LGBT theology

To Bishop Spong, the debate is over but in case you don’t agree I’ll add my view. It seems that much – if not most – of the scriptural basis for considering homosexuality as sin can reasonably be interpreted as referring to homosexual rape rather than homosexuality itself. Don’t throw Leviticus into the argument unless you are willing to stop cherry picking and accept the whole thing (eg “Anyone who curses father or mother must die:” Leviticus 20:9). Beyond that, there are conflicts and inconsistencies in the bible and we need to go with the higher, and more general interpretation.

The first thing we have to realize is that being gay, lesbian or transsexual is not a lifestyle choice. The Lake Wobegon motto fits: “Sumus Quid Sumus” – we are what we are. Does anyone really think that someone would choose to be gay with all its disadvantages and risks just because it would be fun? How about those gay people in places where it was or is extremely dangerous? In some parts of the world it’s the death penalty if you’re found out! Furthermore, there is evidence of physical differences in the brain associated with homosexuality. Animals have been known to display homosexual behavior (New Scientist, Biological Exuberance). The claims that gay men can be made straight by proper training are nonsense – they merely show that there are circumstances under which we can suppress our true nature – at least for a while – and usually at considerable cost to ourselves!

If we accept God as a loving God then would this God create a whole class of people who are doomed to spend their life suppressing their own God given nature? This hardly is a vision of a loving God!

If we look to Jesus, we see someone who often hung out with assorted marginalized people to the scandal of the proper and respectable citizens. He suggested that one had better be careful before judging someone else. Who did he condemn? It’s summarized in the judgment section of Matthew 25: It’s not gays and lesbians – no, the fire and brimstone are reserved for people who ignored those on the bottom. “I was hungry and you didn’t give me food, thirsty and you didn’t give me drink, a stranger and you didn’t welcome me, sick and in prison …..” Not a word about “you were gay…”

The sanctity of marriage issue also is subject to all sorts of distortions. The view that the “one man one women” marriage is a sort of universal concept is nonsense. Marriage is a social construct that varies with time and place and can have many forms. Marriage evolves – look at the changes in our own society in just the last hundred years. How many people want to go back to the form of marriage in Jesus’ time? One man and possibly many women; the women basically property; different definitions of, and punishments for, adultery applying to husband and wife….

The bit that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage also is pure nonsense. Yes, the institution of marriage in our country has major problems – but these problems have nothing to do with civil unions or gay marriage. For children one can see some advantage to having parents of different genders – but the advantage of having two parents instead of one is of much greater importance. Research in this area has been distorted by some on the right. In any case, the difference between individuals far outweighs everything else.

The argument that the purpose of marriage is to have children – be fruitful and multiply – may have had some substance a few thousand years ago. However, we are supporting our present population levels through the unsustainable consumption of resources such as oil, gas and water – all combined with enormous environmental damage. Therefore it is in the best interest of God’s creation that we stop multiplying! (See our blog, The world in transformation, on this subject.)

Recruiting generation Y

It seems pretty clear that there are worldwide hard times ahead. It also seems pretty clear that the Episcopal church in its present form is going to have a more and more limited role in shaping the path that our society takes in navigating the troubles of the future. The aging of the church – average age now 62 vs. the national average of 32 – unless it is reversed — is a clear indication of its diminishing influence. Dramatic changes in the church’s approach to ministry are the only thing that will prevent it from becoming essentially irrelevant. There are some stirrings, for example see “Seizing the Episcopal Moment.” In any case, inspiring and recruiting generation Y will be critical to forming any significant role for the church.

It should be noted that the problem is not confined to the Episcopal church – or to mainstream churches in general. Other organizations or movements – such as the traditional civil right movement – have similar issues though the causes might be quite different.

The question that needs looking at then is what drives the young. This post is not about providing a how-to-do-it list for motivating generation Y – much less about building new structures to involve them. Rather, it is an attempt to provide some basic understanding of generation Y, and the situation they’re in, so that we can think reasonably clearly about possible approaches.

Just as the world is at a unique point in history so is our social environment – and especially that of young people. Situations vary across the globe but a lot of the fundamental drivers stay the same. Let’s look at three areas for some insight: violence in the Muslim world, the retreat to fantasy worlds, and our society’s disconnect from the world of nature.

First Scott Atran, an anthropologist, just gave a statement to the Senate titled “Pathways to and From Violent Extremism.” Some important points, mostly as summarized by John Robb (blog: Global Guerrillas):

• The threat today is from a Qaeda –inspired viral social and political movement, which is particularly contagious among Muslim youth who are increasingly marginalized — economically, socially, politically — and are in transition stages in their lives, such as immigrants, students, and those in search of friends, mates and jobs.
• Economic globalization, which has led to greater access by humankind to material opportunity, has also led to a crisis, even collapse, of cultures, as people unmoored from millennial traditions flail about in search of a social identity. Today’s most virulent terrorism is rooted in rootlessness and restlessness.
• Individuals now mostly radicalize horizontally with their peers, rather than vertically through institutional leaders or organizational hierarchies. They do so mostly in small groups of friends — from the same neighborhood or social network — or even as loners who find common cause with a virtual internet community.
• Entry into the jihadi brotherhood is from the bottom up: from alienated and marginalized youth seeking out companionship, esteem, and meaning, but also the thrill of action, sense of empowerment, and glory in fighting the world’s most powerful nation and army.
• The boundaries of the newer terrorist networks are very loose and fluid, and the internet now allows anyone who wishes to become a terrorist to become one, anywhere, anytime.
• More and more, terror networks are intertwined with petty criminal networks: drug trafficking, stolen cars, credit card fraud, and the like.
• Although lack of economic opportunity often leads to criminality, it turns out that some criminal youth really don’t want to be criminals after all. Given half a chance to take up a moral cause, they can be even more altruistically prone than others to give up their lives for their comrades and cause.
• This is one indication — and our research reveals others — that economic opportunities alone may not turn people away from the path to political violence. (Indeed, material incentives, whether “carrots” or “sticks,” can even backfire when they threaten core values, as our recent research has shown for Israel, Palestine, Indonesia, and Iran). Rather, youth must be given hopes and dreams of achievement, and plausible means to realize such hopes and dreams.

As our economy stumbles along things may get a little better for a while. Not too many years ago there were good jobs – or perhaps more accurately jobs for people with limited skills – that payed decent wages. Mostly they were the union jobs, the factory jobs. Globalization will make sure that they’re not coming back! As we move further and further into economic disintegration, young people will be faced with an increasingly bleak future, a future that – especially in the US – they have not been prepared for. For them expect tomorrow’s conditions will be more like those in today’s Muslim world.

One response that can be expected is an increase in violence. We already saw flash mobs in Philadelphia, booby traps for the police in Hemet, CA, and then Hutaree came along (“Christian” Warriors building IEDs to kill cops at funeral processions for cops they’ve already killed). Read comments in the Reminder or listen to the tea partyers talk and you’ll find lots of anger. A lot – but not all of the anger and violence — is by an older generation. Given a suitable trigger, that anger can fuel the spread of a great deal more violence.

However, at this time a retreat from reality is the major escape route for many of the world’s young people. Thanks again to Global Guerrillas for some statistics and insightful observations:

“We’re witnessing what amounts to no less than a mass exodus to virtual worlds and online game environments.” Edward Castronova (an economist who studies online games)

• Active online gamers spend 10,000 hours of play by the time they are 21 (almost as much as the time spent in school).
• There are 500 million active online gamers worldwide (that will grow to 1.5 billion in the next 10 years).
• 3 billion hours a week are spent playing online games.

Here’s the big idea. For active online gamers real life is broken. It doesn’t make any sense. Effort isn’t connected to reward. The path forward is confused, convoluted, and contradictory. Worse, there’s a growing sense that the entire game is being corrupted to ensure failure. So, why play it?

They don’t. They retreat to online games. Why? Online games provide an environment that connects what you do (work, problem solving, effort, motivation level, merit) in the game to rewards (status, capabilities, etc.). These games also make it simple to get better (learn, skill up, etc.) through an intuitive just-in-time training system. The problem is that this is virtual fantasy.

John Robb has some ideas:

So the really big idea isn’t figuring out how to USE online gamers for real world purposes (as in the dirty word: crowdsourcing — the act of other people to do work for you for FREE — blech!). Instead, it’s about finding a way to use online games to make real life better for the gamers. In short, turn games into economic darknets that work in parallel and better than the broken status quo systems. As in: economic games that connect effort with reward. n Economic games with transparent rules that tangibly improve the lives of all of the players in the REAL WORLD.

This isn’t tech utopian. It’s reality. The global electronic marketplace and the political system that currently dominates our lives is at root a game but with hidden rule sets. As a result, it’s a game that being run for the benefit of the game designers to the detriment of the players. The reason we keep playing is that we don’t have any choice. Let’s invent something better and compete with it. Let’s provide people with a choice.

A NY Times piece on web use in China reached rather similar conclusions. For China’s young, the web is their escape and their primary form of entertainment – though games are just a part of the mix.

Another factor to consider is our disconnect from nature and the resulting search for authenticity. The theory here is that our society’s disconnect from nature has left a void that people are trying to bridge via a search for the authentic. [There's a book on the subject (Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want). Lots of 5 star reviews. It seems to mostly be about marketing techniques that convey a sense of authenticity and therefore have lots of customers. The conclusion seems to be that the best way to appear authentic is to be authentic – which actually is not possible for a corporation within a corporate capitalist framework.]

I have no idea on whether this is a stronger or weaker effect among young people but definitely would expect it to be significant. Certainly, by the directions our society has taken, young people today are more disconnected from nature than previous generations were. Rebuilding the connection is critical to any movement towards a just and sustainable future.

Some thoughts on connecting with generation Y:

• Try to catch them at transition stages in their lives, before their troubles get too big, and before they take a plunge into violent or other destructive paths.
• Offer a believable better future – especially to the marginalized or about to be marginalized.
• An approach has to become a viral movement to become widespread (but how do you predict whether an approach has that potential?)
• It has to be bottom up, not top down, and if it works, spread will be in a horizontal not vertical path, with essentially peer to peer connections.
• A strong web component will be necessary and it must be consistent with the way gen Y uses the web (which changes regularly).
• Somehow, somewhere it must include at least the possibility of reconnection to the natural world.
• It should provide:

worthwhile non-material rewards,

some form of community that allows the development of roots,

opportunity for learning/growth/advancement.

• It must be:

transparent

honest

just

non-hierarchal

have a fluid, nonrigid structure

One possible model to look at for inspiration is the open source community: Large, much more powerful than generally acknowledged, growing rapidly. There are lots of different kinds of open source communities ranging from web based to warfare. Obviously, not all of them are good neighbors!

I’m thinking now of the web based open source movement that gives us creativity – eg the Wiki and Wikipedia – as well as powerful alternatives to Microsoft and Apple. This community represent a relatively young demographic. Creativity and hard work are valued as is sharing, openness, support for others. These virtues are rewarded with respect and a chance of making a living doing what you enjoy (but hardly a path to riches).

Us vs the environment

We humans and our technology always have been hard on the environment. Back about 13,000 years ago, in America, the Clovis people developed a way of making very effective spears for hunting mammoths. In a span of at most 450 years these huge mammoths became extinct.  Whether Clovis hunting was the prime cause can be debated – but it certainly made at least a contribution to the demise of the mammoth – and a number of other species Read more

Reflection for Sunday May 24

For one in place of Judas
The apostles sought God’s choice
The lot fell to Matthias
For whom we now rejoice.

Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, written by Luke, is puzzling in some respects.  It seems that an important position had to be filled.  The twelve apostles were now only eleven in number.  Yet there were supposed to be twelve of them.  Scholars speculate that the need for twelve stems from God’s use of that number throughout the Bible to represent God’s people: the twelve sons of Jacob leading to the twelve tribes of Israel (Jacob’s other name), the twelve gates of heaven in the Book of Revelation, and so on.  Whatever the reason, today’s story is set in the midst of some pretty stupendous goings-on:  first the witnessing by the apostles of the ascension of Jesus into heaven, followed by a number of days spent in prayer, and the ultimate event, the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

Sensing that the event we now call Pentecost required a full complement of witnesses, during those days of prayer the eleven decided to find someone to fill the place of Judas.  The person selected should be a former follower of John the Baptist, a consistent witness to Jesus’ ministry, and a witness to Jesus’ resurrection.  The apostles selected two individuals, one with a legacy of respectable names:  Joseph called Barsabbas also called Justus, and the second one called Matthias.  Apparently the two men presented excellent credentials, and the apostles were stymied as to the selection they should make.

For the moment put yourself into the sandals of those men.  Although each had followed Jesus from the time Jesus presented himself to John the Baptist through the days of ministry, through the passion and resurrection, neither had been called by Jesus to be one of the twelve apostles.  Did either want to be?  What was the advantage to being a known member of a group of people marked as followers of Jesus, preaching unbelievable happenings to sometimes unbelieving crowds, although Jews by birth and tradition somehow beginning to doubt the restriction of salvation to Jews alone, somehow beginning to suspect that the way things would turn out wasn’t what had always been anticipated?  Those apostles, after all, were not exactly members of an elite country club.  Nor did they sit on boards of powerful corporations.  Yet, apparently, both Justus and Matthias accepted their “nomination” to become an apostle, at the same time knowing that only one would be chosen.  Or to put it another way, knowing that one of them would not be chosen.

This is where each of us can identify with Justus and Matthias.  How many times have you put yourself into a situation in which you could come out the apparent loser?  Did you apply to a college, not sure you would get in?  Did you apply for a job not knowing what the odds were?  Did you run for class office?  Did you apply for an apartment, or a mortgage?  Did you seek membership in a club or civic group?  Did you try out for a sports team?  In general, did you ever put yourself on the line to reach a goal?  But of course you did.

Now here comes the interesting part:  the phrase “they cast lots for them.”  The casting of lots is an event appearing frequently throughout the Bible.  The process was used to make decisions falling into certain categories:  those involving the making of a just decision, a resolution of a dispute between two strong parties to avoid strife, and the seeking of Divine guidance for an appointment of a person to some office or the selection of an entity for some part of a ceremony.  So the apostles were familiar with the process as a means of seeking God’s help when faced with a difficult decision, one for which no apparent solution was evident.

The casting of lots was not a matter of voting.  Rather it was more akin to tossing a coin, heads Justus becomes the new twelfth apostle, tails Matthias does.  As we know, the coin came up tails, and Matthias became the “winner.”  The advantage to the process was the certainty on the part of all that God indeed had chosen Matthias.  From another standpoint, the advantage to the process was the certainty on the part of all, including Justus, that God had not chosen Justus.

Some questions arise.  The first is—what became of Justus?  We don’t know, because there are no further references to him in the Bible as we know it.  For that matter, though, there is no further mention of Matthias.  Apparently the point of this story in Acts is not to introduce us to the new Apostle, Matthias, whose adventures we will follow in the stories ahead, nor is it to introduce us to Justus so that we might profit from his example in stories to follow.  Neither man merits further attention.

Then why the story?  Some scholars argue that the purpose of the story is the process that is outlined for making the selection.  Criteria are set for certain roles in the new church, and a process is outlined that implies that even though candidates may be equal in their qualifications, God’s choice can be divined by prayer and the casting of lots. Today the latter has taken the form of actual voting, supposedly inspired by the Spirit whose help has been sought in prayer.  As our diocese moves forward in the process of electing a new bishop, we will hear more about the role of prayer and discernment in the selection of that person.

Finally, what about the rest of us?  Are we not the Justuses of the world?   We have not been called to ordained ministry, yet we are faithful witnesses to the ministry, passion, resurrection, ascension of Jesus, and we proclaim the coming of the Holy Spirit. We take risks in this witnessing, risks that at times don’t lead us in the direction anticipated.  We look for the good in whatever outcomes we experience.  Sometimes the college we didn’t get into resulted in our experiencing a much better education in another institution of higher learning.  Sometimes the job we didn’t get led to employment in an area more suited to us.  Sometimes the mortgage we were denied led us to another choice of residence in which we lived very happily.

Right.  But what about the other times?  This is where it helps to realize that just as Matthias could take comfort in the fact that God and not humans has chosen him as the replacement for Judas, so Justus could take comfort in the fact that God had not chosen him.  Having lived so intensely as a Christian during the past three years, that certainty and comfort probably came easy to Justus.  Sometimes that comfort and certainty doesn’t come easily to us.  Those are the times when we need to reaffirm our credentials as apostles:  witnesses to and participants in the ministry of Jesus, the passion, resurrection, ascension of Jesus, and receivers of the Holy Spirit.  As we rejoice in the selection of Matthias, we also rejoice in the non-selection of Justus, knowing that we are protected in Jesus’s name, through the word of God and the coming of the Spirit.

On spirituality, morality, theology…

This is our rather broad catchall category for posts related to spirituality, morality, theology, religion, faith, belief, worship, the church…..

Torture

After reading some of the recent commentary on torture it hit me that there really are two quite different objectives for those using this technique.  The first – and the only one that anyone ever will admit to – is to obtain important and accurate information;  the second is to break someone so that they’ll confess to something, implicate someone, or just get them to tell you what you want to hear.  Note that in this second case truth is completely irrelevant.  Read more