What's Threatening about Gay Marriage?

Thinking about this lately. It's clear from both NT and OT passages that God's ideal is permanent, heterosexual union (Mark 10, where Jesus refers to Genesis and makes his own pronouncement). But that's obviously not the trend in civil, secular society, regardless of widespread feeling that America is still a "Christian nation."

I have a problem with the "Defense of Marriage" camp. The idea that gay marriage is threatening to the institution of Biblical marriage seems a little silly. At the very least it's like closing the barn door after the animals have escaped. The greater threats to marriage have always been things like adultery, divorce, abuse, pornography, and such things. You know, issues and problems that can actually break up hetero marriage more than a same-sex couple tying the knot.

Language Log on the Uses of "Socialism"

Language Log makes a point.

Click the title to bounce to the Language Log posting about the changes in the meaning of "socialism" through the years.

Interesting that toward the closing of the article, he mentions Christians.

Scripture reference: Acts 2:44 - 45 and Acts 4:32 - 35.

Parenting Conundrum: Stop Asking?

Parents, when your kids ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask and ask for the same things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, what do you do?

Jesus tells us that audacity and persistence are values to practice in our prayer lives (Luke 11 and Luke 18). Instead of being annoyed by these qualities, He welcomes them. But parents usually don't welcome them, and we usually are annoyed when it happens. How do we translate the way God treats us into how we treat our children?

In Which I Attack the Industrial Revolution

So I heard this guy give credit for the success of the Industrial Revolution to "Christian values." I asked him which values he was referring to, and to back up his position with scripture. No answer forthcoming.

The facts are independent of scripture, however. The time period in question was a hardship for the average worker. Factory life for uncounted thousands of workers was a miserable proposition. They froze in unheated factories in winter, baked in uncooled factories in summer. They were in danger of mutilation or death from exposed machinery for lack of safety standards. Wages were low, even by the day’s standards. Women were not given equal status in the workplace. Children were exploited for their labor. There was no basic healthcare, no job protection for workers. Only when workers organized into labor unions were those blessings secured for the average worker (and then not for women and minority groups until MUCH later).

For analysis and evalutation of the facts, however, we CAN go to scripture. Check out James 5:1-6.

Anything else, either for or against?

For Whom Would Jesus Vote?

When it comes to matters political, where is our Biblical source material?

I’m assuming Christians want to have as much authority behind them as possible. But there’s so much compartmentalization – this is nothing new; it’s human nature. Dedicated Christians of all political persuasions speak and act politically as if the Word of God never existed. Walk with Jesus, truly Christian ideals, are completely separate from political position. It’s a problem. Our example and witness would be helped immensely if we only had Bible authority for our political beliefs. Maybe. The Cynical Side of me isn’t so sure.

Constance McMillan

This happened in Fulton, MS, at Itawamba Agricultural High School. You can Google her name and read all the news stories about what happened, but in a nutshell:

This openly gay student, Constance McMillan, was planning to attend her senior prom with her girlfriend as her date. Instead of allowing her to do that, the school district cancelled the prom completely, for everyone. Then there was a “fake prom” which was attended by McMillan, her date, and a few other students, while the “real prom” (to which McMillan was NOT invited) was held at a secret, off-campus location.

So I’m curious about what Christians out there would say or do in this situation. What's the Christian response to something like this?

Christians and Patriotism

Is love of country a Christian value?

Denominations

Are denominations helpful or harmful to God's church?

For the sake of discussion, we can define a denomination as a group or fellowship

• within Christendom at large;
• spread over various geographic areas;
• having its own unique name;
• having its own unique set of beliefs/creeds/doctrines/practices
• with the above generally recognized by its own believers; and
• with the above genearlly recognized by believers of other groups or fellowships.

For example, Southern Baptists can travel from city to city and find other like-named congregations and have a reasonable expection that doctrine and practice are going to be pretty much the same as their home congregation. The same is true of Lutheran, Calvary Chapel, Church of Christ, and Vineyard congregations, to name but a few.

In Christendom at large, most believers worship with some kind of denominational group. By comoparison, very few believers belong to the truly non-denominational community churches (since you can visit different community churches from place to place and NOT be assured that they will possess the same general characteristics).

If we search the scriptures, we find several admonitions AGAINST divisions:

• John 17:20-21
• 1 Corinthians 1:10-17
• 1 Corinthians 3 (whole chapter)

In addition, we find that in the first century there were Christians in each city, all considered to belong to the one true body of Christ. There were no denominations at that time, nor were any approved or commanded. You just won't find it anywhere in scripture.

As time passed, however, the church evolved through several stages, in which were several major splits. First the Orienatal Orthodox churches (Coptic, Egyptian, Syrian, etc.) split from the Western Church (which eventually became the Roman Catholic Church), and later the Eastern Orthodox churches split from the Roman Catholic Church. After that, the Renaissance and Reformation brought about other divisions, causing the formation of groups such as the Lutheran and Anglican Churches. And in the Restoration in America of the early to middle 1800s, we find that it didn't take long for even those churches to divide over doctrinal matters. To exaggerate for emphasis, church history demonstrates that you have to be alone in the room to get any kind of agreement on doctrine at all. And even then, it's a sketchy thing.

So we accept denominationalism as a necessary evil? You can't count the number of groups claiming to have the corner on doctrinal purity. That in itself should give us pause and make us realize that there is something terribly wrong.

Maybe we're stuck. Maybe the act of re-establishing a non-denominational church is the very thing that will cause divisions later on. Maybe we can't help it. But if we can't help it, then why would God give us the solution in Philippians 2:1-4 and Ephesians 4:1-8?

And then what do we do with 1 Corinthians 11:17-19, which says divisions show which group has God's approval?

Could denominations actually be helpful to believers who just want a doctrinally or ritualistically comfortable place to worship and serve?

The Christian and War

Stan Warford Makes a Point

A friend of my mother-in-law gave a speech recently at one of Pepperdine's regular convocation assemblies (Christian school attendees, think "chapel"). If you feel like being challenged on this, I highly recommend you check it out.

Here's the link for the text of the speech.

Even if you dispute the historical accuracy of his facts, or if you question his interpretation of the facts, you will find it much more difficult, as a Christian, to argue against his point that we must all deal with the scriptures as they appear at face value.

Your Government and You

It says that?! REALLY?!

This passage isn't new to me, but I just read it with fresh eyes.

Romans 13:1 - 2 -- Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.