Recently I posted about anger and how to deal with it. I found an excellent response to my posting at TrueGrit titled “Anger in its place”. I really liked what ilona had to say about anger and how to deal with it. She describes anger like this:

Anger is a contagion. Some of us have been subjected to anger throughout our formative years, or for long periods of time from others. It has created wounds of hurt that result in our own damaging hostilities. Sometimes along with taking it to God for help, one needs healing for the wounds, as well. God once described these to me as unseen bruises and wounds which when other people bumped against created responses all out of proportion to what the other might have expected. They didn’t know that was a deeply hurt place. No one could have. Except God. And God is the one able to heal all those bruises. Christ was wounded for those bruises.

Her image of wounds reminds me of how easily it is that we do not recognize that we have emotinal wounds that need healing. Just as our physical wounds need proper treatment and environment to heal, so do our emotional wounds. But, often, we close up the emotional wounds too quickly, and just as if we do so in our physical wounds, these will fester and cause pain and other complications under the surface. Often the complications re-surface in the form of our anger flare-ups.

She goes on to offer a few excellent tips on dealing with anger issues:

And I hope it helps to take care of my rising blood pressure as well! Which allows for a little addendum here. Mild exercise is one way to deal with angry emotions, and while it is not spiritual sounding, it is one thing to try. And getting enough rest isn’t a bad idea either.

Another thing to add is to realize that your natural resistance is down when you are tired and hungry as well. This is especially so when you have to deal with children and their demands (or dysfunctional bosses and other adults!). Learn how to keep quiet and not be reactive but practice the peace of God that passes all understanding. (He tells himself).

When I was a kid, I remember looking at photos of this strange amusement park in Singapore called Har Paw Villa, aka Tiger Balm Gardens. One of its famed attractions is the depiction of the ten courts of Hell, where you can see grotesquely realistic images of supposedly wicked sinners suffering from varied kinds of eternal tortures and mutilations based on the kinds of sins you commit while in this life. Imagine the terror such images evoke in the minds of youngsters.

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Recently, I blogged about #1 Daughter’s rebellion. Since her “declaration of double independence,” I have had to learn how to love her in a vulnerable, transparent and unconditional manner. I had often spoken, preached and talked about God’s unconditional love in church, in bible study groups, with my friends and family and in scholarly and not so scholarly discussions, but it was not until I was challenged to practice it in my own relationships over the past few years that I learned what it truly meant.

An illustration of the lesson can be found in the Parable of the Prodigal’s Son. In that poignant story, the Father showed unconditional love in very real ways. When the son asked for his half of the inheritance, the Father did not put a condition to his gift. He gave him his fortune knowing that he was too immature to handle the wealth. He let him go, while all the time offering his love, support and security should the son ever changed his mind.

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Well, as if my life wasn’t busy enough, I happened upon this website that promised to explode visitors to my blog, and did they ever keep their promise! The average daily visitors on my blog has gone up by ten-fold in the past few days. So, if you have surfed from BlogExplosion, welcome! Leave me a comment or two to let me know who you are and what you like or not like about my blog!

Unfortunately, it has also got me surfing on to other blogs, and as others have found out, I keep telling myself, “OK, just one more now…” Surfing with BlogExplosion has helped introduce me to quite a few good blogs although there are all kinds of questionable ones as well. However, there is a neat feature that allows you to BlogMark those Blogs that you may want to go back to visit at leisure later. The idea is simple, you sign up, surf to other blogs, and earn credits to get visitors to your own site. You can also win mystery credits, and while I can only dream of winning real life lottery, I now have about a 3% chance of winning the blogexplosion lottery. Not bad odds that!

If you want to try it out, sign up under me, because if you do that, I get to earn credit when you surf too! And when you have other people sign up under you, you earn credits from them. Cool, huh?

The story of the encounter between Jesus, the Pharisees and the woman taken in the act of adultery in the eighth chapter of John contains powerful lessons for us today. Imagine being in the place of this woman, probably half naked, baring your body and soul to the world, taken in a place of shame, misery and rejection by the masses. Condemned by society, outcast by community and judged by the tribunal. There you are standing before the Holy One, in front of the world, alone, naked, and ashamed. Fingers pointing, chins waging, head shaking. Sneered upon, pitied and despised.

In a powerful demonstration of unconditional love, the Christ shows the accusing religious mob and the world what He is about. None of the accusers could do their work. They retreated one by one until it was just the woman standing there before Him.

“Woman, where are those who accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”

Powerful words that touches the soul of the one who was tormented, disenfranchised and powerless only moments earlier. No longer is she accused. This is the experience of repentance. Repentance is not solely a human response to God’s grace. It is a change in position from one under judgment, to one redeemed. It is a change to realize the full force of redemptive love - for He has forgiven you and you no longer stand accused.

This incident has a parallel with the incident of the sinful woman at Simon, the tax collector’s dinner party in the seventh chapter of Luke. At that party, “a woman of the city who was a sinner” comes into the dinner party, wept at Jesus’ feet and washed them with her tears. Then she wiped them clean with her hair and anointed His feet by breaking open the alabaster jar of perfume. In that incident the parallel words that Jesus spoke to the woman were,

“Your sins are forgiven.”

Right there in the open, when she was being judged by the guests at the dinner party as a “Sinner,” Jesus declared her righteous.

That is redemption declared.

“Woman, where are those who accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”

“Your sins are forgiven.”

Forgiveness of sins is achieved not only because she repented. Her sins were forgiven because of what He was going to do to redeem her. Redemption for the forgiveness of her sins.

That is what the Christ acheived for us all on the cross. And not just for our acts of rebellion, conscious and unconscious - but the sin that is part of our nature, He has taken all of it and nailed it there on the cross. When He shed the blood and when He cried out in his anguished pain and suffering, He did it so that we might be free of the bondage and judgment of sin.

When the woman who was taken in adultery realized the import of those words, she was able to internalize the saving grace of the Savior. To His query whether there was anyone who still stood to accuse her, she replied assuredly,

“No one, Lord.”

The Christ then stretches out to her his arms of reconciliation.

“Neither do I condemn you.”

Not only is there redemption. God’s love reaches out to the sinner, to cancel her debt and reconcile her with Him so that they now have communion with each other.

In Simon’s dinner party, the prostitute heard the life giving words,

“Your faith has saved you.”

You are now reconciled. Not only are the debts cancelled, and the sins forgiven, but now there is communion with God.

God says to you, “You can come home now, and I will dine with you and you with me.”

My Holy Spirit will come upon you and God will live in your heart. Not only were you redeemed, you are now reconciled.

“Neither do I condemn you.”

“Your faith has saved you.”

Finally, Jesus speaks the words of freedom.

“Go and sin no more.”

It is tempting to think that these words are judmental words - “Go and if you want to continue to enjoy my blessing, then don’t you ever sin again.” Sometimes, we understand these words as conditional. The idea seems to be that if you have received grace freely, you must now live out the grace that you have received.

Instead, these words are more than words of responsibility. They are words of grace and mercy. There are commissioning words. Words that tell us to follow Him who has gone before us, to be disciples and to learn of Him. For how else can we go and sin no more? Only through Him we can do all things. For He gives grace to empower through His Spirit.

We see the emphasis in the scene at Simon’s house when the Lord’s words to the “sinful woman” were, “Go in peace.”

For the words were spoken to declare that you are now restored. Words of restoration. That is balm to the desperate soul. Fully restored to walk now with God. New life in Christ and empowered in the Spirit. Restoration.

“Go and sin no more.”

“Go in peace.”

Peace with God. That is the ultimate desire of the human heart. And it is only possible through what Christ has done for us, and continues to do for us. They are empowering words, and they are humbling words. Christ has come not to judge and to condemn, but to free, to refresh and to empower.

I guess I must have said it wrong. In the past couple of weeks, I made a couple of posts (here and here) calling for Christian support for the legalization of gay marriage. My argument was simple, but I probably got carried away with the melodrama of introducing a controversial and contentious issue. My suggestion that one ought to lay down one’s life in protection of one’s fellow citizen’s rights might be a little over the top. Especially with the illustration of Nazi Germany; the comparison I tried to draw was in terms of the protection of rights, not in terms of the severity of the horribleness of the alternative. It was probably misconstrued by some of my readers as is illustrated here.

So I’ve had a few days to reflect on what I put out there and in between the busy-ness of the past few days, I have let my mind brew over some of what I was trying to say in the background. Further I have had the benefit of reading the input of others either via comments, email, or through blog posts of their own. All have helped me clarify what I am actually trying to say. In fact, I found an excellent similar argument over here.

I am not sure if what I have to say now presents a more coherent argument or add value to the on-going discussion, but since I had such a long nap this afternoon, I am still wide awake, so I thought I’d go back and tackle some posts.

What I should have said is that same-sex marriage is a matter of individual rights and that if we were to have no problem with freedom of religion, we should have no problem with freedom of marriage. In fact I am saying that since we champion freedom of religion in this country, we ought also champion freedom of marriage, for both kinds of freedoms are basic human rights covered by the Fourteenth Amendment.

There are at least two possible objections to this assertion. One is that Freedom of Marriage is dissimilar enough to Freedom of Religion, and the second is that Freedom of Marriage is not covered by the Fourteenth Amendment. My primary argument that Freedom of Marriage is covered by the Fourteenth Amendment is based on my analysis of the Loving vs Virginia case that I introduced in my first post. I believe the arguments there are sound and I don’t think that there is a good refutation to that argument as it stands.

The second objection is that the Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Marriage are two different types altogether. While the freedom of religion allows the practice of one kind of abomination (the worship of other gods), the freedom of marriage might allow the practice of other forms of abominations (gay and other forms of sexual perversions). However, we might grant Freedom of Religion because when someone converts to the Christian faith, he or she no longer violates the very abominiation that the freedom allows. The same thing cannot be said for Freedom of Marriage. When a person who in a same-sex marriage converts to the Christian faith, that person will be in the unfortunate position of being part of a union that is considered to be immoral, contrary to God’s standards, and opposed to his very faith. That person would be put into the unenviable position of having to choose between staying in a religiously unsanctionable relationship or to take part in another religiously unsanctionable process (divorce). What a catch-22!

The objection as it stands is strong. There seems to be a real difference between the two freedoms. Two answers can be provided to this objection. One, discrimination between types by appealing to different consequences brought about by a third event (faith conversion) is not valid. All it shows is that one is a simplier form of freedom while the other is a more complex one. The fact still remains that both are forms of individual rights and freedoms. If our laws allow one type of right, we ought also allow the other. If one is enshrined in the constitution, so is the other.

The second answer, in reply to the problem of the conversion of a person in a same-sex marriage, we will have to draw upon the notion of grace and mercy. To understand that point, we need to also understand the nature of sin. Put simply, we need to understand that sexual sin is not the unpardonable sin. Sin in the sexual realm has the same effect and the same offense as sin in any other realm. If no one ever sinned sexually, Christ would still have to die a horrible death. We overemphasize sex in our modern culture that we freak out over sexual sins. A couple of generations ago, it was all kinds of sex that would upset the normal Christian. Now, it seems only certain forms of sexual sin catches the ire of Christians. What I am suggesting is that we Christians need to exercise more grace and mercy in our dealings with fellow human beings. We need to realize that we too come under the condemnation of “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And then we need to realize that if the Lord says to us, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more,” He also says it to the vilest gay sinner.

Oh, I can hear you jumping up and down at the “…go and sin no more.” If a gay couple is married, how can we say honestly that they can go and sin no more? We need to chill. If it is easy for a gay couple to sin by having gay sex, it is just as easy for us all to sin just by being who we are! Yet our Lord says, “Neither do I condemn you.”

What I think we all need to do is to realize that we are after all sinners. And, as Philip Yancey (or was it Tim Stafford?), once said, the only difference between us and them, is that we know it, but they are oblivious to it. Our job is to be their friends, nonjudgmental, loyal and loving, so that we can let the Spirit open their eyes so that they see, and believe that they too can enjoy the grace and mercy that we say we enjoy.

A couple weeks ago, I participated briefly in a conversation with some others over at another blog about the “superiority” of Western culture. Comments and assertions were put forward to illustrate the superiority of Western culture over all others. I offered my doubt about the thesis as well as the relevance of its intended implication, if indeed it is true. I am not going to link to that site as it might offend the blog owner. I am blogging about this because somehow the conversation there bothered me.

I am not sure what the poster was comparing it to, and what she meant by Western culture. If I have to guess, I think she meant, Western culture as represented by America. One commenter supported her thesis with a further assertion that Western culture’s superiority (or rather American culture’s superiority) comes from its Judeo-Christian roots. So, it could be that the poster and her cohorts were glad that they live in a superior culture while the rest of the world are rotting in theirs. Possibly, they are glad that Christianity has a lot to do with the enlightenment of the West, and so the world should be thankful to the historic faith, and in fact, if they had any intellect at all, they should all convert. I don’t know. I shouldn’t go any further with this guessing game, as I am beginning to sound cynical, and sarcastic.



I will not comment on the logic of comparing one culture with another and declaring one as superior than another. It is probably impossible to be objective in such comparisons. It might be easy to talk about one culture being more desirable or pleasurable, than another, but the catchall term of superior might be difficult to gain consensus cross-culturally. I don’t know. I am not an anthropologist or even a cross-cultural anything. I just have a sneaky suspicion that this ain’t so. In any case, I would like to comment on the underlining assumption expressed in the aforementioned conversation that there is a correlation between the historic Christian faith and America’s alleged superior culture.

The general idea seems to be that this country was founded upon Christian principles, and this is the reason why it has been so blessed. Another related idea seems to be that if only the rest of the country had stuck to those principles, we won’t have so much problems today. In fact, what went wrong was that all those humanists and atheists have usurped our culture and if not for them, we would surely continue to see God’s favor upon this country. If we do not turn away from all this ungodliness, we will soon suffer the consequences. 9/11 is just a foretaste, a kind of warning, about the impending judgment. This country must repent and must follow the lead of a broadly speaking Judeo-Christian political leader who will lead us from our moral quagmire and into the sunset of moral happiness.

You can see how the logic deteriorates. Or maybe you can’t…

Still, it is quite tempting to equate Western culture with Christian culture. Everyone seems to do so. Growing up I tried unsuccessfully to convince Mom that when I converted to faith in Christ I wasn’t just following a Western trend. I have also often heard it said that America is founded on Biblical principles, that the foundations of the country are built on Christian roots. Sure Christian principles have influenced a great deal of Western thinking, philosophy and culture, and American culture itself is built on much Christian influence. And we all know that some of the earliest pilgrims came over here because of religious persecution in Europe, and they brought their faith with them.

However, is it really true that Western culture is necessarily Christian? More importantly, is American culture built on Christian foundations? Did the Founding fathers really intended to build a Christian nation? Even if they did, was it necessarily true that America’s greatness can be traced to its Christian roots? That somehow this country has been enjoying the blessing of God because of her faithfulness? Is America the resurrected biblical nation of Israel?

The real question we need to ask ourselves is: What ought I to do in this culture - what is our priority as a follower of God - to “re-establish” a Christian nation, to bring Christian values back to our government and society, or is it more important to bring the nations back to Christ and to bring people back to Christ?

My new found friend - and my favorite Fidler - is writing a book, “Adventures in Holy Matrimony,” and needs some help.

She has a new survey that she has put up for the book which is about mental illness and how it touches marriages.

So, if you can help, please go over to the survey page and fill it out. Here’s the link:

http://www.opinionpower.com/Surveys/191019005.html

When No 1 Daugher openly rebelled and declared she doesn’t want to follow God, go to church or be a Christian any longer, my pastor counseled me, “Let her go… if you put your foot down now, it might take her 10 years to come back, but if you let her go, she might come back in a year or so.”

Letting go… that is the most difficult thing for me to do.

Aren’t I supposed to be a father? Aren’t fathers supposed to lead, to train, to discipline and to set the boundaries? Aren’t fathers supposed to correct, to teach, to show the way and to say “No, thou shalt not…”?

That is when I woke up…

Fathers… they are supposed to model…

…Christ, who looks at them when they mess up, when they sin, when they cross the line… and Who forgives unconditionally.

…Christ, who suffers when the fathers continually disobey and break His heart when they want their own way, take short cuts, yell and scream at their kids, “Why are you like that??” and yet the Christ stands ready to pardon, to strengthen, to offer grace and mercy…

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… I wonder where He would be spending His time?



During His ministry on earth He hung out with sinners, prostitutes and unscrupulous tax collectors. He spent a lot of times at the synagogues and were often mingling with the masses, teaching them about the Kingdom of God.

He reserved His most vitriolic invectives for the religious zealots and learned scholars of the day. He vented His anger against the religious opportunists and corrupt traders who prey on sincere faith pilgrims.

If He were in the world today, I wonder where He would be spending His time. I wonder if He would have anytime for us here in America. Or whether He would be spending His time with those who are sick, the infirmed and the rejects of the world. I wonder where that might be. At some far corner of the world, in an African devastated war zone, or on an Asian back street, ministering to young prostitutes who have been sold by their families for food? And, if He were to come to America, I wonder what part of our religious milieu would catch His ire and I wonder what He would be saying to the Church in America today.

If He were to give His Sermon on the Mount today, I wonder what He would be addressing and what He would want to impart to His disciples. I wonder…

We would never have guessed when she moved out almost a year ago, that she would want to come home. At least not so soon. But, (yay!) she is doing so today! It has been a long journey. We are still not talking about the things that upset us or things about which we do not agree. But at least we are talking.

She is really the glue that stick everyone else in the family together. Everyone of her siblings looks up to her, even though she was a little bit of a rebel. When she was fifteen, the youth pastor called us up and told us that she was caught drinking and that she had come into the Youth Group drunk a couple of times. There must have been something else going on in that Youth Group as I later heard about questionable authoritarian techniques used by the youth leaders. But by then she was already out of the group. She had been asked to leave the Youth Group for disciplinary reasons. Unfortunately, at the time, I was not around and her mom was not in a state to talk to the youth leaders. We were so alone during that time.

Then Daughter No. 1 showed her outward rebellion further by getting herself a belly button ring and later on a tattoo, even though we said no. By that time she was over eighteen. The final straw came with her open defiance against us and God and her “declaration of independence.” Yet, in spite of all this, I can see all her siblings look up to their Big Sister.

Over the past year, although she had moved out, she had been driving everyone of her brother and sisters around - picking up from school whenever she could, to the store, to music lessons and taking them on shopping trips. She has been a good Big Sister. They are so happy to have her come home again, although she might be leaving soon when she transfers out of Junior College. Even so, they have relied on her for emotional support and she has been able to connect with each of them.

Today was an example. Our son had a little accident. He was skateboarding when he skidded and the skateboard went under a car. He came back home to ask one of his older sisters for help, but by the time they went out, the car had run over his skateboard. He was a mess. He couldn’t be consoled by mom or dad. We hugged him for the longest time. He cried until his Big Sister came in, hugged him, listened to his story and consoled him enough to calm down.

I am so thankful for my No. 1 daughter, and I pray that in the days ahead, we will be able to draw closer together as a family. May I be able to model to her, and the rest of the kids, what it means to trust God and enjoy the mercies and grace of Our Heavenly Father.

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DISCLAIMER: In this post, I made reference to an e-mail that I said was sent to me in response to a previous post of mine. It is in fact, a reply to my e-mail to a previous commenter who then reply to my e-mail, reponding to the post. The same commenter is also quoted in this post, but from reading it, it may appear that the writer of the e-mail and the commenter were two different people. In fact, it was the same person. My purpose in this post was not to argue with this Christian brother, but to respond to points made by the person, points that were generic enough that I thought was representative of wider beliefs held by enough Christians so as to be worth a response. But that is just my opinion. I am a fellow traveller along life’s road who is struggling with God’s purposes for the church and for myself. My post is not meant to point fingers but as a sounding board for reflection and making sense of God’s priorities for us as a faith community.

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Recently someone sent me an email in response to my post encouraging Christians to support the legalization of same-sex marriage. In part, the email read:

Those who practice homosexuality are deserving of death, not only those who do, but those who approve (and take pleasure KJV) of those who practice it. (Rom 1: 32).

The Romans passage is often quoted as the definitive New Testament word against homosexuality. People often use verse 32 to describe those who practice same sex acts as deserving death. When we read a little closer we can see that verse 32 covers much more than that. In fact, the immediate context reads:

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

True, in the previous three verses (verses 26 - 28) it pointedly describes how God has given those who reject Him…

…over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Often I find that when people read the entire passage (from verse 18 onwards, actually), they zero in only on the homosexual sex passage and say, “Ah-ha, those gay people! They deserve to die! And if you so much as support them, condone them and be their friends, and provide them any comfort, give them any encouragement, so do you!” A commenter to my earlier post offered his theory

… why the Christian attitude toward homosexuals is oftentimes a condemning one. It is because gay sex is the one sin where most have a clear conscious before God. It is the one sin they have never committed, so they can rant all they want about it without being a hypocrite. They can have a compassion and an empathy for the drunkard or the talebearer, because they themselves have slipped in that area. But, they have very little love available for the homosexual because they are without understanding on the issue and have nothing in their personal experience to compare it to.

Many Christians I have found are uncomfortable with homosexuals and are uncomfortable with the idea of being their brothers and sisters in Christ, let alone with being their neighbors. Although they know all the pat answers and phrases when it comes to living out their Christian faith, such as “Love the sinner, but not the sin,” they are uncomfortable actually dealing with what they consider as a sinner, and a blatant one at that. They are uncomfortable about the kind of message they are conveying by their behavior. For instance, my email correspondent asks:

Is supporting gay marriage approving those who have chosen that lifestyle?, you will have to decide that for yourself…

Whenever we talk about homosexuals, the question of their lifestyle often comes into focus. I will have a little more to say about this. My email correspondent went on:

You are focused on rights in a governmental sense. And of course gay marriage looks good on a humanistic level…and your sensibilities here are humanistic and not godly.

That I am focused on the legal issue may be the case, but I am not sure about my sensibilities being ungodly. I will let that point pass at the moment. I did maintain that legalization of same-sex marriage is a rights issue. I also maintained that if we were to agree that freedom of religion is a basic human right, then we should also agree that freedom to marry whomever one chooses is also a basic human right. Although some have suggested that those two freedoms are of different kinds, I will not, for the purpose of staying with the present discussion, worry about that at the moment. I do think that I can show that they are not different kinds. I believe that it is important for us to recognize that everyone in our society has a legal right to the privileges and protections that the marriage relationship provides, and if we deny homosexual and lesbian couples that right, we are restricting them a basic human right unjustly.

Does protecting someone of their human rights contradict our Christian commitments or betray our Christian ministry goals? Let me continue with the correspondent’s email:

…love does not rejoice in iniquity, and homosexual behaviour is iniquity, To support gay marriage is to add another stumbling block to the gay identified person’s life, for now they have a spouse and kids to help them feel normal, and cover up the emptiness inside. …To act an as enabler for homosexuals is not love…

I think the correspondent has confused ministry with civic duty. In my post, I argued that the Church ought to champion human rights and be in the forefront of the campaign. I also suggested that we ought to be ready to lay down our lives for our neighbor’s rights. I may have been overdramatic in my choice of words, and my imaginations may have been that of an authoritarian regime whereby as Chrsitians we ought to have the courage to lay down our lives to protect the rights of our neighbors like those who hide the Jews in Nazi Germany. Without going to that extreme, I still believe that it is our duty as citizens to protect the rights of everyone and in this case, it is pretty clear that it is a rights issue and not so much a religious or moral question.

One fear that this correspondent, and some others as well, mentioned was the fear that if the church were to support the legalization of gay marriage, then it will lose its credibility in ministering to the gay community to help them with their dysfunction

…if the church supported gay marriage on one hand, how can they say on the other, Christ will set you free from this sexual bondage…

However, I maintained that if we take same sex marriage as a rights issue, there is no confusion. After all, the church does not oppose the legalization of alcohol, does it? Maybe it once did, but we know how that campaign went. True, some may say that this is sufficiently different because drinking is not sin per se, but there seems to be enough scriptural support for considering having sex with a person of the same sex as sin. As I said before, we must separate the marriage issue from the sin issue. If we think that homosexuality is an abomination in the Lord’s eyes, that is different from our telling our fellow citizen that we support their basic human right to marry whomever he or she wishes, and we believe that they too need to have the full protection and privileges of a married couple. We may not agree with their sexual practices, we may not agree with their lifestyle, but we must love them enough as individuals to see that they deserve to have and enjoy basic human rights.

When we use the term gay lifestyle we often think about what goes on between the sheets of a gay couple, and we seem fixated at that sinful act, and are unable to think of a same-sex couple other than what happens behind closed doors in their bedrooms, or wherever else we imagine they are doing the despicable acts. At this point, we need to re-read the Romans passage. Paul did not single out homosexuals and lesbians and say that they deserve to die. He was singling out everyone who has “exchaned God for an idol.” He then showed that the perversion of an idolatrous mind extends to one’s religious life, one’s sexual life, as well as one’s relational life. In terms of one’s relationship, Paul maintains that ungodly behavior encompasses all forms of human perversion, including

every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

We need to see that this passage is no longer talking about those who engaged in the acts of verses 26-28 alone. The entire passage is about the condemnation of those who have gone against God. Ungodliness does not belong to only a small group of humanity. This passage tells us that we are all under the condemnation of those who do evil and grieve the heart of our Creator. We all deserve to die. If we take this the passage teaching as a mandate to discourage gay people in their sexual sin, then we ought to also accept that we ought to discourage everyone else from envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. I guess we may not have any problem with murder, but what about deceit? Let’s think of just one of this list of sins and concentrate only on what might be described as a deceitful lifestyle.

Perhaps, we ought to look closer at the practices of some of the corporations and their advertising practices. And if any corporation violates the standards of truth in advertising, then we ought to campaign against their company’s products. If we were to purchase these products, we would be guilty of encouraging their deceitfulness. In fact, we ought to remove ourselves from the economic system because the entire system benefit these unscrupulous corporations and encourages their evil and ungodly practices. Further, we ought not to support our courts and legal processes because these very processes encourages evil doing, deceifulness, slander and so on. Perhaps, the Church should remove itself from mainstream society and not participate at all! Our mere participation within the process encourages the lifestyle that is systemically ungodly. If we think this is absurd, then we need to realize that Paul wasn’t talking about such drastic actions. The Church’s mission is to be salt and light in a society that is opposed to God and godliness. We are to permeate our society with the fruit of the Spirit by our ministry of reconciliation. We do not have to do this by being biased towards some sectors of society just because we think people are not able to too easily expose us of those sins that we are so fond of singling out for public condemnation.

The point is that part of the church’s role is to bring heaven to us, and bring us to heaven. By that I mean, the church’s role is teach, train and disciple people in the ways of God. By providing a community and teaching the people of God to live together in community–a community of the Word and a community of the Spirit–the church brings transformation to people’s lives. And, it is not only those who are gay, or those who practice perverse sexual acts, who need transformation. We all do. The church’s ministry of reconciliation to one another and to God can continue unimpeded by supporting the rights of same sex couples to marry. In fact, the church’s stand in support of same sex marriage rights will be consistent in its support for individual rights and with the church’s primary ministry of reconciliation - reconciliation with God and with each other.

A final concern of my email correspondent was the fact that the institution of marriage itself is sacred and cannot be defiled to include same sex marriage. In some circles the argument goes that marriage is established by God as a union between a man and a woman. Thus, if we admit same sex marriage, we would have defiled a godly institution.

Also, gay marriage isn’t really about homosexuality at all…pathological sinners, meaning those in continious practice who see nothing wrong with their sin, get married everyday…the talebearers, blasphemers, fornicators, etc. get married every day…gay marriage is about the marriage part, not the gay part…who can get married, and how God intends marriage to be…that is the question…as marriage is a godly institution set forth by Him.

This argument is often brought up in discussions of same sex marriage. The idea is that marriage is an institution that is ordained by God as a state of union and relationship between a man and a woman. There is something sacred about this holy matrimonial state. The standard conception is that marriage as defined by God is to be between ONE man and ONE woman. No other practice is valid. It doesn’t matter if you marriage is celebrated before a church, by a priest, a minister, or by a government official. As long as you go through that ceremony, your marital status is godly sanctioned and accepted.

Let me use an example to illustrate my point here. I often wonder what the church would say about my parents’ marital relationship. They were married according to the law before a magistrate, but in their family only regarded their relationship at that stage as being “registered” but never as officially being “married” in the Chinese sense. They had to go through a Chinese wedding ceremony where among other things, they made some vows to each other by kowtowing to each other, and made vows to the family by serving teas to the ancestors and to the in-laws, and they kow-towed to the ancestral altars. Then they had the lion dance, and other rituals, and finally came the family feast. After a day of feasting and rites, they were finally considered a married couple.

In Western democracies, former Colonial outposts, and other post-Christian societies, church ministers, some government officials and other registered marriage celebrants are legally able to conduct a marriage ceremony. In fact, when I got married, we did not have an official Christian minister to officiate the ceremony. So what we did was have a ceremony conducted by Christian brothers and sisters, all laypeople. It was witnessed by a government offical. We even adjourned to the corner where the official whisphered his prepared questions to us and we answered our customary “I do’s” and signed the marriage certificate to legalize the ceremony! So, what is it about the marraige ceremony itself makes it dvinely sanctioned? In God’s eyes, when was the marriage official? When we exchanged vows at the altar, when we answered the government official’s questions, or when we signed the marriage certificate? When were my parents’ marriage considered divinely established? At the marriage celebrant’s office when they were merely “registered” or when they went through the elaborate Chinese ceremony?

Perhaps it is not about the ceremony itself, but about the marriage relationship or the union. So, in God’s eyes, only ONE man and ONE woman can marry. If that is the case, it seemed to me that God would then only recognize ONE of the marriages of Jacob, and accept only the offspring of one of those four relationships. Yet, all four relationships are apparently accepted by God. In David’s case, his relationship with Bathsheba should not have been divinely accepted, because David had at least two other wives at the time, and yet not only did God seemingly accepted that marriage but also blessed it with his heir who was instrumental in building the Temple as well as writing some parts of the holy scriptures.

My point is this: our traditional intuitions about the nature of divinely sanctioned marriage relationship need not be defined as narrowly as we want it to be — a monogamous one man and one woman relationship. The more important point is this: when we talk about legalizing same-sex relationships we are speaking about their legal positions as a couple and about their enjoyment of certain legal, financial and social rights and privileges.

In a way, it may not be about a marriage relationship at all. Perhaps, if society at large are not able to stand the idea of allowing same-sex couples to enjoy the full matrimonial state, we can create another legal state that enables same-sex couples to enjoy financial benefits, legal benefits and other protections and rights, such as property, taxation, divorce proceedings/protections, and so on. If we proceed along these lines, then, we satisfy those who are uneasy with thinking about marriage other than the tradtional man/woman monogamous relationship and yet provide legal standings and protection for same-sex couples.

In the final analysis, when we accept gay couples fully and “sanction” their relationships, we welcome them into our communities as our equals. We are offering oursleves and our fellowship as fellow sinners in need of God’s grace and mercy. We accept them as our fellow sojourners in the faith and we accept the Holy Spirit in them as being Who He is - God, Who is able to work in and through their lives to bring blessing and mutual edification to ours also. Together we acknowledge each other’s brokenness and together we let the Spirit minister to us as we minister to each other. In principle, we are asking people to come together as they are. We do not demand that they have to give up this or that sin just as we do not demand that from ourselves, before we admit them into full fellowship in our communities. We must learn to live and love together as God’s creatures. We then can experience God’s unconditional love and show each other that true love and acceptance comes from the Creator, who not only shows His people how to love, but also demonstrates this love, forgiveness, mercy and grace in authentic community.