I've stayed off the politics board for pretty much my entire boards career. In light of recent events in North Carolina, a state that will always hold a dear place in my heart, I feel it is necessary to venture here today to get a few things off my chest.
I imagine that there were some votes for the amendment today from non-Christians. I know for sure that there were votes against the amendment cast by Christians. But, on the whole, there's little debate that conservative Christians (two words that I use to describe myself) were the driving force behind passing this amendment. In light of that, I offer the following:
There's a great passage in Donald Miller's book Blue Like Jazz where he and some friends set up a "confession" booth on the campus of Reed College in Portland. This booth, however, is designed as a reverse confession booth, where instead of people coming in and confessing their own sins, the Christians in the booths confessed to the many sins of the church, and engaged in open dialogue with anyone who ventured in.
I'm sad to say that it's time to add another sin to the already lengthy list we Christians have to confess. I'd like to get the process started:
I confess that we, as conservative Christians, are as intolerant as any group in this country. We find it easier to live life the way we always have, and are incredibly adept at finding "Biblical" ways to justify keeping it that way.
I'm sure everyone is aware that we conservative Christians like to passionately declare our desire to have a country who's laws are grounded in the Bible, but I confess that we really only mean it if it's convenient for us.
I confess to judging everyone else by a (Biblical) law that we ourselves are wholly incapable of keeping. In fact, in more cases than not, we really don't even try. And instead of working to hold ourselves to that higher standard, we try to legislate the parts we particularly like on everyone else.
I confess that we are not very good at loving our neighbors the way Christ first loved us. We move much too quickly to pick up the stones that just as deservedly could be pointed back at us. To paraphrase the songwriter Derek Webb, I confess that we pretend to be "living right" by trading our sins for others that are easier to hide. I believe it would be a sobering statistic to know the number of Christian husbands who voted for this amendment, and then returned home and ignored their families for a late night porn session and/or trip to the bottom of a bottle.
I could continue, but I think I'll leave it with this lyric, also from Webb's "I Repent"
I'm sorry that this has been handled this way. It's hypocritical and makes me sad. I hope you'd agree that we are entitled to believe what we'd like about what is and isn't a sin in God's eyes (and we may even have our own internal debate about it), but that doesn't give us the right, or even the reason, to force it upon anyone else through civil legislature. I have a passionate loyalty towards both the church and this country, but there should never be a reason for them to intersect in this way. I hope we can correct our error sooner than later.
I imagine that there were some votes for the amendment today from non-Christians. I know for sure that there were votes against the amendment cast by Christians. But, on the whole, there's little debate that conservative Christians (two words that I use to describe myself) were the driving force behind passing this amendment. In light of that, I offer the following:
There's a great passage in Donald Miller's book Blue Like Jazz where he and some friends set up a "confession" booth on the campus of Reed College in Portland. This booth, however, is designed as a reverse confession booth, where instead of people coming in and confessing their own sins, the Christians in the booths confessed to the many sins of the church, and engaged in open dialogue with anyone who ventured in.
I'm sad to say that it's time to add another sin to the already lengthy list we Christians have to confess. I'd like to get the process started:
I confess that we, as conservative Christians, are as intolerant as any group in this country. We find it easier to live life the way we always have, and are incredibly adept at finding "Biblical" ways to justify keeping it that way.
I'm sure everyone is aware that we conservative Christians like to passionately declare our desire to have a country who's laws are grounded in the Bible, but I confess that we really only mean it if it's convenient for us.
I confess to judging everyone else by a (Biblical) law that we ourselves are wholly incapable of keeping. In fact, in more cases than not, we really don't even try. And instead of working to hold ourselves to that higher standard, we try to legislate the parts we particularly like on everyone else.
I confess that we are not very good at loving our neighbors the way Christ first loved us. We move much too quickly to pick up the stones that just as deservedly could be pointed back at us. To paraphrase the songwriter Derek Webb, I confess that we pretend to be "living right" by trading our sins for others that are easier to hide. I believe it would be a sobering statistic to know the number of Christian husbands who voted for this amendment, and then returned home and ignored their families for a late night porn session and/or trip to the bottom of a bottle.
I could continue, but I think I'll leave it with this lyric, also from Webb's "I Repent"
I'm sorry that this has been handled this way. It's hypocritical and makes me sad. I hope you'd agree that we are entitled to believe what we'd like about what is and isn't a sin in God's eyes (and we may even have our own internal debate about it), but that doesn't give us the right, or even the reason, to force it upon anyone else through civil legislature. I have a passionate loyalty towards both the church and this country, but there should never be a reason for them to intersect in this way. I hope we can correct our error sooner than later.
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