The World Today and My Grandchildren?

Holding Precious Hands

These stories weren’t on the front page the Dallas Morning News today. They appeared on the WORLD magazine site – and they are as troubling as reports of racism, cruelty and other upheavals:

·      Conceived by donated sperm or egg, some adult children are calling for regulation of third-party reproduction. Regulating the Marketplace of Children

·      The Nonhuman Rights Project is “ . . . asking the courts to recognize, for the first time, that these cognitively sophisticated, autonomous beings are legal persons who have the basic right to not be held in captivity.”

·      Elephants are People Too

·      Should Christians stop criticizing murderers because we’re sinners too? If we must be free of sin in order to call out sin, we should all cease talking and writing about it right now. A Pastor's Wife Justifies Her Job at an Abortion Center

I don’t have a clue how to comment on the complex news that greets us each morning, much less how to come along side any of the people who are hurting, confused or just caught up in the craziness these snapshots of today’s world represent. What’s more troubling is that for our grandchildren, these may well be normal in their world, the way abortion and homosexuality are rights in our children’s world.  How do I even talk about topics like these without sounding like Chicken Little?

Tim Keller, retired pastor from Redeemer Church NYC offers one suggestion, “Pray and pray a lot. Especially when you don't feel like praying at all.” 

That’s harder than talking.

So, I opened my Bible, and finished up the book of Numbers, chapters 33-36: God’s warnings and promises to His people. A Bible teacher summed them up: “Don’t affirm evil by excusing it as social issues.” 

Aye – there’s the rub – I don’t see how in the world I can do that! I like a lot the world has to offer – I don’t want to live as a hermit. But if the above articles are among the stories describing the people to whom we are called to go, I’m tempted to stay! (And urge the grandkids not to get involved!)   

God help me – and make a path upon which I can walk – being useful to the folks I love, and those whom you put in my path -- doing no harm, because these times sure seem crazy and overwhelming. 

Almighty God, we confess how hard it is to be your people. You have called us to be the church, to continue the mission of Jesus Christ to our lonely and confused world. Yet we acknowledge we are more apathetic than active, isolated than involved, callous than compassionate, obstinate than obedient, legalistic than loving.   

Gracious Lord, have mercy upon us and forgive our sins. Remove the obstacles preventing us from being Your representatives to a broken world. Awaken our hearts to the promised gift of your indwelling Sprit.

This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.  (Prayer of Confession from 03/08/15, Park Cities Presbyterian Church)  

 The Blessings of Skype

The National Prayer Breakfast 2015 --

Out of Context – Again.

A few sentences in the President’s address to the National Prayer Breakfast 2015 have made for commentary that has created more heat than light. The entire event is worth watching, especially if you are a person of faith in God through Jesus Christ. There were several highs, and few lows. ( Clips from Cspan) Among the most touching was Dr. Brantley's Prayer – it’s one that covers so many of my heart’s ache for this wonderful country and all our leaders – left, right and “moderate.”

Mr. Obama did state the obvious:  people of faith, including Christians, have done terrible things to each other in the name of our faith. But he said other things – such as being and remaining  humble, remaining vigilant so that the freedom to worship in America is not lost, and to put on love, treating others as we would wish to be treated. But his were not the only remarks!

What happened, early in January, that we just discovered has rocked me to my core – as did the shooting of the injure French policeman begging for his life. (Exercising Our Freedom, We Better Count the Cost) A Jordanian pilot, Moaz al-Kasasbeh, was filmed being burnt alive while locked in a cage.   The whole world now knows what happened to one man, burned to death by his captors. One more heinous act – among so many – destroying a man who was someone’s beloved child, friend, spouse or father.

I believe his destruction is a watershed – and America seems tired and broke. Therefore, watching a replay of the Prayer Breakfast was simply a refreshing cup of cold water, reminding me that God has loving servants in places I cannot imagine.

Are they perfect in their doctrine and practice?

Good grief NO! – Who would like to assert their own is?

The National Prayer Breakfast, this year more than others, was simply an event wherein lepers showed the rest of us where the food and treasures are.  Would that all the news and social media critics, now so freely dissecting a few sentences, taken out of context, had reported more – especially the prayers prayed in the name of the Lord Jesus – and the testimony of HIS powerful grace.  

*Dr. Brantly's Prayer -- Brantly adapted his words today from “The Lord’s Prayer in Time of War” by Wendy Lyons

September 11 – Anticipation and Remembrance

from Chick and Ruth's Deli 

A little proverb warns, “Never look back unless you want to go that way.”  While I can see its wisdom – driving with my eyes on the rear-view mirror is a sure way to crash the car – I opened the spiral journal notebook I kept from June through December 2001.

I have kept journals since 1989.  Back then, a friend, Nina Martin, urged me to try “journaling” as an exercise to keep in step with all God was doing. She was right. Not that any of my journals could propel me into a list of prominent diarists; they do show God’s faithfulness in the good times and those not so good times; they also show God’s forbearance in my faithlessness.  Given that some have said we are in a war that may well continue through this century*  – what do I see from back then, that helps today?

 In the weeks leading up to that Tuesday in September of 2001, I was busy, worried, and distracted.  Oh, I was definitely in my Martha - mode, deeply persuaded I could manage all that was on my plate – and confident of my own understanding of many things. I was rereading The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, and the sermon that Sunday before 9/11/01 was taken from 2 John – the gist of it was love must-needs be informed by truth, and truth controlled by love. 

Looking back, through the lens of thirteen years of wars with Islamic extremists, pursuing God is still hard, and I still need  the Apostle John’s warning:

-- ⁵ I am writing to remind you, dear friends,  that we should love one another. This is not a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning. ⁶ Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning.

⁷ I say this because many deceivers have gone out into the world. They deny that Jesus Christ came in a real body. Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist. ⁸ Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked so hard to achieve. Be diligent so that you receive your full reward. ⁹ Anyone who wanders away from this teaching has no relationship with God. But anyone who remains in the teaching of Christ has a relationship with both the Father and the Son.

Why do I want to relive the days leading up to and after 9/11/01?  I don’t want to forget.  I want to remember how quickly life changes.

I never want to forget the people who died, the first responders, and the folks who lived through being attacked.   And I don’t want to take for granted the ongoing suffering of our Armed Forces. If the memory of 9/11/01 is burned into my brain – images from television – what is in their heart and mind after multiple deployments into combat? 

And I don’t want to forget the question a friend asked – You are religious, how could God have allowed this?

It still has something to do with the unfolding story of an infinite, personal God – a battle in the heavenlies, beyond our awareness, and one that is a manifestation of God’s  last confrontation with a defeated foe, whose powers are real. 

Nor, do I want to forget the resolve of Islamic radicals.

What has changed in these thirteen years, is that those who embrace Christ in the Middle East are being martyred for their faithfulness –as are thousand and thousands of other human beings who do not believe in the Islamic religion of an expanding and powerful force, feared to be international in its reach. 

I actually thought in those early days of September I understood what suffering was like.

I did not.

It’s one thing to join the moving chorus of “Lift High the Cross” in the safety of a crowded sanctuary, it’s another to read that people have been  crucified even this summer! The threat we face now  gives a whole new meaning to Christ’s question, “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8:29; Matthew 16:10; Luke 9:20)

And those who could commit such cruelty, are they the ones I am to love?

So I have prayed this: "Father, please turn these oppressors from evil, to You. Also, please destroy those of them who refuse to turn. May we who are blessed with freedom do our best to protect and defend their intended victims and provide them safe haven." (This Is a Test)

___________________________________________

 * Former Australian army chief Peter Leahy recently called this “the early stages of a war which is likely to last for the rest of the century. We must be ready to protect ourselves and, where necessary, act pre-emptively to neutralize the evident threat. Get ready for a long war.” (Michael Gerson, This War Will Look Familiar)  

The Power of Pictures

"The Problem"* 

An energetic family of five cut in line in front of me last night as I was trying to lift a heavy suitcase onto the airport shuttle bus.  What information would a photograph of that have communicated?

·      Rowdy kids ignore struggling senior? Or,

·      Old lady impedes family from a timely departure?

As they pushed their way ahead of me, they brought to mind a dangerous current event. I thought of others who are bucking the line trying to get into the USA on our southern border. (Immigrants Flood Rio Grande Valley) Perhaps as many as sixty-five thousand people have cut in line in front of others who are patiently waiting for their American citizenship.  We do not understand who these illegal aliens are, or why they have come, or how we can effectively care for, or return them to their own countries.

We have a couple of issues here – people are inviting themselves into our country, and the government is tacitly endorsing it. And the media is not explaining well what is happening.The limited photographs are generating heat, and stoking passions as they record the illegal immigrants’ troubles and those who protest their arrival and dispersion into communities whose budgets are busting. But, real-time information about the crises is missing.

Why is this?

The press, who is good at manipulating public opinion with powerful photographs, is unwilling or unable to describe the issues behind the images. 

Is anyone stopping them from digging out the details?

Come on guys . . . a picture can be a more truthful communicator of what is happening – and possible solutions -- if you describe the context.   

  

* Ruby Bridges 

Memorial Day 2014: Do Away With Government Tenure

I have the impression Americans are more concerned with our rights to pursue our private happiness, than we are with our shared responsibilities to preserve the rights to life and liberty. 

I had the impression that the government and the military would manage the store, so to speak, so that I could spend my life pursuing my goals – and yes, I have read history, and the newspapers.  But knowledge and understanding are not synonymous. 

I had the impression that voting other people into and out of their elected offices would be sufficient oil to keep the mechanisms running in our national, state and local governments. I had no understanding of the power of salaried government workers who formed unions.

But I am beginning to see that it is the rare elected official who can wield power and change what he or she promised to change. I have the distinct impression that it is not our elected officials who govern us – it is the bureaucracy we have permitted them to establish and fund.  

I have the impression that our local, state and national governments exercise the kinds of power that the aristocracy wielded, with about the same amount of concern for us as the landed “lords” had for their vassals.   

Alas, I also have  gained the impression that living on other people’s money is a widespread and accepted notion – from the oldest of us to the youngest. I know like my little checks and perks!   

• It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle. P. J. O'Rourke, in Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut‎ (1996), p. 227

And in the past year, I have the impression that our government’s departments and agencies, have stumbled – badly.  They have done stuff they should not have done, and left undone a bunch of stuff they should have. And I have the impression that finding the underlying cause of messes and holding people accountable may be a bitter political battle.      

Thank God, we can [still] have the political battle!

I hope the press will quit its partisan shilling; that our politicians will govern instead of campaign and that they take on the establishment of tenured employees,  a few too many of whom are not embarrassed about their work!

On this Memorial Day, I am grateful for those whose blood and suffering secured the peace and safety in which I have lived.  And I am ashamed and grieved how we are not keeping our promises to the military.  

The following quote – inaccurately attributed to  Alexis de Tocqueville -- touched me deeply years ago – building the impression that our moral fiber mattered:

I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers - and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce - and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution - and it vas not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.  

My more fervent hope is that God, who has opened men and women’s minds to see that it is He who gives us our daily bread, and delivers us from evil, will wake up His church in this great nation once again.  Then perhaps we can help America wake up to what is happening to us.  

Reform Their Entitlements -- Not Mine! 

 A New Form of Slavery

Mid August

Storms and rains recently restrained the triple digit temperatures, giving welcome relief – hinting that cooler days may come. Something in the air felt refreshing, when I ventured forth to collect the paper – short for newspaper, for those who may not partake in the anachronistic practice of reading the news on thinly pieces of paper, called newsprint.

In my 10^th grade world history class, the teacher urged us to read newspapers, but warned us that it would take at least eighteen months of reading the news to understand the news.  This is just one of the nuggets I gathered from him.

The others included a survey exposing the hoaxes of the missing links between man and apes, and assessment of the distinctions between ancient Greece and Rome. (Greece was the real deal – Rome, the master imitator and adapter of Greece’s gifts.) Mr. Reifner never emphasized the Judeo-Christian roots that flourished along the same Mediterranean basin.  He was the first to introduce me to Edith Hamilton, whose works I was too immature to pursue then.  I don’t remember the textbook for class – some small paperback; for some reason, I think it was the same one Calvert School used in its curriculum for world history in the 6^th grade curriculum. (by V.M. Hillyer)

But I remember his lectures. Carter Reifner’s reputation as a demanding instructor preceded him – so, I was nervous when I discovered he was my teacher.  However, his lectures were  like ambling along side a tour of a grand museum with a guide who knew and loved all the exhibitions. His world history classes, which did not go beyond Rome, left me with the impression current events are firmly anchored in the history of the ancients.

The headline today confirms that what happens in civilization’s cradle – Egypt – affects the world, still. (Death in Cairo-BBC) And the combatants’ determination has equally old origins. The Bible was never cited as a source in Mr. Reifner’s classes. However, it’s a useful source we might explore to better understand what’s behind the headlines.

Moses saw the conflict from afar when God showed him Abraham’s two sons – Ishmael and Isaac. (Genesis 21-22) Isaiah saw it a bit more plainly -- Isaiah 19. Egyptians are fighting each other – brothers and neighbors are killing each other, and cities against cities – and it is demoralizing!  (19:2-3) But Isaiah also comforts Egypt and the watching world – comfort that is the framework for all the woes that come upon those who oppose God.

The Lord will strike Egypt, and then he will bring healing. For the Egyptians will turn to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas and heal them. (Isaiah 19:21-23 )

God, I pray for the people who are caught up in this conflict – including the leaders of my nation – that You would stop the carnage – and show Yourself Mighty and Merciful, drawing us all to Yourself.

 Christians Targeted

 

Memorial Day 2013

During the past twelve years, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, American soldiers have fought a different kind of war than they did in previous wars – but our debt to them is as great for what they did, so that you and I might spend our time as do right now. It bears repeating:

For love of country they accepted death...  ~James A. Garfield

They are still sacrificing, even as we pause to remember the cost to millions of American soldiers. (Wounded Warrior)

Renewed awareness of our soldiers’ courage and suffering – and my debt – emerged from an unlikely source – a book, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey - the Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle. In the middle of a guided tour of the gilded excesses of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the author and current “caretaker” of the castle also describes the carnage of World War I as she reports how Lady Almina established hospitals for the wounded warriors of her times. She served hundreds (of the millions) of the soldiers who were injured, many of whom returned to combat and die on the battlefields. This legacy is far grander than any castle’s preservation – or the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb, and its subsequent tensions and rivalries.  

 Less than three decades later, the world was at war, again – the fruit of international politics and a peace treaty.  (The Treaty of Versailles) How both the World Wars changed us might well explain why  we are still embroiled in war. One general who fought in both wars, describes a legacy Americans – and the world – resist, considering: 

We have too many men of science; too few men of God.

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. – General of the Army,  Omar Bradley   (1893-1981) Armistice Day speech to the Boston Chamber of Commerce,1948.

May God deliver those in harm’s way today – and may God build in us a holy reverence for those whose courage cost them their lives, and their loved ones. And please God give us a holy fear of war and deliver us from its evil – and especially that of own making! But may we not shrink from defending our country.

War is evil, but sometimes it is the lesser evil. George Orwell.

Religion and foxholes





 

Numbers We Can Address

Twenty-nine percent of white children, 53% of Hispanics

and 

73% of black children are born to unmarried women.

No Dad, Big Problem

The absence of a husband and father from the home is a strong contributing factor to 

poverty, school failure, crime, drug abuse, emotional disturbance and a host of other social problems. (Article)

Thirty years ago, when we first got involved helping unmarried women cope with unplanned pregnancies, the “professionals” said many of these young women who found themselves expecting a baby outside of marriage had broken relationships with their dads.   In those three decades, marriages have had a harder time holding together, and because of government subsidies, single parenting is the alternative to abortion or adoption or coerced marriages.

While we have helped women to survive – how are we helping the children to live without their fathers?

Or, do fathers matter so much in a child’s development? 

First based on personal observation, dads were more fun than moms. They do neat  flying tricks with itty-bitty babies. They can break mom-rules that kids can’t. They aren’t so uptight about mud and messes. They like to cook junk food and are more ready to go to McDonald’s than moms ever are. They will play video games with their kids, and the stories they tell of their growing –up adventures are often way more fun than moms’ stories about ballet recitals.  Their stories even make moms laugh – nervously.

But dads were also tougher, using far fewer words than moms. They don’t count to three; they issue one word commands in voices that send budding debaters scurrying. In the middle of the might, in the middle of a nightmare, dads seem bigger than any monsters who may have snuck under the bed.

But dads without moms aren’t any more super-powered than moms without dads.  Kids need a man and a woman even to have been created; how much more do little folk need both parents to grow up?

God bless the woman who has the courage to give her child life; God help us help her to raise that child – making us kind and encouraging. But God show us how to help boys become men who love and cherish the lives they create.    

Right now, there are fathers who have bolted from their daughters and sons. To an increasing number of men, the children they create are as notches on a gun, and the women seem to be powerless to persuade them otherwise. So little girls grow up, seeking a man’s approval, and settling for rough approximations; little boys grow up without a man’s guidance, and settle for cheap imitations. 

And single moms often break down under a load that is meant to be shared. 

Broken relationships with dads – whether they are corporate executives, Hollywood glamour-types, preachers, or drifters – have sharp edges that cut children’s hearts, and wound many others. Thirty years or more years of encouraging the brokenness isn’t making stronger or better communities.  

·      He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  ~ Clarence Budington Kelland   

·      One father is more than a hundred Schoolemasters.  ~George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs, 1640

·      Fathers represent another way of looking at life - the possibility of an alternative dialogue.  ~Louise J. Kaplan, Oneness and Separateness: From Infant to Individual, 1978

What’s the conversation we need to be having . . . first, in the church? We can’t offer much to social policy, until we are proving it is a good plan amongst ourselves.

The Race Today

Malcolm Ritter, an AP science writer really cheered me up this morning.  Not that he said I can get myself ready for the next Olympics – but according to him, that I can make better use of my time exercising, practicing principles that flow from common biblical sense. (Article) Three points stuck out:

Don’t worry about the consequences of failure – do your best.

He quoted a coach who said: “In general . . . it’s best for athletes to focus on what they can control in the game.”  And another who said: "You've got to discover for yourself ... what level of anxiety or relaxation works for you."  

Anxiety doesn’t ever work for me – even though it is a too frequent companion, especially when I worry about what if.  And I am still learning I have control over only myself.

Lest this realization become just a tiresome adage, I commend watching the recent Olympic gymnasts whose concentration on their own bodies made for some breathtaking routines.  They have disciplined themselves, denied themselves and developed control over their bodies so that they appear to literally fly – as if without effort.  Success is wholly a function of their own determination to control coordinate their bodies, minds and spirits.  And they have the support of their families and coaches, enduring separation and hardship for the hope of a gold medal.

Do any of them seem to think the medal is their right, an entitlement?

Is it me, or have too many Americans lost our zest for competing and winning, going for the gold? And have too many Christians forgotten we too compete for a prize?

The first of this month many of us showed up to support a businessman’s right to speak his mind, even though what he said annoyed others.  Today, how will we face a hurdle that others are erecting?

I pray nobody on our team shows up unprepared, undisciplined, or without love. I pray we run this race, mindful of Who are audience is -- like Eric Liddell, we have been created for a purpose and when we run, may we feel God’s pleasure. (Source quote)

The tragic irony of this grand movie, Chariots of Fire, about his life, recently released because of the 2012 Olympics, is that the actor who portrayed Eric Liddell, Ian Charleson, died of AIDS. He studied the Bible intensively for his role, and wrote Eric Liddell's inspirational speech to the post-race workingmen's crowd.  

People may show up at a local Chick-fil- A for all kinds of reasons – but for the Christians who show up, I hope we remember our calling – ambassadors of the Living God.  Just as  the character, Eric Liddell preached in the movie  – my prayer is that commitment to Jesus Christ will make a straight race for those who run. 

You came to see a race today. To see someone win. It happened to be me.

But I want you to do more than just watch a race. I want you to take part in it. I want to compare faith to running in a race.

It's hard.

It requires concentration of will, energy of soul.

You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape - especially if you've got a bet on it.

But how long does that last?

You go home. Maybe your dinner's burnt. Maybe you haven't got a job.

So who am I to say, "Believe, have faith," in the face of life's realities?

I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only point the way.

I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone runs in her own way, or his own way.

 And where does the power come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said, "Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts, you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me."

 If you commit yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight race.

Memorial Day 2012

 

For love of country they accepted death ...  ~James A. Garfield

I first knew this day as a marker – the beginning of summer. I did not understand the debt our nation owed to its soldiers for many decades. Until the cost of war became personal, I never knew how inadequate my power was to repay those who fought for me and mine. 

While I grew up steeped in an awareness of the Civil War –  its cost was never personal until Ken Burns chronicled the cost through photographs and letters in his series, “The Civil War.” Battles like Antietam – the starting point of our Memorial Day celebrations, racked up unimaginable costs to the soldiers and citizens.  

The first time war became personal was Vietnam – the television news and journalists, most who opposed the war, shaped my opinions.  I never counted the cost to the soldiers.  That changed when I saw pictures of Vietnam vets so callously treated by the citizens they served.  One Memorial Day I watched the movie  “The Hanoi Hilton.”  I saw how much so few endured because they served.

A documentary in the early 1970’s The World at War, connected many facts I knew about WWII while showing how so many soldiers did so much – suffered so much, and how civilians suffered. So, too, moving to Annapolis refined my appreciation of a deepening debt to men and women who served – the USNA is a study in contrasts: the nobility of those who serve, and the horrors of the battles into which they go.   

Now, I understand this national holiday as a different kind of marker – this is what freedom costs. War is hell. (William Tecumseh Sherman) And real people really suffer.

When we had a son and a daughter, I saw them in every soldier, sailor, or airman I encountered. Having grandchildren, the meaning of  “blood and treasure” deepens my gratitude to those who step up and serve, and my sorrow that we haven’t yet stopped fighting and killing.

Yesterday the text for the sermon was from Ecclesiastes – my camping ground this summer. It was a reminder to pray for the leaders whose policies and politics lead to, or away from, wars that grind up the lives of soldiers who are precious to so many.  

Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!
Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness! (Ecclesiastes 10:16-17)

 And a goad to put my money where my mouth is – and give!

A Christian’s Evolution on a Hot Topic

What does it mean for me when a powerful  and persuasive President announces a change of position  on same-sex marriages because of his Christian faith?  President Barrack Obama announced his acceptance of the rights of homosexual couples to marry.  

“In the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people,” he said. “We are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing Himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule—treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president, and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a dad and a husband and hopefully the better I’ll be as president.” (Evolved) [emphasis added]

Serendipitously, today our pastor, Julian Russell, preached on the Golden Rule, (Matthew 7:12-14) 

The Golden Rule

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy^[a] that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Footnotes:

a.     Matthew 7:13 Some manuscripts For the way is wide and easy

I hope Christians who urge the acceptance of same sex-marriage will evaluate their position by some points the pastor made about the standard of the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is not about “tolerance” or acceptance. The Golden Rule is the royal law, of which James wrote. (James 2:8-12)

First, Christ summed up the Law and the prophets; it is wholly loving God with all we have and are, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. (Matthew 22:33-40)  It is not enough to not harm those who are different than we are; we are to serve them, in the ways we would be served.  If you and I both like friend chicken, is serving each other fried chicken three times a day what we should be doing, the pastor asked? If God has said no to an appetite, a behavior or a choice, how is it kind or loving to affirm the behavior?    

Second, being a Christ-follower means entering God’s Kingdom by the narrow gate – a gate so narrow the pastor said, we couldn’t fit if we insist on carrying our propensities with us. Entering the narrow gate squeezes them out; puts them to death. A desire to hold on to what we want, what we think we must have, may divert us to the broad path. We can’t live in God’s Kingdom indulging habits, hang-ups and hurts – and if we love others who are wounded, we should not encourage them to pursue what God hates.  

Reading John Piper’s book, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, I came across a description of William Wilberforce’s doctrine that sustained him in the battle in the 19^th century against the English slave trade. What sustained him were

   . . . the doctrines of human depravity, divine judgment, the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross, justification by faith alone, regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and the practical necessity of fruit in a live devoted to good deeds. Wilberforce was not a political pragmatist. He was a radically God-centered, Gospel saturated Christian politician. And his zeal for Christ, rooted in this gospel, was the strength that sustained him in the battle. (Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, page 104)

 Can a Christian [politician] today push to strength biblical marriage between a man and a woman with the same zeal that galvanized William Wilberforce who pushed his culture to eradicate chattel slavery – another practice God forbade? Can he or she withstand the desire to accommodate what seems loving to the wider public? If one or two of them, and many more of us can explain and live the Golden Rule, as Christ taught, we might see the debate transformed. 

Christians have more than a few deeply loved friends or family members who are gay; some Christians have been open about their own homosexuality.  Homosexuals may be our siblings, children, parents, or spouses; sometimes they are our pastors or legislators.  How are we to love the people in our path?