A Christian Eschatology of Love

Amazon Link

I would like to take Jonathan Moo's discourse on "Continuity, Discontinuity and the Eschatological Hope of the New Testament "and twist it a bit away from its rightful emphasis on an "environmental ethos" which asks of churches, together with science, in re-initiating its responsibility to care for the earth.

Alongside of this discussion, if I simply substitute another kind of ethos, that of social justice, or a societal ethos of love, in place of an environmental ethos emphasizing God's love for not only creation of all kinds, but mankind as part of creation, who is likewise made in God's image even as God did the environment, than we will get a wider appreciation for our responsibilities as Christians  not only to this earth but to our fellow humans as well.

Not only this, but importantly as it relates to the Christian hope of the eschatological future in whatever form we think it may take, to understand (or add) to our hope God's love as an eschatological ethos. Importantly, and specifically, this Christian hope is to entertain the Love of God through Jesus Christ within its present day context of worship of God so that as pertaining to Christians especially, we love, and love intensely, all humanity, till that day comes of God's realized eschatology in Christ.

The completion and fulfillment of heaven and earth is that God becomes all-in-all by His vision and patient guidance of creation (including mankind) of, by, and through love always as its centering eschatological motif.

And being that under the New Covenant of Christ, and the expanded import of the Old Testament into the New Testament to continue God's love both through His Remnant of the OT and His disciples of the NT (notice how I did not say explicitly Israel or the Church?) by examples and deeds of many sorts to care for both the earth and its elements, and its people and their societies, by God's guiding, grounding, partnering examples and deeds of love through His people by their own words and deeds.

At the last, God's love is the centre of all Christian social and environmental action. And indeed, at the center of any eschatological discussion or envisioning. Whatever the future holds, we are called to love and care for the world as we encounter it. As Stephen Williams has said,

"The NT’s theology of creation is inescapably eschatological, and the wideness of biblical hope can provide both a strong impetus as well as the necessary context for the exercise of Christian love and charity."

With God's Love as the biblical center for all doctrines, including it's eschatological center of God's heart, today's turmoils between politics and real-world problems must ever be met and performed in , by, and through God's love. It resolves our strifes and conflicts; calls out those who are disobedient to God's example; and demands a higher calling to care for all people in all ways over any lesser concerns for money, power, or conscripted misuses of human sinful passion.

In this way a God of Love has always asked His remnant to follow and act in His love and loving actions in all they say and do. God's Love will be no less a theme in the future.

Both past and future are inflected by our efforts of our present context to continue God's image and practice of love. From all that flows from the past, to all that flows into the promise of the future, without interruption of that flow as expressed into our present age, God's Love is what holds all timeful events of being and becoming together.

Simply, our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope.

R.E. Slater

June 10, 2020

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

Jonathan Moo

Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World

by Jonathan and Douglas Moo

Amazon Link

Amazon Link

   

CONTINUITY, DISCONTINUITY, AND HOPE

The Contribution of New Testament Eschatology

to a Distinctively Christian Environmental Ethos

https://legacy.tyndalehouse.com/Bulletin/61=2010/2%20Moo.pdf

by Jonathan Moo

"My emphasis on NT eschatology is not meant to imply that it is only here that the biblical tradition has something to contribute to a Christian environmental ethos. Stephen Williams has reminded us that love must always remain at the centre of Christian social and environmental action—and indeed, at the centre of any discussion about eschatology.8 Whatever the future holds, we are called to love and care for the world as we encounter it. Nonetheless, the NT’s theology of creation is inescapably eschatological, and the wideness of biblical hope can provide both a strong impetus as well as the necessary context for the exercise of Christian love and charity.

"This essay seeks, then, to develop somewhat further than is often done the exegetical basis for a distinctively Christian perspective of the future that has important implications for how we understand our task in and for the created world. I propose that the diverse ways in which the NT portrays the future of the earth, taken together, provide an indispensable resource for the development of a Christian environmental ethos...."

Book Blurbs

Let Creation Rejoice: Biblical Hope and Ecological Crisis Paperback – June 2, 2014

"Let all creation rejoice before the LORD, for he comes." Psalm 96:13 The Bible is bathed with images of God caring for his creation in all its complexity. Yet in the face of climate change and other environmental trends, philosophers, filmmakers, environmentalists, politicians and senior scientists increasingly resort to apocalyptic rhetoric to warn us that a so-called perfect storm of factors threatens the future of life on earth. Jonathan Moo and Robert White ask, "Do these dire predictions amount to nothing more than ideological scaremongering, perhaps hyped-up for political or personal ends? Or are there good reasons for thinking that we may indeed be facing a crisis unprecedented in its scale and in the severity of its effects?" The authors encourage us to assess the evidence for ourselves. Their own conclusion is that there is in fact plenty of cause for concern. Climate change, they suggest, is potentially the most far-reaching threat that our planet faces in the coming decades, and also the most publicized. But there is a wide range of much more obvious, interrelated and damaging effects that a growing number of people, consuming more and more, are having on the planet upon which we all depend. Yet if the Christian gospel fundamentally reorients us in our relationship to God and his world, then there ought to be something radically distinctive about our attitude and approach to such threats. In short, there ought to be a place for hope. And there ought to be a place for Christians to participate in that hope. Moo and White therefore reflect on the difference the Bible's vision of the future of all of creation makes. Why should creation rejoice? Because God loves and cares the world he made.

Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World (Biblical Theology for Life) Paperback – February 27, 2018

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible reveals a God whose creative power and loving care embrace all that exists, from earth and sky and sea to every creeping, crawling, swimming, and flying creature. Yet the significance of the Bible’s extensive teaching about the natural world is easily overlooked by Christians accustomed to focusing only on what the Bible says about God’s interaction with human beings.

In Creation Care, part of the Biblical Theology for Life series, father and son team Douglas and Jonathan Moo invite readers to open their Bibles afresh to explore the place of the natural world within God’s purposes and to celebrate God’s love as displayed in creation and new creation. 

Following the contours of the biblical storyline, they uncover answers to questions such as:

• What is the purpose of the non-human creation?

• Can a world with things like predators, parasites, and natural disasters still be the ‘good’ world described in Genesis 1?

• What difference does the narrative of the ‘Fall’ make for humankind’s responsibility to rule over other creatures?

• Does Israel’s experience on the land have anything to teach Christians about their relationship with the earth?

• What difference does Jesus make for our understanding of the natural world?

• How does our call to care for creation fit within the hope for a new heaven and a new earth?

• What is unique about Christian creation care compared with other approaches to ‘environmental’ issues?

• How does creation care fit within the charge to proclaim the gospel and care for the poor?

In addition to providing a comprehensive biblical theology of creation care, they probe behind the headlines and politicized rhetoric about an ‘environmental crisis’ and climate change to provide a careful and judicious analysis of the most up-to-date scientific data about the state of our world. They conclude by setting forth a bold framework and practical suggestions for an effective and faithful Christian response to the scriptural teaching about the created world.

But rather than merely offering a response to environmental concerns, Creation Care invites readers into a joyful vision of the world as God’s creation in which they can rediscover who they truly are as creatures called to love and serve the Creator and to delight in all he has made.

Black Lives Matter All the Time

When I say I am a Christian

by Unknown Author

(a rearrangement of Carol Wimmer's original poem)

When I say ... "I am a Christian"

I'm not shouting "I'm clean livin'."

I'm whispering "I was lost,

Now I'm found and forgiven."

When I say ... "I am a Christian"

I don't speak of this with pride.

I'm confessing that I stumble

and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say ... "I am a Christian"

I'm not trying to be strong.

I'm professing that I'm weak

And need His strength to carry on.

When I say ... "I am a Christian"

I'm not bragging of success.

I'm admitting I have failed

And need God to clean my mess.

When I say ... "I am a Christian"

I'm not claiming to be perfect,

My flaws are far too visible

But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say ... "I am a Christian"

I still feel the sting of pain.

I have my share of heartaches

So I call upon [Jesus'] name.

When I say ... "I am a Christian"

I'm not holier than thou,

I'm just a simple sinner

Who received God's good grace, somehow

- Author Unknown

BLACK LIVES MATTER ALL THE TIME

by R.E. Slater

June 9, 2020

Healing speaks to Black and White communities alike.

Without love for one another we cannot enter a

Promised Land overflowing with milk and honey.

- re slater

Its disingenuous of people who have actively supported societal injustice to then be mad because the larger portion of us have had enough of their white worlds of God, bible, and politics. When we say, as Americans, we welcome all blended societies of color into all our lands of fullness and beauty we truly mean this. We wish to share but have failed to share.

America is an internationally blended society whose Constitution vouchsafes equality and justice to every man, woman and child under its juris prudence regardless of race. It is why America is considered that City on Hill whose shining beacon beckons home all nations wishing to share in the democratic institutions of liberty for all, justice for all, and opportunities for all.

As that City on a Hill, America assures all foreign refugees fleeing homelands of cruelty and injustice that they are welcomed as they are; respected for who they are; and may find a new homeland which desires equality and liberty to become their reality.

That here is a nation built upon democratic laws of compassion and respect against all other forms of oppressive discrimination and bigotry. America, Land of the Brave, Home of the Free.

Sadly, historically, America has always struggled with its assumed understanding of itself just as it has failed in appreciating the greatly diverse cultures within its democratic structures, banners, and mottos. Instead, it has acted more like a post-colonial institution struggling to recognize the true beauty of its people and the great society they are trying to make together.

When groups like Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrates against racial inequities it presents to white America an uncomfortable option towards becoming more democratic  than it thinks it is. Known as White Flight, White populations abandon their school districts, churchs, and communities, as other people groups move in. They call it property valuations, and better schooling and opportunities, greater safety and even reinforced cultural mores.

But the hard facts are these secularized segregations of society have left the incoming masses with poor health care, education, poverty, police brutality and racism, and political corruption. White Flight has comprised the equity and justice expected by all of America's people when assuring itself only of valuation without sharing its hard-earned benefits of wealth and knowledge. Forgetting its generations once despaired and fought in similar systems of betrayal and abandonment.

BLM is the completion, or end-cap, of Martin Luther King's (MLK) rallies of the Civil Rights movement from 1954-1968. Similar to the British American War of 1812-1815 which ultimately ended Britain's festering loss of her Colonies in the Revolutionary War of 1775-1783. Each first movement needed a finishing movement to solidify the completion of what was started. So here we are today, sixty years later, in 2020 massing around foundational human rights, fighting for breath and life as even George Floyd himself breathed out his rights.

BLM's goals is to bluntly create a more perfect union in America which is less subservient to white culture. Infused with blended cultures of all colors. Sharing differing ideas of racial perspectives. Offering racial solutions where none have existed before - or barely hinted at in many communities. To go even further by recognizing the rights of all including gays, transgenders, and alt societal-types. Purposely blending many races and many cultures into one societal admission of fairness and equality for all. Its the completion of the Civil Rights rallies of the 1960s.

For white Christians, reading the bible one way, in a racially white way, says we must live by law and order and to judge one another. But reading the bible in another way, in a non-racially white way, means we embrace and respect one another for our differences. That we learn to love one another, fellowship with one another, care, help, and aide one another.

If God is a God of love then He loves all the way across. Not just some of the way across. Nor in one specifically accepted cultural understanding. The bible says God loves all the world. This means that He loves all races, all people, all nationalities, all genders. In imitation, a blended, open democracy accepts all, works fairly and equally with all, strives to improve human relations with all, including the economic wellbeing and social safety of all.

If I, as a white Christian, am angry, its because I am angry with white Christian hypocrisy. It's because I, and many others, are tired of not seeing America become a better version of itself with each succeeding presidential election, or new generation, or new societal decade. We didn't go through the Vietnam and Civil Race Wars of the 60s only to see them repeated again-and-again in gutless policies of biased betrayal and bigotry.

In truth, our actions have shown we have given lip service to demonstrations of integrity and honesty. It shows we have implemented what we thought were fair policies without giving any personal or community investment of ourselves behind those policies. That when we cry "law and order" what we really mean is that non-white culture submit to our standards of racial insensitivity.

At the last, I'm less concerned about undemocratic and disingenuous white anger and much more concerned about the anger of my brothers and sisters who must deal with white rascism in all its forms every single hour of their lives. Either the white culture lives up to its rants of "Making America Great Again" (MAGA) or, it repents of its fake mottos, repents of its racism, and tries to get its act together.

White American shouts of injustice only sees injustice as defined by their majority group. We live in the 21st century. Its time America, along with all racists nations around the world, grow up to become globally interconnected nations of fairness and equality instead of fighting and hurting one another for cultural icons of servitude and bondage. Amen

R.E. Slater

* * * * * * * *

7x7 Anger

by R.E. Slater

Dealing with Coronavirus.

Staying-at-home. Locked-in.

Scared. Mad. No money.

Kids. Anxieties. Fears.

No diversions. No Outlets.

No sports, bars, groups, work.

Just panicked helplessness.

No leadership.

Lying. Slandering. Blaming.

More lies. More anger. More madness.

What's hidden comes into 20/20.

Climate change not addressed.

Trump making war with the world.

Dividing everybody sane.

Pulling America apart.

Some demented dream of greatness.

A perfect storm forms.

And where's the church?

The real church is out marching.

Not the institutional church.

It's created all the disasters.

Where is America today?

And its white church gospel?

A gospel which victimizes.

Which plays the victim.

Which has harmed so many.

At the Southern border lands.

On the street lands of America?

Unobtainable health care.

Empty pockets. No wages.

I'm told Jesus followers heal.

They bless. They serve. They Aide.

That they bleed for the oppress.

Times of disruption give clarity.

They also give anger at Injustices.

Anger to assess.

Anger to make things right.

Anger of not having.

Anger of living in ruins.

Anger of being left behind.

Untended. Uncared.

Unwanted. Unloved.

I'm told America's Heartlands,

Greenlands, Urban Spaces,

Coastlands, Mountainlands,

Plains States, Hinterlands,

Beats with one heart,

Beats for all together,

When does it start for me?

R.E. Slater

June 9, 2020

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

R.E. Slater - The Eighth Day of Creation

The Eighth Day of Creation

by R.E. Slater

O' Father God,

    who spake bright worlds

into being and becoming,

    who guides forces of

renewing goodness

    and bounteous energy;

be our hope and stay

    during days of evil. 

Deliver Thy people

    who walk your love,

from crimes of

    injustice and hate;

guide thy creation
    its bounteous courses,
from barrenness

    and childless joy.

Do not abandon us

    nor this frail earth,

to wickedness

    and ruinous sin;

but come bringing

    peace and goodwill,

during dark days

    and evil dreads.

Thy worlds were

    made in Thy image;

self-creating worlds

    of atoning goodness,

of soul redeeming love,

    of resurrecting grace;

all now sadly within webs

    of sorrowful agency.

Be the All-Seeing Poet

    over our affairs; direct

Thy loving conviction

    with holy compassion

upon those spewing hate;

    whose lips speak daily lies

and restless slander; false

    shepherds of undead souls.

To those who seek

    Thee not, who rage

within, who harm;

    be not still Thy Spirit

which stills broken hearts,

    which opens blinded eyes,

which unstops deaf ears,

    raising lepers to walk again.

Such harlots of humanity

    look not within but hate,

spinning lies and deceits

    of every kind; such whores

of creation breed every kind

    of evil unrelenting their sin;

to these close their mouths,

    lay bare their nakedness.

You have birthed worlds

    promising Eden, yet we

destroy Thy holy earth,

    denying its promise, by

unlove and fell deeds;

    may Eden renew again

our hearts of hard clays,

    to be yielded soils remade.


R.E. Slater
April 21, 2020

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

The Christian Liberation of Being Gay

~ Unhelpful advertisements sharing and extending pain and harm ~

"Homosexuality is not a disease.

The name 'therapy' alone is misleading."

I must apologize once again. This time for the simple fact that I don't put up enough articles on homosexuality as I should. To be sure, there are many articles on this site, but not lately, as I've been exploring many other topics which need to be said and taught. Especially when requiring religious faith, and especially the Christian faith, which I was raised in, that it be updated into contemporary forms of constructive, postmodern theology.

If you don't know my background let me share briefly share it here.

I have had deep bible training and education through the college and seminary level (an undergrad Bible Minor; and, graduate M.Div.). My Baptist faith studies centered on language-based inductive and expository biblical studies. I tried to shun any indoctrinating classes in favor of biblical studies classes.

In my childhood I attended public schools and later, the University of Michigan, entering with a full academic ride to study Aerospace Engineering after turning down a Congressional appointment to the USAF Academy in Boulder, Colorado. At Michigan I majored in applied mathematics, science, and as much classical language, literature and history as my schedule could manage. There I met George Medenhall and David Noel Freedman along with many other very helpful professors and TA's.

During my time at Michigan I became involved with a vibrant local church campus ministry along with the organization Campus Crusade for Christ. Though this latter was welcomed and quite well attended by students across the Michigan campus it was my local church which had the larger, more indoctrinating programs and active ministries which attracted me the most. Each fellowship provided many wonderful years of faith acquisition, witness, studies, fellowships, and ministries towards examination of my inherited faith. But as you can guess, with so much of the good, came acceptable standards of non-biblical thinking and testimony based on conservative doctrine.

To my everlasting regret, I burned out deep in my third year having prematurely attained the level of graduate mathematics. To this day I have wished I had completed my senior year. But be that as it may, I was too conflicted to go any further, having lost any interest and reason for going forward until the Lord cleared up my confused heart.

By the following fall I had regrouped enough to enroll and begin an additional two years of undergraduate studies completing a Psychology major (added to previous psych and sociological studies at Michigan) with a deep minor in biblical studies at the local Baptist College. At graduation I left latter that summer from my home state of Michigan to teach at a small private Christian high school in West Palm Beach, Florida, where I met many wonderful students, parents, church members, and staff.

I taught one year, had been blessed, and been a blessing, to my students, and returned back home feeling called to finish biblical studies this time on a graduate level. When coming back I first worked at a commercial electrical trade business to fill up my empty bank account. As you can guess, Christian schools pay poverty wages while requiring nearly all of your time. By January of the following year, with the encouragement of a dear friend, I applied and was accepted into Seminary.

After 34 years of local lay ministries in several churches I have, even as I was then, been rethinking how the Christian faith might better be centered around the love of God instead of my interpretation of the Bible which my faith circles called Truth. When done, Christ's love won out over my more limiting doctrinal worldview of how things should be, and should be done. It took awhile but thankfully the Lord has led me to spend these past eight ten years laying out important differences between my traditional faith inheritance and where I think its orthodoxy should better be directed given the context of God's love when considered first, last, and foremost above all church doctrines.

The result has been this blog here, Relevancy22, wherein I share doctrine by doctrine, topic by topic, in as methodical fashion as I can, reasons why the Christian faith must be reconstructed when re-centered on the love of God and Christ's atoning death. This re-orientation into the Love of God has been revolutionary in my life as I hope it may be in you, my readers.

Which, I think, at the last, was probably why I never finished Michigan nor held a decisive job in life. Though I spent my years, like the Apostle Paul, in tent ministries, as a consultant and technician to small area businesses. When not working or volunteering at Civic, Educational, or Ecological organizations, I have spent nearly all my life in ministry in one form or another. Out of sight, underneath the fabric of interfering church eyes, ministering to thousands and thousands of youth, college age, and young professionals. From deacon, elder, and pastor's kids, to the many youths and young adults searching for life's questions, direction, and meaningful purpose.

In the end my real business has been the Lord's. My dedication was to the same. My long, oft times difficult journey was worth the lost of mathematics degree and career. It was my time the Lord wanted. My dedication. Nothing else. Peace.

R.E. Slater

May 9, 2020

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

"This so-called therapy makes people sick, not better. The ban is an

important signal from society to all those who are unsure about

their homosexuality that it's okay to be the way you are."

When I consider homosexuality I think back to my dear friend and homosexual roommate of two years at the University of Michigan. To his testimony of lifehood, value, and personal respect for himself,  I also discovered the gay students I had met during those years along with dorm-mates and homosexual groups I inadvertantly discovered along the way. As a lad from a country farm and small country school background, I had entered the Land of Oz. One of strangeness and mystery.

My overall experience has been one of positiveness. I discovered a loving, beauty-appreciating gay lifestyle which I admired along with the sad fact of constant societal assaults upon their being and personhood. This latter was what saddened me the most.

From these experiences I can tell you I am not gay, but gay-appreciating. I may not have understood it in my youth but as the years have rolled by I believe I can welcome and embrace gay men and women better than I had been taught by the church in my formative years of youth and college.

When considering Conversion Therapy I consider it one of the most harmful practices by the state and church. It leaves nothing but emotional and spiritual scars, suicides, feelings of worthlessness, and deep separation from the mainstream of humanity.

As a Christian, I wish for all to know how deeply loved and accepted the LGBTQ community is for who they are, as persons and as a group. To personally convey that God does not ask LGBTQ's to change their personhood or identity. If any change is to be made at all, perhaps it might be made in removing toxic relationships from their significant circles of identity and fellowship rather than put up with its continued abuse. Life is difficult enough without bearing the additional burdens heaped on by toxic judgmental voices of misunderstanding speaking death and not life into one's soul.

In all this I, and other Christian brothers and sisters, send prayers of peace and love always!

R.E. Slater

May 9, 2020

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

From a well meaning friend who deeply vibrates with the homosexual community:

"So Russ, do you mean you can't pray the gay away?? 😆

My intentional response meant in kindness and support:

"No. Nor do I wish to. To quip Dr. Suess, 'A person is a person no matter how gay.'"

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

Rainbow flags in front of the Brandenburg Gate at an event to celebrate the legalization of same-sex marriage in Berlin, Germany, June 2017.

Germany bans gay conversion therapy for minors

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/08/europe/germany-gay-conversion-therapy-ban-intl-scli-grm/index.html

by Frederik Pleitgen and Amy Woodyatt, CNN

Updated 8:26 AM ET, Fri May 8, 2020

Berlin (CNN) Germany has become the latest country to ban gay conversion therapy for those below the age of 18.

On Thursday, the country's parliament approved a ban of so-called conversion therapies -- which claim to be able to change a person's sexual orientation or identity -- for minors, and for adults who have been forced, threatened or deceived to undergo the controversial treatment.

So-called conversion therapies, also known as reparative treatments, rely on the assumption that sexual orientation can be changed or "cured" -- an idea debunked and discredited by major medical associations in the UK, the United States and elsewhere.

Oklahoma takes a step toward banning conversion therapy

Under the ban, advertising the intervention to young people is also outlawed, and those in breach of the law will face fines or a jail sentence of up to a year.

Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn said that the ban was an "important signal from society for all those who are unsure about their homosexuality."

"Homosexuality is not a disease. Therefore the name therapy alone is misleading," Spahn said in a statement.

"This so-called therapy makes people sick and not better. The ban is also an important signal from society to all those who are unsure about their homosexuality: It is okay to be the way you are," he added.

Studies have found that efforts to change a young person's sexuality can put them at a greater risk of depression or suicide.

Despite being condemned by medical bodies and having its science debunked by experts worldwide, the practice is legal throughout most of Europe, where campaigns and petitions to halt it exist in several countries.

CNN's Rob Picheta and Jamie Ehrlich contributed to this story.

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

What Gay Conversion Therapy Is Really Like

The new movie "Boy Erased" tells the true story of Garrard Conley — the son of a Baptist pastor who, after being outed to his parents at 19, was sent to a two-week long "gay conversion therapy" program. Conley talked about what the experience was really like, and discussed his efforts to make the practice of conversion therapy on minors illegal. It is currently legal to practice conversion therapy on minors in 36 states. Conley was joined by his mother Martha, who experienced a change of heart while Garrard was in the conversion therapy program and removed him before it was complete. "Boy Erased" arrives in theaters on Friday November 9.

Conversion therapy: God only knows

An estimated 700,000 adults in the U.S. have received a controversial treatment known as reparative, or conversion therapy, under the belief that homosexuality is caused by nurture, not nature, and can be "cured." Erin Moriarty talks with young men and women who had undergone the treatment (voluntarily or at the behest of their families) in order to adhere to their church's teachings; with Alan Chambers, who was the charismatic director of Exodus International, which promised to convert those with "same-sex attraction"; Nashville pastor Stan Mitchell, who has rejected conversion therapy; and Jeff Johnston of Focus on the Family, which continues to promote the practice for parishioners who do not want to be gay.

Choosing the Author Over the Bible Helps the Church See People

We have to talk about race to fix economic inequality.
Posted by Demos on Saturday, March 12, 2016

Aside from that . . .
http://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_aside_from_that

by John Edgerton
February 19, 2016

"John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison." - John 3:22-36

The Bible is chock full of asides, little comments intended to clear up confusion, or clue the reader into some important info we might otherwise be overlooking. From the ever-present "selah" of the Psalms to the deeply weird "let the reader understand . . . " of Mark 13, the Bible assumes that we might well be missing the point.

"Wait, wasn't John arrested by Herod? Wait, the Temple has already been destroyed, so why hasn't Jesus returned? Wait, wasn't I supposed to selah back there?"

To its earliest readers, the Bible was not a divinely inspired, inerrant document. All we need to do is read the Bible to know that. The way the Bible is written, it assumes that people are going to have some questions. It assumes people will be "thinking along," pondering the meaning of the Bible's words and—indeed—questioning whether they are true. 

That's why I believe Bible study is the best medicine for fundamentalism.

During Lent, Christians study the Bible deeply in order to gain a deeper relationship with the Word of God. The Word of God, of course, meaning Jesus.

If the Bible becomes an object of worship, then we replace the living Christ with dead letters. And without the living Christ, it is possible to wind up with a faith that denigrates the poor, the unorthodox, the outsider, women, sexual minorities, and hungry children. You know, all the people Jesus loved to be around.

Prayer

Living God, may I be filled with so much love for scripture that I always ask hard questions, and may I be filled with so much love for Christ that I never accept any substitute for the Word of God.




About the Author
John Edgerton is Associate Pastor
at Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts.

Fight Racism by Brave New Films

The Civil "Rightness" of Gay Marriage in the Eyes of the U.S. Constitution

Gay Marriage: The Law of the Land

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2015/06/26/gay-marriage-the-law-of-the-land/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

June 26, 2015

I confess, I’m a little surprised.

The Supreme Court actually issued a ruling dealing with the substance of the question.

It didn’t appeal to technicalities or procedural issues.

The Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry.

It has been awhile since I’ve dealt with the civil side of this issue on my blog. But I have been in favor of gay marriage as a civil right since starting to wrestle with the issue during the Prop 8 campaign in California some seven years ago.

The position I came to in terms of our secular society is this:

• Christians are called to love our neighbor as ourselves.

• We are called to do unto others as we would have done to us.

• This means advocating for our neighbors to have the same rights and freedoms that we would not want taken away from us.

In other words, it is sometimes my Christian duty to ensure that my neighbor has the right to act in ways that are contrary to my Christian belief.

In this case, the reasons people have for maintaining a traditional view of marriage are religious. We are a nation of religious freedom. We cannot take away from others what gives life to ourselves.

Here’s one of the most important things I’ve been learning:

To say what we believe about something is only the first step. It does not necessarily tell us what to do with that belief in the face of those who think differently.

The idea that we should enforce our belief as the law of the land is one that has to be carefully assessed in any given situation. We need to ask what it actually means to do unto our neighbor as we would want done to ourselves.

I know that many of you will disagree with all this. But here’s something I’m sure of: What happened today is not going to ruin your marriage. What happened today is not going to weaken the institution of marriage as such.

All it means is that same-sex couples now have the right to participate in a civil institution [of marriage] that has been weak for a generation.

Strength of marriage does not come from who else is able to join themselves together. Strength of marriage comes from the two people committing themselves to the hard work of cultivating a relationship of self-giving love. It comes from that couple embedding themselves in communities that will help nurture that relationship and help them through the trials that it entails.

I, for one, am glad about what happened today.

I’m glad because I think it’s the right thing for our country. And I’m glad for my friends whose weddings I’ll be attending over the next year—friends whose lives will be made richer and more secure by the institution of marriage they are legally able to join themselves in.