Love the Sinning Sinner.

“Ahh love the sinner, Ahh just hate the sin.” Say it with a deep drawl. Ahh= I.

“I love Jesus yes I do, I love Jesus but I will participate in any h-o-m-o-sexual behavior I want to and no one can tell me any different.”

The second quote, directly from a preacher, here in Durham, in a mega church where given the demographics of the church, he was a preachin to the choir, I’d swear I was the only gay person there at the time. Oh, wait, I was there through both Sunday morning services because I was on greeter/usher duty, and so then the only “gay” person at both services, yeah right, you should have seen my small group. At first I wasn’t sure that I’d heard right, kind of like when you get hit suddenly and by surprise, so I went to the good pastor’s blog-cast once home and yep, there it was. I NEVER went back and will NEVER go back. I can’t change his mind. It’s a pity too; he is so gifted, yet, so, maybe damaged, perhaps, and if not, then I’m left asking, why did he do that?

Here’s one for the record book; you know what Jesus said about homosexuals...NIL, NADA, NOTHING. What Gospel will we find Jesus saying, “I [God] love the sinner but I [God] hate the sin?” He didn’t and like the Christmas nativity scene that we yearly see set up in parks, on church front lawns...you cannot find it in the Bible. This swipe by the preacher, now at TWO locations, simple I think, someone’s got to be the whipping dog. It is unacceptable to use race, that’s been done, religion, well that’s still being done, sex, ok; they can teach Sunday school but can’t preach or handicap. It is A OK and easy to use sexual minority. Bullying at its best, the law offers “them” no protection. I’m not saying he advocated beating anyone down with fists...words do nicely thank you and can be as, if not more brutal.

As for the first little wonder, some ascribe its origin to Gandhi. Who knows and who really cares; it has been co-opted by those who use words to abuse. The how and why it was originally said are of little consequence. Are we charged in the Bible and in the Gospels to pick and chose the aspects of our brothers and sisters that we are to love? NO! In fact the Messiah sent to Earth, in human form, was delivered to us to put an end to the codification of our relationship with our sovereign God.

Is it any wonder that LGBT and others bristle at the love the sinner statement? Break it down, what does it say? The person making the statement...I am so magnanimous that I can lower myself just a touch to love you in spite of your vile sin, oh yeah, and aren’t I so much like Jesus by doing so, didn’t He kiss a Leper? Or, my sin is so insignificant that I can put it aside just a little bit and find it within myself to love you in spite of how wicked, disgusting and horrible your sins are. Or, I can overlook your wickedness and be a big person and still love you. Do you see how that might push the fur the wrong way?

Try this one on for size. I will love you, the sinner and hate your sin; so why don’t you, just not sin, you know, in “that” way. Oh, ok, I see, so I should spend my whole long life alone, marginalized so that you don’t have to “deal” with who or what I am. I can come to your parties where you’ll quiz me about my “wife” and “children” and I’ll nicely smile and say there are none. Or, I’ll be trying to conduct business with you, and you’ll ask, “Do you have a family?”

My answer, “Why yes I do.”

But you’ll push when I don’t volunteer more and say, “Wife? Children?”

And when I say “No.”

You’ll smile knowingly, having finally cut the truth from me, yet indicting me with that smile because you know my manners are too strong to simply come out to you there, at the negotiation table, because it might make YOU feel UNCOMFORTABLE. How loving and how kind is that behavior?

The commission is to love humanity, all of humanity. What is humanity at its core? Broken. We are all broken and that is what makes us wonderful, beautiful and special. Look at it this way, if we were perfect, if there was nothing to work on then, why do it? Christ came to highlight our broken-ness and to give us something to work to, perfection and a meaningful relationship with God and all of God’s children. So, when from the pulpit, or stage managed stage, as it were, a preacher verbally punches, and it just wasn’t gays, it was adulterers and others too, then he is denying love to aspects of society.

The Messiah came to pull us, humanity, out of the Old Testament and into a better place. God recognized that we were focused on “rules” and not God and that was no place for God’s people to be. God knows that people can’t live a meaningful life, a life of joy, a life of love by trying endlessly to remember and abide laws and rules. God knows the simplest of rules, to love, which in turn is to accept others where they are is the easiest and most fundamental rule to live by. Those who are religious and practice religiosity must live by codification, it is their snug harbor, and it is their security blanket because it excuses a lack of critical thinking, a lack of ownership and frankly a victim mentality. It is with an eye to that; that I am not bitter or angry, sad maybe for the preacher who bashes, for my client who questioned and for all others of a fundamental bend. Sad that they will never really know us because they won’t accept us for what we are and where we are. They cannot love our sin which is our brokenness just as their sin is their brokenness which leads me to this; does God stop loving us because of our sin and brokenness?

Nope; it is as easy as this, Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. I’ll love the sinner and hate the sin, is, in a word, a boast. We are ALL saved by God’s grace, love, through faith, and that’s it, end of story and really, it is enough.

My Pathways to God: Book Burning

My Pathways to God: Book Burning: "The Rev. Terry Jones said Thursday he would call off the planned burning of Qurans based on a deal negotiated with the president of the Isla..."

Book Burning

The Rev. Terry Jones said Thursday he would call off the planned burning of Qurans based on a deal negotiated with the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida that the location of a mosque planned near ground zero in New York would be changed. (WRAL TV)

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." -- Mahatma Gandhi

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5.43-45 )

Rev. Jones says they will, then they won't, then maybe they will and for each sad change of "mind," and whim that this man has, the television cameras roll, the microphones are placed and "his" changes of tiny little mind are blasted around the globe. I wonder if we ignored him if he wouldn't just go away? I rather think the good man is enjoying his media manipulation and time in the spotlights.

My mind wanders to the simple question, what exactly does this man wish to accomplish by his actions?

Gain converts, nonsense, alienation does not win hearts and minds, it hardens them.

Fill his pews, hardly, today the Quran, tomorrow "War and Peace," "The NIV Bible," or any other book he deems ungodly.

A belief that he actually speaks for God? Pish Pash, history is full of people that believe that God was speaking through them. God doesn't need a human voice, God is God and his word is eternal. Plus, in Matthew, Jesus tell us exactly what we should do in face of adversity and there ain't no burning in those words, there is love and prayer.

There is so much to be done yet we are trapped in minutia fueled by nonsense and the exploitation of the twenty four hour news cycle. My main worry and concern, Terry Jones actions can place innocent people in danger as he mindlessly throws gasoline on an out of control fire of irrational fundamentalism.

Why Americans are so angry - CSMonitor.com

Why Americans are so angry - CSMonitor.com

One wonders if this Heather Gass is the REALTOR with Prudential California Realty, the same one that has a highlight on her web site for foreclosed homes. The same REALTOR who has earned her living off the sale of Federally backed home mortgages. Can this be serious that she's angry, that she's protesting in the street proclaiming restraint when she has indeed earned her livlihood on what she now rails against. Surely not.

Politics Only Occasionally

Politics Only Occasionally

Jesus was crucified because in part he railed against the political system of his time and yet He adeptly functioned within it until God’s appointed hour.

The Pharisees sent their disciples to Jesus. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away."
(Matthew 15:15-22)

I think this kind of sums it all up. Jesus doesn’t call Caesar names; Caesar isn’t painted as the Devil, Hitler, Attila the Hun, Stalin, a Socialist or Communist. Caesar is painted as simply a man, Caesar, and as such what is his, is his.

Why then in our day is there such hate, animosity and treachery? Why have so many of us bought into the un-qualified, un-quantified prattle and rattle on the air waves? What on Earth would possess tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom claim to believe; tune in daily to either television, the Internet or radio to listen to a group of folks talk in highly rhetorical terms that lack true ideas, true insight and dare I say truth?

Any true believer by the very nature of following the Messiah, Jesus the Christ, God incarnate, should when this kind of stuff starts whether it is in media or in person, RUN, not walk to the nearest door. I might point out too that it DOES NOT MATTER FROM WHICH SIDE OF THE AISLE THE NOISE IS COMING FROM…RUN.

Yet, we don’t, we forget. What is Jesus' greatest commission and commandment?

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (NIV, Mark 12:28-31).

I say participate in the process, vote, read, listen but don’t become consumed with politics and the partisan chaff; no good can come of it. Each and every side and facet has made their mission the verbal annihilation of the other side. Unfortunately many who are inundated with this daily rattle and prattle don’t know how to draw the line between language, hurt speak and actually hurting and harming others. The purveyors of “entertainment” that feed this frenzy laugh; they laugh all the way to the ad generated revenue bank.

I believe that the worst thing to happen to our society recently is the 24 hour news cycle. When we relied on the printed word, long contemplated and judicious thought had to go into what actually got typeset; sure there was prattle and rattle; but a lot less of it and it took us much longer to consume it. With the advent of 86,400 seconds per day to fill up with “something,” little if any thought needs go into the process. Truthfully in most typical days there isn’t even 3600 seconds/1 hour to “true” news. How then can we fill up a full day? We can’t! The media conglomerates and entertainment moguls must find SOMETHING to fill their valuable air time lest they not make money; and often what they find is dissent and hostility, the dissection and regurgitation of the most infinitesimal mish mash that may or may not be important and much of this disguised as “NEWS” when it is in fact “ANALYSIS” and “COMMENTARY.”

In a word, a final word or two…turn off the television, turn off the radio, turn off the computer and go serve your fellow man.

A Return to Traditional American Values?

A Return to Traditional American Values?

EVENT DESCRIPTION--- (from Glenn Beck .com)
Throughout history America has seen many great leaders and noteworthy citizens change her course. It is through their personal virtues and by their example that we are able to live as a free people. On August 28, come celebrate America by honoring our heroes, our heritage and our future.

Join the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and many more for this non-political event that pays tribute to America’s service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.

Our freedom is possible only if we remain virtuous. Help us restore the values that founded this great nation. On August, 28th, come join us in our pledge to restore honor at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

Yesterday on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech,” there was a rally at the Lincoln Memorial sponsored by conservative entertainer Glenn Beck. The purpose of this rally was to champion a return to traditional American values and restoring honor in the United States. All of this left me wondering exactly what traditional American values are and if all of those traditional American values were worthy of returning to.

On an extreme level and in much of the United States for a long period of time; the ownership of another human being was a much accepted practice; slavery in and of itself isn’t a value per se, but the practice of accepted abuse, defilement and dehumanization was. I don’t imagine that any in attendance at this rally would propose bringing those values back but given how reactionary some folks on the right and left can be and how knee jerk and unenlightened some thought processes can be perhaps clarification of what the rally was about should have been articulated before hand. A couple from Florida was interviewed at the rally and they equate folks who aren’t working and collecting assistance to animals in a zoo. Hmmm, a de facto rationalization or VALUE of slavery was equating slaves to...animals. Was this honorable?

On an extreme level and in much of the United States for a long period of time; the theft of land from indigenous folks was a generally accepted behavior. Theft isn’t a value, it is a behavior but the generally accepted abuse, defilement and dehumanization of the Native American peoples would be considered an accepted value at the time. Now I am certainly not saying that those at the rally or those sponsoring the rally propose theft from others or abusing others, but clear articulation of purpose is required. For example a man named Don Jellema traveled from South Dakota for the rally, this man is concerned about immigration and a system of commerce that needs much LESS regulation. Is this honorable? Let me clarify.

Umm, ok simplistically less regulation works, but Jellema needs to understand that because there is so LITTLE regulation his 99 cent Lettuce is born on the backs of cheap, cheap, cheap migrant labor which equates to abject slavery and really involves stealing from others. Theft of dignity; is it dignified to leave one’s home, travel by night, sneak across the border and live a life in the shadows while performing manual labor for all but slave wages? Is this a traditional American value? Looking long and hard at our history perhaps yes it is but is this honorable?

In Salem at about 1692 neighbors vilified neighbors to the point of proclaiming witchery and then burning at the stake, drowning, and imprisonment without due process. Of course none of these are values; they are behaviors, which lead to value thinking. Thinking that because of some petty difference between oneself and one’s neighbor that the neighbor could be denounced, tried and killed, the value is in the thought that a neighbor is NOT valued. Is this a traditional value that we want to return to?

When I listen to the rhetoric from the podium and endless notes to turn back to God and honor, I understand and agree with those assertions; but I have to point out that our founding fathers and slave owners believed in God. They saw NOTHING wrong with their behaviors and VALUES. Similarly those who stole from the Native Americans believed in God, but they saw NOTHING wrong with stealing from the indigenous people, dehumanizing them and relegating them to “reservations.” The same is true of those who indicted at Salem.

So it is easy for me to sit here and tippitey tap out my thoughts, without offering a solution to any and all of this. In watching the news and reading the news Beck’s crowd was by appearance white and affluent. These folks had the means to in some cases pay $300 to bus ride from South Dakota to DC. To use a tax funded interstate transit system, tax funded water systems along the way, transported by fossil fueled buses powered by petroleum shipped in to the US through tax funded ports, fed by farmers subsidized by tax; clearly they have benefited from our system. Do they recognize to what extent?

Matthew 25: 35-40 "‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ "

AND...if we won’t do this voluntarily and individually, and WE DON’T then we must do this collectively. It is honorable to be gracious and charitable. It is honorable to look to our past and recognize GREAT acts by human beings. It is also honorable to look at those human beings with a realistic eye, they were human, fallible and driven by thought values of their times. Our goal, our charge is to be driven by thought values of OUR time and OUR circumstances. Look to the past for lessons but reason our own destiny.

God is God

God is God and God’s love for humanity is endless, limitless and eternal, otherwise the gift of Christ is diminished. I just finished reading an interview with Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, the interview was in the Huffington Post. Fred is the man whose followers picket funerals with signs and pictures proclaiming that God hates fags, America, soldiers and anything else that bleeps across Fred’s radar. Side bar, the congregation is made of Fred’s family so it is very easy for him to preach to the choir; he has I dare say a very captive and damaged audience.

The Bible is a love story between God and humanity. Yes there are stories of anger and violence; but after each such episode there is often love, hope, compassion and redemption. Fred and his followers miss this, God is God; they miss this concept so eloquently illustrated by Carlton Pearson in The Gospel of Inclusion. “If we are being saved from God’s punishment, and if God’s punishment is Hell, then both God and Hell are one in the same. Who should we fear the devil and Hell, or the God who created both?

Thinking about this can make your head spin and dare I say that typically those with a fundamental bend, like Fred don’t think about this. Fred and his views and his hate are scary to be sure; though, my belief is those who are less vitriolic are much more dangerous and scary. Those who paint God as angry, vengeful and dare I say it, spiteful miss Calvary. God did not come for the saved, the reconciled, God came for the sinner; all of us, because none of us are sinless. None of us are always reconciled. Don’t miss me here, I’m not indicting like Fred and his lot, I’m pointing out our humanity, especially my own. This does NOT make us bad people, even those who are NOT followers of Christ. It makes us what we are, human and removed from God since the fall in the garden. We all sin, daily, every day and Christ paid for those sins. End of story, we are redeemed.

So what do we do with Fred and people like him? What do we do with the barrage of hate speak and hate action that we are assaulted with daily, in newspapers, on fair and balanced news channels, in headlines, on our roadways, in markets and in every sector of our society? How do we cope with preachers in the pulpit who spew venom, damnation and hate? Hard as it is, difficult as it may be, we do what God expects us to do, what God calls us to do, what God demands us to do; we love them.

We recognize that they don’t or can’t see the light of God in us but in return we see the light of God in them. God loves all of his children whether or not those children love one another or God. This higher calling to humans is difficult and testing. Our human nature leads us naturally to greet hate with hate, anger with anger and vengeance with vengeance.

Hard as it might be when we are assaulted, we must turn the other cheek both literally and metaphorically, if we don’t then we debase ourselves. If we don’t seek the light of God in others; then like the hater we become the embodiment of hate, like the abuser the embodiment of abuse, like the killer the embodiment of murder. We must seek to recognize that people aren’t bad, behavior is bad, situations are bad, circumstances are bad; but people, humanity created in God’s image are NOT bad and no man or woman or child no matter what their circumstances are beyond redemption. We must come to know that it is however impossible to lead another to redemption by shouting them down, demeaning them, indicting them or vilifying them. Those actions seek simply to drive the unredeemed further from the loving care of God.