Touchy Topic #3

Touchy subject number three:

Abortion.

This is one of the rare things I don’t actually struggle with.  Murder is murder, even if the life is still a fetus.  I believe even the smallest fetus is a baby, with a soul and life ahead of it.

I get that some people will not make good parents, that the child might have a hard life (can I just take a second to promote ADOPTION as a better option), but wouldn’t you rather have a hard childhood than no life at all?

I get that pregnancy changes the mother’s life, especially when they’re young.  (Let me take another moment to reproach pro-life Christians for often making this even harder for young mothers, because most of us believe sex is meant for marriage.  Come on, people.  Stop and think before you react.  Love one another.  Not judge and scold and preach and only love when they crumble under the pressure.)  I sympathize, really I do (though I’ll admit to only having an outsider’s view on the hardships), but murder’s still murder.

Touchy Topic #2

Not-quite-so-touchy subject number two:

Evolution.

I was actually very surprised when I realized that the theory of evolution was widely accepted as truth.  It’s never made all that much sense to me.  Sure, on a certain scale species all adapt, evolve over time, but they don’t become new species, right?  The idea that everything, all of creation has come about by accident, without any sort of design, seems impossible.  Creation, this world, the human race... it’s all so detailed, so incredibly complicated.  Consider how much information is in even a single cell, how many cells it takes to form a human being.  Consider our sentience.  How can I believe that all of this has come about by mere chance?  How can there be a creation without a Creator?

A favorite quote of mine from Mark Lowry: “If I took my watch apart...put it in a bag, and shook it up for billions of years...what are the odds that, when I’m done, I will reach into the bag and pull out a watch, ticking and on time? Order does not come from chaos!”

There’s no absolute, unquestionable proof of God.  There can’t be, I think (though I often wish with all my heart that there was).  It wouldn’t be “faith” then, it wouldn’t be a choice to believe, and I think that would mess with free will.

Or at least that’s how I rationalize it.

Sometimes I think trying to explain things of faith with evidence of science can only get you so far.  Maybe trying to answer a question of faith with facts is a little like trying to explain addition and multiplication in colors, or trying to describe a sunset with mathematical equations.  It’s just not quite the same language.

It's a bit like logic and emotions.  It's good to know why you're feeling a certain way, that the feeling won't last forever, etc, but in the end, what loneliness really wants is companionship, not words.  What sorrow really wants is comfort, not verbal reassurances (though those are all well and good).  What that hole in your heart, in your soul, really wants is to be whole.  And logic can't fill that; only God can.

Admittedly, trying to wrap my head around the concept of a Creator who has simply always been, before time and space and matter, is pretty much impossible.  I believe it, but that doesn’t mean I understand it.  I can see how it would be a struggle to believe that.  If something can’t come from nothing, where’d the Creator come from?

I still find it easier to believe than this all being an accident, but I can see where the doubts come from.

Touchy Topic #1

Alright, touchy topic number one:

Homosexuality.

I might as well start with something volatile, right?  Though honestly, even considering posting this makes my heart pound and my hands a bit shaky (I’m such a big baby when it comes to confrontation).

I don’t know.  I really don’t.  I know what the Bible says, but…  If it’s not a choice, if it’s just the way people are born, some attracted to the opposite gender, some to the same… how can God, the one who created them, condemn that?  For that matter (hitting another touchy subject), how do we know the Bible is the perfect word of God?  I never questioned that growing up, but human beings wrote it, chose which books to put in, chose how to word things.  What if one of them worded it wrong?  Even inspired by God, how do we know that we can depend on every single word to be completely, perfect true?  (I’m not just being contrary; I’d really like to know.  I used to be so sure…)

Of course, I say all that, but I’ll use the Bible to defend my beliefs about drinking and sex and such.  I even want to argue that you can’t pick and choose the pieces of the Bible, that you should accept it as a whole, but how do we know?

I just don’t know.  That seems to be my answer to a lot of things these days: I don’t know.

I’ve heard it suggested that while sex outside of marriage is a sin, if homosexuals were married, it wouldn’t a sin any longer.  That kind of feels like a cop out, if only because it feels like an easy answer (I miss easy answers), but I don’t know.

Anyways, whatever else the Bible says, Jesus said to love your neighbor.  Whether homosexuality is a sin or not (and this goes for everything, really), we are supposed to treat people with love.  No matter what.  We are not supposed to bully and judge and condemn, but “Christians” seem to use God and the Bible as an excuse to do just that.

I fear the religious community in general gets far too focused on the rules and laws and traditions (not that they aren’t important, but they’re not the most important) and loses sight of the fact that God loves people, all people, and that we’re meant to love them too.

Consider that before the next time you react to someone who believes differently than you do.

That gets under my skin: the judgment and condemnation that comes from both sides, believers and non-believers, liberals and conservatives.  There’s nothing wrong with being opinionated but that doesn’t have to spark a war between us.  I know how easy it is to get defensive when beliefs are questioned; they’re what make us everything we are.  People strongly believing differently can feel almost like an attack on who we are, but striking back doesn’t solve anything.  It just widens the gap between us.

We’re all sinners.  We’re all screwed up and lost and doing the best we can to make sense of this life.  Cut each other some slack.

(And there’s me getting a little self-righteous about my moderate position.  Ah, hypocrisy, my familiar friend.)

Things I think about in the car...

[Another disclaimer, because apparently I like them so well: I’m going to say “our”, “us”, and “we” a lot (meaning Christians in general), but I can’t be entirely sure any of this applies to anyone but me.]

Trying to understand why Christians so vehemently oppose the secular lifestyle, to the point of radical behavior that takes things way too far…

What do we care? you may ask.  Why is it any of our business?  What does it have to do with us?  That’s a good question.  One I pondered on the way home from work, today (deep thoughts for a five minute drive).

Some people use God, the Bible, and the rules therein to justify cruelty, to try to control the people around them.  For some it is about power.  But someday they will have to give an account before God for everything cruel they do in His name.

As for the rest of us: some part of us honestly believes that the people around us would be happier and better off if they followed God’s rules.  Really, honestly, part of this is us trying to help, though I imagine it often doesn’t feel that way.

Part of our opposition comes from feeling threatened, I think.  The more the world (“the world” being anyone who believes differently, I suppose.  Yes, there’s the ‘us vs. them’ mentality) wants us to pry our grip from our beliefs, the fiercer we cling to them.  It feels almost like an attack on our sense of selves to be asked to accept the world as it is, changing further and further from the traditional values we hold dear.

Personally, I don’t like change.  Change is scary.  And the more the world changes (or the more I notice it change), the more out of place I feel.  Things are easier in the little bubble of Christianity I grew up in (meaning Christian friends, Christian values, family-friendly movies, music, books, etc).  Absolutes, black and white values are easier to deal with than trying to slog through the muddy greys in-between.

Even considering other points of view isn’t far off from questioning God’s rules, or the interpretations of God’s rules that we grew up with or were taught along the way.  It feels like betrayal, like the beginnings of doubt.

And that’s frightening.

Try to understand that with our childhoods (in some cases), with the foundations of everything we are settled firmly in Christianity… when those foundations shake, everything feels shaken.  Doubt is a terrible, miserable thing that eats away at every certainty and makes you question everything.

I suppose I’ll rant on that later.  The point (which I seem to have lost somewhere along the way) is that it feels threatening to be surrounded by a world that doesn’t believe the things we believe.  We get a bit of that “us vs. them” mentality and feel like we have to fight against secular beliefs.

I think a lot of times that makes us cross lines we shouldn’t.  We cast judgment, forgetting that’s God’s job.  We treat our neighbors like enemies, belittle their beliefs and their lifestyles because they’re not on “our side”.  We forget that first and foremost, aside from loving God, the most important thing is loving people.

Alright, in the spirit of complete honesty…

Things that don’t usually get talked about, by me at least:

I’m still the good little church girl, for the most part.  I don’t do drugs, I don’t smoke, I don’t get drunk (but neither do I feel guilty about the occasional drink.  It’s not the same thing.  If you have a Bible verse that says drinking is a sin, not just getting drunk, please tell me.  Seriously, I’d need to know.)  That all makes sense to me; anything that screws with your judgment is a danger to the witness you present to others and to holding on to whatever reservations/beliefs you have about the way you should act.  Or at least that’s how I see it.

I still believe sex is meant for marriage (meaning, yes, I’m a virgin), I try to watch my language and take that love-your-neighbor-as-yourself thing seriously, though some days I’m better at that than others.

I struggle a lot lately with heaven and salvation and whether I believe the God I worship would send people I love to hell.

It makes sense to me in theory, the concept of balance between love and mercy requiring a choice to receive salvation.  But when it comes to practical application, looking people I love in the eye and believing they’re damned…  Is it any wonder I falter?  They’re good people (I know, I know, no one’s “good enough”, but…) people I love.  Part of me rebels at the concept.

And how am I supposed to defend my faith, convince others to believe, when I’m so full of uncertainty these days?

I get that we can’t pick and choose pieces we like to make a God we understand.  Still… I choose to trust God to do what’s right, however that works in the end.

And I’ll continue walking that treacherous line between respecting that they believe something different, being scared of confrontation, and being terrified that they’re going to go to hell because I didn’t try hard enough.