Trans-cendental

On a Christian denominational discussion board, a person who is gay said

the Christian church is the stated enemy of the gay community

and a person who is clergy in that denomination said

Or do you mean the gay community is the stated enemy of many Christian churches, the UCC & MCC excluded, at least. 

Which got me thinking:

"What might it look like if someone wanted to treat Christians the way gay people are treated?"

(Crossposted on Pam's House Blend)

A friend of mine changed his Facebook status to "...lost his fundamental civil rights today."

This got me thinking: Can we lose our fundamental civil rights?

I thought about the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

 Please note that the founders did not say the government created these rights, only secured the rights people already had.

There is also the ninth amendment to the US Constitution:

Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

So can a law or constitutional amendment remove a person's rights?

My church is Plainfield Congregational United Church of Christ, part of the Eastern Association of the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ.

An open letter, sent to Senators Richard Durbin and Barack Obama, and Representative Jerry Weller and crossposted on Facebook, Pam's House Blend, and Trans-cendental

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Dear Senators Richard Durbin and Barack Obama, and Representative Jerry Weller. I am a registered voter in the 11th congressional district of Illinois.

As a citizen of the United States of America, I am appalled at the idea that the congress would even consider ceding its authority to the executive without congressional and judicial review, as stated in section 8 of the proposal from the Bush administration:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

As a taxpayer of the United States of America, I am disturbed by the idea that one man should be given "non-reviewable " authority over seven hundred billion dollars.

As a homeowner - and please note that I have a conventional mortgage that is not in danger of foreclosure - I am dismayed that this action focuses on the "big fish" of the financial world and ignores the rest of the economic ecosystem. Until we begin to resolve the problems of the millions of homeowners who were sold mortgages they could not afford (in many cases, when they were eligible for conventional mortgages), housing prices will continue to fall, construction sector unemployment will rise, and the foundation for such financial giants will remain shaky.

Finally, as a human being, I care at least as much about my struggling neighbors as I do about large financial institutions and retirement funds. It is our moral duty to help our distressed neighbors find a way to remain in their homes.

Please do not underestimate my resolve to support those who take the above into account, and to work for the unemployment of those legislators who ignore these issues.

Sincerely,

Cindi A. Knox

I don't even think there is an L community, a G community, a B community, or a T community. There are too many layers of class and empowerment in each group to consider any one of them a community.

There are homeless gay youth who turn tricks to survive. There are rich closeted men who pay them. Are they part of the same community?

There are "heterosexual crossdressers only" organizations. There are people taking black market hormones and getting silicone injections. Are they part of the same community?

I find it hard to believe in community when I read about, and hear, comments like:

• (by a gay man about transsexuals)Men in women's bathrooms.
• (by lesbians about mtf transsexuals)A man in a dress is not a lesbian.
• (by gay men)Women are taking over the HIV/AIDS organizations.
• (by crossdressers)I'm not confused like a transsexual.
• (about crossdressers) I'm not a man in a dress.
• (by heterosexual crossdressers)No homosexuals allowed

not to mention the unspoken contempt between the classes.

While we're saying "were the same as everyone else", we betray our real feelings by declaring ourselves different from each other.

It's not bad enough that there are a bunch of us locked outside the big tent that calls itself "normal". We have to divide ourselves up into smaller camps of "more normal than thou". And, by exploiting our divisions, those who control access to the big tent will continue to keep us out.

Chris Rice's "Cartoons" is a funny song about cartoons becoming saved and singing "Hallelujah". Of course, each cartoon sings a variation, except for two: "How 'bout Beavis and that other guy? Nah!"  

But I was thinking the other day...
What if Beavis and Butthead got saved?

And why not?

Sure, it's amusing to mention these two MTV cartoons and leave them out of salvation - but only if you're not Beavis and Butthead. If you've lived a life similar to theirs and have just come into a church in the hope of turning your life around, that sort of rejection isn't funny at all.

The Jesus of Record - the one we find in the four canonical Gospels, a few apocryphal Gospels and referenced in the Epistles - reached out to people that others thought were beyond redemption. He spoke to, and forgave, those who the religious leaders shunned.

True, it's just a funny song about cartoons, but we ought to be careful about the messages we send about how great God's grace really is. If hunters, cavemen, bears, moose, squirrels, frogs, and smurfs can be saved, we have to believe that a couple of contemporary teens can be saved as well.

How bout
Beavis and that other guy?

Cool.

In Iraq, there are three major factions: Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish. 60% of the Kurds are Sunni, mostly of Sufi sects.

We here in the United States are mystified, amused, or aghast at the influnce of slamic clerics in the politics of Iraq. They seem to be able to dictate who will vote for whom, and how the political leaders will act. And many of us decry the treatment of the religious minorities, such as Judaism and Christianity, in Iraq.

On the heels of Rick Warren's political debate at his Saddleback church, with an eye on James Dobson's and Pat Robertson's (et al) views on the candidates, and remembering the scandal of the sermons of Reverend Jeremaiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, we might take the time to recognize how the US is not all that different from Iraq.

 

 

Some very well-meaning hearing people believe that people, especially children, who can't hear should have surgery to help them hear - if such surgery is available. After all, Jesus healed the deaf too.

I know some Deaf people. The capital-D Deaf people I know aren't interested in cochlear implants; they don't want to be fixed because they don't feel broken.

So who is right? The hearing people I mentioned in the first paragraph are with Jesus: we should make the deaf to hear.

The Deaf people in the second paragraph have their own language and culture, and bring up their Deaf children to communicate through sign. They don't see the need to change who they are.


I was thinking about my Deaf friends this morning when reading the Discussing Homosexuality thread. True, there are arguments about whether people are born gay or not. But the parallels are interesting: people who are not [deaf, homosexual] want to fix the people who are [deaf, homosexual] so they won't be [deaf, homosexual] anymore - they will be healed and normal.

One might argue that deafness is not called a sin in the Bible - but indeed some see staying in deafness to be sinful ([url=http://pilgrimandastranger.blogspot.com/2006/10/you-shall-not-curse-deaf-or-put.html]read here[/url]). And while Jesus didn't heal the homosexuals (or indeed say anything about them that was recorded), He did make the deaf to hear.


Why is it that we (and I include myself here, because I often find myself thinking this way) "normal" people want to make decisions for others to make them more like us? Should we make the little people grow? Should we have stunted the growth of tall people? Should we make the picky eaters eat more things? Where does our intervention in the lives of others end?

Perhaps the example is in the story of Jesus and the paralytic. Jesus is in a house that is so crammed with people looking for healing that the door is blocked. One man's friends are so bent on getting him healed that they lower him through the roof. Jesus responds by saying "your sins are forgiven".

We can think of sin as a lot of things, but in a large way sin is the difference between being in relationship and being out of relationship. When we sin against God, we damage our end of that relationship. Likewise, when we sin against our fellow human beings, we damage or break our ties with them.

Jesus's first response to the paralytic was not "your body is fixed". His first response was "your sin is forgiven". Jesus restored the man to society. Of course, the local religious leaders didn't like the idea of this human going around forgiving sin, and Jesus responds by healing the man's paralysis.

But it wasn't the ability to walk that the paralytic man most needed; it was being restored to society. He needed to be a part of the human family again. Without that, the ability to walk would have only made him a walking outcast.


I know that sometimes I want so badly to fix the thing I see wrong with a person. I need to remember that what I most need to fix are the relationships between me and others. I could say "love the Deaf, hate the deafness". But if I really love my Deaf friends, I will embrace them as they are, and not with an asterisk to a footnote about one aspect of their lives. I might not want to lose my hearing, but it's not for me to say that hearing is the best way for them.


He who has ears, let him hear.

There have been reports of child molestation by church leaders. Firearm discharge inside churches seems to be on the rise.

With these and other recent events, any organization would do well to examine their security policies. Yet for churches, we might well consider the theological basis of our choices.

For Christians, there is the example of the one who walked with lepers, the lame, adulterers, prostitutes, people with boils, the demon possessed, women with chronic bleeding, and tax collectors. Yet we also have a duty to protect those who are vulnerable.

How do we live grace and faith in God's protection, while caring for those around us?

I sometimes wonder whether I have early-onset Alzheimer's disease. I forget a lot of things, and I seem to remember things that never happened, or were never the way I remember them.

This might be one of them.

I seem to remember a time when places of worship were held sacred, even by people outside the faith. I seem to remember a time when people respected these places even when those people did not believe at all.