For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. -- I Timothy 4:3-4 SPOILER ALERT: Pro-gay theology is untrue. I remember a time, way back in the '70s, when I had an ah-hah moment and it seemed obvious to me that the people around me -- especially my fellow Christians -- had somehow avoided the truth about homosexuality. Out of their in-bred squeamishness … [Read more...] about The Lengthening Shadow of Pro-Gay Theology
Building a Bridge out of Brokenness
“I cannot stress this enough to you, but I'll still say it: I'll never be Christian. I think your Bible is nothing more than a piece of literature. I don't believe in your God, and never will. But I will criticize you when you use your God to "fix" homosexuality, as if it were something to be fixed.” -- An anonymous young friend “Broken does not seem like something Jesus would want us to say.” -- Comment in on-line Christian Group When you raise five children, you hear the words “It’s broken” way too often. Favorite toys, bird’s wings, Christmas ornaments, bats, even cars, are … [Read more...] about Building a Bridge out of Brokenness
This is No Place for Cowards
I carry the past that each day I chose One step to another . . . now everyone knows. It isn't the past I would have wanted to claim But it is my past . . . it is mine just the same. I wonder sometimes about all of this Can there be no exchanging what was for what is? Will there be no will be because of what's done? Will yesterday's darkness eclipse today's sun? Is forgiveness a mystery, a want too far-flung? Is healing a melody not to be sung? Is change just a hold-out, dangled just past the grasp? Is grace to be rationed . . . with some of us passed? No mystery, no silence, … [Read more...] about This is No Place for Cowards
To Me or Not to Me?
Yes . . . that's me. Front and center on the merry-go-round, a fitting metaphor for much of my life, round and round he goes; where he'll end up, nobody knows. For too long, it depended on who was pushing and how hard. Just keep smiling and whirling . . . until you fall off. In the early days, someone picks you up and stretches a band-aid across your knee and offers you a Popsicle and tells you to hang-on better and go a little slower. In later days, they point and whisper and you are but a silly fool who should have known better than to go on the ride in the first place. The pain of the fall … [Read more...] about To Me or Not to Me?
The Gift that Keeps on Guilting
Through before and through then and through forever after, Through sighs and through tears and through too-little laughter, Through pain and through sadness, through anger and fear, Through wandering away and through clinging near. Through pits of deception and mountains of truth, Through hope and through striving, through longings of youth, Through moments of stillness in search of Your voice, Through dangerous journeys of self-proclaimed choice. Through brokenness, hopelessness, running and hiding, Through moments of peace and through blessed abiding, Through hiding and fighting … [Read more...] about The Gift that Keeps on Guilting
Sometimes I Feel Like a House
(Note: Nearly eight months have passed since our home burned. Now, just a couple of weeks away from moving into our new home, I've been thinking back to the night of the fire and the thoughts that swirled around in my head the night I stood in the yard on a cold night and watched it burn. The post below is adapted from my Signs of a Struggle post that ran in December 2010, a few days after the fire.) For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. -- 11 Cor. 5:1 I have at times in the … [Read more...] about Sometimes I Feel Like a House
Note to Self: I Forgive You
I read recently of a man who "threw in the towel," so to speak. He gave up the good fight and surrendered to -- no, accepted -- as he might put it, his inner gayness . . . the "real me." He fought the fight for decades, perhaps not as well as he would have wanted to when in the midst of battle, too little pushing through and too much giving in, but clearly with the hope of overcoming. I don't doubt that, as I know you can search and cry out, even as you hide and act out. He had raised his family, served his church, built his career and, -- perhaps being generous here -- had been married for … [Read more...] about Note to Self: I Forgive You
The Devilish Debate Over Choice vs. Chance
Don't take credit for not falling into a sin that never tempted you in the first place. -- Billy Graham The clash between pro-gay culture and the church is turning into a tragic comedy with about the air-time quality of a 20-year-old 2 a.m. TV-Land repeat. Snooze. Who loses? Truth loses. I think sometimes we care way more about why someone struggles than we care about who struggles, almost as if in the search for a sensible reason we can make some sense of sin . . . which is, in itself, senseless, though ever-present and unrelenting in its mission to diminish our significance to make us … [Read more...] about The Devilish Debate Over Choice vs. Chance
Don’t Believe the Belief Thieves
My father died 23 years ago at the age of 60 on a day I did not notice, busy with my own life, far removed from his. It shouldn't have been that kind of day. There was no late night bedside call for a last-gasp farewell. I did not even know he was so close to death, and, I fear, had he lived another decade, I would have known no more in 1998 than I did in 1988. At some point, I became so focused on him not being a good father that I completely neglected being a good son. I believed I had done what was best, surrendering to his belligerent determination to live life on his own terms, which … [Read more...] about Don’t Believe the Belief Thieves
Reclaiming Tattered Integrity
(Note: I just attended the Exodus Freedom Conference in Asheville, North Carolina and the Southern Baptist Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. Both meetings gave me great reasons to be encouraged that the church is embracing the idea of extending grace towards people who struggle with sexual brokenness, in the hope of healing and restoration. During this time, Rep. Anthony Weiner's story unfolded on the national scene. It prompted me to share this excerpt from my book Surviving Sexual Brokenness: What Grace Can Do.) Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul; Not what my toiling … [Read more...] about Reclaiming Tattered Integrity