This is about the writings of others on (Christian) religious matters.

Let us start with the beauty. It is a post on hypocrisy by PoserOrProphet (or, as is his real name, Dan). It’s not about others being hypocritical, but is very much focused inward – on the temptation to use the appearance of being ‘radical’ rather than actually living out a godly life (Dan works in the inner city and is thus often seen as a Christian ‘radical’). I can’t recommend you enough to go read the whole thing – this is precisely the kind of Christianity that I can respect and still, in some way, aspire to its goals.

Now for the wingnuts. I found this little gem on women from the ever-informative Challies, whom I use as a sort of Christian wingnut repository. What is it about this article you may ask. Well, the author – one Dr. James MacDonald, who holds graduate degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Phoenix Seminary, and is the founding pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel, a conservative evangelical megachurch in Illinois – begins with the observation that men are (generally) physically stronger than women. He then assumes that relative physical weakness means vulnerability and it is part of God’s ordained plan for women to be ‘vulnerable to’ (and thus – though he does not come out and say it explicitly – inferior to) men. Of course, there are a couple of obvious upshots of this: a woman is either vulnerable to/beneath her husband, or if she is single, to her father or male church leaders. The raw patriarchy in this post is astonishing, and I say this quite despite the talk about honoring women in their weakness. Money quote:

God created the woman to be vulnerable and dependent upon the man as a reflection of the Church’s vulnerability and dependence upon Christ. It should not be our goal to help women be less vulnerable before men—which is physically impossible anyway—but rather to work toward the realization of the image of Christ’s self-sacrificial relationship to the Church. Women by their very nature will always be vulnerable before men. The call of Christ is not to pursue an ill-fated attempt to abolish this vulnerability, but rather to protect and honor women in the midst of it.

To put his metaphor in more explicit terms, man is the God to woman’s humanity. This is not just scary because it’s something that one man believes, but because it is something that a large number of people (not a small percentage of evangelicals) in this country believe, and what its implications are for how they live their lives, teach their children, and how they treat and view women. However, living in what is largely an egalitarian society (or attempting to be one), this leads to some odd paradoxes in worldviews (e.g., women, who represent the church, are weak before men, who represent God, but Sarah Palin is nevertheless fully capable of being president).

The next and last wingnut is none other than our very own Focus on the Family, and in case you thought they weren’t crazy, just you wait. Focus on the Family Action – the political arm of the organization – released a fictitious letter from a conservative Christian living in the year 2012 after four years of an Obama administration. The letter, which you can read a synopsis of here, or download the entire 16-page pdf here – details an end-of-the-world scenario in which activist liberal judges actively persecute Christians (and Boy Scouts – no joke!) by making up laws forcing gay marriages and abortions upon unsuspecting Christians. Since the letter is long and I do not expect you all to read it (though I encourage it), I will proffer a few quotes from it, in order, to give you an idea of the tone:

We are not “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Many of our freedoms have been taken away by a liberal Supreme Court and a majority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate and hardly any brave citizen dares to resist the new government policies any more.

On (Focus’ favorite topic) homosexuality:

The most far-reaching transformation of American society came from the Supreme Court’s stunning affirmation, in early 2010, that homosexual marriage was a “constitutional” right that had to be respected by all 50 states because laws barring same-sex marriage violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. … This was a blatant example of creating new law by the court …

The Boy Scouts no longer exist as an organization. They chose to disband rather than be forced to obey the Supreme Court decision that they would have to hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys. …

The Bible can no longer be freely preached over radio or television stations when the subject matter includes such “offensive” doctrines as homosexual conduct or the claim that people will go to hell if they do not believe in Jesus Christ. …

While churches are still free to turn down homosexual applicants for the job of senior pastor, churches and parachurch organizations are no longer free to reject homosexual applicants for staff positions such as part-time youth pastor or director of counseling.

On homeschooling:

The Court declared that home schooling was an illegal violation of state educational requirements except in cases where the parents (a) had an education certificate from an accredited state program, (b) agreed to use state-approved textbooks in all courses, and (c) agreed not to not to teach their children that homosexual conduct is wrong, or that Jesus is the only way to God, since these ideas have been found to hinder students’ social adjustment and acceptance of other lifestyles and beliefs, and to run counter to the state’s interest in educating its children to be good citizens.

On foreign policy:

Since 2009 terrorist bombs have exploded in two large and two small U.S. cities, killing hundreds, and the entire country is now fearful, for no place seems safe. … In early 2009 [Russia] followed the pattern they had begun in Georgia in 2008 and sent troops to occupy and re-take several Eastern European countries, starting with the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. … Then in the next three years Russia occupied additional countries that had been previous Soviet satellite nations, including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria, with no military response from the U.S. or the UN. … In mid-2010 Iran launched a nuclear bomb which exploded in the middle of Tel Aviv, destroying much of that city.

And much, much more, including the shutting down of Christian booksellers due to the popularity of the pro-homosexual agenda (the menace behind everything!), the author reprimanding naive evangelicals for voting for Barack Obama, Christian leaders thrown in jail for non-compliance with the new liberal laws of post-apocalyptic America, children unwillingly exposed to pornography, and that’s just the start! If this isn’t a piece of populist, Christianist (tip o’ the hat to Andrew Sullivan for the word) drivel, I don’t know what is. I particularly enjoyed the fanciful thoughts about what the Supreme Court could and could not do, and the link drawn (as is common in these spheres) between homosexuality and pedophilia. I can tell you I’ve worked with kids a plenty and not once thought anything less innocent than ‘oh, I really do want to be a father, don’t I?’

I don’t criticize this out of any great love for Barack Obama – viewing myself as something rather close to a libertarian, I have problems with many of his positions (and that does not mean anything about whether I support him or not). But seriously people… I mean, are you serious?

Nevertheless, this is the kind of material put out by a leading organization within evangelical Christianity, and one of the wealthiest, too. This sort of thing, along with my own reflections, has led me to believe that religious fundamentalism of whatever stripe (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and yes there are Hindu and Buddhist fundamentalists) is one of if not the most dangerous challenge of our time. And if you want more information on fundamentalism as a worldwide phenomenon, might I suggest looking in your local library for the University of Chicago’s Fundamentalism Project, a multi-volume set of on-going releases looking at various aspects of all sorts of fundamentalisms – examining their differences and their similarities. As the ideologies of fascism and (a very loosely Marxist but in reality totalitarian) communism were destructive forces in the 20th century which had to be resisted in order to secure the future of the globe, so is fundamentalism in the current era. The answer is emphatically not, as much as men like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher may like to think otherwise, the destruction of religion. Human beings are religious creatures – and have been since the beginning. But rather, the alternative is for religious moderation and rationality, a religious perspective that seeks to understand and integrate itself into reality and to be for the positive, demonstrable benefit of mankind, rather than the harmful attempt at molding both mankind and reality into its pre-conceived agendas (and this is what, at some level, all fundamentalisms aim to do).

Rant over.

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! (O friend, not these tones!)
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere (Let us raise our voices in more)
anstimmen, und freudenvollere! (pleasing and more joyful sounds!)

(Twenty points to you and a lollipop if you can name for me, without looking it up or Googling for it, the piece of music whither the above pericope originates. Hint: it is – objectively, in my paradoxical opinion – the most divine piece of music ever written.)

I’ve spent a lot of words and time detailing what has led me to where I am, which is sort of floundering (in more ways than one) on the issue of the foundations of faith. These matters are not so pressing as they appear, and I shall need at least a full nine months of gestation before I have any further thoughts concerning them that are well-formed enough to utter. For now, I remain unresolved amid liturgical and Anglican tendencies and overpowering skepticism.

But friend, not these tones!

I have had the great opportunity to do much photography – three excursions already! – in the time I’ve been here and have been experimenting with the unfamiliar realm of urban work. And so I will post here some photos, more of which can always be found at my flickr – though I’ve noticed it tends to try to ‘correct’ my color palette, often ruining it (stupid machines!). Posting pictures will probably become the trend for the rest of the posts this summer. Pictures that, one hopes, may be worth more than the many words which I so often spill.

But the photography.

And now it is night for me, and yet there is still work tomorrow.

The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end. Amen.

(And another lollipop if you can tell me, without looking it up, when and under what circumstances the above line is said. I already gave the Anglican hint. And James doesn’t count.)

Wednesday I went to a program on Intelligent Design put on by a Christian organization on campus. I’m afraid that many of my worst fears about what the talk were confirmed, and I was witness to a spectacle of Christians unabashedly talking trash about evolutionary biologists. This experience, besides upsetting me greatly (it was extremely hard to control myself), has made me think about the problems I have with evangelical Christianity, and why I have left the movement. So I thought I would attempt to show some of my precise reasons, giving by no means anything exhaustive list but demonstrating what I have a problem with. I will warn the reader up-front that this is in essence a rant, and may contain offensive content.

I. Anti-intellectualism

Mere ignorance is simply that: a lack of knowledge. But anti-intellectualism goes well beyond incidental ignorance to embracing it. Knowledge that challenges previously held assumptions is viewed as a threat, not a learning opportunity; ignorance is viewed as safety, and so anti-intellectualism fosters an environment of not just circumstantial but willful ignorance.

Though this is evident in a wide number of arenas of evangelical life, Intelligent Design is a particularly potent example. From the ID materials I’ve been introduced to, as well as from the talk I went to, the movement is flagrantly unscientific and abusive of scientific methods.

The thesis of Intelligent Design is that the mechanisms of life are too complex to have arisen naturally and without an intelligence actively designing them. The first thing to notice about this is that it is not a scientific claim, but a philosophical one. Science is the investigation of the natural world, producing theories and hypotheses that can be tested and disproved. Intelligent Design’s entire thesis – that something is too complex to be randomly assembled – and all its derivative claims neither provide testable hypotheses (predictions about unobserved phenomenon) nor offer the chance to be disproved. Quite contrary to this, evolutionary biology makes predictions (which have largely yielded themselves to be true) and can be quite easily disproved (for example, finding a rabbit in a layer of Cretaceous rock). So the claim that Intelligent Design is a scientific hypothesis is false: it fails to produce the two chief requirements of a scientific hypothesis.

Often used to support the claim of “too much complexity” are two arguments: probabilistic impossibility, and irreducible complexity. The former is easily deconstructed by examining at the presumptions used to come up with the numbers. The gentleman whose talk I attended claimed that the chances of an environment arising which is suitable for life is 10 to the minus 388 (several orders of magnitude above the number of atoms in the universe). The number, however, is misleading. It was calculated for a planet being a certain distance from the sun (earth’s distance) and a certain size (earth’s size) around a star of a particular heat (the sun’s heat) with an oxygen-rich atmosphere (like earth’s), and so on. The calculation does not take into consideration that a star hotter than ours with a planet a little further away may also be inhabitable; or that a larger planet with greater amount of greenhouse gases could survive outside the so-called “habitable zone”. That is, this calculation treated interdependent variables as if they were independent, and in fact was not a calculation for the chances of a habitable planet, but for the chances of a planet in every way exactly like earth. Besides the smuggled-in assumptions to make the number bigger (such as an oxygen-rich atmosphere, which is a byproduct of living unicellular organisms, mostly phytoplankton, and not natural to a lifeless earth), the assumption that such a number is even calculable is manifestly false. I asked the speaker if he was familiar with the Drake equation, to which he assented that he was. The Drake equation is supposed to calculate the number of expected civilizations in our galaxy, and it is more a statement of our ignorance about the universe than anything else. The equation contains 7 constants, only one of which is known to any degree of certainty (the rate of star formation). The second constant – the fraction of stars containing planets – is only just now beginning to become known, and the other 5 are a mystery (included among them: what a habitable planet is and is not, and the chances of life arising). To give a number calculating the chances of life boldly and arrogantly goes against the known limits of current human knowledge. This behavior I would label anti-intellectual not because it is ignorant but because it selectively chooses parts of human (scientific) knowledge while ignoring others in order to appear as if it is intellectually rigorous, when in fact it is not.

The second argument – that of irreducible complexity – rapidly devolves into an appeal to prima facie reasoning. The argument goes something like this: because a phenomenon is too difficult to conceive of being produced gradually, and it is impossible for us to now understand how pieces of it are independently functional, it could not have come into existence gradually. Favorites of ID proponents are bacterial flagella – now being slowly debunked – and woodpecker tongues. While I feel the issue of complexity is a completely valid point to raise, I would not base any theory on an inability for current knowledge to explain something (I very much doubt ancient peoples could fathom how lightning was generated). At the end of the talk, the presenter showed us a video of an AI project called BigDog and asserting to us that we all accept it as designed, and yet real dogs are more complex. The insinuation was that it is impossible to say that the one is designed and the other is not. This is an appeal to snap judgments without looking at the matter more carefully, and is a favorite tactic of evangelicals. “Let’s abstract complexities away and go with what seems most obvious.” By the same token I could take time-lapsed videos of the sun, moon, and stars moving across the sky, compare that to people moving through a busy city, and say, “Isn’t it obvious in these what is actually moving? The people are moving… and so is the sun!” First blush, this is what it looks like, but we all know that that reality is more complicated than this, and cannot be determined by snap judgments of it.

(This does not even bring up philosophical problems with Intelligent Design – namely, if something that is complex necessitates an intelligence sufficiently complex to have created it, doesn’t the creating intelligence necessitate a creator, and so on forever.)

But this last point of prima facie reasoning is I feel the most crucial and problematic part of anti-intellectualism. The philosophy asks its followers to ignore complex arguments and reality not because they are wrong, but because they are complex. This argument riddles evangelical analysis of the Bible: how often have you heard the plea to follow the clear word of God? What if reality isn’t so clear? What if the word of God isn’t always so self-evident? What if it’s muddy, and what if it’s difficult to determine? Such questions are ignored in preference of simple answers. And for these reasons evangelical Christianity has historically been troubled by matters of science and textual criticism, and will continue to be troubled by them so long as it continues to adopt a strain of anti-intellectualism in its reasoning.

II. Appeal to Sensationalism

The talk included a plug for a new movie coming out called “Expelled”. The movie purports to be a documentary of scientists unjustly losing their jobs for questioning Darwinism. I have no doubt that many of the injustices they bring up are real and inexcusable. The problem I had with the film was not this, but its appeal to emotion and sensationalism to elicit a response from the audience: an image of a cheetah devouring a meal as the narrator (Ben Stein, of all people) talks about Darwinian theory in the classroom; appeals to Nazi Germany as an example of the outworking of believing in Darwinian evolution; chalkboard writing and scared looks by Ben Stein as if a grown man is being unduly punished as a schoolchild; etc. You can watch the trailer for it here. The most ironic part is probably the mention of Darwinists believing human beings are “nothing more than mud animated by lightning”, when we know our Jewish narrator’s own Scriptures say something about human beings created from mud animated by breath, or at least from some sort of dust that at one point had to get wet.

I would pass this by as particular to the ID issue, but it is not, as groups like Focus on the Family will appeal to sensationalism as reasons against gay marriage, or abortion, and so forth – and I have personally found this to be quite common in evangelical churches when it comes to hot-button topics.

III. Demeaning one’s Opponents

The last and most damning portion of the talk, following the plug for “Expelled”, was a guffawing and mockery by the people present of popular atheists and evolutionary biologists. The gentleman giving the talk spoke about how he thought it not at all a problem to have these atheists get their come-uppance. One prominent critic of ID attended a preview of “Expelled” in a not-at-all confrontational manner, and yet he was kicked out of the theater. The gentleman giving the ID talk said he was fine with this atheist getting “to know what it feels like”. This was followed by more laughter, derision, talk about court cases, and so forth. It all felt a bit like the Two Minutes Hate from George Orwell’s 1984, only lasting for much longer than a mere two minutes.

In most evangelical circles, a demeaning attitude is not so blatantly hateful. Nevertheless, those who disagree with the evangelical line are often looked on with pity, as not being able to come to grips with (either spiritually or mentally) with truth. Be that as it may, it is one thing to believe you are correct in your beliefs and another to allow this to cast doubt on your neighbor’s capacities. I remember being told in church to have compassion on non-Christians because they need Jesus just as much as any of us. In real life I have too often seen this worked out as a sort of patronizing sympathy, with the Christian not being able to treat his non-Christian neighbor in spiritual or philosophical matters as a coherent human with just as much dignity and consideration to be given him as to a Christian.

IV. Disregard for the Poor

I couldn’t help but wonder what the purpose of this gathering was. After the presentation of Intelligent Design, there was a foray into when exactly a soul is imparted to a human embryo. Besides the presumptions laden in such a question, what good would it do to be able to determine such a thing? The same gentleman and his wife who did the ID talk did a discussion on biblical gender the next day (I was unable to force myself to attend). These are the serious matters of import which this Christian organization is facing. And my answer to this is: are you shitting me? No, evangelical Christianity, seriously: are you shitting me?

This is from the 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. It is on the country of Rwanda. Here are some quotes:

Small numbers of impoverished girls, typically between the ages of 14 and 18, used prostitution as a means of survival, and some were exploited by loosely organized prostitution networks.

Due to the genocide and deaths from HIV/AIDS, there were numerous households headed by children, some of whom resorted to prostitution to survive.

The law does not specifically prohibit domestic violence, and domestic violence against women, including wife beating, was common.

Where is the Christian outcry against this and efforts to improve it, or countless similar cases all over the world? What about poverty in the US which, while not so extreme, also destroys lives? And we sit here talking about the evils of evolution and women pastors and wonder when a fetus gets a soul? Let me confess something: I live daily in the sin of almost total indifference to poverty and suffering. I need help; I need to be more like Jesus, a Jesus who cared for and cured human horrors. I need a radical change not just in my heart but in my actions, and I fear I am too weak to do it on my own. But any religion or religious movement which does not concern itself with real, physical human need is not one that I have a desire to be a part of.

This is a post about two exiles.

For those of you who couldn’t tell, I can have a decidedly cynical bent on the world. This is not in itself a bad thing, as the world needs people like me to put ground underneath the castles which others build in the air. (Not that I am incapable of building castles in the air, I just tend to talk myself out of it half-way through.) But this bent has gone unchecked lately, and become something emotionally and mentally damaging. I have my reasons for it, circumstances which have made it easy to slip into, but these are explanations and not excuses. Through cynicism a pragmatic and realistic view of life has degenerated into something bitter, and a bitterness which infects its carrier (me) and makes the relationships I have with friends more difficult.

This is my cynicism in response to the church, which I feel is founded and reasonable, and it is the first exile.

I think I have realized, at least in part, how I have been relating wrongly to the church, and how it is that I should be relating to the church. It begins first in dealing with reality: I may never have the sort of continual fellowship in a church that I desire. There is a sad irony that the leaders who cry that ‘church is about community’ are frequently the very ones with whom I find none. But I have been blessed to be able to find fellowship, though nearly always outside the institution of the gathering together of those who call themselves Christians.

I have approached church community with the question: what need is it that I can have met here? Don’t be mistaken: I do have deep needs for a community of believers. But I love the church, and this means I cannot approach her with this question in mind. I cannot ask where I will fit in or how I can be edified. I have to come to a church community with the question: whether or not I get anything out of it, what of myself can I give to the people here?

Some people fast from material blessings for the sake of remaining undistracted before the one who both gives and surpasses material blessings. Some fast from sexual intimacy for the sake of remaining undistracted before the one who gives and surpasses sex. And besides that it is good to fast from time to time to remember the giver, we all fast from these in a sense when we don’t have them, and it is our choice at those times to focus on our desires on our current lack or on our savior who, somehow, makes up for every lack. Like physical needs, and like intimate needs, community is a need. I may withdraw myself from this need for the sake of focusing on Christ, but when I find myself in the course of life without it, I can become upset with God or dependent on him. Unfortunately my response has typically been the former. This is a real need, and it hurts because it’s unmet. But do I really believe that Christ is sufficient to sustain me and bless me with himself? Yes, and I ought to behave as if I believe this.

This line of thinking, frankly, scares me. I don’t want to abdicate the primacy of my own desires – and more than that, I think my legitimate human needs – and instead serve the very people who are contributing to my difficulties. But there’s something wondrously Christlike about that, isn’t there? And that’s what makes me think this is the right approach to take. I am concerned about being myself in a desert and continuing to pour what I have to others already receiving blessings I don’t have. But that is not my business: my business is to love Christ’s beloved.

From here on out, my posts will probably be rarer and focused on other things: that is, trying more to be a blessing than simply ’self-expressive’. I cannot continue to focus on my problems (in my mind, of course, by causes external to myself) in my small forum on a corner of the web and not have it affect me in a manner counter to the change I am trying to produce. This means more posts coming from my journal – such as this one, modified and reduxed to a less personal degree – and more journaling period. It means a different focus and purpose for writing. It means finding in everything an opportunity for my words and actions to bless those around me indiscriminately – and this includes you, if you are reading this – in whatever small and, ultimately, insignificant way I am able.

And this is the second exile, concerning this blog: not to use what little I have simply for myself, but to live in honesty and truth with those close friends in my life, and then to take things like this and make them less about my own rants and needs. This will take some time, and I may disappear for a while as I figure it out. But it is, I hope, good.

I went to a friend’s church this morning, and then afterwards with a few folks to a GLBT film. There were four of us who went – two Bers and two Aers, which was interesting – and I won’t say which movie it was but it concerned a relatively (in)famous gay couple in some circles. And it was awful.

Anyone who was non-affirming and ignorant of homosexuality would have left with their stereotypes completely confirmed. With one possible exception (who did not get much camera time) every ‘gay Christian’ was anything but Christian: no mention of Jesus, only vague spirituality and an assertion that ‘God made me this way’. (On a side note, when I am feeling just as upset as I am now but have more time, I will have to go over all the awful arguments, both A and B, which make me want to disengage myself from the entire conversation.) But their mouths and their lives did not reflect anything of the savior of Christianity – that is, Christ Jesus

I also have been a few times to a gay organization on campus (again, at the request of a friend), and it was equally demoralizing. Are they even quasi-professional students? The second time I went there was a conversation going on that was so inappropriate I was ashamed to even mention it to my friend, who didn’t show that day. All I have seen or heard there is shallowness and campery, and a level of unbecoming behavior which was revolting to me.

The film I saw today was introduced before its screening by a gentleman from Soulforce, and Mel White made an appearance early in the film (with an utterly inappropriate and noxious remark). Truthfully it makes me sick to my stomach to think that anyone might possibly consider me remotely connected with an organization like Soulforce. Ultimately I have found that that label ‘gay’ carries a deserved level of abhorrence from those with some level of morality. I neither consider myself a kin of those who generally wear that label, and nor do I want to be considered as such.

Do not think that the church at large escapes this drive for disassociation. And unlike gay people, who simply exist, along with a great many other people, I have a special love for the church. I cannot explain why I have any love for her – God knows I have plenty of reasons not to – and the only reason I can think of is that to love Jesus is to love his bride. They are not separate – and God has brought them together, at immeasurable cost to himself.

Yet I cannot begin to express my frustration at the lack of Gospel presented in the church. Often there is less than the Gospel – a declawed Jesus who loses his status as the Lion, or a graceless Jesus who loses his status as the Lamb. But equally often there is more than the Gospel – that somehow something supersedes the ministry of Jesus and the redemptive plan, or that the Gospel is insufficient for life. This commonly takes the form of legalism, but it has many manifestations. It may be the Gospel And Our Creation Account; or it may be the Gospel And My Social Justice Plan; or the Gospel And Anything Else. It is not that the Gospel does not flow directly over into our understanding of and interaction with Creation, or social justice, or anything else, but that these are elevated to the level of Gospel, and Jesus becomes our passenger, or almost worse, our copilot. He becomes means to an end.

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away all the problems in your family! Or answers all your questions! Or keeps you in the comfort you were raised in! Or gives you what you’ve always wanted!

This has weighed very heavily on me, and made me weep – if not outwardly, then certainly inwardly. Why is Christ’s betrothed not talking about him? Why is he not always on our lips and in our lives? Why is it that so much of the church does not care that he isn’t on our lips and in our lives? I don’t mean a commercial invasion of Jesus bracelets – I mean a portrayal of the Gospel as handed down by the apostles, a bringing down of the heavenly order of saintly communion worked out within the community of the church, I mean a life that is the outward expression of the inward anticipation of the consummation of the promises of God in the person of Jesus. I say this not because I am the perfect example by any stretch – but because these things are my desires. It is easier by far for me to find honesty and fellowship with those outside the church than with those inside it. And these have not heard the Gospel from the church, if they have heard it at all. My savior’s bride is not wearing a white wedding dress: she has soiled herself, and to her shame in front of everyone. Why should I want people to know that I’m ‘Christian’?

What I’m saying is that I have become, in my heart, a church leaver. It is not that I do not want to stay and be a part of Christ’s betrothed, and perhaps bring about with those inside who also are disturbed by her actions a change and a direction which more clearly represents our savior. But I feel helpless. I know that first of all I am utterly unqualified to, and I also do not know where it is that I could do this. I do know that the ministry I was involved with on campus would not allow me into a leadership position at this point, and though I tried previously to get together with small groups of people, the desire and the heart was not there, and to get anything going even with explicit leadership approval is hard, and without it virtually impossible. I cannot see any way around the reality that any congregation in which I might desire to help inculcate an orthodox Gospel-centered community I would invariably need to be closeted to. This is difficult for me, because I do not know that I can be different before Jesus’ church than I am before Jesus himself. It is not that everyone has to know, but that the notion of willingly withholding information for some goal or other is to me completely antithetical to the Gospel. Again, there is no longer this clear distinction between ‘God on the one hand’ and ‘God’s people on the other hand’. Perhaps I am too prideful and need to simply accept a more peripheral role residing mostly in the pews. It is after all nothing but grace that saves me. But why should my heart break over the church if I am not to do something with regard to it? I want to shed the term ‘gay’ for its connotations, and I certainly want to shed the word ‘Christian’ for its connotations, but the former describes accurately the state in which I physically find myself (and quite neutrally so), and the latter describes accurately the beliefs to which I hold and the one on whom I trust. But how I wish I could drop the ideas and communities concerning both!

Then again, it may be that I am simply too cynical a person, and need to repent. This much is probably true.

2 Corinthians has been a wonderful book to be going through the past week or so, and I wonder that I’ve never taken much note of it before. But here is Paul, speaking about what he considers his letters to be:

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

That is my desire for the church: to fill up what is lacking in the ministry of Christ by displaying his very character in the living epistle that is our lives.

I was going to post something else, a few things I have been working on, but this has come to my attention lately and greatly moved me. Whether rightly or wrongly, I’ll let you judge. But I have gotten to see, over the past few months, a lot of men struggling with issues of sex, and it has grieved me.

It does not grieve me that they struggle with porn. Or that they struggle with lust or even with sexual hook-ups. All this makes me sad, and I desire to see them overcome it and walk in godliness and victory in these areas, but it does not grieve me – it does not produce that hidden gut-wrenching feeling in my spirit. Until we see Christ face to face, until we experience his goodness as it really is, there will always be a struggle to bring ourselves closer into conformity with him.

But what grieves me is when I see those struggling with such matters blaming their very desire for the goodness of sex. It nearly makes me cry. Because this will not free them.

I used to think this guilt was just a gay thing. Of course we feel guilty for being gay, I would think, because we have been taught to think so. Indeed, many have arrived on their own to the conclusion that homosexuality is wrong, and I do not condemn them for this. But the truth is that it is not just a gay thing: it is an everybody thing. We have inherited a religion as old as sin, a religion of guilt. And this religion has stolen into the church, and we have become a church of guilt.

Our motives and religious experiences are driven from condemnation and fear, and not from Christ’s love. Where is this guilt coming from? Certainly not from God! For Jesus himself told the pharisees, “Do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set.” And consider also these words to the pharisees:

John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. (Matthew 11:18-19)

The one who abstains abstains for the glory of God, and the one who enjoys enjoys for the glory of God, if he is not condemned by his own conscience. And why should he be, for Christ has come to steal away our sin. If we use this for self-indulgence, we show the world we do not know our Father, but if we use our freedom to give thanks to God then we are his children, whether we eat or fast, whether we drink or teetotal. But food and drink and sex are all out of creation, and all are good.

For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. (1 Tim 4:4-5)

Think on that! All of God’s creation – every last bit of it – is good! None of it does anything but bring a smile to God’s face. Do we consider sex dangerous or evil because it is pleasurable? But since when was pleasure an evil? A sex addict condemning sex is like a glutton condemning food for his indiscretion, or an alcoholic damning the enjoyment of alcohol for his alcoholism. (And these, too, were made by God to be received by his creation with joy and thanksgiving! Not to flirt with temptation, but neither to judge the creation itself.) Do we truly think that God is upset when the animals bugger each other? I am not saying that we ought to practice free sex, for we are called to a higher love than the animals, a love that is in the image of God, but we shouldn’t condemn this basic biology which we share with them.

Shall we say, then, that God has called us to something higher than sex? Yes indeed, he has. And he has called us to something higher than enjoying food and drink and entertainment, and yet we have the freedom to enjoy such things. Jesus Christ did not come to the earth to free us from biology or pleasure, nor to enable us to ‘overcome’ such things. No – when God gives one gift, he does not revoke another. But

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)

He is the first of all creation, and the head of it all. Again, all creation. When we begin to worry about biology – that is, God’s creation – we put ourselves in the position of Creator, deeming what should and should not have been made. Do not damn what God has made, but look rather to your treatment and handling of it! The paths of guilt are driven deep into our hearts, but Christ has died to redeem everything to himself. There is no guilt in him, and nothing stands apart from the work of Christ.

We have this thing we have been given – sexuality and food and friends and drink and whatever else there is – and it is all from God. But we also have the character of God, revealed to us in the flesh through our savior. Neither of these can be rejected. Let us take what we have, and let us take what we know of God, and do with our gifts according to who we know him to be. The question is not how we should deny ourselves for God. But knowing what sex is, and knowing who God is, how then should we now live? Covenant is no longer covenant just because it is covenant, but because it is the outworking expression of God’s character, and it is how he has treated us. And adultery is not adultery just because it is adultery, but because it is opposed to God’s character. This is his command: to love each other as he has loved. Let us not indulge ourselves, and let us not condemn ourselves or each other, for I see Jesus in none of these things. Let us work out his image into our entire lives, leaving nothing out of his reach. And then, wherever we end up, we are free, and our religion of guilt has been left behind.