America's New Evangelicals

What's New Is Old: 'America's New Evangelicals'

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/october/review-americas-new-evangelicals.html

Today's politically liberal evangelicals may not be as different as some imagine.

Review by Matthew Lee Anderson | posted 10/14/2011 09:07AM

book link

The 2008 election of Barack Obama reinvigorated an ongoing discussion within evangelicalism about the nature of its relationship to the political order. It is a discussion that will almost certainly receive a new infusion of energy during the 2012 election cycle. But analyses of evangelical captivity to politics and purported generational shifts in ideology have come close to reaching a saturation point, bringing evangelical introspection to the edge of exhaustion. Of the writing about evangelicals and politics, there is apparently no end.

Marcia Pally's America's New Evangelicals: Expanding the Vision of the Common Good (Eerdmans) is one of the latest attempts to understand the direction of evangelicalism's political priorities. For Pally, the emergence of the "new evangelicals"—figures like Tony Campolo, Shane Claiborne, and David Gushee—reveals important shifts, in both substantive beliefs and habits of engagement. She sees this movement as "new" because its members embrace "beliefs and practices that have advanced religion, liberal democracy, and just economic distribution." She contrasts the new with the "old evangelicals" (though Pally does not call them that), whose political engagement she believes has been sullied by allegedly "prototheocratic yearnings" and an attachment to free-market capitalism. The new evangelicals, she argues, allow religious convictions to shape their political vision, but nevertheless "support pluralism, economic justice, and liberal democratic government." Whether the new evangelicals are championing ideals wholly different from their forebears, or simply imbuing them with different meanings, is not always clear. Pally's presumption, for instance, that "economic justice" is antithetical to free-market economics is astonishing, given the enormous debate over the question.

While Pally presents the "new evangelicals" as an antidote to perceived evangelical vices, her narrative is occasionally given to overstatement.

Take, for instance, those supposedly "prototheocratic yearnings." True, Pally's stance later softens into suggesting that evangelicals have "at times" attempted to "use the state to impose religious views on the nation." But even this skirts the boundaries of hyperbole. Unless Pally thinks that evangelical opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage are exclusively theological in nature—a highly debatable contention—she is left only with school prayer as an example of such attempts. Evangelical activism may have sectarian underpinnings, but evangelicals have shown a remarkable willingness to abide by the rules of liberal democracy in working—through legislatures, courts, and grassroots initiatives—to "impose" their views.

Not So New

Pally makes no attempt at any statistical survey, instead approaching her subject through blogs, newsletters, sermons, and other expressions of the "new evangelicalism." Transcripts of interviews with prominent figures like Richard Cizik and Joel Hunter punctuate her commentary, lending the reader a firsthand familiarity that is both interesting and illuminating.

Yet whether the new evangelicals are really new depends upon our understanding of what came before them. And unfortunately, Pally's understanding makes it difficult to discern what's actually new about the movement. For instance, she argues that the new evangelicals practice a "third way" of political engagement, avoiding the twin traps of theocratic ambition and privatized piety. They do this through "voluntarist associations" that "advocate for their positions through public education, lobbying, coalition building, and negotiation."

This "civil society activism" is a commendable approach, but couldn't Pally apply the same description to the Religious Right? Historically, this movement was propelled by a cluster of voluntary parachurch organizations—many of them avowedly non-sectarian in their approach—that worked to influence society by means of lobbying and public persuasion. Moreover, and somewhat ironically, traditional approaches to limited government have often been justified precisely because they leave room for the mediating institutions of civil society, rather than relying upon the coercive powers of the state. Because Pally conflates conservatism with what amounts to libertarian economics, she overlooks the possibility of a mutually reinforcing relationship between "civil society activism" and limited government principles.

What's more, Pally passes over any discussion of "compassionate conservatism," the more activist school of thought espoused by George W. Bush and cheered on by many fellow evangelicals. (Conservative commentator Fred Barnes famously re-labeled it "big government conservatism.") The advent of compassionate conservatism suggests that evangelicals, in their association with the Republican Party, have not, for good or ill, hewed inflexibly to a libertarian orthodoxy. Widespread evangelical support for the 2008 campaign of Mike Huckabee, who was (perhaps unfairly) spurned by mainstream Republicans for being too comfortable with government involvement, confirms this point.

Evangelical activism may have sectarian underpinnings, but evangelicals have shown a remarkable willingness to abide by the rules of liberal democracy.

Closer to the heart of the book, though, is Pally's suggestion that the new evangelicals are distinguished by their endorsement of "church-state separation and constitutionally based law." Here again Pally's lack of substantive argument about the "old evangelicals" makes it hard to discern where the differences actually lie. With respect to "church-state separation," Jon A. Shields demonstrates in The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right (2009) the great pains to which evangelicals have gone to present their views on abortion in non-sectarian terms. And as for endorsing the principle of "constitutionally based law," this does not preclude working, through constitutionally legitimate channels, to reform or undo laws deemed unjust. In this regard, evangelicals' abortion and same-sex marriage, both in the courtroom and at the ballot box, seem to exemplify the highest respect for constitutionally based law.

Keeping Vigilant

Pally's chapter on the new evangelicals' underlying beliefs departs noticeably from her generally dispassionate, scholarly approach. She quotes virtually no new evangelical activists or theologians, and instead develops Anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder's concept of "revolutionary subordination," analyzing how Scripture understands Jesus as a political actor. It is an odd moment of normative political theology in the middle of a book that presents itself as examining the beliefs of others.

Strangeness aside, the chapter is excellent and very well balanced. Pally suggests that Christian political engagement should obey "positive law in all but extreme circumstances, defend its country under the extreme condition of invasion, and [spend] most of its time serving those within the church, the stranger, and the enemy." This is wise counsel, so far as it goes, but ought we simply to infer that new evangelicals would endorse Pally's principles?

The answer isn't clear. On the one hand, in presenting their underlying beliefs, Pally comes close to describing a consistent, unified framework out of which policy decisions might be made. But in presenting this belief system in her own voice, she leaves it unclear whether the new evangelicals understand and abide by their own framework. After all, Pally repeatedly underscores the issue-by-issue approach that often characterizes young evangelical politics. It can be difficult to discern whether new evangelical activism arises from a unified moral philosophy, or whether its piecemeal approach reflects a more pragmatic spirit.

Pally makes clear, though, why evangelicals will and must continue reflecting on their relationship with state authority. In a liberal society, marked by a crowded and contentious public square, an impulse toward introspection helps preserve a proper ordering of religious faith and political power. The new evangelicals certainly understand that such vigilance is a price worth paying for liberty. But so too, I suspect, do their counterparts of "old."

Matthew Lee Anderson is the author of Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith (Bethany House). He blogs at MereOrtho doxy.com.

Copyright © 2011 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

In Noble Pursuit of Peace

The Noble Pursuit of Peace

Pursuing peace is a noble cause. And pursuing peace actively as a nation should always be its first and last effort. I have grown up in a culture committed to the principles of life, liberty and justice and understand the hypocrisies of my country's birth to the native American Indians who have suffered the loss of each of these pure-bred ideals. To the black Americans whose legacy of agony were still-borne historically until the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. (All of which could've sadly been averted some 200 years ago in America's pre-Revolutionary days when certain segments of Christians actively strove for the black man, woman and child's release from slavery's horror and wretchedness, but failed in their efforts). Oppressive eras when we as Christians should have been speaking up for the culturally abandoned like today's modern day angst over our vilified gay societies seeking to be recognized as human beings.

Conversely, I live in a community of Bosnians, Hispanics, Vietnamese, Jews, Somalians and Haitians who have suffered the equal horrors of loss of life, liberty and justice at the hands of overseas governments committed to their own nationalistic purges. And to some degree America has taken up their struggles of oppression and attempted to restore those lost civil rights through cultural and commercial engagements, efforts at world justice, and even in acts of war. In hopes of protecting and delivering the persecuted, the neglected, the overlooked and disdained from any further acts of horror, tyranny, and callousness. Too often belatedly, too often ineffectively, and in the face of withdrawing popular will, once bravely begun, but to later stagger at the impossibility of Justice's many costs, demands, guilts, and ironies.

I am not a pacifist but nor do I push actively for war. My position like many, are to seek to defend the rights of the weak, pursue peace where it is possible, utilize strength when necessary, and overall to discern between pride and my own fallenness, sin and hate. To expect this of the nation I live in and love is infinitely harder and so I pray, I get involved in ministries and community services, vote my will and heart, legislate, debate, and do all that I can in business and in life to make my nation as democratic as it can be, as just as it can be, as worthy of its ideals as it can be.

And most importantly I try to teach and live that selfsame life by daily example, as meagerly and humbly as I can in my willful pride and sin with God's help and grace, patience and mercy. I can be obtuse, shortsighted, selfish, stubborn and less-than-giving to the daily demands of Justice and Grace. My human flesh can become irrational, emotional, moody, and graceless. My conscience marred by too many slights and cynicisms, too many perceived demands on time and energy, exhaustion, health, or ignorance. The reality is, is that we fight within us the same fight we would seek within mankind. A fight against the sinfulness, evil and harm we would do to ourselves as we would do to each another. It takes a Savior to remove our sinfulness, to redeem us from ourselves, to bring justice to our fallen worlds. Jesus is our hope and through him can we bring hope to the world as His promise-bearers.

And so, to that end, I must also recognize the rights of those men and women who feel strongly about my nation's lack of efforts in the area of pacifism. Who wish to remind America - and all nations committed to Justice - to redouble their efforts to live in peace with one another locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. And especially to their own populations over whom they govern. To not misuse or abuse the rights of rulership, taxation, armed forces, and goodwill. We are a global citizenship and share the same pains of both good and evil.

It is a sad fact of life that there are many nations and fiefdoms, rulers and warlords, which are not committed to the democratic ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of justice. Who are not committed to living peaceably with their neighbors. They would harm their citizenry; abuse humble families, husbands, wives and children; destroy lands and properties taking what is not theirs; aggressively visiting sin, wickedness, and evil upon their own peoples. Yes, America has its own problems of nation-building and statesmanship, but to be honest all nations do as well. There are no nations on earth that please the Lord. We have all fallen short of God's glory, grace and justice.

And though my feelings do not run towards pacifism but more probably towards a form of civil engagement that would encourage a country's citizenry towards legal and pragmatic activism in government, enterprise, school and church, I must not neglect that portion of our society who are as equally frustrated with society's sense of nationalism and justice. Who seek to re-engage us on a political level of pacifism. I applaud their efforts, their courage, their thoughts and words. A will that doesn't weaken in a war's progression but strengthens to show to us our nation's purest democratic ideals. Peace is an admirable ambition. A practical necessity. A impossible task. An ever constant reminder that Love and Justice are never satisfied. Thank you Sarah for your thoughts, your insights, your commitment to life, liberty and justice.

R.E. Slater

October 18, 2011

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In which I'm an uneasy pacifist

http://www.emergingmummy.com/2011/10/in-which-im-uneasy-pacifist.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EmergingMummy+%28Emerging+Mummy%29

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

I call myself an "uneasy pacifist" and here's why:

Like many evangelicals, like most North Americans, I grew up in healthy respect and reverence for our veterans and our military. My own grandfather fought and was wounded in World War 2. I devoured novels set in war times and the spine is battered on my much-beloved copy of Rilla of Ingleside

I am a Canadian that does not like fighting in hockey. (Heretic!) I love hockey but, when the gloves dropped and everyone rose to their seat to pound the glass and holler their approval for the dance, I felt sick. Once that step toward abhorring violence was taken, it was hard not to find it everywhere. The glorification of violence as a means to solve conflict is everywhere in our culture and I was that lame person that couldn't stand mixed-martial-arts battles and railed against video games and movies that depicted war or crime as an adventure, even arguing we are "a generation of virtual sociopaths."

My pacifism began to grow legs when I lived in the United States for 8 years. When the war in Iraq began, the political climate in our area was strongly in flavour of military-based, unilateral action. The war was promoted as a "just war

The war in Iraq did not meet just war criteria for me - in retrospect, many would agree. As the political propaganda grew and war was equated with patriotism and, even more oddly, with spiritual practice or faithful following of Jesus, I struggled. I worked in a military-based bank, I loved and respected the Canadian and American military, I was proud of my own family's military history, developed an small understanding of their lives - and a deep respect for their honour and choices. But I grieved for what I suspected was ahead for the enlisted, the officers, the national guard, the country, the people of Iraq, the world as a whole. I grappled with the sentiment since 9-11 of robust, nationalistic, flag-waving patriotism and how many evangelicals believed Americanism (or American interests for those of us that are not American) and Christianity were somehow one and the same.

If you weren't for us, you were against us.

I began to read more about pacifism as the pamphlets filled my mailbox and news editorials became more and more passionate in favour of war. It deeply appealed to me.

At first, I grappled with war from a purely pragmatic standpoint. It was expensive. The military-industrial-complex that Eisenhower spoke of so warningly was in fearsome operation and I couldn't fathom how this was going to cost in human life, in political capital, in sheer dollars for the world. And then I was surprised - which is shocking itself - to discover a long history and tradition of Christian, faith-based pacifism. Apparently, there were whole groups of Christians throughout all of history that took a stand for peace and for active peacemaking precisely because of their faith. Despite the sometimes-bloodthirsty pages of Christian history, there has always been a remnant of believers that were convinced that Christ has modelled a path of non-violence for us to follow, not resisting even unto death.

And they were not lame or weak-willed. Think Martin Luther King Jr., St. Francis, Dorothy Day, the martyrs of our faith. I began to understand that peacemaking is not a hippie-thing, a sit-on-the-sidelines-of-history cop-out, letting someone else or someone else's kid do my dirty work. There wasn't any patchouli to my decision making process and despite my love of long dresses and flowers in my hair, I wasn't singing yet. The more I read, the more I prayed, the more that this seemed the path for me. Peace-making began to seem brave and active, it began to feel courageous to stand counter to our culture of war and violence and destruction.

I'm an pacifist for many reasons now - some pragmatic, some moral, almost all faith-based.

I believe life is sacred. The soldier is sacred, made in the image of God, and I cannot think what it does to a person to commit acts of war, to lift up arms against another, to kill another human being. My heart is ever with our soldiers and their beautiful families, even though I could not take that path myself in good conscience. Even the enemy is sacred, made in the image of God, loved. (I am one of those crazy people that think that God is love, that since my Father loves my enemy, that I, too, am called to an active love for them.) The "collateral damage" - that awful, cold term for those that are caught in the crossfire, the women, the children - is sacred, each life precious in the eyes of God. My pro-life ethic has become a lot more consistent as the years have gone by. War is never redemptive.

And I believe that love is stronger. Love will win in the end. Love will triumph, love is wider, deeper, more wild and generous and redemptive than we can fathom and I will choose the tough love.

My allegiance is first and always to God, to the ways of Jesus. And so, even though I am thankful for my country, even though I do appreciate it and work for the good of the city and the country in many ways, when the two are at odds - as in the choices of war or violence - my faith and the hope for peace wins every time.

But my pacifism is uneasy because I don't know how it looks all the time, how best to live an ethic of life, peace and love in a culture of violence and war. I know that pacifism is not total and absolute abhorrence of all violence - instead, to me, it's a policy of non-aggression and active peace-making.

And the everyday peacemaking can be hard. It was easy for me to look at the Iraq war and call it wrong. It's not so easy to pursue peace in my every day life, to choose a life of non-aggression, to release anger, rage, trespasses, to forgive, to actively advocate for peace and wholeness in the world around me, making space for God's ways. I don't know how it always looks to choose love in a way that exemplifies my commitment to the cultivation of the fruit of the spirit in my own life, such as peace, joy, goodness, love, faithfulness, gentleness and so on.

I am uneasy because sometimes I cry out for justice instead of mercy, failing to see that in Christ those two things are not separated. I can't always find the way of peace or love.

But I choose peace. I have set my feet on the path to find out how to live active peace-making, to identify boldly as a pacifist.

As Shane Claiborne wrote, "As a Christian, I am convinced in the power of non-violence by the greatest nonviolent act in human history: Jesus dying on the cross, even for his enemies."

Image sources via Pinterest

The Civil Rights of Gay Marriage

As an introduction, let me say that I nearly turned this video off because I was so offended by its visceral content until about halfway through when a small twist occurred to the initial plot lines. Consequently, I've added this video more than a year after writing my original article below because it so powerfully dovetails with its argument for equality and respect to people different from  what we perceive as "mainstream America."

And while listening, remember that Snider is speaking from a passionate heart to the ills and abuses that he is observing in an American society of intolerance and short-sightedness created by a Christian culture built of fear, labeling, bullying, and misunderstanding.

R.E. Slater

November 5, 2012

OFFICIAL Preacher Phil Snider gives interesting gay rights speech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A8JsRx2lois

Where Do We Stand as Christians?

Obviously the topic of gay rights will have strong arguments from both sides of the referendum yet the article below is not given to say either "yea" or "nay" to its passage, but to show the many political sides of institutional change that must come as state's review their subsequent policies and practices. As example, adoption agencies that are state-funded will be forced to withdraw from budgeted funding, state legislatures will need to rewrite a variety of exclusions and exceptions - both religious and civil - to their newly adopted bill, public forums and elections will be more polarized than ever, and the list could go on and on.

However, I do sympathize with the passing of New York's Gay Rights bill (as soundly stated in J.R. Daniel Kirk's previous article - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/06/gay-marriage-in-new-york.html) and will elucidate more my reasonings in later articles. And yet, it is important to note that passage of major political bills like this one will require major societal re-structuring in outlook and demeanor for many years to come.

A simple example of this "political struggle of wills" would be that of the 1960s Civil Rights movements that America is still "working through" these past 40-50 years - and now well into the 21st Century. More to the point, had minority rights been a part of the American platform at the founding of its 13 Colonies addressing the disallowal of acts of slavery in each state's original charters, then the Civil War may not have been fought with the same bloody consequences and destructive toll that it had placed upon its divided citizenry. And even at that, had Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation been properly adopted by both the federal and state legislatures of the United States at the conclusion of the Civil War, then subsequent civil rights acts, abuses, practices and grievous infractions would not have been so horribly endured by America's black citizenry for as long as it had with so many negative consequences. Nor would the Civil Rights Marches (Civil Rights movement) have occurred nearly 100 years later after the Emancipation Proclamation was made!

I say all of this not only as a form of history lesson, but to state that we as American citizens must work to preserve our unions in a more peaceful state of harmony and not disruption. When we see so many examples of badly conducted individual rights, a corrupt and divisive government, unlawful acts of personal shame and harm being enacted before us and nearly everywhere around us - from the workplace, to sports teams, to the town halls, and worship centers around America. We can do better than that. For this is not a plea to lessen our beliefs and opinions, but to better express them in more personally responsible behaviors, speech and actions.

For thus was America so formed - to protect the rights of all individuals and not just our own. To understand why another's rights are so important to protect; to work together as a society towards civil agreements; and towards a more tolerant, pluralistic union of, for, and by the people. A people who on better days can show a truer humanity than ever was witness by mankind. Who seek the life, liberty and justice of every man, woman and child America has come to represent. And must now determine to argue and debate in far better form than we have in the past, realizing that all citizens - as all people everywhere - must be represented in government and not just the loudest, the best politically organized, nor by the fearful, who dread acts of change to "traditional societal norms". This is the America that is supposedly based on the Christian principals of truth and justice, each tempered in love. So then, let us dedicate and commit ourselves to these very purposes as hallowed acts of grace, longsuffering, charity, mercy and forgiveness. Let us not be negligent of them. For these are ours both to keep as well as to share.

skinhead

June 28, 2011

* * * * * * * * * *

New York Approves Gay Marriage

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2011/06/new_york_approv.html

by Tobin Grant

posted June 24, 2011

New York will become the sixth state to approve same-sex marriage (the District of Columbia also allows gay marriage). Because of the state's large population, the number of Americans living in states that allow gay marriage will more than double. With New York, 35 million Americans will live in states with gay marriage, one in nine Americans.

The New York Senate approved a new same-sex marriage bill tonight by a vote of 33 to 29. Even though nearly all Republicans voted against the bill, the Republican-controlled Senate passed the bill because of four Republicans who voted with the Democrats. Only two Republican Senators openly backed the bill until just before the vote when Sen. Stephen Saland (Rep.) said he would give the bill the 32nd vote needed for passage. Only one Democrat, Sen. Ruben Diaz, voted against the measure. Only two Republican Senators openly backed the bill prior to the vote.

Additional votes were gained only after a majority in the Senate reached agreement on religious protections in the bill. Shortly before the gay marriage bill vote, the religious exemptions were reportedly passed by a 36-26 vote. The bill passed by the State Assembly included protections for clergy and churches. It did not include explicit protections for faith-based nonprofits. In Illinois, for example, the recent civil unions law has meant that Catholic Social Services could no longer receive state funds for its foster care and adoption services. The nonprofit has a policy against placing children with same-sex couples.

Opponents of the Assembly bill also wanted exemptions for individuals and businesses who objected to gay marriage for religious reasons. These individuals could be in violation of local ordinances. They could also be forced to allow gay couples to use their facilities. For example, without exemptions, critics argued, a business that rents its facilities for weddings could not refuse a couple simply because they were a same-sex couple.

Even the broadest religious exemptions would not be enough for some opponents of same-sex marriage. Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg said “the principal objection to homosexual 'marriage' has nothing to do with religion.”

“At its heart, marriage is neither a civil institution nor a religious institution. Instead, marriage is a natural institution—rooted in the order of nature itself,” Sprigg said. “The core message of the opposition to homosexual 'marriage' is not just, 'Don’t make us perform same-sex weddings in our church.' Instead, it is: 'Society needs children, and children need a mom and a dad.'”

The new bill still needs to be approved by the Assembly (because of the new religious exemptions) and then be signed by the governor. The Assembly is expected to approve the new language quickly. The signature of Gov. Andrew Cuomo is all but certain. The governor has been an outspoken advocate for same-sex marriage in New York. The measure will go into effect 30 days after he signs it.

The outcome of the bill has been in doubt for weeks. The State Assembly has passed same-sex marriage legislation four times in the past five years. The Senate has never approved it. In 2009, the Senate voted 38-24 against same-sex marriage. After the 2010 election, Republicans gained control but the Senate lost some key opponents to gay marriage. By the end of last week, a handful of senators from both parties announced they would be changing their positions, bringing the number of announced supporters to 31, one shy of the number needed for passage.

GOP Senators debated whether to allow the bill to be considered. Part of the delay was reportedly due to negotiations over more religious exemptions for groups such as adoption agencies. With more protections, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (Republican) decided to let the bill be considered.

Prior to the vote, the New York capitol was filled with protesters for both sides. One side singing hymns and spirituals chanting “God says no.” The other side included a smaller group of Jewish and Christian leaders calling out “God is love.”

Opponents of same-sex marriage delivered 63,000 petitions and held a press conference outside of the Republican conference room. In addition to featuring leaders like National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown, the press conference included New York Giants receiver David Tyree.

Tyree was the hero of the Giants Super Bowl win in 2007. Tyree told the New York Daily News he “probably would” give up the Super Bowl to stop same-sex marriage.

Nothing means more to me than that my God would be honored,” Tyree said. “Being the fact that I firmly believe that God created and ordained marriage between a man and a woman, I believe that that's something that should be fought for at all costs.”

* * * * * * * * * *

The Futility of the Theological Argument over Gays and Lesbians

An Interview with Theologian Walter Brueggemann

by Nancy Rosenbaum, producer

July 3, 2011

Listen to the Interview here -

http://blog.onbeing.org/post/7188276014/walter-brueggemann-on-the-futility-of-the

Protestant theologian Walter Brueggemann once compared LGBTQ people to canaries in a coal mine, likening these proverbial birds to society’s most vulnerable members. Determining how the canaries are treated, says Brueggemann in an interview with The Witness, “is always the test case about whether we are following Jesus.”

Earlier this spring, Krista sat down with Brueggemann in our studios. In the audio clip excerpted here, he explains why he thinks gay and lesbian sexuality “has such adrenaline” in and beyond church communities. For Brueggemann, there’s no point in having a theological discussion about homosexuality. He thinks homophobia is a proxy for people’s ill-defined fears about an old world order that’s rapidly disappearing:

“It is an amorphous anxiety that we’re in a free fall as a society. And I think we kind of are in free fall as a society, but I don’t think it has anything to do with gays and lesbians particularly.”

Last week in New York, that collective “amorphous anxiety” got trumped by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s dogged push for social change with the passage of the Marriage Equality Act by the state legislature.

According to The New York Times, Governor Cuomo gathered all of the state’s Republican senators at his home to plead his case for the bill’s passage. “Their love is worth the same as your love,” he reportedly told the senators. “Their partnership is worth the same as your partnership. And they are equal in your eyes to you. That is the driving issue.”

Gay Marriage in New York

Daniel Kirk in his article further below states the necessity as Christians to support the "Marriage-Equality Act" or Gay Marriage bill, passed in New York State on June 14, 2011. Not because we would condone gay marriage or homosexuality, but because the civil rights of gays and lesbians must be allowed and protected for a whole host of reasons. And though this may mean that by this legislation we inadvertently "free" people to do what we believe is wrong or sinful, we must do so in a socially constructive way granting justice to all segments of American society and not just some segments of our society (as argued in the next article - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-york-approves-gay-marriage.html).

If you must, I urge you to read and re-read Kirk's article below until you understand the force of his argument. For it shows the many innuendos that can come out of this bill if it is not passed. It is the only right thing that we can do given the incorporated laws of this land. For America is not a non-religious country but a pluralistic constituency primarily founded in Christian principals but necessarily yielding to other religious and humanitarian expressions of its democratic laws as it must underneath its current enactments of charters and government.

And though I believe Christianity expresses democracy's ideals the best (despite Christian-Americans oft refusals to practice those ideals), the United States Constitution speaks to all citizenry's religious freedoms and not just to those who are Christian. Consequently, as democratized Christians, we must legally accept and actively articulate America's incorporation of all its citizenry's beliefs and practices, regardless of religious or non-religious preference and practice. It is both Constitutional as well as democratic.

However, by the very nature of pluralism, we may see a dilution of basic human rights and freedoms through succeeding legal interpretations as America moves from its originating Christian idealisms to a postmodernistic pan-theism of religious expression. To hope in the superiority of humanistic idealism may be to belatedly discover a grossly failing sub-standard from that of Christianity's ultimate expression vouchsafed through Scripture's witness and testimony. One found in the biblical records of its faith adherents (known as the remnant of God) - both in the highs and the lows of their faith observance. For their errors and failings can be as instructive as their successful faith observance to God's laws. And this is true for us as well - both as individuals and as a democratic society.

And yet the hope of Scripture is that of incorporating all men and women of all nations and cultures, heritages and religious practices, into a heavenly kingdom that is at once pluralistic, trans-national and trans-cultural. Importantly, the Scriptures also note that it is God's Son and divine/human representative Jesus, who is both the center and foundation for this pluralistic postmodern society. Not Buddha, not Mohammad, not humanism, not a religion other than that of Christ. For this is the heart of Christianity's "future" and its millennial hope of destiny.

For if the Kingdom of God is the template for America's Constitutional form of government - as it could be for any nation on earth - than there can be hope. But to the extent that we move away from Christ than I deem our society to eventually fail in the very pluralism that it legally espouses and defends. By this very act of choice must each succeeding American generation determine its understandings and responsibilities as a free society unguardedly open to all walks and manners of living. We cannot force this line of observance but must demonstrate by our societal behaviors and responses how this democratic ideal may be obtained. For if we were to force our religious preferences upon an American society composed of a multitude of ethnicities and lifestyles then we would but create disharmony, dissonance, anarchy and perhaps revolution. Which may or may not succeed in emulating America's earlier idealisms and laws, and could be much the worse for the conflict created.

Advisedly, it would be better to support our current system of government - to lift it up when others decry it, to make it strong for the weak, more just for the ridiculed, wise for the foolish, courageous for the despised, receptive to the downtrodden. It is to each succeeding generation's charter of obligations to better present and expand the ideals of democracy than the previous generation's presentation, while preventing those who would trample it casually or selfishly, ruthlessly or blindly, from its undoing. For opportunity requires leadership --> leadership requires wisdom --> wisdom demands justice --> justice creates vision --> and vision sees opportunity.

skinhead
June 27, 2011

* * * * * * * * * *

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/06/25/gay-marriage-in-new-york/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

posted June 25, 2011

New York’s state legislature has approved a gay marriage bill, and governor Andrew Cuomo has signed it into law.

As the states take up this issue one-by-one, I’ll keep working out my thoughts on the issue. I think that this is a complex issue for Christians. Here’s what it comes down to for me:

As long as the state is in the marriage business, Christians should support gay marriage as an embodiment of our calling to love our neighbor as ourselves

First, I understand that there is a strong religious argument for the “definition” of marriage being the joining of one man and one woman. However, the state is not in the business of adhering to or adjudicating religious principles.

Second, to my mind, the best possible scenario is this: (1) the state does not marry anyone or recognize anyone’s marriage; (2) the state performs civil unions for any two persons who wish to join their lives for mutual support; (3) these civil unions are performed by civil servants, not ministers of the churches; and (4) churches can marry before God whomever they deem fit to marry in accordance with their religious convictions.

However, since this is not the case, and since the state has chosen to assign certain rights and privileges to married couples, people with religious convictions have to figure out not one problem, but two.

First, what do we think about homosexuality within the context of our religious community of faith?

But then the second, related but separable question is, What do we think about homosexual marriage within the state in which we find ourselves?

Here’s where, historically, Christians have done poorly: we have failed to realize that our answer to Question 1 does not determine that we attempt to enforce that answer as we take up Question 2.

I want to suggest that even those of us who do not support gay marriage within our faith communities have an obligation to support it in civil law as an expression of our calling to love our neighbor as ourselves.

What if there were a law that schools could only teach evolution and had to teach evolution in Biology class? I don’t mean that public schools had to do this, but all schools and educational programs had to adhere to this. What if we didn’t have the freedom to enact our wrongheaded desire to deny evolution and embrace creationism as an alternative?

If we want the freedom to make our own religious decisions about education and our view of the world and how to best educate our children, we are required to secure for those who disagree with us about every religious decision the freedom to enact their irreligious or non-religious or differing religious understanding of what a fruitful life here on earth looks like.

Similarly, what if our law-makers increasingly enacted provisions of sharia law? Do we want people determining what we can and can’t eat based on religious convictions with which we don’t agree? We’ve grown to anticipate that our representatives in various state legislature will enact laws for justice that do not infringe on our own free practice.

As Christians, we need to learn how to hold our own religious views while seeking liberty and justice for all–not just those who happen to believe as we do. In part, this will mean that we free people to do what we would believe is wrong.

: About J.R. Daniel Kirk:

Professor at Fuller Seminary, resident of San Francisco, consumer of dark chocolate, brewer of dark beer, reader of Flannery O'Connor, watcher of the Coen Brothers, listener of The Mountain Goats.    All Posts by J. R. Daniel Kirk | Share By Email