“A Dark Day: Post-Christian America?” by Pat Buchanan, The Washington Times, June 2, 2008.
“The Christian Pop Cultures of Rapture Ready” by Sarah Pulliam, Christianity Today.com, June 19, 2008.
“Tim Russert’s Contagious Faith” by Steve Sjogren, The Church Report, June 20, 2008.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan weighs in against the California Supreme Court’s support for same-sex marriage. In a bit of non sequitur, he dubs it “another streetlight on America’s darkening path to perdition”. His take on history and the Bible is a revised rehash of rhetoric that preachers and pundits used against interracial marriage into the late 20th century – except that this cradle Catholic slips unintentionally into Deism: “The court may declare it, but it cannot redefine an institution that nature and nature’s God have already defined.” In the verbiage of another court’s ruling against extending marriage rights – in Virginia in 1958 (later struck down by the U. S. Supreme Court): “Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, Malay, and red and placed them on separate continents, and but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend the races to mix.”
Seemingly unaware of responsible, monogamous gay and lesbian couples that are rearing children whom nobody else wants, taking care of elderly parents afflicted with Alzheimer’s, and lovingly living together until death doth them part – mowing grass and doing dishes – Buchanan prefers to sneer: “You can put lipstick and earrings on a pig, and call her Peggy Sue, but it’s still a pig.”
“The very definition of marriage is,” according to Buchanan, “first and foremost, for the procreation of children.” So, apparently, the impotent, infertile and postmenopausal (and even the childless Buchanans) marry for less noble reasons – like companionship? But after pointing out that a same-sex couple cannot procreate, he tries to support his anti-same-sex marriage argument by castigating prolifically procreating heterosexual couples. He cites sad statistics of children born out of wedlock (“50 percent of all Hispanic kids, 70 percent of black kids”) and sad statistics on heterosexual divorce (“half of all marriages ending in divorce”). He notes, too, some of the additional social problems that follow from these heterosexual failures: “crime, violence, drug and alcohol abuse, dropout rates, gang membership, and jail and prison populations”. These are arguments against same-sex marriage? Against Buchanan’s illogic, social psychologists (e.g., David G. Myers) point to good reasons why the legalization of same-sex marriage would strengthen heterosexual marriage.
Christianity Today interviews Daniel Radosh, a contributor to The New Yorker and “a humanistic Jew [who] spent a year immersed in the Christian entertainment world.” He discusses his experience in his book, Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture.
Radosh admits that the Christian world he visited “is totally unfamiliar to me as a secular Jewish New Yorker.” Nevertheless, he dared to look into this world. He knew he had “expectations about what I would find” and admits that, not surprisingly: “my initial experiences heightened those [expectations].” But, he wisely notes: “I learned not to trust my first impressions.” Because he was teachable, he discovered that the experience “was very eye opening”. Evangelicals need to learn not to trust their first impressions of homosexuality and gay people, for example, and, instead allow their own eyes to be opened in meeting with real gay people – and with real Christians who happen to be gay.
Pulliam takes note that: “A lot of people in your book – a lot of them – are really concerned with distinguishing themselves from ‘those other really crazy Christians’.” Likewise, gay men and lesbians don’t want to have to answer for all gay men and lesbians. Radosh is asked: “Are [these Christians] successful in making that distinction?” He replies: “Unfortunately, from the outside, no. Everybody gets lumped together [by the non-Christian world]. It tends to be the most outlandish, and in many cases, the most obnoxious voices that are the loudest and get heard. People aren’t really aware of the more interesting and more authentic and more meaningful strains of the culture.” He adds: “Now, that is not entirely [the Christians’] fault. That is in many ways our fault as non-Christians for not making the effort to make such distinctions.”
Since none of us can be up for learning as much from being right as from being wrong, it would be wise for heterosexual Evangelicals to follow this non-Christian’s example of realistically acknowledging ignorance of and a willingness to learn from those whose experience is unfamiliar – such as the experience of Christians who happen to be gay. And to this, might be added the good sense of humor of a fellow Evangelical, a bestselling author who keynoted two EC conferences years ago. In Q&A, he said he’d learned there’re all kinds of people who are gay just as there’re all kinds of people who aren’t. Referring of his two gay sons, he joked: “Some of them are wonderful and some of them are exasperating. And I’ve got one of each.”
Sjogren, megachurch pastor, blogger, leadership coach and author of Conspiracy of Kindness, note “a landmark event in the history of modern U.S. media”: the coverage of Tim Russert’s death. He notes the focus on Russert’s faith. “In a culture where faith is a taboo topic, Russert simply smiled and paid no attention to traditional cautions. What was with that?” Sjogren asks his Christian readers to ponder the “approaches he walked out in connecting with others regarding his faith.” First, Russert was not “programmatic” with others: “I am yet to meet a person who treats others with an agenda in hand or heart who is also effective at influencing them. … [A]s we carry about a strategy toward those around us, we get in the way of what God is up to with others.” Second: Russert did not try to “persuade”: “God is the persuader – the one and only. He is the sole heart to heart communicator.” Third: Russert was not “suspicious” of those who disagreed with him: “Jesus calls us to love God with our all and all and our neighbor as ourselves.” Without contradicting Jesus’ admonition that we be wise as snakes and harmless as doves, Sjogren suggests it’s” “impossible to love our neighbor and hold out suspicions toward them at the same time.” Christians’ relations with those who don’t share the same experiences or views – for example, on gay issues – can improve if these object lessons are kept in mind.