The Cost To Moderate Muslims

We are not paying the greater sacrifice in the struggle against fundamentalism. Moderate Muslims pay the greatest price under terrorism, radicalism, and fundamentalism. 

They too are seen as people who need conversion to clearer thinking and understanding. It happened to half the Malian muslim population, in half the country, under the AQIM occupation (Al-Qaeda). Local peaceful Muslims who treat non Muslims of other faiths with a laissez-faire attitude, and not so strict with hijab were treated as bad, inadequate, fallen or failed muslims for not adopting their rigid fundamentalist stances. 

I can share several stories of murdered imams, murdered for refusing to preach violent and abusive doctrines. 

A full mosque of men who got up and walked out of a mosque in Timbucktu, when radicals arrived in the city and stood up to speak to the assembly on a Friday. When they stood up in place of their imam the men walked out in silent protest, not giving them the satisfaction of a listening ear. Keep in mind this arriving group of radicals had AK47s. Leaving was a risque. 

Yet admittedly, others side with the radicals, and some take up the call and end up helping and hiding the radical elements working into their community, making it almost impossible to root it out. A divided community cannot easily stand without a cost. 

Here is a story from Algeria.

"“Oh my God, oh my God,” the wizened Muslim woman in front of me says, looking skyward. “Ya rabi, ya rabi.” During Algeria’s dark decade, Fatma Bisikri’s husband, an Arabic teacher, went to do the grocery shopping in Ben Achour, the poorest area of Blida where they lived. He was stabbed and then shot to death by two masked terrorists. I think Fatma, now seventy-one, is finished with her story when she tells of running through the streets without her shoes to find her husband. But this is only the first chapter. Two years later, someone pounded on her door at night. She did not want her daughter to open the door, but her daughter did. Three or four armed men in the recognizable “uniform” of the fundamentalist armed groups—baggy seroual under a long qamis—pushed their way in. “I do not want to talk about this,” Fatma tells me in her small, strained voice. Then she keeps talking. I am grateful for the presence of my friend Lalia. There is too much grief to absorb alone here at the office of Djazairouna, the Association of Families of Victims of Islamist Terrorism. When Fatma Bisikri continues telling us her history, Lalia begins to cry. “Smhana, smhana.” “Forgive us, forgive us.” Fatma says the armed men dragged six of her nine children, aged thirteen to thirty, from the house. She held onto the legs of one fighter, sliding along, until he kicked her to the ground. Then she ran out after them, screaming: “Give me back my children.” The fundamentalists put a knife to her throat. “What are you looking for?” one barked. Even her maternal instincts could not overcome the fear they knew how to provoke. She retreated into the house. Not a single neighbor came out to help. There had recently been eleven killings in a home nearby. Terror had become mundane. At first light, in a torrential rain, Fatma Bisikri went to look for her six children. All too soon, she found them. The fundamentalists had cut their throats and dumped their bodies in a oued, a nearby riverbed. The smallest details are what make a crime against humanity all too personal. They are what finally make Fatma Bisikri sob. Not long before that macabre night, one of her young sons had been crying that they had lost their father and did not have new clothes for the Eid holiday, as other children did. His older sister, a teacher, managed to buy him new pants. He was wearing them when he was murdered. Why did this happen? Later, someone suggested to Fatma that it was because her daughter refused to stop teaching despite being ordered to do so by the local fundamentalists in their crusade against education. Or it could have been because people in the area had previously given succor to the terrorists, thinking they were fighting for religion, but then stopped helping them due to the jihadists’ local atrocities. None of these theories can answer the big why, or ease this mother’s continuing agony. After the murders, Fatma applied for a new place to live to get away from the mouth of hell her home now seemed to be. However, she has never been given other housing. So Fatma Bisikri remains alone in the same location with the view of the oued where she found her children’s bodies. She wants to sleep in a different place, but she has nothing. “Andi walou.”"
- Karima Bennoune. Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here. 

Religions Living At Peace?

"Some of the journalists I met confront fundamentalism head-on. Others document it, analyze it, challenge it, and survive it. Radik Amirov personifies an alternative to it. He transcends narrow categories, being Tatar and Russian, tolerant and interested in tradition, a citizen and a believer, a Muslim and a modern journalist."

- Karima Bennoune. Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here. 

The Same Prophets?

"Radik Amirov heads a press club called The East, which offers media resources related to what he terms “the internal and external Muslim world,” both in Russia and beyond. This is part of what he thinks Muslims must do—more work to offer their own self-representation on the Internet, radio, and TV. Part of the story that needs to be told, Radik thinks, is the long, proud history of Muslims living in peace with Christians and Jews in Russia, and fighting together against Napoleon and the Nazis. “There were no religious wars throughout this time.” Amirov sees himself as representative of the mainstream Muslim population here. “We are normal,” he laughs, again echoing Said Bitsoev. “Most Muslims are like me. There are lots of journalists and politicians and people of culture and postmen among Muslims.” Asserting that he represents the majority with his open views on religion and coexistence, he still argues that, as a population, “We must work on ourselves and avoid the fundamentalist mentality.” It is wonderful to hear someone both speaking positively about his community and also accepting its responsibility. He recently edited L’chaim Tatars, a book of true stories about what he argues are historically congenial relations between Muslims and Jews in his native Tatarstan and in other parts of the former Soviet Union. The cover of the small, hardback volume he gifts me is decorated with a crescent and a Star of David. “We have the same Prophets, the same values, rules and traditions,” ...

Yet another chapter memorializes good things Jews and Muslims have done for one another. It tells the story of a Jewish doctor who cured a Muslim boy, and then his parents saved Jewish boys during World War II. The Muslim boy in question, Abu-Bekir Shabanovich, grew up to become mufti of Belarus. For Radik, this history stands in stark contrast to today’s “war of civilizations.”

(Radik Amirov, who is president of Russia’s League of Muslim Journalists when I meet him in 2010, and press secretary to Moscow mufti Ravil Gainutdin)

- Karima Bennoune. Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here. 

Lazy Russian Believers?

"In that capacity, he observed the problems facing Russian Muslims up close. He says they have to be less passive. “Unfortunately, most of us are sitting and waiting for Allah to help us.” The mainstream Muslim population has lost a lot of time in the last fifteen years in the battle against fundamentalism, according to Amirov. “We could have organized good madrasas or a good Muslim university.” Instead, the Muslim leadership here was bogged down by infighting. The lack of moderate Muslim schools at home in Russia saw young people leave to get their “Muslim education” in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. He does not have a high opinion of what some of these students learned. “They came back completely different people. They said you should not greet Christians, that you should hate Jews.” A friend of his returned and tried “to teach me how to live.” They found themselves “on different sides of the barricades.”

(Radik Amirov, who is president of Russia’s League of Muslim Journalists when I meet him in 2010, had been press secretary to Moscow mufti Ravil Gainutdin)

- Karima Bennoune. Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here. 

Church Curmudgeon

“I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a ‘surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered fellow’. Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon.”

- Edward Abbey 

Get Out Of Your Tin Car

"What can I tell them? Sealed in their metallic shells like molluscs on wheels, how can I pry the people free? The auto as tin can, the park ranger as opener. Look here, I want to say, for godsake folks get out of them there machines, take off those fucking sunglasses and unpeel both eyeballs, look around; throw away those goddamned idiotic cameras! For chrissake folks what is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare? eh? Take off your shoes for a while, unzip your fly, piss hearty, dig your toes in the hot sand, feel that raw and rugged earth, split a couple of big toenails, draw blood! Why not? Jesus Christ, lady, roll that window down! You can't see the desert if you can't smell it. Dusty? Of course it's dusty—this is Utah! But it's good dust, good red Utahn dust, rich in iron, rich in irony. Turn that motor off. Get out of that peice of iron and stretch your varicose veins, take off your brassiere and get some hot sun on your old wrinkled dugs! You sir, squinting at the map with your radiator boiling over and your fuel pump vapor-locked, crawl out of that shiny hunk of GM junk and take a walk—yes, leave the old lady and those squawling brats behind for a while, turn your back on them and take a long quiet walk straight into the canyons, get lost for a while, come back when you damn well feel like it, it'll do you and her and them a world of good. Give the kids a break too, let them out of the car, let them go scrambling over rocks hunting for rattlesnakes and scorpions and anthills—yes sir, let them out, turn them loose; how dare you imprison little children in your goddamned upholstered horseless hearse? Yes sir, yes madam, I entreat you, get out of those motorized wheelchairs, get off your foam rubber backsides, stand up straight like men! like women! like human beings! and walk—walk—WALK upon your sweet and blessed land!

- Edward Abbey 

Rule Of Law Means I Die?

"If I should object to force I will be arrested. If I object to arrest I will be clubbed. If I defend myself against clubbing I will be shot. These procedures are known as The Rule of Law."

Edward Abbey, The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel

Get Out Of Your Car

"You can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddamn contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbrush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail, you'll see something, maybe."

- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Sacred Million Year Old Things

" If the life of natural things, millions of years old, does not seem sacred to us, then what can be sacred? Human vanity alone? Contempt for the natural world is contempt for life. The domination of nature leads to the domination of human nature. Anything becomes permissible. We return once more to the nightmare cultures of Hitler, Stalin, King Philip II, Montezuma, Caligula, Heliogabalus, Herod, the Pharaohs; Christ sacrificed himself in vain."

- Edward Abbey, Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside

Let Us Chop Wood

"High technology has done us one great service: It has retaught us the delight of performing simple and primordial tasks - chopping wood, building a fire, drawing water from a spring."

- Edward Abbey 

Little Talk Of Tiny Heros

"Philosophy without action is the ruin of the soul. One brave deed is worth a hundred books, a thousand theories, a million words. Now as always we need heroes. And heroines! Down with the passive and the limp."

- Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Cockeyed Ambition To Conquer

"The children are innocent until proven guilty. For their sake, not ours, we must soldier on, muddling our way toward frugality, simplicity, liberty, community, until some kind of sane and rational balance is achieved between our ability to love and our cockeyed ambition to conquer and dominate everything in sight."

- Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

No Management Zones?

"Simply because humankind have the power now to meddle or 'manage' or 'exercise stewardship' in every nook and cranny of the world does not mean that we have a right to do so. Even less, the obligation."

- Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Mystical Faithfulness

"The love of a man for his wife, his child, of the land where he lives and works, is for me the real meaning of mystical experience."

- Edward Abbey, 

More Democracy

"Anarchism? You bet your sweet betsy. The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. Much more."

- Edward Abbey,

Teamwork As Stupidity

"One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothing can beat teamwork."

-Edward Abbey

Our Institutions Are Too Big?

 "Our institutions are too big; they represent not the best but the worst characteristics of human beings. By submitting to huge hierarchies of power, we gain freedom from personal responsibility for what we do and are forced to do - the seduction of it - but we lose the dignity of being real men and women. Power corrupts; attracts the worst and corrupts the best. ... Refuse to participate in evil; insist on taking part in what is healthy, generous, and responsible. Stand up, speak out, and when necessary fight back. Get down off the fence and lend a hand, grab a-hold, be a citizen - not a subject."

- Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

Leadership

 "Grown men do not need leaders."

- Edward Abbey 

Some institutions hold people as peretual infantiles. 

Just Disappear

  "I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever God may happen to be looking on. Disappear - and never return. That's my fantasy."

- Edward Abbey

Let Them Get Eaten?

 "A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American."

- Edward Abbey 

More Eating Places Needed

"Wilderness is the place where you can still get eaten."

- Edward Abbey

What I Stand For?

"I stand for what I stand on."

- Edward Abbey

When Guns Are Outlawed

"When guns are outlawed, only the Government will have guns. The Government - and a few outlaws. If that happens, you can count me among the outlaws."

- Edward Abbey 

Grapes Are Enough

"Our Lord's miracle in turning water into wine comes as no surprise to those who know that it is God who did it. At the wedding that day he made wine in the six waterpots he had had filled with water; but he does the same thing every year in the vines. The servants put the water in the jugs, and he turned it into wine. In just the same way the Lord turns into wine the water that the clouds drop. Only that does not amaze us, because it happens every year...."

- Augustine. 

Two Legged Thanks Giving

"Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs?"

- Chesterton

God Leaps Out Of The Frame

"Said a boy of missionary parents attending school in this country as he looked at a picture of his father. “I want my father to step out of that frame.” 

That's exactly what God did for is in Christ. He steps out of the frame of the universe and comes to us personally, intimately. This is the Truth which Christians celebrate at Christmas."

- William (Bill) Weale. Charlottetown. 

Depressed Radicals

"Unfortunately, toxicity in radical communities is not a bug. It is a feature. The ideology and norms of radicalism have evolved to produce toxic, paranoid, depressed subjects."

- Conor Barnes. "Sad Radicals". (Dec 11, 2018) Quillette.

He Will Always Be God With Us.

"...because despite mans repeated "no", God constantly says "yes". He will always be God-with-us."

Pope Francis. Homily at the Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, 2018.

Earth Is Crammed Full With Heaven

"Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Does My Life Matter?

"Let me ask you something. Is what I do back home important?

Does it matter?

I really don’t do much other than working and caring for my family and friends . . . “

Sarayu interrupted him. “Mack, if anything matters then everything matters.

Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.”"

(The Shack. William P. Young)

Nothing To Loose!

"For me, everything is about Jesus and Father and the Holy Spirit, and relationships, and life is an adventure of faith lived one day at a time.  Any aspirations, visions and dreams died a long time ago and I have absolutely no interest in resurrecting them (they would stink by now anyway).  I have finally figured out that I have nothing to lose by living a life of faith."

(Paul Young)

Grandiose People Cannot Creat Peace

"In the secular sphere, it has manufactured artificial ledgers of perfection that have clearly changed from age to age, class to class, and culture to culture. Perfectionism discourages honest self-knowledge and basic humility, which are foundational to spiritual and psychological growth. It has made basic social tranquility a largely unachievable goal. Grandiose people cannot create peace."

Richard Rohr

 

Most Leadership gurus we are trying to emulate here are "Grandiose", in my opinion.

Participating In The Healing Of People

"A few years back I was the featured speaker at the Indiana Governor’s Prayer Breakfast. I found myself sitting with the then youngest (thirty-six years old) governor in the country, Evan Bayh. He’s also a very devout Christian. He turned to me and said, “Brennan, you’re in just about every nook and cranny of the United States. You’re in every college and university, from Campus Crusade to Young Life, and in an incredible number of churches as well. What do you hear the Spirit of God saying to the American church?”I said, “Well, Governor Bayh, if there’s one thing I hear with growing clarity, it’s that God is calling each and every Christian to personally participate in the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.”

Healing is a response to a crisis in the life of another person. It’s enough of a response, a satisfactory response to a crisis in the life of another."

( Brennan Manning. The Furious Longing Of God)

Pretending Is Exhausting

"The ego doesn't want to surrender to its inherent brokenness and poverty. Yet the truth is, realizing your imperfection is the beginning of freedom and grace. There is such freedom in no longer pretending to be something we're not."

~ Richard Rohr

Mission Work Is A Gift Not A Burden

"People often say to me: “Rob, it’s such a sacrifice, what you do,” and in many ways it is. But that’s not to say that missions work isn’t also fascinating, enriching and – on many occasions – just great fun! What you give up back home before coming on the field, God gives back to you in so many different ways – and more."

(Rob Baker. Adventures in Music and Culture : Travels of an Ethnomusicologist in West Africa)

The Illusionary You

"Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him."

(Thomas Merton)

Don't Waste Your Life Defending Your Ego

Best line I've read in weeks... "Don't waste much time defending your ego"

"Whenever you are offended, it's usually because your self-image has not been worshiped or it has been momentarily exposed. The false self will quickly react with a vengeance to any offenses against it because all it has is its own fragile assumptions about itself.

Narcissists have a lot of asserting and defending to do, moment by moment. Don't waste much time defending your ego. The True Self is untouchable, or as Paul puts it "it takes no offense" (1 Corinthians 13:5)."

~Richard Rohr

No Naked Head Pictures

Diverse cultures with different views on the human body.

"That reminds me of an amusing cultural story told by my mate Eric, a missionary in West Africa. Eric was visiting a village in his early mission days and saw three African ladies preparing a meal together. “Could I take a photo of you, please?” he asked (it’s always good to check first). The ladies looked at each other doubtfully, then one replied: “Wait a moment – we don’t have our heads covered. We must cover our heads before you can take your picture.” And with that, the three ladies removed their tops and wrapped them round their heads, ready for the photo! In great embarrassment, all Eric could do was to take a ‘pretend’ photo of these three bare-chested ladies and thank them for their trouble. True story. Culture is indeed a fascinating thing!"

(Rob Baker. Adventures in Music and Culture: Travels of an Ethnomusicologist in West Africa)

A Lifetime Of Talking Too Much

"I’m just loving shutting up. It’s honestly been simmering inside of me for quite a while. My entire life has been filled with too much talk. From myself as well as those around me. I’ve been noticing that most of us, when we talk, fill the air with… more air. "

~ Drew Marshall - Practicing silence one day a week for six months, then walked the 800km Camino De Santiago pilgrimage in silence starting on his 50th birthday.

www.Camnoconfessions.com

Armpit of Africa?

“You’re going to the armpit of Africa,” the prim doctor said, as I rolled up my sleeve for the first injection. “We can only do so much for you.” She was as thorough as she was adamant."

(To Timbuktu For a Haircut. Rick Antonson)

Freedom From Their Rewards

“You don't have to play by their rules if you don't require their rewards.” ~ William P. Young

Stories Help Us Digest Wisdom

"Story is the palm oil with which wisdom is swallowed. "

(Yousufu,  Guinea , West africa. Heard on BBC Podcast about Eola and how story was used to spread messages.)

Your God Is A Dog

"As we continue chatting and sipping tea, I discover that the word for ‘God’ in Moba is ‘Yendu’. A nice sounding word, I think to myself.  Remembering the much uglier Nawdm equivalent, I say to Thelma: “In Nawdm, the word for God is ‘Sangband.’” “Yes, I know,” she replies with a smile, “and the funny thing is that ‘sangband’ means ‘dog’ in Moba.” “Really? How curious!” “Aye, it does! And so the Moba often mock the Nawdm saying ‘Your God is a dog!’” Uncanny indeed! Fancy that! Who would have imagined such a coincidence could exist anywhere in the world?!"

(Rob Baker. Adventures in Music and Culture: Travels of an Ethnomusicologist in West Africa)

Good And Bad Pilgrims

“A todos los buenos peregrinos. Y a los malos también.”

"To all the good pilgrims – and the bad ones as well."

– A Pilgrim's Inscription in the guest book of Estella   (Robert Ward. All The Good Pilgrims)

A Very Few Issues With Jesus

"It’s sort of strange to mention another

book right at the beginning of a chapter,

but a dear friend named Carl Medearis

wrote a timely book titled Speaking of

Jesus. One thing I’ve learned is that there

is a way to speak of Jesus and there’s

a way not to.

“Speaking of Jesus.” I even like the

way that sounds, don’t you? I never liked

it when someone told me to go witness or

give my testimony or share the gospel. All

those seemed pretty weird and unnatural,

but speaking of Jesus? Now that sounds

nice.

Carl has taken me to places you would

never think a Jesus conversation would

be a good idea. Several years ago, he

took me to Lebanon and several other spots in the Middle East. In Beirut we had

some chat time with Hezbollah leaders;

in Amman, Jordan, we met with Muslim

men who had billions of dollars; and in

Jerusalem and the West Bank (in Pales-

tine), we met with people who see West-

ern Christianity as a farce and one of the

world’s greatest evils. But each one of

them loved to speak about Jesus!

People will always struggle with Chris-

tians and church and things that have

happened in the name of Jesus, but

amazingly even those who don’t know

much about His life intuitively find His

story and His words something warm to

speak about."

- Hugh Halter. FLESH

Bake The Gay Cake

Hugh Bakes a Cake. (Would Jesus Bake a Cake for a Gay Wedding?)

by Hugh Halter on August 8th, 2012

Would Jesus Bake a Cake for a Gay Wedding?

Last week, the national news posted a story about a bakery owner who chose not to bake a cake for a wedding between two gay men.  It probably got some attention because it appeared to be similar to the well-publicized Chick-fil-a story.  The stories were quite different in nuance, but nonetheless brought up very serious and real questions every Christ follower should take seriously. 

I posted this question above and had over 3500 onlookers and a truckload of great responses within a few hours.  I’ve tried to synthesize many of the responses down to a few simple thoughts that I hope will be helpful for those serious about incarnating their lives into the real world around us.

First, thanks for your respectful tone.  Even though the Christian responses were a 50/50 split on the question, there were some great perspectives on both sides and I hope we all learned a few things.

Second, I know that many who read this will not be Christian in orientation.  So forgive the “internal doc” tone.  I am trying to speak to our own Christian tribe about how we view sin and people in the world.  In Jesus’ time and obviously now, people often use the word, “sinner” in a derogatory way to label people that weren’t “in the know” or who didn’t live based on the same set of religious/moral/theological convictions that the establishment did.  In Jesus’s time it was the Jewish religious system based on the Law of Moses, and today, it continues in many tribes of Christianity.  For the sake of the argument, I’ll keep using the word “sinner” as it has been incorrectly applied, in hopes that we can at least agree that we all share the same problem.  We’re all jacked by sin!

I must also be honest with you and say that I, have to submit my wisdom under the wisdom of the revealed scripture in regards to all facets of life.  I don’t understand everything, like everything, and will have a long list of questions to reel off when I see God, but I believe that He did design sexuality to be blessed within the bonds of heterosexual marriage. 

However…

This article isn’t about trying to convince people of my view on this.  This article is to address how any of us, of any persuasion sexually, theologically, or religiously, should treat each other.  Especially how Christians should treat people that don’t believe what they believe.  I will submit that anything that doesn’t reflect the original design of God is sin and that list is long. And if we for sake of argument can say that homosexuality is a sin, I believe how Christians have treated the gay and lesbian community, in God’s eyes, may literally be of equal and maybe even greater offense to God. 

The question of whether or not Jesus (The corner bakery owner) would bake a cake for a gay wedding?  is posed so that we can finally talk about the dignity of each person’s story and how the love of God can break into all of our brokenness so that his revealed will and blessing can touch us all.

For dealing with the cake situation or other “grey zones,” here are a few anchors I try to keep in mind.

1) We don’t have to Condone or Condemn.  In so many situations we often think that we have to pick either a stance of condoning (which we assume happens if we fail to confront or form real friendships) or condemning (which we assume is a necessary response if we simply speak the truth and call people to account for their behavior. ) Some think you should just “LOVE” without truth, and some think you should just “TRUTH” em’ regardless of love.  What you’ll find in the life of Jesus is that he doesn’t pick one or the other.  He did neither.

In John 1:14 it says that Jesus came into the world in the form of a man and helped us to see the glory of God because he was full of Grace and Truth. As an example of what he hoped every Christian would be, he showed how grace (non-judgment) and healing, restorative words of truth can go together like peanut butter and jelly.  He was the most non-judgmental person you would have ever met, yet people wanted to hear what he had to say about their broken lives and when he spoke, people did change and turn from sin.  Jesus even said that he “did not come into the world to condemn but to save.” And he did exactly that. People around him didn’t feel condemned but they responded to his truth. 

He regularly ate with the worst of the worst.  Clearly, many would have pulled him aside and said, “Jesus, by eating with them, you realize that you are causing them to feel a false sense of acceptance by you, don’t you think it more wise to avoid letting them feel accepted so that they might come to their senses and stop doing what they are doing?”

In one such dialogue, he said, “I didn’t come for the healthy but the sick.”  In that statement, he was saying, “to help the sick you have to be with the sick and by being with them in their sickness, I’m not actually making them more sick, but creating a pathway to pull help them out.” 

In other words, being present with people in the mess of their lives, being true friends, fully accepting, is the way of Jesus. It is neither condemning nor condoning to make a cake or be at a wedding of people that don’t believe what we believe… It  is simply being a friend. 

To those who say that baking a cake communicates support for a non-biblical defilement of the institution of marriage, I’d suggest that we defile the institution of marriage all the time.  50% of the heterosexual Christian marriages end by defiling the institution through divorce.  And good percentages of those who don’t divorce defile the marriage daily as men cheat on their wives through pornography.  None of it is God’s intended design!  In Matthew 5:28 Jesus went further, “You who lust in your heart after a woman have committed adultery!”  In other words, don’t think just because you were married in a traditional heterosexual union, that you’ve done the institution justice and have the right to judge the next wave of people who will fail my design.”

In line with Jesus argument with the woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-11, Jesus would say to the non cake bakers, “You who have modeled a perfect marriage, go ahead and withhold the cake, but if you have ever sinned against my design of marriage, you better start whipping up some frosting!”

Look, God doesn’t need us to stick up for his created order of heterosexual marriage.  The institution of marriage is set not because we do it correctly. It’s set because God created it and marriage will always be his idea.  If we don’t stick up for the sanctity of life, life is still sacred because God says so.   He’s a big boy and knows that this beautiful union that he intended between men and woman is going to be fraught with brokenness in almost every situation and so baking a cake is not the issue, but not baking the cake would most certainly create an impossible space of tension between Jesus and the people he would hope to influence.

Jesus must have known that advocating for ‘sinner’s doesn’t make them feel better about their sin. It actually opens their heart to someday turn from their sin!

2) There is no sliding scale of sin

When I picture this bakery owner trying to decide whether or not he should bake a  cake for a gay wedding, I have to ask, what his reasoning or motives are based on.  In other words, why did he say NO?  I can only think of three reasons.

First, he could have thought that by baking the cake, these men would be pulled deeper into sin so if he made a cake he would be contributing to their ungodly union and sinful lifestyle.  Clearly this isn’t the issue and if he baked the cake, these two men would not be more gay or do more gay things?  The cake is just a cake! So that can’t be it.

So maybe, as a Christian business owner, he believes that he should represent God in who and how he gives his services away?  He might think that since God is clearly against homosexuality, I must display God’s view of sin and never give my services or products to people who are sinning in this way.  But consider the hypocrisy if he really sticks to this consistently.

Since gluttony is listed as a sin twice as many times as homosexuality is listed, then he would have to deny giving a scrumptious buttery croissant to anyone that looks to be overweight. And pastors who buy this guy’s donuts should therefore also not serve donuts every week at church, or create two lines and force the more sturdy lot into the glutton free, fat free line.  To not do this would be to help people sin, right?

And since lusting after a person sexually is a sin, and the most harmful environment for lust, pornography, and explicit viewing is on the internet, it would follow that anyone who helps build, fix, create software, or sells computers should probably shut their business down immediately as well.  For helping the computers work will be making it easier for people to sin.

And even if we aren’t business owners and just consumers, if we operate based on this line of thinking, before we purchase anything, we should make sure that whatever we buy is not the product of any Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, Mormon, or Muslim, liberal, or fans of The View! For if we help them even gain a dollar, we would not be representing God. 

 

You can see that this probably isn’t a practical solution.

So the third and only other option is that this baker believes that some sins are just so bad that he doesn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.  That’s what we called the subtle “sliding scale of sin” argument.  In other words, there are just some sins or ways of living that transcend normal logic and we should just make a stand against it!  I think this is honestly where most of us go when we chose to bless or help a non-Christian or not...

So just a few thoughts on judging levels of sin:

First, what is worse, doing something you don’t know is wrong or doing something you know is wrong?  You’re right if you guessed the latter. Clearly, when people do things that they don’t feel any conviction against or don’t know are against God’s intended design, we would call them blind, or lost, but certainly not bad or evil.  But what about people that know what is right and wrong, good or bad and continue to do or not do what they should?  Well, yes, that would seem to be worse because at least they understand.  So disobedience is worse than ignorance.  Do you agree?

People that have not yielded their lives to Christ didn’t get the memo we might have gotten about God’s design.  Romans says that every person will still be held accountable to some knowledge that there is a God by simply looking out the window and seeing that something has ordered the universe, but they do not have a context for their brokenness.   But a Spirit-enlightened believer; A Christian glutton who keeps chowing down on buffalo wings; a man who will not face his pornography addiction, a pastor who fudges on his taxes, a Christian man who lies on occasion to save face, the Christian soccer mom who leaves her weekly bible study and heads to the mall and keeps running up the visa tab to buy whatever her Oprah magazine tempts her with... they all know that they are being disobedient to God, but they still do it!  As a  Christian pastor, that is my story! That was the testimony of our greatest new testament leaders. Paul said, “I delight in the law of the Lord the idea of Godliness, the hope of living better, but dang it!!!! My flesh just keeps failing and am a wretched man!” 

Christians!!! Please…finally…take a sharpie and write this on the inside of your eyelids. “YOUR SINS OF DISOBEDIENCE ARE JUST AS BAD AS THEIR SINS OF INGORANCE!”  There is no sliding scale of sins and if you’re going to withhold baking a cake for a gay man, you better shut down the whole dang bakery because no one is really worthy of your red velvet!

Look, if I sound ticked remember, this exact same situation came up in Matthew 23:27 and Jesus called them out, “"What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs--beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity.”

Okay, no more name calling. What about the good side of our desire to see people find God and his ways?  You’re not a good parent, a good friend, or even a good citizen if you don’t have a desire to help people find God and his design for areas of their lives.  So is there a way forward?

Yes, there is, but you have to change your practical theology.  You must…

3) Change from the old covenant of the law of Moses to the New Covenant and remove your judges hat and go buy a nice rocking chair and wait on your front porch.

Let me explain.  The Old Law told us to go judge people’s sin, discipline or kill them and for sure reject them until they cry “uncle.”  The New Covenant of Grace now requires that you become like the Father in Luke 15:11ish who bakes the cake, gives it to his son, let’s his son go off and make a mess of things, and then waits for the natural story of free will to run it’s course. He knows that if he gives him the money, gives him the car keys, he’s going to jet. The Father is broken hearted, and deeply sad, but he knows that if he doesn’t give the son these gifts, he’s leaving anyway. 

Why didn’t the father say, “Son, I know you’re going to leave and go sin your face off and I won’t stop you, but I’m not going to help you either. I will not give you my inheritance or my blessing?”  He didn’t take this route because he knew that someday, the son would remember how he blessed him even though he didn’t agree and it would allow a space for redemption.  He didn’t like it, but he knew that at all costs, keep the relationship open!

This is why Hugh Halter bakes the cake, and shows up to be a friend at their wedding.  I don’t like a lot of things either, but one thing I do want is that they know I really do love them and I want the relationship to stay open.  I’ve not condoned or condemned. I’ve not led them into sin, or helped them sin more. I’ve not misrepresented my God, or become a self-righteous jackwagon.  I’ve just been a friend of sinners like Jesus or like the old man waiting on the porch for his son to return home.

Befriending sinners is better than belittling sinners…better to be on the porch waiting for a struggling friend to return than on the side of a relational grand canyon you’ll never be able to cross.  People almost always in times of great personal need, return to those who have dignified their personal journey and given them space to learn for themselves.

4) Incarnation must precede proclamation: In other words, Grace must precede truth if we are to model our lives after John 1:14 and be incarnational in the way of Jesus.

We know it’s true, whenever we share our opinion about someone else’s lives without significant trust or relational bandwidth, it comes across as condemnation. Since Jesus didn’t come to condemn but to save, we must learn the skill and patience of winning the trust of those we hope to influence.   In baking the cake, what I’m hoping will happen is that someone at the wedding does ask, “Wow, great cake, who made it?”  And then to have someone say, “That guy over there... I think his name is Hugh, he runs a bakery. I heard he was a Christian too…Sort of weird he’s here but he seems different than the other Christians I’ve run across, he’s actually been here all day helping us set up.” 

This type of scenario has happened a lot to me and it often leads to the non-Christian friend pursuing relationship, dialogue, conversation and a discipleship relationship.  As I always say, when relationship is closed off, nothing will ever move spiritually, but if we gain trust through blessing and presence in the lives of people, then hope is always one conversation away.

If you become of friend of someone, you’ll know their true story, and if you know their true story, you’ll understand their sin, and when you understand their sin, you’ll know how to pray, and when you know how to pray, God will show you your own sin and how to love, and when you love, and keep loving, and keep loving, they will want to know what you think, and then you will speak truth, and they will want to hear, and they will want to know your God, and God will change their heart, and then He will help them change the way they live.  (Hugh’s paraphrase of Grace and Truth)

Your other option is to be a self-righteous jackwagon and you will never see them again.  Your choice!

As I write this, I feel an incredible sense of humility hoping that my struggle through these issues encourage you to keep struggling yourself.  Thanks for engaging this question.

Here’s a link to another great article I just read here, and if you want to dive deeper into incarnational dilemmas like this, I dealt with the theology of engagement much deeper in SACRILEGE.

Please pass this along to any friends, consider using this topic and content in your small groups, churches, and for sure, apologize to anyone you may not have treated in the way of Jesus.

Eliminate The Laity

"I don't want to eliminate the clergy. I'm trying to eliminate the laity. I'm trying to ordain everyone to the work to which God calls them"

Michael Frost

Dry Hearts

"While sitting on the bank of a river one day, I picked up a solid round stone from the water and broke it open. It was perfectly dry in spite of the fact that it had been immersed in water for centuries. The same is true of many people in the Western world. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity; they live immersed in the waters of its benefits.  And yet it has not penetrated their hearts; they do not love it. The fault is not in Christianity, but in men's hearts, which have been hardened by materialism and intellectualism."

... Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)

We Don't Have Any Money

Life for many rural Africans I know. How many time have I heard this?

"Have you given him any medicine?" I asked.

"Yes, yes," he said. "We gave him aspirin and vitamins every day."

I shook my head.

“You know that's not enough. You've got to get him to a doctor. You've got to go to the mission hospital."

A look of shame and embarrassment crept onto Kanyenda's face. "Teta katuena ne falanga to," he said. "We don't have any money."

There they were. Those five words: "We don't have any money." They were permanently stitched to the sleeve of serious illness in Kalambayi, speaking like an epitaph for 90 percent of the chiefdom's dead and dying."

 

(Mike Tidwell. 'The Ponds is Kalambayi. pig 130)

China Has No Reformer Leadership

"It is long past time to come to the obvious conclusion on the human rights debate. President Xi Jinping may be an exceptional leader, but a liberal reformer he is not. Indeed, more than any Chinese leader since Mao, he is utterly committed to authoritarian governments. The central objective of his tenure to date has been to return China to a system in which one man governs for life."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now.