Reviewing My Understanding of the World Post SCOTUS

In the climate that has formed around the joining of man with man or woman with woman in marriage, it seems important to me that I review for my friends and followers my world view. In this statement, I will not stop to engage in imaginary debate. I know that many points may be debated. I don't claim that everyone should hold my worldview or even care that what I am about to write is the lense through which I interpret life. I only offer these words, so you can understand how I view the issue of the right of homosexuals to marry. 

First, I need to state the ideas I can't prove. I accept that the ancient book we call the Bible is true. Second, I accept that a personal creative being outside nature exists. Genesis 1:1 is most easily translated "In the beginning God created . . ." God existed before any other thing we can know or experience. By His desire and power he created everything. I have opinions on how, but that will unnecessarily side track us. God who made everything chose to invest extra meaning in His final creature, humans. In Genesis 1:26-28, Gods plans out loud to make humans male and female and in His Image. 

I observe that this man and woman are placed in a different situation. A moral choice was placed before them. In the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God placed a moral test in the center of the garden. I find two parts in this moral choice. Part one: God as the Creator has the right to declare anything in or out of bounds. It is immoral to cross God's boundary, because He said so. It is moral to live inside God's boundary, because he said so.

Part two: it is dangerous to cross God's moral boundaries. God told the male, "If you eat from this tree, you will die." The first couple had little way to comprehend what death meant. The only way I can see that they might come close is through opposites. "We enjoy life. Life is beauty, comfort, and all we could want physically. Perhaps death is the opposite of all this goodness, joy and beauty we see." But what that world could look like was neigh on impossible to imagine. 

In Matthew 19, Jesus states that marriage was made by God for one man and one woman for life. Romans 1 talks about homosexual behavior as a result of rejecting God and walking away from him by humans. I don't know why God has made this ruling. I would understand this like the tree in the garden. Though I can't explain God's motives, I choose to trust them. Crossing God's moral fences is dangerous. This ruling encourages dangerous behavior. 

If any would ask me my opinion of homosexual marriage or union, I would reply, "I see it as morally dangerous." I can't do any different from my worldview that God is Creator and righteous or perfectly moral. 

I can't answer the question of loving feelings toward another person. For me feelings are tricky. They rise and ebb and trip me up as often as not. In matters of the heart, I can't trust my feelings near as much as I can trust God. 

That's the worldview in which I live. 

My Words Have Fled

What does it mean to be a disciple? Is being a disciple as good as the Bible states? Disciple is an education term for student. This student volunteers to learn from the Master, because of the greatness of the Master's teaching and results. An artist may commit themselves to certain "school" of art and try to paint, sculpt or draw in the form of the original Master. This student's goal is not to reproduce the work of the Master, but to make it their own.

The man described from the four accounts of Jesus' life, compels one to follow or forget. Jesus obviously lived in power. Folks flocked to him for healing, freedom, sight and inspiration. He delivered them all in ways beyond imagining. The aching woman at the well described in John 4 held no plan to be made acceptable to her village or God again. Jesus brought her both. The woman caught in the act of adultery was not destroyed but spared and encouraged to live healthy and whole. The rich young ruler was challenged to invest his wealth in others to be free to follow Jesus as a disciple. Net pullers could become fishers of people.

Jesus lived in poverty. He possessed no house, but slept on the ground or with friends. He ate from the kindness of others. He spoke to the wealthy and the wanton from the position of a poor traveling preacher. No economic status is necessary to follow this teacher. He doesn't promise instant wealth and live in greatness of stuff. He promises treasure in heaven, a life after life cash in.

Jesus stepped through the dance of life with grace. A woman plagued by bleeding, weak and forlorn, spun with Jesus in the crowd and received public healing. A teacher desperate for more on the inside handed questions to Jesus and he returned the secret to the spirit filled life. Jesus did a turn with Pilate, a jaded Roman official, and left him convinced that Jesus might know the way to truth.

Frankly, his beat doesn't naturally sound in me. Poverty feels like an enemy, not a companion and power is a bill I pay every month. So how do I choose to follow his teaching and life so many centuries removed from His world?

Jesus made this situation part of His final prayer. In John 17:20-23 John, his disciple, records that we are to be unified with each other and Him in a way that is so profound, others cannot deny it. This unity with Jesus and each other will continue through the centuries as a witness that Jesus is unified with God and can make others the same.

My words have fled at that idea.

What Makes a Man?

The cover of Vanity Fair holds only the picture of Caitlyn Jenner, the 1976 decathlete Gold medalist transformed. So what makes a man a man? Thanks to hormones and surgeries and makeup and Photoshop Caitlyn looks amazing for a 65 year old woman. So what makes a man a man?

Caitlyn was born Bruce. Bruce trained, competed and won the gold medal in a very grueling sport. Bruce married and conceived children. So what makes a man a man?

Is maleness a matter of body parts and hormones? Is it a matter of who makes the money and fixes the broken machines? Is it a matter of clothes and hair length and who wears the lipstick?

Body parts and hormones have been downgraded. With surgery and hormone therapy they can be changed. Before they're changed, however, what do they give to the person who has them? Males enjoy between 6 and 7 times more testosterone than females. Males produce up to 20 times more testosterone than females. This primarily male steroid causes greater muscle mass, bone density and male hairiness. Testosterone also causes the male body parts to mature. Testosterone also effects the brain. Male brains are 15% larger than female brain matter.

Several studies show that testosterone makes a person more aggressive and take greater risks. Caitlyn's testosterone got her over the high jump bar. Testosterone production decreases when males enter a relationship, when they become fathers, and over time. Most males are comfortable with the effects of testosterone. Its part of who they are and effects their outlook on life. Before birth this hormone was shaping them.

But what if you don't like what this hormone does to you? What about the negative aspects of testosterone? What about the aggressiveness that lands males in jail? What about the competitiveness that smashes a man's life on the rocks once the body can't reach the goals? What if you don't want the lead in a male/female relationship? What if you want to nurture the kids, instead of be the mean dad?

If we are honest, men have dealt with those sorts of feelings since way before hormone therapy. We've all had to dial back our aggressiveness. We have all had to deal with our bodies not operating where they did in their 20s. We have wished from time to time that we didn't have to take the lead with our wives and children. We've all enjoyed our kids falling asleep on our laps. Part of living as a man is dealing with the over maleness.

It feels like the one we are celebrating as a hero took the easy way out. Bruce had the money to change himself after he gained the fame his maleness enabled. In society at this point in time, he can spend his millions to change his hormones and be accepted. Caitlyn will likely make millions writing a book and appearing around the country for her heroism, while the rest of us males love our wives, raise our children to love who they are and work in our communities to make them better places.