The Golden Image

Well I see him on the TV
Preachin' 'bout the promised lands
He tells me to believe in Jesus
And steals the money from my hand

Some say he was a good man
But Lord I think he sinned, yeah.

Twenty-two years of mental tears
Cries a suicidal Vietnam vet
Who fought a losing war on a foreign shore
To find his country didn't want him back
Their bullets took his best friend in Saigon
Our lawyers took his wife and kids,
No regrets

In a time I don't remember
In a war he can't forget
He cried forgive me for
What I've done there
'Cause I never meant the things I did"

And give me something to believe in
If there's a Lord above
And give me something to believe in.

~Poison, Something to believe in.

I've been reading since yesterday about this "Nashville Statement" released by a bunch of Southern Baptist bigwigs regarding gender and sexuality issues. This morning, I downloaded it and read the .PDF file. Let's take this a piece at a time:

"Evangelical Christians at the dawn of the twenty-first century find themselves living in a period
of historic transition. As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, it has
embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being. By and large the spirit
of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life. Many
deny that God created human beings for his glory, and that his good purposes for us include our
personal and physical design as male and female. It is common to think that human identity as
male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an
individual’s autonomous preferences. The pathway to full and lasting joy through God’s good
design for his creatures is thus replaced by the path of shortsighted alternatives that, sooner or
later, ruin human life and dishonor God."

That's according to your interpretation, bro. Other people have different understandings of God, or don't believe in the same one or the same interpretation of Him, or don't even believe in any gods at all...and that's fine. The same United States Constitution that allows them to believe thus also protects your right to believe what you believe and release silly declarations. The world is complex, deal with it.

This secular spirit of our age presents a great challenge to the Christian church. Will the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ lose her biblical conviction, clarity, and courage, and blend into the
spirit of the age? Or will she hold fast to the word of life, draw courage from Jesus, and
unashamedly proclaim his way as the way of life? Will she maintain her clear, counter-cultural
witness to a world that seems bent on ruin?

What I want to know, is WHY? Why does this age have a "Secular spirit?" Could it perhaps be, because a nationally-known Prosperity Gospel preacher whose "Church" is a 16,000 seat former Basketball arena had to be damned well shamed into opening his church-stadium to provide shelter for hurricane victims in a flooded city? Could it be because American Evangelical Christianity not only has been consistently on the wrong side of people's freedom and rights, but has aligned itself with a President that's so low-class he can go to a disaster area...and talk about himself and how big the crowd is?

The sheer "Fuck You" attitude of these rich people makes me very angry. I hope that whoever came up with the idea that wealth equals righteousness has a special place in hell.

I'm just saying, when your religion is known for shamelessly grubbing after money and political power in vain attempts to remake the country and the world in it's own hair-gelled, spit-shined, gold-plated, vacuously banal feel-good man-centered get-rich-quick-because-Jesus theological image, ya'll might have a fuckin' problem. When ya'll support greedy businessmen and politicians and systemic racism and wars and ignore what your own Prophet, the very Son of God told you to do...ya'll shouldn't be surprised when people either go out and find a different interpretation or maybe, just maybe, abandon your religion altogether.

American Christianity has become self-congratulatory bullshit for conservative white people, that treats the Bible as a self-help manual and accepts spiritual leaders who act like car salesmen and fortune-tellers.

You have to look to the Black Church for somebody that's speaking Truth to power, rather than lies to the powerless. Don't take my word for it, look for yourself.

I don't have to guess what Jesus would say about that, because the Word tells me exactly what He DID say:

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. ~Matthew 21:12-13

Got that? Good.

Meanwhile, as water flows like the sea over freeway interchanges...there are people, of all creeds, colors, races and religions, lining up not for aid...but to volunteer to provide it. They *Ain't* wearing their religion or their politics on their sleeve to be seen by Men in doing so.

I fully expect that a lot of these Cajun Navy good ol' boys with their air boats and fishing boats, if asked, would self-identify as conservatives. You know what? Unlike the Trumps, who could've both showed up in practical work clothes, started handing out blankets and bottled water and diapers and food along with American Army National Guardsmen, Baptist aid workers, Mexican Soldatos, both native-born and immigrant Muslim Imams and other volunteers from every walk of life, worked up a sweat and done an honest day's work and right or wrong, probably been lifted up as heroes and generated weeks worth of positive coverage and both approval points and ratings bumps in doing so...except that they declined the offer. Unlike the Trumps, the Cajun Navy good ol' boys are out there busting their asses doing dangerous work and doing it with their own boats, on their own dime and on their own time.

...And they ask for no glory in doing so.

Hey, church people, you want respect? You want the "Spirit of the age" to bend back your way? Get out there and get wet and dirty helping the people of Houston rebuild and rescuing old people out of flooded nursing homes. Respect is earned, Leadership, is earned. Every action, every day. Integrity above all, service before self, excellence in all that we do. It really is that simple.

We are persuaded that faithfulness in our generation means declaring once again the true story of the world and of our place in it—particularly as male and female. Christian Scripture teaches that there is but one God who alone is Creator and Lord of all. To him alone, every person owes glad-hearted thanksgiving, heart-felt praise, and total allegiance. This is the path not only of glorifying God, but of knowing ourselves. To forget our Creator is to forget who we are, for he made us for himself. And we cannot know ourselves truly without truly knowing him who made us. We did not make ourselves. We are not our own. Our true identity, as male and female persons, is given by God. It is not only foolish, but hopeless, to try to make ourselves what God did not create us to be. 

Would somebody please explain to me when the FUCK modern conceptions of gender and sexuality became central tenets of Christianity? Or are we just reacting negatively to social change, yet again? I'm gonna put it down as being the latter.

Also, believe it or not, nobody in America owes God (or ya'll) anything of the sort. According to what *I* was taught starting out as a Baptist, allegiance and praise and thanksgiving are to be given by one's own choice and of one's own free will or it doesn't count.

You have to believe it because you want to believe it. Now, social group dynamics and this and that or the other thing may play a part in that choice for each person, for good or ill...but at the end of the day no person can be compelled in their own heart and mind to either give or to owe God anything. Either we give our Belief freely because we desire to do so...or, in effect, we do not give it at all. Again, it comes down to respect, to trust, to faith in something greater than what can be seen with the eyes or touched with the hands. True belief in the Lord Jesus Christ as one's Savior and the Redeemer of sins and the Son of God may never...never...be compelled.

Ya'll might be able to get people to act all religious when you're looking, but that's about it.

We believe that God’s design for his creation and his way of salvation serve to bring him the greatest glory and bring us the greatest good. God’s good plan provides us with the greatest freedom. Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it in overflowing measure. He is for us and not against us. Therefore, in the hope of serving Christ’s church and witnessing publicly to the good purposes of God for human sexuality revealed in Christian Scripture, we offer the following affirmations and denials.

I'm serious, I think these people spend way too much time thinking about sex, especially sex that other people are having. Sorry, but the Christianity and conservatism that I was raised with included minding one's own business as part of the deal...and that's hard...but even the Good Book says none of this is supposed to be easy.

Let's get started:

WE AFFIRM that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride the church. WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship. We also deny that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made before God.

WE AFFIRM that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage. WE DENY that any affections, desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or outside marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality.

Oh, horse shit, the divorce rates, closeted gay praise-and-worship band members, Pastors on the Down-Low with their Grindr profiles and teenage and young adult technical virgins in your own churches...and the fact that all this stuff is known to and tacitly accepted by anybody who knows what's really going on in American church culture...put the lie to this crap. The fact that I can think of people who I know who make me think that goats have more dignity and self-respect and sexual morality than at least some Christians do tells me that whoever wrote this is full of crap and knows it.

Tell me something, if marriage isn't a human construct, why are humans the only creatures that get married?

WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in his own image, equal before God as persons, and distinct as male and female. WE DENY that the divinely ordained differences between male and female render them unequal in dignity or worth.

WE AFFIRM that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing. WE DENY that such differences are a result of the Fall or are a tragedy to be overcome.

Might want to explain that to your own believers, and do so using smaller words...because some of them don't get the parts that you are denying. Such have been part of Fundamentalist belief...for as long as there has been Christian Fundamentalism.

WE AFFIRM that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God’s design for self-conception as male or female. WE DENY that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the God-appointed link between biological sex and self-conception as male or female.

WE AFFIRM that those born with a physical disorder of sex development are created in the image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other image-bearers. They are acknowledged by our Lord Jesus in his words about “eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb.” With all others they are welcome as faithful followers of Jesus Christ and should embrace their biological sex insofar as it may be known. WE DENY that ambiguities related to a person’s biological sex render one incapable of living a fruitful life in joyful obedience to Christ.

WE AFFIRM that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture. WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.

First, science says you're wrong, and second, my own personal experience of interacting with LGBT people or even an asexual person (Maybe I should try out one of those longer acronyms?) tells me that this interpretation is wrong. No one wakes up in the morning and decides to "adopt" a gay or lesbian or bisexual or asexual or transgender "self-conception." You are what you are, and due to cultural, religious, social and various other factors some people might even have a hard time figuring that out.

That sucks, but it's the truth. I've seen people struggle to accept themselves.

Hell, I knew at least one dude who didn't figure out that he was gay until he was 70 years old and his wife of almost 50 years had died. In hindsight, you could see it in some ways. Fun fact, dude was a conservative and a Republican and very active in his church. We all pretty much rolled with it, when he figured it out. Maybe we didn't like it, necessarily...but he kept his private life private and that suited him and us church people at the time. When he died, every last one of us in the Bible Study group shook his partner's hand and offered our condolences. We all agreed that we felt we owed that to our brother. He'd been there for us. At his funeral his partner of several years...who was a church-going Polish Catholic and he got more shit from some of us Baptists about that than being gay...was right there along with his family and those who had a problem with that just didn't show up.

Maybe not everybody agreed with it all, certainly some things were said that might not be said today (and that they were said was accepted, with only occasional offense) but we had enough respect for him to accept his choices and enough respect for ourselves not to freak out and act like idiots.

We affirmed that we're all human beings, and not one of us was free from sin. We denied any claim to judge another man lest our own sins be held up against us.

WE AFFIRM that people who experience sexual attraction for the same sex may live a rich and fruitful life pleasing to God through faith in Jesus Christ, as they, like all Christians, walk in purity of life. WE DENY that sexual attraction for the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God’s original creation, or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel.

WE AFFIRM that sin distorts sexual desires by directing them away from the marriage covenant and toward sexual immorality— a distortion that includes both heterosexual and homosexual immorality. WE DENY that an enduring pattern of desire for sexual immorality justifies sexually immoral behavior.

WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness. WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

I'm just going to say here...that I'm starting to wonder if the people who wrote this crap have ever interacted with actual human beings? Again, you don't have to like somebody else's choices, but as I long ago did...you do have to recognize that other people's choices are simply not yours to make.

If you want them to make different choices, live the teachings that you say you believe and provide an example...be a "Light in the darkness" like we used to say...and hope and pray that your efforts have an effect. It may not be what you want. but if you want to lead someone to live a Christian...or more Christian...life then it might be a good idea to accept that a gay Christian is still a Christian and if they are to be judged then it's not for you to do the judging.

After all...you're not Christ. You don't know what that person has been through or what their brain chemicals tell the rest of their body and it's just that simple.

WE AFFIRM our duty to speak the truth in love at all times, including when we speak to or about one another as male or female. WE DENY any obligation to speak in such ways that dishonor God’s design of his image-bearers as male and female.

Here, I will most strenuously disagree. We have an obligation to respect other human beings, and if that means addressing them by whatever pronouns they prefer or picking the neutral ground of they, them, their, then that is what should be done. You cannot win somebody over to your point of view without common courtesy, decency and respect nor without establishing the comfort level and trust needed to have an open, honest conversation.

You have to talk TO people, not AT them.

I'm serious.

WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ gives both merciful pardon and transforming power, and that this pardon and power enable a follower of Jesus to put to death sinful desires and to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ is insufficient to forgive all sexual sins and to give power for holiness to every believer who feels drawn into sexual sin. WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender self-conceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the God-ordained link between one’s biological sex and one’s self-conception as male or female. WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ sanctions self-conceptions that are at odds with God’s revealed will. WE AFFIRM that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ’s death and resurrection forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person who repents of sin and trusts in Christ alone as Savior, Lord, and supreme treasure. WE DENY that the Lord’s arm is too short to save or that any sinner is beyond his reach.

Again, that's all fine and good that you want to affirm things that are basic Christian theology...but you might start with explaining this stuff to the average homophobe sitting in the pews, and making sure that they understand how it applies to The Other and that yes, indeed, it does apply.

Otherwise, all this has been is yet another patronizing exercise in self-congratulatory bullshit

Without that last part, and without that being emphasized, and without treating all those other people in all those articles like human beings and maybe accepting the fact that they're gay and that's not going anywhere...ya'll just wasted a lot of time and got yourselves blasted on social media for nothing.

My friend Tim calls that "Talking because you have the capability to talk."

Now instead of claiming that ya'll are persecuted and the "Spirit of the age" (whatever that means) is against you, consider this?

Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?

Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.

If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.

But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

~Daniel 3:14-18

In this time of our Basketball-stadium churches and our gold-plated President with his gold-plated toilets and overactive social media blabber-mouthing, where worshiping statues is apparently not out of the question at least for some people...ya'll might want to give some real thought to who really is holding up the golden image here, and who really IS representing the Truth.

But if not, be it known unto thee, O King...they were ready to die for the Truth, because they knew it was the Truth. Can you say that? Those men didn't need...didn't have...bright lights and glamour and TV to persuade them one way or the other. In fact they saw the equivalent of it in their own time and they rejected it, out of hand. They stood apart from the culture in which they lived, rather than trying to control and dominate it.

Might not be a bad idea to give that some consideration

Old rich white guys don't give a fuck about you, and they don't give a fuck about Jesus either. Every. Single. Time.

And Everything that Trump touches, dies.

Every. Single. Time.

Give that some thought...