Avdat

Kinda sorta shoulda seen it comin'

With his bête noire out of the Democratic primary, Andrew Sullivan goes wobbly on Obama.  Here and here.  More to come, I'm sure.

I'm taking a little blogging vacation.  Be back in a couple of weeks!

Reading Andrew Sullivan

It's bearable these days.  I link to him quite a bit.  But Eric Alterman still hates his guts.

Tech support

People are leaving comments, but the comment widget on the sidebar isn't updating.  I don't know why.  But don't be deterred.  Comment away!

Another obligatory "I haven't been posting much lately" post

I was a guest at the Civitan's Clergy Appreciation Luncheon today.  Click here for the inspiring back-story.  I do feel appreciated, by the way.  I have the greatest congregation!  Just not the healthiest.  Four of our 120 souls are in the hospital, and two are in intensive care.  And at said luncheon I ran into the three pastors at "that big Presbyterian church downtown."  They've got a thousand members, three preachers and one person in the hospital.  But I'm not complaining!  Just too busy to blog!

Just went crazy at justsayhi.com

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Linkage

Someone Googled "If God is not a vending machine then why" and wound up at Lee's blog.  It's a good question, and I still await Lee's answer, as does the hapless surfer who Googled said entry.  For my part, I can claim that I am King of all "Ron Paul is crazy" searches.  It's great to come in first in anything.  I am also moving up on "Transfiguration sermon," but all of you lazy preachers out there had better give me credit come Sunday.

Stuff...

Got this email in response to my post on same sex marriage.  Guess I should stop being a weenie and open up the comments, as this isn't the first time people have had trouble commenting on my blog.  Then maybe I'd get as many comments as Lee!  But the nice thing about the current setup is that it does keep spam to a minimum.

For some reason, I wasn't able to post a comment on your blog.  Even after I registered with Typekey, I was still getting an error message when I tried to post the comment.  Here is is ... do what you will with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's an interesting reference, Isaiah 56:4.

I am inclined to call attention to two principles that stand in tension with one another:  purity (an exclusionary principle;  i.e., keep the pure separate from the impure) and justice (an inclusionary principle).

We can see the tension between the two principles reflected throughout the Old Testament, as Walter Brueggemann has argued ( http://emergingfrombabel.blogspot.com/2007/07/problem-with-ten-commandments.html).  In my view, the split between Christianity and Judaism happened along that fault line, with Jesus opting for the "I eat with tax collectors and sinners", social justice model.

Jesus never addressed the topic of same sex relationships, but in my opinion it is legitimate for Christians to extend that inclusive, social justice approach to same sex couples.

Re Matthew Shepard:
There's some doubt whether Shepard actually propositioned the men who killed him.  The alternative theory is that it was a drug-fueled robbery attempt that turned violent for unknown reasons.  There's a good account of the dispute on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard).

       Stephen (aka Q)
       http://emergingfrombabel.blogspot.com

I would add that you see this inclusive/exclusive tension in the post-exilic literature too, not just in the difference between Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  In Ezra and Nehemiah you get the Jewish men divorcing their gentile wives because mixing with foreigners is what got us in this jam in the first place.  But then you have Malachi directly contradicting that, and Third Isaiah making room for all sorts of outsiders within the covenant community, provided they observe the Sabbath.

What's interesting to me is that the canon didn't settle for either inclusion or purity, but made room for both voices.  That, in and of itself, may be an argument for inclusion, but not an airtight one.

I think I've said before that the issue of boundaries is important, and we simply can't tear down boundaries as some liberal voices would advocate.  No boundaries equals the death of the organism.  Rather, the boundary has to be (in the words of a member of my church who works in textiles) a semi-permeable membrane, tough enough to keep out contaminants and maintain the integrity of the organism, but permeable enough to allow for the exchange of information and nutrition with the outside.

Today's Church is not unlike Israel in the post-exilic period.  The political and economic powers are not hostile but largely indifferent to us.  Our institutions are in shambles, not due to a Babylonian military siege but due to the long, slow, steady hemorrhage of members.  We have to rebuild our institutions, maintain our distinct identity, and witness to the nations to the Lordship of Christ.

Whether the new understanding of same-sex relationships is a contaminant that the Church needs to keep out, or a vital new piece of data that needs to be incorporated into our DNA is, of course, up for debate.  I obviously lean toward the latter, but faithful people can see it the other way. 

Comments Are Open

OK, I'm going to try not to be so thin-skinned.  I'm accepting comments now.  But I'm warning you...

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