Tent Width Oct 25, 2006
Observations on Controversy Oct 24, 2007
First Impressions Dec 5, 2006
I have enjoyed watching CBS’s reality show The Amazing Race. The show provides some fascinating drama as contestants must overcome physical challenges, cultural differences, and traffic in order to be the first to the next pit stop. It makes for some pretty entertaining television.
But the producers are apparently not content with the human drama that would result naturally from the format of the show, as it seems they believed they needed to add to the drama by their choice of contestants. This year we have a Goth couple (“every day is Halloween for us”), a daughter and her absentee, workaholic father, and a 23-year-old airline pilot and his grandfather. For me, these varied folks would provide plenty of entertaining drama, but apparently the producers didn’t think so. This is where Kate and Pat come in.
Kate is an ordained priest, and Pat a vocational deacon, in the Episcopal Church. They are lesbians. They are “married.” Dramatic, isn’t it? But clearly, our culture is pushing us toward the goal of a day in which this arrangement is not dramatic in the least.
So what are Bible-believing Christians to do? Ed Stetzer has said (paraphrasing from memory here) that speaking against the culture is like speaking against someone’s house. It’s just where they live. I understand the thinking behind that statement, and agree with the futility of standing in the pulpit and railing against the prevailing attitude in Hollywood.
But if this is indicitave of where people are living, if this is their “house,” shouldn’t someone be telling them that it is in danger of collapse, and that they should consider moving? If so, how do we go about it.
Clearly, I’ve got more questions than answers. If you’ve got some answers, share them in the comments.
Wes Kenney
Tent Width Oct 25, 2006
Observations on Controversy Oct 24, 2007
First Impressions Dec 5, 2006
Connect with me on the following social networks:
Robin Nov 8 2007 - 1:19 pm
Step Number One:
Stop watching the Amazing Race.
Whether this helps them move out of their house, I don’t know, but this would send a message to the Hollywood elite that this type of behavior is not acceptable to its audience.
Reply
Bob Cleveland Nov 8 2007 - 1:29 pm
Follow the money.
If catering to the religious community made those folks money, they’d probably do it. But it doesn’t, and that doesn’t surprise me.
Business as usual, and particularly interesting to us old codgers who remember when Jack Paar walked off his late-night TV show protesting the censors’ refusal to let him say “WC” (referring to a Water Closet, a-k-a a toilet) on national television.
Reply
Wes Kenney Nov 8 2007 - 1:32 pm
Bob,
I’m not quite as, um, experienced as you; Jack Paar was a bit before my time.
I am old enough to remember, however, that the bathroom in the Brady home apparently had no toilet. I suppose this was to compensate for the scandal of Mike and Carol being in bed together, right there on the screen.
We’ve come a long way. A long way, indeed.
Reply
Bowden McElroy Nov 8 2007 - 2:07 pm
No answers… but an anecdote.
The other day I asked my Intro to Psych class (mostly 18-year-old college freshmen) for their best guess re: what percentage of the population in the US is gay?
They guesses were anywhere from 20% to 40%.
The number most often thrown around by the media is 10%. The best research shows somewhere between 3% and 6%. My student’s perception was too high by as much as 800%!
My first question was: why? How could these kids (young adults) be so wrong about a relatively simple question. One answer may be media portrayals of gays; I could only think of a few TV shows that did not have at least one gay character among a small cast.
Reply
volfan007 Nov 8 2007 - 2:53 pm
how dare yall put down this lesbian couple. do you not believe in soul competency? do you not believe that they have the right to interpret the bible in the way they want to… for themselves? are you trying to be narrow minded, or trying to tell this woman pastor that she cant believe and live anyway she wants to and still be right with God? why, i’ll bet that yall wouldnt even accept her baptism!!!! i bet that yall would tell her that she shouldnt even be a pastor!!!!
how horrid! when will the torture of boundary narrowers end? when will we be delivered from the chains of the establisment bloggers? when will gay pastors finally be allowed to be ministers in the sbc without the bigots of the sbc blocking thier way?
david
Reply
Bob Cleveland Nov 8 2007 - 3:12 pm
Wes: the word you were searching in vain for is “old”. OLD.
I had to live a long time to get here and I’m durned if some whippersnapper is going to deprive me of my title.
Robert G. Cleveland, O.F.
Reply
jasonk Nov 8 2007 - 3:45 pm
Bob,
I love it! Funny, as usual. O.F. :>)
David,
Its “t-h-E-I-r.”
Wes,
Try to look on the bright side. When Hollywood portrays lesbian couples, they are so unrealistic in their casting, that lesbianism actually looks attractive. Most fictional lesbian couples are very beautiful and desireable. In this case, since they are real lesbians, the world can see what most of them actually look like. I will leave it at that.
Reply
volfan007 Nov 8 2007 - 4:10 pm
jason k,
their…t-h-e-i-r….their
there…t-h-e-r-e…there
they’re…t-h-e-y-r-e…they’re
i’m so glad that we have such intellectual giants in these blogs who can teach a poor, simple, hillbilly like to spell. jason k, you are going to be the one to help me get thru the 8th grade. if i could just graduate from the 8th grade, then i’d be the first in my family to do so. so, thank ye, jason k. thank ye! thank ye! thank ye!
david
Reply
jasonk Nov 8 2007 - 4:22 pm
Just remember the rule, David. It’s “i before e, except after c, and e after k in chicken.”
Reply
volfan007 Nov 8 2007 - 4:48 pm
prof. jason k,
there aint no c in their! so, what are you tryin’ to pull?
and, i love to go to chicken filla to eat those chicken sandwiches.
david
Reply
volfan007 Nov 8 2007 - 4:53 pm
hey, on a side note about this lezzy couple…have yall noticed that one of them looks a lot like dr. tom nettles, prof. at southern? i mean, put dr. nettles hair on that gal(the blonde one)and she’s dr. nettles. what do yall think?
david
Reply
stuart Nov 8 2007 - 6:22 pm
I hate to distract this tread from horribly weak satire and grammar issues, but I’d like to attempt to contribute something substantive.
Bowden’s statistics are indeed alarming. They do seem to indicate that if “hollywood” or “the militant homosexual lobby” has perpetuated an agenda on our young people, then they’ve succeeded to a large degree.
Yet, having grown up in Lynchburg, VA in the 70s, I think I can say with some credibility that the “gay agenda” isn’t recent news to evangelicals. “We” have been “battling” it for the better part of 30 years.
We seem to be losing, no? I think that’s why comments like Stetzer’s resonate with me. I’ve seen one means of fighting the “culture war” up close, having lived in the war room. It’s a failed strategy. (It does raise lots of money, though.)
There MUST be other means. I won’t dilineate everything I’m thinking because (in light of other events of this week) it would potentially derail the thread. So I’ll simply say that I don’t think Christians in the first century saw themselves as culture warriors per se, the way we have since at least the times of abolition and prohibition. I fail to see where the text indicates that they set out to change the prevailing culture of the Roman Empire through pressure and politics in order to attain (and later maintain) some “majority” status.
By and large, we’ve failed to live as a “qualitatively different (from the world) community”. That has nothing to do with worship styles or dress codes. It has more to do with valuing the same things the prevailing culture values–wealth, power, influence, etc. It seems sometimes as though the only difference between the evangelical church and the world is that we’re “against” different things than they are.
I’m not saying that we should all sell our homes and move to communes. But I do believe we would do well to completely rethink the way we understand our relationship to the culture at large. We may have to come to grips with minority status as “okay”. At the very least, we may have to accept a starting point for our mission from somewhere other than the “center” of a culture.
Perhaps some of that somehow relates to the questions Wes raised in the original post.
Reply
stuart Nov 8 2007 - 6:25 pm
“Horribly weak” was too strong and unkind. Please ignore the adverb above, so as not to make my comment seem like a personal attack on anyone.
Reply
Big Daddy Weave Nov 8 2007 - 10:44 pm
Lezzy? David, I can only wonder what other types of hillbilly words you might use to describe folks different from yourself…
I recently had an interesting dialogue over at SBC Impact on the topic of abortion. What I learned from those guys and gal is that they are truly compassionate conservatives who know how to love liberally. I was impressed with their attitudes.
But when the subject drifts to homosexuality on many SBC blogs, the tone is much different. Subtle lesbian jokes are made. Culture war fightin’ terms are employed. Maybe it’s just the presence of Volfan in this thread. I don’t know. It’s somewhat difficult to dialogue about homosexuality when all participants don’t exhibit a loving attitude towards those deemed to be living in sin.
Reply
Wes Kenney Nov 8 2007 - 10:52 pm
Aaron,
We are all living in sin, and unless we repent, we shall all likewise perish. I am deeply concerned with the image we apparently project to homosexuals that if they would just change, God would love them.
Obviously they need to hear that God loves them while they are yet sinners, and He wants to change them by His power.
The challenge I see (and I don’t have direct personal experience here) is that those involved in a homosexual lifestyle demand acceptance of their lifestyle as a condition of dialog. Jesus engaged with all manner of sinners, meeting them where they were. But I don’t believe He did so with a “welcoming and affirming” attitude toward their sin.
It seems to me that any kind of meaningful engagement is unlikely as things stand. What am I missing?
Reply
Big Daddy Weave Nov 9 2007 - 2:59 am
So, in the absence of “meaningful engagement” we adopt the way of Volfan and laugh and cut jokes? But of course when confronted those same folks will switch gears and pretend to be compassionate and truly love the sinner?
Perhaps before “meaningful engagement” is possible, we must learn to love both sincerely and liberally. We must engage culture, literally. Maybe it’s more difficult for older generations. On any college campus, whether it be UGA or Baylor, I’ve encountered gays and lesbians on a weekly, if not daily basis. I think the YUCK factor often stands between heterosexuals forming any type of friendship with a gay person. In my case, my college girlfriend (like many girls) had a few gay guy friends. Over time, I developed friendships and had many meaningful conversations. Whether those conversations were ultimately life-changing, I don’t know. But by sharing Christ and telling of my journey, I’d like to think I had some impact.
Reply
Tim Rogers Nov 9 2007 - 9:57 am
Brother B Diddy,
I would feel a need to agree with you if I did not know Brother David Worley. I can assure you that he has a heart that is broken by that sin and desires to see homosexuals come to Christ.
However, he not only slammed homosexuals, but he also slammed Dr. Nettles. I do not see as much compassion directed to his slam on Dr. Nettles as I do on his slam on the Lesbians. Also, I have heard Lesbians refer to themselves as “lezzy’s” so if Brother David has used a derogatory phrase lets clean it up on both sides of the fence. It is like Don Imus using the phrase “nappy headed hoes”. While the basketball team was no such thing, he was berated by people that use the phrase for using the phrase.
And as to having girlfriends with gay guy friends. What straight guy in his right mind would tell his girlfriend that she cannot hang out with a gay guy? You get the best of both worlds. You do not have to spend endless hours in the mall just looking and at the end of the evening you are the one kissing her good night. :>)
Blessings,
Tim
Reply
volfan007 Nov 9 2007 - 10:30 am
big daddy,
lighten up, dude. like you’ve never used words to describe someone that someone out there might find offensive? have you ever referred to me, or to someone like me, as a redneck? a narrow minded bigot? a mean fundy? or anything else in those lines? have you? i’ll bet yesterdays dirty socks that you have. never made a disparaging joke about any ethnic group…ever? about fundies? about the sbc? huh?
listen, i would love nothing more than to see gays get saved and changed by the power of God. i have personally reached out to many gays, or “queers,” as they refer to themselves many times. you know…queer eye for the straight guy? i care deeply about the souls of gay people. i’m nothing but kind and respectful towards gays, blacks, whites, jews, asians, hillbillies, rednecks, freaks, goths, pygmies, maasai, and any other group that’s out there. but, i call it what it is. living together unmarried is shacking up, fornication. homosexuality is sodomy. drinking alcohol is boozing it up. and besides, what’s wrong with saying that two women who are shacking up together are lezzies? a lezzy is just a shortened term for lesbian. or, do you know something that i dont. please make me aware…if so. i would hate to blister your sensitive ears again.
big daddy, i’m a big fella. people make jokes all the time about my size. i make jokes about my size. i dont freak out and start hollering that they’re bigots and meanies for saying something about my size. good gracious, man, if i had a dollar for every cutsie, funny comment made about my red hair(well, used to be red headed) and about my size…i’d be a rich, wealthy man. i’m big. i can deal with it. it’s who i am. i’m ok with it. wow, i think a lot of people in the usa, especially liberals, need to chill out about all this pc stuff. i mean, we’ve got universities changing their names due to being pc. we’ve got talk show hosts being kicked off the air for using phrases that others use all the time, and they’re being lambasted in the media by some pc groups and spokesmen that have called certain other groups names…even worse names…than what the talk show dude said. can we forget that rev. jackson referred to jews as himey’s? you know, himeytown? and then, he hypocritically gets all over imus, along with the his buddy sharpton, for saying something that’s said all the time in nyc? what’s with that?
tim, i wasnt really trying to put down dr. nettles, btw. i just thought that there was a funny resemblance to him and the blonde-haired, homosexual, lesbian person with corrective lenses. much like there’s a funny resemblance between me and some bears i’ve seen in the smoky mtn’s. also, when i used to have bigger glasses and combed my hair to the side, i had a lot of people say that i looked like john hagee. lol.
david
Reply
Bob Cleveland Nov 9 2007 - 10:55 am
Volfan: I’m with you only I get to ham it up about being old, too.
I’m so old, my Social Security number is 12.
I’m big enough that my beeper goes off when I walk backwards.
So there.
Reply
Debra Smith Nov 9 2007 - 11:51 am
Aaron, I’m with you on this one.
Gentlemen, if there are believers reading this blog that might misunderstand someone’s “heart” by reading his words, can we imagine what the rest of the world might think?
“Everyone else does/says it” is no excuse. We need to be judicious in our language. Do we really want the world to see us as unloving? It doesn’t really matter what people call themselves or that other people call us names. I’ll joke all day long about my doublewide backside, but I certainly won’t appreciate some stranger providing commentary on my physique. I have a very dear gay friend who might refer to himself as “f–”, but I’ll NEVER call him that, even in jest. There’s a difference between self-deprecating remarks and disparaging remarks from another source.
I’m not talking about affirming anyone’s lifestyle or overlooking sin. I’m just saying that we’re going to build up walls with our careless words. How then will we reach people with the love of Christ?
Reply
Jake Barker Nov 9 2007 - 12:18 pm
Hillbilly,
Maybe in the home state of my good friend Jack Daniels….drinking is boozing it up but just ‘taint necessarily so. Some folks can handle beverage alcohol quite well…..in case you can’t understand….that means not drinking to excess. I bet some of you and your acquaintences wouldn’t even let me in the door of your church because I own a liquor, beer and wine store.
Reply
Quinn Hooks Nov 9 2007 - 4:13 pm
Wes,
In considering this culture as being their “hosue”: If their house is burning with them in it, isn’t it our duty to tell them it is on fire and they are in danger?
Reply
Quinn Hooks Nov 9 2007 - 4:15 pm
Sorry, I misspelled “house”. Fat fingers and little keys are the bane of my existence! LOL
Reply
volfan007 Nov 9 2007 - 4:33 pm
jake,
that explains a lot. whats on sale today?
david
Reply
Jake Barker Nov 9 2007 - 4:41 pm
Hillbilly,
Got mason jars full o shine for dirt cheep
straight from the hills of your home state.
Reply
volfan007 Nov 9 2007 - 4:45 pm
jake,
i’ve seen many jugs of moonshine in my day. that stuff kicks like an angry mule. i used to be a drinker before i got saved.
and, you’d be welcome to visit our church, as would homosexual men and lesbian women. we invite all sinners to come to our church.
david
Reply
jasonk Nov 9 2007 - 8:38 pm
I can’t believe this is coming off the tips of my fingers, but I actually find myself in agreement with Volfan :>) Stop the world.
He is right, in my opinion, when he talks about the overly sensitive world that we live in. Language is certainly powerful, but we are overdoing it with our PC ways. People used to call me a Jesus freak, and it didn’t bother me one bit.
I must disagree with your comparison of a liquor store owner to a homosexual. Is it your contention that a person who sells liquor for a living is a sinner, just because of what he happens to sell? And is a person who drinks responsibly committing sin when he does so?
Reply
volfan007 Nov 9 2007 - 11:05 pm
jasonk,
i wasnt comparing anyone to anyone. i was simply responding to jake, who sells liquor, and to the theme of this post, lesbians. i was simply saying that sinners are welcome to visit my church.
david
Reply
jasonk Nov 10 2007 - 8:37 am
Thanks for the clarification. But you didn’t answer my question. Is it a sin to drink alcohol–beer, wine, liquor? And is it a sin to sell it?
Reply
volfan007 Nov 10 2007 - 9:55 am
jasonk,
this is getting off topic, and i’ve discussed this issue…alcohol….to the nth degree not that long ago. but, for the short answer… it’s foolish to drink anything that you know is fermented and could make you drunk according to proverbs 20 and 23 and in other passages. it’s a sin to get a buzz, or to get drunk, on alcohol.
thus, why would a christian want to own a liquor store? it would be a matter of conscience whether a christian could work in the jack daniels distillery…or to be a waitress at an o’charley’s where they’d have to serve alcohol? they’d have to pray about that and do as they felt like their conscience would allow. but, to own a liquor store? i’d encourage jake to sell it and find something else to do.
does that answer your question?
david
Reply
Jake Barker Nov 10 2007 - 11:57 am
Hillbilly,
You sir are a hypocritical individual. If Jesus can make wine (remember the wedding in Canna where Mary the mother of Jesus requested more wine?) I can certainly in good consience sell it. And furthermore how many as you put it “sinners” (with a derogatory connotation)get to visit with a member of YOUR church on a daily basis and have the opportunity to be witnessed to in a non-threatening manner and place? Seems like Jesus was severly critizised for associating with “sinners and tax collecotrs” Hmmmm….what is wrong with this picture?
Reply
volfan007 Nov 10 2007 - 4:15 pm
jake,
first of all, what’s hypocritical about what i said? scratching my head on that one.
secondly, sinners….all types of sinners…are welcome to visit our church. i, sir, am the chief of sinners as i see it. but, i’m a sinner saved by the grace of God and adopted into God’s family.
thirdly, i try to be around sinners in need of salvation all the time. i try to love them and reach out to them with the grace of Jesus.
fourthly, i’ve never seen someone read so much into what someone is saying, or writing, that they didnt say, nor did they mean, as you do.
God bless you, jake.
david
Reply
Jake Barker Nov 10 2007 - 4:24 pm
Hillbilly,
We don’t need to hijack Wes’s blog with our trivia.
Reply
jasonk Nov 10 2007 - 11:19 pm
Yes, David, you answered my question. Now a follow up question. You mentioned earlier that you are a “big” guy. Is your inability to discipline yourself with regard to food a sin? In other words, would you consider a person who drinks responsibly (which is not prohibited by scripture) a sinner, but a glutton is not?
Reply
volfan007 Nov 10 2007 - 11:34 pm
jasonk,
gluttony is a sin…being fat, or a big guy, is not a sin. i confess to committing the act of gluttony many times in my life. it’s something that i’m trying to be more disciplined about. now, let me ask you…how many cheeseburgers is gluttony? how many pieces of pecan pie is gluttony? can you tell me?
david
Reply
jasonk Nov 11 2007 - 7:50 am
Why yes, David, I can tell you how many cheeseburgers is gluttony. I can tell you, because I am so good at it :>)
My point is that for much of the time I spent pastoring, I hacked on guys like Jake for selling and/or consuming liquor. But then it occurred to me that I was really overweight, and that was the result of gluttony, and a lack of discipline that was even more sinful than the things I railed against.
My point is that before we slam Jake, we need to look in the mirror. And by that, I do mean WE :>)
Reply
Bonnie Rogers Nov 19 2007 - 7:40 pm
Fellas,
Instead of saying that sinners are welcome to come into our churches to hear the good news, why don’t we go to the sinners and share the good news. Who would willingly go to a place where they think they are going to be judged and made to feel bad. Art is correct in his most recent post (www.twelvewitnesses.com)-we have to change the way we think about reaching the lost.
Sure we all say, “they” are welcome in our church anytime. I don’t see a big rush of “sinners” knocking the door down (look at the data). If we really care about reaching the lost, we must step out of our comfort zone and invite them into our homes and build a relationship so that they know we love and care about them before we expect they will want to come into the church.
Quit fighting about whether it is PC to call them names or not. When you look at the example of Christ, the “sinners” He impacted knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that He loved them.
Do the “sinners” that are in your world know that you love them? Have you tried, and not given up, to form a relationship with them? If Christians are going to reach “the world”, we MUST change the way we’ve been doing it…get out of our comfy pews and Sunday School rooms and make ourselves a little uncomfortable by having a gay person, alcoholic, etc. in our homes.
Reply