Uses for Euphemism

It seems to me that if you want to do something nasty to another person, the easiest way to justify yourself is to not think about it at all. If your conscience starts to nag you, don't fight with it; just ignore it. Give it a zennish dismissal; tell yourself, "I'll have to think about that ... but later."

Of course, you can't always get away with this. Sometimes, obnoxious people will show up and ask you pointed questions about the nasty things you want to do. In this event, you can salvage your blissful ignorance by speaking abstractly. For a good example of this technique at work, listen to the following interview with Representative Thomas Tancredo (R-CO).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5029291

Tancredo thinks that we should pursue a stricter immigration strategy. First, we need to seal our southern border, and second, we need to deport the nearly 2 million illegal the illegal immigrants now living in the U.S. Wait, did I say 2 million? I meant 20 million. We need to deport the nearly 20 milion illegal immigrants now living in the U.S. Of course, Tancredo wisely avoids describing the situation this way:

ALEX CHADWICK: But aren't there millions of illegal immigrants currently residing in this country? What are you going to do with all those people?

REP. TANCREDO: The most conservative estimate I have ever heard is 13 million, but I, I think it's much closer to even 20 million people who are here illegally. And what are you going to do? You're going to enforce the law.

Pure genius! What sleight of hand! Notice how deftly Tancredo points us toward the black-and-white world of legality, drawing our attention away from the ethical messiness that we might otherwise have to deal with. Obviously, says Tancredo, the only question here is whether or not the law should be enforced. And of course the law should be enforced! Case closed!

But Chadwick was asking about about people. And while it's easy to agree with a generic "we should enforce the laws", it's a bit more difficult to agree with, "we should hunt down 20 million people, uproot them from their homes and send them back to whichever third-world nation they came from." It's even more difficult to say, "we should arrest my neighbor Joe and his wife Alma, evict them from their house, and ship their entire family back to Panama." Therefore, if you want to protect the borders of the United States of America, you shouldn't start thinking about these real people. Instead, speak in abstractions. It's much easier that way.

An Odd Sort of Argument

Well, Texans did even worse than I expected, voting nearly 75% to 25% to approve a the Texas constitutional amendment to ban nontraditonal marriage. This is too bad, because:

1. The amendment is redundant, because Texas already has laws prohibiting gay marriage. But our representatives obviously don't have enough work to justify their paychecks, so they resort to passing laws about cheerleading and other unnecessary legislation.

2. The amendment denies legal, emotional and perhaps even the spiritual benefits of marriage to a long-ostracized minority group. For many voters, I suppose this outcome was just what they had in mind. That doesn't make their behavior any more ethical, or any less harmful.

3. God thinks that, all things considered, gay marriage is OK.

Statement #3 is simply a summary of what I think God thinks about gay marriage, which arises from an aggregation of the following experiences:

1. My upbringing in the church, which included lots of Bible reading. This means I have a good idea about what's actually in there, and what's not.

(An aside, here: please don't expect me to take seriously your comments about scripture if you haven't at least read the entire Bible. I consider that a minimal standard for competent discussion.)

2. Masters of Divinity friends discussing good ways and bad ways of interpreting the Bible.

3. Discussions with helpful acquaintances who considered themselves gay or lesbian.

4. A few years spent attempting to empathize with other people.

5. A few years spent thinking about suffering (disease, famine, natural disaster, pogroms, abuse, depression, post-nasal drip) and the way God interacts with the world.

6. A few years spent attempting to ask questions clearly and answer them precisely.

These ideas and experiences have lead me to the conclusion expressed concisely in statement #3: God thinks gay marriage isn't such a big deal. To support statement 3, I suppose I could provide a well-reasoned analysis of the Bible and the world, trying to prove that God thinks one way or another. This is probably what Paul was expecting when he once asked me to post on the topic of homosexuality. But in my experience, this sort of analysis isn't helpful unless you and the other party have spent some time trying to understand the history of thought that underpins your reasoning.

So here's my invitation to you. If you can spare a few brainwaves, take some time to think about God and gay marriage, and then take a few minutes to write a brief post for the rest of us. But don't just share your reasoning in this post; also summarize the experiences that make your belief ring true.

Election Tuesday Nov. 8

Just a friendly reminder to you Texans: This tuesday, you can vote on the proposed amendments to the Texas constitution.

My advice: if you want to give the thumbs-down to prop. 2, get out there and vote.

On the other hand, if you want to give the thumbs up to prop 2., first visit Liberty and Servanthood, Jeff Wilhite's blog. One of his recent posts gives some good reasons that social onservatives should vote against proposition 2.

If you read Jeff's post and you're still not convinced, just stay home on Tuesday. I mean, you're probably tired, right? I bet you've been working hard every day to defend the institution of marriage. You deserve a break.

Diablog Shelved

Just wanted to let you know that I've removed the Diablog links from my blog. I hadn't been able to give much time to developing it, and there didn't seem to be much interest in using it.

But if I'm wrong, and you're still interested in using Diablog or testing it, holler.

In Context

Here's something amusing. Hop on over to Bible Gateway and search the bible for something. "Poor", for example.

Now examine your results, which are broken up by individual scripture. There are three links for each scripture: one that will only show you the single scripture, one that will also show you the preceding and following verses ("in context"), and one that will show you the entire chapter ("whole chapter").

I like Bible Gateway. It's handy for finding things, it looks nice, and it's free. But there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with their labeling. Since when is three Bible verses "in context"? I mean, check out these three verses:

16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

Now if you didn't know what was going on in the passage from Numbers, you might think that God was telling the Israelites to massacre a bunch of people, except of course the pretty young virgins. But if you read the entire chapter, you realize that the passage is actually saying that ... um ... God told the Israelites to massacre a bunch of people, except of course the pretty young virgins.

Nevermind. Bad example. We'll talk about interpreting the Old Testament another time.

What I meant to say was, when it comes to interpreting things, three verses aren't much different than one verse. Three verses certainly aren't going to give you any idea about what the author is trying to do in the book at large. The Entire Chapter may not even give you that.

So to be more accurate, I suggest that the Bible Gateway people change their labels to the following:

1 verse:
Prooftexters Click Here!!

3 verses:
Southern Baptists Click Here!!

Entire Chapter:
Suck It Up And Read the Book, Willya?

For more amusement, those of you who searched for "poor" should notice the number of results that returned, and then do a search for "homosexual".

Proposition 2

For those of you who aren't aware, there's a special election in Texas this November. One of the items on the ballot is a so-called "protection of marriage" amendment. Just wanted to share some of the reasons that this is a bad idea.

1. Amending the Texas constitution is unnecessary.

Texas already has laws prohibiting same-sex marriages. An amendment would add to the number of laws in Texas without adding to their substance. If legislators expected these laws to be overturned because they are discriminatory, a constitutional amendment might be effective. However, based on the fact that every member on the Texas Supreme Court is elected, and every one is also a Republican, an amendment is unnecessary.

2. Amending the Texas constitution will not help defend the sanctity of marriage.

As described by the Texas Legislative Council: "If the purpose of the proposed amendment is to defend the sanctity of marriage, that purpose would be better served by state laws addressing the high incidences of divorce, adultery, and family violence that occur within traditional marriage between a man and a woman and that are more damaging to the institution of marriage, the welfare of children, and the stability of society, than same-sex marriages."

3. The imprecise wording of this amendment will have unintended consequences for women and children.

For example, it will reduce protectections against domestic violence for women and children in common-law marriages. (This is because of the section establishing that the state and its political subdivisions could not create or recognize any legal status identical to or similar to marriage.)

4. I don't think the following argument would convince my conservative co-workers, but this sort of amendment clearly discriminates against gay and lesbian couples.

That's why other states have overturned laws banning same-sex marriages: courts have ruled that the equal rights sections of their constitutions conflict with such laws. If you doubt that having your marriage recognized by the state confers any benefits or rights, visit this site and have a read.

The Texas Secretary of State's website contains more information about *all* the propositions in the November election, as well as arguments for and against.

For Shame

Wow. A month and a day since my last post. If anyone's still visiting, I beg your forgiveness.

I also haven't read any blogs for the past month, and I haven't done any work on diablog. Instead, I've been trying to start a little side business. Between that and the time spent playing with my crazy baby (who is 9 months old today), my blog has fallen into disrepair.

I'm not sure if the business is going to go or not, but once I get things started I'll see if I can't get this old blog juiced up again.

Let's Hear a Hearing

Currently, we have Senators pontificating about the role of the Supreme Court.

Listen.

I suspect Roberts is going to be confirmed without much trouble, so the questioning is probably the most telling part of this whole process.

Got to disagree with Kennedy somewhat. To some degree, interpretation of the existing constitution is important.

Hm. John Cornyn isn't so bright.

Expanding freedom. Hm. That seems reasonable.

Judicial activism? I think I'd be more inclined to attribute the polarization of American politics to ... oh ... the marriage of the Republican party and the Religious Right.

...ah, let's see what Roberts says.

- He says that a judge is like an umpire ... interpreting the laws, not creating them.

- Judges have to be humble and listen to the opinions of their colleagues.

- Wow. Beautiful description of the Rule of Law.

- More baseball imagery.

- Ends up with two commitments: 1) to be judicially modest 2) to defend the independence of the court.

- 6 minutes. Succinct. No wonder this guy was a spectacular lawyer.

Another Good Sermon

... although this one has a bit more cursing.

The coolness of the hushed church, the smell of incense lingering in the air, envelops me. I gaze down the length of the church and fixate on the tabernacle. The place where, when I was little, I believed God lived. I haven’t sat in a church in a long time. My mind is a sickened blank. What to say? What to ask the Almighty?

Almighty my ass. What a sick joke. When was the last time He saved anybody?

If you're game, visit waiterrant and read The God who Drowns. Thanks to Stu for the heads-up.

Oh, and I think the diablog engine is about ready for other people to try out on their blogs. I mean, it compiles and it's not trying to write 1 gig files anymore, so I figure it's pretty safe.

The links in my sidebar should subscribe you to all posts (instead of just one). Give it a whirl.

Curse You, Internet Explorer

Yes, Diablog is broken in IE.

I'm fixing it.

More Stuff by Other People

When things are going badly, it's hard to know what to say about God. Most of the time, I have the luxury of not having to say anything. But some people don't have that luxury: They have to get up and preach a sermon every Sunday. Katherine Torrance is one of these people.

In between our fits of praying and our acts of giving, we also have another task at hand: the important practice of trying to understand the events through the lens of our faith. There are questions to ask—the kinds of questions that don’t easily lend themselves to answers. Why do things like this happen? Why do some people survive and others perish? Does God have a role in natural disasters like hurricanes?

Visit Katherine's blog to read the entire sermon.

Neck of an Hourglass

In the Gospels Jesus is asked 183 questions directly or indirectly. Of these, he directly answers three! Jesus’ idea of church is not about giving people answers but, in fact, leading them into liminal and dark space, where they will long and yearn for God, for wisdom and for their own souls.

As long as I'm not writing anything but software, I may as well pass along something interesting and readable.

The above quote is from Forty Years in a Narrow Space, by Len Hjalmarson. I originally found this piece with a little help from Grumblefish.

My Son John

Departing from the buoyant subject of Diablog, Stu sent me a song performed by Boiled in Lead. I assume it is an Irish folk song.

One stanza in particular stands out:

All foreign wars I'll now denounce
'Twixt this king of England or that king of France
I'd rather my legs as they used to be
Than the King of Spain and his whole navy

This pretty well sums up my opinion about the value of this war in Iraq.

Poof! You're all beta testers!

Sorry for my negligence in posting. I've been spending my spare time putting together a little program to do something cool.

Well, at least I think it's cool.

The program is named "diablog", partly in honor of Paul's blog, and partly because it's intended to allow a little more dialog on blogspot blogs.

If you look at the bottom of each post, there's now a button that says "Diablog Me!" and a text area where you can enter your email address. If you put your email address in that box and click "Diablog Me", you will be subscribed to that post. That means that whenever ANYONE adds a comment to the post, the comment will be emailed to you. My intention is to make it easier to remain involved in a conversation about a post.

If this doesn't make sense, tell me.

I'm still testing the program and finishing it up, so please bang on it as much as you like. If you want to test the program on your blog, let me know and I'll help you get set up.

Update:
Wow. It can't just be a coincidence that I post this thing and all of a sudden get hammered with blog spam. From now on, we'll have to do that "type in a word" thing.

Another Update:
Has anyone actually tried to subscribe to comments? Because I haven't seen any subscriptions coming down the wire.

And if you wanted to subscribe but you haven't, why not? Is there some barrier to subscription that I haven't thought of?

Somebody should try subscribing and then adding a comment to see if it gets forwarded to their email correctly.

One Last Look (at things that suck)

Nag!

"Write the next post!" Stu says. "Wouldja hurry up and post? It's been a freaking week. What ya gonna post about? Huh? Huh? Huh?"

God, I love that man.

Happy birthday, Stu.

The Next Post

Ok, I'm ready to wind up this "things that suck" tirade. Depressing. Let's sprint through this as quickly as possible.

To make it seem faster, let's do it without using a full stop.

Thank you all for your comments and insight and encouragement about my family and about forgiveness it's comforting to see people from parts far distant demonstrating love for me and my family ... makes me smile

(Ick. This is like some well-paragraphed ee cummings freak show. Sorry. I'll stop now.)

Furthermore, I agree with many of the things you said about forgiveness, even some of the things that I argued against. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to play devil's advocate; to question assumptions like "forgiveness is the way of God".

Finally, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my weekend.

On thursday, I went back to the town where I grew up; I drove down to pick up my wife, son, and a moving truck full of my parents' boxes and furniture.

While I was there, I had the opportunity to go back to church for an hour or so. But this wasn't for a regular church service. It was for a funeral.

A young man my sister's age had died - a kid we grew up with - and my dad was performing his funeral.

Now, about my dad and funerals:

My dad prepares for a funeral by sitting down with the family and listening to their stories. He compiles those stories - picks the best of them - and spends most of the funeral telling stories about the deceased. The funny stories are his favorites, and usually they're the favorites of the family as well. So his funerals end up being a combination of sweet and funny and sad, which taken as a package, usally turn out to produce a little comfort as a by-product.

And that's probably nice when you've lost someone you love. You get to spend some time with your friends, enjoying those memories, listening to my dad paint a gritty, beautiful picture of someone you're all going to miss. No obsessing over heaven, no dire warnings about hell, no whitewashing of the person's faults, no platitudes, no false hope. It's difficult for me to explain exactly what he does, but whatever it is, I'm convinced that my dad preaches the best funerals in the world.

So it was nice to get to hear my dad preach another funeral from that pulpit in that church where he's been the shepherd for 20-odd years. My sister and I came in at the last minute and stood in the back ... the place was packed.

My dad did his job: the funeral was spectacular, as usual, especially considering that these were the people who had treated him so poorly.

He had told me a few days before that he was having trouble deciding what scripture might go best with the funeral ... and as you might expect, he ended up with the perfect one: the story of the Samaritan woman, whose love and enthusiasm tapped at the hearts of all the people she knew, making them ring and resonate with the love of Christ.

After my dad had finished speaking and the funeral directors prepared to run the final slide show, I left the crowd and went meandering through the shadowy hallways of the church building. I poked my head into every classroom, trying to remember what grade I had been in when I had gone to class in room 9, trying to remember who my teachers had been.

I looked out the windows and remembered looking out the same windows with church friends who were like my brothers and sisters.

I chuckled at the paintings on the walls of the Junior High classroom; my sister had done one of those clumsy, garish things. There were her initials and the initials of her friends.

Library, a small room, with books to the ceiling.

The tiny, dusty broom closet. The black, cylindrical iron mailbox.

White columns. White steeple. White walls.

Dark stairwells, dark hallways that still figure prominently in my best dreams and nightmares.

And, of course, those people I grew up with. I didn't spend much time with them. When I had finished my tour, I went back to my sister and told her I was going to skip the trip by the casket. I would go and get the car. I was ready to go home.

Things That Suck (Post 3)

For those of you who continue to follow this nonsense: thanks.

The Way of God?

I still need some convincing from Irina and company: What makes you think that "forgiveness is the way of God"?

The Story of Shimei

First, this link to my dad's take on the situation. I suspect that he means to communicate some particular message through the use of this story, but that might not be the case: he might just be tossing it out.

However, for those of us who feel inclined to back David here, let's remember that Shimei is at least being accurate: David is a "man of blood", and in many ways a "scoundrel". As David says, "Leave him alone; let him curse, for the LORD has told him to."

The Letter from My Sis

(I think it's very well done.)

To the Elders of the Church of AH,

Greetings in the name of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. I hope this letter finds you well.

I know that you have received numerous letters about your choice to ask my father for his resignation in January. This is mine. You would have received it earlier, but I didn’t want it to be considered castigating.

In fact, nothing is further from my mind. I have held you all very dear to my heart–we were family.

I have grown up with your children, learned from you in bible class, attended your family functions and gone to camp with you. I have known some of you since the first Sunday my Dad started preaching at AH, a few months before my first birthday. The rest of you I welcomed into the family with open arms.

So I’m sure you can imagine how devastated I was to hear about the way my father was treated. I admit that I cannot know all the details surrounding his “release,” but I do know one thing: regardless of whatever wrongs he committed and whatever faults he had, I believe he was treated unjustly, because he was treated as hired help and not family.

I believe this set a bad example to the flock (I Peter 5:3) and was not a good way to manage the church family (I TImothy 3:5).

It is my belief that you saw your church in danger, that you were–as the rest of us–watching it fall apart slowly, inch by inch. And so you made a rash decision, lunged out to save something you love. But instead, that decision, and especially the way you handled it, caused more problems and more pain than you anticipated. We all know it caused pain in the AH family at large, and I can tell you that it has caused unspeakable pain in my immediate family and especially in my own life.

My father, as you know, has handled this whole situation very stoically and has–true to form–spent his time trying to ease the pain of the congregation and help its people to move forward in the love of Christ. The rest of our family, however, is having a harder time.

Surely you can understand that I can’t imagine ever attending services at AH again. I believe doing so would have the appearance of my stamp of approval–would send the message that I agree with your decision and the way in which you enacted it. And I obviously do not. I am grieving the loss of my childhood church, the family I have known my whole life, at your hands.

I feel betrayed by you, the men of my own beloved church family, at the treatment of my father, who deserved better if for no other reason than the fact that he had served the Lord and His people at AH for 22 years. But he has also cared for your own families in times of grief, pain and loss as well as those of celebration. And he has done no less for the other members of our AH family, who have expressed their own grief and outrage at the events that transpired in January.

And so, Elders of AH, I write to ask you for an apology. I ask you to apologize to my family at AH as well as my immediate family for how you handled the firing of my father. I am confused as to why it has taken this long, but let’s face it: AH is still in trouble, turmoil and pain. I believe that nothing else but your humility and the love of God will heal the body of AH.

But I want you to know that regardless of what you decide, you have my forgiveness anyway.

So please, for the sake of the people who we all hold dear, consider my request prayerfully.

In Christ,
(the sis)

A better approach to poverty

I think Larry James knows what he's talking about.

Geek Humor

I don't want to stop you all from sharing thoughts about rebuking and forgiving, but I want to break up all the serious with a little geek humor.

The Google bit is ethical, and the Unix bit is current events, so this isn't really off topic, right?

Don't Be Evil
Before it went public, one of Google's guiding principles was "don't be evil". Since the IPO, I've been wondering: is google still upholding this principle?

Now, thanks to the Gematriculator, we can see that google.com is indeed Very Good.



Microsoft, on the other hand...




Backstroke of the West
Thanks once again to Reepicheep, that icon of Geek Humor.



Unix Geek Humor
I don't know if anyone else will get it, but this is pretty freakin' hilarious. It begins:

The War on Terror

As viewed from the Bourne shell.

$ cd /middle_east
$ ls
Afghanistan Iraq Libya Saudi_Arabia UAE
Algeria Israel Morrocco Sudan Yemen
Bahrain Jordan Oman Syria
Egypt Kuwait Palestine Tunisia
Iran Lebanon Qatar Turkey

$ cd Afghanistan
$ ls
bin Taliban
$ rm Taliban
rm: Taliban is a directory


Things That Suck (Post 2)

Thanks for all your advice and encouragement. I think I'm starting to figure this out. I wasn't really even sure which questions to ask before, but I think I'm gonna be naked by the end of this song.

>blink<

Sorry. Rogue meme. I meant, I think I'm gonna be able to ask some better questions by the end of this post.

Let's return to my previous "Things that Suck" post and consider your advice.

Advice

Seems like a healthy, Christ-like, rebuke is always scriptural.
Bryan, Kyle, The Sis, Emilyjane, Stu

But don't try to get revenge.
Emilyjane

Throw in some scripture for good measure.
Kyle

Consider whether your actions are likely to make a difference.
Paul

Don't lose your cool.
Paul

Let them know you are sincerely struggling with how to come to terms with the situation and their motives
Bryan

Forgive the elders and let God do the work.
Irina and The Wife

Keep peace in the church.
The Wife

Consider what forgiveness should look like in this situation.
The Dad

Aggravate their sexual prejudices.
Bryan

Send them poop in a box.
The Sis

All reasonable advice. But I'm starting to notice something interesting about it. In general, those of you who call for rebuke do not call for forgiveness; those of you who call for forgiveness do not call for rebuke.

Maybe, as Emilyjane suggests, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

As a disciple of Christ, I have an obligation to consider the teachings and character of Jesus as I decide my course of action. And as I consider things, It seems that Jesus rebuked AND forgave. Jesus smacked those darn Pharisees up one side and down the other ("whitewashed tombs, snakes, blind guides") but if our theology is anywhere near correct, he also forgave them.

Rebuke without forgiveness is unacceptable: as Irina and my wife point out, Jesus was nothing if not forgiving. One of the Big Ideas in the Christian faith is that somehow, the life and death of Christ engaged the forgiveness of God.

On the other hand, forgiveness without rebuke is irresponsible. Let's consider what Jesus is doing when he rebukes the Pharisees: He's laying into the religious leaders who are destroying the faith of God's children. The Pharisees have a responsibility to nurture and love the people they serve; instead they're stomping them into the ground.

Splash Damage

The Dad (k-rewx) points out that it is often harder for spouse and family than it is for the "victim.". This is precisely why both forgiveness and rebuke are necessary.

I think this is a good (simple) Christian model of conflict management:

1. The victim's job is to forgive those who hurt him.
2. The church's job is to rebuke those who hurt the victim.

This keeps the victim from pursuing revenge, and also provides an avenue for the correction of the wrongdoer. However, in this situation, I occupy the roles of both Victim and Church. As the son of the victim, I am indirectly harmed: the victim of "splash damage", so to speak. And because of this damage to me, I have a responsibility to forgive. In fact, if there were no damage done to me, there wouldn't be anything for me to forgive. But as the son of the victim, I am not also the victim himself. Therefore, I also have a responsibility to say something about the injustice being perpetrated upon the victim.

This is a very important concept, one that has huge implications for whether we go about pursuing social justice. Sally can forgive Biff for beating her up, but it makes no sense to say that I can forgive Biff for beating Sally up. That was a wrong done by Biff to Sally, and only Sally can forgive it. Rather than forgiving Biff, my job is first of all to protect Sally from any more victimization, and secondly to help Biff see the error of his ways.

In other words, I have a responsibility to turn my own cheek, but never to turn someone else's cheek.

Doing Something

So now I need to try and figure out what this forgivness should look like and what this rebuke should look like. Paul's suggestions are helpful here: don't be pitiful, and try to do something that will be effective.

Regarding a rebuke, I wonder: What makes for an effective rebuke? And what sort of action is a rebuke intended to cause?

Regarding forgiveness, I wonder: How do I know when I have sucessfully forgiven someone? What sorts of things can help me forgive? And, to encourage me to do this hard thing, what good is forgiveness? Can't I just be angry? What purpose does it serve?

Two Assertions

1. Management is easy to do poorly and hard to do well.

I base this assertion on my experience, the experiences of Bryan and Paul, and, anecdotally, the general bungling of the Bush administration. (Guess where Dubya got his degree.) But I suppose there might be counterexamples ... anyone have stories about good managers they've known? And what made them good managers?

By the way, thanks for your suggestions about my family's church situation. I'm going to process those ideas for a little while longer, and I'll post about them later.

2. This is going to be an interesting site.

I hope its writers succeed in making themselves heard despite the annoyingly loud rhetoric of those who equate Christianity with conservatism.