Love Wins

It saddens me when I see people use the Bible to pick on a group of people. The Christian experience with the homosexual community reflects this.

Pointing to the Bible, many Christians say homosexuality is bad. But the same book also condemns many other things, then changes its mind later on. Or, sometimes we ignore Biblical rules outright. Christians, it seems, hate to admit this.

I don't think it's so simple to point to the handful of verses about homosexuality and say, "Aha! It's bad!"

In a nutshell, I'm not convinced homosexuality is some great evil, because....

1. The Bible is not clear what 'sin' is. If anything, there is a shifting standard.

Polygamy

It's overlooked in the Old Testament, if not outrightly condoned. Jacob had two wives and two child-bearing servants. Their children became the basis of the 12 tribes of Israel. Further, David had a harem of at least 10 concubines (2 Samuel 15:16) and Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (I Kings 11:3).

Yet, the Bible later discourages polygamy. (See, e.g., I Timothy 3:2). So what about these great men of the Bible?

Warfare

It's commanded at the time of Joshua, then heavily discouraged by Jesus' teachings on the Sermon on the Mount. See e.g., "Blessed are the peacemakers" and "turn the other cheek" against violence. (Matthew 5:9, 39).

Civilian massacres

This was also commanded for Joshua, but incompatible with the words of Jesus. The examples of Jesus' love for people are numerous, but "love thy neighbor as yourself" stands high for me. (Mark 12:31).

Tend the Garden

Mankind was to told to tend to the Garden (Genesis 2:15). Yet, God commanded Joshua to hamstring captured horses. (Joshua 11:6). This bothers me - why not just kill them?

Capital punishment

It's encouraged throughout the Mosaic Code, but then discouraged with the teachings of Jesus. Most notably, "let him who is without sin cast the first stone." (John 8:7).

Pork eating

It's prohibited according to the Leviticus dietary laws, but then it's not. Jesus even states that food has no spiritual effect. (Matthew 15:11, but also see Peter's vision of Acts 10).

Sabbath breaking

The first Sabbath breaker was stoned to death for collecting firewood. (Numbers 15:32-36). Then Jesus collected food in the field. (Mark 2:23-27). Relatedly, Joash, a Godly king, stationed soldiers on the Sabbath. (2 Kings 11:5-9).

Divorce

It's first accepted, then discouraged by Jesus in Matthew 19.


Lesson learned
From the above, I see a shift within the Bible to one of greater freedom.

The rationale for the divorce change is interesting. It was originally permitted because of the "hardness of your hearts." (Matthew 19: 8). In other words, it was a rule contextualized to the time.

What other rules in the Bible reflect another era's context and not something we should necessarily follow today?

There are others, which we take for granted today.


2. The shifting standard seeing the context for rules, if not ignoring them, remains today.

Slaves, obey your masters

Sorry, but the Bible commands this. (Ephesians 6:5). In the prelude to the American Civil War, American church denominations divided on the modern application of this rule. The Union's victory against the Confederacy determined which Biblical application American churches would follow.

Women should cover their heads during prayer 

Otherwise, it's akin to having her head shaved. (1 Cor. 11:5-6). The analogy to head shaving means that Paul didn't mean that hair alone was a suitable head covering for women. 

Aside from the East Orthodox tradition, modern churches regularly disregard this instruction.

Women should remain silent in churches

The churches that follow this rule limit it to female church leaders, but Paul clarifies he means absolute silence. If women don't understand something at church, they must ask their husbands at home. (1 Cor. 14:34-35).

Fortunately, churches do not gag women while they are at church.

Rape victims must marry their rapists
Although it appears in the Old Testament (Deut. 22:28-29), which most Christians splice apart anyway, it should caution us about the context and times in which Biblical rules appear. 

Fortunately, this is also ignored.

3. What about embracing 'sin' as a culture?
Some people think that legalizing homosexuality as a nation would be to endorse sin. Notwithstanding the Establishment Clause implications of laws based on religious morality, I find the United States celebrates a number of sins. In fact, it embeds them deep into the foundations of society.


Greed
The love of money is the root of all evils. (1 Timothy 6:10). Yet it is a force embedded deeply into market capitalism.


Rebellion
Samuel famously likened rebellion to witchcraft. (1 Samuel 15:23). Granted, in context, he may have referred to rebellion against God and not political rebellion. But certainly, the Bible speaks of obeying one's political authorities, such as giving "to Caesar what is Caesar's." (Mark 12:17).

As we all know, the United States was born of a political rebellion. We celebrate it, but I can't say it was a "Christian" thing to do.


Theft
"Thou shalt not steal" is one of the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20:15). Yet, the United States as we know it was born of the theft of land. In our history, we broke land agreement treaties with the Native Americans, Mexico, and the Hawaiian monarchy for land, and enforced the land theft through military force.

We also supported our allies to steal land. This occurred in 1947 with the foundation of the modern state of Israel. Sorry to state the obvious, but this stole land from the Palestinians. Yet, many American Christians venerating America's partnership with Israel. By doing so, they validate and celebrate this sin.


4. What definition of 'sin' should we use that transcends time?

Evil exists. Don't get me wrong, I believe that. 

But God is also love. (1 John 4:8). Love does not harm. (Romans 13:10). We must remember these when we apply Biblical rules in the modern world. 

As for a good principle, does it love thy brother or cause harm? 

Sometimes enforcing a Biblical rule in the modern world would cause great harm. This post has many such examples.

5. Conclusion

I must also conclude that applying the Bible's rules against homosexuality would cause great harm in the modern world, particularly if one were born homosexual.

Love wins.

America as a "Christian Nation"

Many Christians in America assert that the Founding Fathers intended the nation to be Christian. Some go as so far to say there was even a covenant between God and the Founding Fathers that America should remain Christian.

Some even say that 9/11 was God's anger against America for leaving our Christian heritage. This was the plot of a book, called the Harbinger. The book was a huge hit among social conservatives, but has no readership beyond that.

Personally, I find the 9/11 connection highly insulting.

Anyway, this whole nonsense about Founding Father's making America Christian generally rears its ugly head in our social controversies - prayer in public schools, support for Israel, evolution in schools, and of course gay marriage. 

So, how exactly was America bound to God?

Ten years ago, I saw Oliver North on television outline something similar, but pointed to the Declaration of Independence for support. Nevermind that the DOI was not the Constitution and the author himself cut up the Bible to remove the miracles. He was a Deist.

I think enough people are now aware of the Jefferson Bible so at least they stopped talking about Jefferson. But now it's moved onto Washington's inaugural prayer.

The social conservatives want to bring America back to God. 

As if we ever were. 

Here are my problems with this whole idea.

1. Slavery and Racism

If America was founded under Christian principles, then it justifies all the terrible racist injustices of our early history. Both slavery and this mistreatment of Indians are justified. 

Of course, no one actually admits this, but that is precisely the case.

2. lack of legal justification

The founding father's wrote a Constitution to protect religious liberty. 

George Washington had no authority to bind America to God. Such would have been a treaty with a foreign power and would have required 2/3 majority of the Senate anyway.

But why would he want to? If he did that, he would be acting as king and we had just fought a war to remove kingship from America.

3. Lack of spiritual justification

If you read Washington's prayer, it's a prayer of thanks, not a vow. As an analogy, giving God thanks at Thanksgiving does not bind one as a Nazarite or monastery. But that's what they would have you believe.

4. Damages Christianity

By using legislation to force people to act Christian, it's a huge turn off to secularists to explore the Christian faith. If you don't believe me, look at Europe. Centuries of enforcing Christianity through the government lead to an even more secularized society, not a Christian one.

5. Historical revisionism

Many of the Founding Fathers were Deists. To the extent they were Christian, they used Deistic language. 

Bible and Government - Melchizedek

So, for now, I plan to go through the Bible and look at what it has to say about world government. One aspect of this will be looking at the various statesmen.

We will start with Melchizedek.

According to Genesis 14 and Hebrews 7, Melchizedek was both the King of Salem and High Priest of God. So, he had a dual function role of political and religious leader.

In Genesis 14, Abram wins a major victory and meets with the kings of the various local city states, including Salem. In Hebrews 7, the author highly analogizes him to Christ.

We wonder why the Bible does not discuss Melchizedek more. Who was he? Where did he come from? How did he become high priest? Why does the Bible story follow Abram and not Melchizedek?

Melchizedek must have had a lot more power, prestige, in his day. Yet, so little we can glean about him. Even Hebrews 7 mentions these mysterious aspects about him, saying 'Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.' (v. 3).

Some might goes so far as to statement this means he actually was Christ. I think the statement of his lake of genealogy could be taken metaphorically, meaning not that he didn't have one, but none is described. Yet, he was high priest. So, he could have been the first high priest of all time.

Yet, the Genesis account overshadows him for someone more important in terms of the Biblical story, which is Abram. It is like Melchizedek is only a supporting cast member in the life of Abram.

We can only get from this a sense of humility. Melchizedek takes a back seat and lets the story unfold around Abram.

So, what can the Christian statesmen learn? We might have to use our power, influence, and role to raise up others.

The Bible and Government

I'm going to start a new project. My interest is the relationship between Christianity and world government.

I'm reviewing what others have said, some of which I will critique here. But I want to approach it from a fresh perspective.