The Gospel and Spiritual Gifts

Something that I have wrestled with for many years is the notion of my own worth and how the good news that Jesus died and resurrected for the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation of sinners to Father speaks to a person's worth. Like many, I struggle with showing everyone that I think I am worth more than anyone else, yet in private I often wonder if I am worth anything at all. I often show that I think that I am smarter, stronger, and better equipped than anyone, but in the deepest part of my soul  know that I am just dust that has no more value than anything else in my broken state.

If Jesus does not redeem us, we are helpless. This fact is not theologically disputable. If Jesus does not come and satisfy what God requires, He won't be satisfied. We just aren't able to satisfy God or do anything that is wholly good since we chose to disobey Him. 

Similarly, I have wrestled with what it means to have and use Spiritual gifts. In this post, I am not concerning myself with trying to examine the scriptural arguments for Dispensationalism, continuity of gifts, or anything like that. For the purpose of this discussion, let's just examine gifts like teaching, prophecy (as in identification of and wisdom for things not presently observed), and discernment. These gifts aren't necessarily controversial.Those gifts are mentioned here, among other places.

(as a potential spoiler, this post isn't really even about gifts specifically)

When God saves a person, they are transformed. Adopted into His family. New Creations. Heirs of the Kingdom with Christ. However, if you are like me, you sometimes find yourself sitting at your kitchen counter in the middle of the night, trying to write words to glorify God but knowing that you are incredibly broken and without a doubt running away from your Father and your Lord. If I am relying on my own merit, my own actions, or my own ability to do anything to please God right now, I am hopeless. If I am trusting and depending on myself (really for anything), I am not only hopeless, but I also completely misunderstand the Gospel. The good news of Jesus is that although I could literally do NOTHING to be right with God, He loves me and puts His righteousness on me by way of His painful, agonizing, sacrificial death. Then, He gives me the hope (expectation) of that sacrifice being sufficient because He resurrected.

Similarly, when God saves a person, He gives members of His Kingdom gifts to advance, shape, and build His Kingdom with Him. If you, like me, find yourself doing things that are scriptural and right and good by your own power, there comes a time when you find yourself wondering why in the world God would use a foolish, arrogant, immature, forgetful, and disobedient citizen as a tool to bring the Kingdom. And then you wonder if you have done anything at all. It is in this situation where I (and you, if you have ever felt this way) must again remember the Gospel. Any Spiritual gift from God is generally not something given and walked away from. That is, if He is not working in and through you to use this gift, it really isn't being used at all. The point of God giving someone teaching as a gift is not that person just being a great teacher; it's God's choice to use a person to teach and working through the person to do it. If God gives you the gift of discernment, the idea is not that you become a detective that  solves Spiritual crimes, but that God works in and through you to build and edify His Church. The work is supernatural. That's why it's a gift from God and not just some random ability you have.

The point of it all: if God is not working miraculously through you, it isn't His work. If you can save yourself, it isn't His work. I doubt anyone would realistically be willing to count on their own merit to please God. Likewise, if you set out to teach but God isn't working through you, it is nothing more than a transfer of information. Giftedness is God working through someone who could not do it otherwise. If it was doable without God's intervention, would it be a gift at all?

What Next?

In Western society, there is an ideal that is exalted above all others. That ideal is probably best exemplified by imagining a mix between Bill Gates, Jay-Z, John Mayer, Barack Obama, and Steven Hawking with each of their 'best' traits being shown. That is, imagine that you are the most wealthy, most popular, most powerful, most attractive, most intelligent, most liked, most youthful, and most capable person that exists. Whether or not you or anyone say these things out loud, this is what you want. It is what your flesh screams for. No matter how humble, mature, or secure you are, your broken flesh longs for this.

To be clear, I am not talking about the healing and transformation that is a result of Jesus' work in your life. I am talking about you, the broken person that is helpless without Jesus. This isn't a personal indictment on anyone. In fact, it is not necessarily a bad thing that these things exist. The fact of the matter is that you have deep, insatiable desires and, without Jesus' intervention, your 'natural' inclination is to look to all of these attributes as their fulfillment.

For a moment, imagine that you attained the highest possible 'level' for each of the aforementioned attributes. You are the richest, sexiest, most powerful, most popular, smartest person on earth. The question then becomes this: what next? At what point does it matter? You are the pinnacle of all things human, but in the end what does it mean? Are you satisfied?

The funny thing about this question is that it's already been answered: think, if you will, about Solomon, son of David. 1 Kings 4-6 talks about Solomon's power and wisdom, which is also spoken about elsewhere. The dude had more money than anyone in the world, had more wisdom than the greatest civilization to that point (Egypt), and had power to command kingdoms that weren't even his own. How well liked was he? He was revered as the wisest person of his own time and of all time by many cultures. Was he ever sexually denied? Doubtful; 1 Kings 11 tells us that he had the choice of 700 wives of royal birth and 300 women specifically employed to have sex with him, plus Pharaoh's daughter!

How did Solomon respond to all of this unprecedented (and thus far unreplicated) success? He was depressed to the point of calling everything worthless. All of Ecclesiastes talks about how wisdom, power, sexual conquest, accomplishment, and whatever else you may seek is in the end worthless. In fact, the only thing Solomon comes up with that's worth living for is the toil that is given to him by God (Ecclesiastes 5:18). What? He doesn't commend having more power than any man has ever had? He doesn't commend having so much money that not only does he never have to worry about having enough of anything, but all of Israel does not? He doesn't commend having sex all freaking day? Isn't that the American dream? Be financially secure, be well thought of, have sex all the time, and have political weight: sounds like it to me.

The reason all of this stuff ends up jacked up is this: there is no way a human being could ever fulfill themselves. We simply aren't able to. One of the most beautiful things I've ever read is C.S. Lewis' "The Weight of Glory," an essay in which Lewis discusses the reality of human nature and the innate desire inside of each one of us for a longing that cannot even be fully described. It is called a nostalgia for something that you have never experienced. I remember having a fight with my mom one time in high school, a time in which I had come to terms with the fact that I definitely was not a disciple of Jesus. I don't remember much of the fight other than me crying because I was very heartbroken about a lot of things going on in my life and telling mom how frustrated I was that there was nothing truly fulfilling. The word I used was 'perfect.' I will forever remember this vividly. I know my mom had a lot of wise words to offer, but I was foolish and ignored basically everything she said (basically that God was the perfect fulfillment of what I longed for, which is what I'm about to tell you) because I was so darn immature.

It is at this point that I ask you, reader, to carefully study and examine the scriptures to make sure they say what I am about to claim. That claim is this: the point of God putting on flesh was not only to atone for our unrighteousness, but also to teach us the best possible way to live. Why else did He live for 30+ years? Why else would he spend 3 years walking around with a bunch of teenagers (no, the disciples were not old men; only one [Peter] was old enough to pay Temple tax [paid at 18 years old], which we know from Matthew 17: 24-27)?

The epitomizing passage for this idea is John 10:1-21, which talks about the idea of life and life to the full. How is that going for you with getting educated, getting power, gaining wealth, freely expressing yourself sexually, and being popular? Do you have life? Are you getting life from those things? I'm going to be so bold as to assume that you do not feel overwhelmingly free to live with abundant joy, if those are high-priority pursuits for you. Why is this the case? Because we were designed with a longing in us that cannot be satisfied by anything of this world. C.S. Lewis, in his essay, writes this:

 "Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

It is in light of this idea that I ask myself this every day and you right now: what are you getting life from, and does it actually give life. As a scientist and a mathematician, I have done extensive research on things that give life. So far, I have tested a few hypotheses concerning life-giving things. Here is an abbreviated list of things I know to not give life in and of themselves: friends, school, money, food, sports, rivalry, athletic ability, good looks, popularity, beer, travel, science, intellect, girlfriends, people, sexual expression, porn, music, escapism, X-box, being a summer staffer at Look Up Lodge, working with high school students, and Cookout trays. I've tried to find some sort of life in all of them at one time or another.

There is one thing that will give you the life you crave, the fulfillment and joy and peace and completion that you ache for like you have never ached for anything else: picking up your cross, giving up on pursuing life from material things, abandoning comfort, and following the simple, difficult, and beautiful way of Jesus of Nazareth. Many will trust Jesus salvation and what happens after they are no longer living on this earth. For them and for you, the question is this: is Jesus worth trusting while you're on it?

A Case for Emotional Experiences Being Important

If I am honest with you, I am very skittish about the idea of an 'emotional high.' What I mean by that is an experience in which a person presumably has an encounter with God and as a result has a sudden and dramatic shift in direction or thought. For example, many kids will come to Look Up Lodge this summer, hear some very powerful teaching, experience some very powerful encounters with truth, and maybe leave camp 'on fire' about their relationship with Jesus and in awe of His glory. For better or worse, this happens.

The reason I am skittish about it is that I experienced many of these 'emotional highs' while I was growing up, but they were actually quite vacuous in the grand scheme of things. They are often fake, have little meaning, or result in being steered away from truth. These situations happen in real life all the time, and it is the story of probably more than half of the people I talk to that have walked away from the faith.

The problem with this is that they didn't have the faith they thought they had. I don't mean than in the 5-point Calvinist sense, but in this statement: unsustained faith is always found on something unsustainable. The reason I was so bummed by the feeling I got three weeks after camp as a high school student was not because I had seen full truth and just lost it, but because I had been given a feast of truth and expected it to sustain me until my next 'injection,' which I presumed to be the next year at camp. Following Jesus is a path of continually being grounded in the deepest reality that exists, which is the truth that by His death and resurrection we can be reconciled to our  Father. Following Jesus rarely if ever is manifested as a long jump, but it is quite Biblical to talk about faith as running  race with endurance. Evidence is in Hebrews 12, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Galatians 5, and many other places.

Today, I struggle with doubting the legitimacy of many of these 'long jump' or 'emotional high' experiences. I have seen many people stumble and I have personally experienced the pain of the falseness that can happen. The problem with this is that like running a race with endurance, an extremely powerful emotional experience is completely legitimate. In order to exalt truth above my comfort, I will now attempt to make a case for the legitimacy and Biblical backing of God using powerful emotional experiences to transform lives in a real, meaningful, and impactful way.

In Exodus 3, God encounters Moses in the form of a burning bush that was not consumed. It's little strange and a crazy story all around, but there is no doubt that Moses is emotionally affected. He is afflicted with compassion for His kinsmen back in Egypt, fearful about God's call for him, and, above all, completely wigged out that God appeared to him. Later, in Exodus 33, Moses and God have a conversation in which God basically tells Moses that looking right at Him would result in death. Similarly, in Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees God in a vision and is absolutely wrecked. He laments his very existence because he, a man 'of unclean lips,' saw the immortal, omnipotent, perfect, and just God of everything that exists. As a last example in this brief context, examine the case of Saul of Tarsus, who encountered Jesus, was struck blind, and didn't eat for several days (see Acts 9).

There is no denying that these experiences were emotional, if not the sort of 'emotional high' that was mentioned earlier. What can we learn from them? First, God definitely uses highly emotional experiences for His purposes. Secondly, these experiences were not just temporary; Moses, Isaiah and Paul spent literally the rest of their lives living and proclaiming God's truth. Thirdly, these experiences were not just calls for feeling, but a call to action. I may be wrong, but I cannot think of a single place in scripture where someone has an emotional experience, walks away when reality sets in, and it's a good thing. In fact, John 6 seems to speak strongly against that (miracles given: easy; hard teaching given: see ya).

In conclusion, let God move emotionally in you if He wills to do so. In fact, we should often be in awe of a pursuing love we could never earn, warrant, or repay. That's fine. But be careful. Cling to truth, love the Word, and respond to Him by not just by feeling love, but by acting love. Feelings fade, but the Truth does not.

Paul and the concept of ‘sin’ as discussed in Romans 1-8

This is basically self explanatory. Well, the title's straightforward anyway. Hope it's beneficial for you!

Much like many of the ideas that Paul discussed in his letters, it seems that sin is not necessarily a straight-forward matter, but an idea that has many facets. While certainly a word used to describe transgressions and wrongdoings against God, it is also a word that describes a condition that the entirety of man finds themselves in. Some of the language that is used to convey these ideas is phrases that talk about being ‘in’ or ‘of’ the flesh and the spirit. What this language suggests is that there are two distinct, yet linked ideas that Paul is talking about: a temporal, surface level, and action based set of moral codes and a state of existence from which the former flows. In short, what Paul discusses is sin being understood two ways: being justified and adopted by the Father and the imperfection that is a result of being part of a fallen creation.

The overarching theme of Paul’s discourse on being ‘justified’ or ‘righteous’ is that all the world is guilty and that no one is righteous before God by their actions. Paul pretty well sums up what he builds toward in the first few remarks in 3:23, telling the readers that not a single human has ever been without sin because they are part of the fallen creation that groans for restoration (chapter 8). While not worded in such a way that is particularly clear (see later note on 2:9, 10), Paul does firmly establish that no one can be righteous or justified before God of their own accord. It is important to remember Paul’s Jewish background in order to properly process the message of Romans. Judaism prescribes observance of Torah and ritual and atonement sacrifice as necessary to be on good terms with God, so Paul’s language concerning grace abounding all the more is a paradigm shift at best. As we have before discussed, the key issue being expounded upon is a dichotomy between a condition of existence and the repercussions that flow from being obedient or disobedient.

First, we will address the idea of sin being a condition. It is interesting that Paul calls himself the ‘chief of sinners’ (that is, if we take the letters to Timothy to be written by Paul) but does not mention specifically how or in what way he justifies that claim. In both letters to Corinthians, Galatians and in Acts, we learn that Paul has pursued righteousness through obeying the commands of the Law and has surpassed many in this way, but we also see him discounting his own righteousness as being useless in comparison with that of Christ. This idea, along with the mindset of sin being a condition of one’s existence and a multitude of other issues, is brought about by the incarnation of God as man in Jesus Christ. Theoretically speaking, Jews pursued righteousness through adherence to a system, which included Temple sacrifices, observances of festivals, and striving for perfectly obeying the Law. We already know from Galatians 2 and 3 what Paul has to say about the Law, which is that it was and is a tutor to lead us to Christ. This idea comes to fruition in Paul using language that rules the individual out of the equation and simply categorizes all humans into one category: not worthy of the glory (i.e. the presence, mercy, gifts, love, etc.) of God. I think it is important to note that Paul does not say a specific person is a sinner if they do or do not do something, but instead chooses to group prophets, tax-collectors, kings, prostitutes, and even the likes of Moses and Abraham into the one category of imperfection. With this, we see that Paul is not suggesting that people start doing good things in order to earn God’s gifts, but says that God is glorified in taking us from where we are (in sin) to being justified before Him as righteous (i.e. ‘saved’). Paul, wanting to be very careful about the order in which the message is received (so as not to bring about another Corinth episode), tells his readers that 1) God is utterly perfect and has always been so 2) all people have fallen short of his perfection 3) there is nothing to be done on our part to right or correct that and 4) He is pleased to correct it in fulfillment of the Law: Jesus’ death and resurrection. His thoughts on these ideas and the work of Jesus almost certainly reflect Paul’s view on what the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel concerning the Son of Man and the future restoration mean to Him: God, as an incarnate man, fulfilled his promises to restore His people through His own work.

Now, if Paul only means that there is a condition of sin and talking about actions of sin is of no importance, be have missed no less than half of that he has written to the churches that he planted. Since Paul had never been to Rome before, there was little that he actually knew about them and almost no rebuke or correction that he could offer. Instead, he follows up all of the talk about sin being a condition and grace being a gift with a reminder that grace is not there to be defiled and spit in the face of, but like Galatians 5, it would also seem that he suggests that obedience to God is an out-flowing of understanding the work of Jesus and loving Him in response, just as the fruit of the Spirit comes from having the Spirit and not the other way around. How then does Paul make sense of the dichotomy between righteousness before the judgment of God and pursuing righteousness (which he certainly urges the people to do)? The answer is probably found in Paul’s understanding of the Kingdom of God, which is basically that the Kingdom of God is at hand and is still yet to come. If we follow this out to its logical end, it only makes sense that the only way we can please God is to depend on the work of Jesus (3:23) and the only way we can please God is to live in Him (as opposed to the flesh) right now (8:8).

How these ideas come together is probably best explained by Paul’s language about flesh. We can see that Paul has categorized every non-Jesus of Nazareth human being as in the condition of sin, but we also see that Jesus’ work is the prescribed ‘fix’ for that. The bottom line for Paul is that we are all born of flesh, but we are emancipated from that status by Christ. It is possible to not be of the flesh, but to still live in the flesh. It would seem that Paul’s use of the word ‘flesh’ makes it the very antithesis to his language for being ‘in Christ’ and that the language is very similar. If we take this to be true, the most complete way to talk about one’s nature is summarized in three statements.  All are born living in the flesh and apart from Christ (i.e. imperfect, away from God). The work of Christ emancipates from the flesh and allows God to adopt us as children. Those who are in Christ are still able to live as if apart from Christ and in the flesh, which is what he warns against in chapters 7 and 8.

In thoroughly inspecting Paul’s language, it would seem right that he talks about the separate, yet not divorced ideas of temporal sin and sin as a nature. Therefore, in light of understanding the perspective Paul’s takes on the Kingdom of God (and by extension, reality) is like, we see that his message is two-fold: 1) there is nothing that can be done to fix our relationship with God 2) we should strive not to keep messing it up. In saying this, Paul suggests that our ability to do what displeases God of our own accord does not point toward being able to so please Him, showing again his shift from the standard paradigm of Judaism.

The Diatessaron’s Birth Narrative

This post is about a 2nd century Gospel Harmonization written by a dude name Tatian, especially the birth narrative of Jesus. It's important because it validates the foul-fold Gospel's acceptance quite early and serves almost as a sort of proof text for literary criticism. If you're interested in texts from antiquity, this post is for you. If not, you may hate it.

Oh and you can find more information on the Diatessaron here.

            There are many things to be said about the construction of the Diatessaron in a general sense, especially in the proportion of and particular sections used from the four canonical gospels. When speaking about the Diatessaron’s birth narrative, the most obvious thing to notice is that Mark is wholly absent, excepting perhaps the line 78, which states “Thou shalt go forth before the face of the Lord to prepare his way, to give the knowledge of salvation unto his people, for the forgiveness of their sins…” This line almost certainly is in accord with Mark 1:4 (NASB): “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Tatian rightly does not include any other material from Mark, as Mark only mentions the birth narrative in passing if at all, so it will be excluded from any following discussion. That having been said, the primary areas of interest in examining the Diatessaron are the attempt Tatian makes to make the account of the birth narrative and Jesus’ ministry at large seem as if it is all one flowing story, the proportionate amount of material used by each of the birth narratives from the Gospel account, and the particular items that are included and excluded from Tatian’s narrative.

            A cursory reading of the text of the Diatessaron reveals Tatian’s motive being to make a story that includes what he considers to be important. That is, the ‘narrative’ structure of the Diatessaron is much more concerned with inclusion of material than with fitting the items together in a straight line of chronology. As an example, the Diatessaron speaks at length about Zacharias five lines in and keeps bringing Elizabeth and Zacharias throughout the entire first section. Additionally, Tatian begins his narrative with an excerpt from John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God is the Word. This was in the beginning with God. Everything was by his hand, and without him not even one existing thing was made. In him was life, and the life is the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not,” a passage that seems outside of time, and then begins to talk with great specificity about the time at which John the Baptist came into the world. In fact, throughout sections one and two, Tatian seems to have only had regard for putting common items in common passages (as it would seem), and then piecing them together in a loose chronology. Perhaps the most important observation concerning the structure of the Diatessaron’s birth narrative is that Tatian neither goes to great lengths to eliminate or shorten the text nor attempts to blend verses together, but instead pieces the story together in chunks as they appear in the texts of Scripture. One caveat to this observation is that the Diatessaron is capped by John’s (the apostle) account of the birth narrative, but has the account of John the Baptist mixed in throughout; the topical seems to be outweighed by the chronological in terms of Tatian’s categories of importance.

            In terms of sheer proportionate amount of material, text from Luke represents approximately two thirds of the birth narrative, followed by approximately one sixth comprised from Matthew, one twelfth from John and one twelfth in ‘common’ textual traditions. This, more or less, is proportionate to the amount of material written by the gospel writers in their own accounts, so it makes sense that Luke is the most-used source of text. One could make the case that Matthew is under-cited; the John-Matthew-Luke proportion of texts is (comparatively) closer to 10-35-55 in the canon as opposed to the 8-16-66 proportion found in the Diatessaron. It is important to be able to compare the amount of texts used in the canon of Scripture and the Diatessaron to be able to assess Tatian’s purpose in including the particular passages he did; it seems to be useful to examine the Diatessaron through the lens of Tatian primarily relying on Luke and Matthew. This view is especially useful in light of John being used to begin and end the birth narrative.

            On a cursory reading, it seems as if the Diatessaron is more interested in the story of Zacharias, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist than the canon of scripture is. In fact, the vast majority of the material in section one is concerned with those three characters rather than with Mary, Joseph, or even the fulfillment of prophecy that is found in Matthew and Luke. However, Luke is probably more present than Matthew in the text of the Diatessaron, so it seems that Tatian probably just used all of Luke’s account (including the Magnificat) and parts of Matthew’s account (more on this in a moment). It is unclear why Tatian would include all of Luke in his harmonization when it does not paint a representative picture of the complexity of Jesus’ arrival in the way that the canon does, but it could be hypothesized that Tatian was influenced by Hellenism (maybe), the detachment of the Church from Judaism (probably), and his role as a Christian apologist (as he was a student of known apologist Justin Martyr [most likely, in my opinion]). Luke is probably the most accessible account of the Gospel, so it being used as the primary proof text is not an unreasonable venture. On this note, it is important to note at least one glaring omission from the canonical Gospel accounts: the genealogy of Jesus. This is perhaps related to the seeming contradiction of the lineages; Tatian (the apologist) probably did not want to place a stumbling block in a harmonization. There is no mention of Jesus’ connection to the characters of the Old Testament, excepting perhaps the connection of some prophecy and the story of Zacharias. Here, it does not seem that Tatian intended to divorce Christianity from Judaism (the Magnificat mentions Abraham, and there are various other innuendos), but he also did not go to great lengths to make sure the reader understood the blatant continuity between the Old and New Testaments that the canon of Scripture implies.

            On the whole, it seems as though Tatian was primarily interested in presenting the birth narrative of Jesus as very believable (in including many historical facts and references), but in doing so removed some key ideas that are present in the canon. Although there were some omissions, it seems as if the Diatessaron is exactly what it was written to be: a simplification and sort of harmonization of the Gospel accounts in the canon, even if that realistically only means the harmonization of Matthew and Luke and ‘throwing a bone’ to John. In sum, it is understandable that the early fathers did not accept the Diatessaron as authoritative over anything in the canon in that it was not quite the best understanding of the original texts; however, the birth narrative is evidence of Tatian attempting to stay true to the meaning of the text, yet offer a clearer explanation of its message.

Ending notes: Tatian was a student of Justin Martyr and was later condemned as a heretic for condemning marriage and his over-the-topic asceticism. That's pretty much all.

The Anatomy of a Straw Man

Recently, there have been two major debates that I have been acutely aware of. Locally (to me), there was a referendum on liquor sales and an ABC store being opened in Alexander county (near Taylorsville in western NC). The other debate, which involves many more people, is the debate over the idea of 'civil unions' or some iteration of marriage-like legally binding relationship for homosexuals being tossed around in front of various judicial bodies.

I'm not going to tell you what I think about either one of these issues. That isn't the point, and it's really not useful to engage someone in debate on any matter by way of social media. If you take nothing else from my words on this blog post, take this: it is utterly useless and hideously time consuming to attempt to have any rational conversation about a topic of more than mild importance using the internet as a communication medium. It leads to passive aggression, lack of clarity, and general frustration.

In a previous post, I spoke about judging and how we are not called to wholly withhold judgement, but instead to judge rightly. I should also note that basically all of the exposition of scripture is based on a teaching by a guy named Stuart who is a teacher for a Church body named Radius in Greenville, SC. You can find more of his teachings (please do, they're awesome) here.

In logic, there is a variety of argument called the 'straw man,' which is a fallacy based on misrepresenting the opponent's position. Basically, this means trying to defeat someone's argument by representing it as something that on the surface looks similar and subsequently showing the second argument to be false. The straw man is equivalent to me rejecting my friend's argument about pizza when I in fact am using a calzone as my example.

If you're still confused (don't feel bad, I've been known to be unclear), you can find Wikipedia's explanation here. This variety of argument is not only obviously invalid, but it's also quite popular and successfully used. By everyone, including me.

 Day after day there have been arguments made by both sides about why it is wrong or right to prohibit homosexuals from having a legally recognized sexual union. Similarly, I have driven past signs that slander opposing positions, the pinnacle of which being a car that was pulled out of a junk yard covered in splotches of red paint (as if to signify blood) sitting in the front yard of a church building.

Honestly, almost everything I've heard said about these issues is pretty shameful, including at times many of the things that have escaped my own lips. It is not shameful because Americans and Alexander county residents and Christians and non-theists are wanting to be heard. The shame is in our unwillingness to for a second consider that we might be talking a lot about something with which we are only vaguely familiar and have little or no evidence for, excepting the little we propagate within our own ranks.

As someone who has been guilty of these tactics, let me be the first to confess and the first to call us all to change our minds about how we discuss things that we don't like. The fact of the matter is that homosexuality is unilaterally, universally, and without any exception condemned as a sinful act in the scriptures. Bar none. However, we should not forget that mentioned equally often are lying, unrighteous anger, and eating too much at Golden Corral on Sunday after church (gluttony). On the other hand, America is not a Christian nation. Whoever told you that must have read a different version of the Constitution than the one that is in the Library of Congress.  Similarly, the Bible warns about the dangers of drunkenness and instructs us not to be mastered by sin.  Conversely, Jesus, who we believe to be God in the flesh, drank wine. Not grape juice, but wine. Those facts aren't negotiable.

I'm not sure what to do with these things. I do not know all of how living in the world but not of the world works, and I am very young and immature. What I do know is that you can't really live in a false world you create for yourself, and what seems best is not always easy.

When considering how you will interact with the people about things, let us ultimately look no further than scripture. And let us cling desperately to what it says and not what we want it to say. After all, it is not about specifically about marriage or alcohol or anything, but about brotherhood and edification of the Church when Paul writes these words:

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong, ⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part; ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. ¹³ But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love."

- 1 Corinthians 13, NASB