not the prayer you think it is), because I, too, have prayed that God would cause me not to cause pain on those I love.
In the midst of it, though, I have found that the people who have always been there for me, without fail, have been the people I have found outside the church. The drunks, the druggies, the LGBT community, Wiccans, atheists, agnostics, and Unitarians alike. And yes, some Christians...just not the ones that tend to be front and center within the church.
To the church, I have, more often than not, been an inconvenience. In my diverse group of outcasts, I have found one thing I never did within the church house walls: a family. And that family is quite literally the only reason I've survived this long.
In the church, I have found judgment. I have found believers willing to embrace Genesis 19, but not Ezekial 16:49; a group, by and large, of people who have called me a communist and worse, for citing James 5:1-6 as justification for a living wage. A group who, despite my being married 20 years to the same woman, despite my willingness to help in a variety of capacities, has never quite considered me "good enough". Among the outcasts, I just am.
So it begs the question: Why, then, would I reject these people who have stood with me, when they ask me to stand with them? It's not a matter of "us vs. them"; there's room for all of us. And if you want to encircle us and throw stones, first give us the chance to read off YOUR failings, your shortcomings. Although, truthfully, we won't. We'll probably just offer you cake (an idea stolen unabashedly from my friend Angie!)
This decision does not strip away your right to worship. This decision does not affect your right to preach the Gospel without apology and without conviction. While it may affect your right to remain tax free, it seems to me Jesus did have something to say about paying taxes being our duty.
This decision was the right one, and it doesn't in one way diminish the sovereignty of God. If God can be diminished by 9 folks in robes, then He really wasn't sovereign to begin with.
I love the church, and I love my friends outside the church. Because that is the simplest and most important commandment that is asked of me.
If that makes you feel I am not Christian, so be it. You are not the judge to whom I will answer. If that makes you feel that you can no longer be friends, I wish you nothing but the best on your journey, and I will be waiting if you ever desire to change that. But I will not leave the side of those whom I love.
And if that costs me your friendship, then I realize simply it was never mine.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Compassion is a Trait of the Penitent, Not the Perfect
Note: this article was inspired by a challenge issued to write a story around the opening words in this article, which was culled from a Facebook post I've made. It's probably not what the individual was looking for, and I'll still try in that direction, but it's what first came to mind:I am actually more self aware than you realize. I'm deeply flawed and imperfect. I get it. And in examining those weaknesses, those flaws, I've come to understand even more about the nature of compassion.
See, I live in a "grace only" world, and, while I champion the doctrine, I don't quite feel it. Grace is a wonderful thing, it's a marvelous thing, but it is not the end of the story. I know and I trust that God has given me a clean slate, that the ledger when I stand before Him will be free of blemish, free of mark.
But that does not erase the marks from the ledgers of the people I've wronged through my life. They will walk through life bearing the marks of my past transgressions, and those marks are not so easily erased.
How woefully tragic, how heartbreaking, if the mistakes I have made are the very marks that keep them from the cross.
I have often stood in the middle of a group of people, in deep pain, in deep heartache, wondering why nobody around me could see it. It bugged me for an awful lot of years.
And then it hit me: I see that pain in others. Someone who has not seen that pain is less likely to see it in others. Someone who has never lived homeless or very close to it will not recognize the defeated shuffle of someone who has tried to hitchhike for hours, only to ultimately resign themselves to the 30 mile hike to the next town. Someone who has never known hunger will not understand when confronted with the look of hunger from another. It is much, much easier to see the need in others when we've had that need ourselves.
So what truly sparks compassion is an aching in our own hearts and souls. A need to express ourselves in reaching out to heal others. Compassion, then, is a trait of the penitent, not the perfect.
I cannot go backwards along the path that I have taken to get to this point. I can only go forwards. And it is quite possible that some of the people whom I have wronged in the past will never come before me again. And so the only response I can muster is to minister in the people I meet to the wrongs inflicted on them by others and hope that somewhere along the path is another likeminded Samaritan ministering to those whom I have wronged.
And this is where things get muddy, because many of my "grace only" friends would call that teaching salvation by works. But I would contend nothing is further from the truth. For I am in no way under the illusion that those works factor in any way into my own salvation; I am laboring on in the hopes they may factor in the salvation of another.
And that, really, is all that any of us can do.
See, I live in a "grace only" world, and, while I champion the doctrine, I don't quite feel it. Grace is a wonderful thing, it's a marvelous thing, but it is not the end of the story. I know and I trust that God has given me a clean slate, that the ledger when I stand before Him will be free of blemish, free of mark.
But that does not erase the marks from the ledgers of the people I've wronged through my life. They will walk through life bearing the marks of my past transgressions, and those marks are not so easily erased.
How woefully tragic, how heartbreaking, if the mistakes I have made are the very marks that keep them from the cross.
I have often stood in the middle of a group of people, in deep pain, in deep heartache, wondering why nobody around me could see it. It bugged me for an awful lot of years.
And then it hit me: I see that pain in others. Someone who has not seen that pain is less likely to see it in others. Someone who has never lived homeless or very close to it will not recognize the defeated shuffle of someone who has tried to hitchhike for hours, only to ultimately resign themselves to the 30 mile hike to the next town. Someone who has never known hunger will not understand when confronted with the look of hunger from another. It is much, much easier to see the need in others when we've had that need ourselves.
So what truly sparks compassion is an aching in our own hearts and souls. A need to express ourselves in reaching out to heal others. Compassion, then, is a trait of the penitent, not the perfect.
I cannot go backwards along the path that I have taken to get to this point. I can only go forwards. And it is quite possible that some of the people whom I have wronged in the past will never come before me again. And so the only response I can muster is to minister in the people I meet to the wrongs inflicted on them by others and hope that somewhere along the path is another likeminded Samaritan ministering to those whom I have wronged.
And this is where things get muddy, because many of my "grace only" friends would call that teaching salvation by works. But I would contend nothing is further from the truth. For I am in no way under the illusion that those works factor in any way into my own salvation; I am laboring on in the hopes they may factor in the salvation of another.
And that, really, is all that any of us can do.
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