In Which I Test the Courage of my Convictions on Marriage

I don't really want to jump into the fray on the topic of gay marriage in America.  I would usually rather have these conversations in person rather than adding to the noise on social media.  But it occurs to me that:

1)  Part of my silence is self-preservation.  I don't want to lose friends!  I don't want the world to think I'm a judgmental bigot!

2)  I have something to say and a place to say it.  So here I go; feel free to read no further.

There are two reasons I don't support the legalization of gay marriage in America: the spiritual reason and the practical reason.  The spiritual reason is that maddening, Bible-thumping reason that most of secular America discredits:  God, speaking in the Bible, does actually say that homosexual behavior is wrong.

"Wait, but the Bible says a lot of things are wrong.  I see here in Leviticus 11:7-8 that the pig 'is unclean to you.  You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses.'  But Christians eat pork all the time!  Why do Christians follow some things in the Bible and ignore others?"

This objection comes from a misunderstanding of what Jesus did when He died on the cross.  He fulfilled the Old Testament law, which included sacrifices and dietary restrictions and all sorts of ceremonial rules, and established a route for righteousness through grace rather than rules.  (Matt 5:17, Eph 2:14-15)  Christians no longer follow Old Testament law.

If God's condemnation of homosexual behavior was only in the Old Testament (pre-Jesus) but not the New Testament (post-Jesus), maybe there would be some room to argue that God's condemnation of homosexual behavior was part of Jewish ceremonial law that we no longer need to follow.

But the condemnation is found in the New Testament too.  Romans 1:26-27 specifically calls both male and female homosexual behavior an error.  ("...for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.")

Homosexual behavior, when mentioned in the Bible, is always condemned.  Marriage, when mentioned in the Bible, is always between men and women.

"But some people are just born that way.  Why would God create people to desire same-sex relationships and at the same time tell them they are wrong for pursuing that desire?"

I don't know what to tell you.  Every person on this planet is a walking bundle of desires, some of which we should pursue and some which we should not.

If I desire to get drunk, should I do it?  God says no.
If you desire a divorce, should you get one?  With some exceptions, God says no.
If someone desires to rape a child should he do so?  Obviously no.

The idea that we exist to fulfill our own desires, whether or not we are born with them, leads to judgment.  Paul, in Ephesians 2, says that "Among them we all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest."

So to the one who is born desiring same-sex relationships, I would say: Your desire does not condemn you.  We are not held accountable for our desires; only for our thoughts, words, and actions.  But please don't act on your desire.

By the way, I think this is where the debate gets very poignant and where we as Christians are in danger of losing all sense of compassion.  We get so caught up in arguing whether or not there is a "gay gene" that we forget the real people who are sharing their stories with us.

Do we understand the difficulty of what we are asking people to do?  We are saying, "Because of some words in an ancient book that I believe are from God, I am going to challenge you to either live a life of celibacy and never marry as long as you live, or pray that God would change your sexual desires to a completely different gender so that you can marry according to God's definition of marriage."

This is possible; many people have accepted this challenge.  (Writer Rosaria Champagne Butterfield writes about the experience HERE.)  One of the great tragedies of the wholesale popular acceptance of the gay lifestyle is that those seeking to leave it, or help others leave it, are often mocked and marginalized, and many are told it is impossible.

But still.  Let's have some compassion.  Let's believe people when they tell us their stories.  Let's acknowledge that we really don't understand what it's like to walk in their shoes.

"Who cares what the Bible says?  That has nothing to do with whether or not America legalizes gay marriage.  We don't legislate morality."

Here is where I offer my practical (rather than spiritual) objection to the legalization of gay marriage.

Have you ever thought about why the government bothers to get involved in marriage at all?  If someone decides to commit to a lifelong partner and build a household together, what business is that of the government? 

Marriage is a stabilizing force in society.  It keeps children together with their two parents.  Children are provided for, nurtured, and raised in a stable environment with the two people who created them in the first place.  The nation's interest in marriage doesn't really have anything to do with love -- the nation gives tax privileges, healthcare benefits, and legal recognition to married couples because it is in the best interest of the nation to do so.

Gay marriage, by definition, cannot produce families in which children are placed in lifelong households with the two people who created them.

If we start to extend all the legal rights and privileges of marriage to any people who claim "love" as the driving force behind the legal recognition of their lifelong commitment, we really shouldn't stop at man-woman, man-man, and woman-woman relationships.  We should open up that right to any group of consenting adults who love each other and sleep together.  But that's not really in the nation's interest.

Maybe it would be better if the government just got out of the marriage game altogether.  Give the legal rights and recognition that we now associate with marriage to any committed adults who are joining their households and raising children in stable families.  This could apply to two siblings that adopt children together, or a man and a woman who love each other and have kids together, or even two widows who both have children and are choosing to raise them together in one home.  But don't call it "marriage" and don't make it contingent on love and sex; call it "household recognition" and make it contingent on these adults' commitment to jointly raising children in stable families.

Leave the spiritual sacrament of marriage to the religious institutions from which it originated in the first place, and let them define it according to their beliefs.

"Well, Alison, I can see that you're pretty long-winded and I'm the only reader who has gotten this far.  But the fact is that gay marriage is now legal in American and is likely to be legal forever.  Why can't you just accept it and move on?"

Yesterday's decision could have quite a bit of impact on my future.  Now that the government has put its stamp of approval on gay marriage, the day will come when a blog post like this could cause me to lose my job, or even land in jail.  That's true!  Hate speech laws are scary things.

This is me stepping out on a branch called "free speech" and doing a few tentative hops.  Today, the branch holds.  How long will it hold?  One year?  Five?  Ten?  Twenty?  When will it become illegal for me to state these ideas in a public sphere, or to teach them to my children?  When will the branch break?  I'm posting today because I can; I don't know if that will always be the case.

Anyway, we've come this far.  Gay readers: I don't hate you.  You are welcome at my table; you are welcome on my front porch; you are welcome at my family Christmas.  Let's talk and pray together.  Let's try to understand each other.  May God give us grace.

(Comments are welcome below, on both sides of the argument.  Thanks for reading.)

[In the Style of Dave Barry] Inertia

"In the Style of..." is a series in which I attempt to imitate the writing style of some of my favorite writers.  This is an essay I tried to write in the style of humorist Dave Barry.  It was a lot harder than I thought.

Inertia 

           Today we are going to talk about the physical property of matter which states that an object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest.

            Yes, I am referring to inertia, as you no doubt were aware because you paid attention in your high school physics class rather than spending your time giggling with your friend as you tallied the quirks of all of your male classmates.  Unfortunately, I was the second type of student so I can’t tell you much about inertia. 

            We made our tallies on the brown paper bag that served as a cover for my physics book.  We kept track of all sorts of things: the number of times we thought our teacher was fibbing about whether or not something would be covered on a quiz, the number of times Robbie almost fell over backward as he leaned back onto one leg of his folding chair, the number of times Billy made a snide remark about Matt’s soccer skills, and so on.  We even had a column for the number of times a certain classmate’s voice cracked.  This column was called “R Crack,” and R was NOT PLEASED when he saw it on my physics cover and guessed what we were talking about.

            We had another friend in the class who was so devoted to his study of physics that he spent most of his class time sitting across the table from us, with his back to the teacher.  It’s funny that I really don’t recall much about physics at all, but I vividly remember the day that guy spent the entire class patiently chewing off an inflamed taste bud.  I also clearly recall the day that Alex licked his finger and stuck it in my friend’s ear, which was a cause for some high-pitched squawks from my friend and a disapproving look from Mr. B.  

            Anyway, inertia.

            Inertia means… Let’s see.  I’d look it up, except I don’t have Internet right now so I’d actually have to find a book or get to a library.  Which I don’t want to do, because… inertia!

            Inertia also explains why I’m resting on my couch instead of making lunch, even though I’m hungry and it’s already 4:41 p.m.  An object at rest stays at rest.

            My guess is that a lot of major world problems could be solved if we could just get rid of inertia.  Take highway construction projects, for example.  Why don't they get done faster?  Well, at the end of the first day, all the equipment was shut down and all the workers went home.  They discovered that a memory foam mattress and a "Nature's Sounds Sleepytime CD" feel a lot better than a day at work, and they never went back.  An object at rest will stay at rest!

            Inertia also states that an object in motion will stay in motion.  Congress is a good example of this principle.  Back when our country was founded, our founders knew we would need some laws.  So they created a governing body called “Congress.” 

            “Congress,” they said, “You are in charge of making some laws.” 

            Congress set to work writing laws, which was very helpful because at that time we needed some basic regulations on the books, such as how to elect a president and what to do with murderers.

            But those basic laws all got written in the first few years, and someone forgot to tell Congress it was OK to stop making laws.  This explains why our federal tax code would, if printed on standard printer paper, fill the state of North Dakota to a depth of four feet if it was scattered on the ground.  I made that up, but you get the point.  (It would actually fill the state of Alaska.)

           Recently, the logical-law drought got so bad that California was forced to write a law outlawing plastic bags at grocery stores.  For centuries, this country has gotten along just fine with the question “Paper or Plastic?”.  We won two world wars that way. Then one day Congress ran out of things to do, and you find yourself committing a crime by providing your customers with a plastic sack for their eggs.  Blame inertia.

            I wish there was some way we could stop inertia so that we could stem the tide of silly laws, and our road projects would get done on time, and I could finally get some lunch.  Unfortunately, they must have covered the topic of overcoming inertia on the day that I spent physics class learning how to make a necklace out of paper clips, so I guess we’re out of luck.

            But there’s a paper clip on the footrest next to this couch that would make a lovely ring.

[In the Style of Flight of the Conchords] Tears of a Carpenter

Last night, my community group did some odd jobs at our church camp.  I'd like to tell you a bit about the night, in the style of Flight of the Conchords' Tears of a Rapper:


Some people say carpenters don't have feelings.
...We have feelings.
Some people say we're not carpenters.
...We're carpenters.
...That hurts our feelings, when you say that we're not carpenters.
Some people say that we're invincible.
....We're vincible.

drop the beat

It's Monday night, and I'm at CG
Waitin for instructions from my friend, Shaly.
There's a camp to clean; no time to fail.
But I know what I should do cuz I got her e-mail.

"Find the back room, to the west, where the carpet's filled with mold.
Find a spot along the edge where you can grab and take hold.
Rip the carpet and the pad and then throw it all away.
Then patch the broken wall if you still have time today."

I found a room with carpet and a janky looking wall.
I knew it was the right room cuz it din't smell good at all.
My friend and I got truckin; soon the carpet was half out.
When Matt stopped by and said, "Hey, ladies, what's this all about?"

"Are you worried 'bout our workmanship?" we asked with drips of sweat.
"Well, it doesn't look too bad, but don't finish this room yet."
"Why not?" we asked.  He sighed and paused, and then he laid the boom:
"You got the carpet up but you DID THE WRONG ROOM."

"Oh no!  We're on the east!" I cried. "This building is confusing."
(But I just didn't think enough before we started cruising.)
Now I know to check for sure when someone tells me "west."
It's over on the side of earth where the sun sets.

On Faith, Doubt, and Biblical Inerrancy

Dear Christian,

Have you ever encountered a contradiction in the Bible?  I have.  When I was a freshman in college, I took a course called "Literature of the Old and New Testament," which raised for me such questions as, "Why do different accounts of the same events have different details?" leading to "Can the Bible be trusted?" leading to "Is my Christian faith reasonable and true?"

For example, that course raised the question, "Why do the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 disagree on the order of creation?" Genesis 1 has God creating plants on the third day and man on the sixth day, while Genesis 2 states that man was created when "no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted" (Gen 2:5).  This is a very difficult discrepancy to explain away, and it occurs literally within the first two pages of my Bible.  How in the world can I trust this book?

After about a year of uncertainty about these things, God was gracious to restore and strengthen my faith in Him in spite of my doubts, and I can confidently say I believe the gospel is true.  But I never found a very satisfying answer to my doubts about Biblical inerrancy (i.e., the belief that the Bible contains no errors).

It's also not an easy question to bring up in a Bible study.  "Hey guys!  Did you notice these mistakes in the Bible?  What do you think about them? .... Wait, you never noticed them?  Oh, sorry.  Ooo, now you're doubting your salvation?  Whoooooopppppps."  (Or, conversely, now you're doubting MY salvation?)

However, good news!  I finally found a good answer in the book A Reasonable Response by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig.  This is just a book of letters in which he answers questions from readers and seekers.  I found the four letters on Biblical inerrancy to be very helpful.

One questioner asks,

"...After re-evaluating my Christian faith and pruning it for two years, I can't shake what seem like two disparate conclusions.  One is that the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is impeccable.  But the other is that there seem to be some very awkward realities about the composition of Scripture (like errors or authors claiming to write by another name).  Yet the authors of the New Testament, including Jesus, seem to use Scripture in a way that assumes it is word for word from God" (p. 105).

 There are several parts of Craig's response that I want to share.  He says,

Defenders of inerrancy claim that the Bible is authoritative and inerrant in all that it teaches or all that it means to affirm.  This raises the huge question as to what the authors of Scripture intend to affirm or teach.  Questions of genre will have a significant bearing on our answer to that question (p. 106).

 He goes on to say that we all know that poetry is not meant to be taken literally.  None of us (Christian or non-Christian) insists that all of the poems, songs, and figurative language in the Bible must be literally true for us to believe that the Bible is without error.

But what I didn't realize is that many other parts of the Bible are written in a genre from which we would not expect journalistic attention to detail and chronology.  He states that the gospels are most closely in the genre of "ancient biography," such as Plutarch's Lives, which do not "have the intention of providing a chronological account of the hero's life from the cradle to the grave.  Rather, ancient biography relates anecdotes that serve to illustrate the hero's character" (p. 108).

The question of chronology actually briefly came up in my Bible study just a couple weeks ago; someone was reading aloud from the book of Mark, and their translation had added a heading to the temple cleansing story: "Jesus clears the temple again." Again?  Well, if you're trying to harmonize the gospels chronologically you need Jesus clearing the temple twice, because John puts the event early in his ministry and Mark puts it right before Jesus is killed.  But Craig says, "Only an unsympathetic (and uncomprehending) reader would take John's moving the Temple cleansing to earlier in Jesus' life as an error on John's part" (p. 108).

To simplify, I think it's hugely helpful to not demand that the Bible be written as a fact-by-fact, moment-by-moment newspaper account in order to trust that it's true.  Craig says, "A Bible that employs a rich variety of genres should not be treated like a flat, monotone book.  We need to come to God's Word with humility and learn from it what it intends to teach and affirm" (p. 109).

But what if you take into account the different genres that the Bible contains and still find errors that you can't resolve?  In other words, what if you lose your faith in Biblical inerrancy?  Must you then forsake your faith in Christ?  That's what I thought would have to happen when I was a freshman in my Lit of Old and New Testaments class.  But I know from experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit in my life that Jesus has changed me.  So how can I reconcile that with a reasonable faith?

As Craig says,

"Suppose you've done all that and are still convinced that Scripture is not inerrant.  Does that mean that the deity and resurrection of Christ go down the drain?  Not at all" (p. 110).

 He mentions a man named Bret Ehrman who found a discrepancy in the New Testament that he could not resolve, and then renounced his faith.  Craig says,

"It seems that at the center of his web of theological beliefs was biblical inerrancy, and everything else, like the beliefs in the deity of Christ and in his resurrection, depended on that.  Once the center was gone, the whole web soon collapsed.  But when you think about it, such a structure is deeply flawed.  At the center of our web of beliefs ought to be some core belief like the belief that God exists, with the deity and resurrection of Christ somewhere near the center.  The doctrine of inspiration of Scripture will be somewhere further out and inerrancy even further toward the periphery as a corollary of inspiration.  If inerrancy goes, the web will feel the reverberations of that loss, as we adjust our doctrine of inspiration accordingly, but the web will not collapse because belief in God and Christ and His resurrection and so on don't depend upon the doctrine of biblical inerrancy" (p. 110-111).

What I gained from this reading is that inerrancy can be a doctrine held by a rational, intellectual Christian even in the face of apparent discrepancies if the genre of the original writing is taken into account.  But even if the rational, intellectual Christian comes to believe there are mistakes in the Bible, he or she can still believe in the inspiration of the Bible as God's word and in the historical fact of Christ's resurrection, which can be defended both from theology and philosophy as well as from history.

Hooray!

I realize this is kind of dense reading and probably only one or two of you are still with me.  But if these are questions you've thought of, or have some insight on, I'd love to hear from you.

Post Edit:  My friend Lisa just e-mailed me using the phrase "literary vs literal" reading of the Bible, which is a good summary of the first point in this post and, blessedly, MUCH SHORTER.

Also, I've been enjoying William Lane Craig's website this week.  Check it out at www.reasonablefaith.org.  I especially like the Q&A.

It's (not) too late to 'pologize.

Three years ago this summer I participated in a teacher training program in a small town in China called Haiyuan, where I happened to eat at this fake KFC restaurant:

Ah yes.... the FCK.  I thought it was funny (who wouldn't?), so I put up a short blog post about it.

This weekend, as I was looking through my blog stuff on Blogger, I happened to notice that some readers were coming to my old blog through a post on a different site.  I went there, and *gasp!* there were my FCK photos, resurrected from their quiet, dormant life on my dusty old blog, and posted as part of another blogger's article.

I sent an e-mail to the site, asking them to remove the photos.  Here it is:

I see from glancing at my blog traffic that some users have come from your site. I clicked in and found my own photos on your site, which were posted by you without my knowledge or permission. The article is the fake kfc article http://weburbanist.com/2014/05/04/kickin-the-bucket-12-outrageous-fake-kfc-restaurants/
The photos are those of the "FCK" restaurant. Please email me to let me know they've been taken down, and do remember that intellectual property theft is not legal. Thanks.

It's actually pretty embarrassing to post that e-mail.  I don't know why I felt the need to be so snippy... It's not like I was hugely offended that my pictures were on another site; it just kind of felt like walking into a stranger's house and seeing my vacation photos on their fridge.

The editor of the site sent me back a prompt and professional response, along with a link to Fair Use guidelines showing that they had a right to use those photos, and then took them down per my request.

I felt bad that I'd been so rude.  So I apologized.  And I got another prompt reply:

"Sure - happy to help, no apology necessary and I in turn am sorry that the use was not to your liking (but glad you were pleased with the prompt resolution)!"

Plus he gave a little more info and made a joke about Canada.  Who doesn't love jokes about Canada?  All in all, it turned into a pleasant and informative exchange that got me thinking about today's topic: apologies.

The Bible says, "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."  (Proverbs 15:1).  Have you noticed how true that is?  I'm amazed at how phrases like these can change the whole tone of a conversation:

I'm sorry.
I'm wrong.
That was my fault.
I take the blame for that.

Recently I've noticed that when I apologize instead of making excuses or blaming the other person, I almost always receive a gracious response. (It helps that I know a lot of gracious people.)  My experience with my FCK complaint was a good reminder to me that there are real people on the other end of online comment forms, online comment sections, and customer service lines.  So I thought I'd pass these thoughts on to you.

By the way, if the conclusion that you get from reading this post is that you should somehow be using the letters "FCK" when you apologize to someone, I'm sorry you're so dumb.  I was wrong to believe you'd understand my cheesy jokes.  I forgot how clueless you are.  That was my fault.  In fact, I take the blame for that.

Haha.  Just kidding.  :)

[Verses in Verse] The Ark and the Dove

"Verses in Verse" is a series of poems based on Bible passages, in which I try to re-tell the meaning of the passage but from a different perspective.  Here is the story of Noah's ark, as experienced by the dove.

A tale from ancient Ararat:

Under young Dove’s watchful eye,

The frame of the great boat took shape.

Each beam was placed with pains untold

For Noah’s building crew was slim

(It was just his three sons and him.)

Around the floating zoo’s construction

Mankind frolicked toward destruction.

At night the drunks went stumbling home

By day the quarreling boys threw rocks.

The Dove grew old until at last

The final nail was driven in.

She fluttered ‘round the upper deck

And perched on new-hewn gopher wood

As Noah’s family bustled in.

Dove’s eye saw what man’s could not:

The hot sun blazed, but in the west

A tiny, smudge-like rain-cloud grew.

Dove sped to town: “It comes!  The rain!”

“Get on the boat!” she squawked in vain.

But people hardly noticed her,

And if they looked up from their sins

They only shrugged at her strange calls,

As frenzied Dove flew house to house.

With the first fat drop of rain

All warning time was at an end.

Noah drove the last two goats

Into the ark’s new livestock pens

And Dove soared in (the last one saved)

As Japheth slammed the main door shut.

The first few days were hell-like there

As beasts and men clawed at the hull

Their wails and cries and roars and sighs

Stole sleep from everyone inside.

The wrath of judgment drowned the earth.
Soon all was quiet ‘round the boat.

The next few months were long and wet.

Old Dove was tired.  She longed to fly

On hillsides lush and prosperous.

Instead she lurched, green at the wings,

And held her perch in seasickness

Afraid to fall among the wolves.

One Sabbath, Noah sought her out:

 “How are your wings?” (Dove flapped them twice.)

He nodded at her eagerness

And took her up to the top rail

To give her this important task:

“Fly on until you find the land.”

She caught a breeze and flew a-sea.

There was no earth to be found

That week, so she returned to rest.

The next week she flew out again

And found some trees up through the sea.

Oh, hopeful, long-awaited sight!

She plucked a branch and resumed flight.

Back at the ark, the family gasped

With reverence at the olive branch.

They praised their God (she praised him too),

For now they knew the end was near.

Next week she flew out one last time,

And landed on a lush, green hill.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

"Wow, what's that blurry picture?" you may be asking yourself.  "And why is it backward?"
"Wait, is that a recipe?  Is Alison about to share something delicious with us???"

Well, reader, the answers to your questions are as follows:
1) It's a picture of me holding a recipe card.
2) Because I am a technological wizard.
3) Yes.
4) Absolutely yes.

"What kind of blog is this, anyway?  So far we've had cheesy poetry, ISIS, and now cookies."

5)  Who knows.

It has come to my attention that it has come to the attention of most of my acquaintances that I really love cookies.  I eat them at all hours of the day, but especially for breakfast.  (This is true.  I had two this morning.  And yesterday morning.)

The best cookies I know of are my mom's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and today I am sharing the recipe with you:

Oatmeal Chip Cookies

1 C softened butter
1 C brown sugar
1 C white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 T water
(blend the above together)

2.5 C flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
(sift the above together)

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.  Add:

2 C quick oats
2 C chocolate chips

Chill in refrigerator overnight, if desired, to get the best out of this recipe.
Bake at 350 degrees F until center appears "set."


I would love to hear if you actually make this, and if it turns out as well as my mom's (which were so good she served them as wedding favors at my sister's reception and they got as many compliments as the meal).