Boo
okay, late for Halloween, but I haven't posted here in so long...right now I do feel the need.
I joined facebook as many of you who read here know. Not sure what to make of it so far but I am using it; as KMJ put it: it's blogging in reverse, all the comments and no posts. I, of course, want to do actual posts, but as the field of friends has grown dramatically fast, some people I know very well some I hardly knew when I knew them twenty years ago, I'm not so soure what I'll do with facebook. If you read here or used to and want to be added, just send me an email; I don't mind.
A lot is on my mind, more than I have time or energy to blog about. I live depression free and (almost) obsession free and have for some time. Oh, I have my issues, but then so does every living person I know. No, the things that occupy me right now are different things.
I am happy Obama won. I don't know how well he'll do, but as a teacher who works in a state funded community college, whose wife works with kids mostly from medi-cal families, those communities are the ones that I want to see given help and opportunity. I don't really care much about the expansion of the upper classes. And, I hate the Iraq war, think O is a much more intelligent than McCain..., yes, I am glad though I am no political expert.
I am very sad to see Prop 8 win in California. 8 makes same sex marriage illegal. I am astounded and embarrassed by this proposition and by the attitudes which allowed it to pass. It is even more frustrating to me that many years ago I too thought sexual orientation was a choice, like smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, to use recent examples offered to me by a close friend in an argument over 8. Where can I even begin?
I can't. I don't have the time or energy to write a full post on this and the writing has already been done by others better and more educated on this issue than I. Let me say that everything I know and hear from gay friends is that orientation is a deep seated part of who the person is (as it is for me, a hetero male); they do not talk about their behavior and desires anything like smokers and alcoholics talk about their addictions. And to me, whether orientation is a product of genetics or environment or both or neither, it does not matter. Allowing those couples the same legal protection, the same public moral committment, seems a clear civil rights issue to me in and out of the Christian world. Loving my neighbor as myself is the only argument I need.
I also believe that the fundamental issue, for Christians, is how we read the bible. Surely proof texts can be found against men having sex with men in Leviticus and there is a description of the behavior as unnatural in Romans, though Paul does not seem to be talking about loving couples; he may not have known one. I sat at a friend's house recently and picked up a book on parenting which had some good content and then a couple of chapters on "the rod," or spanking children...when the author related stories where parents said they liked the rest of his approach but wanted to suspend the spanking part, use time outs or something instead, the author said something like: doing that is disobeying God; God tells you to spank your children and you must do so or you are disobedient to your Creator. The author, of course, is drawing on two passages in Proverbs (and if Solomon wrote those parables, look at his kids).
Give me a break.
The fact is there was a time when I could not imagine questioning the bible, when I thought I had to believe every word of it, that it functioned as a sort of cure all guidebook to life. I absolutely do not believe this any more. Why? Because I read it. The books in the bible must be understood for what each is and the human authors and historical and social realities which affect the writing acknowledged. Our view of God has changed over the last few millenia.
The fact is, as I've said here before, while liberals like myself are sometimes described as "cherry picking" because we set aside some parts of the bible and use others, the fact is every mainstream fundamentalist I know does the same. (Jesus seems to have done the same thing himself). Head coverings in Paul are cultural, his attitudes towards homosexuality divinely inspired. His occasional words to the Corinthians on women submitting to husbands quoted endlessly, his naming of female leaders (perhaps even an apostle?) in the church conveniently ignored as are the rest of his comments on equality of sex in Christ (Luke Johnson is very good here). I would not care about all this except that slavish reliance on biblical proof-text wounds a lot of people: women, gays, children, the kind of oppressed people who get so much attention in the gospels and prophets (in my opinion I can include gays as they are marginalized in our society and denied fundamental rights by the ruling, and straight, majority).
If we err at all, we must err in love. Love truly must explain all things, reveal all things, guide us in all. Without love we are lost. I am sorry; there is no divine and perfect book I have read on this earth. I think evangelicals (really descended from the puritans) emphasize biblical proof-text so much for a handful of important reasons, but their loss of the centrality of eucharist and ritual symbol, the Mystery, is not least among them in my view. The bible came to the forefront of the common experience of our faith in the reformation period, and sadly, become an idol like the "idols" which the puritans too eagerly stripped from the service.
I am not saying the bible is not important, even critical to our faith, or that it is not used by God uniquely. But it has silver and dross, and we must continually strive to use love to seperate the two. It really does take a textual critic to understand chunks of its content. Why didn't God give us a perfect book? I have no idea. One would think He would. I'd think He would get rid of cancer too but that remains. We live by faith. He gave his Son. That must be enough.
Regardless of my tone in spots here, love to all. This weekend S and I go to Redding for the Episcopal Convention. Pray for wisdom. There are times I despair that it exists on this planet.
t
I joined facebook as many of you who read here know. Not sure what to make of it so far but I am using it; as KMJ put it: it's blogging in reverse, all the comments and no posts. I, of course, want to do actual posts, but as the field of friends has grown dramatically fast, some people I know very well some I hardly knew when I knew them twenty years ago, I'm not so soure what I'll do with facebook. If you read here or used to and want to be added, just send me an email; I don't mind.
A lot is on my mind, more than I have time or energy to blog about. I live depression free and (almost) obsession free and have for some time. Oh, I have my issues, but then so does every living person I know. No, the things that occupy me right now are different things.
I am happy Obama won. I don't know how well he'll do, but as a teacher who works in a state funded community college, whose wife works with kids mostly from medi-cal families, those communities are the ones that I want to see given help and opportunity. I don't really care much about the expansion of the upper classes. And, I hate the Iraq war, think O is a much more intelligent than McCain..., yes, I am glad though I am no political expert.
I am very sad to see Prop 8 win in California. 8 makes same sex marriage illegal. I am astounded and embarrassed by this proposition and by the attitudes which allowed it to pass. It is even more frustrating to me that many years ago I too thought sexual orientation was a choice, like smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, to use recent examples offered to me by a close friend in an argument over 8. Where can I even begin?
I can't. I don't have the time or energy to write a full post on this and the writing has already been done by others better and more educated on this issue than I. Let me say that everything I know and hear from gay friends is that orientation is a deep seated part of who the person is (as it is for me, a hetero male); they do not talk about their behavior and desires anything like smokers and alcoholics talk about their addictions. And to me, whether orientation is a product of genetics or environment or both or neither, it does not matter. Allowing those couples the same legal protection, the same public moral committment, seems a clear civil rights issue to me in and out of the Christian world. Loving my neighbor as myself is the only argument I need.
I also believe that the fundamental issue, for Christians, is how we read the bible. Surely proof texts can be found against men having sex with men in Leviticus and there is a description of the behavior as unnatural in Romans, though Paul does not seem to be talking about loving couples; he may not have known one. I sat at a friend's house recently and picked up a book on parenting which had some good content and then a couple of chapters on "the rod," or spanking children...when the author related stories where parents said they liked the rest of his approach but wanted to suspend the spanking part, use time outs or something instead, the author said something like: doing that is disobeying God; God tells you to spank your children and you must do so or you are disobedient to your Creator. The author, of course, is drawing on two passages in Proverbs (and if Solomon wrote those parables, look at his kids).
Give me a break.
The fact is there was a time when I could not imagine questioning the bible, when I thought I had to believe every word of it, that it functioned as a sort of cure all guidebook to life. I absolutely do not believe this any more. Why? Because I read it. The books in the bible must be understood for what each is and the human authors and historical and social realities which affect the writing acknowledged. Our view of God has changed over the last few millenia.
The fact is, as I've said here before, while liberals like myself are sometimes described as "cherry picking" because we set aside some parts of the bible and use others, the fact is every mainstream fundamentalist I know does the same. (Jesus seems to have done the same thing himself). Head coverings in Paul are cultural, his attitudes towards homosexuality divinely inspired. His occasional words to the Corinthians on women submitting to husbands quoted endlessly, his naming of female leaders (perhaps even an apostle?) in the church conveniently ignored as are the rest of his comments on equality of sex in Christ (Luke Johnson is very good here). I would not care about all this except that slavish reliance on biblical proof-text wounds a lot of people: women, gays, children, the kind of oppressed people who get so much attention in the gospels and prophets (in my opinion I can include gays as they are marginalized in our society and denied fundamental rights by the ruling, and straight, majority).
If we err at all, we must err in love. Love truly must explain all things, reveal all things, guide us in all. Without love we are lost. I am sorry; there is no divine and perfect book I have read on this earth. I think evangelicals (really descended from the puritans) emphasize biblical proof-text so much for a handful of important reasons, but their loss of the centrality of eucharist and ritual symbol, the Mystery, is not least among them in my view. The bible came to the forefront of the common experience of our faith in the reformation period, and sadly, become an idol like the "idols" which the puritans too eagerly stripped from the service.
I am not saying the bible is not important, even critical to our faith, or that it is not used by God uniquely. But it has silver and dross, and we must continually strive to use love to seperate the two. It really does take a textual critic to understand chunks of its content. Why didn't God give us a perfect book? I have no idea. One would think He would. I'd think He would get rid of cancer too but that remains. We live by faith. He gave his Son. That must be enough.
Regardless of my tone in spots here, love to all. This weekend S and I go to Redding for the Episcopal Convention. Pray for wisdom. There are times I despair that it exists on this planet.
t
Comments
Glad to know you are well. Though I do not live in California, I am glad that Prop. 8 passed. Though, not for the ignorant, homophobic reasons many espouse. My objections to gay marriage are based more on social-historical grounds. I started a post about the topic but felt my expatriot status disqualified my remarks.
Take care brother.
FK
first, you are not expatriot. I don't hardly ever post but somehow people manage to stumble in here from time to time when I do; I still have your blog in my margin. Feel free to continue writing.
Second, you are an intelligent man with a substantial knowledge of history. But for me the argument just boils down to this: one can be not homophobic and oppose gay marriage (though discomfort at the different is part of almost any straight person's reaction to the gay life, including mine). For me the issue comes down to civil rights well apart from any history.
Historically, women have been oppressed and not active in civic affairs, monarchies have dominated governments until recently, and racial minorities were given less access. Yet women and minorities have indeed fought for equal rights and rightly so. I have spoken to so many gay individuals who feel very intense about this issue, who want the right to marry and be treated like those of hetero orientation, and I think we must give it to them. In time, the courts will have to over ride 8 just as they overrode segregation in the south. Popular vote may not do it for some time.
So for me, it all comes down to the feelings, yep, the feelings, of gay couples who want to make lifetime public committments. Giving anything less than what het's enjoy I can only see as discriminatory.
That said, I look forward to hearing your argument. Post if here if you want, but I will check your blog when I can.
Miss you still bro. Wait till you see the post I am putting up now. Heck, you may have already seen it!
t
I have posted on this matter on my blog. I can't offer you an argument because I think you and I are fundamentally in agreement. Our paths might take a slightly different trajectory is all.
FK