dave dack

Last week when the California Supreme Court declared laws banning same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional, I posted some of my initial thoughts.  I quickly took the post down, though, because I was nervous about how people might react.  I decided to wait a few days.

It seems to me that the court made the right decision.  Some have said that the court overstepped its bounds by trying to set social policy.  Technically speaking, they didn’t set or approve anything; they simply declared existing laws banning gay marriage to be unconstitutional.  Others have said that the decision to allow or prohibit gay marriage is up to the people.  I agree, but again, the decision to declare a law as unconstitutional or not is up to the court.

Homosexual behavior and marriage goes against God’s word.  You can’t read the Bible and not be aware of that.  But let’s remember, the United States is not God’s chosen nation.  We’re not Israel.  And speaking strictly from an American standpoint, the government cannot tell people whom they are or are not allowed to marry, on any basis.  Same-sex marriage is a moral issue, and asking the government to ban it is asking the government to legislate morality.  It’s asking for a high level of government influence over private behavior.  If you put that on the conservative-liberal spectrum, it falls way over on the left (which is interesting, because it’s people on the right who are asking for the ban).

As a Christian, I don’t support same-sex marriage.  But I think the court’s decision was the right one from an American standpoint.  That doesn’t mean that I’m approaching this as an American first and as a Christian second.  It means that I expect the court to operate by America’s standards and not necessarily my Christian standards (which is exactly its job).  And I don’t see any precedent in scripture leading me to think that it’s my Christian duty to change our constitution (state or federal) and make it agree with Biblical morals and values.  Jesus never bothered to try and change Rome’s laws.  It just didn’t seem to be the top priority.

These are my thoughts, and they might be a bit sloppy - please, no angry comments.

You know, the Constitution and the Bible are not the same thing.

That’s why I don’t think the U.S. is a “Christian Nation.”  It never really was.

I’d make a terrible President.  I would either try and uphold the Constitution and feel like a sell-out, or I’d try and make things look like the Bible’s picture of good government (the way Israel was supposed to work; or the way God’s kingdom will work someday) and ruin the country.

Because the Constitution and the Bible are not the same thing.  I just don’t think you can uphold both.  Not very often, anyway.

I read something the other day that I’ve been pondering…

“…the main purpose of miracles throughout Scripture was to authenticate each fresh stage of revelation, especially the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New.”

Miracles have always been problematic for me, and I’m sure many other Christians feel the same.  I found that quote helpful.

I came across a question in a book today: “Why is the common meal regarded as the place where Jesus’ death is proclaimed?”

Paul spoke about how the cross made a spectacle of the existing powers and authorities, how it stripped them bare and revealed them as the really are - powers of violence and death. Quoting from the book again, and speaking about the early Christian community after the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection, “Their common meal became a place to remember Jesus’ death. As often as the meal was celebrated, Rome’s vicious deed was named as such. The remembrance of Jesus’ death gave Rome’s imperial oppression the name that unmasked it.”

Jesus’ death and resurrection unmasked the powers, ended the charade. The powers offered one script, one version of how things really were, and the work of Christ trounced it and revealed the truth. And every time people remembered Christ’s death at their common meals they further loosened the grip of the powers of death.

Then it hit me - of course the common meal is the place of remembering! What human practice could be more basic, more fundamental, more influential than eating a meal? Even aside from the scriptural significance of meals in Jewish culture, eating traditions (even mundane, every-day ones) form one of the largest, strongest and most necessary threads in the fabric of any society. Placing the remembrance of Christ’s death at people’s tables offers the most potent resistance to powers that would deny Christ and his work. Everyone eats, and if people proclaim Christ’s death every time they are at table then the oppressive story of the powers is quickly unwritten.

Of course the meal is the place of remembrance. Where else would it be?

As usual, these are just thoughts. I’m not trying to make the Eucharist more complicated than it needs to be.

This week I realized for the first time how big of a deal the transfiguration of Jesus was.

It was a really big deal.

Regarding the ordinance of communion:

“It is not simply an occasion, by which the soul of the believer may be excited to pious feelings and desires; but it embodies the actual presence of the grace it represents in its own constitution; and this grace is not simply the promise of God on which we are encouraged to rely, but the very life of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.  We communicate - in the Lord’s Supper - not with the divine promise merely, not with the thought of Christ only, not with the recollection simply of what he has done and suffered for us, not with the lively present sense alone of his all-sufficient, all-glorious salvation; but with the living Savior himself, in the fullness of his glorified person, made present to us for the purpose by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

John W. Nevin, The Mystical Presence, 1846.

So much for posting every weekday…

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas.  Melody and I were with my family Christmas Eve, then with hers in Visalia Christmas Day.

I was talking with a good friend of mine yesterday, and we brought up the subject of communion.  I tend to think it’s really important that we celebrate it in church together often.  My friend thought it was less important and that it often makes new, un-churched visitors feel nervous or on the outside.

What do you think about communion?  How important is it for us to celebrate it in church and why?

I’d like to see our country dismantle its nuclear arsenal - entirely - and vow never to make or use nuclear weapons again.

What’s the main reason for keeping them?  Well, it’s a huge leverage point.  If you nuke us or piss us off enough, we can literally wipe your country off the face of the planet.  “Pssst!  Don’t nuke the U.S.!”  But I don’t believe our WMD capabilities are actually as persuasive as we might think.  Having nukes doesn’t actually make us safer.  Missiles sitting in a warehouse don’t do anything, and intimidation can only go so far.

I’ve tried to think of scenarios where it might become desirable or necessary to use nukes in the interest of preserving America.  Such scenarios certainly exist, and could maybe happen.

Then there’s Jesus and the Good News.  If I am a Christian, then preserving America, democracy, even (dare I say it!) freedom must take a back seat to living out the Gospel.  Killing, even when justified or noble, is always ugly.  Nuclear weapons are something I can’t support.

“But nuclear disarmament won’t work - it won’t create peace, and it won’t encourage other countries to do the same.”  Maybe, but God asks me to care more about peace then about what works.  Whether it is effective is irrelevant - it is the way of the cross, and I am called to follow.

Is America a Christian nation, and therefore compelled to disarm it’s nuclear weapons in light of the Gospel?  No, actually.  But I feel compelled to push for it, and I believe the Church must push for it.

I think I agree more with Arminius than with Calvin.  I was reading yesterday in my history book and learned that Arminius was actually a Calvinist in every respect except with regard to limited atonement. Calvin believed that Christ only died for some, for those who had been predestined to receive grace. Christ’s sacrifice was not for all, in other words. Arminius disagreed and insisted that Christ died for all. Concerning predestination, Arminius said that God predestined that Christ would be the only means of salvation and grace. Calvin said that God predestined individual souls to either be saved or not, and therefore that Christ did not die for all but only for the elect.

Now, I may not subscribe to current Arminian theology - I don’t know enough about it to say one way or the other. I’m certainly reformed in my theology, but I don’t think I’m hardcore Calvinist. All I know is that I read about Arminius last night and said, “yeah, I agree with that.” I should make it clear that I don’t necessarily disagree with Calvin’s view on the predestination of individual souls (I don’t necessarily agree, either); I disagree with the conclusion he draws from it - that Christ did not die for all. I feel like the Bible won’t let me agree with it.

I also think Calvin misunderstood what “elect” means, but maybe that’s because I’ve read too much Newbigin.

Today in class one of the guys who usually sits on the other side of the room from me commented about Zwingli and the Reformation in Switzerland. He noted that Zwingli’s stance (and that of his followers) started out peacefully, but later ended up tangled in violence (Zwingli himself was killed in battle). The seminary president, Jim Holm, mentioned that people tend to have a great deal of passion when it comes to spiritual matters. People will sometimes fight violently for something they are passionate about, even if that very thing is supposed to be peaceful and anti-war.

Anyway, after another student commented about her experience with liberation theology in Nicaragua, I started thinking about how this process moves along. How does a passionate belief in the Gospel end up furthering itself by clearly non-Gospel means?

When people encounter the good news - especially poor or oppressed people - it often generates a huge amount of hope and passion. Understandably, they want to spread this good news and effect the Gospel in their situation. This might mean liberation from a dictator, or another attempt at establishing Christendom… whatever people see as the way things should be in their situation if the Gospel is true. Fueled by passion, in an attempt to expand God’s kingdom people might try to put the Gospel into a larger vehicle that will take it further than it might go on its own. That vehicle might be Marxism, reformation of the church, Emergent, the Crusades, or who knows what. The danger is that these things, whether good or bad, are only ideologies at the end of the day. When the Gospel is embedded in an ideology, people easily make the mistake of committing to the cause rather than to Christ, the good news himself. Things are still done in the name of the Gospel, but really the allegiance is to an ideology that will eventually permit certain actions that the Gospel itself wants no part of.

That’s what I think, anyway.