The Gospel Changed Marriage, Not the Gays

The following is my essay, excerpted from the book: Why the Church of the Nazarene Should Be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming.  A lot of people have asked me to explain, scripturally why I feel gender should not be a factor in marriage.  Well, this is it.  Hopefully you'll read it with the spirit of reverence and respect with which it was written.

The Gospel Changed Marriage, Not the Gays

by Ryan Scott

"Surprisingly, the most compelling scriptural argument for Christians to affirm marriage between two men is our understanding of women."

During my time in seminary, I dove deeply into the scriptures for support of our denomination’s stance on gay marriage. If I was going to be a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene, I wanted to be prepared not only with a statement, but with a solid explanation for our beliefs. I found, though, the more I studied, scripture gave me fewer and fewer reasons to oppose same-sex couples and more and more reasons to affirm them.

At the core of everything is our understanding of marriage itself.

When it comes to a theological argument about LGBTQ+ inclusion, you can throw out the issues of sex and biology—the Church of the Nazarene already affirms that the most appropriate context for sex is within a committed, Christ-centered marriage. The answer to who should be sleeping with whom is simple: spouses.

From there, the only remaining questions are ‘Who should be in a marriage and why?’

If you look at the history of marriage and the evolution of theology both in scripture and after it was written, you’ll see a stark difference in how God’s people have answered those questions. There’s an obvious movement from marriage as a social institution to marriage as a fully religious commitment, and it mirrors the movement of women as property to the recognition of women as full equals (at least in theory).

While our wedding liturgy talks about Genesis 2:24 as the foundation of Christian marriage, citing Adam and Eve becoming one flesh, it’s an interpretive leap that may not be wholly appropriate.

There’s no mention of marriage at all in Genesis 2 (there’s no separate word for ‘wife’ in Greek or Hebrew, it’s the word for ‘woman’ that becomes the English ‘wife’ when translators think it’s appropriate). In this passage we find only the kind of holy commitment to one another we now associate with marriage. But it took human society, as well as the Church, a long time to get from one to the other.

Early human marriage was a simple transfer of property. Women were objects to be owned—first by their fathers and then by their husbands. In fact, this social arrangement was so unseemly to God’s people that priests wanted nothing to do with performing or solemnizing marriages until the late Middle Ages, when the power of the Church was waning and requiring clerical approval of a marriage proved a particularly effective means of social control.

The religious rules around marriage all had to do with property rights. Fornication was a violation of a father by ‘defiling’ his property (daughter) and adultery was a violation of a husband by ‘defiling’ his wife—again, a property crime.

There’s no scriptural prohibition of extra-marital sex by men, so long as these other rules are observed. There was no written recrimination for, say, a man sleeping with a prostitute or his own servant girl, until Paul started calling it out by name in 1 Corinthians.

Modern conservative Christian sexual ethics essentially took the scriptural chastity rules for women and applied them to men, where it just as easily could’ve gone the other way (which is essentially what modern liberal Christian sexual ethics look like). In either event, things changed because we went from viewing women as property to viewing them as people.

Galatians says there is “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.” It’s not saying that these distinctions don’t matter, that men and women are the same; it’s saying these distinctions are not of degree. Jews are not better than Gentiles. Slaves do not have a different status from free people. Men and women are not fundamentally different in value.

Many use this verse to support LGBTQ+ inclusion. I do not. I don’t believe inclusion can be proof-texted, just as exclusion cannot be derived from any one or series of verses. Affirmation of gay marriage arises as the necessary theological conclusion of broader arguments made in scripture. Our understanding of marriage has changed because of the massive theological shifts made in the process of God’s people better understanding how God has called us to live.

We see, even in the Hebrew scriptures, the beginning of the marriage analogy for the relationship between God and God’s people that continues through the New Testament. The Church is the bride of Christ and God’s faithfulness to us becomes the template for our marriage relationships with one another.

Paul introduces the notion of mutuality in marriage that was earth-shattering for the time. 1 Corinthians 7 teaches that women share ownership, not only of their own bodies, but of their husbands’ bodies as well, and that sexual practice in marriage should be by mutual consent. He’s tearing apart the notion of marriage as property exchange and recognizing the relational aspect, something we take for granted today, but is a relatively recent development.

Up until the last 100 years, almost no one married for love. Sure, spouses might have loved each other and certainly love can grow in any relationship where it’s fostered. But love as a primary motivation for marriage wasn’t even contemplated at any point in the Bible’s writing.

The point of marriage was to solidify or improve social conditions, to secure peace between powerful families, or to enhance the economic status of one or both parties. This was built primarily around having children. The purpose of marriage was to produce heirs, which is why barrenness is seen as such a curse throughout the bible.

For most of human history, if you wanted love, you looked outside your marriage. This is, again, why Paul’s words are so ground-breaking: husbands love your wives as Christ loves the Church. For Paul, and subsequently for Christian theology, marriage was not just about meeting your wife’s physical needs to enable child-bearing, but to care for her as a person. Your beloved is God’s beloved, and you must care for them the way God cares for them.

This modern, thoroughly scriptural, thoroughly Christian understanding of marriage is then read back into Genesis 2. As God declares “the two become one flesh,” we understand a far deeper meaning than anyone at the time of its original writing could’ve comprehended.

Genesis communicates the human need for connection and community. We are not designed to be alone. We need partners. We need each other. Marriage has become our best earthly approximation of the connection we were created to have with each other.

We embrace Jesus’ teaching from Matthew that in the Kingdom “people will neither marry nor be given in marriage,” because we’ll be able to love everyone as God intends. Until that time, we commit to focusing on one relationship above all others.

Thus, our understanding of Christian marriage is about as far from the social regulation of female property transfer as it could possibly be. We have completely transformed the institution into something beautiful and important and good, but also something unrecognizable to the writers and first readers of scripture.

So, no, Paul doesn’t talk about gay marriage, likely because he couldn’t en- vision it. It wouldn’t make any sense in his social context. He was just beginning to apply Christian principles to what was an entirely secular economic and social system. At the same time, though, gay marriage makes perfect sense in our contemporary context, largely because of the ways in which Paul himself reframed the Christian understanding of marriage.

The final piece of this puzzle is gender. Genesis talks about a man and a woman. Male and female biology fit together for procreation in obvious ways. The analogies in scripture are gendered, referencing husband and wife. But, if Christian marriage, as we understand it, is two people committing to God, and to each other, to love their spouse as God loves God’s people, does it matter what gender those two people happen to be?

It can’t matter—not unless we’re willing to require men and women to inhabit specific and differentiated gender roles. If there is some innate difference (beyond our sex organs) that makes men and women truly unique from each other, then there’s some reason to make a gender requirement in marriage.

But scripture doesn’t support that differentiation, not anywhere from Genesis to Revelation.

Sure, scripture was written in the midst of a patriarchal society; but much like the theological evolution of marriage, it also challenges the faithful to a broader, more egalitarian understanding of men, women, and humanity in general.

There’s insufficient space here to fully explain the equality inherent in Genesis 2, but the literature is voluminous that the spouse God crafted for the first human was an equal and complementary being. For years, we’ve gendered this complementarity, relying on stereotypes that women are sensitive and men are strong, women are carers and men are conquerors, that women and men possess uniquely different traits that must fit together for marriage to work.

We don’t have to deny this complementary picture of marriage to expand its definition beyond a man and a woman. If anything, those gendered stereotypes limit both men and women from being the full, beautiful creation God intends them to be. How much pain and misery have we caused by communicating there are only certain ways to be “real” men and women?

Things are never that simple.

I do most of the cooking in our home. I do the shopping, and I stayed home when our daughter was young. My wife asks for power tools for her birthday, makes most of the money, and enjoys getting her hands dirty far more than I do.

Yet she’s also the decorator, finely attuned to aesthetics, while I spend much of my
free time watching sports. We don’t fit any gendered stereotype or its opposite. We’re unique individuals who happen to be male and female. What’s more important is that we complement each other in ways that make our marriage stronger than either of us could be on our own. We got married because we were convinced we could do more for God’s Kingdom together than we could do separately.

I know plenty of same-sex couples for whom the same is true, whose marriages are a blessing to them, to God, and to the world. I see no reason to deny them an equal place in the Kingdom of God or in the Church of the Nazarene. Christ calls us to break down barriers, cross lines of division, and embrace that self-giving love of God which is the only hope for the salvation of the world.

The Church should be at the forefront of recognizing, affirming, and embracing marriage for all people as it is the natural next step in the Spirit-led transformation of marriage from misogyny and oppression to freedom, equality, and love.

Adam, Isaiah, and Paul may not have understood what they were starting at the time, but God is always at work among the faithful to transmit and trans- form God’s world into what it was created to be. Recognition and affirmation of LGBTQ+ couples is not a capitulation to culture, but a gospel-infused counter-cultural movement to further welcome God’s coming Kingdom.

A Spirit of Pain and Optimism

I spent the past weekend at Mid-Atlantic District Assembly - the annual gathering of Church of the Nazarene congregations from DC, Delaware, Maryland, the panhandle of WV, and Central PA.  It was our first opportunity to be together in person since 2019.  We were in a new location, with a new schedule, so a lot of the weekend was feeling things out.  I definitely didn't get to have the same kinds or the same number of conversations I've been used to in the past.

Those conversations I did have, though, were really interesting.  COVID has allowed a lot of congregations to break bad habits and engage in loving people creatively and with intention in ways that previous structures didn't allow very well.  I felt a real sense of emphasis and attention on connection - which makes total sense after a prolonged period of being separate.

I know the last two years were a real struggle for a lot of pastors.  There were internal battles over QAnon and mask wearing perpetuated by the continued alignment of fundamentalist evangelicalism and far right politics.  I heard very few of those discussions, though.  While that kind of conversation will not be going away any time soon, the pastors I call peers are really dedicated to the gospel and, as hard as it is, have generally found ways to speak into the encroaching cultures with gospel truth.

The place where that's not happening though, is in how we deal with LGBTQIA+ conversations.  It's an issue becoming increasingly relevant to Nazarene congregations, who have a pastoral necessity to engage in tough conversations about sexuality, chastity, and morality in an atmosphere that encouraged entrenchments on extreme positions with an existential fear that allowing for a consideration of the opposite position equals defeat or betrayal.

As I've explained to my local mainline protestant pastor friends, "The Church of the Nazarene can't even have calm, rational theological conversation about the sinfulness of consuming a drop of alcohol; we're definitely not ready for discussions of human sexuality."

We are, after all, an extremely conservative denomination (80+% of Nazarenes in the US voted for Trump - and many of our other world areas, where the vast majority of members live, are often even more conservative in both theology and politics), that only just recently removed the word "abomination" from our core language about queer folks - a statement that falls distinctly into "Side B" language, despite common practice that won't even allow that much leeway in most contexts.

I heard a number of anecdotal references to the conversation our General Superintendents have with candidates before they're ordained.  I'm hesitant to share them without real confirmation, but it's in line with the institutional shift, so I'll do it for now - but if any recent ordinands or General Superintendents want to disabuse me of this notion, I'll gladly apologize and amend.

I've been told the GS will make clear that ordinands can't drink alcohol and that they must be in line with the current statement on LGBTQIA+ issues.  This is interesting, because it makes a distinction between practice and belief.  They're not asking pastors to agree with the statement on alcohol (which could be much better, as I've discussed before), just to follow it.  They seem to be setting a higher bar when it comes to queer people.

I disagree with the position of the Church of the Nazarene.  I think it should be changed.  I've written about it before and will continue to advocate as we move forward.  I disagree with the position, but I've also committed not to perform a wedding my accrediting denomination doesn't allow me to officiate.  It's essentially the position they seem to be asking of clergy in terms of alcohol - you don't have to like our position, but you need to follow it.

That they're taking a harder line when it comes to LGBTQIA+ issues is completely in line with the institutional conservation model the Church of the Nazarene has been operating in for a while now.  They're doing and advocating for things that best aid the continued function of the denomination, even if they're going to make the far future more difficult.  Yes, its short sighted, but it's also about the only thing they can do without turning the whole thing into chaos.

It's a tough position to be in - just like the position of our Nazarene colleges and universities - stuck between an existential rock and hard place.  Offering grace and engaging publicly in conversations will create tears in the fabric and endanger the continued existence of Nazarene institutions.  That danger is real and scary.  I don't envy the people making those decisions.

At the same time, though, while this feeling of institutional retrenchment pervaded the weekend, I had conversation after conversation where pastors told me to keep pushing, keep asking questions, keep advocating for conversation and consideration.  Even those pastors who agree with the official denominational position understand the real complexities that exist in the practical living out of ideas in congregation and community and want to be free to talk about an issue that's long been a third rail.

From my perspective, it is an existential reality.  The only people I know who'd be comfortable with the human sexuality stance of the Church of the Nazarene are those currently participating in or who've been raised in conservative Christianity.  This group is growing smaller with every passing year.

I don't think we should change our position simply because its less popular.  If you know me, you know I gravitate towards unpopular ideas.  I go out of my way to find and embrace them.  I've changed my mind on the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ folks because of my study of scripture in an attempt to better defend the Nazarene position.

I've been converted by the Holy Spirit through the careful study of scripture.  I've been confirmed in my decision by working with a lot of really great, young pastors in my local congregation.  We've had a succession of queer pastors and pastoral students working in congregations in town.  Most of them have come from Baptist, Wesleyan, and Evangelical contexts where their ministry was not welcome.  They're some of the best example of holiness people I know - fervent in pursuit of the gospel and the Kingdom, willing to serve and learn and love like Jesus.

I still have great hope because the Church of the Nazarene continues to be full of similarly humble and committed servants - clergy and lay, young and old - committed to scriptural holiness and determined to live outrageously counter-cultural gospel lives in the world around them.  I know it's going to be a tricky process moving forward.  I don't know what the outcome will be, but I have great faith the God who has seen us this far will continue to lead and guide if we follow passionately and graciously.

I don't think the future is something to be feared, even if it requires difficult conversations.  Close relationships don't exist without tough and honest conversation.  I hope we continue to make space for them to take place - in our own homes, congregations, and lives, as well as in our communities, districts, and denominations.

Some Thoughts on ENC in a Particularly Troubling Week

I went to Eastern Nazarene College.  I really, really enjoyed my time there.  It was the perfect place for me to work out what it meant to be an adult in a supportive, but not overbearing environment.  I know that’s not a universal sentiment and there are lots of good reasons people have problems with whatever college they attend – ENC is definitely far from perfect – but it was a really great place for me.

I would really have liked to be more involved over the years.  I spent a lot of time halfway across the country at Seminary and now live six hours away.  I can’t be there for shows and games.  I can’t use the library or grab a coffee and sit.  I’d love to be a presence on campus and in the lives of students and I have some measure of envy for those who have that opportunity.

I long to be there, because it was the atmosphere, the people, the community that was so valuable to me – and I’d like to be able to give back.  My wife and I have given money, I think every year, for quite a while now.  Not a lot, for sure, but we’ve tried to be faithful in our support.  It’s been 18 years since I spent more than a day or two on campus – outside of those big, old, falling apart buildings, almost nothing is the same – but I do believe the community remains.

As in my time (although I was largely blind to it then), there are people who don’t feel welcome or supported in that community.  That’s truly, really sad.

Recently, it seems, the same tensions over LGBTQ+ issues that are roiling conservative Christians across the US have reared their heads again at ENC.  I won’t share the details, because I really only know them third hand, but whatever they are, they’re representative of dozens and hundreds and thousands of other details over the years, dating back to well before my time.

The fact is, there are lots of faithful queer Christians out there, people who take the Bible and the Kingdom of God as seriously as anyone else.  There are lots of congregations and denominations and traditions that are supportive and nurturing of these Christians and many of those are represented by students at ENC.

When most attendees were Nazarene, it was easy enough to toe the party line.  Even if it wasn’t the healthiest or the best for students, there was some logic to it – let the Nazarenes figure out their own junk – but that’s not reality any longer.  Most students come from non-Nazarene traditions and an increasing number have no problem with the idea that gay people could also be Christians; really, an increasing number have a hard time fathoming why anyone would think differently.

Even within the denomination, those views are changing.  I’m an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and I would sure like us to stop using the gender of our spouses as some litmus test for faith.  That’s not a majority opinion just yet, but I know I speak for a lot of ministers who don’t feel safe expressing a real opinion on the matter, and for an increasing number who feel a moral compulsion to speak out for change.

Fear, though, is the other side of the issue.  The school relies on funding from congregations, many of whom already feel the school is “too liberal” and not accommodating to what they want for their kids.  The sad truth is: if ENC changed its stance towards gay faculty or students tomorrow, the school would close by Fall (if, in fact, there were a viable mechanism for change, which doesn’t really exist).

There is a growing gap between what students want out of a college and what parents and donors want the school to be.  That’s not just true at ENC, but at Christian colleges all over the country.  As generous and as hopeful as those of us who’d like to see change might be able to be, it’s VERY unlikely it would be enough to sustain the school outside of more conservative support.

This is where I feel the most conflicted: On the one hand, if ENC is not willing to step up and lead in difficult conversations about the theological and ethical formation of young people, then maybe it shouldn’t exist.  Advocating for the health and well-being of students in its care is certainly a worthy hill on which ENC could die.

On the other hand, there’s still a lot of great stuff being done in and through ENC.  The top evidence of this is that these movements towards change aren’t coming from outside the community; the very people ENC produces are those speaking and standing up.  The spirit of support and encouragement I so valued as a student must be alive and well, because ENC’s students and alumni continue to reflect it!

There’s always been a tricky balance between fear-based prohibitions and the risk of allowing students to fail in the pursuit of truth.  It’s especially true of sexual ethics in evangelical environments.  Fear usually wins out over hope.  Regardless of your beliefs on any controversial topic, we should all agree that fear reactions are not compatible with Christian life.

If the Spirit of truth guides us into all truth, we shouldn’t be afraid of asking questions.  I learned that growing up in the Church of the Nazarene and it was reinforced at ENC.  As a parent, I know we’re desperate to spare our children harm and pain in that journey towards truth, but as a former child, I’m not sure the harm of that protection was any better than the potential harm that protection avoided.

It’s a risk either way.

LGBTQ+  Christians probably don’t feel welcome in the Church of the Nazarene or at ENC and I don’t blame them for leaving or writing us off, but, for me, as a 5th generation Nazarene, as a straight white male who isn’t actually being harmed by the slow pace of change, sticking around and continuing to push in the right direction seems the only ethical thing to do.  I love both those messed up institutions; they are a part of me, and I cannot and will not abandon them.  I want to work to help make them places of welcome for more and more people (and more kids of people) than they’ve been before.

There are limitations and complexities and financial considerations.  There are legal and political and theological issues that just aren’t going to be resolved overnight.  I’m encouraged by the students and alumni willing to speak up and whatever happens, I’m here in support as we move forward together.

Because of my faith in Jesus Christ, I believe profoundly that wherever we’re going, we’re going there together, or we’re not going at all.  Loving your enemies is kind of what this whole Jesus thing is about.  You can’t browbeat your opponents into submission.  Shame and guilt and anger might work in the short term, but they’re poison down the road.

We may have learned this the hard way in the Church of the Nazarene, but I do think we’ve learned it.  Other denominations are tearing each other apart with anger and recalcitrance and lack of trust.  As much as we disagree, as much as “the other side” might seem backwards and sinful, we have, so far, managed to maintain a belief that we’re all pursuing God in the best way we know how.

ENC needs a little more of that belief at this moment – maybe a lot more – to recognize all the gifts possessed by all members of the community.  I may not be as connected or influential as I’d like to be right now and I may have leaked ignorance and privilege all over these pages, but I can’t remain silent.  We’ve got to do better and we’ve got to do it together, without fear, in the Spirit that leads to truth.

Lets include ALL members of the community and encourage them as they work out their faith in an environment like Eastern Nazarene College!

One More Time.

I'm not sure when we'll figure this out, but I'm about ready to give up. I try not to repeat things over and over again here (at least not too often), but this business in Indiana just makes me sad. They've now got a law on the books allowing people to deny service for "religious reasons," which, in practicality, just means gay people. I'm sure it's already law in other places as well. It's just sad.

It used to make me mad. I used to get upset, frustrated. And I suppose, if I wanted to, I could work up that anger again. I'm just not sure what the point would be. The people I should be angry at are my own people; it's evangelical Christians spurring this sort of thing. It's not as though the general public looks at a law like this and goes, "Makes sense to me;" it's widely derided. People recognize the logical holes in an argument like this. They recognize the broad swaths of humanity who can now be legally and publicly discriminated against (what if my faith forbids tattoos or your clothes are too revealing for my moral liking).

It's an issue of people, my people, being afraid and confused and it makes me sad.

It's not about homosexuality or whatever your faith believes on such things. People think it's about that, but for Christians that's not a concern. We're called to love no matter what - to treat everyone as better than ourselves - to embrace and celebrate the humanity in everyone, no matter who they are, what they look like or what they do. Our call is to love people even when they hurt us or kill us or do us harm. The Christian call is one of suffering.

This sort of thing is the exact opposite of what we're called to do. It's a shame and an embarrassment and a violation of the name of Christ. Plain and simple.

Lots of organizations who use Indianapolis for conventions are talking about changing venues. Indy's a pretty popular spot for big conventions. They do it well. One part of me wishes my own denomination would make such a statement (although we're so hopelessly intertwined with Republican politics and self-righteous legalism, we're likely to celebrate this kind of thing). But I'm not sure a boycott would be any better than the law itself. It's the same response - shunning someone you disagree with.

It would be great for someone like The Church of the Nazarene, a conservative evangelical denomination, with a very traditional stance on marriage and sex, to denounce this law, express regret, and urge more compassion from the lawmakers in Indiana. Then hold the event anyway, because boycotts just aren't the way of Christ.

But, when measured against reality, that notion seems even sillier and more far-fetched than a law like this getting passed in the first place. I could never see it happening.

We care too much about reputation and power and influence and money.

There's no one right way to be human - it's a lesson the evangelical community has a hard time learning. There are certainly a lot of wrong ways to be human, though - and we're real good about picking those out everywhere but in the mirror.

This stinks. I'm sad.

Do better.

Chris Rock, Killer Mike, and Racial Progress

Chris Rock is a comedian. He's also a really smart dude. He comes to things from an interesting perspective and he's always got something to say that's been well thought out. He doesn't shoot from the hip. I really enjoyed this recent interview with him. They cover a lot of things (including his new movie, that I think may be very good) like politics and race.

He's got a great line when asked about the difference between the black civil rights movement and the one currently happening with the LGBT community. "I always call Ellen DeGeneres the gay Rosa Parks. If Rosa Parks had one of the most popular daytime TV shows, I’m sure the civil-rights movement would’ve moved a little bit faster too."

There's a lot of good stuff there about Obama and politics in general. I've seen a few places pick up his take on racial progress.

Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.

So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.

Chris Rock doesn't do interviews unless he's promoting a movie (even though he barely talks about the movie), so enjoy it while it lasts. You can find lots more Rock at Grantland, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Hollywood Reporter. He can do whatever interviews he wants because he's so unavailable, but also because he's one of the few celebrities entirely free to speak his mind. He's made tons of money and his audience won't care what he says. He's also got five lifetimes worth of street cred, so he can speak honestly both from and to his place as a prominent African American.

Another person in a similar position is Killer Mike, a rapper (currently of Run the Jewels). There's a great podcast with him on Grantland. Here he engages on topics of importance to the black experience, but not in the sort of monolithic way so many of us (white people) are used to hearing it. There's only a few minutes at the beginning about music, the rest (and it's more than an hour) is unique, intelligent, and challenging for anybody.

When speaking of racial progress, I have to agree with Rock: it's about white people changing. One of the things I notice about racial discussions in this country is that they're less about race, especially among younger people. This is not the old trope about class being the new race (class will always be a divisive topic), but something different about the motivations behind our discussions of race. This is really in the generation behind me (and although I'm 33, there is at least one, if not two full generations of adults, distinctly different, younger than me), but race seems less about race. We can't deny the shocking numbers of racial disparity, but in the end, when (younger) white people are upset about Ferguson these days, it's not because a black man was denied justice, but because a human being was.

That's not to say race isn't a component and an important one (white human beings still have a better time of it in the justice department), but I think white people may actually starting to view people who look different as people first. I think (hope) this will allow for us to hear and express a true diversity of opinion. So that when Chris Rock or Killer Mike speak to the public, they can do so AS black men, but not ON BEHALF of black men.

When a black man in a suit is on CNN, 95% of the time, the audience assumes (or is supposed to assume) he's speaking on behalf of black people. It's the black opinion. That doesn't happen with white men - we all assume they speak for themselves or perhaps a specific group with whom they hold a position (like the NRA or Greenpeace). Obviously, the hope is for that to change. I'm sure even Al Sharpton would love (well, wouldn't totally mind, might be more like it) to fade into a chorus of diverse black voices with access to mainstream media.

I share all these links today in the hopes more people can gain access to the kind of perspective we don't always hear, especially in a world where everything is condensed into soundbites. There's no "us vs them" stuff here. It's two men, with their own unique identities, expressing their own individual opinions in public forum. I wouldn't necessarily agree with everything said and they certainly don't necessarily agree with each other. Race is a part of who they are, it informs their perspective and opinions, but they don't allow it to be the defining aspect of what they have to say.

Neither should we.

If we manage that, well, then it might just be some small step on whatever Chris Rock will call racial progress.

Is It Just Chikin?

As I've watched the streams of vitriol and defiance cruise by on twitter and facebook today, I've been thinking about how this whole Chik-fil-a thing is playing out.

A comment on my last post about the issue got me thinking. KaylaKaze wrote

No one (well, now one worth listening to) is up in arms about Cathy's opinion. What they're upset about is they financially support hate groups. They're free to have whatever opinions they want, even if they think the KKK is great and Hitler was misunderstood. When they start ACTING on those beliefs and giving money to actively hurt people is when it becomes an issue.

What she's talking about is that the Southern Poverty Law Center has declared the Family Research Council a hate group (like the KKK or the Aryan Nation) because they have repeatedly (in print and on their website) tried to link homosexuality with terrorism and pedophilia. The charitable foundation funded by Chik-fil-a once gave the Family Research Council $1,000.

First of all, I don't think Kayla and I travel in the same circles. There's a lot of people I know and love who are upset about Cathy's opinion - but most importantly I realized that people I know on both "sides" of this issue are completely talking past one another.

Those people I know and love who are swamping Chik-fil-a restaurants around the country and proudly posting their waffle fry pictures are purportedly doing so to defend "href="http://onemorethingblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/religious-freedom.html">religious freedom" and freedom of speech and, I guess, taking a public stand on how they think the country should define marriage. They're not focused on hate speech or hate groups and likely haven't even heard the argument behind Kayla's comment.

As I said before, they're defending a brand - their brand of political ideology currently represented by Chik-fil-a. Most of the Chik-fil-a supporters I know would never intentional flaunt something as serious as hate speech or hate groups in the face of anyone, no matter their opinion on homosexuals or gay marriage. They're not insidious villains.

At the same time, I know a lot of people who would never accept the characterization of the Family Research Council as a hate group, would never consider the Southern Poverty Law Center as an authority to name a ham sandwich, and would at least not directly challenge connections between homosexuals and pedophiles. Basically, none of the rationale expressed would even be considered by most of the intended audience. The only solution is making friends and allowing people to make up their own mind through experience.

This doesn't really change my initial argument - people are substituting chicken sandwiches for relationships. People don't trust each other because they're defining themselves and everyone else by what they buy, use, wear, eat, consume. Only your own actions represent you, not your consumption. Eating or not eating at Chik-fil-a doesn't represent your beliefs on gay marriage. As much as you want it to, it just doesn't.

Here's the deal:

LGBT friends - those at Chik-fil-a today don't care about your life or your relationships. Yes, maybe in some existential/salvific sense - they don't really want you to end up in hell (which is at least well meaning). But they don't care who you're with or what you do, not really. What they believe, for some reason, is that the government should be an arbiter or Christian morality. Granted, they generally want this only as it applies to homosexuals and fetuses and less so as it applies to war, life, death, taxes, interdependence, generosity, the environment and national identity, but it's not really about you. It's about power and control and how terribly frightened we are when things seem to be changing and we find ourselves on the "losing" end.

Conservative Christian friends - those people attacking your beloved Chikin restaurant, they don't care about you or your religion. Sure, everyone would like to be accepted and no one really enjoys people disapproving of something so central to one's identity. But they're not out to destroy religion or make your church, or its doctrines, illegal. What they want is to be accepted by society. Remember, these are people who spent large portions of life being told they were broken or deficient or somehow lesser human beings than the rest of us. You have to ask yourself, who are you protecting and at what cost? Marriage, in the government's eyes, is essentially a contract between two consenting adults to share property, receive benefits, and file joint tax returns. We've had "no fault" divorce for more than 50 years. What's in any way Christian about marriage in our society?

If it was up to me, the government would just get out of the marriage business altogether. Call it a Civil Union, call it a legal partnership, call it a Taco Grande - just don't call it marriage.

Marriages would be reserved for religious institutions, who they could discriminate in any way their conscious demands or allows (presuming they stick to legal requirements for age and consent). As a Christian minister, I'd welcome the added ability to understand marriage in light of Christ without having a watered down civil definition clouding people's judgment.

While we're at it, if it were up to me, Chik-fil-a would serve only naturally fed, free range, hormone free chicken (as God intended) and it would cost five cents per sandwich.

In short: listen more, talk less, prioritize relationships, freely give the benefit of the doubt, and don't leave your political statements to fast food chains. Also, if someone tells you to be scared of something, don't listen - they are only tryingto manipulate you.