One of the things I do to try and bring a wider readership to this blog it reach out to other bloggers and offer to exchange links. I don't restrict that search to those who totally agree with my views and that led to me contacting a gentleman named Jonathan Marlowe, who writes the blog "The Ivy Bush."
There have been times when these requests have been met with judgementalism by someone with a closed mind, but this was not one of them. Mr. Marlowe's politics lean to the left like mine, but his views on homosexuality are much further to the right. I explained my views in the e-mail I sent and he did something unusual; he visited this site, read some of my posts, and found value to the discussion over here desipte his disagreement.
Mr. Marlow agreed to link here and shared our e-mail exchange on his blog. I point this out here as a reminder that not all people who don't openly accept and validate homosexuality are sworn enemies of GLBT people. There are actually people on the other side of these issues who
will respectfully engage in an exchange of ideas, who are professing Christians yet bigoted and judgemental.
It was a pleasure to make the connection with Mr. Marlowe and exchange links. I encourage you to visit his blog.
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Jim,
ReplyDeleteI did visit his blog. At the present time, I could not reach out to someone like Jonathan Marlowe, for contrary to what you say here, I believe that he is indeed my sworn enemy. I believe he would vote for a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. I believe he would agitate to keep homosexual status from being discussed in school. I believe he would support banning openly Gay clergy from service in the church. He probably also thinks that AIDS was God's punishment on Gay people for being Gay.
The reason I believe these things is because he has obviously decided he's got the right to judge me, despite calling himself a Christian. He responds to what he doesn't understand not by praying for guidance, but by trying to place himself on God's throne, just like James Dobson, Pat Robertson and their ilk do. His "traditional view of homosexuality" undoubtedly comes from misinterpreted Bible scripture. He ought find an accurate translation of that same Bible and study the tenth chapter of Acts, verses 9-28, where God sends a vision down for Simon Peter to interpret. This was Simon Peter's interpretation of the vision: "God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean." And this is the teaching God Himself gave to Simon Peter: "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." I've shared this citation with you before. Of course, you're familiar with the Christ's prohibitions on judging others, and I expect Mr. Marlowe would be, too. Yet, he thinks he can ignore them in the case of Lesbians and Gay men. I think he needs to humble himself before God.
When it comes to LesBiGay issues, what's seems reasonable to a Straight person can be abhorrent to a Gay person . . . and I daresay Gay people can claim some degree of authority on their issues. As a heterosexual man, you see nothing wrong in meeting him on equal footing to discuss doctrine. Let me emphasize that the two of you are indeed meeting on equal footing, because your sexuality makes you "clean" in his eyes. Do you think he would see me in the same way? He would not! Any conversation he had with me would be tainted by condescension, self-righteousness, perhaps even loathing and contempt. Those things are unworthy of dialogue between Christians.
I won't establish regular dialogue with anyone who thinks himself qualified to place me outside the realm of God's love. To my thinking, that would be validating someone's exaggerated opinion of himself vis-a-vis God, which would be akin to idolatry.
Stuffed Animal,
ReplyDeleteWow, that's some serious anger you've got there, and I have no reason to doubt that there is good reason for it. However, from my vantage point the judgement you are passing on Jonathan Marlowe doesn't come across as all that much different than the judgement right wingers pass on GLBT people. From where I sit, neither one is right.
If GLBT people don't reach across to the other side, especially people who ARE willing to engage in civil discourse, then how can Christ use them to change minds and hearts?
Stuffed animal,
ReplyDeleteI can understand your anger. GLBT folks have suffered violence and other un-Christ-like slings and arrows from people like me. However, I would ask that you withold judgement on me until you know more about me.
I do not believe I am your sworn enemy. I would not vote for a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. I would not agitate in schools to keep hoomosexual status from being discussed in school.
True, I agree with my United Methodist Church in its stance against ordaining self-avowed practicing homosexuals. But I have NEVER thought, said, or preached that AIDS is God's punishment on gay people. As a matter of fact, I have preached just the opposite.
I do not believe I have the right to judge you, although I do believe that the church should be faithful to its interpretation of Scripture.
I believe we all meet on equal footing at the foot of the cross because we are all sinners in need of God's grace.
I am not capable of placing anyone outside the realm of God's love, nor would I ever want to. In fact, no one can even place themselves beyond the realm of God's love, because God is just determined to have us all in the end.
In spite of your belief that I am your sworn enemy, I hold out the hope that we might one day be friends. God has done stranger things.
stuffed animal -
ReplyDeleteAs a gay man in a predominately conservitive area, I very much understand why you see everybody who makes any statement that limits gays in some way as your enemy. After coming out of the closet, I've lost a job, lost several friends, harassed by a police officer, and at first at my church there where some people watching my every move - as if they were afraid I was going to grab some boy or something. And I know I've had it relitively easy compared to many of the LGBT community.
However, my enemy isn't the people who hold anti-gay views. My enemy is ignorance. In a previous comment on this blog, I mentioned a call I've had to help bring Christians and gays together. About 3 years ago there was a woman at my church who found out I was gay. We were talking when she asked if it was 'a good idea to follow that lifestyle'. I was quiet at first, bringing down my anger. After all, she didn't mean any harm. She just didn't know any better. So I just talked with her. I educated her. After a few months, I discovered to my surprise that I had a new ally at my church.
You might wonder why changing just one person's mind was such a big deal. After all, there are billions of people left to educate (world wide). Well, the next year, this young woman moved - to go to seminary. That's when I realized why I was nudged into talking with her.
Here is another opertunity to educate. Not just Jonathon, but all of his readers as well. Ignorance is the enemy. And the only way to fight that enemy is to teach.
I must agree with Stuffed Animal. I've been in situations with professing Christians who obsesss over sexual preference, and define Christianity and morality largely in regard to that preference, as opposed to other issues such as war, poverty, and the like. No matter how I showed them how the "clobber passages" in Scripture don't say or mean what they want them to say or mean, their prejudices remained intact. There is a point we must come to where we realize that we are casting pearls before swine; that Christianity has been largely perverted by much of the organized "Church," and that the Gospel of grace (God's unmerited favor to us.) has been twisted to justify homophobia, capitalism, jingoism, war-mongering, capital punishment, torture, and the waging of unprovoked war. To treat these perverters of Scripture, of Christianity, of the Gospel as, in essence, "having a right to their point of view," gives them a credibility that they do not deserve nor should they have.
ReplyDeleteMr. Marlowe,
ReplyDeleteWe will be friends when you stop supporting second-class citizenship for men and women like me in the Christian church. Your words about "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" drip with antagonism. You are parroting Religious Right rhetoric, and if you use Bible scripture to justify discrimination against Gay people, then you are guilty of worshiping the Bible instead of worshiping God. Try transferring your devotion to God instead. He can he'll clarify the Bible's meaning for you.
Jim,
If you're going to advocate for Gay people, you need to put aside your heterosexual male privilege and put yourself in a Gay man's shoes. You might even get a little angry.
How does anyone truly expect to change anyone's views by blodgeoning them with anger? Regardless of how justified that anger is, it usually does not build a bridge, rather, it destroys any possibility of one.
ReplyDeleteIf you go back and read the early posts I made on this blog, you will see that the main reason I started it is as an outlet to the anger I felt toward how my GLBT brothers and sisters in my church were treated and how their rights are restricted.
What I also knew, however, was that the anger had to be channeled in a constructive manner to accomplish anything beyond my own venting. That's why I seek out as many other sites as I can to exchange links and, hopefully, ideas. There's only a limted value in "preaching to the choir" and there is probably even less value to screaming at those who disagree with righteous indignation.
I write a LOT about open hearts and open minds, and I believe the Holy Spirit has clearly shown me how important that is on BOTH sides of GLBT issues.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you were able to get through to the prejudiced woman you met at church. But are you seriously suggesting that it's every Gay person's job to educate heterosexist zealots? I have to disagree with you there. If you want to do that, fine, but you can't make doing that a mandate for every Gay person. Some of us have neither the time nor the desire to defend our humanity to ignorant folk. In my opinion, that woman should have known how to treat Gay people respectfully, especially if she called herself a Christian. The example of the Christ was right there in the Gospels for her to follow. Why didn't she follow it? I suspect she was doing what so many fundamentalist Christians do . . . taking something contradictory to the Messiah's teachings from outside the Gospels and giving it equal credibility. Unfortunately, your heartfelt dialogue with her may not be enough to keep her from going that route again in her ministry. But if you have the will to educate bigots, more power to you. My personal mandate is to educate LGBT people about their relationship to Jesus Christ, and try to repair some of the damage people like that woman have done to LGBT self-worth over the years.
Jim, I have something else to say to you. Jonathan Marlowe calls my homosexual status sinful, I call him on it, and you accuse me of "judging" him. WHAT? How can I judge him? I don't know enough about the man. However, I do know what his attitude is, based on what he's stated online. There's a difference between responding to an attack and judging someone. When Marlowe says homosexuality is a sin, as well as a sin that deserves banning from clerical service, he's attacking LGBT people! I have the right to remind him that Lesbians and Gay men are children of God, equal in every way to the rest of His children who walk this Earth. I find it extremely offensive that you would equate me defending myself with his religious bigotry.
As I said to Alex, Gay people are under no obligation to "reach across to the other side." I'm not the one a bigot needs to reach out and touch! It's God. Anyone who harbors bigotry in their heart doesn't have a close enough relationship with God.
Sure, people should always try to debate in a civil manner. But to my thinking, "civil" doesn't mean an "I'm OK, you're OK" plastering-over of serious issues. I believe that religious attitudes like Mr. Marlowe's are at the root of every legal prohibition, every persecution, every unkind word and hateful act that LesBiGay human beings have had to endure in the modern world. Alex has his way of dealing with such attitudes, and I have mine. His methods will not always meet with success, and neither will mine (and neither will yours, for that matter), but between us, perhaps we can make a difference.