The second panel of the morning, "Gay Marriage, Civil Rights, and Public Policy," addressed the question of what position Seventh-day Adventists should take in the debate over homosexual marriage.
Scot Zentner opened by analyzing the underlying morality that founds society and argued that in the United States this does not rest on a specific religious tradition. He argued that the fundamental view of morality that the founding fathers incorporated into this country was to maximize freedom except for those behaviors that are harmful to others. Because marriage is the core of the natural family, in which children are raised to be moral individuals, we are not at liberty to redefine it. For Zenter, disgust, popular jokes, and the pejorative nature of the word "gay" are evidence of the inherent difference of the sexes and immorality of homosexuality. He argues that homosexual marriage is predicated on the notion that there is no essential difference between the sexes.
Gary Wood began by asserting that it is impossible to separate politics and morality, because at its core politics is about justice. So the question for religious liberty is Can unassisted human reason apart from revelation provide a moral foundation for society? He argues that this can be found in the philosophy of natural rights (i.e. rights grounded in the nature of human being) and that these rights come along with natural duties as well as pointing us to natural ends. And because reason can't point us all the way to our purpose, we have a natural right to religious liberty. He proceeded to argue that homosexuality is not a natural right, because it does not follow from the natural end of sex--procreation. He implied that a government that could restrict homosexual sex would be too powerful to control, yet he argued that such a practical consideration would not justify legalizing homosexual marriage.
Jason Hines outlined and rebutted three major categories of argument against homosexual marriage. The first is the religious argument, which is not only inappropriate on the basis of the establishment clause, but also for Christians on the basis of belief in God given freedom. The second is the sociological argument that homosexual marriages are not the optimal environment for raising children. However the fact that children in homosexual families have more problems than those in heterosexual families may be due to the stigma society places on their family and not due to the composition of their family itself. Also, there are studies showing that children raised in homosexual families have no more problems than children in heterosexual families. Hines thinks that the best arguments against homosexual marriage are the natural law arguments, such as those outlined by the previous two presenters. But Hines points out that the civil institution of marriage encompasses more than natural law is able to explain, that is, people get married for reasons other than having kids. He also points out the previous use of natural law in America to justify slavery and oppose women's suffrage, which are now considered unjust on the basis of natural law. Perhaps, he says, natural law can also be used to justify homosexual marriage.
Nicholas Miller, the panel chair, concluded the discussion. He asserted that we act both as citizens and Christians, and that the arguments used in one arena may not be used in the other. However, when the conclusions of the arguments in both arenas overlap, the church is justified in speaking out in the civil arena. The religious argument Miller proposes against homosexual marriage is the eschatological significance of marriage, which along with the Sabbath, is one of the two creation institutions that will be under attack in the end times. He argued that while the Sabbath along with the first four commandments should not be legislated, the last six commandments, which focus on our relationship with each other, have and can justifiably be the subject of civil legislation. Therefore, Miller believes that Adventists have a duty to argue against homosexual marriage in the civil arena on the basis of natural law and sociological studies. Against Hines' rebuttal he noted that tobacco legislation was introduced on the basis of correlation alone at a time when the causal mechanisms were not understood.
Disclaimer: I have summarized the views of the presenters to the best of my ability, however my summary should not be conflated with their actual views. For this reason, any attempt to debate the presenters views in the comments section will be deleted. Comments that seek clarification are welcome.
Blogging the Homosexuality Conference (other posts)
Friday, October 16, 2009
Blogging the Homosexualty Conference: Day 2, Panel 1
The first morning panel, "Gay Marriage, Religious Liberty, and the Church," revolved around the question of whether the church should involve itself in the political debate over homosexual marriage.
Barry Bussy, the panel chair, opened with a summary of the potential threats the homosexual movement poses to the religious liberty of those who condemn homosexual activity on religious grounds. His remarks were largely based on his experiences advocating for the Adventist Church in Canada. These concerns were based on trends in Canadian legal journals towards limiting the ability of religions to teach their members and educate their children not to celebrate and embrace homosexuality.
Gerald Chippeur shared a summary of homosexuality and religious liberty cases in Canada where homosexual marriage was recently adopted. One Christian university in Alberta was sued for firing a professor who advocated against their doctrinal position on homosexuality. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the university had the right to employ only those who uphold their religious norms. In another case, the Adventist church joined in advocating for a Christian university that was denied education program accreditation in British Columbia because of their beliefs on homosexuality. That denial of accreditation was also overturned. In Saskatchewan, there is a case before the courts attempting to remove marriage licenses from minsters who refuse to perform same sex marriages.
Alan Reinach opened by stating that it is impossible to overestimate the risks for religious liberty in homosexual marriage. He thinks that Adventists are not by nature partisans in the culture wars but believes that our ability to operate our institutions and live according to our consciences is under threat because homosexual activists are no longer willing to live and let live. He held up California as a legal bellwether, and claimed that the California Supreme Court has in the last 15 years consistently upheld homosexual rights and waffled on free exercise of religion. Reinach believes the fundamental problem is the belief that equality trumps liberty.
Bill Knott addressed the question of whether Adventists should be in politics directly, arguing that religions by default become involved in politics, unless they are purely cultic and awaiting immediate translation. His thesis is that early Adventists became involved in selected issues, such as abolition and prohibition, that they believed had special moral significance. He pointed to the early Review as a place where abolitionist invective against the American government was much stronger than what we would tolerate today (think Jeremiah Wright), and shared his discovery that Ellen and James White lived 500 yards from Fredrick Douglass, whose magazine, The North Star, had editorials strikingly similar to those of the Review. He also pointed to the church's later failures to act on the issues such as the 60s civil rights movement and the internment of Japanese Americans as undermining our religious liberty position at that time.
Disclaimer: I have summarized the views of the presenters to the best of my ability, however my summary should not be conflated with their actual views. For this reason, any attempt to debate the presenters views in the comments section will be deleted. Comments that seek clarification are welcome.
Blogging the Homosexuality Conference (other posts)
Barry Bussy, the panel chair, opened with a summary of the potential threats the homosexual movement poses to the religious liberty of those who condemn homosexual activity on religious grounds. His remarks were largely based on his experiences advocating for the Adventist Church in Canada. These concerns were based on trends in Canadian legal journals towards limiting the ability of religions to teach their members and educate their children not to celebrate and embrace homosexuality.
Gerald Chippeur shared a summary of homosexuality and religious liberty cases in Canada where homosexual marriage was recently adopted. One Christian university in Alberta was sued for firing a professor who advocated against their doctrinal position on homosexuality. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the university had the right to employ only those who uphold their religious norms. In another case, the Adventist church joined in advocating for a Christian university that was denied education program accreditation in British Columbia because of their beliefs on homosexuality. That denial of accreditation was also overturned. In Saskatchewan, there is a case before the courts attempting to remove marriage licenses from minsters who refuse to perform same sex marriages.
Alan Reinach opened by stating that it is impossible to overestimate the risks for religious liberty in homosexual marriage. He thinks that Adventists are not by nature partisans in the culture wars but believes that our ability to operate our institutions and live according to our consciences is under threat because homosexual activists are no longer willing to live and let live. He held up California as a legal bellwether, and claimed that the California Supreme Court has in the last 15 years consistently upheld homosexual rights and waffled on free exercise of religion. Reinach believes the fundamental problem is the belief that equality trumps liberty.
Bill Knott addressed the question of whether Adventists should be in politics directly, arguing that religions by default become involved in politics, unless they are purely cultic and awaiting immediate translation. His thesis is that early Adventists became involved in selected issues, such as abolition and prohibition, that they believed had special moral significance. He pointed to the early Review as a place where abolitionist invective against the American government was much stronger than what we would tolerate today (think Jeremiah Wright), and shared his discovery that Ellen and James White lived 500 yards from Fredrick Douglass, whose magazine, The North Star, had editorials strikingly similar to those of the Review. He also pointed to the church's later failures to act on the issues such as the 60s civil rights movement and the internment of Japanese Americans as undermining our religious liberty position at that time.
Disclaimer: I have summarized the views of the presenters to the best of my ability, however my summary should not be conflated with their actual views. For this reason, any attempt to debate the presenters views in the comments section will be deleted. Comments that seek clarification are welcome.
Blogging the Homosexuality Conference (other posts)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Blogging the Homosexualty Conference: Day 1
From now until Saturday night, I'll be attending the Marriage, Homosexuality and the Church Conference at Andrews University. It is a multidisciplinary conference that is more professional than scholarly in nature. There are no respondents who bring the opposite view of the presenters because, "The conference organizers have chosen speakers who have a biblically-faithful view on homosexual practice, as measured by a consensus within the Christian church for the last two millennia, as well as the virtually unanimous view of the worldwide Adventist Church."
Though the schedule is quite full, I hope to post a brief synopsis of the sessions on this blog. My goal is to connect you to resources for further study, and give you a sense of where the Adventist Church is moving on these related issues.
The opening address was given by Mark Yarhouse, Psy.D., who, along with James Stanton, recently published the results of a longitudinal study on homosexual Christians involved in a change ministry in their recent book, Ex-gays? Stanton was supposed to present, but was unable to come due to his father's failing health.
Yarhouse began by assessing the weaknesses of the proposed causes of homosexuality. He concluded that homosexuality is likely caused by a combination of hereditary and environmental factors. He proposed that just as there are multiple ways that one can become a homosexualt there are multiple homosexualities. He suggested that the feminist critique has taught us it is wrong to take a certain type of male homosexuality as a prototype and talk about all homosexuality within that category.
Along those lines he summarized the philosophical debate about what sexual orientation is. The essentialists claim that homosexuality is the same throughout cultures and throughout history. The social constructionists counter that homosexuality is a category fashioned by society as a way to describe preferences. It would appear that Yarhouse favors the later view.
Finally, Yarhouse took up the question of change. He called one type of change "natural fluidity," and cited Lisa Diamond's documentation of women who more often than males experienced change from homo- to heterosexual attraction.
The other type of change is consciously attempted, which is the kind Stanton and Yarhouse studied. A quick and dirty summary of their findings is that by the end of the five year study, one third of the homosexuals studied were chaste or heterosexual, one third were continuing to change but not chaste or hetero-, and another third continued as or were more homosexual. But Yarhouse says these results, while significant, are not conclusive because 60% of the original group dropped out half-way through the study and were not counted.
Among the more surprising results of their study was that men who placed on the truly homosexual side of the hetro-/homosexual continuum (as measured on 5 different scales) experienced more change toward the heterosexual than the group average. They also measured distress with a standard test and found that people were not more psychologically distressed for having gone through the ministry and, if anything, they were less distressed.
Yarhouse concluded from the comments of those involved in the study that the ministry was not as successful at changing orientation as it was at helping the people along a process of sanctification, and thus helping them to become good stewards of their sexuality. He advised that we offer homosexuals realistic biblical hope. My impression is that this would involve helping homosexuals cope with temptation to homosexual activity and perhaps move toward heterosexual attraction, but not promising them that they will become heterosexuals if they will only try harder, pray more, etc. Yarhouse views the later as destructive.
Yarhouse's presentation was followed by an interview with Pastor Ron Woolsey, an Adventist minister in Arkansas. Woolsey was sexually abused by a man at the age of four, and since that time was sexually attracted to men. He studied theology and pre-med at Southern Missionary College, and while there married a woman he liked but didn't love thinking that marriage would be the solution to his homosexual desires.
While Woolsey's wife was on a trip he had a sexual encounter with a man which caused his marriage to break up. He also left the church when a pastor told him he could never change and told his wife to divorce him. After a series of casual and longer term partners he found a man with whom he thought he could live forever.
But, in Woolsey's words, "his relationship with Jesus ended up eclipsing the relationship" he had with that man. He started studying the Bible, and decided that he was dealing with a sin issue and that if the Bible calls homosexuality a sin, it is because it has the solution. By a process of memorizing and claiming Bible promises his life was changed. He is now identifies as an ex-gay and is married to a woman.
Disclaimer: I have summarized the views of the presenters to the best of my ability, however my summary should not be conflated with their actual views. For this reason, any attempt to debate the presenters views in the comments section will be deleted. Comments that seek clarification are welcome.
Though the schedule is quite full, I hope to post a brief synopsis of the sessions on this blog. My goal is to connect you to resources for further study, and give you a sense of where the Adventist Church is moving on these related issues.
The opening address was given by Mark Yarhouse, Psy.D., who, along with James Stanton, recently published the results of a longitudinal study on homosexual Christians involved in a change ministry in their recent book, Ex-gays? Stanton was supposed to present, but was unable to come due to his father's failing health.
Yarhouse began by assessing the weaknesses of the proposed causes of homosexuality. He concluded that homosexuality is likely caused by a combination of hereditary and environmental factors. He proposed that just as there are multiple ways that one can become a homosexualt there are multiple homosexualities. He suggested that the feminist critique has taught us it is wrong to take a certain type of male homosexuality as a prototype and talk about all homosexuality within that category.
Along those lines he summarized the philosophical debate about what sexual orientation is. The essentialists claim that homosexuality is the same throughout cultures and throughout history. The social constructionists counter that homosexuality is a category fashioned by society as a way to describe preferences. It would appear that Yarhouse favors the later view.
Finally, Yarhouse took up the question of change. He called one type of change "natural fluidity," and cited Lisa Diamond's documentation of women who more often than males experienced change from homo- to heterosexual attraction.
The other type of change is consciously attempted, which is the kind Stanton and Yarhouse studied. A quick and dirty summary of their findings is that by the end of the five year study, one third of the homosexuals studied were chaste or heterosexual, one third were continuing to change but not chaste or hetero-, and another third continued as or were more homosexual. But Yarhouse says these results, while significant, are not conclusive because 60% of the original group dropped out half-way through the study and were not counted.
Among the more surprising results of their study was that men who placed on the truly homosexual side of the hetro-/homosexual continuum (as measured on 5 different scales) experienced more change toward the heterosexual than the group average. They also measured distress with a standard test and found that people were not more psychologically distressed for having gone through the ministry and, if anything, they were less distressed.
Yarhouse concluded from the comments of those involved in the study that the ministry was not as successful at changing orientation as it was at helping the people along a process of sanctification, and thus helping them to become good stewards of their sexuality. He advised that we offer homosexuals realistic biblical hope. My impression is that this would involve helping homosexuals cope with temptation to homosexual activity and perhaps move toward heterosexual attraction, but not promising them that they will become heterosexuals if they will only try harder, pray more, etc. Yarhouse views the later as destructive.
Yarhouse's presentation was followed by an interview with Pastor Ron Woolsey, an Adventist minister in Arkansas. Woolsey was sexually abused by a man at the age of four, and since that time was sexually attracted to men. He studied theology and pre-med at Southern Missionary College, and while there married a woman he liked but didn't love thinking that marriage would be the solution to his homosexual desires.
While Woolsey's wife was on a trip he had a sexual encounter with a man which caused his marriage to break up. He also left the church when a pastor told him he could never change and told his wife to divorce him. After a series of casual and longer term partners he found a man with whom he thought he could live forever.
But, in Woolsey's words, "his relationship with Jesus ended up eclipsing the relationship" he had with that man. He started studying the Bible, and decided that he was dealing with a sin issue and that if the Bible calls homosexuality a sin, it is because it has the solution. By a process of memorizing and claiming Bible promises his life was changed. He is now identifies as an ex-gay and is married to a woman.
Disclaimer: I have summarized the views of the presenters to the best of my ability, however my summary should not be conflated with their actual views. For this reason, any attempt to debate the presenters views in the comments section will be deleted. Comments that seek clarification are welcome.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
apokalupto media: Prophecy Chart Interview
If you're afraid to wear the Adventist Caricaturist's prophecy chart tee because someone might actually ask you to explain it, this video is for you. It's got Adventist historian Merlin Burt serving up the goods on our historicist heritage and me playing the part of ignorant interviewer a little too well. Together we take up the question of whether that prophecy chart reflects current Adventist theology.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Top Five: Reasons Jesus Was ...
I just finished a series over at the Spectrum Blog, "Five Reasons Jesus." It grew out of a series of notes that I put up on Facebook. I added a concluding list of lessons for the blog series. Click through the above link and be sure to read them from bottom to top.
Friday, August 28, 2009
How Ellen White Is Like The Pope (And His Bishops)
I have called this second-tier element, for lack of a better term, a theological mediator. A theological mediator may be a person (living or dead), an institution, or even a spiritual practice. And to the best of my knowledge every Christian church/denomination/movement in history has had one.
Generally speaking, a theological mediator unites believers by doing two things:
- Applying (or "mediating") Scripture in a message that is particularly applicable to their current circumstances.
- Demonstrating supernatural confirmation that this message is from God.
But this definition of theological mediator must not exclude those in other churches who fulfill similar roles. For example, Protestant churches recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in generating the reformers messages, and thus Wesley functions as a theological mediator for Methodists, Calvin for Calvinists, etc. Granted, they do not recognize as strong a supernatural confirmation in the experience of their reformers as Adventists see in Ellen White, and perhaps this is one reason why their churches are less organizationally unified.
The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, is very organizationally unified, and has developed a theological mediator with a supernatural confirmation of prophetic proportions. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church the Pope, when he makes certain proclamations (ex cathedra), and his bishops, when they all get together and make proclamations, are infallible in matters of doctrine and practice (Section 891). This is accomplished by means of a spiritual gift, "the charism of infallibility," and has a "prophetic" function in the Church (Sections 2035-6).
So when critics of Adventism say that Ellen White is like the Pope, in a certain sense, they are correct. But if they stop there and do not acknowledge certain key differences between the way the pope functions as a theological mediator and the way Ellen White functions as a theological mediator (especially their relationship to scripture), they are not doing justice to either. But the conflation of Ellen White and the Pope serves to illuminate the underlying issue with these critics ignore, which is that they prefer their theological mediators (such as Luther) on the lower end of the supernatural confirmation spectrum.
I hope by now it is clear that, on a practical level, the question is not so much whether we will have theological mediators, but who or what we will allow to occupy that position in the theology of our faith community. I believe that ideally each individual should make up their own mind based on Scripture in light of tradition, reason, and experience. In reality, few Christians ever undertake such a radical questioning of their belief system of their own accord.
One final note for Adventists: I have "Spirit of Prophecy" in the chart and not "Ellen White" for a reason. If we limit the Spirit of Prophecy the institution of Ellen White's writings, we cut ourselves off from the possibility of a living prophet, and the relevance of our message will eventually pass beyond the horizon of relevance in our changing world. I'm not asking us to accept every Ernie Knoll that comes along, but we must be open to the larger fulfillment of Joel 2 if we want to be the remnant of Revelation 12.
Friday, August 21, 2009
An Adventist Quadrilateral
This Adventist Quadrilateral is intended to be presented in two stages. In stage one, the second tier, the "Spirit of Prophecy," is absent, leaving the original four sources of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Stage one is, therefore, a Christian Quadrilateral, since more or less all Christian groups use these sources, though they may differ on how the sources relate to one another.
In this model, Scripture stands alone as the most authoritative theological source, because it is understood to be the product of special Divine revelation expressed by prophets under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For the purpose of this model, tradition is understood to be the voice of the church, now and in ages past. Because the Holy Spirit is active in guiding the church into all truth, tradition is also a theological source.
The Holy Spirit is active in shaping the experience and reason of individual Christians, and therefore these must be considered theological sources. But individual reason and experience do not have authority to define communal norms because Christians are not to judge one another but submit to one another. It is this mutual submission to the work of the Holy Spirit in each other that allows the corporate body of Christ to have authority.
However, the authority of the church is not absolute, but may be appealed by individuals on the basis of Scripture, which judges tradition. Yet, Scripture, the most authoritative source, must be interpreted on the in light of tradition (Does this interpretation line up with how God has led us in the past?), reason (Does this interpretation make sense?), and experience (Does this interpretation make a positive difference?). Therefore, this model posits a circular process of interpretation and evaluation during which theology is constantly growing.
These four sources work fine on their own, but only if you don't want to have a visible church. The model requires theology to be in a state of flux, and therefore on the basis of the four sources alone it is difficult to get individuals, much less congregations, to come together as a church with common beliefs. The model is essentially a Protestant one, and Protestants are the most fragmented wing of Christianity.
That's where the fifth source of an Adventist Quadrilateral, the Spirit of Prophecy comes in. The Spirit of Prophecy is the second-tier source, between Scripture and the other three. Therefore, it is the Adventist iteration of what I have chosen to call a "theological mediator," the category that is the topic of my next post.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Interview: Jason Hines
I first met Jason Hines in a Christology class when we were assigned to the same debate group. When he told us he was a lawyer, I figured we would do well in the debate. When I asked his law school, and he said, "Harvard Law," I figured we would probably win the debate.Later that semester, I heard Jason give a paper that refuted some major arguments against homosexual marriage. Everyone in the room, including his professor, disagreed with him, but he argued his points civilly and well. Afterward, I asked him to do an interview for apokalupto. He agreed, but our schedules prevented us from talking until now.
a: Give us your background. What were you doing before you came to Andrews?
JH: I was a lawyer for just about five years. I was doing commercial litigation which is, in a nutshell, lawsuits about contracts, mostly between businesses.
a: Did you like it?
JH: It was intellectually challenging, and I like anything that is intellectually challenging. But did it get me up in the morning? No.
a: How did your ivy league education influence your Christianity?
JH: At an ivy league institution you’re going to meet people from all over, all walks of life, and some really intelligent people at that. It gives you a better perspective on what people believe and why they believe it.
But in terms of my own Christianity, being in an lvy league institution didn’t really affect that.
It probably gave me a greater desire for a higher spirituality. But I'm not sure I can separate out how much of that came from being at an ivy league institution and how much of that from my own personal desire to be closer to Christ.
I will say this: Any time you're in a secular environment, its going to challenge your Christianity. But even when you’re in a Christian environment, you're going to find challenges to your Christianity.
a: What is a Harvard trained lawyer doing at Andrews University?
JH: I ask myself that question every day [laughs]. No.
I found my calling at Harvard, although I didn’t know that at the time. Because, at Harvard I started thinking about religious liberty and morality and the law. I always had problems with the attempts of Christians to legislate Christianity, but I hadn't really thought it through.
I started getting involved in religious liberty in a serious way in 2004, when a friend of mine, who is also a former lawyer, and I started giving seminars on the topic. I found that was the type of thing that got me up in the morning. It took me awhile to figure out that was the type of thing I wanted to do full time, partly because I didn't want to go back to school, but God orchestrated things so that I would have to go back to school.
a: What areas of religious liberty interest you?
JH: My partner in ministry (Tim Golden, an ex-public defender, now doing his doctoral work) and I talk about the two main aspects of religious liberty. There's the practical aspect, which is, What do you do when your boss won’t let you take Sabbath off?
The other part is what we call the prophetic element. That's an understanding of who God is and what God is about, which is essentially freedom, informed by the Adventist prophetic understanding. That influences how we understand issues taking place in socio-political realm and the religious world. Looking at things, like abortion or homosexual marriage, through what we call the prophetic lens and then asking how to we respond to these types of things is the prophetic element.
This second aspect is what I’m more concerned with, which is why Tim and I are moving into academics more than practice. Because, we don’t see much of a shortfall in how the SDA church does practical religious liberty, but we think that the church losing its way in terms of the prophetic aspect of religious liberty. We seek to speak to all Christians, but particularly Adventists, because of our prophetic understanding
a: So where is the Adventist Church losing its way on religious liberty?
JH: Our difficulty is a very human difficulty, which is that we don’t like sin. We say, Oh, that’s a sin. Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen.
But in doing that we try to take away people's God given right to choose what their morality is going to be. We see the Adventist Church joining with the evangelical church in a broader sense, not to engender relationship with Christ that would cause people to want to live their lives differently, but to dictate and cajole in order to get people to live the right way. There are people involved in religious liberty, Tim and myself are among them, who think that you shouldn’t violate the principles of God in order to uphold the principles of God. But our opponents don't see it that way.
a: I can tell this conversation is already heading to our next question. So, tell us about your project on homosexual marriage.
JH: I’m planning to do my [MA in Religion] thesis on the issue of homosexuality generally, with the main emphasis on the ethics of passing laws against gay marriage. But I’m only using this issue as a spotlight to a broader issue which is the legislation of morality.
a: That's obviously a work in progress, but can you summarize your paper where you critique arguments against homosexual marriage?
JH: Basically I looked at the three prevailing rationales for legislating against gay marriage. The first is religious, which is outlawed by the constitution and forbidden by the Bible by what God says about enforcing your morality on others.
The second argument is the sociological argument, in which people cite studies about the effects of homosexual marriages on children who are raised in those relationships, and also the bad things that happen in homosexual relationships more than in heterosexual relationships. The issue here is correlation versus causation. In other words, if we said to homosexuals, (as a social construct, not a religious construct) Your relationship is acceptable, that may solve those problems, if they are caused by the prejudicial behavior of society towards homosexuals. Also, as many studies as you can cite showing the children of homosexuals have problems, I can cite studies that show they do better than other children.
The third issue (and this is what my professor is a proponent of) is a natural law analysis. It says, Let’s pattern our society after the natural world, which then leads into the sociological argument. My problem with natural law arguments, is they always turn out the way whoever is proposing them wants them to.
a: One last question, to be taken in good humor: Which is more difficult, Andrews or Harvard?
JH: I was more afraid at Harvard, but I work harder at Andrews. At Harvard law, you have to know the material before you get to class, because the professor’s going to call on you. So the rule is, if you don’t read, you don’t go to class.
When I walk into a class at Andrews, I’m not afraid. However, I have to study Greek 3 hours a night, have three books to read through, and 100-pages of research to write out between February and April. It’s not hard work, but I work harder.
I guess it feels better to not be afraid, so I guess Andrews is easier? But ask me at three o'clock in the morning on my fourth all-nighter in a row, and I'll probably give you a different answer.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
A Monument And A Name
...do not let the eunuch say, "I am just a dry tree." For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name [yad vashem] better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
Isaiah 56:3b-5
I know it doesn't sound very Christian, but the most moving experience I had during my recent trip to Israel was not the visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, nor celebrating communion at the Garden Tomb.
Yad Vashem is Israel's "living memorial" to the Holocaust, containing an archive and research center as well as several monuments and the Holocaust History Museaum. The campus features beautiful archetecture, sculptures, and peacefull gardens with thousands of trees planted in memory of the Righteous Among the Nations (Gentiles who helped Jews during the Holocaust).
As I entered Yad Vashem memories of Holocaust sites slowed my steps--crowding onto a cattle-car at National Holocaust Memorial Museaum; treading grey dirt paths at Dachau, ashes of the dead; looking up at coffie can sized holes in the concrete 'shower' ceiling at Aushwitz; witnessing rooms filled with shoes, eyeglasses frames, and human hair. And still it seemed my consciousness could only bear a fraction of the evil that occurred. I descended toward the cave of the Children's Memorial and overheard a guide: "...Israelis have a saying: You can take the child out of the Holocaust, but you can't take the Holocaust out of the child..."
After the Mediteranian sun, the tunnel was pitch-black and then emptied a room filled with children. Their larger than life portraits sorounded me, and smiles filled the cavern. But the hall was deadly quiet, and the black and white pictures were placed not on a living room mantle but suspended in the midst of darkness. One of the kids reminded me of my son; it was time to move on.
The next hall was a starfield. the darkness interupted by stationary points of light, some larger, some smaller. I noticed that the closer lights were lamps, and the smaller lights were the same lamps reflecting off polished surfaces. The grotto contined an infinite matrix of flames.
Then I listened. A flat male voice was speaking at regular intervals. First a name, then an age, then a country. Repeat.
I was confronted with the scale of an evil filling every horizon of space and time. Each star represented an innocent child of Abraham snuffed out by a human powered killing machine. Each name, in this blackness deviod of all privious meaning attached to it, was a reminder that there would be another and then another, and after I left there would be thousands more.
At that point, I had to leave because the place was too overwhelming. The Children's Memorial was supposed to establish a monument and give a name to the innocent victims of the Holocaust, in reality it was a testament to the capacity of humanity to generate evil on a scale that surpasses our ability to reckon. Within those subterranian walls I had no memory of the children, only of the atrocity committed against them. We owe to the children's murderers even our ability to read their names, while the dead of other genocides remain anonymous.
But another thought had occurred to me as I contemplated the matrix of lights: This must be what it is like to see the memory of God. Each innocent life stored, suspended, resting, until the resurrection. Waiting for the moment when the God of justice will use his creative power to restore them to a perfect world where they can live out the life that was cut short, no longer in fear of suffering and death.
No human monument can do justice to the breadth of evil in this world nor its victims. No reading of names can bring back the life behind the name, nor transmit the person from one generation to another. Yad Vashem testified to me that humanity needs a Savior, a Savior big enough and yet close enough to embrace the whole of human suffering and redeem it to something better.
That was the most profound insight God gave me in Israel.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Open Letter To Berry Bussey
Barry Bussey
Director of Legislative Affairs
Seventh-day Adventist Church
Dear Mr. Bussey,
I had hoped to also send you this letter personally, but was unable to find your contact details. So now I trust the serendipitous mechanisms of the internet will deliver this communique.
First, I wish to commend you on your recent post at The Liberty Blog where you correctly identify waterboarding as torture. Like you, I see prophetic implications in the fact that my nation's highest elected and appointed officials approved these kinds of information gathering methods.
Second, I wish to inform you of an opportunity to walk the talk. On June 11, 2009 the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is sponsoring an event in front of the White House during which leaders of national faith groups will ask President Obama to support a formal inquiry into how the U. S. government came to practice torture. While President Obama seems to be backing away from torture, an inquiry will help America put safeguards in place for when a 'Pharaoh who does not know Joseph' comes on the scene. As my church's representative on Capitol Hill, I request that you, along with as many other top-tier Adventist Church leaders as you can muster, be present to support this event.
"Torture is a moral issue"--this is the slogan of NRCAT. I believe that Adventists should join with them in asserting more specifically, Torture is a religious liberty issue. It has been well documented that U.S. officials went out of their way to offend the religious sensabilities of detainees (for example, Qu'ran desecration). This blatant disregard of religious conviction should not pass without response from the Adventist Church, and I believe calling for a full inquiery be the most redemptive of the available options.
Blessings to you in your unique ministry. I hope you enjoy your stay in my country as much as I have enjoyed yours.
Sincerely,
David Hamstra
Director of Legislative Affairs
Seventh-day Adventist Church
Dear Mr. Bussey,
I had hoped to also send you this letter personally, but was unable to find your contact details. So now I trust the serendipitous mechanisms of the internet will deliver this communique.
First, I wish to commend you on your recent post at The Liberty Blog where you correctly identify waterboarding as torture. Like you, I see prophetic implications in the fact that my nation's highest elected and appointed officials approved these kinds of information gathering methods.
Second, I wish to inform you of an opportunity to walk the talk. On June 11, 2009 the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is sponsoring an event in front of the White House during which leaders of national faith groups will ask President Obama to support a formal inquiry into how the U. S. government came to practice torture. While President Obama seems to be backing away from torture, an inquiry will help America put safeguards in place for when a 'Pharaoh who does not know Joseph' comes on the scene. As my church's representative on Capitol Hill, I request that you, along with as many other top-tier Adventist Church leaders as you can muster, be present to support this event.
"Torture is a moral issue"--this is the slogan of NRCAT. I believe that Adventists should join with them in asserting more specifically, Torture is a religious liberty issue. It has been well documented that U.S. officials went out of their way to offend the religious sensabilities of detainees (for example, Qu'ran desecration). This blatant disregard of religious conviction should not pass without response from the Adventist Church, and I believe calling for a full inquiery be the most redemptive of the available options.
Blessings to you in your unique ministry. I hope you enjoy your stay in my country as much as I have enjoyed yours.
Sincerely,
David Hamstra
Thursday, April 02, 2009
My Theological Education Or Between Doubt And Certainty
Faith exists somewhere between and beyond doubt and certainty. If all you have is certainty, you have no need of faith. If all you have is doubt, you don't see the need for faith. Faith is what happens when you have reasons to doubt, reasons to be certain, and, in that situation, choose to trust.
Last year, a friend and I were reflecting on our theological educations. During our undergrad, we both attended the same school, Canadian University College, for four years—an experience that left us with more questions than answers. Later, as pastors, we both wrestled with those questions, finding answers to some and putting others on the shelf.
Now we are doing our Masters of Divinity at the flagship seminary of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Andrews University and having the very different experience of being provided with more answers than questions. In some ways this is frustrating, because we know when a professor is oversimplifying facts or minimizing the weaknesses of the traditional Adventist position. But in other ways it is liberating to discover that others have found the same answers we came up with or, better yet, to be given novel solutions to questions we had left unresolved.
Anselm said that theology is faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum). If this is true then the goal of theology must be to simultaneously explore doubt and shore up certainty. This, of course, is an impossible task. During that conversation with my friend I realized that institutions of theological education tend to favor one or the other.
I realize that it is not good PR to characterize my alma mater, Canadian University College, as a institution that offers a theological education promoting doubt. But remember, doubt is not the opposite of, but a prerequisite to faith, for where there is no reason to doubt, there is also no reason to have faith. In fact, doubt was just what I needed at that point in my Christian experience.
For example, I came out of high school believing that there were no major questions about the Bible that I could not answer, and that if a question about the Bible were to come up that I did not have the answer to, I would be able to look at the Bible and Ellen White's writings and find that answer with relative ease. In short, I had a high degree of certainty about the world, my life, and the way things ought to be, and as a result, I was not very open to God bringing anything new into my life. Questions, doubt, and uncertainty were what I needed to restore balance to my faith.
This stands in contrast to my experience prior to entering seminary. I invested a great deal of time during my ministry reading material by those who emphasize the doubt side of faith, who presented me with more questions than answers. Confronting these questions is well and good, but faith requires a healthy level of certainty in order to function. And as a pastor, I need to have answers that prompt faith for those who are struggling with doubt in their spiritual life.
The mission of the MDiv program at Andrews University is to produce competent pastors, and what that means in the context of theological education is pastors who are certain of what they believe. One would expect the church's flagship seminary to be dedicated to promoting certainty, and there is definitely a place for that, considering the significant doubts Adventist clergy and academics are known to harbor or even promote.
But consider the implications of pursuing certainty of belief as an absolute. David Koresh is an extreme example of what can happen when a religious leader's certainty leaves no room for doubt. A pastor who is big on certainty will find it difficult to practice humility or patience and may end up damaging their church with their rigidity and inflexibility.
Perhaps it would be better if pastors left the seminary with some doubts intact. Because, for all the good certainty can do for a pastor, it is in realm of our doubts that God has room to grow us. I prefer to be more like Job, and less like his three friends.
As I look back on my admittedly incomplete theological education, I see a new reason for certainty in my faith. On my path God has provided my faith with just what I needed when I needed it. Doubt tells me to chalk it up to happenstance, but I choose to trust my creator to continue to guide my life.
And, I am glad that neither those institutions and individuals which promote doubt nor those which promote certainty are able to exclude the other from our church's system of theological education. I'm not saying a thousand theological flowers should bloom within Adventism, but the current institutional mix has been good healthy for me and others I've encountered. So maybe it's a good thing that we have the ATS and ASRS, but it's an even better thing that they're on speaking terms.
I'll sign off with one final thought for you to comment on: The opposite of faith is not doubt or certainty; it's disobedience.
Last year, a friend and I were reflecting on our theological educations. During our undergrad, we both attended the same school, Canadian University College, for four years—an experience that left us with more questions than answers. Later, as pastors, we both wrestled with those questions, finding answers to some and putting others on the shelf.
Now we are doing our Masters of Divinity at the flagship seminary of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Andrews University and having the very different experience of being provided with more answers than questions. In some ways this is frustrating, because we know when a professor is oversimplifying facts or minimizing the weaknesses of the traditional Adventist position. But in other ways it is liberating to discover that others have found the same answers we came up with or, better yet, to be given novel solutions to questions we had left unresolved.
Anselm said that theology is faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum). If this is true then the goal of theology must be to simultaneously explore doubt and shore up certainty. This, of course, is an impossible task. During that conversation with my friend I realized that institutions of theological education tend to favor one or the other.
I realize that it is not good PR to characterize my alma mater, Canadian University College, as a institution that offers a theological education promoting doubt. But remember, doubt is not the opposite of, but a prerequisite to faith, for where there is no reason to doubt, there is also no reason to have faith. In fact, doubt was just what I needed at that point in my Christian experience.
For example, I came out of high school believing that there were no major questions about the Bible that I could not answer, and that if a question about the Bible were to come up that I did not have the answer to, I would be able to look at the Bible and Ellen White's writings and find that answer with relative ease. In short, I had a high degree of certainty about the world, my life, and the way things ought to be, and as a result, I was not very open to God bringing anything new into my life. Questions, doubt, and uncertainty were what I needed to restore balance to my faith.
This stands in contrast to my experience prior to entering seminary. I invested a great deal of time during my ministry reading material by those who emphasize the doubt side of faith, who presented me with more questions than answers. Confronting these questions is well and good, but faith requires a healthy level of certainty in order to function. And as a pastor, I need to have answers that prompt faith for those who are struggling with doubt in their spiritual life.
The mission of the MDiv program at Andrews University is to produce competent pastors, and what that means in the context of theological education is pastors who are certain of what they believe. One would expect the church's flagship seminary to be dedicated to promoting certainty, and there is definitely a place for that, considering the significant doubts Adventist clergy and academics are known to harbor or even promote.
But consider the implications of pursuing certainty of belief as an absolute. David Koresh is an extreme example of what can happen when a religious leader's certainty leaves no room for doubt. A pastor who is big on certainty will find it difficult to practice humility or patience and may end up damaging their church with their rigidity and inflexibility.
Perhaps it would be better if pastors left the seminary with some doubts intact. Because, for all the good certainty can do for a pastor, it is in realm of our doubts that God has room to grow us. I prefer to be more like Job, and less like his three friends.
As I look back on my admittedly incomplete theological education, I see a new reason for certainty in my faith. On my path God has provided my faith with just what I needed when I needed it. Doubt tells me to chalk it up to happenstance, but I choose to trust my creator to continue to guide my life.
And, I am glad that neither those institutions and individuals which promote doubt nor those which promote certainty are able to exclude the other from our church's system of theological education. I'm not saying a thousand theological flowers should bloom within Adventism, but the current institutional mix has been good healthy for me and others I've encountered. So maybe it's a good thing that we have the ATS and ASRS, but it's an even better thing that they're on speaking terms.
I'll sign off with one final thought for you to comment on: The opposite of faith is not doubt or certainty; it's disobedience.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Adventist Theological Seminary to Become Monastery: Students Form Religious Order
At the end of this semester, the Adventist Theological Seminary will officially close its doors and then reopen as the new St. Andrews’ Monastery. The change was prompted when the Seminary Student Form (SSF) voted to reorganize as a religious order. “We were basically already taking a vow of poverty when we came here,” explained SSF President Babe Korea. “And, as students, obedience is something we’re used to, so we said, ‘Why not add chastity?’”
When asked how the married students will cope with a vow of chastity, Mr. Korea replied that he is also married and is “looking forward to giving up carnal relations,” because in his opinion it will free up time to complete his required reading. Another student, Ms. Regena Upton-Single, hopes that taking a vow of chastity will help her focus more on her studies and less on finding a “soul-mate.” Campus Safety also approves of the vow, predicting that there will be fewer complaints of males loitering in areas frequented by nursing, education, and music students.
Dr. Henri Poutine, the Dean of the Seminary, expressed the faculty’s full support for the changes. “We believe that implementing a comprehensive rule of life will significantly help us to curb latent autodidactic tendencies in our students,” he said in a statement. Dr. Poutine noted that in keeping with the ancient tradition of religious hierarchy, “Do as I say; not as I do,” monastery policy will exempt faculty from “vows that interfere with inter-gender relations in the context of matrimony.”
According to Dr. Poutine, General Conference (GC) leadership is optimistic about the seminary’s new identity. In “off-the-record” comments, he told apokalupto that, “Ever since the Jesuits went all soft and social justice-y in the 70s and the economic crisis gutted the Illuminati, the GC has been looking for a way to exploit the current power vacuum in the global illicit influence structure. And they’re hoping our new monastery and religious order will be the basis of a secret society that can play with the big boys.”
Dr. Poutine refused to give further details except to say that a contest will be held to pick the SSF’s new name. The winning submission will have an “obvious idealistic or positive meaning,” but feature “mysterious or possibly even sinister undertones.” Other contest criteria, deadlines, and prizes have not yet been announced.
In Other News:
Church Throws All Spectrum Readers Out
When asked how the married students will cope with a vow of chastity, Mr. Korea replied that he is also married and is “looking forward to giving up carnal relations,” because in his opinion it will free up time to complete his required reading. Another student, Ms. Regena Upton-Single, hopes that taking a vow of chastity will help her focus more on her studies and less on finding a “soul-mate.” Campus Safety also approves of the vow, predicting that there will be fewer complaints of males loitering in areas frequented by nursing, education, and music students.
Dr. Henri Poutine, the Dean of the Seminary, expressed the faculty’s full support for the changes. “We believe that implementing a comprehensive rule of life will significantly help us to curb latent autodidactic tendencies in our students,” he said in a statement. Dr. Poutine noted that in keeping with the ancient tradition of religious hierarchy, “Do as I say; not as I do,” monastery policy will exempt faculty from “vows that interfere with inter-gender relations in the context of matrimony.”
According to Dr. Poutine, General Conference (GC) leadership is optimistic about the seminary’s new identity. In “off-the-record” comments, he told apokalupto that, “Ever since the Jesuits went all soft and social justice-y in the 70s and the economic crisis gutted the Illuminati, the GC has been looking for a way to exploit the current power vacuum in the global illicit influence structure. And they’re hoping our new monastery and religious order will be the basis of a secret society that can play with the big boys.”
Dr. Poutine refused to give further details except to say that a contest will be held to pick the SSF’s new name. The winning submission will have an “obvious idealistic or positive meaning,” but feature “mysterious or possibly even sinister undertones.” Other contest criteria, deadlines, and prizes have not yet been announced.
In Other News:
Church Throws All Spectrum Readers Out
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