DOMA, Proposition 8, and Tomorrow Morning

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n case you have been under a rock for the greater part of today, there have been some historic happenings in the Supreme Court regarding same-sex unions. The Supreme Court Justices have ruled that elements of the Defense of Marriage Act (which denies federal benefits to same-sex couples) are unconstitutional and married same-sex couples should enjoy the same benefits that married heterosexual couples enjoy. Additionally, they declined to rule on California’s Proposition 8 (which defines marriage as between one man and one woman) because they did not believe it had the proper “legal standing to proceed.”

For more information see these articles:

DOMA: The Washington Post: DOMA

Prop. 8: The Washington Post: Prop 8

While I’m sure there is much to be said theologically about these issues, I want to direct my focus towards what a proper response might be towards these rulings. How does this affect us a Christians when we wake up tomorrow morning? What are we called to do? Now, make note that I don’t want to argue here for how we can reverse this and take everyone back 200 years. While the trajectory of culture may not comply with how I understand reality to be, I don’t think the proper answer is to get knocked out of wack and complain. Rather, I want to consider here what the minimum commitments of Christians should be as we interact with this new reality.

1) Persistent, Patient Love

            As Christians it is our bounden duty to affirm the equality of all persons due to their innate possession of the imago dei. That being the case, we are called to love each person alike. Despite what happens in the socio-political world we have not been and never will be released from this basic duty. You’ll notice that I modified ‘love’ here with patient and persistent. I did this because I think we will often find this to be a wearisome and confusing task. What does it look like to love someone who I do not agree with? How can I sustain a loving relationship with someone who might perceive of me as a bigot or intolerant? Well, however those details might shake out, the goal remains: love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a pure faith (1 Tim. 1:5).

2) Active Articulation of Christian Truth

            Furthermore, Christians cannot stop presenting the immanent culture with a rigorous and coherent take on reality. This doesn’t mean vitriolic imprudence in our conversations, but a gentle and active engagement with current issues. What cannot happen is capitulation to secular ideals -- we cannot stop speaking about our faith and what our faith entails. If we stop engaging and cloister away, then we’ve conceded an unnecessary amount. Instead, we need to always be ready to make a defense….with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15).

3) Sober Assessment of the Road Ahead

            Finally, I think it would benefit Christians to relax a little bit as we think about the future. Most likely it will be a long road ahead for Christians who retain a traditional view of marriage. No big deal! Tomorrow is going to come around. You're going to get out of bed, go to work, and live your life. This is not the end of the world. Be open and attentive to what your Lord would like to teach you through the process. Don't jump to conclusions, make hasty choices or ostracize yourselves from what is happening.  Engage patiently and openly. Who knows? Maybe there are some things both sides can learn through all of this. That being said, don't give up on creating Kingdom culture. As I've written before (here) I believe that humans have a God-given capacity to create non-physical realities. We bring about cultures of love, peace, and truth. We need to press in to this capacity and see how God will use it for the future. So, we face the future soberly, but confident that (from our perspective) the future is open for discovery. 

Blessings,

Dave

Virtuous Conversations?

 “The virtue of man will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him live well.” (Aristotle, Nico. II.6)

“All who are able, may gain virtue by study and care, for it is better to be happy by the action of nature than by chance.” (Aristotle, Nico. I.9.)

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hat is a virtue? Historically, philosophers would have understood it to be (as Aristotle notes above) a state of character. A good person is one who possesses a state of goodness. A kind person is someone who possesses a state of kindness. And, while many people lack virtues, they can be learned and appropriated through intentionality and practice. As Aristotle says, these can be acquired by “study and care”.   

Kind of makes sense, right? A bad person who does a good act is not a good person. In order for them to truly be considered good, then “goodness” needs to be part of their character. 

I think this concept makes sense when it comes to living a life of Christian virtue. In order to truly be a Christ-like person, an individual needs to habituate Christ-like virtues. Obviously the Holy Spirit plays an integral role here, but it is not the purpose of this post to parse out all those details. Suffice it to say, virtues are states of character that can be acquired through practice and time.

As I reflected on these thoughts, I couldn’t help bust ask, “What if the idea of virtue could be applied more broadly? How might virtues extend to other areas of life apart from the strictly moral?” One area in particular struck me as pertinent and I thought I would share that with you.

The Virtues of a Conversation

Whether we like it or not we all have to talk to other people. Depending on our place of employment or stage of life, some of us end up talking a lot more than others, but we all converse to some degree. Unfortunately, it seems that most of us also assume that we’re good at talking. How could we be bad at it if we do it all the time, right?

Well, I’ll let you decide whether or not you’re good at conversing with those around you, but here are several “virtues” that I came up with as I thought about what might describe a virtuous conversation.  This list is by no means exhaustive, but I think it’s representative of what I imagine good conversations should be characterized by.

1) Patience

I would like to suggest to you that the first virtue of a conversation is patience. This means that all parties involved in the discussion are slow to attend to each other. There is not talking over another person or “steam-rolling” to get your point across. Each individual is carefully given the time they need to make their point before others share their ideas. This virtue allows for true understanding of the issues and hand and gives each participant space to genuinely express their ideas.

2) Precision

This one may seem like a no-brainer, but I think it’s worth stating. A virtuous conversation is one in which the content of the conversation is transferred from sender to receiver with clarity and accuracy. This virtue may in fact be one of the most difficult to attain. It requires the transmitter to fully understand the content they way to give out and it requires the receiver to properly “decode” the transmission. Questions come in handy here! This virtue allows for true communication to take place and assures each party that they have successfully exchanged ideas.

3) Peace

Third, virtuous conversations are characterized by peaceful correspondence. Now, I don’t think this requires everyone to agree about the topic, but I do think it calls the participants to a place of charity for one another. While the people participating in a conversation characterized by peace may end up on opposite sides of the discussion, their mutual placidity should remain. This virtue allows for disagreement to occur while maintaining some level of charity towards the other participants.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Do you agree/disagree? Do you think virtues can even be applied to conversations? What virtues do you think would be applicable to our conversations? Do you buy into the idea of virtues at all?

Blessings!

Dave

For further reading:

Tim Muehlhoff and Todd Lewis, Authentic Communication: Christian Speech Engaging Culture (IVP Academic, 2010).

The Will, Sin, and Desire

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re you tired of trying to not sin? I don’t know about you, but about five years ago I became really disenchanted with the idea that I could somehow will myself to stop sinning. I examined my own life and the lives of others around me and realized that my suspicions were confirmed: a person cannot will themselves to cease from sinning simply by force. No matter how much I tried to coerce myself, I found that there was no sustainability in beating myself up and “trying harder next time.”

Unfortunately, a lot of contemporary spirituality attempts to understand spiritual growth exactly through this method. What results is a bunch of discouraged Christians who don’t believe their lives can ever match the lofty imperatives of Scripture.  Not quite what it seems God has in mind, right?

Well, if this is you too, don’t be discouraged – it seems that there is an alternative way to envision the Christian spiritual life that, I think, matches more with the level of reality.  What follows are a few thoughts toward re-envisioning a manageable and comprehensive outline of Christian growth.

1) We are essentially affective beings.

            What does this mean? Well, it means that you, as a human being, are really a desiring being. Sure you are also rational, relational, etc. But at your core you desire things. You desire acceptance, recognition, love, that new dress at Forever21, that awesome-new-book-published-by-your-favorite-author-which-your-wife-says-won’t-fit-on-the-bookshelf, as well as a million other things.

2) Our desires dictate our actions.

            This is one of St. Augustine’s essential doctrines. Whatever we love (i.e. desire) we seek to obtain. No matter how much you cognitively know something is wrong, if you desire that thing, then you will grasp for it – often regardless of the cost.

3) Our Will follows our desire.

            This is the most important point! Whatever you truly desire, your will is going to try to actualize. If you truly desire to purchase that new dress, then your will is going to do everything it can to make that happen. If you really want that new book, then your will is going to do whatever it takes to obtain it. What we can deduce from this is not that there is a problem with our will. In fact, our will is functioning completely properly! The problem of sin lies not with the nature of the will, but squarely with our desires. Having disordered desires produces a disordered (sinful) reality.

           

4) Change happens at the level of desire.

            So, it seems that the most effective route of growth in the Christian life is not trying to force your will into submission, but attending to your malformed desires. As desires change, so does a persons life. How? Because our will acts on our desires. What we desire, we will.

5) Change requires awareness of desire.

            Unfortunately, many of us rush around life so fast that we have never stopped to think about what we truly desire.  What if our “quiet time” was actually quiet time where we sat and asked God to reveal to us the desires of our heart? What if it wasn’t so much “get through 3 chapters of Scripture and 5 minutes of prayer,” but times examining our deepest desires in light of Scripture to see where we are at?

6) Grace provides space to be aware of disordered desires.

            Some people might be afraid of what they will find if they are honest about their desires, but let me tell you something.  A life lived unaware of your deepest desires, no matter how twisted, is no life at all. Having received the forgiveness of God, you are no longer condemned (Romans 8:1). You no longer carry the guilt of wrong desires, so you can face them in confidence. Don’t forget, God is already aware of who you are at your core. He knows that you long for incorrect things. Additionally, he knows that you really need him. He is present to you and so willing to engage you at the level or disordered desire. I encourage you to let him! See his mercy. Experience his grace. Feel his love.

7) Disorder desires can be retrained.

            This is where the positive project begins. If the true issue with humanity is at the level of disordered desire, then the solution becomes, not fervid attempts to restrain an “out of control” will, but a calculated retraining of desires. We put off the old man (Col. 3) by being trained in what it means to desire properly.  There are in fact myriad ways in which our desires are retrained and delineating those here would be too great of a task. Suffice it to say, this seems to be the proper approach to the Christian life. For only through transformation of desire can a believer truly see lasting, sustainable change in their life.

I hope this model of retraining disordered desires imbues your Christian experience with new joy and energy! God is not down on you because of your brokenness.  He knows exactly where you are and he wants to train you in a different way – the Kingdom way. His methods are always gracious and always loving (if you doubt this, I encourage you to read through the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ interaction with penitent sinners). The first step is to openly examine your heart before God and ask him to reveal your disordered desires. Once you become aware of some of those, then look for creative ways of responding to God’s plan to reshape those desires.  Also, don’t be discouraged if this process takes some time. Faithfulness to the journey is key!

Homosexual Christianity

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f you have spent any amount of time around Evangelical churches, then you probably know that there is tangible confusion about what to do with homosexuality. Most (if not all) Evangelical churches concur that homosexuality is somehow contrary to Divine intention for human sexuality, but after that point there are differences regarding what to do with it. Some say you can “pray the gay away” and so they pour effort into exorcising the demon of homosexuality from any whom it claims. Others try to dismiss the homosexual individual as some aberrant form of human too far gone to really be redeemed. Still others – being utterly confused about the whole issue – just hope and pray that they never have to interact with a homosexual and wriggle their way through social situations where there might by any opportunity for contact.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that most of these tactics lose sight of the paramount detail concerning homosexuality: the person!  At the end of the day, whether a person is homosexual or not, they are still a person. They are not a project. They are not too far gone. They are not to be avoided like the plague. Realizing this to be the case, I started asking myself, what would it mean to have a homosexual Christian experience? What are the joys and the struggles of such a journey? Can God be glorified and honored through a homosexual Christian?[1]

Over the course of a recent vacation, my sister let me borrow the book Washed and Waiting  (Zondervan, 2010) which is a memoir of sorts written by Wesley Hill – a homosexual Christian and Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity School for Ministry.

Many good things came from reading that book, but there were several things that I think might be beneficial for the Evangelical church at large to wrestle with when it comes to the homosexual experience – especially as we seek to understand what it might be like to live as a homosexual in the Kingdom of God.

1)      Loneliness

Hill explains that the homosexual Christian experience is desperately lonely at times. Imagine not being allowed to find the love of your life because your sexual orientation is at odds with God’s intention for sexuality. Imagine never being able to experience those loving moments at home with your sweetheart when you curl up on the couch at night and read a book together or make dinner for each other or just go on a walk holding hands. Imagine feeling like a project for other Christians to fix. Imagine never being able to fulfill the deepest desires of your heart. When put in these terms, it seems like homosexual Christians are some of the most courageous people one could ever meet.

2)      Disappointment

Another aspect of the homosexual Christian experience that stood out to me from Hill’s book is how he often felt that God was disappointed with him. He explained how he would wake up and just feel like God wasn’t happy with who he was. At the level of his sexual identity, he was incongruent with God’s ideal. It has taken him a long time to learn how to maintain a belief that God actually loves him even when he feels dirty or disapproved of. I can't even imagine what it would feel like to live with such a tense relationship to yourself and to God. 

At the end of the day I do not condone homosexual practice – I don’t think I can given the historical teaching of the church and witness of Scripture. However, I do admire, appreciate, and respect any and all homosexual Christians who daily take a stand to live their lives in submission to the Gospel message; who, knowing that they may lead lonely and difficult lives, still willingly submit their sexuality to the loving Shepherd of their souls. These are the people of great strength. These are the people who know God’s sustaining power in unique and beautiful ways.

Furthermore, I think believers need to start broadening our understanding of what a “Christian” experience should or could be. We need to learn to accept and stand with homosexual Christians who are truly willing to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. We need to remember that a homosexual Christian experience is often one of loneliness. We need to remember that a homosexual Christian experience is often of feeling that God is disappointed in you. Our homosexual brothers and sisters need our loving presence not our awkward distance. They need our tender awareness not our uncoordinated attempts to fix them.

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[1] At this point I do not want to argue for the validity of a homosexual Christian experience. However, I do think a homosexual Christian experience can occur as a homosexual person – realizing their homosexuality – seeks to submit themselves in totality to the authority of God and his revealed intentions.