An example of strength through faithfulness

Considering the continuing challenge and threat of Racist, antisemetic and other kindred groups, The blogger Laughing Pastor finds something to celebrate in the church's heritage:

I am proud to be part of a faith tradition that stood up and spoke out during the Nazi era. People like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who refused to remain silent. The banner depicted above is a symbol of the words spoken in Barmen. Reformed Christians rejected Hitler, and his Nazism. They died for not remaining silent.

The blog post carried a picture of the dramatic banner designed to celebrate the 1934 Theological Declaration of Barmen. That Declaration does stand as a courageous monument in Christian Theology. We would do well to follow their example... once we figure out what that example is.

They were concerned with Hitler and National Socialism, to be sure, and Bonhoeffer in particular paid the ultimate price, executed for his involvment in anti-Hitler plots.

But they were equally concerned -- if not more concerned -- to call the church back to its roots. They confronted the "German Christian" movement which compromised the Christian gospel, embracing various social movements and cultural opinions as revelations of God. (It would be anachronistic to say they found the words of the prophets written on the subway walls...) They found authoritative revelations in culture, science, and human experience.

Against that, the Confessing church leaders declared "Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death."

The mainstream church leaders called them narrow-minded, said they were resisting the new things God was doing in a new day. They thought looking for God's word in "other events and powers, figures and truths" outside the Scripture would open them to the work of the spirit.

Instead, it sapped their strength, and made the church useless when people needed it to stand up to the evil of National Socialism. It was not an opening that allowed them to receive new things from Jesus. It was instead an opening that allowed the power of their message to escape. It wasn't as much a door as a slow leak.

History has vindicated those narrow-minded folk who insisted the place where we hear the voice of the Word of God is in the Scripture. May we find the strength to follow their example.

'Consenting adults' may be the new standard, but it's not improved

In these confusing times, where can we go to find helpful moral guidance? In a previous post, I wrote about the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s attempt to offer that kind of guidance to teens through their God's Gift of Sexuality curriculum. The goal, according to a writer for the project speaking at an introductory workshop, was to free teens from rules so they could find the loving choice in each situation. This, they offered, was the new and improved way to find moral guidance.

The writer/presenter did not expect the question of how teens would recognize the loving choice. They rather assumed people would instinctively know the loving choice. Even if the curriculum didn't deal with it directly, surely people would realize what consenting adults did in private was their own business and did not need to be subject to moralistic second guessing.

It's been a familiar refrain for more than a generation: what consenting adults do in private is their own business. This seems to be the new standard for sexual morality. It may be new, but it is not improved. It is less than useless in making ethical distinctions.

Consider the first term: consent. Anyone who has worked with sexual harassment policies has seen the difficulty here. Too often the line between coercion and consent falls in different places, depending on who's drawing the line.

One says, "The conduct was consensual. You said yes; you agreed." The other responds, "Of course I agreed; I know what damage you could do to my career if I had said no."

The first answers, "I never threatened you." The second replies, "You didn't have to: I knew your position in the company and what you could do if you wanted to."

Consider the second term: adult. At the workshop, I raised the question "What magic thing happens on your 18^th or 16^th birthday that suddenly makes you able to offer intelligent, informed consent to sexual activity?"

A youth delegate to the workshop took that ball and ran with it. "Yeah," she added, "lots of my friends are more responsible than some college kids I know. Why can they make choices we can't?" The only honest answer to the youth's question is "well, we have to draw a line somewhere, and we know 10 is too young and 20 is too old."

Finally consider the last term: private. What does privacy have to do with anything? What impact does a "right of privacy" have in determining moral conduct? The right of free speech means conduct otherwise illegal is acceptable as long as you just write or talk about it. I hate to imagine what would happen to murder mystery writers otherwise!

But do we really want to say conduct otherwise immoral is moral simply because it's done in private? The "in private" venue of an action is essentially irrelevant. Murder is immoral whether done in public or private. Robbery is immoral whether done in public or in private. Adultery is immoral whether done in public or in private.

"What consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is their own business" is certainly a popular slogan in this generation. It has attained the status of received cultural wisdom, at least in certain segments of society. But upon reflection, whether an act is performed by consenting adults in private is either meaningless or irrelevant in weighing moral alternatives.

The Christian tradition has held to the words of Jesus: the creator's intent was that sexuality was exercised in the context of a loving relationship where a man left his father and mother and was joined to his wife and the two become one flesh. The standard still has much to commend itÂ… but that's a story for another post.

What does "loving one another" really mean?

Mark Smith posted this in the Classical Presbyterian blog comment section (scroll down to get the whole comment):
"[T]he church should be clear on what it considers the most important facets of Christ-like behavior. If you sat down and wrote out a list of Christ-like behaviors, I really don't think sexuality is even in the top 20."
He offered his start for such a list:

1. Loving God
   
2. Loving One Another
   
3. Giving of your time and talents
   
4. Being a member of a spiritual community

In response, I suggested:

I guess it rather depends on how you answer the question "what does it mean to love one another?" Biblically love is not some vague emotion or some undefined set of good intentions. It is deliberate actions defending a person's best interests. "But how do I do that," some ask. And God's answer is the law: do not steal, do not kill, do not covet, do not commit adultery... and that last puts sexuality right there as the way we live out number two on your "list of Christ-like behaviors."

Many years ago, the Presbyterian Church (USA) was introducing a new sexuality curriculum, God's gift of sexuality. As part of the roll out, they held training events in each Synod to help educators and ministers understand how this new curriculum worked and what it was all about. As an interested educator, I made it a priority to attend our Synod's event.

Ours was a pretty small group; no more than a dozen. But that was good because it gave us lots of quality discussion and interaction with the design team member who was introducing the curriculum to us. And the trainer was certainly excited about the product they had designed. It was a whole new approach to church-based sexuality education. For the first time, giving students accurate biological information was a goal of the church's educational plan.

And this curriculum was going to free youth from the narrow moralisms that had characterized sex education in the church in previous generations. They would find freedom knowing the God of love did not expect rote obedience to the letter of the law. Rather they could follow the Spirit and do the loving thing in each situation and relationship.

Being rather younger and more impertinent than I am today, I asked what in this curriculum would help the youth recognize what the loving thing was. How would they know what love was?

The presenter was not expecting that question. It never occurred to the design team to write lessons about what love is. Don't we all instinctively know how to love?

But we don't. One of the great tragedies of life is how people can try to do the right thing but still fail. People can want to love, can try to love, but can still end up causing great pain.

But God, who knows the end from the beginning, has told us what love is. That's the point of a passage like Romans 13:10: "Love does not harm its neighbor. So love does everything the law requires."

The Heidelberg Catechism puts it well (especially in the Christian Reformed Church translation) at Question 91:

What do we do that is good? Only that which arises out of true faith, conforms to God's law, and is done for his glory; and not that which is based on what we think is right or on established human tradition.

Put it this way: if the most important thing God has to say to us is "you shall love," then doesn't it make sense that would come with at least some instruction in how to do it? What kind of God would say "The most important thing I want you to do is love, but if you're looking to me for help with how to do that, you're going to be disappointed"?

But he has helped us with the meaning of love. He has given us some instruction in how to love. He has given it in his statutes, in his ordinances, in his law. And that law is not a burden to be escaped. It's a blessed gift to be received with thanks.

You know the bit about "all work and no play…"

You never know what you'll find on line. One odd but intriguing link I found was to a site called the Portrait Illustration Maker. I can't say it looks exactly like me: the beard is seldom that well trimmed, and I don't think I have a shirt exactly that shade of blue... but the presence of the coffee cup is certainly true to life.
The little portrait icon was made by the Abi-Station. The Portait Illustration Maker asks for input about hair and eyes and backgrounds and such. Then it creates a little picture like you see off to the right. And, if I get the coding correctly, in my profile section on the blog. But that's a project for another day...