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| Since the great majority of my friends have moved on, I want to cultivate some things I have never tried on xanga, and I always did hate the blog name I chose in frustration, I'm dropping xanga for the time being.
If you care, you can find me here:
http://cjcoyne.tumblr.com/
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| If you weren't given your name by your parents and you had to choose, what would you name yourself?
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| Catching up from last week.
She wasn't any higher than my chest and all of us girls whispered about how cute she was. Then she walked off with my purse over her arm. I caught her just before she left the building and she proceeded to tell me about the significance of my name and quiz me about my grandparents on my father's side and ask for their phone number. Cute, sweet, sweet lady. She didn't get their phone number though.
This week.
Another told me of her troubles throwing up her guts the day before and then how it was to lose her home of 34 years and everything she owned in the world to Katrina. Many from her town died three years ago. The 86 year old woman writes in to my newspaper to thank God for her blessings now and looks forward to seeing her picture in print.
Wonder what sort next week will bring. 
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| "Hi, sir, I'm with the WS and I'm putting together a senior gift guide to help people with getting gifts for older folks. Do you have a minute to tell me what kinds of presents you like for Christmas?"
"Well I don't really want anything for Christmas."
Old man pats girl's shoulder.
Girl thinks of all the other old men who told her they didn't want their kids spending money on them.
"The only think I want is a new wife...and I don't think my wife will let me."
Man walks away leaving a very stunned and horrified face staring after him.
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| I have been thinking.
I've found myself arguing (very friendly-like, of course) with my landlady the other day about whether Christians ought to be involved in government. She's a pacifist and holds that Christians shouldn't bear the sword; therefore, they shouldn't or couldn't hold many government positions. She keeps avoiding the question of whether the Commander-in-Chief should be a Christian and holds the view that the City of God and the City of Man are two entirely separate and distinct things. I believe very strongly in godly policemen and presidents.
But I've also found myself differing with many conservative "Christian" positions lately. Why must the first outlet for our religion so often be politics instead of personal relationships?
I've got a list of things, but for example, I wonder if the whole Federal Marriage Amendment wasn't a waste of time and distracting from the real goal. While laws do guide, they also follow what is already in our hearts in a system of governance such as ours. And I'm not sure a federal law is where we want to be focusing this battle right now.
It seems to me that in fighting so solely publicly and divisively for healthy families and children--which I do believe are the foundation of our society--we are neglecting a more fundamental way to change our nation and keep our families healthy.
The Bible is pretty darn clear on how those who have already rejected the truth yet call themselves Christian are to be treated.
"I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat."
It is a difficult thing the Church must do in its own midst. But we also forget we are not a Christian nation.
I think one of the Church's biggest problems in fighting homosexual behavior and the social acceptance of such behavior is that we have long viewed our nation as the Body in dealing with this issue. The sinful behavior by unbelievers has been treated as sinful behavior by believers. Our rejection of unbelievers that ought to have been reserved for unrepentant believers, has cost us many battles, both spiritually and politically.
I'm in no way saying we should accept what they do as normal or decent; rather, that we should accept them for what they are and we once were--fallen, sinful men in need of Christ. Christians have long loved unbelieving whores, swindlers, drug addicts and drunkards. Thus we have Christian charities, medical clinics, and help programs. But not when it comes to homosexual behavior. We have been happy to drive them out of our lives and neighborhoods and let them go to hell, quite literally.
Maybe I am wrong, but it seems significant to me that I can think of few Christian programs that raise money to help gay men dying of AIDS. There are a few exceptions with "ex-gay" programs that try to help people out of a sinful lifestyle but even those seem to have sprung up with the wave of politicized issues.
My generation has heard the stories of uncloseted family members becoming outcasts, of dying gay people mocked and given no pity by Christian conservatives. Maybe we have been fed a false version of history--I don't know. But if it was how it is presented to us today, people my age have rightly noticed that something was wrong: nobody gave a damn about the lost people before it became a "moral issue" to fight about in a culture war. And so my generation reacted to the hypocrisy, swinging towards a supposed moral neutrality of sexuality.
Many conservatives see tolerance as a dirty word but it doesn't have to be. Tolerance ought to be loving (as an action) those unbelievers who are in sin. I cannot eat with unrepentant believers but I can with those who hearts have not been given the truth.
(And by "been given the truth," I don't mean being told that God hates f*** or even that the Bible condemns homosexuality, but rather being shown the love of Christ and the gospel through my actions and occasionally my words)
We ought to look at gay pride parades with far more sadness for the people who can no longer distinguish natural behavior than anger for their sin and arrogance. Who among us can throw the first stone? Were we all not also sinners, entrenched in our pride and evil ways and oblivious of our destruction of those around us until someone showed us Christ and the Holy Spirit gave us grace to see for the first time?
Laws only reveal the need of the heart, love changes it. More laws for a lost people will not transform them. We must learn to love and give ourselves to the lost. Until we have done that, we have accomplished nothing.
Maybe we ought to be curbing our mocking, angry tongues and becoming fountains of blessing and truth. Maybe we ought to be giving up a few dollars or a couple hours a week to help victims escape abusive same-sex relationships. Maybe we ought to be welcoming the gay couple who just moved in down the street with a plate of cookies rather than whispering in our front yards. Maybe we ought to be acting out love rather than fighting so hard for laws that ought to come naturally in a democracy if we have truly done our job as Christians in changing hearts.
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