Thanks, GCN Radio listeners, for dropping by to visit my blog. I've been writing on the topic of "Christianity, Homosexuality and the Bible" over a span of nine years, which has ended up being a lot of writing. The links to many of the articles I referred to during the interview can be found along the sidebar of this blog. Nevertheless, I thought I'd provide a list of them right here for your convenience, along with links to other writings that you might be interested in.
(I apologize in advance for the crummy format of some of these older articles. I really need a web designer who can update my original MusingsOn.com site but somehow haven't gotten around to finding one yet.)
"A Conservative Christian Case for Civil Same-Sex Marriage"
"Gregg and Joel." The story of my gay neighbors.
"A Log of My Progress, 1999-2001." My journey toward understanding homosexuality.
Chronology and documents relating to the controversy in my old denomination.
"The Broken Hearts' Club: My Movie Experience"
Some highlights from this blog:
"Is homosexuality lust or love?"
"How Christians and gays talk past each other." Three part series.
"What it's like to be you." What straight Christians need to understand about celibate gay Christians.
My critique of ex-gay testimonies here and here.
"Suicide." Three-part series.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
My interview with GCN Radio is up
My interview on Gay Christian Network Radio is now available at the GCN website. Don't forget to scroll down the page and check out other GCN Radio programs. I felt honored to be invited as a radio guest for what I consider to be one of the hippest, coolest gay Christian ministries out there today.
Friday, October 30, 2009
GCN Radio Interview
I was interviewed this morning by Justin Lee and Aaron Sperling for Gay Christian Network (GCN) Radio. It's an Internet radio show that you can download from GCN's website. I thought I was going to be all nervous and dry-throated but I actually had a good time. I'm not sure when the recording of my interview will be available. I'll let you guys know.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
"The Vast Fields of Ordinary" by Nick Burd
I know we're discussing Marin's book, but I have another recommendation, a young adult novel I just finished by Nick Burd called The Vast Fields of Ordinary. It's about a gay teenager coming out in the suburbs of Iowa. There's a subtle beauty to the writing, and the story feels so real you just keep turning pages until you're done. I won't say any more about it than that. Thanks to my friend Wes for a great recommendation.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Quote for the day
[Love Is an Orientation] is a book that will put most of you into an immediate struggle. You are going to read what Marin says about the situation between Evangelicals and the Gay community with intense appreciation, but part of your ingrained evangelical training will be talking to you the whole time, telling you to stop thinking about anything other than the abomination of Gay sex and the verses that apply. You’ll want to shut it and you’ll want to keep reading. You’ll know you need this and you aren’t hearing it anywhere else, but part of you will say you’re slipping into squishy, emerging liberalism.Internet Monk
You aren’t. You are applying the Gospel.
Thoughts on "Love Is an Orientation" by Andrew Marin
I'm having a hard time evaluating a book that hasn't so much enlightened me as it has left me with the strange impression that I was reading a chapter out of The Story of My Life. Andrew Marin's Love Is an Orientation has organized, systematized and articulated, better than I ever could, just about everything I've thought and experienced over the last nine years in my own outreach to the gay and lesbian community, and more. Marin has been laboring in his own ministry for ten years, except much more intensely and in a situation that is far more immersed. Nevertheless, I've learned from reading his book that we've had a lot of the same experiences, thought a lot of the same things, and come to a lot of the same conclusions. Dude, where have you been all my life?
Love Is an Orientation was written as a handbook for evangelical Christians who want to make a serious attempt at crossing the barriers that separate them from the GLBT community. It is designed to give Christians a brain make-over in their approach to understanding who gay people are and how to love them with the love of Christ. The best kind of review for this book ought to be written by a Regular Joe Christian who can point out stuff like, "I was so convicted when Marin wrote this," "I was so enlightened when he explained this to me," "I didn't want to face this fact about myself, but I had to." That kind of perspective can give us a true idea of whether Marin has accomplished what he intended in writing this book.
I can't give you that perspective because I was going through a whole different set of thoughts and emotions. For what it's worth, I'll explain. First, I had the weird experience of thinking I was looking at myself in a mirror, since Marin's experiences and my own were so alike: "I've noticed that, too." "I've been in that situation." "I've had those fears." "I've taken that approach before." Then, once I accepted the fact that he and I have evidently been living in parallel universes over the last decade, I started to feel jealous: "How come he gets to move his family to Boystown and work with the GLBT community 24/7? I'm stuck here at home in the suburbs with three kids, struggling just to get a couple of hours of blogtime a week. Grr!"
Then, once I accepted that my lot in life is squeezing in only a handful of coffee shop meetings a year with my gay friends, while Marin has gotten as far as starting an entire organization (The Marin Foundation) dedicated to full-time outreach to the GLBT community, I started to feel kind of sad as I read on. Not for myself and all the selfish reasons I just mentioned. Not exactly. This is the part that's hard to explain.
I felt sad because as I read this very helpful guidebook, in which Marin explains in clear, step-by-step terms how Christians can be more humble, more teachable, more loving, and more persevering in reaching out to the gay community, a certain realization began creeping up on me, though Marin never once elucidated on it. I knew that in order to gather this kind of information, in order to come to these kinds of conclusions, you have to have experienced some pretty hard knocks. You've gone down blind alleys. You've said wrong things and beat yourself up later. You've been bewildered and humiliated and rejected a few more times than you would've liked. You've had to tear yourself down and build yourself back up from the inside out. You've felt like a failure. Marin refers to some of these experiences, mainly to make himself an object lession for his readers on what to do or not do. But I could tell there was a lot more there between the lines. I think what made me sad--and I don't even know if "sad" is the right word--was seeing how Marin was largely restrained about revealing what goes on beneath the surface, which made me wonder what all this might be costing him as he abandons himself daily to what is perhaps the most neglected mission field of our time.
When you read this book you'll want to discuss Marin's ideas and critique his strategies and analyze what he says from a myriad of angles. But don't get so caught up in the debate that you forget to say a prayer for him, his family and the Marin Foundation. For I imagine that what they've had to suffer and sacrifice to accomplish what they've done so far is something that can only be rewarded at the gates of eternity.
Love Is an Orientation was written as a handbook for evangelical Christians who want to make a serious attempt at crossing the barriers that separate them from the GLBT community. It is designed to give Christians a brain make-over in their approach to understanding who gay people are and how to love them with the love of Christ. The best kind of review for this book ought to be written by a Regular Joe Christian who can point out stuff like, "I was so convicted when Marin wrote this," "I was so enlightened when he explained this to me," "I didn't want to face this fact about myself, but I had to." That kind of perspective can give us a true idea of whether Marin has accomplished what he intended in writing this book.
I can't give you that perspective because I was going through a whole different set of thoughts and emotions. For what it's worth, I'll explain. First, I had the weird experience of thinking I was looking at myself in a mirror, since Marin's experiences and my own were so alike: "I've noticed that, too." "I've been in that situation." "I've had those fears." "I've taken that approach before." Then, once I accepted the fact that he and I have evidently been living in parallel universes over the last decade, I started to feel jealous: "How come he gets to move his family to Boystown and work with the GLBT community 24/7? I'm stuck here at home in the suburbs with three kids, struggling just to get a couple of hours of blogtime a week. Grr!"
Then, once I accepted that my lot in life is squeezing in only a handful of coffee shop meetings a year with my gay friends, while Marin has gotten as far as starting an entire organization (The Marin Foundation) dedicated to full-time outreach to the GLBT community, I started to feel kind of sad as I read on. Not for myself and all the selfish reasons I just mentioned. Not exactly. This is the part that's hard to explain.
I felt sad because as I read this very helpful guidebook, in which Marin explains in clear, step-by-step terms how Christians can be more humble, more teachable, more loving, and more persevering in reaching out to the gay community, a certain realization began creeping up on me, though Marin never once elucidated on it. I knew that in order to gather this kind of information, in order to come to these kinds of conclusions, you have to have experienced some pretty hard knocks. You've gone down blind alleys. You've said wrong things and beat yourself up later. You've been bewildered and humiliated and rejected a few more times than you would've liked. You've had to tear yourself down and build yourself back up from the inside out. You've felt like a failure. Marin refers to some of these experiences, mainly to make himself an object lession for his readers on what to do or not do. But I could tell there was a lot more there between the lines. I think what made me sad--and I don't even know if "sad" is the right word--was seeing how Marin was largely restrained about revealing what goes on beneath the surface, which made me wonder what all this might be costing him as he abandons himself daily to what is perhaps the most neglected mission field of our time.
When you read this book you'll want to discuss Marin's ideas and critique his strategies and analyze what he says from a myriad of angles. But don't get so caught up in the debate that you forget to say a prayer for him, his family and the Marin Foundation. For I imagine that what they've had to suffer and sacrifice to accomplish what they've done so far is something that can only be rewarded at the gates of eternity.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
"God made me this way"
An unlikely crowd is embracing the argument. A humorous twist from The Onion .
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Thanks, followers!
Looks like the pattern has been that I post the names of new followers by increments of nine. We've hit the 27 mark now. Here's the latest batch (with apologies to those of you who have been on my sidebar for awhile):
Kate
Holly Killen
Eugene
danielle nelson
Joe Branca
Jonathan
Lead_Worshiper
Tim Morris
Secretly Gay
Kate
Holly Killen
Eugene
danielle nelson
Joe Branca
Jonathan
Lead_Worshiper
Tim Morris
Secretly Gay
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Suicide, part 3
We are told at the beginning of the Book of Job how the whole deal got started. God and Satan were having a dispute over whether Job worshipped God from a true heart or whether his motives were purely mercenary. My guess is that this conversation was only a small snippet of some ancient dispute between God and Satan from way back. Satan was the one who had tricked Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit after all. He'd scored one against God there, so he figured Job would be more easy prey. He was saying that all he would have to do is destroy everything Job had and Job would renounce God in a heartbeat. God had more confidence in Job than that. He told Satan to go for it.
Job, knowing nothing about all this, saw everything he'd worked for in his life get trashed for no apparent reason. He managed to hang in there until, in a second wave of affliction, Satan struck him from head to toe with boils and he finally broke. He asked God what he did to deserve this. He demanded to know what sin he committed that brought this on. He wondered if God was capable of wickedness. He wondered if God had become perverse. He accused God of pulling rank on him--the rank of being too big, too powerful and too righteous to have to answer to a lowly mortal. The problem with God was . . . he was God.
In the end God answered Job, but it's not quite what we expect. God could have told Job about his conversation with Satan. He could have explained to Job that it was just a test of faith, that he didn't commit any great sin. He could have defended himself point by point against Job's accusations that he was being unjust, reckless and aloof.
But God knew that Job, in the throes of his sufferings, wasn't looking for "an answer." Job didn't want to be handed a list of reasons. "Well, you see, I'm conducting this test . . . it'll work together for the cosmic good . . . you'll get your life back when it's over . . ." None of that. The answer God gave was the only one Job craved. God appeared to him.
Job saw God with his own eyes and that was all the answer he needed. God rebuked him, too, (rather mildly considering the intensity of Job's accusations) and didn't answer him point by point. He reminded Job that his ways were beyond understanding. He appealed to everything about his wisdom and greatness that Job already knew but had become blinded to in the thickness of his sorrows. Essentially God asked him, "Don't you remember who I am and why you once trusted me?"
Job had to accept that there were reasons behind his sufferings he could never understand. Instead he had to find comfort in the presence of the One who held those answers. In the end Job was rewarded and God restored to him all that he had lost. But like all the Old Testament books, the message that the Book of Job contains is only a partial answer. Because even as we come to the close of the story, none of Job's accusations against God were ever answered. They still remained. How God can afflict us with no explanation. How God is accountable to no one and is too terrifying to approach with a complaint. How God is just too big and powerful for us to deal with when we are weak and crippled and in pain.
In other words, even God could not remain satisfied with the answer he gave Job. Not while those accusations still stood. His fuller answer was yet to come in the New Testament, and once again he knew that our souls would not be content with a dry list of reasons. We crave fellowship with a God who is not only willing to draw near but to come down, find out what it's like to be us, walk in our shoes, suffer as we suffer, in crippling, excruciating pain. The only answer God could give to Job was to become a man himself.
Jesus excelled Job both in righteousness and in suffering. He knew what it was like to be accused and afflicted and rejected for no apparent reason. As the Son of God, his fellowship with his Father sustained him through these hardships. Yet as he drew nearer to the moment of his death, as the persecution intensified and his friends fell away and he found himself captured and tortured and condemned, he sought for God yet encountered only silence. In his most desperate hour, God found himself abandoned by God. We are told that when Jesus hung on the cross, he cried out,
If you've ever been there, you know that this is not a question. Jesus was not asking to be told, "You have to be forsaken so you can bear the sins of the world. It's part of the plan. The atonement, remember?" Jesus knew that, but for him, in that moment, this was not an answer. He was alone, his heart was breaking, he was suffering something no righteous man, no divine being, should ever have to suffer. And he wanted to know why.
Sometimes the only comfort you can give to someone with a broken heart is to say, "I know." At one time God could not say this to us; but he wanted to. So he did what it took to be able to say it. God was forsaken. God broke. God asked the question that was not really a question. It was his final answer to Job.
Job, knowing nothing about all this, saw everything he'd worked for in his life get trashed for no apparent reason. He managed to hang in there until, in a second wave of affliction, Satan struck him from head to toe with boils and he finally broke. He asked God what he did to deserve this. He demanded to know what sin he committed that brought this on. He wondered if God was capable of wickedness. He wondered if God had become perverse. He accused God of pulling rank on him--the rank of being too big, too powerful and too righteous to have to answer to a lowly mortal. The problem with God was . . . he was God.
O that a man might plead with God
As a man with his neighbor!
(Job 16:21)
In the end God answered Job, but it's not quite what we expect. God could have told Job about his conversation with Satan. He could have explained to Job that it was just a test of faith, that he didn't commit any great sin. He could have defended himself point by point against Job's accusations that he was being unjust, reckless and aloof.
But God knew that Job, in the throes of his sufferings, wasn't looking for "an answer." Job didn't want to be handed a list of reasons. "Well, you see, I'm conducting this test . . . it'll work together for the cosmic good . . . you'll get your life back when it's over . . ." None of that. The answer God gave was the only one Job craved. God appeared to him.
I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees Thee. (Job 42:5)
Job saw God with his own eyes and that was all the answer he needed. God rebuked him, too, (rather mildly considering the intensity of Job's accusations) and didn't answer him point by point. He reminded Job that his ways were beyond understanding. He appealed to everything about his wisdom and greatness that Job already knew but had become blinded to in the thickness of his sorrows. Essentially God asked him, "Don't you remember who I am and why you once trusted me?"
Job had to accept that there were reasons behind his sufferings he could never understand. Instead he had to find comfort in the presence of the One who held those answers. In the end Job was rewarded and God restored to him all that he had lost. But like all the Old Testament books, the message that the Book of Job contains is only a partial answer. Because even as we come to the close of the story, none of Job's accusations against God were ever answered. They still remained. How God can afflict us with no explanation. How God is accountable to no one and is too terrifying to approach with a complaint. How God is just too big and powerful for us to deal with when we are weak and crippled and in pain.
In other words, even God could not remain satisfied with the answer he gave Job. Not while those accusations still stood. His fuller answer was yet to come in the New Testament, and once again he knew that our souls would not be content with a dry list of reasons. We crave fellowship with a God who is not only willing to draw near but to come down, find out what it's like to be us, walk in our shoes, suffer as we suffer, in crippling, excruciating pain. The only answer God could give to Job was to become a man himself.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face,
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God and afflicted.
(Isaiah 53:3-4)
Jesus excelled Job both in righteousness and in suffering. He knew what it was like to be accused and afflicted and rejected for no apparent reason. As the Son of God, his fellowship with his Father sustained him through these hardships. Yet as he drew nearer to the moment of his death, as the persecution intensified and his friends fell away and he found himself captured and tortured and condemned, he sought for God yet encountered only silence. In his most desperate hour, God found himself abandoned by God. We are told that when Jesus hung on the cross, he cried out,
"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
(Matthew 27:46)
If you've ever been there, you know that this is not a question. Jesus was not asking to be told, "You have to be forsaken so you can bear the sins of the world. It's part of the plan. The atonement, remember?" Jesus knew that, but for him, in that moment, this was not an answer. He was alone, his heart was breaking, he was suffering something no righteous man, no divine being, should ever have to suffer. And he wanted to know why.
Sometimes the only comfort you can give to someone with a broken heart is to say, "I know." At one time God could not say this to us; but he wanted to. So he did what it took to be able to say it. God was forsaken. God broke. God asked the question that was not really a question. It was his final answer to Job.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Suicide, part 2
Well-meaning people will assure you that things are going to get better and there are plenty of joys you have yet to experience that are worth living for. Over time I've actually found this to be true. But when you're lying at the bottom of that dark pit looking up at the small circle of light above, those words seem like empty promises. You tend to be in a more skeptical frame of mind than the average person.
Because even if things do get better, you wonder how life could hold such bitterness in the first place. You've seen the ugliness behind the veil and now people are saying you can go back to pretending it isn't there? Why would you want to hop onto their merry-go-round when you know it is spinning in the middle of a wasteland? But then, there is no point in resenting them. Isn't it God whom you really question?
A closer look at Job reveals that it wasn't so much the loss of his children, his servants, his animals, his property or his bodily health that he found so devastating, but the near loss of his faith. He went straight for the heart of the matter when he vented his disillusionment with God. Who was this God who would allow such things to afflict a man who had served him so faithfully? Behind the veil Job saw the reality of his own frailty before an unrelenting Power who had a right to do as he pleased for reasons completely hidden from view. How could Job, a lowly, fallible human being be expected to play the game of life with a God who held all the cards, dictated all the rules and always produced the winning hand?
Doesn't matter what I do, Job says. If I'm wicked I'm doomed. If I'm righteous I'm disgraced by my sufferings. If I rise from my misery you'll just tear me down again like a lion.
In other words, Job says, you can't win with God. He can afflict you all he wants with impunity. Power and justice are stacked on his side. Even when you think you are right, he can prove you wrong. You may think you are guiltless, but it is only his verdict that matters.
Why did God bother to make me? Job says. Why couldn't I have gone from womb to tomb instead of suffering all the miserable stuff in between? Couldn't God allow me a little happiness and leave me alone? Go away already!
The Bible isn't endorsing this perspective so much as acknowledging Job's real feelings as he fights for the survival his faith. Yes, these complaints were a function of Job's faith. Because if he were faithless he would have simply cursed God and walked away. Instead, desperation pushed him beyond the restraints of his normal pious fear. To save his faith he risked bringing his impious accusations openly before God in hope of getting an answer.
A lot of Christians feel they can't relate to Job because he insisted he was righteous and did not deserve the calamity he suffered. But actually it was because of Job's scrupulously righteous life that he could be such an able spokesman for the rest of us. His righteousness made him bold with God, more bold than someone whose guilty conscience would silence him in doubt. Job had no such reserve. He just let God have it.
In all my bitter wanderings and dark thoughts, I never dared to go where Job went. But if existential pain can be translated into words, I can affirm that Job's questions and complaints were exactly my own. God used Job to articulate what many of us cannot. He has even published Job's charges against himself in the Holy Scriptures, uncensored, for all of humanity to see. And he demonstrates by the restraint with which he rebukes Job and the abundance with which afterward blesses him, that he is not willing to crush or condemn those of us who rail against him in our desperation to believe in him.
Because even if things do get better, you wonder how life could hold such bitterness in the first place. You've seen the ugliness behind the veil and now people are saying you can go back to pretending it isn't there? Why would you want to hop onto their merry-go-round when you know it is spinning in the middle of a wasteland? But then, there is no point in resenting them. Isn't it God whom you really question?
A closer look at Job reveals that it wasn't so much the loss of his children, his servants, his animals, his property or his bodily health that he found so devastating, but the near loss of his faith. He went straight for the heart of the matter when he vented his disillusionment with God. Who was this God who would allow such things to afflict a man who had served him so faithfully? Behind the veil Job saw the reality of his own frailty before an unrelenting Power who had a right to do as he pleased for reasons completely hidden from view. How could Job, a lowly, fallible human being be expected to play the game of life with a God who held all the cards, dictated all the rules and always produced the winning hand?
If I am wicked, woe to me!
And if I am righteous, I dare not life up my head.
I am sated with disgrace and conscious of misery.
And should my head be lifted up,
Thou wouldst hunt me like a lion;
And again Thou wouldst show Thy power against me.
(Job 10:15-16)
Doesn't matter what I do, Job says. If I'm wicked I'm doomed. If I'm righteous I'm disgraced by my sufferings. If I rise from my misery you'll just tear me down again like a lion.
For he bruises me with a tempest,
and multiplies my wounds without cause.
He will not allow me to get my breath,
But saturates me with bitterness.
If it is a matter of power, behold, he is the strong one!
And if it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?
Though I am righteous, my mouth will condemn me;
Though I am guiltless, he will declare me guilty.
(Job 9:17-20)
In other words, Job says, you can't win with God. He can afflict you all he wants with impunity. Power and justice are stacked on his side. Even when you think you are right, he can prove you wrong. You may think you are guiltless, but it is only his verdict that matters.
Why then hast Thou brought me out of the womb?
Would that I had died and no eye had seen me!
I should have been as though I had not been,
Carried from womb to tomb.
Would he not let my few days alone?
Withdraw from me that I may have a little cheer?
(Job 10:18-20)
Why did God bother to make me? Job says. Why couldn't I have gone from womb to tomb instead of suffering all the miserable stuff in between? Couldn't God allow me a little happiness and leave me alone? Go away already!
The Bible isn't endorsing this perspective so much as acknowledging Job's real feelings as he fights for the survival his faith. Yes, these complaints were a function of Job's faith. Because if he were faithless he would have simply cursed God and walked away. Instead, desperation pushed him beyond the restraints of his normal pious fear. To save his faith he risked bringing his impious accusations openly before God in hope of getting an answer.
A lot of Christians feel they can't relate to Job because he insisted he was righteous and did not deserve the calamity he suffered. But actually it was because of Job's scrupulously righteous life that he could be such an able spokesman for the rest of us. His righteousness made him bold with God, more bold than someone whose guilty conscience would silence him in doubt. Job had no such reserve. He just let God have it.
In all my bitter wanderings and dark thoughts, I never dared to go where Job went. But if existential pain can be translated into words, I can affirm that Job's questions and complaints were exactly my own. God used Job to articulate what many of us cannot. He has even published Job's charges against himself in the Holy Scriptures, uncensored, for all of humanity to see. And he demonstrates by the restraint with which he rebukes Job and the abundance with which afterward blesses him, that he is not willing to crush or condemn those of us who rail against him in our desperation to believe in him.
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