Sunday, June 30, 2013

Should Christians Fight Gay Marriage?



Recently, The Defense of Marriage Act was repealed by the Supreme Court, the result of which allows married gay couples to act as any other married couple, and makes discrimination based on their marriage partners illegal. The celebrations have been continuing since the announcement, but of course here in Oklahoma, the announcement was met with plenty of ultra-conservative backlash. The Governor of Oklahoma made a statement that she still believes in "one man, one woman" marriages. Unfortunately, it is an arena such that any comments from our Governor falls void, since she herself is not known for 'traditional' marriage, if you exclude divorce and infidelity in your definition of 'traditional'.

One must be totally ethnocentric to believe that their beliefs should be imposed on everyone else. I understand that some religious folks believe that the Bible is actually the word of God, and so they believe by enforcing and fighting for biblical laws to become Government enforced laws, that they are siding with God over their Government. The problem with such enforcement of a 'biblical' extraction is that these laws are hand picked from a book full of laws, and some are either unenforceable or cruel and barbaric to enforce. If one wishes to enforce the laws of the Bible, then why are they ignoring the rules they don't want to follow, and then attempting to enforce other laws that they do follow?

Deuteronomy 22:11 says "Thou shalt not wear a garmet of diver sorts, as of woollen and linen together." Wouldn't it be ridiculous to see a line of church protesters in the mall outside of Macy's with signs saying "Stop Blending Wool and Linen!" and "No Cotton/Cashmere Sweaters! Deut 22:11!"? Or what if there was a group lobbying for the death penalty for those who work on the Sabbath, adhering to the scripture in Exodus 31:15 which says "whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."?  Unfortunately, there is no difference between the silliness of these scenarios and the issue at hand today. I think if you are arguing for the following of a specific law that applies to a certain group of people, then you are omitting them from the grace of God. Salvation through Jesus is supposed to belong to everybody. Jesus himself broke a few of the Old Testament laws, like working on the sabbath, yet he remained 'sinless'. Maybe there are factors in this 'sin', or 'separation from God' that are more important than just literal Old Testament law.
 
I think straight people often miss the realization that gay people do not always think a whole lot differently than they do. Often there are gay couples that have been together in a monogamous relationship with each other for their whole life since their meeting, and have no interest in being with anyone else. There are plenty of gay people who disapprove of the 'promiscuous' behavior of some gay people, and are sickened by homosexual prostitution every bit as much as a straight person may be disgusted by 'straight' prostitutes. It is also notable that some babies, and not such a small number, are sometimes born with both parts, male and female, and the gender is usually a decision made by the doctor, and sometimes the family. It is hard to imagine that sexuality can always be perfectly in line with the physical body. I think people's sexual energies can be different than what we perceive of them by their outer appearance. And for that reason, I think we should stay away from judging people for their adult choices, and treat all people as you know Jesus would treat them, with love, grace and respectfulness.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Have We Lived Before?



My wife, Amy, is a vintage clothing dealer. Very soon after I met her, I began to find the joys of thrift store and estate sale shopping, and learned how to find just what your looking for in them. When we make our shopping trips and stops, it usually takes her a while to look through all of the women's clothes, so I have plenty of time to pull out my fine toothed comb for my own shopping. One of the things I am most interested in are books, especially older ones. Recently, I came across an estate sale that had a mountain of unique and interesting spiritual type books, and I picked up the one pictured above. It is called "Have We Lived Before?" and it is by Ernest C. Wilson. The title page says "Unity School of Christianity, Kansas City 6, MO. 1946". The book actually appeared first in 1936 as cloth/deluxe editions, so the writing in this book dates back about 76 years. My research on the school led me to The Unity Church, which of course now is not quite the same as it was years ago, but I understand their beliefs to be mostly similar. I approached the theology they teach using the "Muhammad Ali" approach (shown on my first blog post, "Did God Write The Bible?"), in which all religions hold some truths. I found many points to agree with them and the book on, and I believe that the 'denomination' or 'religion' does hold truths, but I also find points that I don't agree with them on. I do know that reincarnation is believed by many practitioners of Judaism, and if Jesus was born Jewish and so familiar with the religion and holy texts, then he might have made statement that pertains to this idea of reincarnation.


Reincarnation is one that I have interest in mostly because of, oddly, other people's experiences that I have known. Myself, I have never felt any type of past life regression, although I have had abundant 'deja vu' experiences. Without my own personal proof, the next closest thing would be an experience of someone I know well enough to make a safe judgement about the validity of the person's story. The main proof of this type that I have is an account of my wife's brother, who actually had clear pre-birth memories since being very young. He remembered being told that he had to come back once more. He remembered feeling reluctant, and at first told them he wouldn't. They continued to suggest this to him, and the minute he started to agree with their plan for him, he was here on earth, inside the womb. He always remembered that he was here for a return trip, and because of these memories, he couldn't bear to let himself lie, or steal, or do any wrongdoing hardly at all. I believe he did remember being a soul before entering his body, and allowed himself to come back to this earth for God's purpose. He died one of the most peaceful, incredible deaths you could imagine. The room was filled with greeters of pure spirit, and I could feel the 'crowding' of the room with these spirit beings. Because of this man's life stories, that I have witness and experienced, my interest in the subject has been accelerated.


This book begins with some personal accounts and stories that offer some proof that certain people have visited the earth before. One of them I think I may have heard before, maybe from an old T.V. show like "That's Incredible" or something. But they are written clearly and are very interesting. After the personal accounts, it goes into some biblical references to back up this idea of reincarnation. It also discusses how some scripture leads them to believe that certain people in the Bible reincarnated into others that Bible readers are familiar with. The book also spends some time with the notion that Jesus was reincarnated. It was probably the only part of the book I had trouble following, or agreeing with. The book's Biblical references about specific people's reincarnations did not persuade me to agree with their interpretation. However, the verses given in the book to show the idea of reincarnation being prevalent in the Bible are fairly persuading. In Proverbs 8:22-31, as the book quotes, the verses clearly show that Solomon evidently believed that he existed before his birth, in fact stating he was a being during creation! That is, I find, quite a bold statement, and could be colorful exaggeration used in the dialect of the period. Another scripture is one in Revelations, 3:12. It is thought by the author that verses in which Jesus states "him that overcometh" will become a "pillar in the temple of my God", and that "he shall go no more out", suggests that the one that overcometh had gone back out (to the earth) before, but will not go again, because he has overcome death.


Another explanation of some of these Biblical references I had trouble understanding in the above book appear on a website called "Near Death". An interesting scripture is found in Matthew 11:13-14 where Jesus identified John the Baptist as the reincarnation of Elijah the prophet. It says "For all the prophets and the law have prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who was to come." The context of these verses seem to be true to this interpretation. It is even restated later in Matthew 17 that John was Elijah reincarnated. This scripture was also talked about in the book "Have We Lived Before", but this website made the interpretation easier to comprehend for me. I like their website a lot. The layout on the site is easy to use even though it contains mass links and information. Their arguments are well calculated and displayed in an easy to follow fashion. I would suggest anyone interested in near death experiences or past life information to scour this website and make use of it's enormous database.


I liked reading "Have We Lived Before", especially the personal accounts, and philosophy. This book does spend quite a bit of time on philosophy and symbolic interpretation, which is something I do enjoy reading. I dug deep into the discussions in this book and found the pages very thought provoking. I think my answer to the question above would be, "probably". It is possible that, even if the above were true, this could be a persons 'first trip' to this earthly dimension. I am not sure if I would interpret the above scriptures in exactly the way the Unity School of Christianity does, but I certainly do not throw out or demonize their ideas. I am glad to have been blessed with the openness of mind to assimilate and possibly integrate beliefs that come from my exploration of experiences of others. I believe we are all here for one another, and rather than becoming offended by our differences of opinion, we should learn from them, celebrate them, and each other.