Tentpegs

When Tentpegs first started what I thought would be a limited run of maybe 50 questions and answers, the most common questions – by far – were on the question of evil and why God allowed it to exist. Those questions still come in regularly and I usually direct the questioner to various blogs already posted here. Still, it might be time to have a quick, general look at this once more since so many have arrived here in the last three or four years and haven’t taken this entire trip with us. Those who have know that I have changed my mind more than once and, rather than take down the earlier blogs, I left them there because 1) it’s important to be open about my changes and 2) maybe the earlier blogs were the right ones!

Here is a VERY edited and redacted version of a series of questions that came in from a remarkable woman who writes me from time to time. I am changing her latest two emails quite a bit to make them more anonymous and generic.

My sister in the Lord –JT – recently shared her story with me. She lost her 40 year old brother to a massive heart attack. She was there when he died, standing with her sister-in-law who is an atheist. JT tried to be strong but she admitted anger with God. She tried to be there for her sister-in-law and her two teenaged nephews and she’s tried to witness to them but their atheism and her own struggles with faith have complicated matters. The older nephew has completely changed. He once was a popular, athletic young man but he quickly descended into slacking off at school, smoking marijuana, etc.

JT tried to keep praying but it was hard to believe God was listening, or that He cared…and then, recently, she heard that her nephew committed suicide. JT has come to me asking “How can God let this happen?” Her family openly mocks her faith, especially now. She questions God’s goodness is allowing such things to happen and also wonders whether her brother is in hell, burning in torment forever, along with her nephew. Neither was baptized and she is unsure what their faith status was.

My questions boil down to 1) What do you do or say to a believer after a time like this? 2) What do you pray for in this case? 3) How do you reach an atheist who has stated that if God existed they would put a price on His head? 4) Is it irreverent to talk about forgiving God when He allows these things to happen?

I have a dear friend who lost his wife to cancer yesterday. Two of my best friends are fighting cancer right now – one is on chemo and the other is going to find out what kind of treatment they will have to undergo today. Some of you remember that my best friend when I was at Rochester Church died suddenly with no warning of a massive heart attack, leaving two beautiful children, a pregnant wife, and a stunned church.

One of the hardest lessons to learn is that everything is temporary but God. That is one of the major lessons of the Book of Revelation (go online to www.eastsidechurch.us and listen to the lesson on this given May 8, 2013). This would have been a wonderful thing for someone to tell me when I was a boy and couldn’t understand why a friend moved to another town or why a toy broke or why a favorite shirt couldn’t be repaired and worn again. Everything goes away. For some reason, we are consistently surprised and unprepared every time we see someone or something we love go away. Every love story ends as does every marriage. Everybody dies. You are not the exception.

I recently drove back from Pepperdine where I spoke at the lectureships. My wife and I took the southern route which parallels historic Route 66. All along the route, you saw abandoned gas stations, homes, classic motels made of wigwams or log cabins, empty restaurants, and other signs that life had moved on. Pixar made millions off of this by creating a bypassed town called Radiator Springs and populating it with cars (Cars, Cars 2). It is a reminder of the central fact of our universe: everything changes and then everything goes away. The story of scripture is there to get us ready to deal with that fact and get us to link our lives, hopes, and allegiances to the One who does not change. Doing that takes faith and, as scripture tells us, faith is NOT sight – it requires us to believe in something that is unlike anything we can see with our mortal, aging, dying eyes.

Something in our hearts knows that this passing, this ending, this dying is wrong; we were designed to long for something else, something more. Scripture tells us what that “more” is and how the universe got broken in the first place. Those who don’t believe in scripture or God find themselves railing against a universe that doesn’t care about them, know about them, or concern itself with matters of fairness or justice. My heart aches for them. And Christians who allow the brokenness of the world to take away their faith are ignoring the countless stories of loss and pain in scripture including, of course, the cross. God entered into this broken world with us. Where was God? He was here, walking through the pain with us, assuring us that there was something out there that wouldn’t go away.

As we live out our story, God refuses to imprison us so that we cannot harm ourselves. He allows us to make our own choices. If we choose to not walk with Him, He will not kidnap us and lock us in His basement like some pervert did with three women in Cleveland. He will let your nephew try marijuana. Your nephew had no faith foundation on which to stand. When his world was rocked – as everyone’s world will be time and again until they die – he had no story to fall back on. His mother couldn’t help him because she has no story – only anger at a God she says she doesn’t believe exists. How can we expect a son to go to a mother for moral, philosophical, and existential help when she is busy being angry at something she says isn’t there? Rootless, story-less, and lost he turned to the world and the world always destroys those who turn to it (read Revelation 17-19). Every. Single. Time.

How do we pray? We pray that the Spirit will come to someone, somewhere, sometime who can reach JT and her family, one at a time. We pray for our own faith and we openly tell God that we are having a hard time with that at the moment. And we know that we are not alone. My good friend – and a man I respect very highly – Josh Ross has written a book about how his faith was rocked at the horrific death of his sister, a young mother and a dear, faithful, beautiful Christian. Get his book “Scarred Faith” today. Go to www.lesfergusonjr.com and read the story of another dear friend of mine. He was a minister, a writer, and a loving husband and father whose world was rocked and destroyed by a sexual pervert who wormed his way into his church and, when discovered, murdered my friend’s wife and disabled son. His blog is an open wrestling with God that the church needs to hear (and churches should be calling him to have them speak to them about this. Seriously). Another new book I find helpful is by Daniel Taylor called “The Skeptical Believer: telling stories to your inner atheist.” While there are many books out there on the problem of evil (my favorites would be those by C.S. Lewis, Gregory Boyd, and Philip Yancey) we are just now seeing Christians come out and say “I am angry with God, and I don’t understand God, but I love God and will not let Him go.”

Of course, over a third of the Psalms are laments and we have books like Jeremiah and Lamentations and Habakkuk that show us God is all right with our questioning of Him.

What about “forgiving God”? I am all for it. “Forgiving God” doesn’t mean that we are saying He did something wrong. We are just saying He did something – or He didn’t do something – and that hurt us deeply. We are children whose toy broke and can’t be replaced. We don’t know the financial realities our parents face. All we know is that they refuse to go out and replace it or fix the unfixable. I would see my father fix fences, build church buildings, and repair the car and I could only assume that the reason he didn’t fix my toy was his lack of concern for me, lack of love, perhaps, or that he didn’t like me in the first place! The truth was, the toy couldn’t be fixed and there was no way to replace it. I didn’t know that then. I know it now. But I had to forgive my father and move on even way back before I understood him, before I realized that my demands and expectations were unrealistic and unfair.

And how do we reach atheists? That is a subject that could fill many books – and has. Sometimes we can reach them through reason and science but most of the time we have to reach them through gentle faith, gentle love, and gentle service given over the course of our entire lives. Even then, many will not come to faith in God. But some do – after we are gone and they reflect on our lives and our story and compare it to theirs.

I’ve written enough about hell on Tentpegs already. God is a righteous judge and we are not righteous enough to tell Him what punishment is fair or right. That said, I think there is good reason to question the traditional view of hell we inherited from Plato and the Catholic Church. I wrote six blogs in one series. It begins here — http://tentpegs.patrickmead.net/?p=769

As I’ve said before, Jacob wrestled God once. I have season tickets. But I find myself saying what he said: I will not let God go until He blesses me. Yes, He’s blessed me time and time again. But I’m still not letting go.

1.

H1. How do you introduce Jesus and study the Bible with someone who has expressed interest in the Christian faith? Where do you like to start? Do you have any materials you like to use? How do you keep from overwhelming and confusing the person you’re studying with?

I have my favorite ways of approaching the subject but I have found that none of them work all the time in every place. If you are dealing with someone who is able to read and willing to meet with you a few times, I highly recommend “His Eternal Plan” by Jerry Tallman. You can order these books for a very reasonable price at www.hiseternalplan.com. Full disclosure: Jerry is a dear friend of mine. He preached at the Rochester Church of Christ for over 20 years before recruiting me to go there in 2001. I spent ten wonderful years working on the foundations he laid. I live in Colorado now but we still order his books by the case. One of the reasons I love his book is that it brings people to Jesus without the denominational baggage that most of our evangelistic material has.

I always ask the person why they are interested and take the time to listen to their story. I ask them questions and ask them what their questions are. I take notes so that I will not forget what they are telling me and what concerns them. Each person is so unique that no “one size fits all” will truly fit all so I take the time to pray and think about how to lead them further. For some, I bring them to a small group. For others, we walk through the Book of Mark or the Book of John. If they are highly intellectual and love to read, I might offer them CS Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” or one of the other classics of Christian apologetics. All along the way, however, I walk with them, listen to them and encourage their questions.

2. Could you address the idea of the “quiver full” movement among some Christian groups and also the Catholic teaching of no birth control for Catholic families? Personally, I believe it’s a “making rules where Jesus hasn’t made rules” area, but I would like to hear your take on it.

I need to tread carefully here. I have dear friends that are part of this movement in that they believe they are to take every child God gives them. Most of them don’t even practice the rhythm method. One surprise I got when I starting talking to these couples is that the main driver behind it is often the wife, not the husband. One husband even pleaded with his wife to allow him to have a vasectomy after their sixth or seventh child. She was appalled at the very thought. A couple of times, I have found that the wife is tired and wants to stop having children but the husband is convinced that God would not give them a child unless he wanted it. I have the habit of being blunt and, since we were friends and I could approach him bluntly, I told him he needed to remember two things. 1) His wife was not a clown car; there were only so many kids you can get out of her and 2) while God intended for him to use his sexual organs He also gave him a brain and expected him to use that.

The whole concept of sex for procreation only or the belief that we must never use birth control arose from Catholic doctrine which, itself, was written back into their faith to support other doctrines they were teaching such as the perpetual virginity of Mary, her immaculate conception, and the celibacy of priests. God couldn’t have made it plainer that sex is for pleasure, bonding, AND children (have a quick read of Song of Solomon while you’re researching this). Sex is a gift and, like all gifts, should be enjoyed wisely, setting limits on yourself as needed. Paul even told couples not to refrain from sexual activity unless 1) they both agreed to do so and 2) it was only for a short period of time while both fasted.

Some fear that if they practice birth control they are thwarting the will of God. That is a huge assumption and there is nothing in scripture to back it up. And don’t head over to Onan to get support. The sin of Onan was not masturbation or birth control; his sin was in his refusal to raise up a child in his brother’s name.

Simply put, there is no law in this matter. If a couple decide to take “every child God wants to give us” I will not tell them they are sinning for they are not. And if a couple decides not to have children (for a variety of reasons: their own abuse, illnesses that reside in their genetics, etc.) I won’t tell them they are sinning for they are not. I think both couples are missing out – one on the wiser management of their resources by limiting the blessing of children and the other by refusing the blessing of children – each have their reasons and Romans 14-15:7 makes it very plain that God does not want me to judge them and that He will bless them anyway.  

My heart broke when I read this. I hope that my answer gives this writer some peace. It might help some of my other readers, too. Peace.

i am having a lot of panic attacks lately and they are end of the world based. i have been listening to your revelation sermons and it helps and calms me. but for some reason with all the things going on in the world lately, be still and know, is not helping much. i also have this heavy feeling all the time lately. like something it waiting to pounce. i want to have no fears when it comes to this world because this is not my home but they are still there. i worry that my fear will over whelm me and i will lose my way and my faith. is there any thing that you can send me, in the bible, to help with this. one of my biggest fears is that, for instance, if i was told to denounce God or my kids will be killed i don’t know that i could watch them die. i know that this may never happen but it is something that does cross my mind. i have struggled with this kind of things for years. there are times that i wish i had not had children so that they could never be used in this way. i know that this sounds wacky or crazy but i really need to know what the bible has to say about my fears. i don’t know where to look. help!!!!

During the years I ran a counseling clinic, I specialized in treating depression and anxiety disorders so this letter is right in my (old) wheelhouse. I put this one ahead of the queue because it sounds like the writer is in some considerable distress.

First – anxiety disorders can be primarily physically sourced but that is rare. Still, there is always a physical component and, while it is not causative, it is something that should be controlled and that generally means medication. There is no shame in getting medical help for depression, anxiety, or any other mental health condition. Even in heaven, we are told the streets are lined with trees that bear fruit and leaves that are for our healing and Jesus himself told us that the sick need a physician. Get to one and describe in detail the anxiety attacks you are experiencing or and tell him about the heaviness you are feeling. Don’t let him leave the room until you feel that you’ve been heard.

Coming from the Biblical side and the counseling side of the equation, there is a lot we can do. First of all – relax. Seriously. Breathe and pay attention to your breathing. It can even help to think of a word as you breathe in such as “peace” or “Jesus” and picture yourself breathing out tension. There are many, many sources online and at your library that will walk you through relaxation exercises, breathing techniques, and more. Steer away from the New Age stuff and you’ll be fine.

The scripture says that perfect love casts out fear. You have been perfectly loved by Jesus and there is no room for fear in you anymore. Remind yourself of that. The devil will tell you that feeling fearful is a sign that you have failed. Don’t listen to him. Your fear is a sign that you still have some growing up to do, but you are still saved and loved. God is not shaking His head at you in disappointment.

You have been listening to my classes on Revelation (free at www.eastsidechurch.us). Good. Then you know that that book is not about the end of the world; it is about not bowing down to this world and keeping our allegiance to God and Him alone. It is about the battle between God and the world, the flesh, and the devil for our faith and hearts. When it comes to the end of the world, the Bible does not give you signs to look for. The signs often quoted are either symbolic about the end of different cultures (Revelation) or the end of Jerusalem and the temple-based worship centered there(Matthew 24). God never asks us to be afraid of the end of the world.

And should we look for signs? First, it would be hard to do so when God says Jesus will come back when no one expects him. That would indicate there won’t be much in the way of signs. Every single generation after Jesus – including that of Paul and Peter – believed the end of the world was going to come during their lifetimes. There is no reason to believe that this generation will see the return of Jesus. He will come when He will come and that will be good news for us, not bad.

TV prophets and those who write books and make predictions love to paint dire scenes of persecution and pain for believers that they say must come before the return of Jesus. Again, they misinterpret Matthew’s version of the Olivet Discourse and they cherry pick Daniel, Isaiah, Zechariah, and Revelation shamefully in order to scare up more book sales and “prophecy seminars.” When their predictions don’t come true, they write another book and people buy it, forgetting their earlier failures. Some ministers have done this a dozen times and they STILL have a huge following. I don’t see how they look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.  Using fear and bad theology to enrich yourself is lamentable at best, despicable at worst.

You need to understand the difference between feelings and reality. Your feeling that something is about to pounce is an anxiety disorder, not a sign that something is really about to pounce. There is no sixth sense for the end of the world.

When we were kids, we were taught to be raging paranoids by weekly (or monthly – I forget) bomb drills. We were told that the USSR would be coming through the Fulda Gap any day now, pouring in more tanks and armored vehicles than we could ever stop. They would fill our skies with enough nuclear missiles to destroy the world ten times over (this number changed frequently from 3 to 20x over according to the panic level of the speaker). And then they would outlaw Christianity and stand us up against the wall, forcing us to deny Christ or die. I grew up with that as a constant theme in school (minus the religious bits), Bible school, VBS, sermons, tracts and brochures in the rack by the auditorium, and even on sermon records we had to sit and listen to in youth classes.

I don’t think I need to tell you that it didn’t happen. And there is no country on earth that could make it happen today. China is the nearest contender and it has no interest in destroying us or the church anymore. In fact, they have loosened controls on believers considerably in their own country (though it would be foolish to believe that there isn’t persecution here and there). In other words, no one is going to hold a gun to your children’s heads and demand that you deny Jesus.

And if they did…and you did… would you be lost? Absolutely not. God is not going to judge you over what happened in the worst 3 minutes of your life when you had no control and were driven over the edge by fear. Remember the parable of the unfaithful…but wise…steward?  (Luke 16:1ff) God is more understanding than we give Him credit for.

I cannot diagnose you via email and I’m not an MD so I can’t recommend specific medications and dosages, but I would urge you to get medical help and good, solid, non-fear based Christian counseling. This sounds, to me, like something that has a physical component. In other words, there is a bit of your DNA that isn’t doing its job the way it should and that is increasing your anxiety level. If your church is preaching end of the world messages, warning you about the Rapture (a word that doesn’t appear in scripture) and the coming mass persecution of Christians, I must respectfully urge you to find another church.

And breathe. Take time to be thankful. When you find yourself spooling up in tension and fear, visualize Jesus and remember that regardless of men’s fear and panic, the world is still here and God is still on His throne.

It gets very, very complicated. When Jesus told us not to judge, he meant what he said. I think of the parable of the dragnet frequently when questions and situations like the two presented here come up. In that parable, the kingdom was like a huge dragnet that caught all manner of creatures that live in the sea. Once on shore, the fish were sorted into those that were acceptable and those that were not. In explaining the parable, Jesus said it was the angels that did the sorting. I remind myself of that on almost a weekly basis: the fish don’t get to decide which ones get in the net or stay there. The fish never get a vote. God will decide and use His angels to do the sorting.

And sometimes the sorting is so complicated that I can’t see how any human would think they were up for the job. Ready? It’s grownup time…

First questioner’s dilemma:

How do I relate to my family member when he is so messed up? He’s a biological male, married to a biological female. They had 2 children together. He claims she is and always has been a lesbian and that he in fact has always been a straight woman…so he’s a biological male lesbian. (wrap your mind around that one…LOL) I mourn for his/her poor kids that call him Mama-Daddy. He’s now on female hormones and making his ‘transition’. He brags that he’s beat the system in that he can change his gender legally and preserve his marriage so he and his wife will be legally married lesbians in the state of Texas. Go figure…another interesting angle of loopholes in the gov’t/marriage issue.

If you could see his past and its dysfunction this would come as no surprise yet he’s peddling this as a disorder called Gender-Dysphoria and is even getting some insurance coverage for his hormone therapy though his facial feminization surgery is being paid by his own parents (another layer to the story of family dysfunction over the yrs). It’s really warped. I’m very compassionate to folks born w/a proclivity for homosexuality and gender confusion…the proclivity is as real as the proclivity to be angry, selfish, a gossip or sexual pervert of other kinds, or addict…but to run w/it like this…it’s just crazy. It has really really hurt our family. He was loosely raised C of C and is now Unitarian Universalist but lives so immorally minus even this whole angle that I know he doesn’t even see the existence of sin any longer. My cousin even posted a graphic organizer thing to try to explain how sexual identity is totally separate from sexual orientiation…thus he thinks for him/her it is normal to be attracted to woman yet actually be a woman himself though his DNA says opposite. Anyway, thoughts about this topic sparked by your blog. Keep your writing. You’re awesome and look forward to this topic…

Second questioner’s dilemma:

I have another question. This may be a confusing question so I’ll try to give some explanation to it. What defines a man and what defines a woman? Everybody kinda starts out as a female and what makes you male is the Y chromosome that gives you testosterone. However, there are so many things that can vary the amount of testosterone in a developing child. Let’s say that there is an XX fetus (female) what happens if there is something that adds testosterone to this developing baby? The mother could have some sort of steroid problem or the adrenal glands could be overproducing. So, you could have a baby that could be born XX but had a bunch of testosterone that was introduced to it as it was developing. Wouldn’t it be born a boy with the body of a girl? Even if it was a girl, couldn’t she be attracted to other females because of her male characteristics due to the extra levels of testosterone? You can also have an XY fetus (which would be a man) that may have some kind of insensitivity inability to process the testosterone that is there. So even though they are XY, aren’t they born pretty much as a female? Are you supposed to define them by their outside appearance or by their chromosomes. Both systems are flawed. For example: Jamie Lee Curtis was born with a Y chromosome but still has the qualifying parts to be a woman. Being religious, you would understand that it is thought to be 1 man and 1 woman, but what defines a man and a woman?

Everybody’s eyes crossed yet? And I haven’t exhausted the questions and heartbreaking letters by any measure. Most of them are just too hard to strip free of personal information for me to answer generally on this site so I try to answer privately. Sons who want to be daughters – and are certain that they ARE female. Daughters who feel male and who have some doctors back that up after running some blood and hormone tests. Men who left behind wives and children as they sought out their true identity, fearful of what they might find… It goes on. My inbox is an interesting place.

What is going on? Before we jump to any conclusions, you need to know something: this is monstrously complicated. I will strip it down to three main causes/accelerants to make things as simple as possible.

1.   The reality of intersex – mixed genetic/sexual identity due to physical causes.

2.   Epigenetics – behaviorally caused changes in DNA structure that can be passed on for generations.

3.   Social change.

Let’s start with intersex. Intersex is a real thing and it is far more common than you might imagine. One of the best known examples of this is the story of David Reimer as told in “As Nature Made Him: the boy who was raised as a girl” by John Colapinto. Born with both female and male characteristics, doctors arbitrarily made the decision which sex he would be the rest of his life. He knew something was very wrong with him throughout his life until he finally found out his medical history. Changing and living as a boy gave him peace. You can get copies of this book for a dollar or so used on Amazon and I recommend it, but there are many, many other sources of information on intersex people. Our best numbers on the incidence of intersex in newborns show it to be more common than you might think.

Note the last two entries. One in 100 births have some level of intersex issue but only one in 1000 or so are surgically addressed early on. By the way, surgery does NOT fix most intersex issues. It is done only to “normalize” the baby and make it easier to raise it. And some intersex issues do not arise until puberty or later, making it impossible to catch before the person becomes confused and alienated.

In one episode of the late FOX TV show “House” there was a beautiful young girl who suffered a variety of life threatening issues along with psychological issues that alienated her and confused her. Dr. Gregory House eventually found that she had testicles as well as ovaries and that the conflict between these sexual parts was causing the problem. This is NOT as rare as you might think.

Take, for example, anorchia – not even listed in the list above but appearing more frequently over the last fifty years. In anorchia, the fetus is XY which means it is male, but its gonads dissolve away around week 14. The baby is born with male markers, but feminine characteristics. It is then left to parents and doctors to decide – usually around the time puberty would normally occur – which hormones they are going to give the child. Regardless, the child will fight sexual identity issues at some level for life but they will also fight other mental and physical battles due to the fact that they are not receiving clear messages from their own genetics.

Also not listed above are chimerism and Mosaicism, two different conditions. In both, the child is born with some cells showing XX and others showing XY. Want to try to sort that one out with a simplistic bumper sticker slogan?

In Persistent Mullerism Duct Syndrome, the child has a penis (perhaps small, perhaps normal sized) and they have XY chromosomes and some male characteristics but they also have a uterus and fallopian tubes.

We could go on and on here. While it isn’t a generally good site for science, Wikipedia does have a decent, very brief and undetailed list of intersex conditions, many of which are not listed in the list above.

 Oh, and none of the above make you a hermaphrodite. That is when you have fully developed female and male organs and is considered separate from intersex.

And neither of these is transgender. You can be transgender and intersex but they aren’t exactly the same thing. In the first situation at the top of this blog, that fellow seems to have both issues plus a sexual orientation issue. Yes…sexual orientation is separate from sexual identity. You can say you are a male and your body can agree, but you still want to be with males. THAT is orientation. Having female body parts might help you decide on a sexual identity (if there aren’t other issues going on internally) but you might still decide you are attracted to other females.

It is confusing. Some have asked me if these conditions have always been with us and the simple response is: in some measure, yes, but in these numbers…who knows? It could be that the farther away we get from creation the more diseases and weaknesses and conditions we get. All of us have wondered about the burst of autoimmune diseases and new (we think) cancers over the last one hundred years. Or how about the vast number of allergies that have arisen, many of which are fatal? Could it be that the farther away we are from Eden, the more junk our DNA accumulates and the more we break down? I don’t know.

Because it gets more confusing still. The new science of epigenetics is amazing. We have always wondered how much of “us” is due to nature vs. nurture. In other words, are we prisoners to our genes or to our upbringing… or both? Most of us had high school biology so we know that DNA is made up of four different molecules arranged in a double helix formation but we now know that that isn’t the whole story. There is a group of molecules known as the methyl group that attach to DNA and adjust how DNA works…often in profound ways. And here’s the kicker – epigenetic change is often/usually passed on from parent to child. Why is this important? Because methyl groups are added during your life. In other words, the way you were treated or fed or the experiences you have gone through cause changes which can then be passed on to your children. If you were abused as a child, the personality changes and issues you suffered as a result can be passed on to your children. Twenty years ago, we didn’t know that.

(an excellent introduction to epigenetics with some really cool graphics and illustrations is in the May 2013 Discover magazine. Authors is Dan Hurley)

Here is a quote from that article: “…traumatic experiences in our past, or in our recent ancestors’ past, leave molecular scars adhering to our DNA. Jews whose great grandparents were chased from their Russian shtetls; Chinese whole grandparents lived through the ravages of the Cultural Revolution; young immigrants from Africa whose parents survived massacres; adults of every ethnicity who grew up with alcoholic or abusive parents – all carry with them more than just memories. [Those experiences] are never gone, even if they have been forgotten. They become a part of us, a molecular residue holding fast to our genetic scaffolding…You might have inherited not just your grandmother’s knobby knees, but also her predisposition toward depression caused by the neglect she suffered as a newborn.”

Yikes. However…and here it gets even more interesting…if your grandmother had then been adopted by loving parents, some of those methyl molecules will probably leave their post on her DNA and she won’t pass her depression on to you.

New drug treatments are being tested on mice that show some promise in removing the methyl colonies that clutter up our DNA like a junk drawer. As one researcher said it, no matter what damage was done to your great grandfather and no matter what trauma your mother went through as a child, we might be able to remove the methyl molecules in your brain just as we shake an Etch-A-Sketch. In time. Maybe. The drug of choice so far is trichostatin A, in case you want to look it up.

As Hurley put it, “What if an epigenetic pill could free you of all the cheated childhoods of your ancestors?”

The point of this in this blog is that we do not know the history, DNA, or the methyl molecules of the person across the table from us or those of the people protesting us across the street. “Judge not” seems to be not just scripture but good science, too.

The last of the three causes I mentioned was social change. There is no question that some cultures, including that of the US and UK, are now so fearful of judging anything that everything goes. I am not sure to what extent this plays a hand, but I know it does. When you combine social acceptance of anything and biological issues such as intersex and epigenetics, it is best for us to live out the story of Jesus, tell the story of Jesus, love one another, and serve one another sacrificially. We are fish in the net. Let the angels sort some of this out.

Last one in this particular series. Some are getting the point. Others…not so much. Here are three of the couple dozen similar questions that came in from the last two posts.

“So what IS marriage? Are you saying you approve of all marriages no matter if they are between two men or a woman and a chair? Should the church stand for nothing at all, then?”

What constitutes marriage? It astounds me how many answer this question without thought as if this was a simple question with a simple answer.

Is it “a covenant between a man and a woman”? It might be. But do the parties need to consider it a covenant? If they enter into the marriage thinking they’ll give this a try for a while and bail out if it doesn’t feel right… is it still a marriage? When I’ve asked ministers this question they generally say “yes.” When I ask why they would consider this a marriage when there was no covenant intended by either party, they reply that it is legally a marriage because there was a license and a certificate logged into government files. In other words, it isn’t a covenant at all – it is a legal action. If that is true, “marriage” is whatever the government says it is. When pressed, the ministers I’ve talked to get uncomfortable and say “Well, it SHOULD be a covenant but if it isn’t…it is still a marriage because the government says it is.” No wonder they get nervous about same sex marriage because their own logic would say that if the government says it’s a marriage…it’s a marriage.

Is it a “committed relationship between a man and woman to live together and raise their children as one family”? Let’s leave aside the fact that many commit to live together without any marriage ceremony and others commit without any interest in children. I have a lot of sympathy for those who want to define marriage this way, but there is something missing: the community. In human history there is no doubt but that many, many marriages were formed by one man and one woman making that decision together, but that was not the norm; the community was usually involved at some stage.

The various laws of the 50 US states recognize that marriage can be formed without a contract or community, hence the regulation and definition of Common Law Marriage. In some states, merely saying that you are married to the person you are living with – if you stay with them for a period each state defines – makes you “married.” However, you may leave that marriage without penalty…in some states. The fact is common law statutes are such a mess that it is hard to make definitive statements about what constitutes Common Law Marriage. Common law marriages were once common because neither the church nor the state were required to have a part in the agreement. Laws recognizing the marriage were made to protect the children, if any, of such a marriage but they almost never protected the woman (or the man) or provided for the equitable division of property should the common law marriage end. It was far more common than you can imagine for a person to have two or more common law spouses (one at a time, of course) without being looked down upon by the community. Virgil Earp, Wyatt’s brother, married a girl and then went to war. While at war, his wife’s family moved away. Both of them considered themselves single and remarried without any paperwork involved. And that was very, very common.

In Muslim nations, there are a variety of forms of private, temporary marriages. While prostitution and rape are strictly prohibited by the Quran, many Islamic societies have worked around this by having the man “marry” the woman just before the act and “divorcing” her after it. In these nations or tribes, this is a marriage that is legitimated by civil and religious law. Does that make it a marriage?

Paul warned that those who joined themselves with prostitutes were becoming one flesh with her and in fellowship with her (or him – male prostitutes were also available in his world). The words he used to describe that union sound very much like those used to describe a marriage union or our union with Christ through faith.

Paul also dealt with pagans and Jews on a daily basis. Jews had several different traditions about how to marry, what made an appropriate wedding ceremony or legal agreement, etc. and the pagans were all over the map on the issue. Never did Paul try to legislate what constituted a real marriage nor did he tell anyone that they needed to go through another ceremony or make a new legal agreement because of the deficiencies of their current agreement.

And what about living together? Is that a marriage? When my wife and I were first married we worked in a very poor area for a year. In one government housing complex we came across a woman who had three children with a man she had been living with for 7 years. She was considering leaving him because he was lazy and drank too much. What should our counsel have been? He was no prize, but to tell her to walk away and start again would mean that we had defined marriage by paper and law rather than by action. The fact is that they had lived in one place and made babies for a long time. In their state (North Carolina), they could have legally called each other husband and wife because of the length of time they’d stayed together. And yet, they were under no obligation to stay together. So… was she married or not?

In the scriptures as I read them, there are no set rules on how to get married. The community made its own rules. Sometimes the woman was not even present at the wedding (for one example, see Jacob not meeting his new wife until after the days of ceremony and celebration were over) and sometimes it certainly appears that there was sexual contact before marriage as a way to propose marriage (see Ruth and Boaz). One thing that was almost always present was the approval of the community – either as a whole or in part.

In most places in the world, this is still how marriages are made: the community agrees what constitutes a marriage and two individuals then go through whatever that community requires. In most of those areas, if two people refuse for any reason to go through the ceremony, they can run away together and consider themselves married. However, if they return, they are not married.

Complicated, isn’t it? But what about those who say Jesus defined marriage once and for all in Matthew 19:4-6? I am not sure Jesus was going for a legal definition here but, instead, a general statement of God’s intention for us to keep our commitments. If you try to make this a legal definition of marriage, you run into an immediate problem – which aspects of this are immutable and legally binding and which are not? For example, I have known of dozens of marriages where the husband did not leave his father and mother but, rather, lived in their house or on their property with his new bride. Are they still married? What if they have to return to live with parents later due to illness (on their part or on the part of the parents), job loss, etc.? Does that wipe out their marriage covenant? What about those who marry, move off to make their own home, but stumble because of the perpetual adolescence of the man? Or his continuing first loyalty to his mother? In other words, if he does not cleave unto his wife, is it “not really a marriage”? What if they never quite become one flesh – sexually or spiritually? If the marriage is not consummated, is it a marriage? If it IS consummated but they never become one in any other way, is it a marriage?

In other words – you cannot use this as a legal definition if you are only taking the “man” and “woman” part. You CAN and should use it as Jesus giving a general statement about the norms God intended. This is not picking at straws; this is critically important —  when you try to take a scripture and make a law out of it you have to play fair with every word, not just the ones you want to keep.

In any discussion of marriage we have to acknowledge the herd of pooping elephants in the room – we have given over more and more power to the government to decide the definition of what constitutes marriage and we were okay with that when it benefited us and agreed with us. Now we are caught in our own trap, hoisted on our own petard. Any alliance between secular government and religion quickly becomes an unholy one.

But… there is another argument to be made here and I’ve heard it before. It goes something like this: if marriage is an agreement between two people that is approved by their community (a good general definition but not a complete one), then the government gets to decide the laws regulating marriage for this – the United States – is our community. Giving them this power is part of the social contract all of us accept by living here.

I have heard this “social contract” argument used to say that Christians should support higher taxation, less personal freedom, the right of abortion, etc. The problem is that only one party signed that contract: the government. No child is introduced to a contract when they turn 18 and asked if they are cool with it. This begs the definition of the word “contract.”

Others wrote in asking if I support marriages of any kind between any two or twenty people/animals. They are missing the point. The point I’m making here is that the government might recognize this or that marriage but it is up to our communities to form our own definitions and rules. If you give the government the power to decide what marriage is you have to live with the result. My religious tribe might make different rules than yours, but I have some input into that as it is my community. I have zero input into what the government does. My votes so far have failed to change anything in Washington, DC.

We are citizens of heaven. We have a social contract with Jesus and with each other. We have a higher loyalty and we do not bow down to governments. We pay our taxes and live as good citizens on earth, but we belong elsewhere and we speak the language of heaven, not government legalese. And we do not despair when governments go bad for OUR government remains secure – God is still on His throne and we are still His people.

Some wrote in asking if we should all tear up our marriage licenses and refuse to participate in any form of government control or regulation over marriage. I believe I am married because Kami and I made a covenant with each other before God and our community, the church. I certainly feel no need to tear up my license, but I do not equate government approval with marriage. Paul said it was more complicated than that when he talked about uniting with others sexually. I approve of some marriages the government does not recognize (such as ones between two older people who would lose their pensions and healthcare should they seek government license for their marriage) so it should not shock anyone that I might not recognize future marriages that the government recognizes.

Is this a question of fairness? In some sense, it is. I think Christians should be involved in questions of justice and fairness. I oppose the current legal system that creates 1300+ changes in law and rights once someone is married. Perhaps one day we will get to a more European system where there are two ways to be married – via religious ceremony or a civil license. That can only happen once government gets out of marriage and quits using the tax code as a way to modify and coerce behavior. I don’t see that day coming any time soon.

And if you think THIS is complicated, wait until you study a bit and see how complicated sexual identity is. That subject is coming up next.

“No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” (2 Tim. 2:4)

It seems I hit a nerve last time. Readers from both my Facebook sites, this website, and Twitter shared the article and/or my status directing people to the article. I stopped counting after finding it in over 100 places within twelve hours. The response has been…mixed. I’ve expanded the title of this thread to better deal with the subject at hand. Quite a few people commented here and many, many more commented on a wide variety of Facebook pages, via email, and via Twitter. I am responding to some of those comments (no human could respond to them all) below.

First of all – on this page, I deleted some comments. When you scan the comments and see that the majority praise the article at least in part, you might be suspicious and think I removed anything critical. Read them again – the criticisms were kindly put, but they are there. No, I removed two main classes of comments:

1. Those that quoted scripture WITH some words underlined and OTHER words placed in caps or otherwise highlighted. The readers of this blog are biblically literate. We know the verses involved. If someone just throws at scripture at us and doesn’t add comments to explain why they think we didn’t know about it or had missed it somehow, I delete it as superfluous to requirements.
2. Those that were so full of misspellings, grammatical errors, and poor logic that they were, frankly, unreadable and I gave up trying to interpret them. That caused one lady to write me a series of attacking, harsh emails. I asked if I could help her edit her comment to make it understandable but she insisted that I print it “th way it ws ritten.” I didn’t.

In no particular order, here are some of the comments and my response. Sorry about the weird numbering. I couldn’t find a way to make the number sequential. The formatting defeated me…

1. “You hate gay people and Christians like you who refuse to marry loving, committed, gay couples are spreading hate.” (this is a summation of more than a dozen comments they made via FB message). I was also accused on another Facebook page of equating gay people with the Beast in Revelation. I asked the writer if they had read the article and, frankly, it appears that they did…they just saw something in there I didn’t write. I would like for you and all who think that way to notice that I did not address the matter of same sex attraction and scripture. My article was about the dangers of becoming entangled with the government and culture and how foolish churches have been for letting the government get deeper and deeper into the tent. The problems and emotions swirling around whether or not to legalize gay marriage were not caused by the Bible or churches – they were caused by the government gaining control of marriage and assigning 1,386 different changes in status (or “rights”) to marrieds or singles as they see fit. I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will: those who know me know that I do not teach that homosexual acts are okay with God but neither have I shown disrespect or unkindness to any gay person – not for a second. Sadly, many equate a disagreement of any kind with hatred and attack. I can disagree with some aspect of your life – even a very important aspect – or doctrine and still love you enough to die for you. If you can’t believe that, it is because someone else let you down, not me.

1. “Government has a stake in marriage because intact families are essential to creating better citizens.” I am not sure government’s involvement in marriage at current levels has much to do with its interest in creating better citizens, but we can agree to disagree there. Regardless, the fact remains that private contracts filed like deeds (as suggested in the last blog) would create legal records and obligations sufficient to encourage the formation of intact unions.
2. “I know this for sure according to the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution of the US, Congress shall pass no law regarding religion.” But they have. And will.

1. “I believe that Christians should try to influence the government as much as we…can…Shouldn’t we desire to have God the ruling authority in our nation instead of separating the two?” I must admit this idea makes me shiver. There have been many, many attempts to get God to rule a nation via His representatives and it has always ended in repression, division, and the loss of freedom. Jesus nor the apostles showed the slightest bit of interest in any earthly kingdom or in the politics of their day. They didn’t try to influence their governments nor did they lobby for a candidate. God has never asked us to form an earthly kingdom and our attempts to do so end – every time – in ignominy. The Book of Revelation is a serious, sustained warning against allying with any government or culture and believing that it will do the work of the Lord. The book shows us a parody of the Trinity and the church (through the Beast of the air, the sea, and the devil as well as the sea, etc.). More on this later.

1. “Are you suggesting that Christians remove themselves from all government business?” I stated in the last blog that there were many things that are legitimately in the government interest such as passports, security, trade, etc. I believe it can be a good thing for a Christian to serve at some level in government, but if you think it is hard for a rich man to enter heaven (as Jesus said) you can’t even imagine how difficult it is for a Christian to keep their ethics and conscience clean in the political sphere. If God gifted you that way, thank Him and press on. For most of us, we should be about the work of the church and not cede that to government.

1. “Shouldn’t people have equal rights?” Yes. That was a lot easier when we believed that rights came from God and not from government for the latter continually gets in the way of those rights, creates new ones, and then gets in the way of those. This same writer said “The gay movement agenda is about trampling on the word of God and has little to nothing to do with marriage equal rights or love.” That is a harsh judgment, indeed. Again, the government caused this current crisis but the church gets the blame. I know a great many gay people who actively hate the church and God and wish to tear down anything to do with them but that is because they see Christians as in league with political parties and government to deny them basic freedoms. I have told several of them that their parades and outrageous behavior are not helping them but then I get accused of hating them. It would require a book length reply to show how we got here. Very, very briefly: Churches and state worked in two different spheres in the US for a long time. Then, churches and state linked arms to write laws to make the country more amenable to Christian virtues (in the years before and after the Revolution, church attendance was very spotty, alcoholism and prostitution was ubiquitous, etc. Churches and state formed laws and social conventions to the point where the church even handed the government the job of caring for the poor, the forgotten, and those overwhelmed by disaster. Now, after declaring a War on Poverty in the sixties, we find ourselves with the same percentage of poor and those on government assistance as we did $16 trillion ago. We handed the government control of schools, our own colleges (which have to go through government hoops for accreditation, student loans, etc.) and marriage. Left out of that agreement were those with same sex attraction. They want in. I want out.

1. “I see government as being an ally of God if it is formed correctly and if Christians get involved and stay involved.” Jesus nor the apostles agreed with that sentiment. We were never asked to set up a government or ally ourselves to one. When I was a boy, it was clear that God loved Republicans because that is what I was taught. As an adult, I see enough weakness and corruption in both parties to know that God is not even on their radar; power and continuing to hold on to power is. The church is here, not to build a government nor to just show up at a building and go through some rituals each week, but to serve as witnesses to the Lamb. We are a gathering of witnesses or, as Michael Gorman said, “a martyrological community.” We are a pilgrim people and, according to scripture, a persecuted people. That would indicate God never expected us to make ourselves at home on this planet or ally ourselves with any government. Heaven is shown full of people of all nations, kindreds, tribes, and tongues. In other words, it is a multinational, multicultural community. We are citizens of heaven. The early church knew this. In the 2^nd century “Epistle to Diognetus” the writer described Christians this way: “Christians live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

1. “Isn’t a lot of this caused by the way people of faith have treated gay people through the centuries?” I am sure that plays a part. We are told to love one another, even our enemies, but it is easy to see from history, facial expressions at debates, and my in-box that many Christians believe it is their duty to hate. Gay people were picked as an easy target for which is easier to do, be heterosexual or “lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth”? Is it easier to feed the poor or state that you disapprove of gay marriage? Exactly. But it would be wrong to lay all of the blame on Christians. Most cultures and religions have the same prohibitions against same sex relationships as Christians have and it must also be stated that many gay people have been as abrasive and hate filled as any who oppose their behavior. Christians do not now and never have had a monopoly on hate.

1. “I don’t see how this could ever work. There is just no way government will allow us to disengage and give the work of the church back to the church.” Maybe. But Revelation tells me I cannot be content with allowing the government to continue to encroach on the territory claimed by God. It took us generations to get to this point and it will take generations to get out of it (if we can – Revelation is also full of Christians who died because they wouldn’t bow the knee to government and culture). I know one thing – it will take even longer if we don’t get started now.

As for those who read this who think it is their duty to disapprove of gay people in general, their behavior in particular, and anything to do with their ability to marry I would ask you to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8) and be known by your love (John 13:35). When you meet a gay person, treat them with dignity and respect. Serve them, love them, and pray for them for all humankind is caught in sin to some degree or another and we have been told by Jesus himself not to pick at someone else’s sin until we have cleared our lives of our own (Matthew 7:3-5).

And for any gay person reading this, I want you to understand this: while I still read scripture in a way that would indicate that homosexuality is not God’s will for your life, that doesn’t mean that I reject YOU as a person. We can disagree and still love each other fiercely. I have almost daily letters or emails that say something like “I love you but I disagree with you about this or that” and I just smile. We are all creatures formed by our past and our genes and who knows what else. But you are a creation of the Lord, my God and I will treat you that way. Promise.

(there were more comments. I might address those next time. Or not)

It was only a matter of time before this came in at tentpegsquestion@yahoo.com. And it came in several times so I will summarize all of the questions this way:

Why is gay marriage all of a sudden THE topic of the day? And why are so many churches and religious leaders stepping up to approve of it when it was assumed they were against it before now?

The topic of gay marriage has been in the news for years but it jumped to above the fold status when the US Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases in the week before Easter. As you might imagine, ministers are getting a lot of questions and demands from their congregation and they, in turn, write me or call me and ask for my take.

Questions? They range from “how do I talk about my objection to gay marriage without people thinking I’m a hater?” to “are we really sure that Paul was condemning monogamous same sex relationships and not promiscuity and prostitution?” Demands? A lot of preachers have received demands or even ultimatums – “preach on this now, opposing it as an abomination!”

Allow me – as I often do – to start the discussion in a seemingly unconnected place and then bring it back here. I do not believe that I can give the definitive answer all of you are seeking but perhaps we can start thinking about marriage and the church in a different way and that will allow the Spirit to move among us more freely. That is my hope, at least.

In the Book of Revelation there are a few themes that repeat again and again using different symbols. One over-arching theme is the battle between God and the Lamb on one side and the Beast and his unholy allies on the other. In short, it is a battle for our allegiance. Will we bow down to the ruling powers on earth or those in heaven? Christians have long understood that our first loyalty is to be to God and our Savior, not to anything on earth…

Or have we? At least in the West, it seems that we frequently confuse loyalty to earthly governments with loyalty to Jesus. We assume that God is on our country’s side in its wars, its programs, and its culture. Churches cherish their tax exemptions and work to keep them by not preaching anything the IRS would call electioneering or campaigning. Other churches stand up and rail against that restriction and preach politics any way but keep lawyers handy to keep their tax free status. When the prevailing culture was segregationist, so were most of the churches. When the prevailing culture approved slavery, so did most of the churches. When the prevailing culture was… well… cultured and well behaved, we required our worship services to be cultured and well behaved. I could go on but there are many good books that detail how entwined culture, government, and church have become in Western churches in particular (and it might be the same in other cultures, but I am ignorant of them and wish to speak only of those I know).

Churches and parachurch organizations lined up for President Bush’s Faith Based Initiatives program so that they could get funds from the government. Under pressure by churches Congress just passed a bill to give federal funds to rebuild churches damaged by floods, hurricanes, or other natural disasters. Once government has their hand in the finances of a church, it can tell that church what to do. Don’t believe me? Check out what happened to Christian colleges that accepted federal funds – even if only by allowing students to have federal loans to pay for their education. Starting from there, government could regulate thousands of things on the campus including teachers, student body makeup, and curriculum (Hillsdale College and Grove City College have famously opted out of all of these and won’t accept students who use federal loans. The government responded by absorbing almost all student loan programs. When President Obama entered office, the federal share of such loans was 20%. It is now over 80% and the amount of federal loans to students – and thus control over colleges – has gone up 500%).

We even allowed the government to step in and define, license, regulate, and control marriage – a sacred covenant union between a man and a woman and God. It didn’t happen all at once, but it happened. When I bring this up, it is amazing – and a bit sad – to me how quickly people rise to defend government’s place in controlling and licensing marriage. They claim that without government help marriage would be chaos, cousins would marry, there would be no protection for the children should the marriage break, etc. I disagree on every point and at every level. Read the classic book by Thomas Sowell called “The Vision of the Anointed” to see how government systems in the secular West step in to control and shape in the name of helping us. Sowell, an African American who grieves for the breakdown of the African American family and one of the smartest men I know, shows how each government action on behalf of helping the family caused more divorces, more misery, and more pain.

Want to have fun? Go through the Bible and try to construct what a marriage ceremony should look like and at what point a person is married. There is no single system or ritual. Marriage was a private, family agreement that varied from tribe to tribe. No license, no tax benefits or punishments… just a private covenant made between two people with the agreement of their community.

Today, marriage has over 1300 ramifications when it comes to taxes, insurance, and a host of laws, rights, and open or closed doors.

Frankly, I think the church allowed the government camel to stick its nose into its tent and now we have the whole camel inside and Christians are upset at the fact that it is… uh… pooping on us. Ask around and you’ll find out this isn’t new. We have seniors in our churches who are widowed and who have found a new love, a sweet and wonderful gift from God, but they cannot marry or they will lose their government benefits and fall into poverty instantly. In every church I’ve served (save one) over the last 25 years I have run into couples like that. They want to live together as man and wife, but if they marry they will be crippled financially. The government will take away their health benefits and money they have stored away with the government with the promise that it belonged to them (quick note: if your Social Security money belongs to you, why don’t your heirs get it when you die?). If they make a private covenant without the blessing and permission of the government, they will be punished by not having visitation rights or the ability to make health and end of life issues for each other (along with scores of other restrictions). When I see gay marriage proponents make their argument for what they want to have, I hear the voice of these seniors. They can’t get it, either, because government is now in control of marriage and uses the law and the tax code to make sure violators are punished.

Bow before the beast or suffer its wrath.

I suppose I should reference the fact that there are some small pockets of people who take this message and go way too far with it. I believe the government has legitimate interests in many aspects of our lives. I have no problem going to a government office for a driver’s license or passport. I recently voted for a raise for our county sheriff’s department because they provide a great service to this county. But when it comes to matters for the church, I do not understand why we want, seek, or are interested in the government’s involvement.

Will gay marriage ruin the nation? I am not at all sure it would. I think we have already ruined marriage by allowing government in and by the way heterosexuals have treated it over the last hundred years. We have allowed the government to tell us when a marriage can end, when it actually has ended, only to have the government then step in to be the father of the children when there is no father in the home (thereby making divorce a more palatable option and one that is more often utilized). Once, churches took care of the poor and shared their goods with each other. With the rise of secular religion and the alliance of church and state, more and more of the work of the church was handed over to the government with tragic results. If you object to this and want to point back to, say, the 1600s or so when the poor were considered trash and their lives of no use you fail to get the point. It was an alliance of the church with the state and the upper classes that created the permanent underclass back then and, arguably, now.

By a few hundred years after Christ, Christians bought into the state’s ideas about class, value, work ethic, liberty (or the lack of), and more. Going back to scripture, we see no examples of the church turning to the state and telling it to do the good the church was called to do, handing over its money to salve its conscience rather than rolling up its sleeves and doing the work it was commissioned to do. Constantine and his ilk did us a whole lot more harm than good when they embraced the Christians as citizens useful for the Empire’s ends. The Book of Revelation should have warned us.

Note that I am not going on and on here about homosexuality. I have written about that before more than once. I think a lot of the current discussion is an attempt to NOT talk about the legitimate role of government, the debt, and the coming collapse of our society should we not handle our spending and debt. Still, the discussion is continuing apace and I will write another article on it soon.

We need to elect politicians who will get the government out of marriage except for a few minor points. To protect the children, we need to know who is responsible for them (and all of our laws today aren’t helping us nail that down). I would recommend the following:

1.  Have a registration requirement for marriage in the same fashion that one registers deeds. The marriage is a private contract formed between two individuals and their community (secular, blood, or faith) if they have one.

2.  Allow nuptial agreements to govern the private contract, with the current marriage law to govern in the absence of agreement or silence of the agreement on any issue, in the same fashion that we deal with corporate agreements today.

3.  Remove all government benefits/burdens related to marriage.

Some might howl that this would allow for short term marriage, serial marriage, polygamy, or gay marriage. I would humbly submit that we already have all of those things. The government allows dissolution of the marriage contract quickly and with little regard for morality or for the welfare of the children (though it makes claims to the contrary). People are free to break their covenants and marry again and again. Some have serial sex with a variety of partners already and Paul told us that that made us one with them (his warning was that having sex with a prostitute made us one with her/him when we were supposed to be one with God. 1^st Cor. 6:15).

Churches must withdraw from bowing down before anyone other than God. That is what the Book of Revelation is all about. We must be free to make our own agreements/covenants as the community of God. And then we must go out into the world to take a glimpse of Jesus to them, bringing them into our communities which are to be nothing less than outposts of heaven.

And that is true regardless of what the Supreme Court says.

My wife and I went to New Life Church in Colorado Springs for a performance of the story of God’s redemption of man, The Thorn (http://thethorn.net/). I wasn’t looking forward to it, but dear friends bought the tickets and invited us. I sat there as a person who was only able to barely watch The Passion of the Christ once. I know the story. I don’t want to see depictions of the pain. Call me a hypocrite or weak or… whatever. I deserve it. But it’s true. I must say that the writers and performers of The Thorn stylized the violence so that even children as young as 6 could understand it without being horrified and I appreciated that. They did an incredible job — it was like Cirque du Soleil took on the redemption story. It was hard to describe, but the dancing, the songs, and the visuals were powerful and effective.

But when the Garden scene came, I cringed and found myself saying what I’d often said in my heart: “If only I’d been there.” And this came out….

I wish I’d been there.

I would’ve stopped it.

I would’ve pulled my gun and opened fire on the mob.

They would’ve lost more than just an ear

If I’d been there.

If I’d been there, I would have confronted them as hypocrites

Cowards

The embodiment of the will of Satan.

Dress it up all you want, people,

Wear your religious robes, carry your scepters of office

But you are approaching the Son of God with malice.

How could you?

I tell myself I wouldn’t have run away.

I would’ve stood my ground

Pulled my gun

And unleashed hell on those coming to kill Jesus.

And in so doing

I would have unleashed hell on all of us.

For without the cross, there is no heaven.

I know that.

But it breaks my heart.

I escape my guilt by playing revenge fantasies in my mind

But the simple truth is

My sin places me in the middle of the mob.

“If” I’d been there?

I was there.

Have mercy on me, O Lord.

I was there.

“Is heaven ‘out there’ somewhere now or will is it somewhere now in place and time?…Will this earth be destroyed or remade/redeemed at the end of time?…What does it mean to be faithful?…Why has Christ not come back in 2000 years? Didn’t the apostles think he was coming back a lot sooner?”

I’ve looked at a couple of these before but it is clear from my in-box that we need to revisit a variety of subjects that have coalesced into something I think we can deal with in one answer.

I can remember swinging on a backyard swingset when I was a little boy. It is one of my first memories. The swingset had not been set into concrete and so as soon as you got going, one leg or another of the set would rise up a bit as if it were going to come out of the ground. Being a boy, I tried to swing harder to see if I could make it flip! But as clearly as I remember anything, I remember wondering if there wasn’t something under the swingset pushing up, trying to get out of the ground. And I was pretty sure that it might be the devil.

In all of our Bible Class songs and in our common parlance, heaven was up and hell was down. I assumed that hell was somewhere deep in the earth and – though only aged three or four – I had already wondered about how the devil made his way from “down there” to the land of little boys, dogs, and tea. Perhaps I had found his gateway: my swing.

I might have asked one of my parents about it or I might have allowed my mind to move on – as a kid’s mind is wont to do – but the thought passed and I didn’t worry about it long. I recall that memory to this day when people ask me where heaven (or hell) is located.

The short answer is: we don’t know. Heaven already exists. God is there and Jesus went there to prepare a place for us. As Randy Alcorn said in his book, it seems to be under construction as the picture of it changes from time to time in scripture. But since it already exists somewhere, what about those like N.T. Wright and many of the younger ministers in my own religious tribe who believe that heaven will be here, on a redeemed, cleansed, and renewed earth?

As I’ve written before, I find their arguments very compelling but not exactly convincing. I see where they get their concept and it makes sense on some levels. Still… I believe that heaven already exists somewhere. I have no problem with the idea that this world will be renewed and be absorbed in heaven’s territory on the Last Day. I just don’t know about the mechanics of that Day.

While we wait for that Day to come, what does it mean to be faithful? The impression I have (and I could be wrong) is that many or most Christians are trying to do the right things and think the right things while opposing the other things so that when Jesus returns, they will get to go heaven. That reduces our faith – which should be active, giving, loving, and joyful – into rote rituals, repeated prayers, and standardized worship. There is nothing in scripture to indicate that we are supposed to behave and wait our turn to enter heaven.

So if we are not supposed to spend all of our time on earth just trying to measure up in the hopes that we might make the cut on Judgment Day, what does it mean to be faithful? I think it means making this earth more like heaven each day while we wait on the Lord. Jesus’ prayer to His Father was very plain – “Let Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” None of us can argue that this prayer has been answered affirmatively in any widespread way, but it CAN and IS answered affirmatively every time one of us decides to live out the life of Christ on earth, making our portion of earth more like heaven. When we immerse ourselves in love and good works (not in order to be saved but because we are saved), we will have an impact for good; we will be making the world a bit more like heaven for those near us.

When a family decides to forgo some pleasure in order to support an orphan or a Compassion International child, they are making the world more like heaven and playing a part in answering the prayer of their savior. My wife support such a child and we are also big fans of One Child Matters (www.onechildmatters.org) that works in smaller communities than Compassion does and links hands with local churches and schools in a unique and effective way. We love the work of the International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org) in stopping human trafficking and freeing modern day slaves all over the world. When they pull little boys and girls out of a two foot tall crawlspace in India where they are imprisoned when not working at a mill or a brothel, the IJM is making the world more like heaven by removing the hell that others are experiencing.

Countless decisions every day make this world more like heaven or more like hell. I was amazed at the reaction to a decision Kami and I made without hesitation; seriously, without giving it a second thought. We were on a cruise ship – the lovely Navigator of the Seas – and Kami went down to skate on the ice rink on the third deck. She has been a figure skater all of her life and continues to skate weekly here in Colorado but, like all skaters, falls happen. She was skating backward and caught a blade, catching herself on her left wrist. She knew that she had hurt herself but she waited an hour before alerting me (I was reading on another deck) that she needed help. I took her to the ship’s doctor, a nice man who X-rayed her wrist and didn’t find a break. He put her in a small splint and gave her ibuprofen.

At home, two weeks later, she went to our doctor. She just wasn’t feeling better. He determined that she had broken not her wrist but her ulna. She was sent to orthopedic specialists to put a hard cast on her immediately. Once there, the specialists said, no, she hadn’t broken her ulna… she had broken her wrist after all. So one doctor missed the break and the other doctor read a break where there wasn’t one. People immediately called, texted, and emailed us saying we had to sue Royal Caribbean or at least get free cruises because of us.

No. Ice is slippery. We knew that before she packed her figure skates. Accidents happen. We were also aware of that. People can miss a break on an X-ray if it is a hairline fracture. We knew that, too. And our family doctor? Great guy but he doesn’t spend all day every day reading X-rays. We gave him a pass, too. Suing someone was the last thing we would even think about. She has a nice cast on and is doing well.

We were reminded of the time my children and I were in my Toyota and struck by an 18 wheeler and driven into the side of Cheat Lake bridge (WV) in October of 1993. I was hospitalized for most of a week and my children were released within a day – scarred and bruised but all right. My car was in several pieces, of course, and I had a scar or two and a knee that will probably give me trouble from time to time the rest of my life. People came out of the woodwork and told me to sue. Millions of dollars were suggested as a starting point.

We asked the trucking company to pay our medical bills. Not a penny more. Why? We didn’t expect to get through this world without pain or accidents. I won’t make someone else’s life hell. My job is to make their life more like heaven.

God says that what He requires of us is to walk humbly with him and to love justice and mercy. Sounds like He wants us to act like heaven could be right here…if we do our job. Yes, the apostles thought Jesus was coming back very, very soon. Why didn’t he? Honestly, I have no idea. But here’s a thought: maybe he’s waiting on us to do what he told us to do. You know, all that “into the all the world” stuff and that “love your neighbor” stuff. Maybe when we make this world more like heaven, heaven will come to us or we will go to it.

As for its final location, I trust Him. As long as He is there, I want to be there, too.