This is the culmination of a few observations and arguments that I’ve had over the last couple weeks. This could perhaps be two separate postings, but I think it’ll work as one.
I watched an interview on The Colbert Report with a woman who wrote a book stating that essentially the ‘christian right’ has “shrunk God.” I don’t recall the name of the book or the author, but what she means by shrinking God is that in the political arena, Christianity is being reduced to two issues: gay marriage and abortion, neither of which Jesus himself ever explicitly talked about.
Her notion of shrinking God got me thinking…
If a visitor from outer space landed in America, someone with no preexisting knowledge of our society, what would he think?
If he were to watch or read our news in an attempt to ascertain what we’re all about, what would he find out? Something he would probably discover is that the Democrats and the ‘secular progressives’ are trying to destroy Christianity, which is supposed to be the crux of our society.
As he read on, he would probably come to the conclusion that this Christianity thing is about stopping abortion and gay marriage… you know, the two most important rules laid down by Jesus — the basis of christianity… hmmm.
No… that’s not right is it? No, the most important rules laid down by Jesus were to love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself. But, with the far right, which has claimed a monopoly on Christianity, fighting tooth and nail against universal health care and other social programs meant to help the poor and needy, how would our visitor ever actually get Jesus’ message about Christianity?
My argument is not in favor of government funded health care or any other social programs, but that fighting for those things seems more in line with what Jesus taught than fighting against gay marriage or abortion. It seems to me that a Christian who is political and feels it is not only his right, but his obligation to create laws forcing Christianity on the rest of the populace would be fighting to ensure that all Americans are taken care of and that no one is allowed to be rich; as the rich will have more trouble entering Heaven than a camel going through the eye of a needle.
And now I’ll attempt to take this a step further by examining the New Testament’s stance on marriage and gay marriage. If you’re thinking, ‘the Bible says it’s wrong, you’re not going to convince me otherwise, so I’m going to stop reading now,’ please don’t. My premise is not to convince anyone that the Bible condones or condemns homosexuality. That’s open to interpretation and between a person a whatever god he or she believes in. Rather, I want to point out an inconsistency in the application of Jesus’ rules.
The question I would like to propose is this: Using the Bible as their guide the life, why does the Christian right want to outlaw gay marriage while allowing divorce and second marriages to be legal?
I realize that sounds a little cryptic, so let me explain it and then pose it again…
Here are the general arguments I hear in response to gay marriage’s place in the bible:
1) God says in Leviticus that homosexual sex is an abomination.
2) God destroyed Sodom and Gemorrah because of all of the homosexual sex happening there.
3) Paul calls it unnatural in Romans.
4) Jesus said that marriage is between a man and a woman.
I pulled out my trusty Bible the other day and looked into these sections, here’s what i found:
1) Very true. But throughout the New Testament, it states that Jesus’ death essentially made the old laws obsolete.
2) While Genesis mentions that men go to Lot’s house wanting to have sex with his male visitors, the Bible never explicitly says that the cities were destroyed because of homosexuality. However, Ezekial 16 says: “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom, she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before Me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” No mention of homosexuality there either, but it does mention helping the poor. hmmm…
3) In the context of condemning idol worship, Paul calls homosexual acts unnatural. And for the continuation of the species, it certainly is unnatural as it kind of hinders any sort of natural reproduction. Interpret that as a blanket condemnation of homosexuality if you like, but it still says nothing about the state recognizing, for legal purposes, the union between two people of the same sex.
4) So I found the words, ‘God says marriage is between a man and a woman,’ but then I had this crazy notion to read it within the few sentences before and after it. And in doing so, I came to a startling realization… that’s not the end of his statement, and the question wasn’t ‘can two dudes get married?’
The question was, ‘can a married couple get a divorce.’ Jesus’ response is that not only is divorce wrong, but that marrying a divorced person is an act of adultery on the part of the divorced person and the second spouse. Jesus went on to explain that the 10 commandments, which includes you shall not commit adultery, are still valid under the new covenant. And that was one of those things that kind of made me go hmmm…
Anyone who believes that homosexuality goes against the Bible’s teachings is certainly entitled to that opinion, but what alarms me is that people are fighting harder against something that is, at best, implied in the New Testament than something that is explicitly forbidden by Jesus himself.
So I ask again: Using the Bible as their guide to life, why does the Christian right want to outlaw gay marriage (something never explicitly forbidden in the new testament) while allowing divorce and second marriages to be legal (even though it is expressly forbidden by Jesus himself)?
My desire is not to outlaw divorce, or to force Christians to believe that homosexuality is biological. My purpose is to shine a light on a glaring double standard with the hope that Christians who are political will stop dragging religion into politics and stop making the laws of our land based on outdated Biblical laws. Especially when those laws are based on implied sins while ignoring explicit sins. I hope that they will, in the words of Jesus, stop pointing out the speck of dust in their brother’s eye, while ignoring the plank in their own.
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4 comments:
Hey Steve.
Good thoughts, once again.
Moral conservatives often have a nostalgic view of history, pining for the "good old days" back when "family values" were widely accepted. Of course, those days never existed as they are being remembered. Domestic violence was seen as a normal part of marriage, black Americans were treated as second class citizens and homophobia was widespread. That doesn't sound like a very "moral" society, at least not that much better than today's.
There really is a culture war taking place in world today. In our country, Conservative Christians use religion as a weapon to maintain a false sense of control. In the Middle East, you have radical Islam that also uses religion and more extreme violence to maintain control. Neither American Conservatism nor Radical Islam are indicative of these larger religious traditions, though the followers would like us to believe differently.
I think you are right on your Biblical exegesis, but Conservative Christians are by and large an anti-intellectual group. They don't answer to reason, thats why many still believe Earth was created in 6 days about 5000 years ago. They are mainly protestant and very dogmatic. This lack of structure has lead to literally thousands of church groups all believing they are right on their Biblical interpretations.
You should check out Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Hofstadter. It is the single greatest book about American society that I have read. It is incredibly relevant today.
I gave barb a copy of this. She likes reading your thoughts.
Dad
its good. you wouldn't know such things unless you were to highlight the real versus. studying versus reading them makes a difference.
Well written Steve.
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