Let’s Embrace True Religious Marriage Equality

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — The National Cathedral is pealing its church bells, along with some other Washington churches, to celebrate the Supreme Court’s decisions on gay marriage.

Cathedral spokesman Richard Weinberg said the bells rang at noon Wednesday for 45 minutes to an hour. Bells also rang at other Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian and other Christian churches.

The cathedral scheduled a prayer service for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender families Wednesday at 7 p.m. to celebrate the ruling.

In a statement, the cathedral’s dean, the Rev. Gary Hall, says the church is ringing its bells “to celebrate the extension of federal marriage equality to all the same-sex couples modeling God’s love in lifelong covenants.”

Hall says the ruling should serve as a call for Christians to embrace religious marriage equality.

Kent comments:

I will consider Cathedral spokesman Richard Weinberg’s call for Christians to embrace “religious marriage equality” just after he issues a call for true “religious marriage equality” which must include such equality for human beings who wish to marry animals.  Unless, that is, Mr. Weinberg and his ilk have some kind of species-centric view of marriage that does not allow for human-animal couples who “model God’s love in lifelong covenants.”

But perhaps these “Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian and other Christian churches” mentioned here harbor animal-phobic persons who stubbornly refuse to recognize the right of people to marry animals.

(Sneering contempt aside for the moment:  I fear that those “Christian churches” probably DO have people who would advocate human-animal marriages.  And I expect to live long enough to hear some of them say so in public.)

Yes, but . . .

"I believe that gendered writing . . . will one day be immediately recognized as archaic and ludicrous." Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, A Brief for Gender-Neutral Brief-Writing, N.Y.L.J., 21 Mar. 1991, at 2.

Kent comments:

It is, of course, considered such today, a “mere” twenty-some years later.  But the attempt to remove any gender from writing still often leads to idiotic results.

For example, yesterday in the scripture reading at church, the translation being read coordinated “anyone” with “they.”  This is now done routinely both in writing and in speech.   For example, “If anyone lost a cell phone, they may pick it up at the lost-and-found.”  The problem with this is that “anyone” is singular, while “they” is plural.

We still sense this because almost never do we read or here something like, “Almost anyone are able to solve that problem.”  It sounds wrong because it is wrong.  It should be “Almost anyone is . . .” because the singular “is” goes with the singular “anyone.”

The problem is that in the original example, to make the singular “anyone” match the next singular pronoun, we can choose only from this list:  he, she, it.  The “it” is ruled out because the owner of a cell phone will (usually?!?) be a person.  The convention used to be the use of “he” when the person was unknown.  It was not an attack on women.  It really had nothing to do whether the sex of the person in question was male for female.  It was just a convention.

But it offended the idiotic sensibilities of most feminists, and those idiotic sensibilities have been slowly, carefully, and deliberately foisted on all of us in the last thirty years or so.

After trying to accommodate these idiotic sensibilities with things like “he/she” or “s/he” – or even randomly picking “he” or “she” for no apparent reason – we seem to have landed on the even more ridiculous coordination of the singular “anyone” with the plural “they.”

I was a little surprised to see that in a Bible translation.  There are all sorts of work-arounds that are used to avoid “gendered language” in certain situations.  After all, one doesn’t want to sound “archaic and ludicrous” does one?

But this particular and often-used construction has no clever work-around.  It stands as a kind of monument to the idiocy of certain kinds of feminist sensibilities in our culture.

So pay attention when you read or hear these singular words:  anyone, someone, anybody, somebody, everyone, everybody – and maybe some others that don’t come to mind just now.  Think to yourself, “I would never say, ‘Someone are’ would I?”  Then see if it is matched up with the plural “they.”

Then say to yourself, “Thank you, feminist culture, for this little monument to your own stupidity.”  The feminists won the culture war, no doubt about that.  But we can at least be thankful for this little reminder of the idiocy of it all.

Self-Congratulations

This morning I listened to the live press conference from Boston regarding the tragic bombing of yesterday.  I usually don’t listen to such things, but I needed to give myself a manicure (so to speak, or just ‘cut the nails’ to be more accurate).  What I heard was revealing.

First up was a string politicians.  Each of them, in his own way, congratulated himself for being “on top of” this tragedy.  None of them spoke for a long time, but there were enough to make this parade of self-congratulations fairly long.

Eventually, when the politicians had released sufficient hot air, the various law enforcement officials involved finally had a turn.  They assured the listeners that they were busy doing everything that could be done to catch the bad guys.  A couple of them were honest enough to say that people should expect to see more uniformed people around Boston, but that the main purpose for at least some of this was simply to make people feel better.  Some were also honest enough to at least suggest that they were present before the bombing, but they were not able to stop it, nor could they be expected to make this impossible in the future.

Then came questions and answers.  As you might expect, no specific questions about the course of the investigation could be answered.  So there was nothing really to be learned from the questions posed by the press.

So from the great press conference, I learned that politicians tend to love themselves and think they are indispensible to our well-being.  I learned that law enforcement officials can’t be expected to stop these things in the future – though they might sometimes.  Finally, I learned nothing about the investigation.

This is why I don’t pay much attention to press conferences after these kinds of tragic events.

Our Friend, the Collective?

(CNSNews.com) -- In a 30-second promo for MSNBC’s Lean Forwardcampaign, Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry advocates that society end the “private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families,” and instead institute a “collective notion” that kids “are our children,” they belong to the community.

In the MSNBC advertisement, Perry says, “We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children: your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children.”

“So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities,” said Harris-Perry, a professor of political science at Tulane University and host of the Melissa Harris-Perry show on Saturday and Sunday mornings on MSNBC.

“Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments,” Harris-Perry added.

Kent comments:

Statists have a completely different view of life and the world than do those of us who do not subscribe to the (irrational) religion of statism.  Statists have their own set of commandments for their religion.  While these were never carved into stone anywhere, they exist nonetheless.  Notice some of these in the words of the statist priestess quoted above:

Anything “private” is bad.  Families are not important, but ‘communities’ are.  Children “belong” to the community, that is, the state.  Governments spending money is “investing.”  One converts to statism by “breaking through” rival religions.  And most importantly, the world is a bad place outside the reign of statism, and it will be a better world once statism is the ruling religious view.  (I summarized these in the order in which they appear.  See if you can find others I missed.)

The cult of statism is curious, but it is much more than that.  It is dangerous.  Our society has tried to flirt with it by allowing “a little bit of it” and then trying to contain it.  That was foolish, and it is failing.  Statism never retreats.  It is on a campaign to “save” the world by conquering it.  And it is in a unique position to do so because it, by its very nature, glorifies the state, the ultimate agency of force on earth.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry worships at the alter of the state.  So do many others.  Remember that compromise with them is impossible.

Self-Defense for Teenagers

There is a nice article by Rand Paul today stating his position on so-called “gun control.”  (Which is really a “people control” which amounts to “rights infringement.”)  In the course of his argument, Paul presents this:

For every national tragedy that happens, there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Americans preventing similar killings from happening, thanks to the use of personal firearms. Last June, for example, a 14-year-old Phoenix boy shot an armed intruder who broke into his home while he was baby-sitting his three younger siblings. The children were home alone on a Saturday afternoon when an unrecognized woman rang their doorbell. After the 14-year-old boy refused to open the door, he heard a loud bang, which indicated that someone was trying to break into the house. The boy hurried his younger siblings upstairs and collected a handgun from his parents’ room. When the boy rounded the top of the stairs, there was a man standing in the doorway with a gun pointed at him. The boy shot at the intruder and saved the lives of his three younger siblings.

I hate to say this, but my impression of many who want to “control guns” is that they would react to this with:  “Fourteen-year-olds should not be allowed to touch a gun under any circumstances.”  I could be wrong, and I hope I am wrong, but I doubt that I am.

As Rand Paul points out in the article, and as many, many others have pointed out recently, the evidence says, “More guns mean less crime.”  But the “gun control” people simply do not seem to care about that.  Paul does not cite a source for the story above (and I didn’t expect that in an op-ed piece like this), but assuming it is true, my best guess is that in many locales, the parents of the boy would be charged with something-or-other for allowing the teenagers to touch a gun.

This is one of the current bandwagons driving around our culture.  Bandwagons usually carry a load that contains a heavy dose of insanity.

What Next?

There is an interesting little point-and-counterpoint over at Christianity Today.  It is titled “If the Supreme Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage, What Next?”  The three authors make various points, the first one being worried that churches will “exclude and ostracize”, the second who says, “We must offer—even mandate—robust premarital counseling for church members” and the last who “would be honored to spend time in dialogue with gay couples.”

There is nothing horribly wrong with what is said by any of the authors of this article.  It is a little annoying to hear the constant whining from “pastor” types today that we must be ever-so-careful not to ruffle anyone’s feathers when we talk about sin.  But that is not the point here.

My guess is that some editor at CT dreamed up this trendy title and theme, and then asked these three to write something (quickly) about it to ‘catch the wave’ of interest on this topic with the current Supreme Court hearings on the matter.  The problem is that very little of what is said has any direct connection to legalizing same-sex marriage.

If the Supreme Court ‘legalizes’ same-sex marriage, the ‘what next’ for Christians and the church ought to be . . . nothing different than before.  That wouldn’t make much of a trendy article, but that’s the nature of reality often.

Consider the (very related) matter of sodomy:  before it was legalized it was contrary to the revealed will of God and thus immoral, and Christians and churches should have said so whenever the matter came up.  After it was legalized, nothing changed in regard to the church and Christians.  Before it was legal, it was not the only sin, though it was one with some serious consequences.  After it was legal, it was still not the only sin, but will remain one with serious consequences.

The case is exactly the same with same-sex “marriage” – which is not marriage at all.  But even now many people have deluded themselves into think it is.  Even now the church and Christians need to be explaining to people the truth that same-sex whatever-that-is is not marriage, and pretending that it is does not make it so.  What civil law says bears no direct connection to the reality of such matters.

Should the Supreme Court ‘legalize’ same-sex “marriage” none of that will change, just as marriage will not change.  If that should happen, what then?  Well then, Christians should continue to do what they always should have been doing about marriage:  confessing the truth about it.  Our culture, including and especially the Supreme Court, cannot affect the mission of Christians and the church.

The ‘Environmental Crisis’ and the Christian Faith

A recent article in Christianity Today contains a theme that is becoming a bit over-worked in establishment evangelical circles.  The article is about the broader implications of the Christian doctrine of creation.  It is not bad, but the author seemingly cannot resist the urge to load Christianity onto the bandwagon of “environmentalism” when at one point he says:

All of this adds a further dimension to our thinking about the present environmental crisis. If being made in God's image involves stewarding the natural world, we need to steward in a Christlike way, as servants rather than as dictators. As Christians, we can share with all humanity a concern for preserving the environment for future generations. And we can share with other faith communities a sense of preserving the Earth as a divine gift. But we should want to go further, and proclaim environmental responsibility as a consequence of living under the lordship of Christ.

It is striking that Genesis 1 ends not in the creation of Adam and Eve, but in the Sabbath day on which, as Scottish theologian David Fergusson says, "the whole creation glorifies its maker." That is, resting in, rejoicing in, and living out the Sabbath praise of God is regarded in Scripture as the very summit of earthly existence—the purpose for which it was breathed into being. Viewed this way, we humans are called not just to "use" material reality for our own ends, but to hallow it, to reverence it as God's gift, to work for its flourishing, and, in this manner, to be viceroys of the world over which he graciously superintends.

First of all, what, exactly is “the present environmental crisis”?  People have been using this terminology for decades now, and yet, when I take a walk “the environment” is still there.  The ever-present “crisis” language is clearly not just wrong, but deceptive.  Here is a Christ-like quality for Christianity Today to consider:  truthfulness.

Also along the lines of deception is language about “servants rather than as dictators” of the creation and that we should “not just ‘use’ material reality for our own ends.”  God told human kind to “subdue” the earth, which necessarily involves using it and thereby changing it.  All the theological mumbo-gumbo talk incorporating environmentalists lingo you can muster does not change that.

God made the earth for our use, and He made it in an amazing way such that, even when we make mistakes with the earth, it is very difficult for us to destroy it.  (Isn’t God tricky that way?)

This never-ending attempt by evangelicals to kowtow to environmentalism is yet another manifestation of the triumph of culture over Christianity.  It is not helpful, it is not “prophetic” and it amounts to a betrayal of the Christian faith.