Posts tagged ‘Christianity’
Casting Stones
Credit: Ciro Miguel via Flickr
From the department of the inane but entertaining, the real estate site Movoto.com recently published its list of America’s most sinful cities. Surprisingly, the city famed for its profligate sinfulness, Las Vegas, didn’t make the list. An article in The Street explains how the list was compiled:
The study analyzed 95 of the nation’s 100 most-populous communities…to see how often locals commit the Catholic Church’s seven major sins: Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth and Wrath…
[They then matched] each behavior on the church’s 1,400-year-old list of sins with a modern-day measure of immorality.
For instance, [they] gauged Wrath by looking at the FBI’s annual report on each U.S. city’s violent-crime rate – the number of murders, robberies, aggravated assaults, rapes and non-negligent manslaughter cases reported each year per 1,000 residents.[1]
Here’s what the study found.
Coming in at number five is Milwaukee. According to CDC obesity rates, Milwaukee falls prey to the sin of gluttony. Spot number four belongs to Pittsburgh, which struggles with pride. In this city, there is one cosmetic surgeon for every 3,170 residents. Minneapolis garnered spot number three. Over 30% of Minneapolis’s residents are inactive, making this city super slothful. Place number two belongs to Orlando, which, like Minneapolis, struggles with sloth. And spot number one belongs to – drumroll, please – St. Louis! Movoto found “the Gateway to the West places number two for Wrath and Envy, with 20 violent crimes and 65 property incidents per year for every 1,000 St. Louis residents.” If it’s banal carnality you want, St. Louis is the place to go.
Of course, it’s hard to take a study like this too seriously. But I have to admit, I breathed a sigh of relief when my town of San Antonio didn’t make the list. Then again, I used to live in St. Louis. I went to seminary there. So I guess that means, according to this article, I once lived in a den of iniquities.
What makes a study like this one so comical for Christians is that we know that sin defies such simplistic statistical quantification and comparison. This is the apostle Paul’s point when he writes, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22-23). There is no difference, Paul says, between one sin and another in God’s eyes. Every sin leads to death. Every sin leads to damnation. Before God and apart from Christ, sin is sin. Period.
This is why, when an angry mob of religious leaders seek to have a woman caught in adultery stoned for her sin, Jesus disarms this mob’s self-righteous pretenses by saying, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). Underlying this statement is an assumption that we have no right to use our own self-styled righteousness as a benchmark against which we can measure and condemn other people’s sinfulness. The only benchmark that may be used to distinguish righteousness from sinfulness is God’s. Everything else is just casting stones.
So, although I won’t cast stones at my old seminary town, I will eat concrete if I ever return for a visit. And if that previous line doesn’t make any sense to you, just click here.
[1] Jerry Kronenberg, “5 Most Sinful Cities in America,” The Street (7.17.13).
More Than A Little
I suffer from calorie creep. It’s amazing. If I wake up in the morning and commit to making wise food choices, staying away from sweets, and considering the calories of what I put in my mouth before those calories get there, I can usually keep the number of my calories down and the quality of my calories up. But if I don’t…
It only takes a little. “I’ll just have a little bit of ice cream for dessert,” I think to myself after lunch. But it’s amazing how much ice cream I can cram into even a little bowl. And by the time supper rolls around, a second bowl of ice cream begins to sound awfully enticing. The more junk food I eat, the more junk food I want. A little always turns into a lot.
“It’s just a little white lie.” “We were just kicking back a little.” “A little bit of fun never hurt anyone!” It’s amazing how many times I have heard these statements or statements like these as excuses for sin. How are they excuses? They’re excuses because they sanction sin by arguing that what they’re supporting is only “a little” sin. But a little always turns into a lot.
Solomon makes this precise point when he talks about the sin of laziness: “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man” (Proverbs 24:33-34). Solomon says that sin adds up faster than you think. And this means that sin can wreak havoc in your life quicker than you think.
When the apostle Paul is writing to the Galatians, he warns them against tolerating even a little sin with a metaphor: “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough” (Galatians 5:9). Paul says that just like it only takes a little yeast to make bread rise, it only takes a little sin to make wickedness rise.
The other day, I came across some thoughts from the Archbishop Chaput, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, worth citing here:
We live in a culture where our marketers and entertainment media compulsively mislead us about the sustainability of youth; the indignity of old age; the avoidance of suffering; the denial of death; the nature of real beauty; the impermanence of every human love; the oppressiveness of children and family; the silliness of virtue; and the cynicism of religious faith. It’s a culture of fantasy, selfishness, sexual confusion and illness that we’ve brought upon ourselves …
As the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb observed more than a decade ago, “What was once stigmatized as deviant behavior is now tolerated and even sanctioned; what was once regarded as abnormal has been normalized.” But even more importantly, she added, “As deviancy is normalized, so what was once normal becomes deviant. The kind of family that has been regarded for centuries as natural and moral – the ‘bourgeois’ family as it is invidiously called – is now seen as pathological” and exclusionary, concealing the worst forms of psychic and physical oppression.
My point is this: Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be.[1]
His last paragraph is key. A little bit of evil will ask you to tolerate it so it can get itself in the door of your life. But once it gains access to your heart’s hallways, it will grow – gradually, perhaps, but inexorably. And what it asked for itself in the name of tolerance it will not give to goodness. For it has come to destroy goodness. It has come to destroy you. And that is why Jesus has come to destroy it.
Stand firm, then. For even a little sin is a little too much.
[1] Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, “A Thread for Weaving Joy,” Voices Online Edition, vol. XXVII, no. 1 (Lent – Eastertide 2012).
Millennial Morality: Thoughts On A Generation’s Thoughts On Christianity
Credit: urbanfaith.com
Last weekend, popular blogger Rachel Held Evans, writing for CNN, offered an account of why she thinks those in the millennial generation are leaving the Church. Her comments are worth quoting at length:
Armed with the latest surveys, along with personal testimonies from friends and readers, I explain how young adults perceive evangelical Christianity to be too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
I point to research that shows young evangelicals often feel they have to choose between their intellectual integrity and their faith, between science and Christianity, between compassion and holiness.
I talk about how the evangelical obsession with sex can make Christian living seem like little more than sticking to a list of rules, and how millennials long for faith communities in which they are safe asking tough questions and wrestling with doubt.[1]
Rachel Held Evans certainly has her finger on the pulse of contemporary culture. Research does indeed show that millennials describe Christianity as “too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.” In other words, many millennials view traditional Christian teachings as repressive and regressive. What Rachel fails to ask, however, is, “Does this popularly held perception of Christianity match its reality?”
There’s a whole army of research out there about how people feel about Christianity. But what about the research that reveals what is actually being preached and taught from Christian pulpits? How many sermons on politics are actually preached week in and week out? How about sermons on sex? How about sermons that are openly hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people? Here, the research becomes much more scant. And, I suspect, the sermons themselves might just be much more scant as well.
Now, I know it’s not hard to skew popular perceptions of what the Christian Church is all about. After all, it’s usually not the sermon on John 3 and God loving the world that makes the rounds on YouTube; it’s the sermon on Leviticus 20 with the sweaty pastor yelling about the abominations of sodomy that gets 500,000 views.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if the objections that many millennials have to some of the teachings of Christianity aren’t so much objections as they are excuses. In other words, the reason many millennials object to particular Christian tenets is not because they are “too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people”; it is because they simply don’t like parts of what Christianity teaches. So they accuse Christians of absolutism so they can live in libertinism. Nathan Hitchen explains it like this: “When people don’t want to believe something, they ask themselves, ‘Must I believe this?’ and then search for contrary evidence until they find a single reason to doubt the claim and dismiss it.”[2] In other words, they find that YouTube video with the sweaty, yelling pastor and say, “No way.”
From a theological perspective, C.S. Lewis offers keen insight into the objectionable character of Christian morality:
Christ did not come to preach any brand new morality … Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that. As Dr. Johnson said, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” The real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles which we are all so anxious not to see; like bringing a horse back to the fence it has refused to jump or bringing a child back to the bit in its lesson that it wants to shirk.[3]
C.S. Lewis minces no words about how tough the task of teaching Christian morality really is. It’s tough because the “old simple principles” of morality are ones “which we are all so anxious not to see.” Yet, Jesus, as a teacher of morality, among other things, preached these “old simple principles.” Of course, such preaching didn’t make Him popular or unobjectionable. It got Him killed.
So perhaps popularity is not in the cards for Christianity. This should not come as a surprise. It wasn’t in the cards for Jesus. And yet, as Rachel Held Evans finally notes in her CNN article, “Like every generation before ours and every generation after, deep down, we long for Jesus.” Maybe that’s because, deep down, even if our depravity rebels against it, something keeps telling us Jesus is right. And if Jesus is right, that means He can make us right with God.
That’s our message as Christians. And I, for one, intend to keep sharing it.
[1] Rachel Held Evans, “Why millennials are leaving the church,” cnn.com (7.27.2013).
[2] Nathan Hitchen, “Marriage Counter-Messaging: An Action Plan” (The John Jay Institute: 2013), 4.
[3] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1952), 64.
San Antonio’s Anti-Discrimination Ordinance
Recently, there has been a lot of debate and discussion concerning a proposed amendment to San Antonio’s anti-discrimination ordinance on which the City Council will soon vote. You can read about the debate here. Because this ordinance has certain theological implications, Concordia’s senior pastor, Bill Tucker, has prepared a letter outlining some of the facets and possible effects of this ordinance. I would encourage you to take a moment to read his letter below.
Dear Concordia Family,
The apostle Paul writes, “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority” (1 Timothy 2:1-2a). This is a time for us as a congregation to be in prayer for those in authority – specifically, for those in authority on our San Antonio City Council.
San Antonio’s Anti-Discrimination Ordinance
Our City Council is currently considering amending its anti-discrimination ordinance to include a prohibition against discrimination on the basis of, among other things, “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” The ordinance defines discrimination as demonstrating “a bias, by word or deed, against any person, group of persons, or organization on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, age or disability.” Many Jews, Muslims, and Christians have long considered homosexual activity, same-sex marriage, and transgender lifestyles to be “sinful.” Such a designation may now be considered discriminatory according to the definition of bias given in this ordinance. Thus, an ordinance meant to prohibit discrimination may set up a de facto form of discrimination against some people of faith because it may preclude people with certain religious beliefs from serving the City.
How Will This Ordinance Affect You?
- Bias: Pastors or other people of faith who discuss whether or not certain behaviors are “sinful” may be considered to be engaging in discrimination according to the definition of “bias” given in this ordinance. Such accusations of discrimination may affect both our ability to speak God’s truth in love and our freedoms of speech, religion, and association.
- Public Accommodations: If you are a business owner who has rental property, restaurants, hotels, or theatres, you may be compelled by this ordinance to violate your conscience and not operate the business according to your religious convictions.
- Appointments and Contracts with the City: A person may not be appointed to a position with the City if he or she is perceived to have a bias against those of a homosexual or transgender orientation and can be removed from office even if previously appointed. A person may also be precluded from contracting with the City if that person is perceived to have a bias against any group named in the ordinance.
Actions to Consider
- Pray for our City Council and consider what your response might be.
- Several local faith-based organizations have expressed concerns about the amended ordinance. You can read their concerns at sahumanrightscoalition.com.
- If you would like to learn more about the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality and same-sex marriage, read “A Pastoral Statement on President Obama’s Endorsement of Same-Sex Marriage.”
- If you would like to contact your Council member or Mayor, go to sanantonio.gov for a list of districts, Council members, and contact information.
Finally, I encourage you to remember how Paul concludes his statement to Timothy on praying for those in authority: “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Paul’s call to prayer is meant not only to affect our City officials; it is meant to affect us. It is meant to move us toward peace in times of tribulation and form in us a humble godliness, shaped by love, as a holy witness to a world filled with sin. It is meant, in a phrase, to lead us to “shine like stars.” May we, at Concordia, be people who do exactly this.
God bless you,
Bill Tucker
Senior Pastor
Concordia Lutheran Church
Love That Lasts Past One Night
Over the past few weeks, the New York Times has published a couple of articles of special interest to Christians. The first is by Kate Taylor and chronicles the seedy underbelly of the college hook up culture. The picture she paints is dark and disturbing:
At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior at the University of Pennsylvania did what she often does when she has a little free time. She texted her regular hookup — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating. What was he up to? He texted back: Come over. So she did. They watched a little TV, had sex and went to sleep.
Nationwide, nearly 3 in 10 seniors say they have never hooked up in college.[1]
Take a moment to ponder the significance of this statistic. It’s not that three in ten college seniors have hooked up, it’s that three in ten college senior have not hooked up. This means by the time a college graduate walks across the stage to receive a diploma, there’s a 70% chance he or she has engaged in casual, illicit sexual activity. This is nothing less than ghastly.
Now, contrast this with a New York Times article by Ross Douthat on college campuses as one of the last non-virtual bastions at which to meet a lifelong mate. He begins his column by citing a 2012 study:
From about 1960 to 1990 … neighborhood and church had a roughly steady influence over how heterosexual couples met, with about 10% of heterosexual couples meeting as neighbors and about 7% meeting in or through houses of worship. After 2000, neighborhood and church went in to steep decline along with most of the other traditional ways of meeting romantic partners.[2]
It seems the dating strongholds that have traditionally set people on the path to marriage are in steep decline. This trend does not hold true, however, for college campuses: “College has also dipped since 2000 as a place to meet, but only modestly,” Douthat notes. What, then, is the upshot of these statistics? Douthat concludes:
It seems fair to assume that there are still a lot of people who would prefer to meet their future spouse the old fashioned way — through initial flesh-and-blood encounters embedded in a larger pre-existing social network. If that’s your preference, the university campus is one of the few flesh-and-blood arenas that seems to be holding its own as a place to form lasting attachments. So for those Americans who do attend college, the case for taking advantage of its denser-than-average social landscape might actually get stronger as the non-virtual alternatives decline.
So there you have it. On the one hand, college campuses can be hotbeds of squalid sexual hookups – places where people make out at night and walk out the next morning. On the other hand, college campuses remain ideal environments for meeting, dating, and, eventually, marrying.
The apostle Paul issues a sobering warning about the effects of sexual immorality, saying that God gives over people “in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” (Romans 3:24). When reading such a warning, I can’t help but think of an especially telling story from Kate Taylor’s article:
For many Penn students, their initiation into the sexual culture takes place at fraternity parties during New Student Orientation, a five-day period before classes start in the fall, which, along with Spring Fling in April, is known as the biggest partying time of the year.
“You go in, and they take you down to a dark basement,” Haley, a blond, pink-cheeked senior, recalled of her first frat parties in freshman year. “There’s girls dancing in the middle, and there’s guys lurking on the sides and then coming and basically pressing … up against you and trying to dance.”
Dancing like that felt good but dirty, and like a number of girls, Haley said she had to be drunk in order to enjoy it. Women said universally that hookups could not exist without alcohol, because they were for the most part too uncomfortable to pair off with men they did not know well without being drunk.
The first line of the last paragraph haunts me: “Dancing like that felt good but dirty.” Another word for “dirty,” of course, is “degrading,” the very thing which Paul says is the result of sexual immorality.
So often we read Paul’s words in Romans 1 as a condemnation of those whose sexual ethics differ from those of Christianity. But Paul’s words are much more than a condemnation. They are a sad statement of reality. And even the New York Times knows it. Sexual immorality is dirty. Sexual immorality is degrading. Perhaps C.S. Lewis puts it best when he writes specifically of females trapped in sexually promiscuous lifestyles: “I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness. These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity.”[3] Like Lewis, may we pity those who are so desperate, they willingly degrade themselves sexually. Such degradation is truly heartbreaking.
The choice is clear. At college, a student can either degrade him or herself in sexual recklessness, or take advantage of a university’s social landscape to form friendships and, by God’s grace, a lifelong marriage relationship.
My prayer is that more and more people would choose chastity – not only because it gives glory to God, but because it really is better for His creations. It really is better for you. You don’t need to degrade yourself. For you have One who was degraded for you on a cross.
[1] Kate Taylor, “Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, Too,” New York Times (7.12.2013).
[2] Ross Douthat, “The Dating World of Tomorrow,” New York Times (7.19.2013).
[3] C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis: Readings for Meditation and Reflection, Walter Hooper, ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 88
Oh, Those Good Ole Days
Recently, the New York Times featured a sanguine article on the value of nostalgia. In a culture that tends to obsess over the “next big thing,” it turns out that “old small things” are worth remembering and celebrating. Journalist John Tierney explains:
Nostalgia has been shown to counteract loneliness, boredom and anxiety. It makes people more generous to strangers and more tolerant of outsiders. Couples feel closer and look happier when they’re sharing nostalgic memories. On cold days, or in cold rooms, people use nostalgia to literally feel warmer.[1]
Of course, nostalgia has not always been so appreciated:
Nostalgia was originally described as a “neurological disease of essentially demonic cause” by Johannes Hoffer, the Swiss doctor who coined the term in 1688. Military physicians speculated that its prevalence among Swiss mercenaries abroad was due to earlier damage to the soldiers’ ear drums and brain cells by the unremitting clanging of cowbells in the Alps.
Even now, many psychologists mistake a case of nostalgia – often brought on by a major life transition when people understandably pine for parts of their past – for depression.
Nostalgia, though often underappreciated in our world, held primacy of place in the lives of the ancient Israelites. In fact, one of the most common commands of the Old Testament is to be nostalgic – to remember:
- Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. (Deuteronomy 5:15)
- Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. (Deuteronomy 8:2)
- Remember the wonders [the LORD] has done, His miracles, and the judgments He pronounced. (Psalm 105:5)
Over and over again, the LORD asks His people to remember what He has done for them. Why?
For the ancient Israelites, remembering was more than taking a nostalgic trip from the present to the past; remembering actually made the past into the present. Indeed, whenever the Jews celebrated the Passover, they recited the Haggadah, a Hebrew word meaning “telling.” The Haggadah recounted the mighty acts of the Lord the night He brought them out of their harsh slavery in Egypt. A key line in the Haggadah read:
In every generation, a person is obligated to regard himself as if he had left Egypt. It was not only our ancestors whom the Holy One, blessed be He, redeemed from Egypt; rather, He redeemed us, as it is stated: “He brought us out from there, so that He might bring us to the land He promised our fathers, and give it to us.”[2]
The Jews believed that when they remembered what God had done, they not only recalled God’s acts in the past, they became the beneficiaries of those acts in the present. One cannot help but think of the Haggadah that Jesus gave His disciples, also on a Passover night, when He said, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). When we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we do not just remember what Jesus did in the past, we receive the benefits of His very body and blood in the present.
For the Christian, nostalgia is a good thing because remembering is a good thing. But nostalgia is more than nostalgia when it reflects on what God has done in Christ. For what Christ has done in the past still blesses us – and saves us – in the present.
[1] John Tierney, “What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows,” New York Times (7.8.2013).
[2] “Text of the Haggadah,” Eliyahu Touger, trans.
Where Human Justice Cannot Tread: The Case of Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman
Credit: The Associated Press
We will never know for sure what happened.
Well, we will never know for sure all that happened. There are a few things we do know. We do know that on the night of February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida, an altercation took place between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. We do know that this altercation left Trayvon Martin dead of a single gunshot wound, fired at intermediate range. We do know that George Zimmerman was the shooter. And we do know that on Saturday, July 13, Zimmerman was found “not guilty” of both the charges of second-degree murder and of manslaughter.
As the trial of George Zimmerman unfolded before a nation of breathless spectators, it became clear to many pundits and reporters – regardless of how these pundits and reporters hoped this case would turn out – that the prosecution was in trouble. Consider this from ABC News:
Prosecutors started strong with a powerful, concise opening statement from Assistant State Attorney John Guy, in contrast to the silly knock-knock joke and seemingly disorganized and meandering defense argument …
But then something happened that many would have thought improbable as this case received wall to wall coverage leading up to Zimmerman’s arrest.
What the state hoped would be proof that Zimmerman initiated the altercation and that he, not Martin, was on top as they grappled on the ground, did not appear to proceed as planned …
With each witness there were either facts that we now know are not true (like hearing three shots, when there was only one) or indications that their memories have somehow become clearer since the incident itself.[1]
The prosecution’s witnesses, in their testimonies of what happened that night, gave conflicting and confusing accounts. Coupled with the fact that the burden to prove that Zimmerman shot Martin in something other than self-defense rested on the prosecution, the prospects for a conviction were grim for the state. Again, ABC News summarized the prosecution’s problem well:
Prosecutors still have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman did not “reasonably believe” he was “in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm” during their altercation. That is a heavy burden to bear.
It turns out, as the verdict this past Saturday revealed, that it was a burden too heavy to bear.
Along with the wide range of human emotions that a trial such as this one elicits, this trial has also exposed the limits of human justice. The jury found George Zimmerman “not guilty.” This does not necessarily mean that Zimmerman committed no crime. It simply means that, in the opinions of the jurors, there was not enough evidence to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of a crime. The jurors’ verdict does not pretend or presume to rule on George Zimmerman’s guilt or innocence as a matter of fact. It simply says that Zimmerman will not be incarcerated as a matter of the law.
The justice of our God is much more comprehensive and, as strange as it sounds, just than the justice of our courts. For our God is concerned with infinite transcendent justice rather than with limited legal justice. Indeed, our God is passionate about justice. God shouts in Amos 5:24: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” Where human justice falls short, God’s justice does not.
Ultimately, regardless of the verdict, the justice rendered in that Florida courtroom can only be provisionary and incomplete. Even if George Zimmerman had been found guilty, his incarceration would not have undone the painful problem of death, which is finally what this case – and every murder case – is all about. But the painful problem of death cannot be solved in any courtroom; it can only be solved on a cross. Only Jesus can bring justice to death by conquering it with His life – a life that will finally and fully be revealed on the Last Day.
So while a Florida court has ruled, we are still waiting for Jesus to rule – or, to put it more clearly, to reign – when He returns on the Last Day. And, blessedly, the justice He will bring on that day will be far better than the justice we have in these days. For His justice does much more than merely rule on tragedies; His justice fixes them.
[1] Dan Abrams, “George Zimmerman’s Prosecution Woes: Analysis,” ABC News (7.1.2013).
The Downfall of DOMA
The headline was welcomed with both cheers and tears: “Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act.”[1] For some, this ruling was a welcomed vindication – and indication that the argument for same-sex marriage had not only won the day in the Supreme Court, but in the court of public opinion. Others were saddened and even embittered. Former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee tweeted: “My thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay: ‘Jesus wept.’”[2]
So how is a Christian to respond to this ruling? There are two things I believe that are paramount to any Christian’s response.
The first is humility. Responding with bravado – either for or against this ruling – is not helpful. Whether it be the raucous celebrations of many of this ruling’s supporters or the vitriolic denouncements of many of this ruling’s detractors, anything less than a humble and gentle spirit leads to combat rather than conversation. And as I have written elsewhere, simply trying to win against each other rather than listening to each other means that no matter who supposedly “wins,” everybody loses.[3]
The second thing needed is honesty. Christians need not compromise moral conviction when it comes to human sexuality. We simply must hold to our convictions humbly rather than haughtily. The biblical moral vision for human sexuality is clear: sexual intimacy is to be reserved for a husband and wife in the lifelong covenant of marriage (cf. Genesis 2:24-25). Deviations from this – be they fornication, adultery, or homosexuality – are prohibited by Holy Writ. It’s okay to say this. It’s okay to stand up for this. It’s okay to make a moral pronouncement on marriage.
Indeed, as I have thought through the court’s ruling on DOMA, I find Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion to have far reaching moral implications:
The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States.
The history of DOMA’s enactment and its own text demonstrate that interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an incidental effect of the federal statute. It was its essence. The House Report announced its conclusion that “it is both appropriate and necessary for Congress to do what it can to defend the institution of traditional heterosexual marriage. … H. R. 3396 is appropriately entitled the ‘Defense of Marriage Act.’ The effort to redefine ‘marriage’ to extend to homosexual couples is a truly radical proposal that would fundamentally alter the institution of marriage.”… The House concluded that DOMA expresses “both moral disapproval of homosexuality, and a moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality.” … The stated purpose of the law was to promote an “interest in protecting the traditional moral teachings reflected in heterosexual-only marriage laws.”[4]
In Justice Kennedy’s opinion, DOMA was drafted and passed into law with the express purpose of interfering “with the dignity of same-sex marriages.” How does he know this? Because DOMA demonstrates “both moral disapproval of homosexuality, and a moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality.” In other words, Justice Kennedy claims that the Judeo-Christian morality in which DOMA is grounded diminishes the dignity of same-sex marriages. Such a diminishment cannot be tolerated. It is, in a word, illegal. This is why DOMA must be overturned.
The duty of the Supreme Court justices is to render legal decisions. But every legal decision carries with it an indissoluble moral component. In this instance, this legal decision’s moral component is in the declaration that a law based on the Judeo-Christian sexual moral standard is discriminatory and illegal. Such a pronouncement replaces the Judeo-Christian sexual moral standard with a sexual moral standard of its own – one that is open to same-sex marriage while still, interestingly enough, discriminating against other forms of marriage (e.g., polygamy). Thus, what Justice Kennedy and the Supreme Court majority have done is issued not only a legal opinion, but a moral valuation.
Laws are irreducibly moral. Laws against murder or perjury or theft inevitably promote some vision of what morality is and means. Thus, even the justices of the Supreme Court cannot render a strictly amoral legal verdict on whether or not to federally recognize same-sex marriages. What they declare on this issue will always, in some way, involve judgments of and on morality. The question we must ask ourselves is, “Is the morality of the Supreme Court majority the right morality?”
Justice Kennedy has given his answer. What’s yours?
[1] Pete Williams & Erin McClam, “Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act, paves way for gay marriage to resume in California,” NBCNews.com (6.26.2013).
[2] Mike Huckabee, twitter.com/govmikehuckabee (6.26.2013).
[3] Zach McIntosh, “The State Of Our Public Debate: Same-Sex Marriage As A Test Case,” zachmcintosh.com (4.8.2013).
[4] United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. 1 (2013).
Dodging Dating Disasters
Recently, I was talking to a friend who is in the throws of the dating scene. Over the course of our conversation, it began to strike me just how complicated, frustrating, and frightening dating really can be. Her past few dates had not gone so well. And she was beginning to lose hope. “All the good ones are taken,” she said with a definite edge of resignation. “I’m just going to have to take what I can get.”
The more I pondered her statement, the more concerned I became. Her willingness to just “take what she can get” seemed to be nothing but a setup for a let down. After all, if her past few dates had ended poorly because she just settled for what she could get, how much worse would things go if she married someone just because he was all she thought she could get at the time?
Over the years, I have shared with people a taxonomy that helps them consider who to date and who not to date. The interesting thing about this taxonomy is that it is one we all use or have used, but we often use it only subconsciously. Pulling this taxonomy from our subconscious to our conscious, however, can help us identify our patterns of thinking and, hopefully, save us from dating disaster. So it is with this in mind that, if you are dating or would like to date, I would encourage you take a moment and create a three-column list.
Column 1: What I want.
In this column, simply write honestly what you would like in a companion. And don’t sugarcoat it. If you’re a lady who wants the guy who looks like a cross between The Rock and Vin Diesel, write that down. If you’re a guy who wants the girl with the perfect hourglass shape, write that down. Hopefully, you also have some more modest and meaningful desires for a companion as well – someone who has a good sense of humor, a deep intuition, or a knack for solving big problems.
Column 2: What I need.
In this column go the non-negotiables. The non-negotiables include items such as faithfulness, forgiveness, commitment, and, of course, a hearty trust in the Lord. Think long and hard about this column and try not to confuse what you actually need with what you think you need. For instance, you may think you need someone who meets some predetermined standard of outward beauty so that you will be intensely physically attracted to them. But though physical attraction is important, outward beauty inevitably changes and fades. Thus, striking outward beauty is not really needed – even if you think it is – because it cannot be kept.
Column 3: What I’ll settle for.
In this column go the compromises you are willing to make. And as I did in the first column of what you want, I would encourage honesty. Sadly, many people are willing to make compromises morally to try to make a dating relationship work, engaging in intimate acts that are rightly reserved for marriage. But, of course, not every compromise is immoral or embarrassing. Some compromises are neutral. For instance, if you want a person with a good sense of humor, but wind up dating someone who couldn’t deliver the punch line to a joke to save their life, that’s a compromise, but can your significant other’s lack of humor can also become endearing in its own right.
Now, think about each of your three columns and consider these questions:
- How does column three affect column one? Are there any things you want in a mate that you could live without? If so, this is good! This means that you know your wants are just that – wants – and not necessities.
- How does column one affect column three? Are there any wants on which you should be willing to at least consider a compromise, but you’re not, thereby treating a want from column one like a need from column two? If so, you are in a danger zone. For when you refuse to even think about compromising on a want, you are putting your desires ahead of another person. And this is selfishness, which leads only to relationship breakdown.
- How does column three affect column two? Are there any things you know you need on which you are willing to compromise? If so, you are in a danger zone. Compromising on things like integrity, faithfulness, or faith is a recipe for a relationship disaster and great emotional and spiritual harm.
- How does column one affect column two? Are there any things that you want in a relationship that are opposed to what you need? For instance, if you want someone with good looks, does this tempt you to become shallowly infatuated over how a person looks on the outside rather than being committed to who they are on the inside? If so, you are again in a danger zone. The righteous needs in column two should always trump the desired wants in column one.
As you can see, what matters most is column two. Columns one and three are both negotiable. This is why when I counsel those who are dating, I encourage them to give on columns one and three, but not on column two. For column two holds the keys to long-lasting relationships.
So if you’re dating, or getting ready to enter the dating scene, think on these things. Taking just a few moments to fill out these columns now can save you a lot of pain and heartache in the future because these columns can help you keep your priorities straight. And keeping your priorities straight can help keep your heart in tact.
The Bible Is All About ___________
The Bible is all about __________.
How you fill in this blank makes a big difference in how you approach not only the Bible, but your life as a believer in Christ.
I have no doubt that most Christians would fill in the blank with “Christ.” After all, a respectably orthodox theology demands no other answer. “The Scriptures…testify about Me,” Jesus declares (John 5:39). But what we say about the Bible and what we want to know from the Bible are often two very different things.
I once had a lady who felt the need to give me some preaching advice following one of my sermons. “The problem with you,” she began, “is that you always end your sermons the same way: by talking about Jesus. I already know what Jesus did,” she continued. “I want to hear about what I need to do to live a better and successful life!” She expressed publicly the way a lot of people feel secretly. To learn about Jesus is fine and good, but what we really want is to learn about ourselves – how we can be successful.
Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, calls such a desire “reading the Bible narcissistically.” He explains:
We often read the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us: our improvement, our life, our triumph, our victory, our faith, our holiness, our godliness. We treat it like a book of timeless principles that will give us our best life now if we simply apply those principles. We treat it, in other words, like it’s a heaven-sent self-help manual…Even our devout Bible reading can become fuel for our own narcissistic self-improvement plans, the place we go for the help we need to “conquer today’s challenges and take control of our lives.”[1]
But this is not the purpose of the Good Book. The Bible is not about us being better. It’s about Jesus being perfect.
“But what about me?” someone may protest. “I have concerns I need answered! And they’re not just concerns about how I can go to heaven after I die, they’re concerns about how to deal with things while I’m still alive!”
This is where we can modify how we fill in the blank a little bit. Because the Bible is indeed all about Jesus. But Jesus came for us. Jesus lived for us. Jesus died for us. And Jesus rose for us. The Bible is all about Jesus who just happens to be for us.
Tchividjian continues:
The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue; our sin with His salvation; our failure with His favor; our guilt with His grace; our badness with His goodness.
The problem with the way so many people approach the Bible is that they skip over Jesus to get to themselves. The Bible is indeed about us, but it’s about us in light of Jesus. And it is when we read the Bible in light of Jesus that we discover that we are more deeply sinful than we ever thought, unable to improve our lives under our own power and will, and Jesus is more magnificently gracious than we ever imagined, able to save us from our sin and our selves. You see, Jesus is not only the key to reading the Bible correctly, He is the key to reading ourselves correctly – as sinners in need of a Savior. It is when we see Him as the center of the Scriptures that we find we need Him as the Savior of our lives.
[1] Tullian Tchividjian, “Reading The Bible Narcissistically,” The Gospel Coalition (6.10.2013).
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