charleston, part III

this may be my the last diatribe on charleston but it may not be.

 

 open letter to the murderer:

 

we are all made in God’s image.  we are ALL His children.  to hurt another human is to disgrace God.  to believe, or at least pretend to believe, that another race (nationality, creed, ideology) is such a threat to you that it gives you the right to wipe them off the face of the earth is INSANITY.  it is hyperbole.  you, white man, are not in danger of becoming extinct.  the cradle of civilization contained brown-skinned people.  you, white man, are the process of evolution and migration. The further north we traveled the lighter our skin became for our protection.  you, white man, are from a darker-skinned tribe.  get over it.  we are all just exactly alike on the inside. what difference, outside of some made-up, fearful, hateful ideology, can it possibly make?

 

to use the language of the lynch mob and declare, “you rape our women” before opening fire on innocents shows your twisted mindset.  guess what, white women aren’t YOURS!  we are not in need of your twisted protection from the black man. the protection we need, not just women, but the world, is protection from the thinking, teaching, violence and hatred in the hearts and minds of people like you!

 

may God have mercy on your soul.

 

may God have mercy on us all.

 

grace and peace

charleston, part II

i have a few more thoughts about what happened this week in charleston: do i think this is about guns?  yes.  i think any time a person in shot down in anger it's a good time to talk about our gun culture and the availability of weapons but i honestly don't see our intransigence crumbling after one more tragedy. and really my point is that this isn't about guns this is about racism (let's call it what it is: hatred).  this is about a man who indoctrinated himself or was indoctrinated by others (i suspect a bit of both) to hate.  it's the classic "us vs. them".  you see, this world is not about "us vs. them". no matter who the "us" or the "them".  this world is not about black vs. white, muslim vs. jew, male vs. female, catholic vs. protestant, sunni vs. shia, gay vs. straight, indigenous vs. pilgrim, urban vs. suburban vs. rural.  this world is about DARKNESS vs. LIGHT (put another way SIN vs. GRACE).

 

choices – that is what this world is about.  good vs. bad, right vs. wrong.  we can choose darkness or we can choose light. God is not in darkness. He is not in hatred. He is not in fear. He IS in the hearts of the families of the viciously murdered when they can, just a few short days later, say that there is not hatred in their hearts for the murderer. He is in forgiveness and love. God is love.

grace and peace

charleston, part I

below is facebook post one regarding the shooting of nine innocent people in a house of worship:

 

i wish i could think of something to say about what happened in charleston last night that would make a difference, that would make people think about racism, gun violence and our culture in a way they haven't before but i have nothing. absolutely nothing. this kind of thing just keeps happening and we just keep doing nothing. we'll shed a few tears, give a few dollars, debate the 'whys' and 'hows' and then the news coverage will fade and we will settle back into our safe,... easy, busy lives until the next mass shooting. then we'll act surprised and outraged that it happened again. we've got one maniac in colorado on trial for a mass shooting in a movie theatre and while that's in motion we get this one on the other side of the country shooting up a church. a church! but it's all the same. it's all hatred and pain and i'm sick of it. let's pray for the families and friends of the victims, let's pray for those shattered by the actions of someone they thought they knew, let's pray for this beloved country of ours that we will do a better job of teaching our children not to hate, that we will take greater care to treat mental illness, that we will pass reasonable gun legislation, that we will treat our brothers as we wish to be treated. all our brothers - the black ones, the gay ones, the muslim ones, the female ones, the poor ones, the homeless ones, the mentally ill ones, all God's children.

 

grace and peace

why i am a straight ally

here’s why i’m in favor of marriage equality:

Obergefell v. Hodges

jim obergefell just wanted to be listed on his partner’s DEATH CERTIFICATE as the spouse.  his death certificate.  they had been together 21 years.  3 months after their wedding jim’s husband died of ALS.  they married in washington DC but ohio wouldn’t recognize their union.  here’s the main problem i have with this:  it’s nobody’s business who decides to spend their life with whom.  Ii’s no one’s business with whom your neighbor sleeps, loves or marries.  just like it’s not your neighbor’s business with whom you sleep with, love or marry. 

i am a straight Christian who will never have to fight to get married (no matter how many times i might marry/divorce/remarry, etc.)  i will never have to beg and cry and sneak around to visit my spouse in the hospital or sue to be recognized on a death certificate.  if you are so sure that gay marriage won’t be recognized by God then why in the world do you care?  if you don’t believe that the second marriage of a person who is divorced with a non-scriptural divorce will be recognized by God then why do you care?  God will be the judge of all of us.  We are not the judges.

God inspired the writing of the Bible but God did not write or inspire the writing of the constitution!  no matter what the Bible says about homosexuality, the Bible is NOT our governing document.  the constitution allows for equal treatment under the law and that means if i, as a straight person, can get married then a gay person can get married as well.

i contend that if more of us were outraged by shows like “the bachelor” and “the bachelorette”, on which people compete for the affections of a mate and the prize is a marriage that is as doomed as a led balloon, we would have more of a leg to stand on when it comes to defending the “sanctity of marriage.”  THIS, we as a society, hold up as entertainment and balk at gay marriage?  how is the former okay with Christians? 

grace and peace and equality