Obama 2012

I was already going to vote for him, but this certainly helps.

The local gay Christian Bible study

When I mention to my straight friends that I attend a gay Christian Bible study, I sometimes get the feeling that they think I went to someone's house where half the guys were fornicating in the upstairs bedrooms while the other half sat around shirtless, leering at one another. Doesn't matter that I said "Christian" or even "Bible study." The only word some people hear is "gay," and that will often send their minds off in a certain misguided direction.

It's possible that I've presumed too much on what people know about gay Christians. So first off, yes, gay Christians do exist. And also, being Christians, they are interested in studying the Bible. Why do they have "gay Christian" Bible studies? you might ask. Because most evangelical churches don't welcome gay people--at least the ones that they know about--so if gay Christians want to be part of a Bible study quite often they have to form their own. It's admirable when you think about it. If you were told you were no longer welcome at your church, would you be so committed to studying the Bible that you'd go out of your way to form your own group to do so?

What's it like going to a gay Christian Bible study? Well, it's usually at someone's home or apartment. You need to get there early because sometimes the place is packed and you will be forced to sit on the floor. At one study I attended I walked in late, having fought through traffic in the rain. I found myself crowding into a small living room with about fifteen other people, and someone was nice enough to offer his chair to me. Copies of song lyrics were distributed, and we started off with a praise and worship time. I noticed a couple of open laptops on the coffee table. People who couldn't make the drive were Skyping in.

They were studying through the Gospel of John verse by verse. We took turns reading out loud from chapter 6, and the leader guided the discussion by asking questions. One of the verses seemed to support a Calvinist view of election and there was lively debate over that. We noticed that different Bible translations put the verse in slightly different lights. Which translation do you have? the leader asked someone. ESV, came the answer. Any others? People called out KJV, NIV, NAS. What about The Message? Anyone here use The Message? There was a friendly sort of tension in the room. Everyone knew who it was that didn't approve of dynamic equivalence Bible translations. If you guys are okay with it, I'll go ahead and read what it says in The Message, the leader said, taking one last cautious look around. Apparently, the coast was clear for a brief lapse into liberalism.

We wrapped up our time by sharing requests and praying together as a group. The fellowship time was a bit cramped, trying to make it through the crowd to the kitchen for soda and store-bought cookies. Then someone broke out a birthday cake and we all sang in honor of the recipient, who was obviously surprised. Aren't you glad you came tonight? people called to him. We were afraid you weren't going to be here.

People hung around until close to 10 pm. The Bible study leader gave me a lift to my car since I was parked two blocks away. He was in the Army Reserves, grew up Southern Baptist, and had recently returned from his second deployment to Iraq. He mentioned that some of his Christian friends had been unfriending him on Facebook for being gay. All I could think was that if my son grew up to be like this guy, I'd be very proud.

So that is what a gay Christian Bible study is like. A bunch of Christians, who are gay, get together to study the Bible. They ask questions, debate a little, and try to keep the peace between the traditionalists and progressives within the group. But in the end, they support and care for one another. In other words, it's not a whole lot different from any other Bible study. Just like, I suppose, being a gay Christian isn't a whole lot different from being any other Christian.

Poem of the day

Suspended

I had grasped God's garment in the void
But my hand slipped
On the rich silk of it.
The 'everlasting arms' my sister loved to remember
Must have upheld my leaden weight
From falling, even so,
For though I claw at empty air and feel
Nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.

--Denise Levertov

Greetings to my readers

A fence around the cross

The only way I know how to be a Christian without getting caught up in some of the disturbing trends of evangelicalism today is by not listening to Christian radio or watching Christian television, not becoming too avid a follower of any one Christian blog, and being careful about any book I read from an evangelical publisher. It's sad to say, but I find it's hard enough to hear the voice of God in the Scriptures and discern the leading of his Holy Spirit without also receiving a lot of noise and interference from these other outside sources.

Having been on that fast for so long, maybe I was unprepared to hear what I did when I tuned into Dr. Albert Mohler's spiel about the recent Rush Limbaugh controversy. After claiming that Limbaugh has made some points that many people can support and agree with, Mohler admonishes Christians to "think very carefully" about this matter, especially regarding the words we use. "Words represent character," he says, and "we are judged not only by our arguments, but by the very words and phrases . . . we deploy in making those arguments."

Seriously? Why should Christians have to "think very carefully" about Mr. Limbaugh's rant at all? So that we can pick nicer, more godly words by which to villainize Sandra Fluke? And after we've lovingly condemned her for her presumably immoral sexual lifestyle--which we really know nothing about--we can now feel much better about making the argument that people like her deserve not a dime of our hard-earned taxpayer money. Amen.

The marriage of Christian morality and right-wing politics has been all about defining the Us vs. Them dividing line. Politics already demands that you side with one social issue over against another, which puts you in some tension with your fellow citizens who are on the opposing side. Add religious conviction to it and you've boosted your political argument to the level of divine absolutes--why you should absolutely disagree with and even self-righteously condemn those who are on the liberal, God-hating opposing side.

Which means that the greatest damage done by this unholy union between religion and politics is to the gospel itself. The gospel calls all sinners to come to Jesus for forgiveness and hope. But in the minds of many Christians that unconsciously translates into, "Jesus calls all of us who have been raised in godly, Christian, Republican homes to realize that we, too, are sinners in need of forgiveness." In today's conservative political environment, few realize that it also means Jesus calls the college student who is sleeping around, the woman who has had ten abortions, and the gay rights activist who spews bitterness against the church, to come to him for salvation.

Well, now that I've put it that way, no Christian who reads what I just wrote would deny that this is true. Of course we want sinners to come to Jesus--even those sinners! But our appetite for politics reveals the truth of how thoroughly we have abandoned the gospel. Because if you tolerate a preacher using your church's pulpit to condemn Roe v. Wade, for example, how can you expect the woman sitting in the pew, who is weighed down with guilt about her recent abortion, to hear Christ calling her to a heavenly hope? That preacher can go on to talk about the forgiveness and grace of Christ until the sun goes down, but because he brought politics to the pulpit all that woman will ever hear is that everyone, except those who have had abortions, may be forgiven.

And don't even get me started on preachers who use the pulpit to rail against gay rights.

But back to abortion, it recently occurred to me that in all the years I've spent talking to the many, many Christian women who have opened up and confided their secrets to me, not one person has ever confided to me that they have had an abortion. No one. As much as I would like to believe that I've simply never known anyone who has had that in her past, I know it can't be true. Given our intense political vitriol against all things Planned Parenthood, why would a Christian woman in the church ever confide such a thing, or even more frightening, dare to believe that she could be forgiven for it? If that's the case, how much more thoroughly are we driving away non-Christian women who have had abortions from ever setting foot in our sanctuaries?

It makes you wonder about the many other groups we are driving away from Calvary's cross by our all-consuming investment in worldly things that will soon pass away. My guess is that these groups might possibly be defined as the modern-day equivalent to the lepers, tax-collectors, harlots, adulterers and Samaritans of Jesus' day. Whose lifestyles, we are reminded, shouldn't be supported by our tax dollars. And if we won't give them our money, then why should they believe we would give them our love?

17 new followers!

I'd better post this before things get out of hand. Thank you to the BIGGEST group of followers that has joined this blog yet. Welcome aboard, everyone!

Toblerone
Perplicatus
Justin Johns
Matthew Oliver
Lincoln
Dan L. Lewis
Steph Garee
musicalguy
Sam Lufi
James Armstrong
Stymes, Mattster, Shaggy, etc...
Cassie
brian
Takeshi Takahashi
Kristine Allphin
Kelly Anderson
mtn

"99.9% of them have not experienced a change in their orientation" -- Alan Chambers

Oh, and in case you missed all the hoopla, as an unofficial side event at the GCN Conference Alan Chambers was interviewed by Justin Lee as a part of a panel discussion on ex-gay ministries. Chambers is the president of Exodus International, the largest ex-gay organization in the United States. The video of the discussion is long (I was there to hear most of it in person), but the most significant statement Chambers made that evening was this:

The majority of people that I have met--and I would say "the majority" meaning 99.9% of them--have not experienced a change in their orientation, or have gotten to a place where they could say they could never be tempted, or are not tempted in some way, or experience some level of same sex attraction.

Quoth the President of the Largest Ex-gay Ministry in America. If you're worried I ripped it out of context, go to 1:09:44-1:10:09 and hear it for yourself. Then go tell your friends.

What I've been looking for

When I was in college I went on a short-term missions trip to Japan, where I taught English for six weeks at a small village church in Hanakawa. The congregation at Hanakawa was small, barely thirty people on an average Sunday, because Japanese Christians are a persecuted bunch. They don't pay homage to their dead ancestors at the Buddhist temple, nor do they offer prayers at the Shinto shrines imploring the spirits for good health or success. Their families are ashamed to own them. Wives risk the wrath of their husbands for going to church; children risk being disowned by parents. But when they come together for worship at church, that little group of thirty could sing. They worshipped with full hearts every Sunday out of joy and sorrow and gratitude. Twenty-five years later I can still hear the sound of their voices, accompanied by the whine of that cheap church organ, singing "Jesus Paid It All" in Japanese.

Three weekends ago gay Christians arrived from all over the country, and even other parts of the world for the Gay Christian Network (GCN) Conference to worship, learn, fellowship and break bread. And when they sang, the outpouring of their hearts carried me back to those days on the missions field. These were Christians rejected by their families and friends, whose very existence is considered a shame to society--and in this case, their churches. They were gathering to take a brief, collective breath of heavenly air before having to return to the grind of an oppressive existence. Even those who had churches to go back to said that they couldn't worship there with nearly the same freedom as they found at the safe haven of the conference. "Soon as we get back home, we'll start counting pennies to save up for next year's GCN Conference," someone told me.

I have to admit I've spent a lot of years hankering after the spiritual giants of the Christian world. I wanted to witness true faith, which I associated with passion and zeal. Maybe I wanted some of that faith to rub off on me. I would hang out with missionaries, thinking these people who gave up a comfortable life in the States to preach Christ in a foreign country had to be the real deal. I looked up to my brilliant seminary profs, feeling that anyone who spent a lifetime studying the Bible or theology must have a deep love for Christ. I've tried to grab hold of that genuine Christianity for myself. I've joined movements, studied and read, evangelized and prayed, and sold myself out for Christ numerous times. Many disappointments later I learned that outward spiritual impressiveness isn't always what it's cracked up to be, and I can't rely on other people's faith to carry my own.

And just as I'm learning to let go of all that, I come to the GCN Conference and realize that it's here where I least expected it, that authenticity I've been looking for. There was such a spirit of unguardedness among everyone that conversation and fellowship flowed easily. The name of Jesus was precious in the mouths of those who spoke of him. I could talk about suffering and sin and get quiet, understanding nods in return.

But it wasn't flashy or outwardly attractive; the faith of these people was born out of pain and doubt, of wandering and loneliness. It was almost as if the secret to faith was having a messy life, not a together one. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, some wise person in the Bible once said. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

This Sunday

In case anyone's interested, I'm going to be speaking this Sunday at the 10 a.m. service of Open Door Ministries in Long Beach. The church website provides directions to the William F. Prisk Elementary School where they meet. If you already went to the GCN Conference then you're not missing anything. I'll be telling pretty much the same story as I did on January 7. Not a sermon, but a testimony. Thanks to Pastor Dan Burchett for inviting me.