I’m sure there’s a great many people out there who think the world’s tendency toward liberalism is a great and wonderful thing. Perhaps in some ways it is progress. To my way of thinking, mainly in a political sense. For instance, I think it’s great that we’ve grown enough as a nation and a country that we could elect a black man as president. That is not to say I favor the President’s clearly biased agenda. Or that I support his policy changes and political two-stepping.
Only that when I think that not that long ago, that sort of victory would not have been possible.
That said, I suppose anyone and everyone should not be surprised by anything at all these days. The world certainly seems to support an agenda so far left, supporters are hanging off the wing by their fingertips. Still, every now and again something comes along that still surprises me.
I saw a link for a Huffington Post article today that talked about the Passion of a Gay Jesus. Out of curiousity, I took a look and it was pretty much exactly what I expected.
The header part of the article refers to the article being attack, with the implication being unjustly so. I would submit the series of paintings the article refers to is the attack. The references made to them and the reference to blasphemy is a defense.
The tone of the piece was interesting, too. While the collected pictures, of course, are the main offense, the casual nature of the article addressing them clearly doesn’t get why they would be thought blasphemous in nature. That’s because the painter and the Huffpo writer do not “get” Jesus–or Christianity, for that matter. And if that’s true, they don’t get sin. If they don’t get sin, they don’t get what it is to triumph over it through Jesus.
I’ve written extensively about this before, so I don’t feel a burning need to do it again now. There are gay people and there always will be. We’ve made clear progress in the straight community’s acceptance of the fact gay men and women are here to stay.
To me, that’s only part of the issue.
Where we have come to, of course, is the acceptance of deliberately offensive (and yes, blasphemous) behavior as progress.
Yet one cannot protest offensive behavior if the offense taken is from the perspective of one who supports any sort of Christian value or belief structure. Typically then, the protestor is referred to as being filled with hate. Or at best, supporting a belief system that is no longer culturally valid.
Lots of articles and books–both online and otherwise–are available as proof of that little ugly fact.
But.
I don’t really know what to say about that, beyond expressing dismay. The article talks about gay Christians. Ok, there probably are quite a few of them.
Gay Jesus? Not so much.
I don’t know anything at all about what it’s like to try and be a person of faith and a gay person at the same time. I imagine it can’t be easy. I just think that if a person–male or female–truly believes in the God of the bible. The God of Moses, the God of Jacob, they wouldn’t be able to make claims scripture in no way supports.
I think also when we go that route, we are segueing from progress into simple and clear moral relativism. I believe that’s where we are headed as a society, and a culture. We are on our way to being Europe. I don’t want to be Europe.
I don’t know what this bodes for everyone who is trying to remain steadfast in their faith in a world that doesn’t support it anymore.
I just know it’s going to get tougher and not easier.
That shouldn’t surprise me, either.
“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.”
That, too, is evident. We’re also living in a world where this is happening, right now. People are literally being murdered for Christ. In droves.
It may be that will never happen here. God, I hope not.
A Work in Progress 