How Islam is no more a “religion of violence” than is my faith

Sometimes a single Facebook post can restore your faith in humanity just a little bit.

Like when a friend who’s a Boston-area church leader shared that she was engaging in a dialogue with her Muslim counterparts, reflecting together on the Boston bombings and the days ahead.

What a concept.

Talking WITH people of the Islamic faith instead of just talking ABOUT them or, worse, listening to Bill O’Reilly talk about them.

On his show, O’Reilly complains that too many Muslims are “silent” about violence perpetrated in the name of their religion. Yet as my friend pointed out after actually spending time with Muslim leaders, they have condemned these acts repeatedly. They see them — and denounce them — as heretical distortions of their faith.

But they feel like their voice gets ignored by a 24-hour news cycle which prefers a simpler narrative.

O’Reilly says he can’t hear any Muslim voices denouncing violence. Maybe if he stopped pontificating for two minutes and tried listening…

The truth is, we all see and hear what we want to. And we’re all blind to that which we just don’t want to see.

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“Islam is a religion of violence.”

That’s the prevailing notion among many Christians, most of whom don’t know a single Muslim person.

Perhaps these Christians heard a fragment of the Quran that sounds like it’s promoting violence. Usually quoted without any context.

Sometimes it’s not even that. Sometimes it’s just what we think the Quran says — because, let’s be honest: most of us (myself included) couldn’t quote a single word of Islam’s holy book if we had to.

Sure. Islam has its “problem texts.”

But I’m a Christian, and that means I’ve got my share of problem texts to deal with too.

Then Israel made this vow to the Lord: “If you will deliver these people into our hands, we will totally destroy their cities.” The Lord listened to Israel’s plea and gave the Canaanites over to them. They completely destroyed them and their towns. (Numbers 21:2-3)

“Have you allowed all the women to live?” [Moses] asked them. “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. Now kill all the boys [Heb. taf, or “little children”]. (Numbers 31:15-18)

At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them — men, women and children. We left no survivors… the Lord our God gave us all of them. (Deuteronomy 2:34-36)

You must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. (Deuteronomy 13:15)

In the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites — as the Lord your God has commanded you. (Deuteronomy 20:16-17)

The church has various ways of dealing with these and other violent texts in the Bible. Some Christians suggest they’re no longer applicable because they’re Old Testament, as if genocide was all well and good for Israel but not so much for us today.

Some traditions read these texts allegorically. Others question their historicity, noting that archaeologists have unearthed scant evidence for any wholesale extermination of Canaan’s indigenous population during the second millennium BC.

Still others have pointed out similarities between the Old Testament’s violent imagery and that of other ancient Near Eastern religions, suggesting the Israelites borrowed some less-than-ideal notions about God and violence from their neighbors.

And some of us would note that whatever path you take to get there, eventually you end up with Jesus, whose Sermon on the Mount puts a categorical stop to the whole “death to our enemies” business.

So yes, we have ways of dealing with our problem texts. But they’re still in the Bible. They’re still etched into parchment, there for anyone to read. Seemingly legitimizing violence, warfare, genocide.

The thing is, if someone used these texts to typecast Christianity as a religion of violence (as some indeed have), I wouldn’t be too happy about it. I’d probably say they were proof-texting my holy book. That they hadn’t considered the full scope of Christian thought and the various options for interpreting these problem texts.

I would probably suggest that as outsiders who are evidently hostile to Christianity, they probably aren’t the best ones to judge whether Christianity is, in fact, a religion of violence.

So why do we think it’s OK for us to read a handful of verses from the Quran and conclude that Islam is a religion of violence?

I don’t want someone demonizing my faith on the basis of a few “problem texts.” So maybe I should treat people of other faiths with the same courtesy. Maybe I should give my Muslim neighbors the same benefit of the doubt that I want them to give me.

How there’s a better way to read Genesis 1

This post was inspired by a conversation with some friends about a book called The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton.

What if you could read Genesis 1 and utterly miss the point?

What if someone told you Genesis 1 has a lot in common with other (older) creation tales from the ancient world?

What if Genesis 1 reflected ancient cosmology rather than modern science — hence light which appears before stars do and a heavenly vault that separates waters above from waters below?

What if ancient cosmology was more about the purpose of things and less about how they came into being? What if Genesis 1 was more about God bringing order and function to the cosmos than how it came into being?

To put it another way, what if Genesis 1 is about the why of creation rather than the how?

What if Genesis 1 is a really story about things which had no function, purpose, or meaning until God gave them one?

And what if the pinnacle of creation wasn’t reached on day six, when God made people?

What if Rick Warren is right? What if it’s not about us?

What if the people who added chapter breaks to the Bible got the very first chapter division wrong? What if the first few verses of Genesis 2 are actually part of the first creation story?

(Did you know there were two creation stories in Genesis?)

What if day seven, which comes at the start of chapter 2 but is actually part of the first creation story, wasn’t just an afterthought? What if it’s more than a footnote to the other six days? What if day seven is the whole point of the story?

What if God resting is what it’s all about?

And what if “resting” was ancient-world-speak for when a deity took up residence in his temple?

What if God “doesn’t live in temples built by human hands” because he already has a temple — one built with his own hands? What if the reason the scriptures say that God “is not far from any one of us” is because the earth is his temple?

What if Isaiah was right? What if the earth is God’s footstool, his resting place, his dwelling?

What if that’s the point of Genesis 1, that God made a home and invited us to share it with him? What if that’s the real point of the story, not how old the earth is or how it came into being?

What if getting sidetracked by debates over the age of the earth or evolution is more than just a way of embarrassing ourselves in front of scientists? What if we’re missing the whole point of our own story?

What if the whole rest of the Bible is about God reclaiming his cosmic temple so he can take up residence — so he can dwell with us — once again?

What if that’s what he was doing when he carved out a patch of earth to share with the Israelites? What if that’s what the apostle John meant when he said Jesus “became flesh and made his dwelling among us”?

What if that’s what God started doing on a global scale when he sent his Spirit to fill his church?

What if that’s what he’s going to do at the end of the story? What if that’s why the last book of the Bible depicts a holy city — God’s city — coming down to earth?

Do you get the feeling that if we miss the real point of Genesis 1, we could miss so much else?

If we get the beginning of our story wrong, could we get the ending wrong too?

What if this is really what’s at stake in the endless debate over creation and Genesis 1 — not just our scientific credibility (though that’s on the line too) but our ability to embrace the story the Bible actually wants to tell us?

All of which, by the way, is why we need books like this . . .

How not to be a theological bully

“I’m not saying you’re a heretic. Just that you’re a heretical promoter of heresy.” 

That, in a nutshell, is the gist of Ken Ham’s latest post addressing Pete Enns. (You might say Enns is Ham’s theological arch nemesis.)

[Background: Enns is an evangelical theologian who accepts the scientific consensus on evolution and has written extensively about its implications for the Christian faith — namely, the possibility that Genesis 1 is not a literal, scientific depiction of human origins and the overwhelming likelihood that the human race did not originate from a single primal couple, i.e. a literal Adam and Eve. Ken Ham is a longtime advocate for young earth creationism (YEC). He believes the very integrity of the gospel is at stake if you dispense with a literal, 6-day creation and a literal Adam and Eve.]

Ham is no stranger to controversy. In his recent post, he reminds us how a couple years ago he was disinvited from a homeschooling conference for being uncharitable toward Christians who disagree with him. (That was the explanation offered by conference organizers who largely share Ham’s interpretation of Genesis.)

But more damaging is Ham’s use of the nuclear option to shut down any honest conversation. He does so by forcing an impossible (and false) choice on his audience: either you accept what I tell you about creation, or you undermine the gospel. Sure, Ham won’t quite say you’re going to hell if you believe in evolution. But who wants to be accused of “undermin[ing] the authority of God’s Word and the gospel,” as he puts it?

In short, Ken Ham is a bully.

The irony is that Ham’s false choice is almost certainly doing more to drive people away from faith than toward it — because fear cannot nurture faith.

But Ham isn’t the only one who’s tried this tactic. I used to be that guy… constantly getting into arguments with my more moderate college friends over evolution, women in ministry, homosexuality… trying to make each disagreement a “gospel issue” so they’d have to choose between agreeing with me and renouncing the gospel.

I was never big enough or strong enough to be a physical bully. But theological bullies can do just as much damage.

Now that I see things from a different vantage point, I can appreciate what I put my friends through. (And, quite frankly, I’m amazed they put up with me.)

So for all those who’ve been bullied into conformity by threats of denunciation, allusions to some inevitable “slippery slope,” and declarations of heresy . . . let me say:

Human origins is not a gospel issue.

Women’s ordination is not a gospel issue.

How you vote is not a gospel issue.

Homosexuality is not a gospel issue.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter what you believe. Believing certain things about God is part of the Christian experience, which is why many of us reaffirm our faith every Sunday using the words of the Nicene Creed (while others do so in other ways).

And I do think the gospel has profound implications for how we see the world, for how we vote, and for how we treat women, gays, lesbians, and other historically marginalized groups of people.

But when defenders of the theological status quo try to make you choose between their view on [insert hot-button issue here] and apostasy, they are getting the gospel wrong.

There is something that can undermine the gospel. But it’s not evolution. It’s not questioning the church’s posture toward gays and lesbians.

For the apostle Paul, the only thing that could undermine the gospel was this:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile…

Not “if the earth is more than 6,000 years old, your faith is futile.”

Not “if there was no historical Adam and Eve, your faith is futile.”

Not “if you let a woman preach, your faith is futile.”

And not “if you welcome gays and lesbians into your church, your faith is futile.”

Christianity is so much more than a belief system, but the one belief it does hinge on is resurrection — that is, belief in Jesus’ resurrection, which makes possible the resurrection and renewal of everything else.

To make the gospel dependent on anything else is to get the gospel wrong. And to do so in order to advance your own agenda and to pressure others into conformity is to become a theological bully.

The thing is, most people won’t sit around and take the abuse. They’ll just walk away.

Which is a pretty high price to pay for “winning.”

Kyrie eleison, Boston (and Iraq)

Today, as officials comb Boston in search of answers and in search of justice, may we remember that there is only so much we can say . . .

And so very much that we should not say.

Let no one say that 8-year old Martin Richard died yesterday because “God needed another angel in heaven.” God is not a sadistic collector of human specimens. There was no sudden shortage of angels in heaven precipitating yesterday’s carnage and devastation.

Let no one talk of “God’s plan” as if this were somehow part of it. To do so is to mistake God for some kind of cosmic terrorist. To suggest that we ought to bow down and worship such a God is spiritual abuse of the worst order.

If we talk of God, let us talk of the God who grieves with Boston. The God who grieves over death and violence — much as Jesus grieved at the loss of a friend. Let us see God through the lens of Jesus. In him we meet a God who renounces violence, who is making war on war, who despises death, and who beats swords into plowshares.

And let us not talk of Boston without also remembering the dozens killed in multiple car bombings in Iraq yesterday. The attack in Boston is closer to home, so it’s natural to feel it more acutely. But let it sensitize you to the dangers that millions face on a routine basis. Let it strengthen our resolve to work for peace, both here and abroad. Let us remember that every life is precious to God.

At the end of the day, all we can say is kyrie eleison.

Lord have mercy.

For Boston and Iraq.

How it’s time for a grownup conversation about abortion

Kirsten Powers’ USA Today column about the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell is currently lighting up the internet because of (a) the shocking nature of Gosnell’s crimes and (b) Powers’ charge that the story has drawn little national media attention because of liberal media bias.*

Let’s be clear: the accusations against Gosnell are chilling. If proven true (and it seems all but certain they will be), I hope Gosnell goes to jail for a very long time.

So let’s take this sobering opportunity to get serious about preventing abortion in this country. Let’s finally have that grownup conversation about abortion. We’re long overdue.

The conversation will probably make those on the right and the left uncomfortable at points. All the more reason to have it. Some on the right want abortion banned altogether, yet they seem intent on pursuing policies (especially when it comes to birth control) that would ensure continued demand for abortion. Meanwhile, some on the left talk about making abortion “safe, legal, and rare,” but they never seem to get around to that last one.

—

Yesterday I tweeted a question to Jonathan Merritt (who helped Powers’ editorial in USA Today go viral on Twitter). I wanted to know if he thought we could prevent more cases like Gosnell’s if abortion were integrated into mainstream medical care. Much as I dislike abortion, it seems to me that having them done in hospitals rather than specialized clinics might (a) reduce the overall number of abortions, (b) empower women to make more informed decisions, and (c) ensure better oversight and reduce the risk of abuse. (More on this below.)

It’s hardly the only change I would propose, and maybe not even the most vital. But if we’re serious about preventing abortion, let’s put all ideas on the table.

Jonathan dismissed the question as irrelevant, saying there are “better common ground ways to reduce abortion.” But not mentioning any. So I thought I’d give it a try.

—

Here are four things we could do now in order to reduce abortion. (And yes, one of them involves tightening legal restrictions on abortion.)

Those on the left and right will probably find something to dislike. But this is a pluralistic society we’re living in. We can’t act as if the other side doesn’t exist or as if their concerns don’t matter.

Instead, we need to seek common ground ways to work for the common good. In this case, that means figuring out how to reduce abortion without marginalizing women.

1. Birth control.

Yup. If conservative evangelicals are serious about reducing abortion, then it’s time for them (and Hobby Lobby) to get over their hang-ups with birth control — some of which are based on bad science.

Some in the pro-life camp seem to start every conversation with a legislative ban. If we care about reducing abortion, why not just outlaw it altogether and be done with it? Well, because legislation isn’t especially effective at curbing abortion. Countries with the most restrictive abortion laws tend to have the highest abortion rates. (Yes, you read that right.) Consider Latin America, a region with plenty of legislation… and 32 abortions per 1,000 women. Now compare that to Western Europe: 12 abortions per 1,000 women.

What makes the difference? Contraception, not legislation.

You might say you worry that contraceptives encourage promiscuity. Well, that’s a conversation you ought to be having with your sons and daughters. But as a society, what do we care about more? Keeping people out of the sack or preventing abortion? My vote is for the latter.

(In any case, I don’t know of any evidence proving that access to contraception encourages promiscuity among those not already inclined to be sexually active.)

2. “Middle-ground” restrictions on abortion.

At what point is a fetus endowed with a right to life? That’s the big question, isn’t it?

Is it only at the moment of birth, as the most ardent abortion advocates suggest? That seems a bit arbitrary, doesn’t it? Especially since the timing of birth varies from one pregnancy to the next.

Is it when a fetus is deemed “viable” outside the womb? That’s a bit of a moving target as well, thanks to modern medical advances.

Is it, as most pro-life groups suggest, the moment of conception? Then why aren’t pro-lifers putting as much effort into saving the estimated 50-75 percent of all human embryos — living human beings who deserve legal protection, in their view — that fail to implant and therefore “die”? As Fred Clark asks, where is the charity 5K for all these embryos? Where is the celebrity telethon?

I don’t pretend to have the answer to the big question. I prefer to err on the side of caution. But whatever you think the answer might be, surely we can agree that, apart from a genuine medical emergency, there is rarely (if ever) a good reason for an abortion in the third trimester.

Isn’t it just a bit ironic that other industrialized nations — many of which are seen as being more progressive or liberal than the US — impose tighter restrictions on late-term abortions than we do (at least at the federal level)? In Britain, abortion is generally banned after the 24th week of gestation. In other European countries — Germany, Spain, France (France!) — abortion is limited to the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

These laws acknowledge something we seem to have either forgotten or ignored. Whatever you think about the early stages of pregnancy, at some point prior to birth, we have a living, conscious, functioning person on our hands. Anyone who’s experienced a full-term pregnancy knows this.

Granted, restricting late-term abortions by itself won’t have a serious impact on the overall rate of abortion, because 92 percent of abortions are performed within the first 13 weeks. Nearly two-thirds are done prior to 8 weeks. But surely we can do more to prevent cases like the one coming out of Pennsylvania even if they are relatively rare, as Planned Parenthood insists.

3. A better safety net for pregnant women and their families.

More than 40 percent of those who have an abortion fall below the poverty line — many of them WELL below the poverty line. According to the Guttmacher Institute (yes, they’re a pro-choice organization; no, that doesn’t automatically invalidate their research), 3 out of 4 women who choose abortion cite economic hardship as a major factor.

If you want our society to protect life inside the womb, you have to be willing to invest in protecting that life once it exits the womb.

You might be under the impression that providing more assistance to single moms will just encourage them to make more babies . . . as if THAT’S their ticket to the good life. (And as if women can’t imagine anything better than being pregnant all the time.) You might have Ronald Reagan’s famous “welfare queen” speech reverberating in your years — you know, the one about the woman who had 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, a bunch of kids, and who got rich by scamming the welfare system.

That woman never existed. Reagan made her up, yet his lie has shaped our perception of single women on welfare ever since. The average household receiving TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) has 1.8 children. Which is less, not more, than than the average American household.

The good news? The abortion rate has been declining slowly for many years. But the bad news? Most of this decline has been driven by economics. Abortion has decreased nearly 30 percent among wealthy women in recent years. But during that same time, the abortion rate increased nearly 20 percent among impoverished women.

If we really want to prevent abortion, let’s tackle the root cause: poverty.

4. Placing abortion into the context of mainstream medicine.

Jonathan Merritt may think this one’s beside the point, but I’m not so sure. One of the original arguments for legalizing abortion was to get it out of the back alleys. Even if Kermit Gosnell was the exception rather than the rule, does anyone want to argue that his clinic was any better than a back alley?

Pro-choice advocates argue that abortion should be “between a woman and her doctor.” If so, then shouldn’t it be a doctor who knows her as more than just a potential client? Shouldn’t it be a doctor who cares about treating the whole person, instead of someone who’s financial success depends on doing this one procedure as many times as possible?

(Is this yet another unintended consequence of accepting a profit-driven healthcare system?)

If we made sure that women could access comprehensive family planning services within the context of the larger healthcare system, wouldn’t we be empowering them to make more informed decisions and make them sooner (further reducing the number of late-term abortions, if nothing else)? Could we minimize the likelihood of horrific abuses like those allegedly perpetrated by Kermit Gosnell?

—

All of which is to say . . .

The abortion rate is unacceptably high in this country. Nothing we do will make abortion go away entirely. Nor can any one approach (or even a combination of approaches) hope to cover every possible scenario.

But what if we’d set aside our partisan talking points for two minutes? What if we actually put our heads together to come up with common-sense ways of reducing abortion without marginalizing women?

I bet we’d be surprised at how much we could achieve.

—

*Postscript: Conservative outrage over the alleged conspiracy by the “liberal media” to ignore the Gosnell trial seems a bit overblown when you consider the fact that this story broke more than two years ago when Kermit Gosnell was first charged. At that time it was covered by major news outlets such as NBC and Slate. Recently, the New York Times, The Nation, and the Washington Post have all responded to the criticism coming from conservative outlets.

How I need to learn to mourn with those who mourn

When news broke that Rick Warren’s son, Matthew, had taken his own life, it wasn’t long before the outpouring of support gave way to a more repugnant sentiment.

People taking to social media to mock Warren’s faith . . .

To declare his family’s heartbreaking loss to be some sort of payback for his theology or his politics . . .

To speculate on his son’s eternal destiny.

Paraphrasing John Armstong’s timely response to these attacks, the words pathetic and cruel come to mind.

I don’t claim to be a huge Rick Warren fan. I don’t go in for his style of church. Theologically and politically, he and I are probably worlds apart. And I could never quite get into the whole “purpose-driven” thing — even though I was employed by his publisher during the heyday of his mega-bestselling book (and therefore indirectly benefited from it). And yes, I did read it.

So it would be pretty easy for me to congratulate myself for not jumping on the bandwagon of judgment being directed at Warren by a few trolls on the internet.

Except . . .

Despite our differences, I like Rick Warren. He comes across as a nice enough guy. I kinda sorta met him once, and he seemed every bit as warm and approachable in person as he does on TV.

And you have to admit: even if you don’t share all of his politics or theology, Rick Warren is a way better ambassador for evangelicalism than some of the other current and former contenders. His PEACE Plan is something to be admired — even if you disagree with some of the particulars (or just don’t share Warren’s penchant for acronyms).

In other words, it’s easy for me to sympathize with someone like Rick Warren.

So what if it was someone I didn’t just disagree with — what if it was someone I actively disliked?

What if it was John Piper, who doesn’t merely express what I think is some rather sadistic theology, but seems to delight in doing so?

What if it was Mark Driscoll, whose misogynistic rants have wounded more than a few of my friends?

What if it was James Dobson, whose unholy mix of Christianity and right-wing politics has arguably done more than anything else to drive people away from faith?

If any of these three suffered a comparable loss, would I grieve for them? Would I feel sorry? Or would I feel smug?

I have to be honest. The answer scares me a little.

In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul encouraged believers to “mourn with those who mourn.”

I’d like to tell myself that Paul is asking Christians to mourn with other Christians, and that Piper/Driscoll/Dobson [add your nemesis of choice here] hardly qualify as good models of what a Christian ought to be . . . therefore we are exempt from mourning when they stumble or suffer loss.

It’s OK to be smug when people like THAT suffer.

Except that it’s not.

You see, Paul wasn’t just talking about how we treat other Christians, those who think exactly like we do, or those we find it easy to like. Just one sentence earlier, Paul also said, “Bless those who persecute you,” which would seem to rule out a narrow interpretation of who he means by “those.”

Bless those…

Rejoice with those…

Mourn with those…

“Those.” As in everyone.

We bless, we rejoice, and we mourn with any and all, because we believe that no one is beyond redemption. We believe that no one is beyond God’s love. A relatively new friend of mine, Trystan Owain Hughes, has a timely (and challenging) piece about this very thing.

It’s not easy to mourn with those we dislike. But perhaps the true test of our willingness to follow Jesus is not our ability to grieve at the suffering of our friends, but at that of our enemies.

So today, I will grieve with Rick Warren. But I’ll be honest and admit that it’s easy for me to do so. It’s easy to grieve with those whom I like. So I will also pray for the strength to grieve with my enemies when they stumble or suffer loss.

How I may not “cherish every moment”

“You should cherish every moment with your kids. They grow up so fast!”

Yup. Every overwrought parent has heard this well-meaning advice at some point. A Minnesota pastor named Steve Weins has a brilliant take on this.

The truth is, I don’t cherish EVERY moment with my daughter. And I’m OK with that.

I don’t cherish the moment when she’s kicking me (hard) and won’t stop no matter how many times I tell her it’s not nice to kick or hit someone. (Apparently nonviolence is an acquired taste.)

I don’t cherish the moment when she declares all-out war on me, all because I tried to put a pair of pants on her.

I don’t cherish the moment when she won’t listen and I have to put her on the step for a few minutes and walk away — mostly for my sake.

Don’t get me wrong. I cherish a lot of moments with my child.

I cherish the moments when we sit together on the couch early in the day, neither of us quite ready to accept that another morning already is upon us.

I cherish the moments in between when I get done working and when I take Elizabeth upstairs for her bath. During those few, fleeting hours my only responsibility is pretending to be a frog hopping around the house, swinging her in circles while U2 plays in the background (did I mention my kid has good taste in music?), or chasing Elizabeth around the dining room table.

I cherish the moments when she asks me if I want to play a game with her or read to her or just sit with her, or when she tells me out of the blue that she loves me.

More than any one moment, however, I cherish my daughter. I cherish who she is, who she’s becoming, and the journey there.

So I get it. I really do. I just think it’s an unrealistic burden to make yourself cherish every moment.

Besides, the fact that not every moment is a cherish-able one is what makes the moments that are worth cherishing so meaningful.

The fact that my daughter’s not a perfect little angel 24/7 (and believe me, she’s not, despite her grandparents’ insistence otherwise) helps me to appreciate the moments when she is. It helps me to seek and savor as many cherish-able moments as I can share with her.

If everything in life went just the way we wanted, we’d have a much harder time appreciating any of it. (That, by the way, is one of the points that a friend of mine makes in this wonderful little book.)

So I will cherish my daughter. I will make the most of my life with her. But I won’t beat myself up for not cherishing every moment… for sometimes needing to take a breath and walk away. And neither should you.

Definitely one of the cherish-able moments

How “love your neighbor” is the Bible’s sexual ethic

This is the final installment in a five-part series on sexual ethics. Part 1 looked at the ramifications of the evangelical purity culture. Part 2 considered “sex as marriage” as a starting point for a biblical sexual ethic. Part 3 and part 4 explored some of the limitations of this starting point. Part 5 below offers an alternative approach.

Here’s a quick recap of the last four posts in the series . . .

On balance, the evangelical purity culture has done more harm than good, failing (mostly) to prevent premarital sex while marginalizing those who don’t live up to their exacting standards. Yet many of us still think marriage is the ideal setting for sexual intimacy. There are passages of scripture which seem to equate sex with marriage, and this leads some to argue that the former should be reserved exclusively for the latter.

On the other hand, much of what the Bible says about sex and marriage shouldn’t be applied today. The Old Testament tolerated polygamy. It required unwed rape victims to marry their attackers. It generally viewed women as property. So if you’re trying to build a comprehensive ethic on the idea that sex equals marriage in the Bible, you’re going to run into trouble.

OK, so now what? Do we give up trying to extract a meaningful sexual ethic from the Bible?

No, but maybe we’re going about it the wrong way. Maybe this isn’t really about sex. Maybe it’s about how we read the Bible.

Most of us treat the Bible as if it were a series of propositional truth statements. We see it as our job to cobble together a coherent theology or ethic of [insert subject here] from a handful of seemingly related texts pulled from random bits of the Bible.

The problem is, scripture doesn’t work this way. It’s not that kind of book. It’s more story than statement. And it’s a story that’s evolving (which is one reason why women generally fare better in the New Testament than in the Old).

But many Christians don’t just treat the Bible as a collection of propositional truth statements. They treat it as as THE collection of propositional truth statements, the final authority, the “Word of God.”

Except . . . the Bible doesn’t use this last term in reference to itself — that is, to the whole canon of scripture.

There IS such a thing as “the Word of God” with a capital W, but it’s not a text. It’s a person. The Word of God in its truest and most authoritative form is Jesus. (See John 1, Revelation 19, etc. See also Christian Smith’s helpful book The Bible Made Impossible.)

Jesus is the final authority, the definitive revelation through whom we’re meant to read all the other words about God and from God in the Bible. Scripture, then, is a book about Jesus, not a book about sex or [insert your favorite hot-button issue here].

So how did Jesus read all the other words about God in his Bible?

Quite simply, as it turns out.

Everything scripture demands of us, Jesus taught, can be boiled down to this:

Love God and love your neighbor.

“All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments,” Jesus said.

The apostle Paul echoed Jesus when he wrote that “love is the fulfillment of the law” and that “the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

For Jesus and Paul, everything comes down to this. If you do this one thing, you have kept the only law that matters to God.

In which case, the question is isn’t, When is it OK to have sex? The question is, How do I love my neighbor? Any sexual behavior which doesn’t pass the “love your neighbor” test is off limits.

Sounds weak, right? I mean, did we just open a Pandora’s box of promiscuity, all in the name of “love”?

Well, no. Love is a lot more demanding than that. Love by its very nature refuses to dishonor another person. Love is not self-seeking. Love protects. Love does not pursue its own satisfaction at someone else’s expense. Love teaches us to value others above ourselves.

Which leaves absolutely no room for coercive or predatory sex of any kind: rape, harassment, or even just pressuring someone to jump into the sack before they’re ready. All off limits.

As is pornography, which is inextricably tied to sex trafficking, and which encourages men to view women as objects for their consumption. Such a reduced view of humanity runs opposite to “love your neighbor.”

Casual sex, even when it’s (supposedly) consensual, turns out to be a pretty bad idea, too — because as Jamie the Very Worst Missionary wrote in her brilliant post recently:

[Sex is] the most vulnerable thing you’ll ever do with another human being. Commitment breeds intimacy, and intimacy is what makes sex freaking amazing.

In other words, if you’re not committed to the other person, you’re not doing it right. And if you love someone, believe me: you’ll want to do it right. Good sex takes practice… with the same person. (Notwithstanding Hollywood depictions of strangers falling into the sack and magically satisfying each other in two minutes flat… i.e. fantasyland.) It takes vulnerability, trust, and all those things you generally don’t find outside a committed relationship.

We could go on. Polygamy doesn’t pass the “love your neighbor” test because it un-levels the playing field between partners, undercutting mutuality. Adultery has no place either, because it means breaking faith with someone you’ve vowed to love.

But for the life of me, I don’t see how a committed, same-sex relationship fails the “love your neighbor” test. Sure, we could dust off the so-called clobber texts and argue that it’s “unnatural.” But to do so is to put some other law above “love your neighbor.” Which is the reverse of what Jesus taught.

If “love your neighbor” really is the fulfillment of every other law, then in order to condemn homosexuality, you’d have to show how a committed, consensual relationship between two adults of the same gender violates this law, not how it violates some anachronistic levitical code banning ritual sex between two men.

So what about those who, regardless of their orientation, have a complicated sexual past? What about those who’ve had more than one partner? Or who became sexually active before they were ready? What about those who’ve been told by the evangelical purity culture that they are damaged goods, that they’ve stolen something from their future spouses, that they’ve forever tarnished their capacity for intimacy?

“Love your neighbor” calls out this kind of thinking for the crap it truly is.

That’s the other thing about love. It keeps no record of wrongs. It never stops trusting. It always hopes, always perseveres, always sees the best in other people. Love refuses to define anyone according to their sexual past. To quote Jamie the Very Worst Missionary again, love says, “You are so much more than your sexuality.”

“Love your neighbor” doesn’t offer a simple answer to every “what if?” But maybe that’s why it works as a sexual ethic where other approaches fall apart — because the others try too hard to be all-encompassing, too one-size-fits-all, and end up being undermined by their own inconsistencies.

“Love your neighbor” is not always easy to apply, especially when it comes to sexuality. But I believe it’s the only ethic we need.

How it’s the day after the first day of the new creation

I have a hard time believing in the resurrection.

I’ve lost count of how many times the only prayer I could summon the will to pray is the one in Mark 9. Or how many times I’ve asked — safely beyond earshot of anyone else, of course — “What if we made this up because we’re afraid of death?”

On days like yesterday, Easter Sunday, I find myself sitting in church celebrating an event I can’t be absolutely sure really happened.

The trouble is, I understand how important resurrection is to the faith I claim to profess. There are plenty of ideas which Christianity could arguably survive without. This is not one of them. “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith,” Paul wrote.

I suppose I could make Pascal’s wager — that it’s better to mistakenly believe in God than to live as if he doesn’t exist and end up being wrong about that. Or that it’s better to mistakenly believe in the resurrection than to wrongly assume that death is final.

The problem with Pascal’s wager is that it’s become an excuse for escapism. On the one hand, if this life really is all we’ve got, we might actually try making the most of it. But if, on the other hand, this life is just a way station — a portal to something else — then what’s the point of putting too much effort into it? Simply check the “resurrection” box on your belief scorecard and sit back and wait to be raptured.

Except that’s not where the resurrection story wants to take us. In John’s account especially, the resurrection of Jesus represents — and demands — so much more.

It’s the timing of events that gives it away: Jesus dies on a Friday, lies entombed on a Saturday, and rises on a Sunday.

The timing matters because John is not just telling a story about Jesus. He’s connecting it to a much older story. Notice the very first words of his gospel:

In the beginning.

The same words that introduce the story of creation in Genesis.

Holy Week, the final week of Jesus’ life (starting in John 12), roughly parallels the creation week in Genesis 1:1–2:3. On the sixth day of creation, the first humans drew their first breath. On the sixth day of Holy Week, the Son of Man drew his final breath.

By the seventh day of creation, God’s work was done; so he rested. By the seventh day of Holy Week, Jesus’ work was done, so he too rested. In a tomb.

John is telling the story of Jesus as a story of new creation.

But the first creation was not an end unto itself; it was the start of something bigger. The whole point of the first week was so there could be a second week. And a third. And so on.

The same is true of the new creation inaugurated by Jesus.

According to John, the resurrection takes place “early on the first day of the week.” It marks the very first day of the very first week of the new creation.

In creation 1.0, everything fell apart some time after the last day of the first week. In creation 2.0, everything finally starts being put back together.

But if resurrection day marks the beginning of a new creation, then “eternal life” or “heaven” or whatever you want to call it is not some far-off, disembodied hope. It’s not some distant event to be looked forward to. It’s not something this present life would seek to distract us from. It’s already begun.

If the new creation began the day Jesus walked out of the tomb, then it’s this world that matters to God. It’s this world he’s out to renew.

Which also means that we have work to do. Creation 2.0 is something that could never have been achieved without God — it took God dying and coming back to life in order to kick things off. But neither is it something that God intends to do entirely on his own. According to the gospel accounts, Jesus rose from the dead, then went back to heaven, entrusting his embryonic “new creation” project to his followers.

Resurrection wasn’t just meant to give us hope for life in the hereafter. It was meant to be the spark of new life here and now.

If we find it hard to believe in the resurrection, maybe it’s partly because we’re not busy activating it in the world around us. Resurrection is not something merely to be believed in. It’s something to be lived, enacted, embodied.

I’m sure I’ll still find myself doubting in the days ahead. I’ll probably still have to pray the sick boy’s father’s prayer in Mark 9. But maybe the way God wants us to “overcome our unbelief” is not by amassing a Josh McDowell-esque collection of factoids in defense of the resurrection, but by living as if the resurrection really happened — as if really did inaugurate a radical new reality right here, right now.

Because resurrection doesn’t just mean we get to live after we die. It means we get to live before we die, too.

How it was more than a lament

Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”

In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

– Matthew’s account of the crucifixion

On a hill outside the holy city, the religious might of Jerusalem conspired with the military might of Rome to kill the one who threatened them both. Convicting Jesus of blasphemy and treason, they strapped him to a tree and strung him up — a warning to any other who defied their stranglehold of power.

Those who passed by played along, voicing their approval of his execution — perhaps out of fear or perhaps because the current state of affairs between Jerusalem and Rome suited them just fine.

Even the insurrectionists strung up next to Jesus hurled their abuse. Maybe they resented him. At least they’d had the nerve to wield a sword in the face of oppression. Maybe they thought Jesus wasn’t worthy of dying next to them.

Utterly alone and abandoned, Jesus cried out:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The opening words of Psalm 22.

But it wasn’t the only line quoted from that psalm on this day. Matthew’s account of the crucifixion is, in fact, a reenactment of Psalm 22 in its entirety. Notice the insult that prompted Jesus’ lament:

He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him.

Matthew attributed this line to the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders — the religious establishment. It too came straight out of Psalm 22.

I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
“let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.”

Matthew appropriates the language of Psalm 22 to show us who’s playing what part in his story: the righteous sufferer and those who “hurl insults” at him. All of Psalm 22 was activated on Good Friday, in a manner of speaking.

“I will fulfill my vows,” the psalmist resolved in the face of his own suffering.

Even when a pack of villains encircles him.

Even when they divide his clothes among them.

Even when the people stare and gloat.

The crucifixion of Jesus was a cruel reenactment of Psalm 22. It was, as one singer put it, “a strange way to do performance art.”

Understanding the interplay between Matthew’s crucifixion story and Psalm 22 brings something else to the surface. About two-thirds of the way into this psalm, the plot takes an unexpected turn: the psalmist predicts that from abandonment will come deliverance.

Not just his own deliverance, but rescue for all who are afflicted.

As a result of his hardship, the psalmist predicts, poverty will be no more.

All the ends of the earth will remember God and turn to him.

The rich and the poor will feast side by side — equals in God’s kingdom.

“Those who cannot keep themselves alive” will be sustained.

All because of the sacrifice of one who chose not to keep himself alive.

On this Good Friday, try reading the original crucifixion story.

Read Psalm 22.