Sunday, March 05, 2006
It’s with some trepidation that I begin this blog entry. As Brian McLaren has outlined recently,
trying to address the issue of homosexuality is a minefield for those
of us trying to accurately represent both the truth of God’s word and
the truth of His love for sinners. With this year’s movies like
“Brokeback Mountain”, “Transamerica”, and to a lesser degree, “Capote”,*
Hollywood has brought this issue to the forefront like never before.
Many in the Christian community have decried the purported agenda of
these movies. On the eve of the Academy Awards, I offer a few
observations on the issue of homosexual behavior.
- Homosexual behavior is sin. There is no honest, literal reading of scripture that can come to any other conclusion. However,
it is not a “special” sin. It is no different to God than the sins we
find “more acceptable” like divorce, lust, or greed. As fallen human
beings, we classify sins. Those who are overcome by sins that we
ourselves are tempted by receive our understanding and mercy, whereas
those who are overcome by sins that we are not tempted by are more
likely to be condemned and ostracized. God has no such categories.
Spending time browsing the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition
is no less repugnant in God’s eyes than homosexual activity.
- We
need to learn how to listen, even to viewpoints that we disagree with.
Listening, discussing, and caring will not “compromise” the Gospel.
Quite to the contrary, how can we expect anyone to listen to our
viewpoint if we are unwilling to listen to their viewpoint? Spreading
the Gospel does not require silencing the voices of dissent; the Holy
Spirit is powerful enough to overcome all opposition. Have we learned
nothing from church history?
- Can we as Christians please
refrain from joining the fraternity of the perpetually offended? Do we
really want to be associated with PETA, NOW, Greenpeace and the rest of
the professional protest industry? When I read scripture, I don’t see
Jesus or John or Paul or James or Peter decrying the decay of Roman
society or calling for political change. Picket lines and press
releases do not help spread the Gospel. The fires of revival are not
fed by political action; they are fed by prayer, devotion, and holiness.
Yes,
we live in a society that is in decline. Yes, voices we disagree with
are getting louder and louder. Yes, behaviors that God calls sin are
becoming more and more acceptable in our culture. The answer is not
political power; the answer is Holy Spirit power. Our calling is not to
protest, but to make disciples. Our message is not one of condemnation,
but one of love.
With the tongue
we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been
made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.
My brothers, this should not be.
James 3:9-10 (NIV)
*
Full disclosure: I have not seen any of the three movies mentioned
above. The only one I have any plans to see is “Capote”. In fact, as I
look at the list of Oscar nominees I realize I have seen very few of
the nominated movies this year and none of the Best Picture nominees,
which is surprising to me.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
There's another good post today by Joe Carter over at the Evangelical Outpost.
I'm not always a big fan of Dr. Dobson's tactics or positions (I've
sent a scathing email or two to Focus on the Family) but in this case I
find myself in agreement with him. It appears his critics on the
reciprocal beneficiary contracts issue haven't thought clearly about
the issue. Joe makes a great comparison to Ruth and Naomi. It's not
about sex it's about love, and as Christians we should understand the
difference.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Sometimes, only the words of Charlie Brown will do.
Argh!!!
I
love metro Detroit. I've lived in the city itself and I've lived in the
suburbs. I think Detroit is a great place, despite all the decay and
neglect in the city itself. I love to go downtown for events like the
Jazz Festival, Winter Blast, the Auto Show, and of course the
occasional ballgame. My wife and I went to Cleveland recently and I was
blown away by the positive changes in that city. I still believe that
kind of revival can happen in Detroit.
That's why it is SO
frustrating to see all the bickering and self-serving posturing by the
political leaders of our region. The latest sad example is the Detroit Zoo fiasco.
How incredibly stupid to use this wonderful institution as a political
poker chip. Now, I'm not trying to assign blame on anyone. I don't need
to, there's plenty to go around. Shame on everyone involved.
One step forward, two steps back...argh!!!
Thursday, February 16, 2006
This may be my first little “dry spell” as
a blogger. I just haven’t been inspired to write anything for a few
days. Of course, that word “inspired” carries a bit of baggage for
conservative evangelical Christians, so maybe I should find another
term. Let’s just say my muse has been silent. Oh wait, that’s pagan
Greek mythology…aarrgh.
My last entry about the ECI
got me thinking about global issues that I put on the back burner a few
years ago. Conservative evangelical Christianity has tended to shy away
from social justice and economic issues, not wanting to be accused of
promoting a “liberal social gospel”. In some ways, it’s like how a
friend of mine describes his Baptist upbringing...no one wanted to talk
about the Holy Spirit for fear of being accused of being a closet
Pentecostal. (Oh, the horror!!!) I must admit, I’ve probably been
caught in the same “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” trap,
whether it’s because I’m a conservative evangelical Christian, or
simply because I’m a dumb American who hasn’t really experienced much
of the rest of the world.
As some of you may have noticed, I’ve
begun to revisit social issues lately. There has been a lot of “buzz”
on these kinds of issues lately, whether it is Rick Warren’s work in
Rwanda, Bono’s work with DATA, or the SAY Detroit campaign surrounding
the Super Bowl. My friend Keith and I have been trading emails on such
subjects lately, too.
It
seems to me the primary issues in most world conflicts revolve around
economics, when you get right down to it. Poverty is a desperate state,
and desperate people do desperate things. If we want less conflict in
the world, we need to focus more on the issue of poverty in addition to
(not instead of) the Gospel of Christ. The question is, what can I do
about worldwide poverty? Well, the first thing I can do is make sure I
support those closest to me. For example, I’ve already blogged about the SAY Detroit campaign.
The reality is, however, that the poorest in the USA are rich in
comparison to much of the world. What can I do for the rest of the
world?
There are many “easy” answers like sponsoring a World Vision child,
but what about the old saw about teaching a man to fish? Wouldn’t it be
better to be involved in helping people make a good living for
themselves? A few years back the “Fair Trade”
movement caught my attention, but I didn’t do anything about it at the
time. I’m thinking about it again. The basic idea is, give a little
more thought to the source of the items we buy and maybe intentionally
spend a little more on an item that has been made by someone working
realistic hours at a fair wage. We’ve heard the stories of sweat-shops
and child labor problems in other countries, yet we still go to Wal-Mart to get the cheap clothing.
It’s
hard for me, having been raised to be frugal, to intentionally spend
more than I need to but perhaps I need to think less selfishly about
such things. Perhaps good stewardship of God’s blessings means more
than just getting the best deal when I go to the store. Can I make some
different spending decisions and make a small contribution to the
economic well being of others? Bono and his wife have started a new
clothing company called Edun
with these principles in mind, although they seem to be targeting
consumers with much more disposable income than I have. I’m not about
to go out and spend $100+ on a pair of jeans, but I’m at least going to
try to start thinking about how my spending decisions affect others.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
I'm not a climatologist. I don't even play one
on TV. In fact, I've never been very interested in environmental
science at all. I am, however, very interested in the new Evangelical Climate Initiative.
Not because I agree or disagree with it, but because it (hopefully) is
the beginning of real political change within the evangelical community.
I have always been fairly conservative politically. I went through my Limbaugh
phase. I've moderated a lot since then, but I still generally tend to
tip to the conservative side of politics. That being said, I'm not a
big fan of the way the evangelical community has hitched its wagon so
tightly to the Republican party. I don't think it's healthy for either
side. I certainly don't agree with the idea that a "good Christian" has
to be a Republican...or a Democrat for that matter. The ECI is the
first time I've noticed high-profile evangelical leaders break from the
Republican party line. Even if they're wrong, I'm glad they had the
courage to challenge the status quo. I think it's best for Christians
to take stands on specific issues, rather than blindly support one
political party.
So you may be wondering...what do I think about
global warming? My answer is, I don't know. I'm too ignorant on the
issue to allow anyone to care about what I think about it. Mankind is
the caretaker of this world God created, however, so I think Christians
should be more engaged in environmental issues than they are. There's
no reason we shouldn't take better care of this planet, whether we're
warming it or not.
Monday, February 06, 2006
OK, I admit it. I'm a techno-geek. I own one of the original PalmPilot PDAs.
I still have it in a drawer somewhere…cracked screen and all.
Technology is all over my life. Every now and then, however, I'm
uncharacteristically slow in adopting a new technology. I've been
hearing the term RSS
for years, but never really took the time to understand the technology.
Now that I do, I wonder why it took me so long. RSS (and ATOM) feeds
are great time-management tools if you know how to use them.
I'm
a voracious reader, particularly when it comes to news items and
magazine articles on topics that interest me. Long ago, I learned about
the benefits of pre-reading and skimming. Pre-reading
is a technique for quickly determining the topic and general content of
an article to determine if it is worth spending time reading it in
depth. Some people call this skimming but in my opinion skimming is a
different skill, somewhere between pre-reading and normal reading. Both
pre-reading and skimming are important time-management techniques. If
you read as much as I do, you need learn them.
With the advent
of the Internet, we have access (and most of it free) to more
information sources than anyone could have imagined just a couple
decades ago. For someone like me, this can create a time-management
nightmare. There are easily 50+ web sites that I visit on a regular
basis, from The Detroit News to Christianity Today to Rotten Tomatoes,
not to mention all the other bloggers I read. That’s where RSS comes
in. Most online publications (including bloggers like me) now offer an
RSS feed, which provides the title and the first few paragraphs of the
content. With a good RSS reader/aggregator, you can be notified when a
new article is posted and quickly determine if it’s worth reading or
not. This can save you lots of surfing time.
So I’m a little
embarrassed to admit that I’m just now getting up to speed on this
technology, but better late than never, right? If you’re an
information-aholic like me, you need to check out this technology. I
haven’t actually calculated how much time I’m saving, but I’m confident
it’s significant. Here are a few of the RSS aggregators I’ve tried,
with some comments. Since I’m a cheapskate, these are all free.
-
My Yahoo lets you add RSS feeds to your home page but you only get article titles, so I didn’t find it all that helpful.
- The Firefox browser has some RSS support (called Live Bookmarks) built-in, but it’s not very feature-rich. Habari Xenu is a plug-in for Firefox that is much superior to the built-in support.
-
There are stand-alone Windows applications like Feed Explorer and Sharp Reader. They’re nice, but I prefer something that’s integrated into software I already use regularly.
- Right now, I’m using intraVnews
(thanks for the tip, Bob), which is a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook.
Since Outlook is always running on my PC, this has been the most
convenient aggregator I’ve tried. Until I find something better, I
think I’m sticking with this one.
If you’re a patient
soul, Internet Explorer 7 and Outlook 12 are supposed to have built-in
RSS support, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Besides, why wait? You
could be saving valuable time right now.
P.S. In case you haven’t noticed, the link for my RSS feed is on the right, below the calendar.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Whether he knows it or not, Mitch Albom is doing God's work. If you haven't read his recent articles
in the Free Press, check them out. I love football as much as anyone,
but Mitch is right. It just seems so wrong that all these decadent
parties crammed with millionaires are going on in downtown Detroit this
weekend when so many homeless are crammed into shelters just a few
miles away.
I hope having the Super Bowl here is a great boost
for the city of Detroit, but I pray it also raises awareness and lots
of money for the folks who care for the homeless. Mitch has started the
"Super All Year" campaign to raise funds for the Detroit Rescue Mission. You can donate online here.