“If you have wondered if there really can be meaning to this life, come and see. If you ache with a pain that soaks up any good feelings, come and see. If you are deliriously happy, content, and full beyond compare, come and see.”

Come and see
A sermon by Pastor Bob
January 15, 2012
Text: John 1:43-51

John 1:43-51

The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

“How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”

–”Come and see.”

–Have you ever been offered these words?

–To witness something first hand?

–To experience with your senses some truth that seems to elude you?

–These were the words of Philip to his acquaintance, Nathanael.

–And these are Christ’s words for us this morning.

–Now you’ve heard the expression “seeing is believing.”

–And there is definitely truth to this.

–But in the case of John’s gospel describing the beginning of Christ’s ministry, it may be more true that believing is seeing.

–After all, when Nathanael is told by Philip that Jesus is the “son of Joseph from Nazareth,”

–Nathanael responds with the proverbial:

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

–Nathanael cannot believe that the promised one, the Messiah, would come from some backwater village, far away from the center of the Jewish faith, the temple in Jerusalem.

–Nazareth is not near anything.

–It is a little like where my Mother is from—Page, Nebraska.

–Has anyone heard of Page, Nebraska?

–A hint. It’s about 30 miles from O’Neil, Nebraska.

–Maybe a hundred miles from Sioux Falls.

–Page has a whopping population of 180 people.

–At least that’s what the sign said when I visited there during the summers when I was a little boy.

–Right now it is probably around one hundred people.

–Anyway, folks used to joke that if there wasn’t a train track running through town that forced you to slow down your car, you would completely miss Page, Nebraska.

–Well, Nazareth was like Page, Nebraska.

–It was not only far from the center of Israel, Jerusalem, but it was far from both the Greek founded cities along the Sea of Galilee, and the new Roman cities on the coast.

–It was the kind of place young people ached to escape, but few would.

–It was also the place that a young family had raised a son.

–A son who would be called Emmanuel, God with us.

–A son who would heal with his touch and raise the dead with his command.

–Now, I personally can relate more to Nathanael than I can to Philip.

–Over twenty years ago, I too could not see what was in front of me.

–All I could see were a bunch of church buildings.

–Of a conflicted Christian history.

–And a Jesus painted within the rigid lines of TV Evangelists.

–“What good could come out of this?”I asked myself.

–Yet twenty-four years ago, a friend said to me, “come and see.”

–So I did.

–And the next week, the same friend again said, “come and see.”

–And so I went with them again and again.

–Asked to attend church every week, until there came a week when my friend couldn’t make it to church that week.

–And I had to decide for myself.

–It was a big decision.

–But now there was not only the voice of my friend gently beckoning, “come and see.”

–But there was something that had come alive in me crying out, “come and see.”

–Come and see what this world cannot give.

–Come and see what is really true.

–Come and see a living God.

–Friends, I beckon you this morning with these simple words, “come and see.”

–If you have wondered if there really can be meaning to this life, come and see.

–If you ache with a pain that soaks up any good feelings, come and see.

–If you are deliriously happy, content, and full beyond compare, come and see.

–To be honest, there are no adequate words to describe the experience of being in the presence of a living God, a creator God who knows us without qualification, and a saving God who loves us just as we are.

–It is love incarnate.

–A love that is unyielding in its desire for you.

–It is power beyond measure.

–Not in coercive control of our actions, but in deep compassion for our being.

–It is peace. Real peace.

–A peace that fills the cracks of our lives and make us whole.

–Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the funeral of my wife’s campus pastor, Darcy.

–It was a beautiful service, with stories of remembrance and music that lifted us beyond our grief.

–But what made it so beautiful in my eyes was its honesty.

–A number of people, who got up and spoke about him, shared not only the high points in their relationship with him, but also the challenges.

–Darcy suffered from depression and his life as a pastor was not simply one of living in the light, but of wading through the darkness.

–Of being caught in cycles that would submerge him into a kind of helplessness.

–And when he was in such a state, it seemed that no one could truly reach him.

–He would resist all offers of help and isolate himself even further.

–I remember when my wife and I would be at an event near him and would reach out to him.

–Sometimes he would accept our invitation without hesitation, and other times a phone message or email would simply go unanswered.

–When we heard word that Darcy was dying of cancer, we drove up to see him in Santa Barbara as soon as we could.

–When we saw him in the hospital bed, he was in a lot of pain.

–His brother was there, and told us that Darcy wanted to be as present as possible, so was asking for minimal doses of morphine.

–As we talked with Darcy, as we cried and said words of blessing, we found ourselves in one of those sacred moments when everything is stripped away.

–All pretenses. All idle chatter.

–Every word was sacred. Every touch meaningful.

–Darcy had waited for us, and though we did not know it at the time, he would soon pass—just an hour after we had left his side.

–Darcy had waited so that we could say good-bye.

–He had waited so that he could share that he was going to be okay.

–He had waited so that we could come and see…

–Today, God holds Darcy in such a love.

–The same love that holds you and I now.

–If you are waiting for the right moment to encounter God, I tell you that you are too late.

–God does not care if you get this right.

–God simply wants you now.

–Come and see.

Below are some reader comments (or excerpts from them) written in response to my post From a Christian Woman Who Chose Abortion that I felt particularly helpful. (If your comment doesn’t appear here, it does not mean that I judged it less worthy; it only means that, for whatever reason, it didn’t as readily lift from its context. There were very few reader responses that in spirit don’t belong with these.)

Thank you to every single person who took the time and effort to reach out and comfort a stranger on the Internet. Many of you also left comments in which you expressed a lot of love to me personally. I want you to know how much that meant to me.

* * *

From Mindy:

I, too, had an abortion many years ago. And I have lived with depression and the fragile state of mind the LW must’ve been in during that time. I’ve lived with guilt, but my guilt was mostly for not feeling guilty about having had the abortion. I went through it in stoic robotic fashion, and that was that. I’ve never forgotten it, and when cancer robbed me of my reproductive system just before my marriage, I was certain I was being punished by God for having gone through with it. But I never found myself wishing I hadn’t – to this day it feels like it was my only option at the time. Selfish? Maybe. But I was not mentally or emotionally capable of bearing a child back then. Later, after cancer, when I was subsequently blessed with my dear daughters, I knew then that if God had punished me, He had since forgiven me – because they are the greatest blessings in my life.

From Ken Leonard:

Jesus did not come to condemn people. Not even people who do things that are wrong. He came to heal, to love, and to forgive.

You made a choice. Right? Wrong? Doesn’t matter … it’s past. Yelling at you won’t change it, so there’s no point. What matters now is how you feel about it. And what Jesus wants is for you to know that He loves you and wants you to know that He loves you. So do His people. I’m sure that you’re seeing that from most of the comments here and from John’s response.

If you did something wrong (and I’m not touching that question), it’s long past and all that remains is for you to heal.

It’s worth noting that the only people for whom Jesus has any harsh words in the Scriptures are religious leaders who beat down people for being imperfect. For everyone else, He offers nothing but love and healing.

That’s you. So, those of us who want to live by Jesus’ example are offering open arms to help you know that God has never stopped loving you. And anyone who tells you otherwise is NOT speaking for God or Jesus.

You were in a tough spot, you had to make a hard choice, and no one has any business judging you for what you did. We weren’t there.

I’m sorry that it’s been so long and that you’ve had to carry this for all of these years. I’m sorry that we in the Church have not made you feel more welcome to share that feeling.

I’m sorry that the idolatry of political rhetoric was more important than the virtue of love, and that so many of us (and I say that because I am an Evangelical Baptist, and I know a lot of the people who would be a problem) are more interested in condemning a policy than helping women in need.

Thank you for having enough faith to give us a chance to show that we might still deserve your company.

From Ingrid:

I know first hand this woman’s pain. I know first hand the guilt and shame that accompanies the decision to abort. I know first hand God’s saving grace after such a decision. God still loves her.

From BVT:

It would be rank arrogance for me to decide if what you did was a sin; it seems to me you were in no condition to make the considered choice necessary for true sin. But even if it was, I cannot imagine that God did not feel your suffering, ache with you, and forgive you right then and there. I am certain that His love surrounded you then and now.

From DR:

I understand what it means to live a life where you’ve condemned yourself. It’s an isolating, miserable, anxious existence. We tend to organize our lives around the judgments we decide are true about ourselves – I pray you’d open yourself to releasing yourself from the ones you’re currently organized within. Life outside of them is something I never knew could exist. Much love to you. This is so hard.

From zoni:

The death of an unborn child is tragic, but is not murder.

From Doxy:

I believe that God–having been human–understands the difficult choices that we face in this life. Sometimes we have to choose the lesser of two evils–and I believe that abortion is often that choice. God is merciful and has a deep understanding of human brokenness.

From Kay:

I’m so glad you reached out here and that you reach out to God. Never stop doing that. He will always be there for you. He loves you, and all true Christians love you. And not just Christians. We are all the same. You are God’s child, just like everyone else, just like every other Christian. Walk in His love, and have a wonderful life. Like a loving parent—and so much more—it’s what He wants for you. Everything is o.k. now.

From Cathy:

She was forgiven even before she had an abortion. Not one of us is innocent.

From Amanda:

I wish many people who have judged women for their choices, and who condemn them without knowledge of their true agony over their choice, could see this and learn that God is accepting of us as the sinners we are, and loves us in spite of our imperfection, extending His grace to all of us. I sincerely hope all women who have made this gut-wrenching decision find peace in the knowledge that God loves them, and that their babies, whom they have shed so many tears for, are safe in His arms.

From Christine McQueen:

In 1993, at age 43, I found myself pregnant for the fourth time, with three sons approaching or just past 20 years of age. My husband and I were beginning to look forward to his retirement, which would happen in about five years time. I had no one to go to for guidance except God. I was already more than a dozen years beyond the point where I no longer attended any church (for totally unrelated reasons). Mom had already been gone six years at that point, and my mother-in-law was not a woman I felt I could confide in. And my sisters both lived hundreds of miles away in opposite directions.

After several days in prayer, I came to the decision to abort. Though, yes, there were times I regretted that abortion (I sometimes wonder if that would have been the little girl I always wanted), for the most part I feel it was the right decision for me, not only at that time in my life, but also for later times. See, my husband’s retirement came through only two days before he died. I would have been left to raise that child alone. Of course I didn’t know that at the time of the pregnancy and abortion. But it only proved to me that I had made the right decision.

Like the lady who wrote to you, I have never told anyone about that abortion. But not for the same reasons. I feel no ‘shame’ in having made that decision, but I never felt it was anyone else’s business. Though I haven’t attended church for more than 30 years, I still consider myself to be Christian because I still make every effort to live by the teachings of Christ. And I know, deep in my heart, that, if God considers abortion to be a sin, I am forgiven.

From Danielle Perata:

Please know that God is with you always. God abandons no one. Like John said, the feeling of separation is yours, not God’s. If you truly believe in Christ’s sacrifice, then know that you’ve been forgiven.

From Emily:

In my case [getting an abortion] was life-saving. Not for physical health reasons, but because having a baby would have tied me forever to the father, a sociopathic man who tried to murder me. It would have ruined my life, and I deserved to have my life. An embryo’s value does not trump mine, a full-grown woman with hopes and dreams and a desire to have a reasonably good life.

Letter Writer, if you’re reading these comments, you have nothing to feel shame over. You saved your own life, and consequently gave your children and mother the person they needed. You are an important person, and you had a right to live your life and be there for the people who love you. Let go of your guilt. Having an abortion was the best decision I ever made, given the information I had at the time. It sounds like that was the case for you, too. I have never had a single regret, and neither should you.

From YellerKitty:

Nobody is ‘for’ abortion. It’s as difficult a decision as most of us will ever have to make. We would all love for every pregnancy to be planned and wanted, and for every woman to be safe and loved and supported before AND AFTER the birth of every baby. That is not the world we have. Sometimes the hard choice is the best choice, and sometimes that choice is to not give birth, for whatever reason. And any woman who makes that terribly hard decision deserves to be able to make it in private and to have safe and supportive options available to her.

From Vivian:

I read this and just cried so hard. I to had an abortion when I was 17. It was a horrible time in my life. My parents had, had an ugly divorce, not an excuse, just a fact of many things that accumulated to making a bad decision. I mourned the loss of what I had done for 11 years. I had always loved Jesus, but like many felt unworthy. What kind of person was I to murder an innocent being, a gift from God? I had a deep depression for my poor choices. I later at 21 got married, then in Jan 1985 found out I was pregnant with my 2nd child. I for whatever reason, thought God would punish me. I felt I would lose my children for what I had done to God and to myself. The anniversary of the abortion, my daughter was born. God found a way for me to celebrate his forgiveness, and a birth instead of mourning a loss and a sin. I could never be whole again until this happened, God did a great and wonderful thing for me. I will never feel unworthy of his forgiveness again.

From Ric Booth:

Dear Letter Writer,
I have lived in the house of grief myself. Different address, same decor. I write about that place in poems. I wrote Hidden in the days following my father’s death. Your letter and John’s response took me back to those days.

my hidden hurt, i cannot shake
i love to long, i feign escape

i fear to leave, i loath to stay
my paradox, please go away

but do not leave, come visit me
just do not stay, lest you may see

my self’s encased, alone again
my longing is, a lonely friend

i feel i must, inside remain
to enter is, to know my pain

experience, my darker side
just turn away, to run and hide

yet still you come, you take my hand
you sit with me, you understand

all others gone, all pushed away
yet still you hold, this potter’s clay

my time is come, i see your face
and sip at last, the cup of grace

This relates to my post earlier today. In the comments to that post people brought up some great points about how, after all, we must be fair to Cardinal George. I agree; I am never not for being fair to anyone. (And I hadn’t been unfair to the Cardinal in my post, insofar as in it I never mentioned my personal feelings at all.) Like I think most people do, I have a great deal of respect for Catholicism.  Of course I also understand all that’s wrong with it—but, again, fair is fair. Whenever possible I try not to throw out babies with bathwater.

The hubbub around Cardinal George happened as a result of this televised interview with him.

Give it a watch.

Pay particular attention to the moment (which begins at about 1:03) when Cardinal George responds to the interviewer asking him if his analogy to the KKK isn’t “a little strong.”

Watch George as he says, “It is. But you take a look at the rhetoric.”

Watch then as he drops his eyes, and very quickly says in a chickenshit little sing-song voice, “The rhetoric of the Ku Kluk Klan.”

He can’t even bring himself to say the name.

When you’re done with the whole thing, go back, and freeze the screen at 1:17, right after George says, “But you take a look at the rhetoric,” and before the interviewer says “What rhetoric?”

Look at the sheer, vile arrogance of his gaze.

There it is.

There’s the hatred.

There’s the evil, as pure as pure gets.

Go to hell, Cardinal George.*

* I don’t actually believe in hell.

Last week a reader sent me this email. Its subject line was “Trying not to hate myself for being gay.”

John,

I’m writing this because you seem like a compassionate person who will listen to what I have to say. There are few people I know who are willing to listen to me without preaching. I get so fucking sick of constantly having to defend, to give an excuse for who and what I am.

More than anything, I just want to be heard. I feel like I am never heard.

A little about me: I am 23-years-old, the son of a prominent, powerful ministry family. My father has been a strong advocate for the ex-gay movement, and has worked closely with many of the founding ex-gay leaders. Of course, I turn out gay.

I want to be okay with what I am. I want to tell myself that my humanity is not broken, damned, and diseased. It doesn’t take a genius to discern that I am a deeply homophobic person . . . but I don’t fear homosexuality in other people. I hate and fear it in myself. I was raised being told that homosexuality is a disease; that it will bring the downfall of America and Western Civilization; that I will go to hell. I’m still so fucking scared of hell.

I want all this to change, to stop being afraid. I have come frighteningly close to going to a ex-gay ministry to just see if it is possible to change. Please tell me that that is a bad idea. Three weeks ago, I tried to go to bed. Instead, I cut myself brutally, and just sat in bed crying, crying, crying. I couldn’t stop crying. I was overwhelmed with the desire to cut too deep. Instead, I went out for a long walk until the desire passed. That was far from the first time I ever wanted to kill myself because of this issue. I feel lost. I’ve felt lost for years now, and I don’t know how to stop feeling lost. I am afraid that if I keep living like this, I will end up doing something terrible to myself. I don’t think I will ever commit suicide, but I could easily get into hard drugs and other shit. Please, please try to convince me that it is okay to be gay. I’m sick of living like this.

Dear Guy Who Wrote Me This:

When I was seventeen years old, I was lost. I couldn’t live at my parents’ house; I didn’t know how to live on my own; I wasn’t attending high school anymore. I was just a mess. I had a friend I hadn’t known long, a guy two years older than I. This friend reached out to me. He joined up with me to rent my (first!) apartment; he supported me financially whilst I flailed around at crappy jobs; he encouraged me in my writing. He was gay. I had no idea that was true; if he had told me of it I wouldn’t have known what it meant. Neither he, nor any of his gay friends—who also supported and loved me—ever hit on me, or … in any way tried to make me gay, or whatever. Just nothing in that regard. I was straight; those guys knew it; sex was just literally never an issue.

My friend was a friend. A friend who saved my life.

When I was a kid, my dad, a true ham-bone, was Joe Amateur Theater: he was always acting in local plays. One of his fellow thespians was a man named Dallas. Dallas was an extraordinary actor: the first true actor I ever knew. I didn’t realize it at the time—I was eleven, twelve years old; now I can see what my mom and dad meant by their little innuendos about his personal life—but Dallas was gay.

Dallas had a problem: offstage he was profoundly—clinically, I would say—shy. My parents often threw the cast parties for their plays at our house, and during them Dallas would invariably situate himself in the near darkness of the hallway that led out of our dining room and back into the bedrooms, and for the entire party just stay there, alone, basically pasted against the hallway wall.

During one such affair I ventured out of my bedroom, and in the shadows started a little chat with Dallas. All of sudden he sort of started talking to me. He mostly kept his eyes down, but during our chat he would every once in a while look up, and just blaze his eyes into mine for a moment before looking back down.

He talked to me—whispered to me, really—about art. He talked about how essentially dangerous art is, or can be, for the born artist, since it demands, or certainly invites, total surrender to its power. He talked about how art already is—how the artist’s job is to find the art that is there waiting to be discovered, and to then align himself to it, and never look back.

“As you can see, I’m not a terribly social person,” he fairly mumbled, eyes to the floor.

“But you’re such a great actor,” I said.

He looked up at me. “Because I become someone else. That’s me, catching the art train.”

Dallas’ words that night meant a lot to me. They helped form my entire philosophy and understanding of art. They’ve informed pretty much every word I’ve ever written.

When I was in college, a gay professor of philosophy offered to allow me, under his auspices, to essentially study independently: he set up this thing where, as an undergraduate, I could engage in what amounted to independent graduate work. He really put himself out, both professionally and personally, so that I could do that.

When I was in my early thirties, a gay friend of mine was the first Christian I ever knew who was deeply knowledgeable about Christianity: he was intimate with its entire history. He taught the philosophy of Christianity. He made me respect Christianity in a way I didn’t even know was possible.

If you believe nothing, friend, believe this: I could go on for books about the good gay and lesbian people who have so personally and directly enriched my life that without them I don’t know what I’d be today. All I know, for sure, is that I’d be a lot worse a person.

If you ruin yourself—if you denigrate yourself, if you feel shame for yourself, if you allow yourself to believe that because you’re gay you’re intrinsically less worthy than people who aren’t—then how are you ever going to be for anyone else what so many gay people have been for me?

You need to save yourself so that you can save others, gay and straight.

About gays and homosexuality your father is terribly, terribly, absolutely wrong. That doesn’t make him an asshole; it doesn’t make him mean-spirited; it doesn’t make him homophobic. But on this issue the man couldn’t be more wrong if he climbed atop the roof of his house and started screaming through a bullhorn about how two plus two equals nine.

Hell is an unbelievably toxic notion born of nothing but fear, natural guilt, and mythology; God created gay people the same as straight. About hell and gays your father is wrong; Christians who share his beliefs are wrong—and the whole world of ex-gay ministries has exploded apart, since even the people who used to head them are now, seemingly en masse, telling the world that such “ministries” work like duct tape on the sinking Titanic.

You don’t cure being gay—anymore than you “cure” being left-handed, or … enjoying food.

And when God looks down for people to consider smiting, he doesn’t look to gay people. He looks to people who are using him to convince gay people that they are losers, shameful, abominable. Those are the people who make God rethink his promise about not just washing all of humanity off the planet and starting over again.

Do not cry. Do not cut yourself. Do not fear that God will send you to hell for being gay. Do not worry that you shouldn’t be gay.

You should be. You are. It’s not a problem.

Lots of people are gay, and they love themselves just fine. Lots of Christians are gay, and they don’t see any problem there at all.

Join them.

Join us.

We’re out here. You just need to shake off the dumbass history with which you’ve been inculcated, close your eyes for a moment in order to feel the truth of God within you loving you—and then come on, baby, into the bright, warm light.

Please: join the party.

A writer named Ruthie, who runs a blog called Fish Out of Water: The Life and Times of a Gay Girl in the Midwest, has written a review of my book UNFAIR. Her review begins with:

I’m not trying to exaggerate, but anyone who reads this book and still has a hard heart towards gay people defended by a christian worldview, I would seriously question the existence of their soul, conscience, heart or ability to reason.

I don’t know Ruthie, at all—and yet right away, somehow, I liked her.

No, but Ruthie’s review of UNFAIR highlights that which is so great about this new world of publishing we’re in. A regular book reviewer would never have written anything as personal as she did about mine or any other book. That’s not what “real” book reviewers do.

But out here, in the free-wheelin’ wilds of cyberspace?

We talk out here, man. We say some stuff out here. And we say it all exactly as we want.

Publishing this book myself was (to me) a pretty big deal. I certainly could have sold it to a regular book publisher. But I didn’t want anyone telling me what could or couldn’t be in the book—and I sure didn’t want anyone but me touching its precious letters from gay Christians. You know what they say: If you want something done right, get some people around you who know what they’re doing, and do it yourselves.

So I; my wife, Catherine; my web designer and all-around lifesaver Dan Wilkinson; Amit Dey, my e-book formatter; Lisa Salazar, my cover designer; Kathy Baldock, who wrote the introduction to UNFAIR, and Scott W. Bell, who is preparing the book for its print edition (not to mention Anonymous, who is translating UNFAIR into Spanish, and João Mattos, who is translating it into Portuegese) got busy.

And voila! UNFAIR in Kindle; UNFAIR in Nook. Print edition out (we think) in time for Christmas. Sales all I could ask for.

Verily, but yayeth do I say.

And now comes the part where the Internet must, again, play its role. In the old book publishing model, the publisher took responsibility for marketing the book, for advertising it, getting the word out about it. No more. And certainly not for self-published books. You publish a book on your own, and you are really on your own.

Enter the heroic Han Solo-types of cyberspace: the bloggers. It’s bloggers who now have the power to make or break books. Bloggers are like little broadcasting stations, sending their signals out to all those attuned to them.

It’s so fun, basically.

And also so real. Bloggers don’t lie. They don’t have to: they’re not beholden to anyone. A blogger can afford to be absolutely honest, in terms as personal as they care to use, about how they feel about, say, a book they just read.

If you are a blogger, and you write a review of UNFAIR, send me a link to that review. (Thanks, Thom H., for sending me Fish‘s review.) If I get in enough such reviews—say, five of them—I’ll probably start a separate page here on my blog, on which I’ll list and link to each of the reviews, with maybe a little synopsis/commentary from me accompanying each one.

Anyway, a great thanks to all of you who are helping UNFAIR find its way through this strange, brave new world of do-it-yourself publishing. A lot of people don’t realize how vital each and every person online is to the fate of such a project. Every time you share a link about the book, or mention it in a FB status, or blog about it (or especially write a review about it on its Amazon page, if I can just come right out and say that), you don’t just do something to help it. You do the only thing that can help it. That’s it. For a book like UNFAIR, there are no radio spots, no magazine ads, no newspaper ads, no paid-for placement in bookstores.

There’s nothing but everything: there’s people, sharing what they know and think and learn.

Thanks to all of you who get that, and who have been, I know, out there, helping UNFAIR reach those it should. God bless you in that effort. I know that can’t help but maybe sound a little piously self-serving, but whatever. I mean it.

As the great Muhammad Ali put it: “Me. We.”

In the comments thread to my post, Tell Me, Christian, That You Hear This Boy, I attracted, like a cockroach to a cinnamon roll, a troll. No surprise there, of course: bottom feeders, even as they suck the muck and sand, dream of a life nearer to the light.

The particular troll I have in mind was very keen on making public the point that Evan Hurst, from Truth Wins Out, had proven, via some comments he two years ago left in a blog post, that he, Evan, hates religion, and thinks the whole idea of God is, at best, exceedingly lame.

Here are some excerpts of what Evan wrote in the comment thread that Le’ Troll couldn’t wait for me to read:

Most “reasonable” people, if we’re using the word with a respect for its root word, “reason,” agree that there is no evidence for God’s existence, and thus no rational REASON to believe that any god or gods have determined ANYTHING, much less morality

[God is] a ridiculous idea, created by uneducated nomads from thousands of years ago.

Fundamentalist religious people ARE essentially battered wives. They just act it out on a grander scale without such visible bruises. The really screwed up thing is that their abuser is an imaginary friend.

That means your god is a weak minded little bitch who changes his mind and is definitely NOT eternal or omnipotent.

The troll’s idea was that I should be ashamed of myself for my online association with, and support of, Evan Hurst, who, via Truth Wins Out, sometimes links to/excerpts my posts.

So lemme just say right off that I’m a sucker for anyone who writes with the kind of brains and humor of Evan. That’s just a weakness of mine. If Shakespeare had been a serial killer, I would have been, like, “You know what? Everyone needs a hobby. Let’s leave the guy alone.” Terrible—but there it is.

Also, I like much of what Evan wrote there. His statement likening fundamentalists to battered wives is so brilliant I’m thinking about mounting it on a bronze plaque next to my front door.

And personally I very much like Evan. In our exchanges he has never been anything but kind, sincere, and honest. (In fact—and this is something I’ve been meaning to put on my Facebook page—go “like” Evan’s Facebook fan page. And most definitely check out this sampling of his music. Turns out he is a truly fame-worthy player and singer.)

Also: why in this world would I care if someone thinks the whole idea of God is absurd? I get that point of view. It doesn’t in the least offend me. Why would it? What the [bleep] do I care what anyone else thinks of God? That’s their business, not mine.

You know what quality I really like in a person? The ability to be unflaggingly rational. I wish everyone I knew was in full possession of that singular characteristic. Because you can talk to a rational person. You can reason with them. You can actually get from point A to point B. Being rational is a discipline that actually works in life.

Go, Team Brain!

What I take offensive to is the idea that a Christian should be offended by someone using their rational mind to arrive at the conclusion that God does not exist. Any Christian who is in any way galled by another person not being Christian needs to grow up.

But here, now, is the real thing. The opening sentence of Truth Wins Out’s mission statement reads:

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-gay religious extremism.

Annnnnnnnnd bingo. That right there makes Evan Hurst my friend. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And my enemy is most certainly anti-gay religious extremism.

Evan Hurst! Know of my desire to sometime get together with you over a cup of coffee—or even a beer or a martini, if, being the pagan that you are, you insist until I graciously relent.

What fun we will have, imagining a world in which what a person believes is considered completely irrelevant compared to what they actually do.

I’m not much of a fighter. Like just about everyone else in the world, I don’t at all enjoy conflict.

When I was eight years old, my dad tried to teach me how to fight. In classic 50′s-dad fashion, he never paid any attention to me—and suddenly he wanted to turn me into Floyd Patterson.

With that in mind he took me into the backyard.

“C’mon, son,” he said. “Hold your fists up like this.” His fists in my face were so huge they blocked out my view of our house behind him.

My dad was six-foot four, and weighed about 240 pounds. (I say”was” because, old now, he’s shrunk.) I was three-foot nine, and weighed about .004 pounds. I was so skinny that, for Hide ‘n Seek, I’d squeeze into the space between a doorjamb and a closed door. (And lemme tell you: that’s no place you want to be when some moron starts trying to use the deadbolt.)

“Stand like this,” said my dad, doing something I couldn’t see behind his Volkswagon-sized fists. “Hunch up your front shoulder, see? You protect your face that way.”

I hunched up my shoulders, and almost blinded myself with a clavicle.

“You gotta get tough,” my dad said. “You gotta learn to defend yourself.” I had no idea what he was talking about. No one was trying to beat me up. Except him maybe, if things kept going the way they seemed to be. I held up my fists for him, though. They looked like olives on the ends of toothpicks.

“Now bob and weave!” I immediately thought of a guy named Bob, weaving a rug. I’d never known anyone who weaved rugs.

“See, like this,” said my dad. He bobbed and weaved. It wasn’t pretty.

He punched me on the shoulder. “See? See how I jabbed you there?”

So I clocked the bastard, and knocked him out. Who the fuck did he think he was playing with?

(See? Now that’s an example of exactly the kind of thing I was talking about in “I, the Comfortably Cursing Christian.”)

Speaking of me being a Christian, and fighting.

As you may know, lately, on my blog, I’ve become (again) The Christian Guy Who Writes About Gays and Christianity.

Many people like what I have to say on that issue. Many people don’t.

I got, like, six emails yesterday, from people wondering why I “keep” writing about that subject.

You know why I write about gays and Christians as often as I do? I mean, you know, besides the fact that it’s splitting the church in two? Because of my friends. That’s the whole reason. I have always had gay friends in my life. And they’ve always been … well … friends to me.

I’m not good at a lot of stuff in life. But I’m exceptional at being loyal to my friends. When it comes to that one particular personality characteristic, I’m … canine, basically.

I’m loyal to my friends, and I’m loyal to God. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anybody tell me, or anybody else as long as I’m within earshot, that those two don’t belong in the same room together.

The piece I did on George Michael and his one-person Christian hate group went mondo-large. And in the swarm of responses to it came the criticism that it was wrong of me to say that for every one hateful, gay-bashing Christian there are two hundred loving, gay-affirming Christians.

Fair complaint! That would have been an off thing to say. Which is why I didn’t say it.

Boy be slow—but not that slow.

What I said was:

For every one person like Keith I’ve ever known—for every person who’s ever fanatically endeavored to transmogrify the beautiful love of God into the horrible hatred of men—I’ve known two hundred who are quietly and humbly working, in Christ’s name, to make the world a better, more loving place for all.

The part of that sentence that I just bolded marks the critical distinction between what I actually said, and what those who about this have been fairly railing at me mistakenly assume that I said.

I referenced only my personal experience. Maybe it’s a matter of geography: I’ve lived all my life in California, home to the assiduously groovy. For years I attended huge St. Paul’s Cathedral, where I would guess half the congregants are gay—and the other half aren’t exactly thumping them with Bibles. Maybe it’s just the places I hang out online: I’m associated, for instance, with The Christian Left (whose membership, for months now, has grown at the rate of about 1,000 members per week). I’m friends with Roger McClellan over at The Progressive Christian Alliance. I’m close to Gwen Ashby of Believe Out Loud. I count among my friends Evan Hurst from Truth Wins Out, and Ross Murray of GLAAD. I’m so fond of Kathy Baldock of Canyonwalker Connections that I asked her to write the forward of my latest book. If I liked Dan Savage any more I’d actually be gay.

So … yeah. Those are the sorts of people I know, and with whom I have always associated. I never attended Yahweh Hates Gay United. I never went to a Rainbow No! Bible study. No one I know tries to pray anyone’s gay away. I’ve known people who tried to pray their own gray away, but that’s about it.

All that said, I’m hardly unaware of the volume or character of vitriol leveled at gay people by those with the nerve to call themselves Christian. And anyone who follows this blog at all knows that I don’t stop chewing on Christians like that until someone’s leg falls off. (See—as random examples—This animal. This Cretin. This Travesty. This demon; Bully for You, Jerry Buell; Republican Politician Caught with His Gay Pants Down: Whose Shame Is It?; Christians and the Blood of Jamey Rodemeyer, and … I dunno: Christians and Gay Teen Suicides: How Could Anyone Be So Stupid?)

I know there’s a world of Christians out there like Maggie “Can Anyone Hear Me Screaming From Inside This Closet?” Gallagher, Michael “Does This Mustache Make My Crotch Look Big?” Brown, and Tony “Psycho Was No Scarier Than I” Perkins.

But I think there are a lot less people following these hate-mongering, money-grubbing, spotlight-craving, Christ-shaming opportunists than the media needs us to believe there are. And I think the number of people who do follow such cowardly, craven cretins is shrinking by the day. Always present now in the tone of the communications from organizations like Family Research Council is shrill panic. They feel their audience and influence waning. They’re drowning, and they know it.

I think the vast majority of Christians today are searching for a way to reconcile their compassion with their faith. The concluding essay of Wings on a Pig: Why the “Christian” View of Gays Doesn’t Work, is titled, “Taking God at His Word: The Bible and Homosexuality.” I wrote it for people who mistakenly believe that they must choose between their hearts and their Bible. In it I prove that using the Bible to justify the condemnation of homosexuality is unarguably unbiblical. And every day now, already, I get emails from people telling me how that essay changed their whole attitude toward what the Bible has to say about homosexuality.

The good news is that (as awesome as my essay is) those people must have been ready to change. They were already there. They just needed the watertight intellectual basis for finally stepping through the door that had otherwise already opened for them.

The bottom line is that we’re winning this war, as surely as one day follows the next.

That doesn’t mean we should stop fighting—and it certainly doesn’t mean that a lot more Christians don’t have to become a lot more vocal in their opposition to the version of Christianity sprayed by the likes of Gallagher, Brown, and Perkins.

But the Christian left is right. And in that is all. Because the ultimate victory of right over wrong—of good over evil—is inevitable. You can count on that.

Es inevitable que los cristianos que hoy por hoy podrían ser descritos como “liberales” serán en un futuro la mayoría de los cristianos en Estados Unidos. Ese cambio radical, que ya sentimos moviéndose alrededor nuestro, no puede ser parado, al igual que no se puede impedir que la luna cruce el cielo nocturno. Los cristianos conservadores evangélicos de hoy que están manifestándose contra el “relativismo postmoderno”, la “teología secular revisionista”, la “doctrina naturalista de Dios” o cualquier otro modo del que puedan etiquetar la teología de la izquierda, son como los dueños de carros de antaño manifestándose contra el recién aparecido automóvil.

El futuro del transporte era obvio entonces, el futuro de la teología cristiana es obvio ahora.

Por favor noten la diferencia entre “inevitable” y “bueno”. No digo que el hecho de que la izquierda cristiana ascienda sea una cosa buena (aunque personalmente creo que lo es). Digo que es inevitable. Y el motivo por el que es cierto es tan obvio como el Buick que está estacionado en tu salón.

Antiguamente, era fácil para la vasta mayoría de los cristianos estadounidenses creer que, digamos, los judíos y los homosexuales (por nombrar sólo dos de los muchos, muchos grupos que los cristianos tradicionalmente destinaban de este modo) van al infierno. ¿Y qué hacía que tantos cristianos se sintieran emocional y espiritualmente cómodos como para decir eso? Porque ninguno de ellos conocía a ningún judío o a ningún homosexual. Ningún judío o gay tenía una granja cercana, ningún judío o gay estaba en la feria del condado, ningún judío o gay iba a las reuniones locales de la Asociación de Padres y Maestros, nunca te encontrabas con ellos en la ferretería. Los judíos estaban (aunque de forma involuntaria) aislándose a sí mismos en lugares como Nueva York y aunque pudieras haber tratado con un hombre gay en la sección de plomería, ese era su secreto.

Hasta donde la mayoría de los estadounidenses sabía (o, por supuesto, hasta donde les interesaba saber), el blanco tenía la razón, Dios les había cubierto con su Gracia y les esperaban días felices.

Eso fue ayer. Hoy la mayoría de la gente tiene en sus vidas, y quiere mucho, a por lo menos una persona que no está más cerca de ser un cristiano protestante de lo que yo lo estoy de ser un canadiense francófono. Hoy todo el mundo es pariente de, vecino de, compañero de trabajo o de colegio de alguien que es gay, judío, musulmán, católico, budista, sij, hindú, mormón, unitario universalista, pagano, indio americano, sintoísta, bahaí, rastafari, caodaísta, tenrikyo, agnóstico, ateo, o cualquier combinación de los anteriormente mencionados. (Humanos. ¿Somos un grupo creativo, no?).

Es mucho más conflictivo condenar al infierno a alguien a quien le tienes afecto que a alguien que es un miembro abstracto de un grupo abstracto. Creciendo en mi vecindario suburbano de blancos, no conocía a una sola persona que fuera hindú. Hoy hay cinco hombres jóvenes que son hindúes viviendo justo al lado de mi casa. Estos hombres se han convertido en amigos. Si parte de mi teología insiste que mis amigos hindúes van a ir al infierno, puedes estar seguro de que voy a revisar esta parte de mi teología. No sería humano si no lo hiciera.

Es típico creer que la teología es estática y permanente. No lo es, sin embargo. Lo que es verdad, en cambio, es que la teología sigue a la sociología. Y lenta pero seguramente nos estamos todos convirtiendo en miembros de una enorme sociedad. En el menor de los casos, los medios en general, e internet en particular, nos han hecho a todos dar la vuelta al mundo y ser turistas culturales.

El mundo está cambiando rápidamente. Y tan seguro como que un día sigue al otro, la teología cristiana, como siempre ha sido (¿a alguien le suena lo de la esclavitud?), va a cambiar junto con él. Mientras nuestro mundo se hace más pequeño, nuestra cristiandad se hará más grande, más amplia, más inclusiva.

El mes pasado el Instituto Público de Investigación Religiosa encontró que el 44% de los jóvenes evangelistas entre las edades de 18 y 29 años apoyan el matrimonio gay. También encontró que el 52% de todos los católicos (a pesar de las enseñanzas explícitas de la Iglesia Católica) favorecen el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo.

Las encuestas ahora muestran de forma consistente que en Estados Unidos, el apoyo al matrimonio gay ya no es la opinión de la minoría.

Recientemente, Jim Daly, el presidente de Focus on the Family, dijo esto en una entrevista con la revista WORLD:

Estamos perdiendo [en la cuestión de la homosexualidad], especialmente entre los veinteañeros y los treintañeros: entre el 65% al 70% de ellos favorece el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo… Probablemente hemos perdido eso. No quiero ser un extremista, pero creo que tenemos que empezar a calcular dónde estamos en la cultura.

Cuando el presidente de Focus on the Family básicamente abandona en la cuestión homosexual, sabes que las cosas han cambiado.

Soy parte de un grupo llamado La Izquierda Cristiana, cuya página en Facebook crece a un ritmo de 300 nuevos miembros por semana.

Eso no es una tendencia. Es el futuro (además, mientras escribo esto, 700 personas en las últimas semanas se han unido a ThruWay Christians).

La derecha religiosa puede clamar y gritar y protestar todo lo que quiera que, (para citar a Albert Mohler) “El liberalismo simplemente no funciona”. Mohler puede estar perfectamente en lo cierto. Personalmente creo que no, creo que esa afirmación revela una triste falta de fe en la resistente naturaleza de la bondad humana.

De cualquier modo, una cosa es cierta: nosotros—y ciertamente, nuestros hijos—lo descubriremos.

I’ve lately received a few emails from people looking for tips on how to remain in a healthy emotional space whilst visiting with family over the holidays. So I thought I’d revisit the below, which I first published about this time last year. It’s a way of looking at each of the Beatitudes delivered by Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount, and finding there wisdom anyone can use to make visiting their family over the holidays something they can not endure, but greatly enjoy.

So here we go:

Blessed are the poor in spirit. We tend to go into family gatherings pretty keyed up. We feel intense, alert, super-sensitive to everything everybody says and does. But that’s the opposite of being “poor in spirit”; that’s being too rich in spirit. What that’s about, at its core, is protection of your ego. But instead of defending it, this is a time to surrender your ego. Before stepping into your family gathering, take a minute, take a deep breath or two, and consciously fill yourself with the Holy Spirit. That will replace your grubby, score-keeping ego spirit with the very spirit of Jesus. And if there’s one thing Jesus showed us, it’s that it’s all about extending the spirit of God to others, and wanting nothing for yourself.

Blessed are those who mourn. Again, this is about the Holy Spirit filling you with the understanding that everything of this world—including your family—is temporary. Centering yourself within that truth will give you the clarity to appreciate that every member of your family is just like everyone else in the world: in need of constant, absolute, and perfect love. That’s a love they cannot find this side of heaven. And that no one ever gets the complete, unbroken love they were born craving does inform the universal human experience with a very great sadness. Know that. Be with that. Let the truth of the universal unrequited love flow through you. Allow it to allow you to treat the members of your family not as people with whom you share a specific, tangled history, but rather as co-travelers through this long, hard veil of tears.

Blessed are the meek. Don’t fight. Don’t provoke. Don’t defend. Don’t insist that your thoughts and opinions are given their full due. Let every last bit of all that go. Allow others in your family to go before you. Let them have the floor. Let them be right, strong, firm, and clear in whatever way it’s important for them to be so. Support them in an unqualified way. Instead of saying the words that your ego-self is first inclined to say, say instead (within reason, of course) what you know would most please them to hear. If Jesus can sacrifice his life in order for you to be reconciled with God, you can surely sacrifice a bit of yourself to promote harmony within your family—especially during the Christmas season.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Always look to, highlight, emphasize, and celebrate what’s good and right with whatever’s going at the moment. Through the guiding grace of the Holy Spirit, align yourself with what’s right, true, just, forgiving. The love of God in your heart will unerringly carry you to the place where God is most fully manifested. Maybe that manifestation will be your awareness of hard your mother has always worked. Maybe it will be in the physical grace with which your father or brother moves. Maybe it will be in the musical sound of your sister’s laugh. Whatever and wherever it is, find it. There’s God! Be with Him—and through Him, with them.

Blessed are the merciful. No mystery here. Forgive, forgive, forgive till it hurts. Why shouldn’t you? You’re no angel. None of us is. In our lives we’ve all done more wrong things than there are numbers to count. Forgive everyone in your family, straight up. When it comes to our proper relationship to our family members, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” should be tattooed on our hearts. They didn’t know. They couldn’t. None of us can. Our only hope is to mercifully forgive each other, the way Christ mercifully forgave all of us. Give it up. You resentments aren’t doing you any good anyway. Open your arms wide, and drop that dead weight.

Blessed are the pure in heart. Don’t let foul emotional intent find its target within you. If one of your family members says or does something that is hurtful to you, internally step aside, and let the arrow of that pointed negativity zip right past you—and then turn your attention right back to the Holy Spirit. Don’t let the poison of the world—as manifested through your family—sully the pure God within you. God really is love; and love really is a force so powerfully pure that it deflects, absorbs, changes and absolves all which tries to counter it. Let your heart be the burning crucible wherein that transformative process is never wanes.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Show that the peace of the Lord is upon you by becoming the means by which members of your family find peace between themselves. You can’t force reconciliations to occur, of course. But if you keep your loving heart attuned to it, you will certainly find among your family members constant little revelations that they (like all people) desire to exist in harmony with those nearest them. Do what you can to facilitate that blessed process. When friction occurs, smooth it over; when tensions mount, help them dissipate. Don’t be afraid to be bold about it, either—to suggest, for instance, why and how one member of your family might be comfortable forgiving another for some specific past offense. Just put it to them; ask them to forgive. In this lead by example: share with a member of your family why you’re so pleased to take full responsibility for something that in the past went wrong between you and them. So what if it’s not really that cut-and-dried? It’s close enough. Let go of the wrong that tries to claim you as its own. Make peace.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. Being truly right and loving can be truly lonely. So what? You don’t serve God because it feels good, or because of the great personal or emotional rewards that come with sacrifice. You serve him because you know it’s the right thing to do. And sometimes serving God hurts. And it’s fair that it should: a sacrifice that feels good, after all, is no sacrifice at all. That you will be persecuted as a result of aligning yourself with righteousness isn’t in question. The question is whether or not you can continue to feel blessed in the midst of that persecution. And the quickest, surest way to do that is to remember how terribly Christ was treated. The simple, healing, and rejuvenating truth is that we are most like Christ when we are most being persecuted. So don’t worry if your family, for example, derides your belief in God. Just smile—and laugh, even, as you acknowledge the validity of how your relationship with God must look to them. Just remain with the Lord, and, like day follows night, he will lead you back to calm waters.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Boom. There it is.