Orlando Shootings, LGBT, Islamaphobia, Gun Control

          Omar Mateen carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the Pulse club, a gay night club in Orlando Florida.  He killed 49 people.  It was Sunday morning, June 12, 2AM.  I woke for church on Sunday around 6:30.  My son was watching the news around 8AM.  The weather was on.  After the weather, we turned off the TV and began getting ready for church.  I had no knowledge of the shooting. 

          At church, no one mentioned it to me and I did not look at any news outlets.  So, as the service began and then throughout the service, I had no knowledge that the worst mass shooting in U.S. history had happened a few short hours earlier.  During our prayer time, I did not know.  No one mentioned it to me.

          After the worship service, our family ate lunch at home, with no media on.  Then, my middle son and I got in the car for the 3-hour drive to my parents’ place in Roanoke.  We listened to a Hardy Boys mystery on CD the entire way.  Upon arrival, we hung out with my parents, played games, shot baskets on their backyard hoop, and ate.  Finally, around 8:30PM, I was flipping channels and stopped at CNN.  Over 16 hours after the shooting, I finally found out.  If I had known Sunday morning, we would have had a time of prayer in our worship service.

          For what would we pray?  Of course, we’d pray for the family members and friends of the victims. We would ask God to provide solace and comfort.  We would pray for the more than 50 people who were injured but not killed.  We would pray that God would heal their wounds and soothe their shattered psyches.  And we’d pray for the survivors.  They may be alive and uninjured, but they are not unscathed.  We would pray for them as they carry the burden of survivor’s guilt and the horrors of watching their friends die.  The images they see when they close their eyes to sleep will haunt them in their dreams for a long time. 

Yes, there is much to pray for and we carry all of it to God on behalf of these wounded people.  What else?

We must pray for the family of the shooter, Omar Mateen.  They will be ostracized.  American society as a whole feels the shock and the anger of such an event.  Unstable persons could escalate the violence if in a misguided attempt at justice they were to lash out at Mateen’s relatives.  These people will carry shame and will need God’s help to be free. 

What else?  What do else do we say when we pray?  An interesting thing about this story is the convergence of many different political hot potatoes.  There is homophobia, the hatred of the LGBT community.  There is Islamophobia, the hatred of all things Muslim.  That fact that the killer was Muslim and self-identified as an ISIS supporter arms Islamophobs with all they need to demonize the entire religion and all who practice it. 

Then, there is the issue of gun control.  Those who abhor the accessibility of military style assault weapons will have a field day attacking, ideologically, those who defend their 2^nd amendment right to “keep and bear” arms. 

This story has created strange bed fellows.  I read and posted an opinion from a conservative Christian who wants to damn all Muslims and to liken the religion to the circumstances in 1920’s Germany that set the table of the rise of fascism and Nazism.  The Orlando shootings show that if we don’t stop ISIS now, it will become another Hitler-led Nazi type of power that wreaks havoc and propagates genocide. Many of my Facebook friends pointed out several leaps of logic that in the article.  What I found fascinating in it is that the author, a conservative, linked arms with high profile atheists Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, and Ayn Hirsi Ali in order to brand Islam as violent and evil.  And he did this in defense of the victims, gay people.  Recall the last time you remember conservative Christians aligning with Atheists to defend gays from Muslims.  I bet you cannot think of time.  I can’t. 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

For the record, I know all Muslims are not violent because I spend a week in a community that is 70% Muslim.  While I am there, I talk about Jesus and try to convince people to follow him.  The Muslims react in violent ways. They sell me bread and fruit.  They welcome me into their homes and heap hospitality on me.  And at the hotel bar, they sell me beer and soda.  Smiling the entire time.  I have never felt safer anywhere.

For the record, I do not keep weapons in my home.  Yet, I am good friends with card-carrying NRA members.  I don’t think the issue is as simple as some of my dogmatic anti-gun friends.  But, I do believe it would be helpful to significantly reduce the number of assault weapons and automatic, high volume, rapid fire guns.  Nobody needs those.  You don’t need an arsenal that Rambo would envy to protect your home.  And having a gun doesn’t make you safer.  The guard at the Pulse night club was armed, but 50 people still died.

For the record, I love gay and lesbian people.  Not all of them.  I don’t know all of them.  But, I love the ones I know.  My neighbors.  Old friends who now take care of my nephews and nieces.  Dear friends who are still “in the closet.”  Based on my reading of Matthew 19:1-12 and Romans 1:18-32, I do not believe same sex marriage is God-honoring or sanctified by God.  I believe homosexuality is outside God’s plan for human sexuality.  But I want you to pay attention to something.  I wrote my theology after identifying how many gay and lesbian people I love. 

And please notice this.  I don’t count homosexual sex as an unforgivable sin.  Some Christians don’t think it is a sin at all.  If they and I are to discuss the divergence in our theology, I’d like to do it in an atmosphere of friendship and love.  And I do believe that someone can hold the opinion that same sex marriage is OK in God’s eyes and at the same time that person can be a disciple.  To put it simply, in theological terms, I oppose same sex marriage.  But I don’t think someone is disqualified from the title ‘Christian’ just because they disagree with me on this point. 

So where are we?  I think the way of Christ is the way of compassion.  His encounter with the rich young ruler is an example.  He was working to correct this man’s understanding by helping the man shift his priorities from a dependence on material wealth to a dependence on faith in God.  But, Jesus knew the man would not respond, not the way Jesus preferred.  Still, the Gospel say that when Jesus told him to part with his riches, before Jesus said a word, he looked at him and “loved him” (Mark 10:21).  That’s where we are.  We are to love people.

We – followers of Jesus – are to be peddlers of the Gospel.  When it comes to social issues, we start from the cross and resurrection and base ourselves there.  If we find ourselves in disagreement with someone on any of the issues I have raised, we enter the conversation compassionately seeking to love the other even in disagreement.  Most importantly, we do not settle for the prevailing narrative. We loudly but compassionately proclaim a counter narrative, one in which the love of Jesus rules the day.  That story must be told and lived, and we must be the ones to tell it and live it.

I close with a tweet from Russell Moore:

 Following

Russell MooreVerified account‏@drmoore

Christian, your gay or lesbian neighbor is probably really scared right now. Whatever our genuine disagreements, let's love and pray

What Can you Imagine?

I begin by saying that until a second ago, it was pouring rain outside.  It has now lightened up to a bit more than a sprinkle – but still raining.  I only point that out because I went on two weather websites, one national and one local.  Both had down for our zip code at this hour a 0% chance of rain. 

We (“we” being humans) don’t know much!  I have no idea what weather forecasters do.  I don’t know how they decided to type in on The Weather Channel website “0” for % chance of rain.  It may be an impossibly hard job, like trying to call the block/charge in an NBA game.  Impossible.  We humans simply are lacking in knowledge.

Even more, we lack wisdom.   All the craziness in the world – Al Shabaab in Somalia, Islamic State in Iraq, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Kim Jong Un in North Korea, Vladimir Putin in Russia; there is suffering all over the planet.  There is violence right here in the United States.  We are a nation born of immigration now trying to put a cap on immigration.  The hypocrisy in our attitudes to immigrants, especially Mexican, is unspeakably cruel.

But wait!  I intended this to be a positive post.  I start with rain and bad news; and the declaration that humans do not know much, are sadly lacking in wisdom, and sorry in our failure of compassion.  Alright!  That’s off my chest.

Maybe the biggest failure is my own lack of creative thinking.  And this leads me to two of the wonderful verses in all of scripture.  I hasten to add my recommendation that you read this in the NIV.  I don’t often recommend that version, but I am convinced that in this case, the NIV gets the spirit of the verse best.  Other versions may offer a better technical translation, but the NIV captures the essence, I believe. 

The passage is Ephesians 3:20-21, a doxology.

“²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

It seems simplistic to say it, but God can bring rain when the weather people say there no chance, zero %.  God can bring peace even into a world of Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, and Islamic State.  God overwhelm people with joy as they meet Him in the Holy Spirit.  I feel like a child, like a simpleton, but I believe it is true.

These verses are a statement of glory raised to God.  He is glorified (that is what a ‘doxology’ does; it speaks a word of glory about God).  Ephesians 3:20-21 is appropriately used when the words are read in worship, corporate or private, as an act of praise.

But, notice what is embedded in the praise: theology. 

First, a theology of limitation dominates.  “Immeasurable” is unacceptable for business men and researchers alike.  God’s deeds cannot be counted and rational thought really does not tolerate that which it cannot measure.  I do not think enlightenment or reason is antithetical to God or faith in God.  But I am certain God, while speaking to us in our rational processes, goes way beyond what we can observe, count, measure, and describe.  God goes immeasurably beyond. 

We are limited in our view of God.  We are ridiculously limited.  God delights in our praise of Him, but does not need it.  We need to praise God so we can realize with certainty God is God and only God is God and we are not God.  I know I wrote “God” in that sentence six times, but it was not enough. 

People may think they can without boundaries.  When Han complained about rescuing Princess Leia, Luke promised that her riches would bring a handsome reward.  Han pressed Luke wanting to know how rich she was.  Luke said she had more than Han could imagine to which Han replied, “I don’t know kid.  I can imagine an awful lot.”  So we think.  God is so much more.  In fact, it is nonsensical that I would even try to convince my readers of God’s greatness and vastness and magnificence.  In doing so, I am trying to make the case for something that’s immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine.

However, God would have me do it because the second aspect of theology seen here is a theology of partnership.

The doxology says that he who does more than we can ask or imagine has his power “at work within us.”  Furthermore, the glory given him is given in the church.  This unreachable God reaches to us, fills us, works with and through us, and calls us His own.  Maybe the most unimaginable reality is that the solution to the problems caused by the terrorists and dictatorial governments I referenced earlier – the solutions will come from God working his love into the earth through His people the church.

I just had a conversation today with a friend whose wife had been a senior pastor but now is out of church altogether.  The church she was leading was such an unhealthy community, she had to get out.  I trust her calling, so I believe she did the right thing.  But here she is, someone with almost a decade of experience, a seminary degree, and a calling from God, and she is out because the church wounded her so badly.

This is where (and in whom) God’s power is at work?  In the church?  Seriously?

Absolutely – yes.  It makes no sense.  But I think that was Paul’s point in another of his letters, 1^st Corinthians.

“¹⁸ For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.” 

The wisdom of God makes no sense in the eyes of a world that is actively rebelling against his rule.  We have the Spirit of God in us when we are in Christ, so we see differently.  We realize, going back to the Ephesians 3 doxology, that God always intends for human agents acting in unity, His church, flawed as we are, to be His representatives to the dying world. 

Unimaginable?  Oh, yes.  Of God?  Most definitely.

So, I wrap this up by thanking God. 

God, my Father, Savior, Redeemer, and Lord, thank you.  Thank you for the people who make up the church, warts and all.

Sustain my friend while she prayerfully seeks you in this time away from preaching and pastoring.  Convict the people in the church who hurt her – break their hearts that they might repent and turn inward to You.

Protect the Christians in the path of evil – those in Nigeria and Syria and Iraq and other places.  Protect them with your presence.  Through their witness, work miracles.

In my life, fill me with compassion that is unmistakable so that when people are doused by the compassion that pours from me, they will not even see me, but look to you, Oh Savior God.

That is my prayer.  It has stopped raining and is way past my bed time.  Good night.