peter's crazy vision

Acts 10 - 11 give the account of Peter's vision. In the dream, he, a Jew, is instructed to eat all kinds of creatures. He declines to do so, on account of these things being impure or unclean according to Old Testament laws. Then the same God who gave these laws, tells him not to call anything that God has made unclean. Shortly thereafter, some Gentiles arrive at his gate, having been sent by an angel.

It would appear that God has changed His mind here, or is at least indicating clearly that certain laws from before do not apply anymore. This frees Peter up to reach out to the Gentile visitors.


Might there be other things which God said before, which He does not want us to hold to anymore? And what if our reply is "You're crazy! That's not what the Bible says"?

[the good son first to see prodigal]

Are we ready to invite others? Jay Bakker writes:

Imagine for a minute how differently the prodigal son story would have played out if the father hadn't been there to intervene. What if instead it had been the good son who greeted the prodigal?

There would have been no happy reunion. No hugs and kisses. You can be damned sure there'd be no fattened calf or homecoming party. The good son would have lain back and watched his brother approach, his indignation growing with every approaching step.

By the time the prodigal reached the front door, the good son's anger would have been boiling over, and his first words might have been something like this: "Look at you come crawling back. Why did you even bother? You used up your share of the inheritance. And what do you have to show for it? Nothing. Well, don't think you can share mine. There's nothing for you here. Everything Dad left is for me. I did all the hard work while you blew it off. I earned it and you don't deserve it. Dad wanted me to have it. Now go away and don't come back.....ever!"

In some ways the good son's mistake (thinking that he has earned his own salvation) is the more problematic one, because it makes it harder for the prodigal to return. Versions of this scene play out every day in real life between Christians. Half the reason people stay away from the church is because they know that the good sons and daughters are waiting at the door to judge and reject them when they try to enter.

From Jay Bakker's book Fall to Grace: a revolution of God, self and society, pages 91-92

Have you ever felt unwelcomed somewhere, because of who you are or what you've done?

How can the reality of the father, waiting with arms wide open, be lived out by those who follow Jesus?

[resource on "finding our identity in Christ, not sexual orientation"]

The Nov/Dec 2012 issue of Evangelicals for Social Action's Prism magazine is on the overall topic of "Beyond Labels: Finding our identity in Christ, not sexual orientation".  It features articles and stories from a wide range of perspectives on this topic, and I highly recommend it. Mind you, some parts of it I agree with, and others I do not, but it is enlightening in any case and helps me better to understand this key matter.

Here's a sample quote from an article by Joshua Gonnerman:

The stories offered to gay people by mainstream religion and secular society are enticing, offering hope of acceptance, fulfillment, pride, and, most recently, marriage. The stories the more traditionally inclined churches have offered have tended towards either heterosexualization or stories focused on burden/struggle. As long as matters are framed thus, the gospel will continue to be outside the realm of possibility for most gay people. How far this is from the gospel where Christ declares, “I have come that they might have life, and that more abundantly”!

Read more at http://prismmagazine.org/currentissue/

There is also a downloadable version along with study questions if you wish to use this in other contexts.

cycle of 21st century life

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush writes in LGBT Rights -- Getting on the Right Side of History:

A vivid religious example is the United Methodist Church, which recently reaffirmed the idea that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. They did this while formally apologizing for the denomination's support of segregation and the oppression of native peoples in the past. Oh, the irony!

At the same time the Methodists throw one group under the bus, they extend a hand towards the groups that still have tire tracks on their backs. Of course, we know what comes next. In a few more decades, the Methodists will be having rituals of repentance for how they treated LGBT people.

Here's an idea. Why don't we just skip the "more oppression" part and move straight to the reconciliation and full communion? (source and full article)

the right side of history

"Here's the funny thing about history: sometimes you can't tell you're on the wrong side of it, especially when it's being made."
John Boyle, Citizen Times, Aug 11/12 (source)

Here is a review of history, and some of the times that the church has been on the wrong side of it. Note that in most cases, there were also believers on the right side of history, but it seems it took quite some time before that became clear to all involved.


Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, in an article about Evangelicals and the Wrong Side of History, says the following:

While evangelicals used Bible verses to deny women the right to vote, a very religious Fredrick Douglass and the suffrage movement used the Bible to support the full enfranchisment of women.

... the largest and most powerful evangelical denomination in the country, the Southern Baptist Convention, does not allow women to serve as pastors and through its lobbying arm has supported anti-choice, anti-gay marriage, and anti-immigrant agendas.

Rev. Billy Graham is another example of the evangelical tendency to lag behind in social progress. Rev. Graham, the undisputed leader of American evangelicalism for the past five decades, used a biblical argument to support the passage of North Carolina constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.... In the same manner, Graham refused to denounce segregation after a direct appeal from Dr. King in 1957. (source and full article)

150 years ago	100 years ago	50 years ago	Today
Abolishment of slavery	Suffragette / right to vote	Desegregation	Marriage equality / civil rights for LGBT people
Churches used the bible to defend slavery	Churches used the bible to keep women "in their place" and deny the right to vote	Churches used the bible to justify lesser status of blacks	Churches use the bible to put down lgbt people

Most Christians, looking back at history, would be loathe to return to the days when black people were enslaved, aboriginal people were beaten down, women had no vote and so on. In other words, they now accept that history was right. Yet in today's current hot issue – the acceptance of gay and lesbian people, they fight and object and "stand firm".

fine print

What does it mean when a church says "everyone is welcome?" Or if an event brochure says that "Anyone and everyone... can come and enjoy!"?

Does it really mean anyone and everyone? Or are there exceptions?

I think there are some reasonable exceptions: for example, the person who comes to church only to hassle and intimidate their ex-spouse, or a satan-worshipper whose only reason for attending is to disrupt the congregation.

But what about the man who has poor social skills? Or the woman who tends to ask awkward questions during the discussion time? Or the young person who is defiant? Should they be excluded?


Whom would you be willing to exclude?

Ironically, many of the people who are on the "more likely to be excluded" end of the spectrum, are the kind of people Jesus hung out with...

chic

[mea culpa]

I would like to confess my prejudices which are known to me:

1.
The other day I heard the mental health hotline joke, which someone read from the web. It starts like this:

You have reached the mental health hotline.
If you have obsessive compulsive disorder, press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.
If you have multiple personality disorder, press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
and so on...

Then when they got to the line about dyslexia, I thought to myself, how would someone who has dyslexia feel about this? And only later did I ask myself, why didn't I ask myself that when I heard the line about OCD or co-dependency or MPD? Is it okay to make fun of people with mental health issues but not those with learning challenges? It seems that part of me at least partly thinks so some of the time (I say some of the time because if someone was actively and agressively making fun of someone with a mental illness, I would of course object. But many of our prejudices are more subtle in how they show their face).

2.
I came across an interesting article called Everything I Need to Know About Hospitality, I Learned from Molly Weasley which I was going to share on Facebook. I clicked on the author's name to read other articles she had written, and discovered that she is Mormon. And then I became reluctant to share the article.

In thinking about this, I determined that if the author was Jewish I would not have hesitated, and probably not either if she was Muslim. So why hesitate because she's Mormon?
 
3.
Finally, I realize that I have prejudices against a particular ethnic group. I would be okay interacting with an individual from that group, but that I hold misperceptions or stereotypes about that group. Some of this may have come from the Winnipeg neighbourhood where I lived during childhood, where there were many people from this group and where it bothered me that many of the men drove a particular sporty car (no, not a Lamborghini :-) while their families lived in run-down houses. I don't think there is a problem in being concerned about how people use their money, but retrospectively, I think that I judged them for it and that I did not understand the importance of the cars in their particular culture.

How about you? In what ways are you prejudiced against others?

Where's the line between friendly joking about something and hurtful joking?

closets

[not a joke]

In February 2012, Relevant Magazine posted an article called What Diversity Should Look Like by Matt Chandler. In discussing how differences make a community stronger, it looked at righteous and unrighteous, rich and poor, and race and ethnicity. After reading it, I posted a comment. Here is a screenshot of that comment with the subsequent reply from another reader, and my question back. Didn't hear back...

the decline of jesus

In honour of National Coming Out Day, I offer the following:

The Jesus I know, the Jesus I see in the Bible, identifies with the least of these. In His time here on earth, that would have been women, lepers, tax collectors and people classified as "sinners" by the religious people. In our modern 21st century culture, lgbt people are often the least of these... and Jesus would identify with them, walk with them, become one of them.

If someone is offended by this, perhaps he or she hasn't grasped how radical Jesus was in his day. Radical to the point of offending religious people. Perhaps they do not understand how Jesus broke social stigmas continually... and yet today, some Christians seem more interested in maintaining a religious status quo than following in Jesus' steps.

Become one of them?? Hmmm. Reminds me of the Apostle Paul saying that

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.

I Corinthians 9:19-22 NIV

Hugh Hollowell speaking about My Jesus is a 23-year-old lesbian:


The Jesus I Know from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.



Some words of clarification: After reading this post, someone suggested that it would be helpful if I clarified some things about the cartoon and the commentary. So here goes:

Remember that this is social commentary. So I'm mixing together the following here:

• an idea -- Jesus was gay -- which floats around in a few places in society (for the record, I don't believe this)
• the passage about the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, where Jesus says, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (verse 40)
• Jesus being called a drunkard and a glutton, and being called a friend of sinners
• Jesus giving up his power and his rights and becoming nothing
• the idea that we need to identify with those who are poor and oppressed and powerless, and not be afraid to be mistaken for one of them
• our contemporary culture where lgbt people are oppressed and at the margins.

So the result is the cartoon,with the idea that we see Jesus in the least of these ...

join the protest

Why do we not protest outside of seafood establishments? Why do we not excommunicate parishioners who dare to bring a shrimp ring to a church get together? After all, the Bible is pretty clear about seafood, and if we say we believe the Bible is the truth....

Obviously, we make choices about what parts are important and what parts aren't, what passages still apply to us and what passages don't.

So if we're choosing anyway, what stops us from choosing love?

Read another post about "why not choose love instead of hate."

[Ku Klux Clowns in East Tennessee]

Here's a great story of how hatred was met with humour:

Word had begun to spread that a group of white supremacists, including members of the KKK, were converging here in Knoxville, TN, holding a rally in a park downtown. It was in the news and papers. Many locals were pretty upset by the public display of racism and hatred. Even though many of the folks connected to the hate-group were coming from other states, they had obtained a permit to gather and publicly proclaim their hate-filled message of White Power.

But they had no idea what was coming.

A group of locals had decided neither to cower away in fear nor to fight fire with fire…. Instead they decided to meet hatred with humor.....

Read the rest of the story by Shane Claiborne.

This event has inspired a children's book White Flour by David LaMotte, which is available in hard cover and perhaps e-book format. Check out White Flour Book for more information, plus a copy of the poem, a video of the book's author reading the poem, and more.

what we're known for

It seems these days that at least in the public realm, Christians are often known more for their opposition to people, ideas and causes than for the love they show to others. And it just doesn't fit, does it...

How have we moved so far from the loving community seen in the book of Acts?

What can you and I do to make a difference?

[on giving money to people]

In my line of work (homelessness), the one thing you hear all the time is ”Don’t give people money”. It is a truism. It is universal.

I sometimes ignore it.

(Read the rest of the story in Hugh Hollowell's article on Giving money to homeless people)

Depending on where you live and work, you may or may not regularly meet people on the street who ask you for money. What do you do? What could you do differently? How should you respond?

Here are a small collection of articles to help you think more about this matter and about the men and women who cross paths with you.

---

The first four articles (and the one above) are by Hugh Hollowell, who ministers with the poor in Raleigh, North Carolina. I like his perspective on things and often share updates on Facebook from his blog or the Love Wins blog:

1.      Q and R: Panhandlers vs Homeless People

2.
"I recently pulled out of a parking lot and there was a line of panhandlers at the stop light. Is it OK to give them money?" In this short article, Hugh addresses this question including Jesus' instruction to 'give to everyone who asks.'
Panhandlers - do I give or not?

3.     How not to be taken advantage of by panhandlers

4.      This post is not about giving money to panhandlers

5.      A related article by Jon M. Sweeney:
Can You Spare the Bread? Should You?

6.      Hear it in their own words:
http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/