At The Border

As those who keep up with Borderlands know, we’ve been keeping an eye on the “emergent” wing of the Church (see our class “The Church in Emerging Culture”). Recently, a founding member of this movement came out with a pretty clear statement on where he stand on the question of homosexuality:

As I gained a little prominence as an author in the youth ministry world, people began asking me my opinion on homosexuality. I often quoted one of my seminary professors, Bill Pannell, who was involved in the civil rights movement. I had lunch with him during my last semester at seminary and as we drove back to campus he said to me, “Civil rights and abortion will be nothing compared to how the church has to deal with homosexuality. I’m glad it’s your generation and not mine who’ll have to figure that out.”

With that in mind, I always responded, “I’m holding that issue in abeyance. I haven’t made up my mind yet, and I’m in no hurry to. Homosexuality,” I would say, “I one issue that I don’t want to get wrong.”

And yet, all the time I could feel myself drifting toward acceptance that gay persons are fully human persons and should be afforded all of the cultural and ecclesial benefits that I am. (”Aha!” my critics will laugh derisively, “I knew he and his ilk were on a continuous leftward slide!”)

In any case, I now believe that GLBTQ can live lives in accord with biblical Christianity (at least as much as any of us can!) and that their monogamy can and should be sanctioned and blessed by church and state.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/tonyjones/2008/11/same-sex-marriage-blogalogue-h.html

Special thanks to my friend, Marc Vandermaas for this vid. It is a must see:

http://www.effectivestewardship.com/

Wow…

A rampaging mob of bargain hunters trampled a Long Island Wal-Mart employee to death early yesterday as he opened the store for the post-Thanksgiving sale - unleashing a stampede that blew the doors off the hinges.

A crowd of about 2,000 people eager to snatch up steeply discounted electronics had lined up outside the store at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, police said. When the doors were not opened exactly at 5 a.m. as advertised, the crowd became unruly.

“All of sudden, they started beating on the door, banging it down,” said shopper Camla Brown, 47. “They began shouting, ‘Open up! Open up!’ ”

Then, at 5:03 a.m., Jdimytai Damour, 34 - hired just for the holiday rush - opened the door, and a frenzied horde of hundreds surged forward, knocking him to the ground and crushing him, police said.

“They overran him and kept running into the store. They pushed right over his body,” said Nassau County Police Detective Lt. Michael Fleming. “Many of them did not even know he was down there.”

The force of the crowd - many of whom had begun lining up the previous night - bent the store’s outer door inward and shattered its glass. Several other employees were forced to jump atop soda-vending machines to avoid the rush, police said.

Other employees tried to battle forward to help Damour, but were pushed back by the crowd, Fleming said. Even officers responding to the scene had difficulty pushing through the mob to get to the fallen man.

“It was utter and complete chaos,” Fleming said.

Even though it was clear there was trouble, shoppers continued pushing forward, stepping over Damour’s crushed body, witnesses said.

“Nobody cared. They were still trying to get in. People were stampeding to get inside,” Brown said.

NOTE: Found this reflection in a writing journal from a while ago. Thought I’d share it. Otherwise, it’ll just get dusty. A bit rough around the edges, but hey, this is blogging!

As far as truth-claims go, Christianity is far from modest. Our faith doesn’t pull punches or tread lightly. We go for broke like no other religion ever has or ever will. And we don’t just claim the incredible; we claim a set of incredibles that seem almost incompatible. Think about it:

We speak of a God who is outside space and time. He is the Absolute. He stands at the origin of all things and is not contained by anything like what scientists call Reality. And yet, in the very next breath, Christians speak of this very same God wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

We speak of a God who is beyond comprehension. The most intricate Einstenian formula or subtle string of logical deductions hang like a three-year-old’s crayon creation from God’s refrigerator (Isn’t that cute!). And that’s actually giving way too much to the formulas and deductions. In reality, God’s knowledge, like his very being, is of a wholly different kind than that of humans. And yet, we claim that this God-beyond-comprehension has condescended and spoken to us. We claim that in Christ and Christ’s Book, the Bible, humans can comprehend reality in correspondence to God’s own perspective.

And let’s not even get to our claims about the nature of this God. He is one person. He is three persons. We are monotheists, worshipping three persons. The Trinity, above any other Christian claim, looks genius in the face and grins.

And, I’ve already tipped my hand to this, we don’t just claim that these are our best guesses about God. We go far beyond a seemingly humble, “At least, that’s how I see it” to a brashly confident, “This is how it is because God himself told us so.”

And of all the things God has told us, the Cross stands at the center and orients the rest. Christians love and treasure, write songs and poems about, make movies depicting, paint pictures of, preach sermons celebrating, and wear as jewelry the Cross. We say, because God has taught us to, that what happened outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago has everything to do with everything. This historical event is the lens through which history is understood, and without which, life is without meaning. In a culture that prizes self-definition more than existence, the idea that a Jewish man pinned up to die has final definitional power is an offense and a scandal.

But we say it just the same.

We live in a “your way right away” culture. Question: to what extent does this cultural attitude affect our relationship to God? To what extent do we choose to view God through the lens of our wants and desires rather than through the lens of his Word?

And–think about this–to what extent, and through what process, are we able to overcome our culture-bound perspective?

With all this in mind, here is a clip from a movie I walked out of at the theatre. Nevertheless, I think this scene satirically skewers consumer-religion in a pretty powerful way.

NOTICE: This clip contains two mild swear words. You will, and should, find the attitudes displayed offensive. But the question to ask is: to what extent does this overblown portrayal hit the nail on the head when it comes to American consumer-religion.

I don’t know how far you made it through the three YouTube vids in the last post. But if you didn’t see all of the third one, be sure to give it a look. One of the curious ironies of those who impose “ideological tolerance” on the rest of us is that they practice it so poorly themselves.

Here’s another example:

Sacramento theater director resigns in Prop. 8 aftermath

November 13, 2008

More Prop. 8 fallout

Scott Eckern, the Sacramento theater director whose political donation in support of California’s Prop. 8 ban on same-sex marriage turned into a lightning rod in the debate over gay rights, resigned Wednesday, saying he wanted to protect the California Musical Theatre, his artistic home since 1984, from further controversy.

Word of Eckern’s $1,000 donation — publicly reported under state elections law — spread rapidly on the Internet last week, and Eckern drew criticism from some prominent stage artists, including Tony Award-winning composer Marc Shaiman (”Hairspray”) and Jeff Whitty, the “Avenue Q” librettist.

“I am disappointed that my personal convictions have cost me the opportunity to do what I love the most,” Eckern, the nonprofit stage company’s artistic director since 2003, said in a written statement. By resigning, he said he hoped to “help the healing in the local theatergoing and creative community.”

– Mike Boehm

Since the passage of Proposition 8 in California, there have been a number of very vocal (and in some cases, violent) protests by those opposed to the proposition. According to the protestors, banning same sex marriage is no different than banning interracial marriage.

What do you think?

So…what do you think’s going on here?

You can catch your first view of the Consumers or Creators DVD/Small Group Guide bundle here. Help us get this off the ground with a strong first week launch!