Some things you should read

First off, I wish I'd seen this interesting blog post quite a while ago. For those of you who don't like clicking links for whatever reason, let me sum up: some researchers found some evidence of church-sanctioned (and that means Catholic church, given the age) same-sex marriages. I don't know why I haven't seen this thing linked a hundred times by now, or why it isn't being taken up by liberal Christians everywhere and widely disseminated, but I can at least do my small part to help draw attention to it.

And now I want you to put aside your dislike of clicking links and read this sorta-recap of last night's Glee. Because the vast majority of what's written in it shows exactly why I think it's important to support same-sex marriage, and to oppose all bullying and discrimination against gays.

This is important. My religion is about love. Denying its expression to other people is wrong. Denying brotherly and neighborly love to people because of who they fall in love with is wrong. There's no argument you can make that will stop me believing this is something all Christians should think is important.

neighbors

So, I was thinking again about universalism (that's a small 'u' there), and you know what? I don't even care if it's Biblically justified. I mean, I should, and I guess I do a little, since my last post on it bothered to quote the Bible and talk about it in that context, but to be honest? I care more about the fact that I know a lot of people who are not Christian that I'm pretty darn sure Jesus would be happy to have as a neighbor.

Amongst my friends and acquaintances, both online and off, are Jews, Wiccans, pagans of various types, Buddhists, and a few people who don't fit so neatly into a category, plus of course a fair number of Christians, agnostics, and atheists. I don't run into Muslims as often, or at least not ones that mentioned they were (not so strange given the way people often react to that), but I've certainly known a few.

Of that list, every group has had people in it who were strongly for acceptance and tolerance and support for everyone who needed it... just the kind of beliefs and actions that Jesus would want to see from people. How could he not want them as his neighbors? As to what God Himself would want, well, if He sent Jesus down to us with that message about love, I'm pretty sure He'd be pretty happy to have them around as well.

Ultimately all the arguments about whether or not you said the magic words or followed the right rituals or voted on the right issues or love the right kind of person or whatever it is any give particular Christian church wants to argue is the "right" way to be a Christian really seem pretty small in comparison to that thought. (I suspect a lot of those people on my list from other religions would agree with the principle of the thought, even though their details would, of course, be different.)

Of course, it's not up to me. As one of my favorite bloggers once said, that decision's above my pay grade. But the nice thing about that is it's also above everyone else's, too. No one on this earth gets to decide who gets to go to Heaven, or who would be welcome to go should they wish.

The Camel and the Needle

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." —Matthew 19:21-24

This seems fairly straightforward to me. It's not the only time Jesus suggested giving away money was a godly thing to do, of course, but this passage seems to sum it up nicely. The message I take from this is that concentrating on keeping wealth—caring about doing so—is detrimental to your relationship with God. Note I say "detrimental", not "an absolute bar", yet either way, I'm not sure I understand why so many Christians seem to be amongst the most greedy wealth-seekers, and I definitely don't understand prosperity preachers.

A couple of links

Via one of my old friends, the moderate voice of American Muslims regarding a recent attempt by non-Muslims to be stupid about how Muslims feel about visual depictions of Muhammad. (No, they didn't call it stupid. I am calling it stupid. Going out of your way to offend people of a specific religion is stupid... and it violates the "don't be a dick" rules of many religions.)

Via another friend, a liberal Christian shared blog, bearing witness (dreamwidth|livejournal). From their profile:

Jesus Christ lived and preached love and acceptance of all, but it increasingly seems like the most vocal Christians are preaching intolerance and hatred. So we, as Christians who believe in Christ's true message, think it's past time for us to exercise our right of rebuttal.

Note that our aim is not to evangelise to non-Christians about our religious beliefs, but rather to evangelise to other Christians about our political beliefs, and to strengthen ourselves in fellowship with others who take these beliefs as not merely compatible with, but actually required by, our faith.

Sounds good to me.

Only Human

"There is none righteous, no, not one."—Romans 3:10

"For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."—Romans 3:23

One thing I find interesting about how people view religion and faith is how the same thing can lead to such wildly different conclusions. For instance, one or both of those quotes above, or the summary of them, is frequently cited by people as a reason they have issues with Christianity. Yet, for me, they're one of the things that form the bedrock of my belief.

(Belated x2) Sunday Thoughts

"Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation."—Mark 16:15

A fairly sizable portion of Christians seem to believe that the primary goal of all Christians should be to preach to others, and I believe this is one of the verses that makes them think so.