Doctrine | Questioning the Answers

In the Boxing Ring with “One Man, One Woman”

July 4, 2015 By admin Leave a Comment

Recently, I thought it’d be good to revisit some of the foundational elements of Marriage 101, so I scoured my bookshelves and picked up Gary Smalley’s Secrets to Lasting Love, a book my wife and I bought over a decade ago but never actually read.

I found myself squirming a bit as I read about the tendency for spouses to get laser focused on proving they’re right and the other person is wrong during times of conflict. The author talks about the crucial need to validate where the other person is coming from, regardless of whether or not you agree with the person’s opinion, point of view, or understanding of truth in a given situation.

As I was reflecting, I realized that when I’m bent on proving to my wife that I’m right – which I’m not proud to say has happened countless times over the years – it’s generally because I’m coming from a place of fear. Fear that my needs won’t be met or that things won’t work out well or that my heart will somehow be trampled on.

I usually present a very logical case without a lot of overt emotion, so in the moment I may not realize or acknowledge that it’s a fear-based, self-preservation mode that’s driving my course of action. One that ultimately doesn’t trust that things will be just fine. And one that tramples intimacy.

photo credit: MarriageEquality (81 of 109) (license)

I find it ironic that I’ve been reading this book and doing this self-reflection in tandem with the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage. The intensity of the responses coming from many within the conservative, evangelical Christian groups reminds me of how I can sometimes respond to conflict in my marriage.

I buckle down. I won’t give in. I don’t want to give any weight to my wife’s point of view. I’m set on making my point crystal clear and showing her why I’m right and, by implication, why she’s wrong.

In the last several days, I’ve read the heated responses of countless people insisting that Adam and Eve show us that God’s plan for marriage from the beginning of all time has been “one man, one woman.” And, therefore, the Supreme Court’s ruling is a clear affront to God.

Now that can definitely seem valid and rational. But just as my wife often has an alternate view to my logical, well-thought-out one, there are other viewpoints within the greater Christian community. And it might be good to actually consider them.

For example, one reason I disagree with using scripture to prop up the “one man, one woman” notion is because it means avoiding a host of laws in the Old Testament that govern polygamy. Yes, we can engage in the fancy footwork to dance around those passages and come up with eloquently presented explanations as to why the laws don’t really mean that God was okay with polygamy.

But even if we do that, we’re still left to explain away the story of David and Bathsheba, where scripture tells us that God took a group of wives from David’s master and gave them to David, presumably as a blessing to David for being God’s anointed. And when David botches up, God says “I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.”

photo credit: Opponents to the same sex marriage vote in the Minnesota Senate (license)

In my opinion, the portrayal in scripture of God shuffling wives from one man to another – more than once – simply doesn’t leave room for a timeless expectation of “one man, one woman” established by God at the dawn of creation (unless we’re willing to acknowledge that God is clearly content to indulge wayward behavior). What it does leave room for is placing the scriptures in the context and culture that they were written in – a context and a culture where polygamy was normal and acceptable.

To be sure, everyone has the right to their own opinion on the topic of gay marriage. But it’s problematic when we insist that God has the same opinion. We never think of it in those terms, of course. We’re coming at it having been told or taught that “God believes X” and we have scripture in mind that seemingly supports it, so we think we’re merely standing on the side of truth.

It’s rather like when I’m in a conflict with my wife and the fearful need to cling to my truth keeps me from attempting to bridge the distance between us.

Now I’m sure there are plenty of people eager to rip me a new one by pointing to Romans 1 or 1 Corinthians 6 to show me why I’m clearly wrong and they’re clearly right. They’ve got their figurative boxing gloves on and they’re ready to duke it out – no matter how many black eyes, split lips, or near concussions are involved. Just like my tendency can be with my wife in times of conflict.

But again – there’s another side.

It may seem absolutely inconceivable that other viewpoints could possibly have merit when things seem so “clear,” but there are reasons that massive numbers of people within Christian communities are shifting their stance on the LGBT issue. And trust me, they’re not doing it to be part of the “in crowd” or merely to cave to society’s whims, contrary to the accusations of many other Christians.

They’re doing it thoughtfully, responsibly, faithfully. And, in many cases, after much struggle. But they had to remove their boxing gloves and be willing to listen to and consider another viewpoint. And to consider one very uncomfortable and potentially scary possibility: that maybe “being right” isn’t the goal.

I realize this a complex, heated topic and it raises tons of “Well then what about X, Y, or Z?” questions for many Christians. But I don’t think digging our heels in is the answer.

In the book I’ve been reading, Gary Smalley implores readers to trust that intimacy will be achieved when two spouses validate each other’s opinions and feelings in spite of being in disagreement. It reminds me of something I heard a minister say many years ago: we can’t let our desire to be right get in our way of being close. Yet we do it all the time: individually and corporately. And there are casualties because of it.

Scripture tells us that there is no fear in love and that perfect love casts out fear. Scripture tells us that love is greater than faith and hope.

photo credit: MarriageEquality (41 of 109) (license)

Scripture tells us that Jesus said the two most important things are to love God and love your neighbor as yourself and that all the Law and the prophets hang on those two things. All the Law. All the prophets. All. Fulfilled with love.

Now, with that in mind, consider this:

God didn’t need people to use scripture centuries ago to “prove” the earth was the center of a three-tiered universe to silence the uncomfortable claims and evidence to the contrary. But people did.

God didn’t need people to use scripture in recent history to “prove” that slavery was acceptable and that black people were second-class humans in the face of movements to the contrary. But people did.

And God doesn’t need people to use scripture now to “prove” that the Supreme Court’s ruling is an affront to God because “one man, one woman” is God’s timeless expectation. Or to “prove” that those who don’t oppose gay marriage are subject to God’s judgment on the matter.

Just as I hope to get better at putting away the boxing gloves in my marriage, my hope is that Christian communities can put down their boxing gloves and humbly consider our history, move away from places of fear, and let go of the insistence on being right.

In doing so, maybe we’ll start to realize that the scandal and danger of the gospel is that love really does win.

Sin in the Presence of a Holy God

March 30, 2015 By admin Leave a Comment

There’s a fun little anecdote that most of us are probably familiar with about a frog in a pot of water. The water is warming up to a deadly boil, but at such a slow pace that the frog doesn’t have any idea, so it just floats around happily until it ultimately boils to death. But, as the story goes, if the frog had jumped into the boiling water from outside, the temperature difference would’ve been so stark that the frog would’ve promptly jumped out to safety.

Last week, I was making my way through a book that had been recommended to me and at one point the author talked briefly about Jesus dying on the cross to deal with the sin that separates us from God. This got me reflecting on another thing I’d read recently about sin and the wrath of God. Which made me reflect on yet something else I’d happened across recently that said sin cannot be in the presence of a holy God.

These things then got me thinking about the pained, desperate words of Jesus when he cried out from the cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” As the story goes where I come from, this gripping, dramatic cry reflects the pivotal moment where God had to turn his back as Jesus took on the sin of the world, leaving Jesus to experience separation from God for the first time ever. And why did he experience this separation?

Because sin cannot be in the presence of a holy God.

We hear and repeat this idea frequently within Christian communities. It’s the reason that Adam and Eve were booted from paradise. It’s the reason the priests had to go through painstaking preparations before entering the temple. And it’s ultimately why Jesus was abandoned on the cross.

Because sin cannot be in the presence of a holy God.

As I was recently thinking about all of this, I was reminded of a sermon I once heard where the preacher discussed white blood cells and red blood cells to illustrate how God responds to sin: he annihilates it.

Because sin cannot be in the presence of a holy God.

These ideas are so pervasive within Christianity that most people don’t seem to think twice about them, at least in my experience.

Yet there’s a problem with this kind of theology. It’s a problem that either we don’t feel comfortable discussing or that simply eludes us.

And it’s a problem that can be summed up with one word.

Jesus.

The one who put his fingers in the ears and touched the tongue of a deaf and mute man. The one who touched the eyes of a blind man. The one who reached out and touched a man with leprosy… and who let a sinful woman anoint and kiss his feet… and who took hold of a man with dropsy … and who invited himself into the house of the chief tax collector… and who let one of the disciples rest against his chest during the Last Supper.

Jesus.

The one who didn’t avoid adulterers, pull back from prostitutes, or turn away from tax collectors. The one who didn’t shudder around sin.

Jesus reached out to and engaged and touched others. And he allowed others to reach out to, engage, and touch him. And he did this to help heal people from whatever kind of disease that plagued them, be it physical, emotional, or spiritual – though I would venture to say that Jesus saw it all as spiritual.

He did these things to validate people and show them their inherent worth. In a sense, to say “You are deeply and truly valued in spite of what your religion has taught you.” Or in some cases “…in spite of what their religion has taught you.”

Jesus made it clear that God can most certainly be in the presence of sin. So to hold onto theology that tells us otherwise is problematic, no matter how it’s packaged.

It’s curious that these two opposing ideas have somehow managed to live next to each other in this thing we call Christianity. I guess when we’re used to living in the middle of a story, the obvious may escape us. We’re like the frog in the pot of water that’s slowly getting warmer and warmer. We don’t notice what’s going on. We get acclimated to the environment around us. It feels comfortable and familiar. There’s no sense that something might be wrong.

As I sat through the sermon with the illustration of the red blood cells and the white blood cells, even though I found it deeply troubling, I didn’t consider in that moment how it completely conflicts with the idea of God intimately dwelling among us in the flesh.

Photo credit: Image from page 281 of "The pictorial Bible and commentator: presenting the great truths of God's word in the most simple, pleasing, affectionate, and instructive manner" (1878) (license) — Photo credit: Image from page 281 of “The pictorial Bible and commentator: presenting the great truths of God’s word in the most simple, pleasing, affectionate, and instructive manner” (1878) (license)

So even though we’ve got stories in the Old Testament like a man getting struck dead because he touched the Ark of the Covenant where God was said to reside, we need to stop using them to bolster up the notion that God is somehow untouchable by the general populous and that God can’t be in the presence of sin. Because, in case we’ve forgotten, we’ve also got an incredible story in the New Testament of a bleeding woman who had been suffering for 12 long years and who was healed because she approached Jesus and touched his cloak.

Sin can’t be in the presence of a holy God? On the surface, it may seem like a legitimate conclusion, but it can’t be reconciled with what we see in Jesus. Something else is going on with these stories and we need to take the time to consider it, even though it may fly in the face of what we’ve always heard.

The bleeding woman in the gospels who “touched God” was healed, commended, and sent on her way with the encouraging and compassionate words “Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

In all seriousness, perhaps the “timeless truth” from this gospel story – the one that gets masked from a surface, literal reading – is that the suffering we all need to be freed from is theology that tells us that God is untouchable and that sin can’t be in the presence of a holy God.

If Only

August 20, 2014 By admin Leave a Comment

A while back, I was at a church service and at one point the worship leader read the words of Jesus from Matthew 22:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

After quoting the passage, he went on to say that the entire Bible could be boiled down to these verses.

Several people uttered “amen” and although I agreed wholeheartedly, on the inside, I felt my heart sink a little as I thought “If only…”

If only we truly believed that.

If only we lived as though the Bible really could be boiled down to these few verses.

If only these two commands could be the barometer not only for how we express our faith, but how we define it.

If only we could consider that part of the power and supreme importance of these commands lie in the fact that they transcend doctrine and denomination and religion altogether.

If only we could consider how this teaching may have affected those who initially heard it.

Humor me while we think about that last one for a minute. Let’s say I happened to be present when Jesus spoke these words and I was captured as I considered the intensity of a teaching that claimed that all of the law and the prophets – in other words, the equivalent at the time of our Bible – could be summed up by these verses. And if I made the radical step to live the rest of my life accordingly, would that have been enough?

Even if I never heard another thing about Jesus – how or why he ultimately died, or whether he was thought to be just a rabbi, or a messiah, or somehow divine. I’m not sure how likely such a scenario would be, but it’s not out of the question to consider it and then go on to ponder, “Would that have been enough?”

According to Jesus, it would’ve been, especially if we consider that the gospel of Luke places these commandments in the context of how to inherit eternal life. Jesus responds, “Do this and you will live.”

If it was good enough for the people following Jesus then, is it not good enough for us now?

It’s hard to know what kind of widespread impact such a teaching had on those who heard it, but it must’ve had an impact on at least some the early followers of Jesus. In a previous post, I talked briefly about the Didache, a church handbook that likely dates to the first century and that gives us a compelling look at the teachings and practices of some of the earliest Jesus followers.

Interestingly enough, the Didache calls out “the way of life” and “the way of death.” The way of life begins by loving God, loving your neighbor as yourself, and not doing to others what you would not want done to you. Ironically, for these Jesus followers, the ways of life and death had nothing to do with orthodox beliefs or doctrines. Things were much simpler hundreds of years before a Bible was canonized and creeds were formulated.

But here we are 2,000 years later. And as nice it sounds to sum the Bible up with the two greatest commands as identified by Jesus, it simply doesn’t work for us. It’s as though we have to define what it means to love God properly, and, in doing so, we create the very structures and doctrines and systems of belief that love is supposed to transcend; indeed, that love has the power to completely obliterate… if we’d allow it to. But instead, we effectively create a whole new version of “the law and prophets,” perhaps because we don’t believe that everything will be just fine if only we’d love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

This is all particularly relevant in my life right now. For whatever reason, God has brought me beyond the boundaries of the Christian box where I’ve spent most of my life. Of course I didn’t realize I was in a box; I don’t think any of us ever do. And I didn’t set out to venture here, but I’m here, having been pressed to truly engage some hard questions and to probe the status quo of my belief system. And at times it’s been terrifying, largely because where I come from, that’s not okay. (Well, it’s okay as long as you ultimately return to the established answers and beliefs.)

No one wants to mess with the box. I certainly didn’t. And I think it’s because we don’t see it as a box; we see it as ultimate truth.

Frankly, the whole situation just sucks.

It sucks because I’ve invested so much of my life into a church family where there simply isn’t room to grow beyond the established ideas, conclusions, and doctrines (in other words, beyond the boundaries of the box that are defined as truth).

It sucks that even though I’ve invested years and years and years, there’s no possibility that there might be some merit to my evolving views. No possibility that I’ve come to new conclusions responsibly and faithfully.

And it sucks to be backed into a figurative corner and effectively told “It’s not okay to believe those things and it’s even less okay to make those beliefs public. If you want to stick around here, you have to believe X, Y, and Z. These things are non-negotiable.”

And, as if all of that’s not enough, it sucks that now I’m somehow seen as a threat by some because I have “divergent views.”

Divergent views that ironically don’t conflict at all with loving God and loving my neighbor as myself.

Divergent views that couldn’t have even been an issue when Jesus was traipsing around Palestine because they’re only in conflict with doctrines or teachings that developed much later.

But as much as it sucks, I get it.

I understand that, to some extent, there’s an institution that needs to be protected. And I get that people’s faith is in differing places and we need to be sensitive to that, not randomly wreaking havoc on the faith of others.

As one author put it, the challenge is that we end up teaching to the lowest common denominator in order to avoid ruffling the feathers of people in the congregation. It hardly seems fair. Stuff that’s been common knowledge throughout biblical scholarship for centuries doesn’t make it to the average church member (for any number of reasons). And it’s unfortunate, because it has the potential to help our faith grow in amazing ways. And if we engage it responsibly, it doesn’t have to be scary or threatening. It might make us rethink some of our certainties, but history has shown us that that’s usually not a bad thing. It’s just not easy.

In fact, one minister I was talking with fully acknowledged that there may not be anything wrong with these so-called divergent views. If people want to dive into doctrines or some of the deeper topics and they ultimately come to a differing opinion that doesn’t mesh with a traditional view, that’s okay. The problem is, in order for ministers to truly understand these things so they can bring a responsible understanding of them to the congregation, it takes work. A lot of it.

Plus, it can potentially get very messy and uncomfortable, which creates even more work as feathers get ruffled within the congregation. And who wants extra work? As a result, many topics get avoided altogether as staff members opt to keep the message from the pulpit as simple as possible.

Unfortunately, it puts people with said divergent views in a tricky spot, because when differing views haven’t been engaged from the pulpit, they’re seen as threatening. And if word gets out, it can get messy, which means more work for the minister.

And so, the easiest and cleanest way to deal with a situation like this is to say, “It’s not okay to believe these things and it’s even less okay to make these beliefs public. Either toe the party line or leave so as to not disturb anyone else.”

Sigh. Really? Those are the only options, lest I end up being marked as “divisive”?

So here I am on the heels of such a mess, trying to process the conflicting and at times overwhelming emotions that come raging in like a tidal wave.

Anger. Rage. Sorrow. Pain. Confusion.

In some ways, it feels what I imagine a divorce might feel like. An unnecessary divorce, at that.

Plenty of people have pointed out that it’s best this way. It’s best to be in an environment where my path is not only welcomed, but encouraged, perhaps even celebrated. An environment where questions aren’t seen as a threat and where faith is greater than doctrine and tradition.

And many have posed the question of why I’d want to even try to be somewhere that doesn’t allow that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah – I get it. And I agree wholeheartedly. But it still sucks, because the pain isn’t any less real.

And as I try to process it all, I circle back to the words of Jesus.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’…and… ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

And I think “If only…”

If only.