Thoughts on Sandy Hook

This past Friday, I was away from home with several folks from my church, canning meat for the Mennonite Central Committee.  It was a good time, meeting fellow Mennonite from around Missouri, talking about life while cubing seemingly countless turkey breasts.  Others canned, cooked, and labeled the meat for distribution to wherever it might be needed around the world, whatever regions were facing food shortages.  During the breaks, we enjoyed some amazing pies and baked goods, all of which local Amish and Mennonite women had donated.  These events are always fun, even if the 5:00 a.m. start is something that I am not used to.

It was not until much later that evening, or perhaps even until the next morning that I heard the news about the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  One deranged young man, armed with two pistols and a Bushmaster 223 assault rifle, having murdered his mother earlier that morning, murdered another 20 children and 6 adults before turning the gun on himself.  In the days that followed, the media provided a deluge of coverage for the event and its aftermath.  Grief, despair, and hopelessness were, understandably, common themes.  The Onion summed up the nation's feelings best, more than likely without having interviewed anyone, "F--- Everything, Nation Reports."

Not to be contented with simply reporting on the events, there was a fair amount of pontification as well.  Solutions came from all angles.  Some politicians proposed that we should reassess our treatment of the mentally ill.  I do not disagree with this approach, though I can only wonder how the same politicians who have spent the past few years gutting funding to programs that help the mentally ill can make such an argument, even as they continue to reduce funding levels. 

Some politicians proposed that we should get assault rifles, which are purely designed to kill other human beings in the field of battle, off of the streets.  Not that there were any specifics to these plans.  Others, apparently unable to see the clear pattern of suicidal tendencies common to almost all of the gunmen behind these mass shootings, proposed that if we would only have trained, armed teachers, such tragedies could be warded off.  I agree with a New York Times editorial's proposal that a certain amount of gun control is in order, in fact necessary, and that it would not represent a violation of our freedom, as some folks seem to allege.

Of course, given the time of year and the extent of the tragedy, theology was bound to enter the question.  Some pastors, including one in Oklahoma City, discussed the ways in which our culture's perverse embrace of violence in all forms of entertainment, combined with or complete lassez faire access to firearms have helped facilitate such tragedies.  Others have surely focused on the way such tragedies might bring us together.
 
Then there was the theological response from Mike Huckabee, who was convinced that the tragedy at Sandy Hook was nothing less than the predictable result of America turning its back on God over the past fifty years.  I will not dignify Huckabee by providing a link to the relevant clip. It is too readily available anyhow.  In similar vein, others have concluded that because God has been driven out of public schools, God no longer offers protection.  Such a take on this tragedy statements are absolutely dreadful, but does deserve some kind of response.

1)  At their center, such sentiments are designed to drive a wedge, not to bring comfort or ease suffering.  While we are mourning the deaths of all these kids, why not add the guilt that they have turned away from God, and this is obviously some kind of divine wrath that they have incurred?  Better yet, why not add a tinge of self-righteousness to the whole thing and pretend we have all the answers of what it means to be godly?

2) The idea of a cultural shift away from God is folly.  There has simply not been the massive turn away from God that Huckabee alleges.  What does that even mean?  Given that Huckabee's definition of God is so closely aligned with right wing politics, we have too narrow a definition to be meaningful.  Of course, there are quite a few who are utterly disinterested in any God--or Jesus--who could possibly inspire folks such as Huckabee--and others of similar ilk who claim to follow God--to the positions of misogyny, homophobia, and other bigotry that they embrace.

3) God has not been driven out of the public sphere.  People are welcome to pray wherever, whenever they choose.  They are fully within their rights to gather together and read the Bible wherever they choose.  Only forcing others to participate is forbidden.

4) Most importantly, in the wake of such tragedies, if one asks, "Where was God?" one asks the wrong question.  

God is not in the business of getting vengeance for people "turning their backs" by slaughtering innocents.  God is not responsible for people making the decision to murder other people.  God is not into instigating acts of violence.  What happened in Connecticut, in Colorado, in Kentucky, in so many places across America, and indeed in so many places around the world, was not an act of God, but an act of man.

When Fred Rogers was confronted with the question "Where was God?"  (Rogers does not use the word God on his website, instead asking "Why?", but given Rogers' background, the question might safely be inferred.)  He would recall his mother's answer, "Look for the Helpers."  In every disaster, there are folks cleaning up, helping to rebuild whatever normalcy possible.  They become the face of God, of Jesus.  

Put another way, instead of asking "Where was God?"  We should ever be asking, "Where am I, and how would God use me to help?"  Perhaps we should look at this a little more like Fred than like Mike.

On Political Polarization and my Support for the Re-Election of Barack Obama

Our democracy of late has been plagued with polarization.  I am well aware of this difficulty, and despise how it seems to have pitted Americans against each other in ways seldom seen in our history. But how does one respond to outright lies and misrepresentations? How does one respond to corporate interests attempting to hijack our democracy? There is ample evidence that citizens' united has caused election year spending to skyrocket, which inherently favors those who have money to campaign.  If campaign spending is to be viewed as an investment, then those who donate millions must expect that sort of compensation and more in political favors.  In looking at political platforms, how does one respond to a platform that one finds objectionable on many levels? Are we not supposed to voice those opinions and concerns? 
 
I am deeply troubled by many things about Romney's platform. His stances seem to change by the hour--we could witness his "Etch-a-Sketch" in action even during different parts of the debate last night--and he seems disturbingly comfortable in telling even the most obvious lies. (He was fact checked numerous times in debate, once by the moderator). He has yet to produce anything remotely resembling a comprehensive tax reform plan, despite that being the major plank of his platform. There is just not much to support in the Romney platform, only the disappointment with Obama's four years. Something is seriously wrong when the vote for one candidate is primarily out of disdain for the other.

Meanwhile, we have right wing media demagogues such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News, et. al., who have been constantly attacking from the right. Obama's a socialist; he's not a citizen; he's after our guns; he's after our money; he wants to kill grandma; he wants to murder your special needs child; bla bla bla. (Not going to dignify these claims with hyperlinks.)  These attacks are not limited to the fringe airwaves, but have made it into the mainstream Republican Party platform also. Was the Kansas AG not just weighing whether to have Obama on the ballot the other week based on his citizenship? Did Mitch McConnell not say that the Republicans' number one priority would be to see to it that Obama only has one term? Have the Republicans made any real efforts at true bipartisanship--beyond demanding that Obama and democrats give way to their agenda? Did they not drive the nation to the brink of debt default and break our credit rating, only because securing 90% of their agenda in the "compromise" package was not enough?  Do these same Republicans not now have the brass to blame Obama for the impending fiscal cliff that they created through absolute refusal of compromise?  Have the Republicans in Senate not used the filibuster in unprecedented ways these last four years? Something has gone seriously wrong.

And the attacks from the Right Wing do not stop there. They have constantly attacked issues of women's equality and issues of women's health, often demonizing and marginalizing the vulnerable in the process.  Todd Akin's claims about "legitimate rape", for example, may have met the GOP's official scorn, but his remarks are far from isolated, and were in fact echoed in the platform the Republican Party put out that week.  Republicans have made homophobia a selling point in their platform. Railing against the repeal of Don't Ask/Don't Tell, portraying equal rights as "special rights".  I am not gay myself, but having friends who are, such attacks seem deeply personal.  I am most certainly a Christian, and I take deep offense in the implication that one narrow interpretation of these two issues, relatively peripheral by any Biblical standard, should serve as a litmus test.

Something has gone seriously wrong when Ryan's budget plan--which would slash taxes in a manner to overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, while gutting budgets for social programs, for health programs, and for education, even as it calls for defense spending increases to more than swallow those cuts--seems to meet such wild embrace among conservatives.

The plan, which is about all we have seen in Romney's budget--though if Romney has abandoned it, continues to embrace it, or what is not clear--is immoral. It demands that the poor and middle class pay for the luxuries of the already wealthy through lost benefits. This is brazen wealth redistribution.  Combine this with Romney's now famous comments about 47% of the population that he made behind closed doors to wealthy donors, or Ryan's comments about 40%, and we see a pattern that should be absolutely troubling.

This is not what Obama is saying about Romney or the Republicans. This is not what Democrats are saying about Romney or the Republicans. This is what Romney/Ryan and the Republicans are touting as their platform, what they are saying about themselves.  I am genuinely troubled by the divisive direction of the Republican party has chosen, and for the life of me cannot comprehend why so many people do not seem to see it, or worse, actively encourage it.

So, how am I supposed to respond to all of this? As much as I wish I could let it slide. I wish I could maintain optimism that maybe Romney/Ryan will not be as bad as their rhetoric. Yet eight years of Bush makes me think that such optimism would only be foolishness: Two wars on credit.  Economic disaster.  Attempted editorial interference with NPR, PBS, and other public media agencies that were simply doing their jobs of reporting.  My way or the highway "bipartisanship" from Bush, which made one's embrace of the GOP platform the litmus test of one's patriotism.  Does this make me part of the problem of polarization, or has one side simply made itself so objectionable that it is not fit for consideration?

To be sure, I am not 100% satisfied with Obama. I am uncomfortable with his frequent usage of predator drones, and though I would hesitate to make Anwar al-Awlaki a poster child, I do not like the notion that the administration can order the death of an American without due process.

I wish Obama would have made a stronger effort to get Cap and Trade passed. Our environment is at the brink and beyond, and it seems that this should have been a greater priority.  At the same time, I am very much in support of the strides Obama made toward greater energy efficiency and toward renewable energy in the stimulus packages and through grant priorities.  Like any new field of technology, some initiatives and investments have met with greater success than others, and only steady investment, even through failures, will achieve eventual progress. 

I wish Obama would have made comprehensive immigration reform a higher priority in his agenda. The kind so many had hoped for. The kind that would treat immigrants with dignity and respect, without splitting families.  The kind that would extend opportunity to children of immigrants, who in many cases were brought here and raised from when they were young, and who know no other homeland.  To be sure, Obama has made several attempts to get the DREAM act passed, and has since issued an executive order form of the legislation, but this is only a start.

I wish Obamacare--a term of attack and demonization from the Right, by the way, but which Obama has managed to successfully reclaim and re-frame--would have included a public option.  Obama cannot be faulted for lack of bipartisan concessions here; the healthcare legislation was weaker for it.  I wish it would have gone even further.  Though I believe Obama brought this as far as politically possible, and its importance as a start toward something greater is not to be underestimated.

In the end, I am satisfied that Obama has made efforts to work in all of these directions, including immigration and the environment and that he has, for the most part, kept the needs of the middle class in his sights during his Presidency.  Even as Obama has fallen short, his goals have been worth striving for. 

Myths we should avoid this election season.

One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is how much outright wrong things float around in our society. It is sort of the cost of doing business, of course, being animals having a human experience. Our brains are designed for the ancestral environment more so than precise evaluation of truth and falsehood in the real world around us. We believe people we like more than we should, we find patterns when they don’t exist, we pay much more attention to emotional issues than statistical analysis. In his book Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely explores why human beings believe the crazy things that we do (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/ariely-tt0409.html).
One of the classic places we see this is suspicion of science-there is no better way known to humans to determine what is really real than the scientific method and large scale statistical analysis. Scientists make lots of mistakes-many untrue things get published, but anything that endures the long term rigor of statistical evaluation is almost certainly true. Yet suspicion of real things like global warming, evolution, and other scientific results are widespread.

Our politics are filled with completely bogus arguments, with significant national figures saying things that are fundamentally untrue, and this week, we got a Doozy, when Missouri representative Todd Aikin explained pregnancy from rape “is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
To be clear, no part of this is true at all. It’s just a lie, made up by pro-life activists, because it makes us feel bad to insist that a woman who has been raped must bring that child to full term.

So, in honor of representative Todd Aikin,
A top 10 list of things no one should believe:
10) space aliens (not that intelligent life on another planet is impossible, just that no one has ever seen it here).
9) Most people with same sex attraction can be ‘cured’ of their desires.
8) Immunizations cause autism (not to suggest you can't be allergic to immunizations created with chicken eggs. Just that autism is not one of the side effects).
7) it is OK for someone who has abused children in the past to be left alone with a child again (please, don’t do this. Even if someone is ‘fully recovered’ there is no good reason to let this happen).
6) President Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii.
5) someone other than Al Qaida was responsible for 9/11.
4) slavery wasn't the primary cause of the civil war.
3) global warming doesn't exist (I'm willing to moderate this to something softer, like "the chances that man made global warming is happening right now and will continue in the future are less than 95%").
2) the moon landing was a fake.
1) women have magical ovaries that protect them from getting pregnant when raped (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/how-often-does-rape-lead-to-pregnancy/261307/).

I’ve got lots more-
Jewish bankers secretly control the world.
women 'ask for' sexual assault.
There are significant innate intellectual differences between African Americans and white Americans.
there are significant holes in the theory of evolution.
JFK murder theories, other than the Lee Harvey Oswald.
tax cuts raise revenue.
cutting government spending in a recession helps the economy.
I don't need anybody.
Mayans could predict the end of the world.
putting people in jail helps rehabilitate them.
President Obama is a socialist in some significant way that Mitt Romney is not a socialist.
Any I’ve forgotten?
If you believe these things, mark your beliefs to market, and quit it.

The Hand of God.

God responds to pontifications of Falwell and Robertson

In every disaster, whether we are talking about a tornado, a hurricane, a flood, or a mass shooting, as was the case this last weekend in Aurora, Colorado, there are always a number of people who fare better than others.  Amidst the pain and sorrow, some of which is so powerful that hope for the future is obscured, there is also a great amount of gratitude that things were not as bad as they might have been. All of these are healthy, natural responses to disaster.

The discussion becomes particularly interesting when one reaches into the realm of theology.  In every disaster, it is almost inevitable that some Atheists will question how a "merciful God" could allow such things to happen.  One can only describe such a remark as being in horrible taste.  These folks choose the moment of disaster to attempt to win an argument, the result of which could ultimately destroy what little the disaster victim has left, the very thing that might be keeping him or her going.

On the other side, it is equally inevitable that folks will emerge who credit the grace of God for sparing their house or life even as those of others were destroyed.  In many ways, I find this line of reasoning to be equally tactless.  This sort of theology has implications that are puzzling at best.  If God saves or protects one person from harm, does God not also fail or refuse to protect others in the situation?  And if God is in the business of saving people from disaster, then how does God decide who ought to be saved?  It seems like Jesus himself says that the sun rises and the rain falls on the righteous along with the wicked (Matthew 5:45).

Of course, examples of this sort of this theology get even more extreme.  During the week of MDS service in Alabama, we had opportunity to listen to one of the clients.  His home had sustained significant damage in the tornadoes of 2011, and MDS had just completed the repairs.  The gentleman explained that his son had been a preacher, but had died of cancer the night of the storms.  The man and his wife returned home from the hospital to find that a tree in their front yard had been uprooted and sent through their roof, but damage was restricted mostly to the garage, although the rest of the house was in disarray.  In a typical display of tornado force, the chain from the man's bathtub drain plug had been driven through the tile of his wall without so much as cracking the tile. The man explained that their home had gotten off relatively lightly, compared to the rest of the neighborhood, which was all but leveled.  "God protected our house," said he.  "But it made the devil so mad that he destroyed the rest of the neighborhood."

Really?  Especially if I were the man's neighbor, I would have some major problems with that theological explanation.  Is this guy really suggesting that he was saved from disaster because of his own worthiness vis-á-vis his neighbors?  Although I suppose his belief is genuine, and its implications not fully thought through, I just have difficulty believing that God had anything to do with the natural disaster at hand in Alabama.

This gentleman's account, however pales in comparison to the assessments that the likes of Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell have made of such events as 9/11, the earthquake in Haiti, the hurricane in New Orleans, the tsunami in Japan, and many others.  The details of their pontifications do not bear repeating, but you can follow the links if you cannot remember.  These people besmirch the good name of Christianity just as much as those who would use these events to prove absence of a merciful God do atheism.  There is no compelling evidence to suggest that God has anything to do with disasters that are the natural byproduct of our tectonic plates and weather systems; even less evidence to suggest God is behind tragedies such as 9/11, Aurora, Columbine, or other such human caused disasters.

Moreover, my understanding of God's involvement in any of these things is functionally quite atheistic. I do not see the hand of God at work in disasters, natural or human.  I do not see the devil at work, either, for that matter.  What happened in Denver was an individual actor.  Many of these happen every day, though on a lesser scale.  Nevertheless, they do not represent the devil at work. 

On a broader scale, the concept of powers and principalities of evil is a good description of my understanding for those common motives that seem to develop lives of their own to cause harm to real people; for example, excessive profit motives that cause disregard for the environment, for human life, for common decency.  In one of his sermons, my friend Alan Stucky provided an excellent description of this understanding of powers and principalities, particularly related to the development of oil fields in Harper County, Kansas, where he lives and pastors the Pleasant Valley Mennonite Church.  Because of the money involved with oil, oil company employees, drifters, and profiteers have flocked to the county, occupying all available hotel and rental space.  Because they can earn more rent money in this market, land lords increase their tenant's rent, often doubling it overnight and driving it beyond rates their tenants can afford.  Those who have land prosper, but the sudden wealth can have negative consequences also, and so on.  Listen to his sermon; it is worth the time.

Similarly, the work of God is not so much tied up in the miraculous, but in what we do for our neighbors.  The ability to recognize a need and seek to meet that need without recompense.  The ability to forgive and hope for better in the face of tragedy.  The ability to shirk the powers and principalities to other people's benefit.  In many ways, the hand of God is our own.

Obamacare: Why We Should Be Glad it Passed Constitutional Muster, and why the Media Constantly Gets it Wrong

Before reading further, take this quiz here.  Do not worry, I am not interested in keeping score, but it is clear and apparent that not many folks know exactly what is in Obamacare.  I blame the media, which in its lazy fashion, has taken to the tact of polling people about what they think is in the law, rather than what is actually in the law itself. 

This past Thursday marked a milestone in the Supreme Court.  Nobody expected that Justice John Roberts would join the liberal four justices in finding The Affordable Care  Act to be constitutional.  Without going too much into the details of the decision, it is clear that the alternative would have been disaster.  The dissenting opinion called for the complete destruction of the measure and effectively limit the powers of the federal government to the point that future attempts at health care reform would be rendered extremely difficult, if not impossible.  Because the healthcare situation, with its rising costs and diminishing coverage is untenable, the Supreme Court's decision is certainly cause for celebration.

Admittedly, there are significant flaws to Obamacare.  Regardless of subsidies, extensions of medicaid and other provisions, some people will fall through the cracks.  Because Obamacare is completely based on private insurance with no public option, this could be a boon for insurance companies, increasing both their profits and their control of the market.  While some progress was made on the prescription drug front, the price controls remain minimal.  Obamacare can as such be best viewed as a step toward a final solution, rather than a solution in and of itself.

Even so, Obamacare marks the single greatest achievement of the Obama administration so far, and represents the greatest extension of health care benefits in more than a generation.  Yet Obamacare remains unpopular, with a slight majority of Americans disapproving of it.   Most of Obamacare's provisions, with the exception of the much maligned individual mandate are popular, if one asks about those measures independently.  The provisions of this mammoth act are manifold, which might be one reason for its much maligned length.  Among other things, Obamacare:

• Bans discrimination against patients for pre-existing conditions or illness.  No longer will a child with diabetes be charged outlandish rates for health insurance, and no longer will someone with cancer in their past be denied coverage because there is a risk of recurrence.  

• Guarantees that anyone under 25 may remain on their parents' health insurance.  No longer is coverage cut the minute a person leaves college, but extends to allow him or her to establish themselves in a job with such benefits.

• Aims to make health care affordable to just about anyone through exchanges.  Those who are not insured through their employers (or those who opt out of their employers' coverage) may receive group coverage anyway at similar rates.

• Mandates that everyone in the country who can afford it purchase health insurance, and issues fines for those who refuse to purchase insurance.  Though much maligned, this provision is absolutely necessary, since insurance companies would no longer remain solvent otherwise.  
  
  Think about it.  The insurance companies are required to ignore pre-existing conditions in offering insurance and figuring rates.  This is a boon for those patients who need treatment, of course, but everyone else could simply ride the system, buying insurance only when they become ill and need care.  The insurance companies would thus be servicing only the sick, who inherently generate more costs than revenue.  A deep pool of healthy patients has always been necessary to keep insurance companies afloat, all the more so since insurance companies will no longer be able to choose their market.

• Provides tax incentives to businesses that offer health insurance, while penalizing those businesses with 50 or more employees who refuse to provide coverage.  

• Provides income-based subsidies to help make insurance affordable to as many people as possible.

• Increases the minimum qualification for medicare, offering a safety net to catch many of those who are not otherwise able to get healthcare even after subsidies.

• Puts a "tax" on those people who are financially able, yet refuse to buy insurance because they are healthy now, and can buy in when they are sick anyway.  Some people seem to dislike this tax.   Ironically, these are the same clowns that go around griping about welfare queens.  If you can afford health insurance and refuse to get coverage, you are making the rest of us pay your way.   You are the very leach you are complaining about. 

I have not listed everything in the bill of course, but the bill is readily available online, and healthcare.gov is a good resource to find out how one is affected by specific aspects of the bill. In short though, the act promises to make healthcare available to more Americans than ever before and to ensure affordable rates. With this Supreme Court ruling, not only is this modest improvement to our healthcare system preserved, but so too are the tools to fix it even better in the future.

Happy birthday, USA....kind of.

It is interesting that many folks regard July 4, 1776 as "the birthday of the United States." When the Declaration of Independence was signed, little changed for the 13 colonies. They had been fighting the British for about a year and the war was to last until 1783 when the Treaty of Paris was signed by the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States of America, which ended hostilities and recognized the sovereignty of the US. Therefore one could say that September 3, 1783 is the “birthday of the US,” however it was not until the following year that the Treaty was ratified by the US and Great Britain. The Congress of the Confederation ratified it in January of 1784 and Great Britain did the same in April, with the ratified documents being exchanged on May 12, 1784. Then, one may ask, the “birthday of the US” is sometime in 1784? I would answer no.

It would be another three years, on September 17, 1787, until the Constitution was adopted by the Constitutional Convention and George Washington elected the first President of the United States. In the years between 1781 (when the Articles of Confederation were adopted) and 1787 the United States was a confederation of largely independent states who handled their own foreign and military policies, produced their own currencies, etc. The Articles of Confederation made state’s rights the priority and established a weak central government which turned out to be unsustainable, a lesson that was to be relearned in the Civil War when the Confederate States of America were severely hampered by the priority of state’s rights.[1]

Though the Constitution was adopted in 1787, it was not ratified by all 13 states until May 29, 1790 and in March of the following year the Bill of Rights was ratified. So in all honesty, the United States of America, as we know of it today, did not reach infancy until 1790, a full 14 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. If we are going to celebrate the “birthday of the US” we should really be celebrating it on May 29, not July 4 which celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence which was the first explicate statement of the intentions of the rebellion of the colonies.

[1] A good example of this was the different gauges of rail roads in the southern states. Because each state had its own gauge goods had to be moved from one trail to another when being transported across state lines. In times of war this is a huge hindrance when troops and supplies need to be moved quickly and efficiently.

Mennonite Disaster Service, Birmingham, AL

This past week, I went with some other folks from the Saint Louis Mennonite Fellowship to Birmingham, Alabama, where we participated in the work of Mennonite Disaster Service, cleaning up and repairing damage from tornadoes that ripped through the area in April 2011.  A year later, much new construction and repair is evident, but damaged homes and mangled trees continue to mangle the landscape, with some areas looking much more like wilderness than the suburban developments they once were.
A team of ten volunteers from Virginia joined our team of seven in Birmingham, and together with the permanent staff of six, we worked to put four of the properties back into good repair and order.  We replaced a roof, that a falling tree had destroyed.  We cleaned up mold and mildew in the house from one year of exposure to the elements, replacing contaminated drywall, insulation, and  broken windows. At other sites, teams reframed rooms, built decks, painted walls, and tiled floors.

Only relatively few in our group had significant construction experience, but working together, we were able to achieve dramatic results by week's end.  Many in our group, including me, came home with a new skills.  Most importantly, four families were closer to moving back into their homes.

With the number of people and properties still in need of repair work, there are certainly more projects in Birmingham than the MDS unit can handle, but every contribution helps, and MDS is working in a much larger network of aid agencies, providing manual labor for Habitat for Humanity, United Way, and other such organizations' construction projects.  Wherever disaster strikes, whether it be tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, or wildfires, MDS units are not far behind to work to put lives and hope back in order. 

Just a plug for MDS.  The week brought other experiences that I will discuss also. 

Finding Strangers at the Metrolink

The Watchtower (A much more interesting one.)

One of the neat things about life in Saint Louis is having reliable public transportation within walking distance.  Just about every day, Allison and I leash up our dog Rosie for the mile or so walk to the MetroLink station.  Allison catches the train to work and I return home to continue work on my dissertation, while Rosie carries out the vital task of reading her peemail, sniffing every spot another dog might have been, and leaving her own comments on their blogs.

One sunny morning about a month or so ago, Rosie and I had just dropped off Allison at the MetroLink. Rosie was waiting patiently while I fumbled with my iPod, finding just the right thing to listen to.  It might have been Credence, might have been post-Credence Fogerty, or it might have been the Wilders--be sure and catch them if they happen to be in your area!  Whatever it was, I did not get much of a chance to listen before two people approached, wanting to ask me about something.  I pulled out my earbuds and fully expected to answer yet another person's question about where they might find the local polling station.  (I suppose it would be somewhere near the large "vote here" sign?) 

As it turned out, the two were not lost at all, but were a couple of Jehovah's witnesses, who were serving out their morning's mission to find lost souls.  Apparently, I was one of them.  There are several strategies for dealing with Jehovah's witnesses.  This being an encounter on the street, the oft used approach of simply closing the door was not available.  I do not tend to use that technique anyway, preferring to return the favor instead.  If they want a conversation, then they shall have it.  I listen to their points, then analyze their implications to exhaustion.  Normally, in exchange for the copy of the Jehovah Witnesses' Watchtower, which is usually destined for recycling after a cursory read, I normally like to offer a copy of The Mennonite or Mennonite World Review for perusal, but since this was a street encounter, this was not an option.

If someone asks me if I am saved, for example, I tend to be much more interested in finding out what "being saved" means to the person asking me than I am in actually answering a question about a concept that is somewhat foreign to me to begin with.  My view of Christianity is that it is much more of a constantly evolving journey than one specific decision.

Similarly, if someone asks me if I believe Jesus is God, I cite the many hurtful, even bloody, controversies this question has led to over the years, along with some of the salient arguments of each side, before answering that I find the question to be quite beside the point.  Whether Jesus is the ultimate teacher, or whether Jesus is a manifestation of God does not do much in my mind to affect Jesus' significance.  Either argument is powerful in making Jesus The Way, at least in my mind.   

It seems that to discuss Jesus too much inevitably leads to some antisemitic remark or other about how "the Jews" lack faith--and are outside of grace--because of their rejection of Christ and obsession with rules.  Never mind that God's grace and forgiveness plays a major role in Judaism.  Never mind that in the intervening centuries, Christians have given Jews very little reason to be interested in even considering the ways of Christ through their pathetic example.  At any rate, I am too far convinced by the works of the late Rabbi Michael Signer, Amy-Jill Levine, Mary Boys and others to have much understanding or patience for the idea that Jews are somehow less faithful or favorable in the eyes of God than Christians. As a side note, it is interesting that the "Jewish obsession with rules" argument often comes not long after condemnations of homosexuality...

"The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways"

On this particular occasion, the major questions focused around the various "myths" that are apparently circulating about God.  (Of course, some out there might point out that the whole concept of God is a myth of its own, but this dispute is quite irresolvable, with all arguments ultimately dependent on belief in God or lack thereof.)  In fact, the entire issue of Watchtower that they gave me seemed obsessed with debunking myths about God; first and foremost, the "myth" that God's ways are mysterious.  God cannot be a mystery, they argued, because the Bible "God wrote" was clearly designed to bring us into an understanding God.  Never mind that God transcends time and space, that God's power and wisdom are infinite.  Never mind that God is manifest everywhere, or that God cares and finds uses for everybody without boundaries, even for those who I find to be utterly useless and detestable.  Upon closer analysis, this "myth" of God's mystery is not really a myth at all, at least not if we are to understand "mystery" as being something beyond our normal abilities of comprehension.  In fact, many of the other "myths" in this particular issue of Watchtower seemed to be much more nitpicking based on very narrow definitions--and the accompanying snippet of scripture--rather than anything that could be seen as a comprehensive explanation.

This sort of analytical thinking does not seem to mesh well with the quick, clear cut sort of answers that Jehovah's Witnesses tend to expect.  As usually happens when these conversations get deeper, the Witnesses decided that they had better things to do with their time.  I quite agree, as I am sure do the many whose doors they knock on any given Saturday.  At any rate, Rosie has more peemail to read, more blogs to comment on.

Thoughts on Genesis 1 and 2

Are Genesis 1 and 2 true or false? A considerable amount of time and energy are spent (even wasted) in arguments and shouting matches as people attack and defend the scientific (in)accuracy. Yet this whole debate misses the point of Genesis 1 and 2 entirely. Insisting that Genesis 1 and 2 meet scientific standards of accuracy forces Genesis to meet the standards of a worldview foreign to Genesis. Rather than being a narrative of scientific origins (like evolution), Genesis 1 is a liturgical progression celebrating order.¹ On the other hand, Genesis 2 is more focused on the role that humanity plays in the narrative.

In Genesis 1:2 we are told that the earth was תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu wavohu; traditionally, formless and void). We modern readers often miss the nuance of this short phrase. Yet, it sets the stage for what follows. Not only was this primordial earth a chaotic mess, it lacked meaning. And in the ANE, chaos was evil and order was good. The six days of creation are not about creation from nothing, about creation in a scientific sense. They are God establishing the proper order of the natural world, of which humanity is a part, out of the primeval chaos.

Genesis 1 utilizes an amazing parallel structure to illustrate the intentionality of the creative act:²

Day 1, Separation of light and Darkness (1:3-5)

\\Day 4, Separation of the luminaries in the sky (1:14-19)

Day 2, Separation of the two waters (creation of the sky) (1:6-8)

\\Day 5, Creation of the sea creatures and birds (1:20-23)

Day 3, Seas and dry land/vegetation (1:9-13)

\\Day 6, land creatures (including humans) and vegetation (1:24-31)

Each day is punctuated by the formulaic divine observation that this ordering is "good." After six "days" of creation, God observes that the formerly chaotic and meaningless earth is now "very good" in its order.

While this structure establishes the created order as exactly that, order, it reveals little about "why" it was created.³ Yet, throughout Genesis 1 are keys to answering "Why?" The first thing to understand is that Genesis 1 is highly stylized. There is a clear pattern and, generally speaking, this pattern is not interrupted. That is, it isn't at least until  Day 5. In 1:22, God breaks the pattern of the previous four days with the curious blessing to the fish and the birds: "And God blessed them saying, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the sea and let the birds multiply in the land.'" (my translation). This is a curious interruption of the pattern and I am not sure what to make of it.

Things get really strange in Day 6 when the whole pattern is completely interrupted. Instead of God speaking and "it was so," in 1:26 God suddenly engages in an internal dialogue, which is curiously in the plural (let us, in our image). Much ink has been, and will continue to be, spilled attempting to make sense of the plurality of 1:26. While investigation of this curious plurality is important, focusing on it causes us to miss the point. The key verb of this verse is "to rule."

In the modern world, this verb (in conjunction with "subdue" in 1:28) has been interpreted to mean we can do as we wish with the earth. Yet, this is not the case at all. The verb in question is  רדה (radah).

Interestingly, this verb is only used by P⁴ in the Pentateuch and of its 7 occurrences  two are in Genesis, one is in Numbers and four are in Leviticus. This verb clearly indicates a hierarchical relationship, yet the Pentateuch seems to apply an additional layer of meaning which is most obvious in the problematic text of Leviticus 25. Three times Leviticus 25 says "but you shall not rule over him [an Israelite sold into debt slavery]  in harshness." I do not want to downplay the highly problematic (that is an admitted understatement) nature of debt slavery, even in the idealized way it is presented in the Pentateuch, but the use in Leviticus 25 adds a layer of nuance which we cannot capture in English. Within this hierarchical relationship the one doing the ruling has a clear responsibility to the one being ruled. The one being ruled is not a commodity for the ruler to exploit with no concern for the "rulee." To the contrary, the ruler is to care of the "rulee." Yes, humanity is to rule over creation, but that does not give us the right to abuse and exploit creation. In doing so, we violate Torah. As Victor Hamilton points out "even in the garden of Eden he who would be the lord of all must be servant of all."⁵

Further, the langauge of 1:26 and 1:28 is language that is usually reserved for the king in other ANE literature. However, Genesis 1 takes royal language and applies it to all of humanity, male and female (there is no gender hierarchy established in Genesis 1, or 2 for that matter).

Another important way that Genesis 1 constructs meaning is made obvious when it is put in conversation with other ANE creation accounts. In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the universe is created via a cosmic battle between Marduk and Tiamat. Humanity is created to serve the needs of the lazy gods. This is in contrast to the nonviolent ordering of creation in Genesis where humanity is created to care for the created order as a part of that created order. 

This contrast is even more obvious in Egyptian creation literature.⁶ Egyptians creation myths (esp. the Coffin and Pyramid Texts) have far too many similarities with Genesis for it to be coincidental. In the Egyptian literature there is primeval chaos, the breath/wind of a deity moves over the waters, the waters are separated to form dry ground and the overall storylines are parallels (pre-creation chaos → breath/wind moves on the water → creation of the sky → formation of the heavenly ocean by the separation of the waters → formation of dry ground).

But the similarities make the contrasts even more obvious: Creator deity (Atum) is created (either by the receding deep or by the creation of light), creation of humanity is accidental (the tears of joy or sorrow of the creator deity), only Pharaoh is created in the image of the divine

Genesis 1 and 2 read very differently when placed in literary and theological contrast to the literature of its historical and geographical context than when we try to pit Genesis against science (or try to make science fit Genesis). When making Genesis scientific, we miss the theological and literary points of the text. In ancient creation myths, the point is not to provide a scientific explanation of how the world came to be. Instead, the point is to describe why the world is like it is, or how the world should be. This does not mean that science is unimportant or has nothing of value to offer. Mythic narratives provide answers to questions that science is not asking (the philosophical or theological questions), just as science is providing answers to questions that philosophy isn't asking. It is time to engage Genesis on its own terms (at least as much as is possible) rather than forcing science into the framework of Genesis.

---

<sup>1. Samuel E. Balentine, The Torah’s Vision of Worship (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999), 83.
 
2. See Ben C. Ollenburger, “Creation and Peace: God and Creature in Genesis 1 – 11.” Pages 143-158 in The Old Testament in the Life of God’s People: Essays in Honor of Elmer A. Martens (ed. Jon Isaak; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009).
 
3. Without delving into the complexities of the issue, in this context "created" clearly does not mean ex nihilo. Rather, the "creating" is more of a separation. Recently Ellen Van Wolde, Robert , Bob Becking and Marjo Korpel engaged in a lively debate about the exact meaning of the verb  ברא (bara, to create). See Ellen Van Wolde "Why the Verb ברא Does not Mean 'to Create' in Genesis 1.1-2.4a," JSOT 34 (2009): 3-23; Bob Becking and Marjo Korpel, "To Create, to Separate, or to Construct: An Alternative for a Recent Proposal as to the Interpretation of ברא in Gen 1:1-2:4a," JHS 10, artcile 3 (2010): http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_131.pdf; and Ellen Van Wolde Ellen Van Volde and Robert Rezetko, “Semantics and the Semantics of ברא: A Rejoinder of the Arguments Advanced by B. Becking and M. Korpel” JHS 11, article 9 (2011): http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_156.pdf.

4. Though I am assuming the Documentary Hypothesis, I am not doing so without acknowledging the problematic nature of this theory. Eventually, even the foundational and leading DH theorists had to admit that their analysis did not necessarily  run through the whole Pentateuch. For example, Martin Noth conceded that "if one took [Numbers] by itself, one would not easily arrive at the idea of 'thoroughgoing sources,' but would more likely arrive at the idea of an unsystematic combination of numerous transmission pieces" (Martin Noth, Das vierte Buch Mose: Numeri [ATD 7; Gottigen: Vandenhoeck and Puprech 1977], 8; quoted in Konrad Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel's Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible[SipLTHS 3; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010], 91). Konrad Schmid notes that a big problem with the DH is that "pentateuchal research has been determined by theories that were first explored and defended in Genesis and then assumed to be equally applicable in Exodus-Numbers" (Schmid, 91). At the very least, we can still (generally) apply this theory to Genesis.</sup> 

  

^{5. Victor Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17 (NICOT; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990), 138.}

^{6. See Gordon H. Johnston, "Genesis 1 and Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths," Bibliotecha Sacra 165 (2008): 178-194.}

Same Sex Marriage and Church Discipline

There are twenty four points in the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (COF). Twenty four. Yet only one can get you (be it church or individual) disciplined: Marriage. Fail to care for Creation ? (Yup, that one get two mentions.) No one bats an eye. Don't make peace and seek justice? No one is going to lift a finger. Doubt that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are three in one and one in three? (For the record, I do struggle with Trinitarianism.) It's all good. But violate point 19?

From the Gospel According to Samuel Jackson 14:32.

Perform a same-sex ceremony and/or support LGBTQ rights and/or come out as LGBTQ and prepare for the full might of the conference to come down on you. Are you an affirming congregation? Prepare to have your voting rights stripped away or be denied entry into a different conference, though steps forward have been made to reconcile Hayttsville and their conference. Though, some of this rings hollow in the face of the treatment of Germantown Mennonite Church (which still remains in a broken relationship with two regional conferences and MCUSA).

In all fairness, there are exceptions to this...kind of. But these exceptions are few and far between. By an large the rule is that if you are LGBTQ and serving the church in some capacity (so far the focus has been on ordained and licensed ministers) or are affirming, most likely your regional conference wants you out of the church.

This brings up my question. Why is the focus of discipline on LGBTQ members and their supporters? Seriously, there are twenty three other points in the COF, which are also violated. But no pastor is having his or her credentials revoked if he or she does not care for Creation (again, which gets two mentions in the COF). No pastor has it noted on his or her Ministerial Leadership Information form that he or she is not actively working for racial reconciliation.

Just to be clear, I am not advocating a legalistic approach to the COF. I firmly believe "that the church of Jesus Christ is one body with many members...[and] diversity in unity evokes gratitude to God and appreciation for one another." Not every person is called to work in racial reconciliation, or in victim/offender reconciliation, or in pastoral care, or in substance abuse treatment, and so on a so forth. The different parts of the body, with our different passions and strengths, makes us stronger. Besides, if legalism became the approach, then I would be among the first out. I doubt the Trinity as a theological certainty and I am in support of an LGBTQ inclusive church. In other words, I am a heretic.

Seriously. Screw board games.

As this is a blog post, I am not able to to justice to the complexity of the issue in the various conferences and between MCUSA and the conferences (to do this topic justice one would need to write a book on each situation as a case study, including how MCUSA relates to the conferences). I do realize that I am presenting this is a rather simplistic way. In truth, there are more than a few examples of people attempting to combat this bogus standard at the congregational, conference, and denomination level. I do not want to be little their efforts or deny them their due. They are courageous individuals who refuse to keep silent and they deserve our support and more of us need to have the courage to openly join them. Our silence only helps preserve this ridiculous double standard. To be sure, we do not want to go crusading, being the inclusive version of the exclusive voices, but that is no justification for our silence.

Yet my perplexity remains. Why the hell is article 19 such a big deal?

Bullying, Gay Marriage, Religious Conviction, Part 3

In the previous couple of posts, I have discussed Obama's affirmation of gay marriage and some of the religious conservative backlash that has come since.  Religious conviction can be a difficult thing to deal with.  Being a person of faith myself--Justin's statement on being a Christian is very similar to my own, we have discussed these matters extensively long before conceiving of this blog--I can understand the strength and importance of religious conviction.

What does one do in the face of religious conviction that declares one group to be sinful, abnormal, and abominable?  

I do not buy for a second that the blowback from our brothers and sisters in the GLBTQ community, whose rights have been curtailed, whose happiness and very lives have been cut short because of the fallout of such religious conviction, can be considered persecution, bullying or anything of the kind.


However, we must seek to understand that our conservative Christian brothers’ and sisters’ feelings and convictions are genuine and strongly held.  If this video is any indication, they had some of these ideas taught to them from a young age.  They received their faith from their parents before them, have made it their own, and will pass it on to their children.  Now, the word “abuse” is used to describe this sort of youth education and indoctrination, but I would argue that abuse may not be the right word.  We all seek to teach our children the mores and convictions we hold to be true, and we do so out of love.  Though some of these ideas may be abhorrent, we must remember that these parents are not typically neglectful of their children, nor do they abuse their children physically or verbally.  They teach what they teach because their understanding of scripture, based on what they read in the light of what they themselves have been taught, leads them to believe that this is the ONLY path to salvation.  

So, if we use words such as “abuse” or “bigotry”, these folks really feel they are being stepped on and persecuted for their religious conviction.  Despite the harms that conservative theology causes to the GLBTQ community, it is not helpful to use the label of "bigot" on our brothers and sisters who speak out of religious conviction.  Though such an approach might seem justified, it will only strengthen feelings of martyrdom, and thus strengthen the religious conviction we oppose.  At best, we can perhaps seek to change the convictions at their roots.  Only if we can lovingly, patiently convince these people that their stance against loving GLBTQ relationships is not consistent with the loving God they embrace.  Putting this another way, in embracing a theology that rejects their GLBTQ brothers and sisters, conservative Christians are missing a very real part of God’s love; but in rejecting our conservative Christian brothers and sisters for what we see to be their abuse, bigotry, and intransigence, we are also missing the same.  (I have to remind myself of the latter half of this sentence repeatedly, so if this seems particularly preachy, it is directed at myself as much as anyone else, and I am seldom a good example.)  Hearts can change, and we must work to that end.

 

But how do we do this? 

 

Approach 1:  Hypocrisy of Imbalanced Attention to Cleanliness Codes

Perhaps the most obvious line of argument is that those who repeatedly turn to the same handful of verses with zeal to condemn homosexuality are less than interested in the surrounding verses.  Shellfish, poly-fiber clothing, pork, nocturnal emissions, menstruation, and so on are all listed as unclean or abomination in close proximity within the mosaic codes.  In fact, there are myriad activities that we all engage in every day that the Bible lists as unclean or sinful, so it seems a little bit hypocritical to focus on the one area of homosexuality.   This is the approach that Dan Savage takes in addressing a convention on high school journalism.


Before we pursue such a line of argument, we should beware of some real pitfalls.  First and foremost, in pointing out the other sins that we do not emphasize in the Bible, we must remember that doing so implicitly concedes the idea that non-hetero orientation or relationships are sinful.  They are not.  Furthermore, we should ask ourselves:  Do we really want greater emphasis placed in these other areas of uncleanliness?  Do we really think these constitute sin?  I do not.  I quite enjoy my shrimp, and to convince somebody they are under-emphasizing a conviction one does not share seems silly.  Moreover, in asserting stances that are not genuine, we only make hypocrites of ourselves, all too transparent to those we are trying to convince.

 

Approach 2:  Overwhelming Balance of Social Justice

Another approach, might be to highlight the lack of emphasis on the vast weight of the Bible's concern with social justice and poverty, which is far from ambiguous.  Jesus' story would be much shorter if we were to exclude his many parables, words, and deeds concerning social justice.  He would have come, died, rose and that would be it.  The rest of the Bible would be reduced a mere incoherent flyer.  The Bible is neither unclear nor fleeting in its discussions and teachings concerning social justice.  Yet it seems any time one mentions social justice, many of the same folks who seek to condemn homosexuality cry out accusations of socialism and anti-Americanism, and offer a variety of indignant excuses why these many, many verses do not apply.


Although I definitely embrace the idea that we must do more toward social justice--i.e. universal health care, fair living wages, strong public education, and so on, I still have my reservations about using such a tactic in seeking better acceptance for our GLBTQ brothers and sisters.  Given that we, for the most part, are bloated residents of a developed country, who more than likely pass homeless folks everyday on the way to work, more concerned about car repairs, air conditioning, whether we remembered our cloth shopping bags, or the new iPhone app to notice, we may not ourselves be paragons of virtue when it comes to social justice.  In some way, perhaps this is the point.  We are all greedy, so finding another area of emphasis that does not directly affect most of us instead, such as someone’s sexual orientation, is easier.  The results of such guilt projection are devastating.

 

Approach 3:  Call Out the Verses Themselves In the Context of the Wideness of God’s Mercy

Perhaps we might best focus our efforts on the relatively small handful of verses that conservative Christians consistently cite to absolutely condemn loving gay relationships (from Paul’s letters and the Pentateuch).  Given that there are less than a half dozen such verses in the entire Bible concerning this particular topic, it hardly seems as central an issue as some want to make it today, but for the sake of argument... 

 
In each case, these verses have really very little to say regarding anything we would understand as loving homosexual relationships.  Each instance of condemnation involves some form of sexual servitude or a situation of outright rape to enforce dominance.  This is especially true of the seeming favorite story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), two wealthy cities where rape of visitors was a customary way of instilling fear and dominance to maintain security.  Nobody should support or defend such abusive behavior as rape or pedophilia, ritual or otherwise, so the Bible is quite correct here on the one hand.  On the other hand, abuse, dominance, pedophilia, and coercion have nothing to do with loving relationships of any kind.  The overwhelming weight of the Bible favors and encourages loving relationships.


Quite simply, the Bible is not nearly as clear on matters of sexual orientation as some would seem to think, even less so with what we would understand as a loving homosexual relationship.  Jesus himself says nothing on the topic, for or against.  And this perhaps brings us to the best argument of all.  He had a great deal to say about how the exclusionary practices of his day--whether it be against the mentally ill, the physically ill, the poor, the prostitutes, the Samaritans, the tax collectors, the *gasp* lawyers--were a false approach to the kingdom of heaven.  In fact, Jesus stated time and again that those who thought they had the kingdom of heaven pegged, those who were most convinced they knew what God wanted of them to get in, had the most to learn.  Surely this is as true now as it ever was.  God has a place for everybody.

Why we learn history

Timelines are a bitch.

Bullying, Gay Marriage, Religious Conviction, Part 2

In yesterday’s post, I discussed President Obama’s recent affirmation of same-sex unions, and some of the harsher responses from those who oppose same sex marriage.   For today’s discussion, a controversy that arose when a high school classmate of mine announced his religiously convicted disapproval of homosexuality on Facebook.  I would normally not use names for such discussions--or mention someone else’s Facebook postings, for that matter--except in this case the name was well publicized, locally in the Hutchinson News, and nationally in the Huffington Post.  I have included links to all relevant articles, though I understand that the Hutchinson News has a rather stringent policy about the number of articles one can view without subscribing.  Not to worry; I am too frugal to bother with subscriptions, too, but fair warning.

   

Jack Conkling, a former high school colleague of mine created quite a stir and garnered media attention, both locally and nationally, when he posted a lengthy Facebook status in opposition to Obama’s affirmation of gay marriage.  As it turns out, a number of Jack’s friends were also his students, and a number of them expressed concern  about the implications of what Jack had to say:  

 

All this talk in the news about gay marriage recently has finally driven me to write. Gay marriage is wrong because homosexuality is wrong. The Bible clearly states it is sin. Now I do not claim it to be a sin any worse than other sins. It ranks in God's eyes the same as murder, lying, stealing, or cheating. His standards are perfect and ALL have sinned and fallen short of His glory. Sin is sin and we all deserve hell. Only those who accept Christ as Lord and daily with the help of the Spirit do their best to turn from sin will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. There aren't multiple ways to get to Heaven. There is one. To many this may seem close minded and antagonistic, but it doesn't make it any less true. Folks I am willing to admit that my depravity is just as great as anyone else's, and without Christ I'd be destined for hell, if not for the undeserved grace of God. I'm not condemning gay marriage because I hate gay people. I am doing it because those who embrace it will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I desire that for no one.

Much of the concern about Jack’s posting centered on the fact that Jack’s students  might see tacit justification for bullying homosexual students in the remarks.  After all, we are taught to castigate liars, thieves, and cheaters, and if homosexuality is the same thing, then... Some of Jack’s students drew discomfort from his remarks, and uncertainty of what his response might be in an actual case of bullying because of sexual orientation.  By far the largest problem and reason for all the attention Jack’s entry received is that Jack had students in his friends list.  Presumably Jack would have a status of authority and respect as a teacher, meaning that such a statement as his could give guidance to some, but would also cause insecurity for others.  

Jack’s statement was no endorsement of bullying.  Having known Jack in high school, this would be quite out of character.  Jack’s statement was from religious conviction, combined with the felt obligation to speak out when souls are at stake.   Given the atmosphere in which Jack’s statement occurred, however--gay marriage is constitutionally banned in Kansas; the city of Hutchinson recently narrowly passed an ordinance stating that one cannot fire a current employee or evict a tenant based on his or her sexual orientation, yet is free to discriminate in hiring or placing tenants based on the same (the amendment only passed with the amendment allowing hiring and placement discrimination); the idea remains prevalent in the area that homosexuality is a “disorder”; bullying of children suspected of being gay or different remains all too common (unless things have radically changed since I was in high school), even as conservatives balk at any legislation to help address the situation--one could understand the concern that Jack's opinion, stated from a place of authority, might seem threatening to some, one more voice emphasizing abnormality and immorality for a trait that cannot be changed.

At the same time, the attention and controversy Jack’s remarks have garnered have in turn been met with backlash from the right. Several wrote in to the Hutchinson News in support of Jack’s remarks.  Some writers even went so far as to suggest that to portray Jack’s Facebook profile as threatening was itself a form of bullying, here and here.   It is a strange world where the expression of concern about remarks that are oppressive to an entire segment of society can be considered bullying.