Tuesday, January 29, 2008
We Do Not Get To Decide Some Things
MMI posted recently on the "Gay and Lesbian Bible."
I realize to many in the Godblogosphere as a member of the PC(USA) I am near heretic. My denomination, after all, is not very far behind the Episcopalians when it comes to the ordination of homosexuals. We have a few that came out after ordination that have not been stripped of their ordination and every General Assembly is fraught with the question of ordaining gays, we have come mighty close several times.
In those internal Presbyterian wars I have argued consistently that we on the conservative side need to shift the battle ground. We are not fighting about gay people, we are fighting about the authority of scripture. Looks like the other side of the debate figured that little tactic out and has decided to beat me to the punch by simply changing scripture.
Of course, we have made minor alterations to scripture from time to time based on new manuscripts, intense scholarship, and much, much prayer But this kind of wholesale revision based on a political agenda (as opposed to some agenda creeping into the scholarship which has happened, obviously) is an entirely new thing to me.
We are no longer defying the authority of scripture, we are placing ourselves front and center. With this approach our faith exists to serve us, we do not exist to serve our Lord. That is simply entirely antithetical to the gospel.
This belies and entirely secular worldview. You see, the point of religion is to find that which is beyond - the supernature. If religion is merely a social institution to be shaped to suit the social conditions of the time, it ceases to be relgiion and becomes something else entirely. This denies that there is any higher authority other than ourselves.
To my brethren and sistren of GLBT community, I ask one thing of you. Join me on my knees. Ask Jesus to intercede on our behalf with groans deeper than understanding. Do not tell God who we are or what we need - allow God to tell us those things. Then listen.
I am convicted by scripture on a daily basis. I defy it daily as well. But I do not want to change it - I get up the next day and I try again. And each day, God moves me a little closer to Him. I do not always know where that journey is going, but I trust Him to make it worthy. Join me.
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I realize to many in the Godblogosphere as a member of the PC(USA) I am near heretic. My denomination, after all, is not very far behind the Episcopalians when it comes to the ordination of homosexuals. We have a few that came out after ordination that have not been stripped of their ordination and every General Assembly is fraught with the question of ordaining gays, we have come mighty close several times.
In those internal Presbyterian wars I have argued consistently that we on the conservative side need to shift the battle ground. We are not fighting about gay people, we are fighting about the authority of scripture. Looks like the other side of the debate figured that little tactic out and has decided to beat me to the punch by simply changing scripture.
Of course, we have made minor alterations to scripture from time to time based on new manuscripts, intense scholarship, and much, much prayer But this kind of wholesale revision based on a political agenda (as opposed to some agenda creeping into the scholarship which has happened, obviously) is an entirely new thing to me.
We are no longer defying the authority of scripture, we are placing ourselves front and center. With this approach our faith exists to serve us, we do not exist to serve our Lord. That is simply entirely antithetical to the gospel.
This belies and entirely secular worldview. You see, the point of religion is to find that which is beyond - the supernature. If religion is merely a social institution to be shaped to suit the social conditions of the time, it ceases to be relgiion and becomes something else entirely. This denies that there is any higher authority other than ourselves.
To my brethren and sistren of GLBT community, I ask one thing of you. Join me on my knees. Ask Jesus to intercede on our behalf with groans deeper than understanding. Do not tell God who we are or what we need - allow God to tell us those things. Then listen.
I am convicted by scripture on a daily basis. I defy it daily as well. But I do not want to change it - I get up the next day and I try again. And each day, God moves me a little closer to Him. I do not always know where that journey is going, but I trust Him to make it worthy. Join me.
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