Friends,
Kadie and I have been on vacation (and will be throughout this next week) so I've been away from internet access. I was stunned to find out that the tornadoes that hit Colorado this last week struck the area around Cornerstone Baptist Church in Windsor. Cornerstone's pastor is Dave Samples, an occasional commentator on this blog. Please keep him and Cornerstone Baptist in your prayers as they minister to a reeling community. I enclose a recent email he sent out:
Dear Friends,
The days have been moving very quickly as our church and our community digs out from the rubble left by the tornado. Words just can’t express the level of destruction that our community has survived. The fact that the largest amount of destruction happened within a few blocks of our church has given all of us at Cornerstone a great ministry of care.
Cleanup of the Cornerstone campus began Saturday morning at about 10:00 once we were given permission to return to the property. Access was limited and controlled by the National Guard but I believe that everyone who attempted to reach the church on Saturday morning was allowed in. The work went quickly with the Colorado Disaster Relief Team being the first on the scene. They did some clean up of the parking lot area including the removal of a light pole that had fallen in the middle of the parking lot. The Disaster Relief Team left our facility and made their first stop at the home of one of our neighbors who happen to be elderly. The older couple was attempting to clean the debris from their yard and they were extremely grateful to the have the help of the team. The Team has chainsaws and was able to take out some trees and moved a great deal of debris very quickly. As the Disaster Relief Team moved out…our guys and girls from Cornerstone moved in and spent the day cleaning and making temporary repairs to our property. We are thankful to Excel Energy who stopped by and turned on our electricity on Saturday afternoon. We are also grateful to the “CO CAT” Company who assisted us in boarding up and tarping the places where the roof was missing. They did a lot of work absolutely free of charge. Someone was set up by McDonald’s giving away free lumber which we used to board up windows. I don’t even know who that was but—we are thankful. As the church building was being repaired, others were moving out into the community helping with cleanup and tree removal. Several chaplains from our church as well as the disaster relief team were walking the community and meeting needs. It’s interesting that within the past year at least five of our members have undergone disaster relief training with our state convention. It’s amazing how God has prepared us for this event.
Our property is the center of the disaster relief and clean up effort. We have fire, police, medical, and a Salvation Army feeding unit all working from our church. This is giving our church great exposure in terms of meeting needs and reaching our community. It’s rare to see any news about the Windsor tornado without seeing a shot of our church building. Fox 31 carried a feature on our Sunday morning worship service this evening. Worship went well today with 249 worshippers. The testimonies were very moving in each service. God is truly doing a work in us and through us.
One of the needs that have been identified is for childcare while parents are cleaning and repairing. Liz Simper is working to put something together to meet this need. Contact her if you would like to help.
My apologies to those of you who have yet to get a return email or phone call. I have much to do in the way replying to communication. It’s amazing how much accumulates when you don’t have electricity.
Blessings upon you!
Pastor Dave
(Taran: Pray for the church and her pastor. Pray that God's grace will be channeled through their efforts. Look for updates at Dave's blog.)
Monday, May 26, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (IV)
Several questions were generated by my review:
Why are Southern Baptists in particular so anti-homosexual in their views?
Several students asked me about what I thought of the Bishops Spong and Robinson.
The faculty advisor of the group asked me why homosexuality is considered a worse sin than adultery. “Jesus teaches that divorce is equivalent to adultery and we have many people who attend church that are divorced. Why are homosexuals treated differently?”
Some questions about how homosexuality is treated in the Bible.
Providing an odd ending to the meeting was a young man, who had never before attended this group. (He rminded me of Elihu). He said “All of you are missing the key question in this discussion: What about Jesus? You have all missed this point!” The faculty advisor replied “Those are your questions, but not the ones we are discussing today.”
I then told him that this setting was not the proper venue for a theological discussion just as one would not go to an accounting club meeting and ask everyone to talk about the exclusivity of salvation in Christ. He then turned to (on?) me and said “You’ve been doing nothing but dancing with words throughout this meeting. You are dancing around the most important issue of all!”
I replied “I am greatly insulted that you say I’m doing nothing but dancing with words. I carefully chose the words I’ve used and I am offended that you would characterize my discussion as dancing.
Mostly because I told you earlier that I’m Southern Baptist and I do not dance.”
Tomorrow, a final post script on the discussion.
Why are Southern Baptists in particular so anti-homosexual in their views?
Several students asked me about what I thought of the Bishops Spong and Robinson.
The faculty advisor of the group asked me why homosexuality is considered a worse sin than adultery. “Jesus teaches that divorce is equivalent to adultery and we have many people who attend church that are divorced. Why are homosexuals treated differently?”
Some questions about how homosexuality is treated in the Bible.
Providing an odd ending to the meeting was a young man, who had never before attended this group. (He rminded me of Elihu). He said “All of you are missing the key question in this discussion: What about Jesus? You have all missed this point!” The faculty advisor replied “Those are your questions, but not the ones we are discussing today.”
I then told him that this setting was not the proper venue for a theological discussion just as one would not go to an accounting club meeting and ask everyone to talk about the exclusivity of salvation in Christ. He then turned to (on?) me and said “You’ve been doing nothing but dancing with words throughout this meeting. You are dancing around the most important issue of all!”
I replied “I am greatly insulted that you say I’m doing nothing but dancing with words. I carefully chose the words I’ve used and I am offended that you would characterize my discussion as dancing.
Mostly because I told you earlier that I’m Southern Baptist and I do not dance.”
Tomorrow, a final post script on the discussion.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (III)
(Sorry for the delay. I shouldn’t start a series during finals week and right as our pastor search nears its completion).
After my review of UnChristian (see here and here) I addressed the Gay/Straight group with some suggestions for how Homosexuals and Evangelicals could move forward:
First, both sides need to recognize that there is a wide range of response to homosexuals in the Christian community. At one extreme are those who both welcome and affirm homosexual behavior (certain mainline denominations, certain individual churches). At the other extreme are those churches who neither welcome, nor affirm (numerous fundamentalist churches who set aside the sin of homosexual acts as particularly heinous).
So there is not one set response of the church to these issues. A more helpful approach is one that welcomes all to worship and bible study, but does not affirm all expressions of sexuality. Indeed, I think that the response most closely aligning with Scripture is to welcome all homosexuals, as we welcome all adulturers, drunkards, gluttons, liars, ones who lust and ones who are consumed with pride. We welcome them all, but affirm none of these individual sins.
Our stance should be welcoming, but not affirming. (Completely cribbed from Stanley Grenz’s excellent work by that same name).
A second suggestion is that homosexuals and evangelicals can dialogue on these issues. But only if we offer one another honest dialogue. Platitudes merely mask over the genuine differences between these two groups. As I told them, “I need to be able to tell you unashamedly that homosexual actions are described as sinful by the Bible and are therefore immoral. And you need to be able to tell me just as honestly that you consider my perspective to be bigoted and also immoral.”
As Christians, we must lovingly and honestly share the full measure of the gospel with others.
A third suggestion is that homosexuals and Evangelicals need to avoid stereotyping one another. There is a great quote in UnChristian by a Christian who is talking to an angry homosexual. This man had been deeply wounded by past actions of the church. He talkes about the anti-homosexual hatred that flows from the mouths of some so-called Christians. Finally the Christian said “Let’s make a deal. You don’t assume that all evangelicals think like Pat Robertson and I won’t assume that all homosexuals are pedophiles.”
Stereotyping reduces people to caricatures and objectifies them. As soon as we stereotype people, they can become objects instead of creatures made in the image of God.
Lastly, we can work together in some areas of common ministry. The evangelical church, by and large, has done a miserable job of ministering to AIDS patients. We can work with those suffering from HIV. We can also work to end non-religious workplace discrimination against all people, including gays.
Note that on other issues (e.g. same sex marriage, advocating homosexuality in public schools) we agree to disagree and may even work against one another in certain instances.
5. Lastly I shared with them that people don’t go to hell because they are homosexuals. Everyone sins and that no one goes to hell because of what they do or who they are. People go to hell only because of what they do with Jesus.
After my review of UnChristian (see here and here) I addressed the Gay/Straight group with some suggestions for how Homosexuals and Evangelicals could move forward:
First, both sides need to recognize that there is a wide range of response to homosexuals in the Christian community. At one extreme are those who both welcome and affirm homosexual behavior (certain mainline denominations, certain individual churches). At the other extreme are those churches who neither welcome, nor affirm (numerous fundamentalist churches who set aside the sin of homosexual acts as particularly heinous).
So there is not one set response of the church to these issues. A more helpful approach is one that welcomes all to worship and bible study, but does not affirm all expressions of sexuality. Indeed, I think that the response most closely aligning with Scripture is to welcome all homosexuals, as we welcome all adulturers, drunkards, gluttons, liars, ones who lust and ones who are consumed with pride. We welcome them all, but affirm none of these individual sins.
Our stance should be welcoming, but not affirming. (Completely cribbed from Stanley Grenz’s excellent work by that same name).
A second suggestion is that homosexuals and evangelicals can dialogue on these issues. But only if we offer one another honest dialogue. Platitudes merely mask over the genuine differences between these two groups. As I told them, “I need to be able to tell you unashamedly that homosexual actions are described as sinful by the Bible and are therefore immoral. And you need to be able to tell me just as honestly that you consider my perspective to be bigoted and also immoral.”
As Christians, we must lovingly and honestly share the full measure of the gospel with others.
A third suggestion is that homosexuals and Evangelicals need to avoid stereotyping one another. There is a great quote in UnChristian by a Christian who is talking to an angry homosexual. This man had been deeply wounded by past actions of the church. He talkes about the anti-homosexual hatred that flows from the mouths of some so-called Christians. Finally the Christian said “Let’s make a deal. You don’t assume that all evangelicals think like Pat Robertson and I won’t assume that all homosexuals are pedophiles.”
Stereotyping reduces people to caricatures and objectifies them. As soon as we stereotype people, they can become objects instead of creatures made in the image of God.
Lastly, we can work together in some areas of common ministry. The evangelical church, by and large, has done a miserable job of ministering to AIDS patients. We can work with those suffering from HIV. We can also work to end non-religious workplace discrimination against all people, including gays.
Note that on other issues (e.g. same sex marriage, advocating homosexuality in public schools) we agree to disagree and may even work against one another in certain instances.
5. Lastly I shared with them that people don’t go to hell because they are homosexuals. Everyone sins and that no one goes to hell because of what they do or who they are. People go to hell only because of what they do with Jesus.
Following these points, we had a discussion that led in some interesting directions. I’ll summarize it tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (II)
With the words of Bartolot ringing in my ears, I accepted the invitation and addressed the Gay/Straight group this last Tuesday. I started off with a brief review of the book, UnChristian. (For background on the book and a formal review, see Benjie here and here.) I started off by sharing with them that I normally don’t speak about my own personal faith on campus and briefly explained why. Several of the group (about 20 students and faculty) had taken my courses before and I asked them to confirm that I normally don’t speak of such things. I then identified myself as a Baptist and an evangelical (not in a political sense, but in the Bebbington sense).
UnChristian is not an earth-shattering work. It is a fairly straightforward book, including numerous anecdotes, that provides a context for how outsiders view the evangelical subculture. I shared with the group that there are six areas where Kinnemann takes us evangelicals to task. One of these views that Outsiders (nonChristians) have is that they believe that Christians are anti-homosexual. Kinnamann then produces evidence to support this viewpoint (directly quoted from UnChristian) :
1. Born-again Christians are more likely to disapprove of homosexuality than divorce. The vast majority of Christians say that homosexuality should not be considered a legitimate lifestyle and strongly reject church-sanctioned weddings for same-sex unions. However, a minority of born-again believers (39 percent) embrace Jesus's teaching that divorce is a sin except in cases of adultery (see Matt. 5:32). Even among evangelicals, just three out of five describe
divorce as a sin, well below their opposition to gay marriage.
2. Most born-again Christians have a hard time knowing how they
should respond to the lifestyles of homosexuals as well as how to respond to the political efforts of gay and lesbian activists. For instance, many believers advocate legal restrictions on homosexual behavior. A majority of born-again Christians, including more than four out of five evangelicals, say that homosexual relations between two consenting adults should be illegal.'
3. Millions of Americans, including two out of every five churchgoers, say that school boards ought to have the right to fire teachers who are known homosexuals. Of course the issues are complicated, but Christians are fueling the idea that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to work in public schools.
4. Many Christians continue to be very skeptical about donating to HIV/AIDS causes, even overseas, despite Christians' generosity in many other arenas. In one poll we found that just 14 percent of born-again Christians say they would be highly motivated to help HIV/AIDS orphans overseas. In another study we discovered that two out of every five born-again Christians, including the same proportion of evangelicals, admitted they have more sympathy for people who have cancer than they do for people with HIV/AIDS. In probing people’s attitudes, we find this perspective typically springs from the idea that the disease is deserved. They believe God is punishing these people—or that their decisions and lifestyle deserve this outcome.
As you will see, our criticism of gays and lesbians is not only ineffective, but also it repels many 16 to 30 year olds. As one survey respondent put it, "I cannot imagine Jesus actually treating gays and lesbians like Christians do today." (end quote)
I then offered a few criticisms of the book. First, I think Kinnaman needs to address the fact that many in the evangelical church are uninterested in being popular. He understands that, but I think he could’ve headed off that particular criticism by addressing it in the book. UnChristian isn’t trying to make the case that the church should be concerned about its popularity, but I am concerned that some will dismiss its criticisms by simply calling it Emergent and focused only on worldly popularity.
Second, although the book is addressed to Christians, he doesn’t illustrate what we can do to directly engage these perceptions. I then turned to my own suggestions for how Evangelicals and Homosexuals could talk to one another.
UnChristian is not an earth-shattering work. It is a fairly straightforward book, including numerous anecdotes, that provides a context for how outsiders view the evangelical subculture. I shared with the group that there are six areas where Kinnemann takes us evangelicals to task. One of these views that Outsiders (nonChristians) have is that they believe that Christians are anti-homosexual. Kinnamann then produces evidence to support this viewpoint (directly quoted from UnChristian) :
1. Born-again Christians are more likely to disapprove of homosexuality than divorce. The vast majority of Christians say that homosexuality should not be considered a legitimate lifestyle and strongly reject church-sanctioned weddings for same-sex unions. However, a minority of born-again believers (39 percent) embrace Jesus's teaching that divorce is a sin except in cases of adultery (see Matt. 5:32). Even among evangelicals, just three out of five describe
divorce as a sin, well below their opposition to gay marriage.
2. Most born-again Christians have a hard time knowing how they
should respond to the lifestyles of homosexuals as well as how to respond to the political efforts of gay and lesbian activists. For instance, many believers advocate legal restrictions on homosexual behavior. A majority of born-again Christians, including more than four out of five evangelicals, say that homosexual relations between two consenting adults should be illegal.'
3. Millions of Americans, including two out of every five churchgoers, say that school boards ought to have the right to fire teachers who are known homosexuals. Of course the issues are complicated, but Christians are fueling the idea that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to work in public schools.
4. Many Christians continue to be very skeptical about donating to HIV/AIDS causes, even overseas, despite Christians' generosity in many other arenas. In one poll we found that just 14 percent of born-again Christians say they would be highly motivated to help HIV/AIDS orphans overseas. In another study we discovered that two out of every five born-again Christians, including the same proportion of evangelicals, admitted they have more sympathy for people who have cancer than they do for people with HIV/AIDS. In probing people’s attitudes, we find this perspective typically springs from the idea that the disease is deserved. They believe God is punishing these people—or that their decisions and lifestyle deserve this outcome.
As you will see, our criticism of gays and lesbians is not only ineffective, but also it repels many 16 to 30 year olds. As one survey respondent put it, "I cannot imagine Jesus actually treating gays and lesbians like Christians do today." (end quote)
I then offered a few criticisms of the book. First, I think Kinnaman needs to address the fact that many in the evangelical church are uninterested in being popular. He understands that, but I think he could’ve headed off that particular criticism by addressing it in the book. UnChristian isn’t trying to make the case that the church should be concerned about its popularity, but I am concerned that some will dismiss its criticisms by simply calling it Emergent and focused only on worldly popularity.
Second, although the book is addressed to Christians, he doesn’t illustrate what we can do to directly engage these perceptions. I then turned to my own suggestions for how Evangelicals and Homosexuals could talk to one another.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
A Love That's Stronger Than our Fears (I)
**Note, I'm tired of thinking about PSC stuff right now, so the next few posts will cover an experience I had this week***
Last year I was asked to speak at a Gay and Lesbian support group on campus. The faculty advisor is an agnostic, but understands the importance of faith in the lives of people (particularly in our section of the South). The topic she asked me to address was what the Bible teaches about homosexual acts After much prayer and no small degree of anguish I accepted, knowing that my views would run counter to those of the members of the group as well as the advisor. But the students were respectful and though some (obviously) challenged my readings of the texts, the conversation was quite courteous.
A couple of months ago she asked me to come back and give a book review of a recent Barna book called UnChristian (a book that Benjie is also currently working through). This book presents research showing what outsiders (nonbelievers) think of evangelical Christianity. One chapter of the book shows that outsiders perceive Christians as being fundamentally anti-homosexual. Because of this perspective, the faculty advisor asked me to come by and review the work.
With everything else on my plate, I was less that receptive to going back. Last year’s presentation required a lot of preparation and mental energy that I wasn’t sure I would have. Some friends at church advised against going telling me “It is a set up, a trap!” But after much prayer and thinking about how to respond, it was my brother Bartolo who crystallized it for me. He asked me a simple question “Would Jesus go to their meeting?”
Without hesitation I knew the answer, he would. And if he would, then I obviously would need to do so.
I hate it when Bartolo gives me sound advice...(at least it doesn't happen too often ;)
Last year I was asked to speak at a Gay and Lesbian support group on campus. The faculty advisor is an agnostic, but understands the importance of faith in the lives of people (particularly in our section of the South). The topic she asked me to address was what the Bible teaches about homosexual acts After much prayer and no small degree of anguish I accepted, knowing that my views would run counter to those of the members of the group as well as the advisor. But the students were respectful and though some (obviously) challenged my readings of the texts, the conversation was quite courteous.
A couple of months ago she asked me to come back and give a book review of a recent Barna book called UnChristian (a book that Benjie is also currently working through). This book presents research showing what outsiders (nonbelievers) think of evangelical Christianity. One chapter of the book shows that outsiders perceive Christians as being fundamentally anti-homosexual. Because of this perspective, the faculty advisor asked me to come by and review the work.
With everything else on my plate, I was less that receptive to going back. Last year’s presentation required a lot of preparation and mental energy that I wasn’t sure I would have. Some friends at church advised against going telling me “It is a set up, a trap!” But after much prayer and thinking about how to respond, it was my brother Bartolo who crystallized it for me. He asked me a simple question “Would Jesus go to their meeting?”
Without hesitation I knew the answer, he would. And if he would, then I obviously would need to do so.
I hate it when Bartolo gives me sound advice...(at least it doesn't happen too often ;)
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