When Order Trumps Justice

I have seen a lot of Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes pop up since the Black Lives Matter movement took root, and let's be honest, most of the time it is by white friends condemning the movement, declaring that systemic racism is just part of the black community's imagination, and claiming it to be a violent movement similar to---believe it or not---the Ku Klux Clan. 

And yet, those same people have forgotten that despite his peaceful approach, Martin Luther King, Jr. was still a hated man, was still intimidated, and was still murdered. He was not considered a hero by the majority of the white population, and his nonviolent approach was still considered a nuisance to a degree that jailing, bombing, and lynching were considered a proportionate retaliation. The very white people who committed these atrocities did not see jail time. In some states they were not even breaking the law. In many of the states where they were breaking the law, the very men in uniform that were supposed to uphold the law, were more than obliged to turn a blind eye. Many people  considered this "justice." 

He was hated because he refused to stay silent in a society that wished he would. His words made people uncomfortable, it challenged the status quo, it threatened their privilege, way of life, and peace of mind. It exposed a violence that most had turned a blind eye to---a violence that had always been there for African Americans, but that no one really took notice of until white people began marching too---and got beaten for it on live television.

For some reason, it has never been enough for the white community to just listen to the reality of people of color and believe that what they are saying is true. It is never enough to believe that a black victim of injustice and violence is indeed a victim and not instead a perpetrator "with a background." They can never receive the benefit of the doubt. No, it requires a white consensus to be considered true, because how could people of color possibly be telling the truth about their own experiences?

And when the African American community speaks up today and says, "We are afraid for our children. Our unarmed sons are getting shot. They're going to prison at a disproportionate rate. They're being stopped and frisked for no reason," we do not listen. And then when rioting occurs---as a frustrated reaction to our REFUSAL TO LISTEN---we say "Those thugs. Those animals. If they acted like decent human beings we might actually listen to them." 

But there is no listening. Whether the approach is violent or nonviolent, there has never been an intention to listen. There is only finger pointing, politicizing, gaslighting, and scapegoating. We will gladly hold the entire black community to the standard of nonviolence, because we would really prefer to not know what it is like to actually be a victim of violence ourselves. But it's okay if they do.

And of course, we don't really believe that nonviolence is the best tangible solution for injustice. After all, we were very adamant about going to the Middle East to "bomb the hell out of those bastards," but we'll keep that our dirty little secret. Because when we uphold the standard of nonviolence as if it is the most sacred belief we hold, we are somehow able to hold every African American responsible for the negative or violent words and actions of a few, and in the end use those few instances to discredit an entire movement that we just don't want to deal with. And of course, again, that's only the case in THIS movement. Because Planned Parenthood bombings and the cold-blooded murder of an abortion doctor in the middle of a church service certainly don't discredit the pro-life movement, and we would never hold EVERY Conservative Christian pro-lifer responsible for the actions of a few. But again, that's our dirty little secret. Because you know what? We seem pretty hell bent on doing everything that we possibly can to ignore the racism in our hearts, our communities, and our justice system. Our churches, too. Why? Because it makes us uncomfortable. Because we care more about not having racial tension than we do about seeking actual peace and justice. Let's just sweep it under the rug. It's too uncomfortable. It's too threatening. 

There is a reason I've been saying "we" this whole time...because I used to say those same things and believe them too. And when I finally took the time to listen to what the black community was actually saying instead of what white news commentators were saying about the black community on television, I quickly realized how very wrong I had been. It is quite humiliating to realize that you are much more racist than you had ever imagined---not in a mean-spirited way, but in an ignorant lock-your-doors-in-the-black-neighborhood way. That's what many of us are: willfully ignorant. We aren't clan members. We don't believe that people of color have less worth than us. But we are perfectly comfortable with a justice system that treats them that way, so long as we're not the ones on the receiving end of it and we're the ones who benefit.

If you really do love and admire MLK as much as you seem to, then take the time to contemplate this lesser-known quote. And then go and use your white privilege to educate your white friends and family, because when the words and stories and struggles of African Americans come out of a white mouth, THEN they will listen. It is an unfortunate truth, but that is the way it is---so GO---use the skin and the voice that God gave you to seek TRUE peace and justice. Don't merely open the eyes and hearts of others---blindside them with the truth so that they can never go back to thinking and believing what they used to. 

"I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Popping My Christian Bubble

I'm gonna be honest with you. Moving changed me. It changed me a lot. I used to live and exist in a purely Christian bubble. I grew up in a Christian family, went to church, went to Christian schools, worked in a church, and then married a pastor. Being a compliant and obedient child, I virtually listened to and believed everything that anyone in the Christian community ever told me, without question. At first. You see, I didn't believe everything that they told me because I was gullible, but mostly because they were good people whom I trusted. I still believe a lot of what they've told me because, as it turns out, it also happens to be true. But on the darker side of things, I also believed them because I saw again and again what would happen if I didn't. I saw the ostracization of people who admitted to thinking differently than the group, even on something as miniscule as infant baptism or which version of the Bible is better. I heard the negative things said against them and the labels placed upon them, and I often saw them slowly and quietly leave the church and sometimes the Christian community or faith altogether.

Though no one likes to admit it, questioning is frowned upon in the Christian community, because questioning is doubt, and doubt is often perceived as turning away from God instead of toward him. But more often than not, doubt is something else entirely. Doubt is humbling yourself before God and your community that you either don't understand or don't yet have the head or heart knowledge that will heal your ailing, doubting heart. Doubt is admitting that you don't have all of the answers and that you sometimes never will know the answers. And sometimes doubt is even the evidence that you are hurting more than can you bear, as is often experienced when we've lost someone dear to us and suddenly find ourselves doubting God's goodness and His love. While doubt is often seen as a problem, or the evidence of one, it is amazingly enough also sometimes the very medium by which we are able to truly break out from the crowd and seek God and His truth. But unfortunately, it is not an easy road.

Years ago, I came across a blog called "Why I Hate Jesus." I couldn't help but click on it, and when I did I wasn't too surprised that the person running this blog really did hate Jesus and His followers. But it struck me as odd to truly say that you hate Jesus. It's such a strong word, a word that a majority of people in the world would never actually use to describe how they feel about Jesus. Even Muslims would never say that they hate Jesus, as they believe him to be a prophet, and Atheists will say that he was at least a good person with good things to teach. So for some reason, I decided that it would be a good idea to comment on that blog and ask a simple question: Why do you hate Jesus? The owner of the blog, and many of his friends, were more than happy to oblige, and what started out as a simple question became a dialogue (which often felt like an attack) between me and countless Athiests on multiple posts about every topic under the sun. It was hard not to get angry at times, and it was even harder to admit that I didn't always know the answer to their questions, or that perhaps I wasn't always right or morally superior either, but in the end that blog ended up becoming one of the best things that ever happened to me and my faith. It was challenging and it was humbling, and through their questions I was able to learn more about who God is than I ever did in Sunday School or Bible class.

When you live in a Christian bubble, something happens along the way that makes you afraid of any person or any idea that is different from you. You start to view everyone and every thing as a threat to your faith, and in your attempts to protect yourself from losing your faith you move higher and higher up a moral pedestal that ends up alienating you from the people around you and even the God that you serve. In fact, it paralyzes your faith. Following Christ requires you to stand among the people, not above them. It requires you to listen to people, not just shout at them. It gets lonely at the top, and eventually you find that there's nowhere to go but down, and God will indeed bring you down one way or another. When I first started commenting on that blog, I was at the top of that pedestal. I thought I already knew everything there was to know about my faith, I thought that my political and moral ideas were superior, and that the conservative Christian right-wing Republican worldview was THE only (and right) worldview. But step by step they brought me down off that pedestal, sometimes making it feel more like a kick, until I could finally talk to them at their level and see them as human beings, not as a threat to me or my faith. At times, I was genuinely afraid for my faith. I was afraid they were right about something that could be detrimental to my beliefs, I was afraid that hearing what they had to say would plant seeds of doubt in my mind and heart, and I was especially afraid of them being right about all of the things they said about me---that I was a sheep, blindly following the flock, and unintelligent to boot. But one day, when I found myself especially frustrated and afraid, I also found myself on my knees praying to God: "Lord, you've got my back. My faith is a gift, and you are the bearer of that gift, and it is held secure in your hands. I know and trust that no matter who I spend my time with and no matter what ideas or beliefs I listen to, you are going to show me the truth and be the protector of that faith. I know and trust that if I seek you, I will find you. I'm not going to be afraid anymore of the people and things that I don't understand."

This prayer changed me, and over and over again God has transformed my faith through people who don't share my faith, experiences, privileges, or political ideologies. There is a reason that in the armor of God, our faith is a shield and not a weapon. It is not something we use to destroy others, but rather a means by which we protect ourselves from what is untrue, and if faith the size of a mustard seed is enough to move mountains, then our shield doesn't have to be quite as big as we imagined it to be for our faith to remain in tact. In fact, the only truth you need to believe for your faith to be living and active is that your salvation remains in Christ.

But unfortunately, too many Christians do use their faith as a weapon, as a wedge, as a moral high ground and a symbol of their own greatness. Too many Christians stand on a pedestal and shout at the masses, believing that they are carrying out God's command to preach. Sometimes that Christian is even me. But preaching does not mean what many of us think it means. According to Strong's concordance, the Greek word for "preach" is διαλέγομαι (dialegomai), which means "to discuss, to address, to preach." It is used 13 times in the New Testament, "usually of believers exercising 'dialectical reasoning.' This is the process of giving and receiving information with someone to reach deeper understanding – a "going back-and-forth" of thoughts and ideas so people can better know the Lord (His word, will). It is the root of the English word 'dialogue'." Now, I may not speak Greek, but I do speak English, and I know it well enough to know that dialogue requires not just talking, but listening. When you stand in front of a room and state your own opinion and your own thoughts...that is a speech. Preaching, however, leaves room for questions. It allows more than one opinion and opens the floor for others to join in the conversation and wrestle with what you are saying. It does not diminish the truth of God's Word, but rather clarifies it to you and those who are seeking to understand it. Can you imagine how little the Gospel would have spread had Paul gone into the Synagogues and marketplaces and shouted at them instead of reasoned with them? How much smaller his impact would have been if he never took the time to sit and listen to those speaking before he took the platform, thus understanding what it is they even believe? Paul showed us that if you do not take the time to understand how another person thinks, believes, lives, or feels, you cannot properly minister to them.

And Paul is not the only one to show us the true meaning of preaching. Our greatest preacher was Jesus Himself. There was no one in Jesus' time who surrounded themselves with a more diverse population than Jesus did. Not only did He spend the majority of His time among prostitutes, lepers, the poor, the rich, the religious, the irreligious, the Jews, the Gentiles, and yes, even women and children, but His disciples alone were a melting pot of opinions, beliefs, professions, and life experiences. They followed Him without truly understanding who He was or what it meant, and every one of them doubted and asked questions along the way. Yet Jesus answered them, often with a dialogue that required them to think more deeply about what they were asking. He did not mock them or demean them, because His aim wasn't to be right, it was for them to understand. The disciples themselves, being as diverse as they were, didn't always get along with each other, but they allowed their eventual shared faith in Christ to unite them and lead them into friendship, despite their differences, and when they addressed the people to whom they were preaching, people whom believed vastly different things and lived vastly different lives than them, they often referred to them as "friends," not enemies. They truly loved the people they preached to.

If the disciples, who were often beaten, thrown into prison, exiled, and eventually murdered by the very people they preached to, can treat those same people as friends, then I think we Christians can do the same when we're among the people we often perceive as enemies---the people who are different from us and might occasionally trash talk us on the Internet or give us the stink eye. So my fellow Christians, take some time to dwell on this and what it means in your life. Who are the people that are different from you, that you have a hard time understanding? Who are the people that you perceive as enemies? Who are the people that anger you the most? Are they Muslims? Immigrants? African Americans? Liberals? Atheists? The Poor? The Homeless? Pro-choicers? Feminists? Welfare recipients? The Anti-Guns People? The Pro-Guns People? Democrats? Republicans? Democratic Socialists? Politicians? Gays? TransSexuals? Bigots? Racists?

Whoever they are, I pray that you no longer let fear keep you from knowing them and preaching the Gospel to them in a way that values them as a person and values their opinion and their own life struggles. I pray you take the time to actively listen to them and dialogue with them in a way that clarifies God's truth and His love for both you and them. I pray that you are able to humble yourself before the Lord and them, and admit when you are wrong in either belief or action, no matter how much it pains you. I pray that you will allow God to use your "enemies" to change your heart and your life, and to strengthen your faith and relationship with Him. And last, I pray that God will open your eyes to the fact that your salvation is secure in Christ, and that nothing on this earth or outside of it is a threat to your faith in Him. It is a blessed assurance, Jesus is yours.

Take some time to get to know the kinds of people that just came your mind this week. If you know them personally, ask them about their life. If you don't know them, pick up a book, read an article, or watch a movie that shares their unique perspective. See what they have to say. In the worst case scenario, you'll change your mind. In the best case scenario, you'll be informed and maybe even make a friend. Either way, you're better off than you were before.

He Says "Suppress the Vote," I Say "Don't!"

Matt Walsh recently wrote an article with the title "In Order To Save America, We Must Legally Prevent Oblivious People From Voting." Because so many people are sharing and agreeing with perhaps the most Un-American sentiment I've ever heard come from a Conservative's mouth, I feel it is my civic duty to inform the public about just how incredibly wrong he is. Matt has offered up three ways we can therefore keep uninformed people from voting:



1. Require Every Voter To Take And Pass A Fifth Grade Civics Exam

This seems like a good idea, sure. I too want my fellow voters to be informed and educated, and yet the very thing that made our democracy so revolutionary in its time is that it took the power from the rich, ruling, educated class and gave it to the poor, working, and yes, UNEDUCATED class. This forced politicians to earn the people's votes and do things that helped the majority of the citizens, not just themselves and their rich friends, and it opened up the political process to the average American, and in time minorities and women as well. Matt's suggestion to require a civic's exam is eerily similar to how white Americans were able to suppress the votes of African Americans after they first received the right to vote by requiring voters to take a literacy test, knowing full well that the majority of African Americans could neither read nor write. In fact, this put the governing bodies in a bit of a debaucle, as many poor whites also could not read or write either, so they decided that they would extend mercy to the illiterate by merely reading to them and seeing if they could understand what was being read to them, usually of course claiming that whites could understand them and blacks could not, even if they really could. Voter suppression has been a favorite tactic of both political parties throughout our history, targeting poor and minority demographics, knowing full well that their sheer numbers have the power to bring about real change and, yet again, forcing politicians to earn their stay in power and do the will of the people, not just the ones backing their campaigns and filling their bank accounts. To learn more about the history of voter suppression and how it is still being enacted today through methods such as purging and creating stricter voter ID laws, please visit the website for America's Black Holocaust Museum or really, just google "voter suppression" and see what's there. It is alive and well, and it is looking more and more like the last thing politicians want is for more and more people who look and think differently than they do to vote.

2. Abolish Early Voting


Matt makes the point that people should not even be voting before a candidate has finished their campaign, and more importantly that it shouldn't be so easy for people to vote---voting should be a "bit inconvenient" and requires "a small smidgen of sacrifice, energy, and effort." Apparently Matt is one of us priveleged Americans who are able to get off work to go vote, because many can not sacrifice even two hours of pay to get themselves to the polls because they are literally living paycheck to paycheck. Of course, these are likely either the elderly, who do not easily get out of their homes, or the poor, minimum wage workers who might now have the education he would prefer to be allowed to cast a vote, who are typically part-time and not earning vacation time or sick leave to put towards their absence. Some states have laws requiring employers to allow employees time off to vote, unless there is a 2 hour window before or after their shift starts that would enable them to vote apart from working hours, but few restrict them from deducting the hours from employees' paycheck. And unfortunately, a whopping 19 states do not have any laws at all requiring employers to give employees the time off that they need to vote. You can see those laws here. The fact is that in a true democracy, every citizen should not only have a right to vote, but also an opportunity to vote that is not economically prohibitive to any citizen of any class. This is why it makes far more sense to declare voting day a national holiday, ensuring a high voter turnout and that true democracy is in fact taking place. But again, most politicians do not actually want a high voter turnout from the poor working class, thus the lack of reform.



3. Only Grant Voting Privileges to Tax Payers

This point is very clearly yet another dig at the poor---particularly those on welfare, though he never even actually mentions them---and surprisingly enough, it is also a dig at the young, stating "A college kid who has never worked or paid a bill or lived as an independent adult does not yet possess the experience and comprehension necessary to be granted the power to vote. She has been, up until this point, a taker not a maker. A receiver not a contributor." It's funny that he says that while pointing his finger at the 70% of working college students and the 73% of working welfare recipients. Apparently holding a job no longer counts as contributing to society either? And he seems to be forgetting that the reason welfare recipients do not pay taxes is because their annual income places them below the poverty line, thus exempting them from a burden that, for them, prevents them from being able to pay their rent or buy groceries, and for us, prevents us from buying cable TV or a 2nd car. We just looooove to point our fingers at them, though, don't we? How DARE they take OUR tax money and use it to buy groceries for their family and pay the rent that gives them shelter! And along these lines he goes on to say "It’s been warned for centuries that democracies collapse when voters learn they can vote themselves money and entitlements from the public treasury." I'm glad you brought this up Matt, so yes, let's talk about instances when voters learn that they can vote themselves money and entitlements from the public treasury. I am MORE than happy to oblige, because popular to contrary belief, the greatest instances of this have not been through welfare and SNAP cards, but rather through government bailouts, tax deferrals, and multi-million dollar tax write-offs by the very politicians that are supposed to be working on our behalf. You tell me, which person is contributing less to society? Is it the person working two part-time minimum wage jobs, trying to work their way up the ladder so that they can finally reach the financial point of even being able to pay taxes? Or is it perhaps the multi-national corporations that are backing many of our candidates campaigns, funneling their company's billions of dollars in profits to an off-shore account in a country that has a 0% tax rate to avoid the 35% U.S tax rate, thus legally cheating the government of what amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars every year? Funny how that law has never been changed despite us losing out on the amount of money that would actually enable us to pay off our national debt, huh? Or how about that time the government offered those same corporations a tax holiday of 5% to encourage them to bring their money back to American soil and invest in the crumbling economy, an opportunity which they then used not to invest in the American economy or even their own company, but rather to forego research and development and invest in the projects they were already working on, lay off thousands of workers rather than create new jobs, and most abhorrently of all, buy back their own company stock, thus increasing the already exorbitant wages of their CEOs, who are payed in company stock, a practice which also apparently qualifies their CEOs' multi-million dollar income to be used as a tax write-off for the company. Or do you mean Wall Street, who politicians have been working tirelessly to deregulate so that they can cheat taxpayers by creating fraudulent stocks and loans, such as the "inpenetrable" loans that caused the housing bubble and the subsequent Great Recession of 2008 and beyond, costing millions of Americans their jobs, homes, and even their 401ks? Or perhaps you mean the ever-increasing number of corporations, whose fiscal irresponsibility, laziness, and dishonesty have led them to cook the books and create fraudulent reports of profit, thus creating an increase in company stock (and again increasing their own pay), bringing about their inevitable collapse, and whom the government doesn't hesitate to give hundreds of billions of dollars of OUR tax money to in bailouts---tax money which they again used to lay off workers and reward their CEOs' dishonesty and failure with bonuses and unearned severance packages. Do you mean THOSE voters? Because believe me, they're informed and they know exactly what they're doing. They're the ones who spend millions of dollars each year to hire lobbyists for their corporations---lobbyists who have essentially weeded out any lobbying on behalf of unions or organized groups of taxpayers lacking the financial means that they have---because corporations are able to spend the money needed to employ hundreds of lobbyists in multiple locations at the same time with the time, resources, and connections to sit in on congressional meetings and set up countless meetings with our politicians to present their side. And often they are even hired because they already have a close personal relationship with our current politicians and hold a large amount of sway. Lobbying is a constitutional right, but the people are no longer being heard because of this corporate usurpury of politics. You mean those voters, though, right? But please, go right ahead and pretend that it's the welfare recipients and college students that are taking all the handouts. 

Let me clear something up for you, Matt. You are benefitting from other peoples' taxes just as much as the people you are pointing your finger at are benefitting from yours. Those taxes are repairing your roads, bridges, and dams, funding your libraries, schools, police and fire departments and the military that protects you, they are giving stability (in spite of curruption) to the very government that is granting you YOUR  voting rights, and are providing countless other benefits that extend to you and every citizen in this country. So next time you decide to write a post about suppressing the rights of every American who does not meet your standards of being "informed," perhaps you yourself should try being informed before you do so, and maybe even use your platform to inform them about things that are actually true.

Do. Yo. Research.

Alright Christians, we need to have a SERIOUS come to Jesus talk.

I know it's really hard to distinguish what is true from what isn't on the Internet. I'm on the Internet a lot, too. I know the struggle. Pictures are photoshopped. Seemingly credible news sites share fake stories and fake news sites share seemingly real stories. It's incredibly frustrating. I mean, I love the Internet and the plethora of information I have at my fingertips, but I also hate the Internet for that exact reason. There's TOO much information. Most of it isn't even true information. People intentionally create things for the sole purpose of deceiving the masses. Maybe they want to sway you to their side on some political topic, maybe they want to attract trolls and get into an Internet debate, maybe they want to gain traffic on their website, or maybe they want to earn revenue from that very traffic. Who knows? All I do know is that there are an abundance of deceivers online and we've got to stop believing everything we read.



So what exactly am I referring to?

I'm referring to things like this:

And this:

And this:

Seems legit, right? After all, it's got a quote on it AND a picture of who or what it's about. But please notice that nowhere does it reference a credible source as to where it came from. And yet despite it having no evidence of being credible, it circulates on my newsfeed...multiple times. Was there another school shooting? Whip out this handy, completely untrue gun-control infographic so Obama won't take your guns! Is the Pope visiting? Share this quote that he didn't even say! And hey, was there yet another police shooting of an unarmed black man? Let's muddle the reputation of the victim's family with this completely untrue information!

I know, I know...I'm getting all "political" on you. But let's go ahead and get a more in-depth look at these "infographic" memes.

First, gun control. Before we really get into the details, let's just take a quick moment to recognize that in this chart we are comparing a drug-ridden third-world country to one of the richest first-world countries in the world. There could not be two more completely opposite countries that this meme creator could have chosen, and guns are not going to be the ONLY factor attributing to homicide rates. It would make much more sense to compare Switzerland with Austria, or Honduras with Columbia, if they did indeed have vastly different gun laws. Second of all, let it be pointed out that Switzerland does not have the lowest homicide rate in the entire world. It's low, but it's not THE lowest. I know, I know, it's a tiny detail, but if we're pursuing truth here, then let's make sure that what's being presented is the unobscured and unskewed truth. Third, don't you think that in a discussion about gun control you should actually compare gun-related deaths and not just the overall homicide rate? After all, how do we know that 80% of Switzerland's homicides aren't committed with knives, or bombs, or baseball bats, or even those pens chained to desks in banks or NERF guns? And the same goes for Honduras. And last, but certainly not least, I'd like to point out that not only does Honduras NOT have a ban on guns, but the Swiss are also NOT required to own guns. According to snopes.com: 

Honduras enacted a ban on open and concealed carry in 2007, but a 2012 news report stated that "under the existing law, citizens are allowed to own as many as five personal firearms," and in mid-2014 Guns & Ammo rated Honduras as one of the "10 Best Countries for Gun Owners," saying that "Hondurans may purchase most popular types of shotguns, handguns or rifles for the recognized purposes of self-defense and recreation." While Switzerland ranks fourth among all countries in gun ownership per capita (much higher than Honduras), they do not "require" all their citizens to own guns. Switzerland has a long history of mandatory military service for all able-bodied male citizens. The government issues firearms to conscripted men which, after training, they take home with them and keep until the conclusion of their military obligation (about age 34 for non-officers), but no other citizens are "required" to own guns.

So there ya have it, literally the only true thing in this handy anti gun-control meme is that Honduras and Switzerland have roughly the same population. That's it. It is false, it is a lie, it is deceitful...and yet many believed it...and then they shared it. 

Now let's have a look at meme #2:

This one was circulated pretty recently since the Pope just toured the U.S. and it's pretty personal for me, because when someone shared it on my Facebook, I actually did try to research it. I googled it and went to what seemed like a legit news website. I glanced at a couple other articles on the website that seemed true, but spent the bulk of my time trying to find an "About Us" section on the website where I could read about whether or not it was an "ironic" or "sarcastic" site. I couldn't find ANYTHING of the sort, so I decided I had done enough research and messaged my husband. I wrote, "I can't believe the pope said this!" He clicked on the article and quickly responded, "Uh, babe, I think you need to look at the other articles on this website. I don't think this is real." Lo and behold, when I went back to the site and spent more time looking at the other headlines, it became abundantly clear that it was a fake website. Believe me, I was very happy that I said something to my hubby BEFORE I ever shared it or commented on the post. I mean, I'm a librarian for crying out loud...I KNOW BETTER. And yet I still fell for it, and it TICKED ME OFF. Because honestly, I shouldn't have to spend more than 10 minutes researching whether or not something is true...I shouldn't have to research at all! But we do...because of sites like this, we HAVE to invest the time it takes to research it. The truth is important, and we need to make sure that we're spreading truth, not deception. There are people in your life who trust what you say, so it's high time you started being trustworthy in everything that you share.

On to meme #3:

Oooo...this one was a HOT TOPIC on Facebook. A lot of people had a lot to say about Michael Brown following his death by Officer Darrin Wilson, and I can conclude after a lot of my own research (which included poring over the actual police testimonies of Wilson and the many witnesses to Brown's shooting) that there was a lot of false info. out there. Yes, that includes this very pointed meme. ESPECIALLY this meme. Yes, some parts of it are true. For example, that is indeed Michael Brown's mother pictured above, Lesley McSpadden, and it is true that she didn't ever marry Michael's biological father. However, a majority of this meme is not true. For example, the man pictured next to her isn't her boyfriend...that is actually none other than Michael's biological father, Michael Brown, Sr. If it were actually who it claims to be---Louis Head---we would also learn from some quick research that he is not merely Lesley's boyfriend, but her husband, and they wed in July of 2014, just a month before Michael was shot and killed. If you google Louis Head real quick, you'll find that the two men look nothing alike. (You're not off to a good start, meme.) Let's continue on to the next person mentioned in the meme: Pearlie Gordon. I think it's important for you to know that Pearlie Gordon is not Michael's biological grandmother, but instead Michael Brown Sr.'s mother-in-law...so it's Michael Brown Jr.'s step-grandmother. You should also know that Michael Brown, Jr. never actually lived with her...ever. At the time of his death, he was spending the summer with his ACTUAL Grandmother, Desuirea Harris. Before that he was temporarily staying with friends, and had indeed spent his Senior year of high school with his grandmother due to "schooling issues." Basically, his Mom moved out of the school district, and Michael decided to stay in it and therefore lived with his Grandmother. Continuing on...Pearlie, his step-Grandmother, did indeed try to make money from selling t-shirts that memorialized Michael, but never did anyone attack or beat her up for it, and never did Michael's mother say that she was "entitled" to the money. In fact, a crowd of 20-30 people rushed Pearlie's booth and Leslie basically told her to stop selling them, whereby which Pearlie refused. And that was it. End of story. And while the end of this meme might have a point about the need to strengthen families, I think it's unfair to point it specifically toward the black community as the solution to this specific problem when there are plenty of children born out of wedlock or who come from broken or divorced homes in white communities, myself included, that don't have this specific problem at all.

So Christians, (and you too, INTERNET!) my point is this: Do. Yo. Research. Just because there is a picture with words on it shared on Facebook doesn't mean that it's true.

For example, just because this is a picture of Thomas Jefferson with a quote that is on definitelyrealquotes.com does not mean that Thomas Jefferson actually said it. It is unfortunate that I even have to tell you this, because it should already be totally and completely obvious to you. There needs to be a source and that source needs to be credible. Yes, it will require some research, but it is your obligation as a Christ-follower to always seek the truth. Yes, that may mean you have to set your politics aside, and it may mean that your assumptions may not prove to be correct, but what is important is that what you are believing and what you are sharing and telling people is true is ACTUALLY TRUE. The world already thinks that Christians are stupid and gullible, and hypocritical and manipulative to boot, the least you could do is stop giving them credibility to that assumption. Please, for all of us. For Christ's sake...and I don't mean that as a curse word...FOR HIS SAKE, stop making Him look bad. You are an ambassador of Christ, so please, for the love of all that is holy, stop sharing false, hateful, racist, political propaganda and start sharing what is true and right and fair and just and every other thing that is GOOD. Be a trustworthy and honest person.

And here, I am even going to help you out here. Whenever you see something like these memes online, no matter how real it seems to be, go to www.snopes.com and search it. You'll have a result in under a minute and it will be up front with you. It'll say True or False, or Mostly True or Mostly False, and it will give you credible sources to back up its claim. And if you can't find what you are searching for on the website, you can simply submit what you are searching, and they'll research it for you. It's that easy. That's how I found out about the above three memes. You can read about them yourself here:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/mcspadden.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/popeatheist.asp
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/hondswitz.asp

Because of websites like this, and because of how easy they make it for us, none of us have any excuse whatsoever to not take the time to research what we are reading and what we are sharing on social media. It will take two minutes, tops. You can spare two minutes before you press that share button. You know you can.

And before I end this post, let's have a quick review of what types of sources are and are not credible:

• Your crazy Aunt Janice who sends you constant FarmVille requests: NOT CREDIBLE
• Any "Facebook Suggestion" site that shows up in your newsfeed: NOT CREDIBLE (They just want your clicks and the money that comes from your clicking.)
• An intentionally fake, sarcastic or ironic news site such as The Onion, National Report, World News Report, The News Nerd, Empire News, Lark News, or Clickhole: NOT CREDIBLE (Note: I may or may not have been fooled by one of these websites multiple times...I'm talking to you, NATIONAL REPORT, with your official sounding name and lack of mentioning you are not real anywhere on your site. You're the worst!)
• Major national news networks such as FOX News, CNN, or MSNBC: MOSTLY CREDIBLE, but let's not forget that they are all incredibly biased and don't just lean to the left or right...they are the extreme left and right and often offer no middle ground. Just sayin'. 
• News sites that have had a long credible history, in print and online, such as National Geographic, TIME, the New York Post, the Washington Times, or your local paper: PRETTY CREDIBLE, though again, they all have their biases.
• Any site where the writer would very likely lose their job should they be caught lying, not doing their research, or intentionally skewing their research: CREDIBLE. 
• A scientific or historical journal that is peer reviewed and therefore requires each study or article be reviewed by a panel of professionals before being published: CREDIBLE
• Any site that does not have a "works cited" or links to credible or primary sources: NOT CREDIBLE
• Any article that does not list an author or a date: NOT CREDIBLE
• Government Websites: CREDIBLE. I know, it's hard to believe, but they do the research, they post the results, and they pretty much leave any political bias out of it. It's just cold, hard, facts...the way it should be. 
• This post: THE MOST CREDIBLE OF ALL. Just kidding. But honestly, you should check the links for yourself and not take my word alone for it, because I am not a journalist. I do tend to spend insane amounts of time researching primary resources whenever a controversial news story breaks (because I'm a nerd), and I do have a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science (because I'm a nerd), and I have previously worked as a librarian (because I'm a nerd), though I do not currently (because I am apparently not nerdy enough to be a librarian in COLORADO), so that should all speak for itself, but I am not paid to research or write and I risk nothing other than my reputation when I make blog posts like this. So you really shouldn't believe every word I say all the time. You should research it for yourself and click on the links I've provided. 

And that is the most important thing I could possibly teach you through this post: To question, to think for yourself, and to research both sides so that you can have an accurate and informed view. You have a brain, and with the right tools, you can use it, too! And when in doubt, just ask yourself, "What would the Credible Hulk do?" Because believe it or not, the Credible Hulk and Jesus actually have a lot in common.

Yes, Christ Does Accept You, and So Should We

Matt Walsh has had yet another post go viral online. I suggest you read it first, here, before you continue on reading mine. At first, I was just going to share it on Facebook with a few thoughts that I don't think he took into account. Unfortunately those thoughts have now grown to be too many and are now heavy on my heart and require a full-on blog post. You see, I have no qualms with Matt's presentation of the Gospel. In fact, I think he did a wonderful job of demonstrating Christ's love for us and the incredible inclusivity that IS the Gospel. He tells it like it is when it comes to what it means to truly follow Christ, to sacrifice and give up our own selfish desires. That sacrifice is something that I myself still do not do well. I am still a very selfish and proud person, in constant need of God's grace. However, the fatal flaw in this article is not what he says about sin or the Gospel, but rather that from the very beginning, Matt made assumptions. He made assumptions that many Christians make, that many straight people make, that I still sometimes make and most certainly have in the past. His assumption comes from his use of one of my favorite G.K. Chesterton quotes: "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." 

So what is Matt really saying to the LGBTQ community in this article? Particularly to those who are Christians and therefore our brothers and sisters in Christ? You're gay because you're not trying hard enough. Pray the gay away, go to "conversion" therapy, go stay at an ex-gay organization like Exodus International. Do everything that you possibly can to stop being gay, and then when you have tried hard enough you'll stop being gay. 

As a straight person, that sounds easy enough to me. And of course it does, because I'm STRAIGHT and couldn't possibly understand what it's actually like to be gay. And the same goes for the millions of other straight people who have given away this seemingly simple advice to the gay community for literally their entire lives. And yet, why do we automatically assume that the gay Christians in our lives haven't already tried these methods from the very moment they realized they were different? Do you really think that a gay person just wakes up one day and decides that they'd rather be gay than straight? That they'd much rather be ostracized by society, their churches, and sometimes even their family? They live in this world too. They know what it means to be gay. All they have to do is look around them, watch T.V., listen to what is said about homosexuality in their churches, neighborhoods, schools, and at the dinner table with their family, and they can see that it's a long and difficult road ahead. Many of them spend their entire adolescent years doing exactly what you suggest: Praying night after night for God to make them straight, begging Him to take this burden that has been placed upon them, for him to not just keep them from temptation, but to take their very sexuality away from them. To, please God, make them straight. They pray in faith, they pray earnestly, and yet...God does not take their burden from them. He does not make them straight. 

And when they come to terms with that, what are they to do? They may just learn to hide it, to pretend to be straight. They try dating the opposite sex, and continue doing so in the hopes that maybe there is someone of the opposite sex out there that they'll be attracted to...maybe they just haven't met them yet. Perhaps they go an alternate route and reach out for help to their Christian parents, friends, or pastor...what happens then? They're told, yet again, to try harder. There will hopefully be some that will love and accept them, but more often than not they're rejected and ostracized...some parents even kick them out of the house, as can be attested to by 40% of our country's homeless youth. They're sometimes taken to conversion therapy, which in the end damages them further and also just plain doesn't work. They go to a place like Exodus International for weeks, even months...their last option, their last hope. And when they leave...they're still gay. They still have that same attraction. They've done everything that the church has told them to do, they fight and they pray, and then they fight and pray some more and nothing ever changes. No matter what they do, they are still gay. They have exhausted their options, and yet we keep telling them to try harder.

This isn't just one narrative of one gay person, this is the narrative of many. I know because I have read and listened to their stories. It happens so often that it is essentially a formula. Talk to any gay person who grew up in a Christian home and in church and it will likely be a similar story, if not the same story. And in every single one of their lives they will be forced to choose one of two alternatives if they want to remain in a Christian community: To be celibate for the entirety of their lives or to pretend to be straight  for the entirety of their lives, and eventually marry someone of the opposite sex, to whom they are not attracted. The church would never force any other member to make this decision, and yet for the gay person they require it. And so many will leave the church altogether. If they're lucky they will find a church that does allow them in and accepts them as they are, or perhaps the only church that allows them in is made up solely of other gays and lesbians, or perhaps they've been so hurt by the church that they don't want to have anything to do with it anymore. Different people make different decisions and experience different experiences when it comes to this, but their home church has been clear: do what we say and be who we want you to be, or you are not welcome here. You're not one of us. If you really were a Christian, you wouldn't be gay anymore. You didn't try hard enough. You didn't sacrifice enough. But honestly, what's left for them to sacrifice? How could they possibly try any harder?

This is their story and I haven't even touched on their internal struggle. The depression, the anxiety, the suicidal thoughts, attempts....and successes. Because in the end they can either choose to accept that they're gay and love themselves, or they can choose to hate that they're gay and hate themselves because of it. And that is the same choice we have as well. Do we accept that they're gay and love them, or do we hate that they're gay and hate them because of it? As Christians, to love and accept them is the ONLY choice we can make if we truly are concerned with their well-being, no matter how much other Christians mock you and label you as progressive, liberal, white-washed, or not Christian at all. If you are LGBTQ, I want you to LIVE and BE LOVED. I don't want you to walk into a church and feel no hope for the future, to feel like you are completely alone and will be forever. I don't want you to believe that the only way God or anyone else can love you is if you change. I don't want you to feel like there is no way that God could possibly use you for His good simply because you're gay, as if that is the dividing line between people God can love and use and those He can not. I don't want you to feel like your gifts and talents have no place in the church, and that you're literally the only person that the church will not utilize to carry out the love of Christ and his good deeds in this world. Because absolutely none of this is true. You are loved by God and your sexuality is not a deciding factor for Him in whether or not He will continue to love you. It is through His sacrifice on the cross that He is able to also wholly and completely accept you, as a sinner, with all of your past, present, and future sins, just as He accepts me, a sinner, with all of my past, present, and future sins. You are loved and you don't deserve to be treated the way that the church has treated you. They were wrong. They have sinned against you, and they have done so for generations. We have sinned against you. Please forgive us and help us do better. Share your stories. Let us know what it is really like to be gay, even more so let us know what it is like to be a gay Christian. We can never know unless you tell us.

As a straight Christian person, I don't have this all figured out. I have thought in far more black-and-white terms than even Matt Walsh does when it comes to homosexuality. In fact, if I pulled out my senior paper on homosexuality that I wrote at my Christian high school many years ago, I would probably be horrified at the condemnation, judgement, and arrogance that is between its pages. Even now, I am embarrassed of some of the things I've said in this blog post that I wrote a few years ago, but I feel it's important to leave it up as a testament to the fact that sometimes people change, and when you earnestly seek God and His truth, sometimes your only option is to change your mind and heart, no matter how many other Christians may disown you for it. 

By now, at the end of this post, you other straight Christians probably only have one question for me---it's probably the only question that matters to you at all for you to take anything I'm saying seriously---do you believe homosexuality is a sin? To be completely honest, my answer is "I just don't know anymore." I believe that the Bible is true, but I also know that many verses in the Bible have been either misinterpreted or misused to abuse or oppress specific people groups. Slavery anyone? Women anyone? The poor and uneducated, anyone? (P.S. This is what "Taking the Lord's name in vain" means. That's one of the 10 Commandments in case you had forgotten.) I also know that homosexuality is mentioned a surprisingly miniscule number of times in the Bible. In fact, miniscule is too big of a word---it's only mentioned 6 times. Now, I'm of course not saying that the number of times a sin is mentioned in the Bible determines whether or not it really is a sin, but I'm instead asking the question "Why didn't you mention this more often, God??? There were clearly gay people in the Old Testament, and there  were in the New Testament, so couldn't you give us all a little bit more to go off of here?" And I am not just frustrated at the complete lack of references to the subject, but also to the context and origins of the few passages in the Bible that do have the word "homosexuality." For example, was the sin in Sodom & Gomorrah specifically that the men were homosexual, or was it that they were going to gang rape the angel man? Or was it both? And why is the Greek word that Paul uses in the New Testament, arsenokoitai, so mysterious that nobody has ever even heard of this word outside of the New Testament? In fact, not only do I, a non-Greek speaker, not understand what this word means with the use of commentaries, but Greek scholars don't even know what it means, because Paul coined his own word. Some believe it refers strictly to homosexuals, while others believe it refers to pedophiles, the men who hired the young male prostitutes at the temple. And by young male, I do indeed mean children, which was not uncommon at the time. In the end, it's all speculation. It is a word sexual in nature, that's for sure, but as to which aspect of sexuality it is referring we have no clear idea. 

So as it turns out, I have a lot of questions, and the more I seek God and study the texts, the more muddy and confused my mind and heart becomes. God doesn't always make things black-and-white for us because all things aren't always as black-and-white as they seem, that's why He gives us the Holy Spirit to rely on. That's why when God brings LGBTQ people into my life, the Holy Spirit teaches me to love them and serve them, to show compassion and kindness, and to listen to them and respect them like I would any other human being. And that's why when He brings a transgender person into my life, I'm going to call them "Kate" instead of "Bruce," just like I would call a "Matt" by his full name, "Matthew," just because that's what he prefers, even though I myself really, really want to call him "Matt." 

This might surprise you, but the hardest part of my journey thus far hasn't been figuring out what the Bible does or does not say concerning homosexuality, or how it should be interpreted, but mostly it has been the constant feeling like I have to choose between loving God and loving my gay friends and family. As it turns out, that's a choice that the church forces on me, but it most certainly is not one that God has ever placed on me. If it were impossible for me to love both God and the gay people in my life, then Jesus would have never given us the seemingly even more impossible command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. If loving our enemies is what flows out of our loving God, then we can most certainly love our gay friends and family that we already do love so much, and love them at the same time that we love and follow Christ. The only choice God asks us to make is to love. Do not be fooled into thinking anything else. 

And so I say to my fellow straight Christians, it is time that we stop seeing homosexuality as an agenda, as an assault on our marriages and families, as a political battle to win or a problem to fix and start seeing LGBTQ people with a name and a face and a story, who are part of our past, present, and future and who are welcome in our lives and in our churches. It is time we stopped listening to all of the long list of demands the straight Christian preacher and church body puts on the LGBTQ person and start listening to the LGBTQ person and how those demands are affecting them. If after listening to our sermons and encountering other Christians, an LGBTQ person grows to hate themselves, becomes anxious, depressed, or suicidal, feels ostracized, excluded or rejected, and does not feel loved or accepted by God, or closer to Him in any way, then they are not the problem. We are. It's not that they aren't trying hard enough, it's that we aren't trying hard enough. In fact, we aren't trying at all. The only reason you are probably still reading this is because a straight person is writing it. If this were the post of a gay Christian, would you have even gotten this far? Would you have gotten past the first paragraph? Would you have even clicked on it without assuming that it is part of the liberal agenda? These things that many gay people experience as a result of listening to us or encountering us are not good fruit and they do not come from God. When you follow the Greatest Commandment, when you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and then love your neighbor as yourself, it brings about good fruit. Fruit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It brings about unity, not division. One look at the relationship between the gay community and the Christian community today and it is easy to see that we, the church, are not doing God's will or His work. We are being the worst ambassadors of Christ that could possibly exist.This has to change. 

All I ask of you is that you stop making assumptions and take the time to truly listen to the stories of people in the LGBTQ community. Take the time to get to know them. Talk to them, ask them questions, read their blogs and their books, do whatever you can to understand what it is actually like to be an LGBTQ person and what it is like for them to be in the church or encounter Christians. It is through our empathy and kindness that God will use us greatest, not through our raised voices, passed laws, and Matt Walsh shares on Facebook. And please, please, please let LGBT Christians serve in your churches. They have just as much to offer as any of us do. God can use them as much as he uses us straight folk. Don't for a second assume that they are not a valuable part of our community, because they are more valuable than you will ever know or understand and the joy and work you will miss out on as a result of not utilizing them will be a true shame. 



Some follow-up questions/thoughts you might have:

1. Q: Is it really too much to ask gay Christians to be celibate? After all, they aren't the only ones who have to fight against their sexual urges. Straight people do that on a daily basis, fighting fornication, pornography, adultery, etc.
    A: You're right. We do all constantly have to fight against sexual sins, even us married folk. The difference, though, is that while straight single Christians are encouraged to stay pure until they're married, gay people are forced to stay pure forever. For me, I stayed chaste for 27 years, but only the years after puberty really count, so it was more like 15 years in the end. I abstained for a while, and now I get to have sex for many years to come. I still fight sexual sin, and so does my husband, but we also still get to have sex, and even more importantly I get to share my life with him and have our marriage recognized by everyone. The gay Christian has to stay chaste for their entire life, and they never have the benefit of sharing their life with someone they love like a straight person would with their spouse (Unless of course they marry someone of the opposite sex and hope for the best!). There are still gay Christians who choose to be celibate, but the important part is that they do indeed choose that life for themselves instead of have the church thrust that decision on them. It is also important to remember that yes, celibacy is encouraged in the Bible, but the church does not encourage it anymore and does a poor job of incorporating singles in the church family. If you are going to force celibacy onto someone, the very least you could do is make them feel like part of the church family.

2. Q: But what about all the gay people who have gotten married and are straight now? 
    A: I don't know statistics on this one, but from what I've read that number is quite slim. I think some interesting questions to ask them would be, Are you still attracted to the same-sex? or Do you identify as bi-sexual, and not strictly as gay? Also, Do you feel like you are living a lie? Would you have made this choice had the church not required it of you? How has this decision affected your relationship with God? These are questions writers of these articles tend not to ask, and even if they did, I think the interviewee would be disinclined to answer that they're still attracted to the same sex (if they are in fact still attracted to the same sex) when their spouse and children are present, or if they will eventually find out their answer, along with the rest of the world and particularly their church family. I think I should also mention that there are instances where a gay person never tells their spouse they are gay until much later in life, thus breaking up the marriage and family. 

3. Q: How do you know conversion therapy doesn't work?
    A: Because of the plethora of scientific articles like this one. Some of the methods used are not only appalling, but inhumane and ineffective to boot.

4. Q: How do you know these ex-gay organizations like Exodus International don't work? 
    A: Because the founders of Exodus International shut themselves down, apologized for their organization, and are now ex ex-gay. In this article, they are quoted as saying "It is strange to be someone who has both been hurt by the Church's treatment of the LGBTQ community, and also to be someone who must apologize for being part of the very system of ignorance that perpetuated that hurt. Today it is as if I've just woken up to a greater sense of how painful it is to be a sinner in the hands of an angry church."

5. Q: But what about the gay agenda?
    A: Well, that depends on who you ask. If you ask most Conservative Christians, the gay agenda is to destroy family values and take away our religious rights. If you ask gays themselves, the gay agenda is to be able to get married and have the same equal rights as everyone else. To not be discriminated against because of their sexuality. If you ask gay Christians particularly they too want to protect religious rights, but they also want to have equal rights. Heck, there are even plenty of LGBTQ people who aren't religious at all that want to protect religious rights. 

6. Q: But isn't homosexuality all about sex?
    A: No, it is definitely not. Just like straight people, there are plenty of homosexuals who live promiscuous lives and have had many sexual partners. There are also those who seek monogamous, long-term relationships. Then there are some who previously were promiscuous, but are now in a monogamous, committed relationship and vice versa. Sounds just like straight people, huh? If all homosexuals wanted was sex, then gay marriage never would have been an issue, because we all know you can have sex without ever getting married. But clearly many of them do want  a companion to be in a committed relationship with for the rest of their life, who they can be on the same insurance policy with, pay joint-taxes with, be allowed to be in the hospital room with in an emergency, and have/adopt kids with. In a nutshell, that is much of what the gay rights movement has been about. That, and also equal employment opportunities and not being discriminated against, beat up, or murdered in general. 

7. Q: Are Homosexuals born gay or do they choose to be gay?

    A: I don't know, and neither does science. Scientists have been searching for a "gay gene" for years and have yet to find one. If science proves that people are born gay, I think it would change everything and the church would change its stance in a heartbeat, like it has with many things throughout history. Only time will tell, but neither one is a claim that anyone can make for certain.

8. Q: Does sexual abuse lead to homosexuality? 

    A: Sometimes it might, sometimes it might not. Some gay people have been sexually abused, some have not. Some come from broken homes, some come from healthy-intact homes. Some have distant fathers, some have good relationships with their father. Some have overbearing mothers, some have good relationships with their mothers. Research has not yet been able to identify a specific instance, environment, or parental situation that would actually cause a person to be gay. 

9. Q: Shouldn't gay Christians pursue holiness like the rest of us, and wouldn't that require celibacy?
    A: Yes, gay Christians should pursue holiness and be held accountable. That means the same thing that it means for the rest of us, like abstaining from sexual promiscuity, lust, drunkenness, gossip, etc. and pursuing selflessness, love, compassion, and justice. You will find that among gay Christians themselves there are two schools of people: those who believe homosexuality is a sin and choose to be celibate and those who do not believe homosexuality is a sin and pursue a monogomous relationship a.k.a. marriage. I don't get the impression that either "school" makes their decision lightly, and each seeks counsel, researches the Bible, and spends many months or even years of their life asking God what to do. Whatever their decision, I think it's safe to say that it's between them and God and we likely don't have any more insight to offer that they haven't already heard a million times or already researched themselves. If they ask your advice, then by all means offer it, but let them ask before you preach. 
Some resources for you:

God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines
Torn by Justin Lee
The Gay Christian Network
What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung

The Downhill Ride

You might think that the title of this post is a fancy metaphor about life, but you'd be WRONG. So wrong.  You would be the wrongest that you've ever been in your entire life. In fact, I'm just going to nickname you "Wrongy." So joke's on you, Wrongy!

This post is, believe it or not, incredibly literal, so literal that I am actually talking about biking downhill. Who would have guessed, right? In Colorado, you see, there are LOTS of hills everywhere. Sometimes there's even mountains! So naturally, the Mr. and I like to bike them. The uphill is, as can be expected, the worst...hernia inducing at times. We have to take water breaks every 10 feet, and each segment of 10 feet takes approximately 10 minutes to ride. Also, everything burns. But the downhill...oh the sweet, sweet downhill: the wind in my hair, the thrill, the SPEED. It's indescribable. I love it. It makes the uphill battle absolutely worth it. At least,  it WOULD make it worth it if literally every flipping time I gained speed going downhill someone didn't get in my way and RUIN it. I am not exaggerating here. Literally. EVERY. time.

What kinds of people would do such a horrid thing, you ask? Oh, all kinds of people, and all of them bent on RUINING MY LIFE!

On today's ride, it was a 4 year-old who was perfectly content riding on the opposite side of the sidewalk, until he saw me barreling down the hill at 20+ mph. Then, of course, he decided that it would be his best idea yet in his little 4 year-old life to ride on MY side of the sidewalk DIRECTLY AT ME. You think I'm gonna fall for your "Oh, I'm just a 4 year-old, I had no idea what I was doing" act? Psh. I see right through you, 4 year-old. All you care about is ruining my fun! You're a fun-ruiner and I hope you fall off your bike!

And let's not mention the baby learning to walk in the park, with her two parents on either side of her, in the middle of the sidewalk, at the the bottom of a hill, right where the sidewalks intersect with NOWHERE FOR ME TO GO! The first time I forgave you, baby...because you're cute. The second time this happened, I was suspicious, but you were still pretty cute. The THIRD time? Oh, I knew what you were up to. You're not cute anymore, baby, and I would appreciate it if you would stop trying to kill me!

Oh, but it's not just children that like to ruin my good time, it's adults too! Like the douchebags in bro tanks walking side by side, 4 across, who upon hearing "On your left!" move to THEIR left, right in front of the Mr. (with me right behind), then yell at him for almost hitting them, even though he had already slowed to a crawl and somehow miraculously avoided them. Hey bro, how about next time you NOT cuss out my husband and MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. Next time, I am either running you over or punching you in the face. You can have your pick.

But that isn't the only set of bro-tank douchebags that have ruined our fun. Ohhhh no, because why wouldn't there be more? Especially in Boulder. Ohhhhh Boulder, how I loathe you. You think you're so cool with your pretty mountains and expensive housing, but we all know you're just a bunch of hippy yuppies who like to give reviews online like "The food was okay, but not as good as it is in BOULDER, because in Boulder all our food is GMO free and organic, and our chickens roam free in the mountains and receive excellent benefits and a 401k plan." Ugh, you're the WORST, Boulder! These guys...THESE guys were doing the exact same thing, except they didn't just take up the entire sidewalk, but the GRASS too! Thanks, bros, for forcing me to either run into you head on, go to my right and run you over, go left into an ice cold creek, or come to a sudden, complete stop, thus causing my husband to brake with his dominant left hand behind me and FLIP OVER HIS BIKE. Ugh! You were looking right at us, so don't even pretend like you didn't see us coming, bros. WE MADE EYE CONTACT, AND YOU STILL DIDN'T MOVE. Next time you want to play a game of chicken, you will not win. I will actually speed up just so it will hurt more when I hit you dead on, then follow you around until I catch you smoking pot in public and call the cops on you, because we allllll know you were high. We. all. know it.

So to everyone else in the future who sees me coming on a bike, YOU BETTER MOVE. I'm not stopping ANY MORE. You will not ruin this for me. I don't care if you're an infant in a runaway stroller, I'm not stopping. If you're wounded and bleeding in the middle of the sidewalk, don't get your hopes up for a good Samaritan, cuz this good Christian girl has places to be...like the bottom of this hill! Oh, what's that, there's construction? Well, then, it about to get extreme, because I'm about to go off trail. I am not going through all of the work of biking uphill both ways, for eleventy billion miles, in 250 degree heat only to have you ruin my fun, so just be a decent human being and move, you fun ruiners! Especially you, BABY.

That is all.

When Brokenness Is Met With Silence

I hadn't been this nervous since my first day of middle school. I walked through the green and white doors of what was formerly a girl scout house and found myself in an ocean of teenagers. I recognized a good number of them: there was Blake and Nate playing foosball in the corner, and Cory and Courtney circled around on the couches with some other girls, laughing and giggling, probably playing M.A.S.H. or talking about who they thought was the cutest boy in the youth group. I didn't have the guts to go say hi to any of them, or worse, introduce myself to someone new, so I quickly scurried off to the individual chairs placed all in a row, awaiting their sermon from the youth pastor. I sat there alone cursing myself for coming early. I just sat there awkwardly staring around the room (we didn't have cell phones back then to be occuppied with), looked at my fingernails, went to the bathroom, came back, and a few minutes later the other kids started to file in and sit down. The youth pastor came on stage and gave a hearty welcome, made a few jokes, then instructed everyone to greet the kids around them. I turned around behind me and saw the familiar brunette hair and glasses. "Hi! I'm Courtney!," she said. "Hi, I'm Tiffany," I stammered. "Where do you go to school?" she politely asked. "Berean," I replied. "Oh, cool," she said. "I know some people that go there." "Really? Who do---" The youth pastor cut me off and had all of us return to our seats. He then continued on by calling some kids on stage for a game and then went in to his sermon and thirty minutes later, he dismissed us. A lot of kids stuck around to play games and chat, but I made a beeline straight for the door, never to return again.

Under normal circumstances I would have been thrilled that somebody even talked to me, and I would have at least given the youth group another chance. But this, this hurt too deeply. It hurt deeply because not only did I know Courtney, I knew her siblings and her parents. I was in the church nursery with her, and spent the last ten years of my life going to Sunday School and Awanas with her. My fifth grade year, we went to a weekend camp together. The same could be said of over half of the kids there that night. Yet none of them said hi to me, and the only one that did had no idea who I was. It's painful enough to feel like a loser in a room full of teenagers, but to have gone to church with the same kids for what amounted to my entire life and realize that you had been invisible all those years is a whole new level of pain. At first, I tried to blame it on puberty. Maybe they truly didn't recognize me. Maybe I looked more different than I thought. After all, 5th grade Tiffany had A-cups and short blond hair, but 6th grade Tiffany had B-cups, short blond hair, and glasses. Maybe my glasses were hiding my true identity, like Clark Kent's did? But over time I grew to accept that it wasn't me at all, it was them being teenagers caught up in their own world. Focused more on fitting in than including.

My Dad had begged me to go to youth group that night. I hadn't been in church in a year, since my parents separated towards the end of 5th grade. I was too embarrassed and thought that church was only for people in whole families. Surely I was too broken to belong in a church? And as it turns out, I was too broken, and I wouldn't be back in a church for another four years.

Part of me knew that the church should have been there for me and my family when it all fell apart, but another part of me always felt like we deserved to be outcasts. After all, we couldn't keep it together. My parents couldn't get along and didn't love each other anymore and I couldn't go to sleep without crying. How could I go to church anymore with a smile on my face when inside I was so wounded? The easiest solution was to just not go anymore. If I didn't go to church, I wouldn't have to pretend. Problem solved. And unfortunately, the church didn't hesitate to accommodate that decision. I remember getting a few cards from my Sunday School teachers saying "We Missed You!", but those faded away with time. There were a few occasions where I had sporadically returned to my Sunday School class after receiving the cards, but every time I found myself having to pretend, and even worse, everyone else pretended right along with me. I thought surely people knew that my family was broken, but nobody ever said anything. It was always the elephant in the room. What I needed was for someone to say, "I'm sorry your parents are getting divorced" or to ask "How are you doing? What can I do to help? Do you need to talk?" but instead I got a resounding silence. Soon I became nothing but the shadow of a memory there, and in just a year's time I found out that to them I had never even existed.

I always wondered if perhaps the church truly didn't know that my parents had separated and divorced two years later. I wondered if I misplaced the blame. Maybe my parents just never told anyone and our circumstances went completely undetected because of it. Maybe no one mentioned the divorce or asked how  I or my family was because they had no idea that anything was wrong. In hindsight, and having also talked to my Dad about it, I suppose that's partially true. My parents naturally didn't publicize their failure. They had talked to the pastor and in time family and close friends, but strangely enough the word didn't spread like you would expect it to in the church. On the one hand, it's a comfort to know that my family didn't become the gossip subject of an entire church, as I had originally expected it to, but on the other hand the lack of pertinent information about my family led to us being ignored in a crisis and having no one minister to us in our time of need. I suppose I can't cast all the blame on the church, as my Dad and Mom themselves didn't advertise our situation or reach out for help, but at the same time, someone should have noticed that my Mom had gone missing from church, and eventually my brother and I.

Though my parents didn't advertise our brokenness, they also didn't hide it. If someone asked, they would tell. But unfortunately, by the time anyone bothered to ask where my Mom was, it was far too late. And really, only two people in the entire church ever bothered to ask. The first was a couple whose daughter was in my Sunday School class. "We haven't seen Laura in a while. How is she?," they innocently asked. "Well, Laura and I actually got a divorce, so that's why you haven't seen her in a while," my Dad bluntly explained. "Oh. We're so sorry." This was at least two years after my parents first separated. The next time someone would ask about my Mom was 5 years later.

My family wasn't THAT Christian family who was in the church every time the door was open, but we weren't a holiday-only church-going family either. My Dad was consistent and went every single Sunday while my mom, brother, and I probably went 2 to 3 times a month, missing a Sunday or two on account of really liking sleep. My Dad taught Sunday School when I was a kid and even taught a couple of my classes throughout the years, and he was also an Awana leader for a year or two as well. My Mom sang in the choir and I think worked in the nursery for a little while. We went to some church functions but missed others, and that was pretty much our pattern for the 10 years we were there.

 As my Dad so perfectly put it: "What did the church do right? Nothing. What did the church do wrong? Nothing." As I myself would put it: What did the church do at all? Nothing. And I think that is what hurt the most: the silence. Feeling completely alone and isolated and having no one ever acknowledge my brokenness, our brokenness.

When it comes to divorce, the church handles it poorly. It goes largely ignored and entirely unpreached upon. Few churches have support groups for couples going through a divorce, and in the ones that do the people only remain in the group until they begin dating again or remarry, whereupon they reassimilate into the church as a family. The people who are forgotten are the children of divorce, and the single parents who do not ever marry again, who choose a life of celibacy. Whereupon we used to be a part of the church, we quickly realize that we no longer are. We are forgotten and we just don't belong anymore.

Take my Dad, for instance, who has been single for 18 years now and has chosen that life of his own volition. I often accuse him of being antisocial at church. He is a faithful Christian who faithfully attends church every Sunday, yet he sneaks in on Sunday morning and sneaks out avoiding most social interactions. Every now and then he'll volunteer. He'll be a greeter at the back door where all the other introverts, homebodies, and latecomers sneak in, he'll work with young adults and connect with the "outcasts" of the group, sometimes he'll do ministry on his own like connecting with a program that mentors international students at the local university. He is quiet and unassuming and prefers to serve and give anonymously, without any recognition, and because of this he is not well known in the church. No one would ever think to nominate him to be an elder or deacon, even though he perfectly fits the description, and even if they did nominate him he'd turn them down. He wouldn't want the attention, nor the pressure. But despite his faithfulness, he just kind of gets the shaft when it comes to church. He is a divorced introvert nearing his 60s with grown kids and no interest in remarrying. He is a bit of a misfit, and it's not because he's strange...the church just doesn't have a place for him. He can't go to the Sunday School class centered around building your marriage, or the class on parenting. He's too old and too recovered for the singles and divorced classes (if the church even has one) and he's too young for the elderly class. He just doesn't fit in anywhere, and it's not for lack of trying, as I have sadly so often assumed throughout the years. He has tried and attended and served where he can, but in the end, the church doesn't really know how to deal with anything other than family units. Many churches are learning and creating support groups for divorcees and single moms, but the single dad? I don't think the church has every even considered how to serve single dads, or how to give them opportunities to serve, and I doubt they ever will.

I used to be so frustrated at my Dad because I thought he wasn't being outgoing enough, he wasn't willing to venture outside of his comfort zone in church and be active in the ways I thought he should be active, but little did I realize that every time he enters those doors he IS outside of his comfort zone. Choosing to go week after week despite being an "outcast," despite all of the hurtful things pastors and people have said to him in the past, despite all of the schisms he's witnessed, and despite the fact that the church has never really done anything for him or to serve him...THAT is true courage and commitment and faithfulness. And though I'm sure that God has taught him much through it all and refined him by fire again and again, I'd be lying if I said I'm not frustrated and angry at the church. For him and for me.

I know that church isn't about me and having all my needs met...I've heard that sermon a million times. I've been told again and again that it's more important for me to serve and invest in others, and believe me, I've done that again and again. More than most people. I've been in ministry. I know what it's like to pour your heart and soul into the church. But when you've spent your entire life in church and not only faithfully served, but watched your Dad and your Mom and your brother serve and yet not once has the church ever helped you or any of them in a real time of need or crisis, something's wrong, and you aren't the problem. If my family is a testament of anything, it's that the church is poorly equipped to deal with broken people from broken families. If it takes two years for a church to notice 3 of its long-time members is gone, something is wrong. If no one bothers to ask the little girl whose parents just divorced if she's okay, something is wrong. If not a single friend in your church ever shows up to help your parents in a crisis, and their excuse is that they don't want to "choose sides," something is wrong. Do better, church. Just do better.

I'm not asking for more classes or more sermons. I'm just asking for you to be there. Be the hands and feet of Jesus. Be a listening ear to those who are hurting. Be a support system that we can rely on when our world falls apart. Allow broken people to serve without being stigmatized as the "divorced guy" or the assumed "wild child." And if you're going to call yourself a church family, then let us be a part of your family. Invite us over for dinner. Help us move, even if you don't agree with the reason for that move being divorce. Ask us how we're doing and mean it. Write us encouraging letters and e-mails, not long ones with bullet points as to why divorce is a sin. Stop judging us and just freaking love us. Because seriously, church, if you had loved us it would have made all the difference.

But thankfully, while you didn't love us, Jesus did. And He taught us more about grace and love than you ever possibly could have, so much that we forgave you and continue to do so every time you disappoint us and aren't there. He taught us that serving Jesus isn't the same thing as serving the church, and by allowing us to know what it felt like to be judged, he opened our hearts up to care about and love people who aren't like us and don't make all of what we deem to be the "right" decisions. Yes, I forgive you church, because God has forgiven me for my many sins and for all of the times I have been a hypocrite and haven't been there for hurting people like me. But just because I forgive you, it doesn't mean I wholly trust you, and I probably never will. But please, church, recognize that there are broken people and broken families among you and just do better.