• Virginity: New and Improved! and Am I Being “Soft on Sin”? by Elizabeth Esther
• when is should be about love and when purity culture hurts men, too by Preston Yancey
• News Flash: You Probably Won’t Marry a Virgin by Joy Bennet
• I am damaged goods by Sarah Bessey
• The privilege of purity by Sarah Moon
• The Case for Early Marriage?: Confusing Is and Ought by Dianna E. Anderson

As those who have read some of what I’ve shared can probably imagine, I have a very hard time relating to the evangelical purity culture. I’m aware of it, of course. I’ve spent the last twenty years in a Southern Baptist church and I’m neither blind nor deaf. But I do not and have never understood purity culture. Very little I’ve heard anyone say about sex or marriage in that context makes any sense whatsoever to me. (And some of it, like the father/daughter purity balls outright creeps me out.) But I think a few things have become clear to me and I’ll try to touch on them in this post. I doubt I’ll be able to do more than scratch the surface, but that’s a start, at least. I would also recommend Fr. Stephen Freeman’s recent post, The Beauty of Truth and the Existence of God.

I’ve written elsewhere about the mystery of evil. On the one hand, evil is not a creation of God and as such cannot be said to exist in the same way creation exists. On the other hand, all of us who have experienced and witnessed evil know it is very real, indeed. But I’ve noticed an error underlying much of evangelicalism and its purity culture in particular. Evangelicals tend to treat sin and evil as though they were synonymous or congruent categories. I don’t believe that’s true. Moreover, if you start from that premise, it renders much of the Christian narrative unintelligible.

Instead of congruent categories, I see sin and evil as overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. There is evil that is directly related to sin, there is sin that is not evil (and could even be considered beautiful and good), and there is evil with no direct, causal relationship to sin. Frankly, the black and white, non-overlapping categories of “good” and “sin” that seem to dominate purity culture look more like the categories of Law and Chaos in Michael Moorcock’s fantasy novels than anything from the Christian narrative.

But before we even start to categorize sexual activity, let’s begin with its created nature. We are embodied spiritual beings created by God and as with all of God’s creation, we are fundamentally a good creation. God cannot create anything that is not good. Sex is part of our embodied, spiritual existence and is a creation of God. Sex is good. That is its nature.

Sex can be perverted into evil. Evil is always a perversion of the good rather than something self-existent. How can sex be perverted into evil? I would suggest that any time it is used to take actions foreign to the nature of God, abrogating the will of another and turning the other into an object of consumption, sex has been perverted into something evil. Rape is evil. An adult using a child for their own sexual gratification is evil. Treating another human being as an object for your pleasure is evil.

But sex itself is good.

Even when, from a Christian perspective, it might be sin.

After all, what is sin? Sin is missing the mark and Christians proclaim that the mark is Christ. In terms of sexuality, there are two such paths Christians have upheld. There is the ascetic path of a celibate life. Paul and Jesus walked this path and Christians have followed in their footsteps ever since. And there is the ascetic path of Christian marriage. But what is Christian marriage? We see that in Ephesians 5. Christian marriage is a mystery or sacrament and properly lived out is an icon of Christ and the Church. (Note that vows to each other are a rather late addition to Christian marriage ceremonies.)

And that should make the distinction between sin and evil clear. When our marriages fall short of an icon of Christ and the Church (however that may look) we have missed the mark. That is sin. But it is not evil. The marriage can still be either good and working for our salvation or evil and pulling us to destruction. But it can “miss the mark” along the way and remain good.

Similarly, while a sexual relationship outside of marriage may “miss the mark” it may also be for our salvation. And the relationship itself can still be good. Or it can be unhealthy (another category that is neither good nor evil which I would interpose). Or it can be evil. But its category is independent of the fact that it “misses the mark”.

And I believe this is another area in which evangelicalism itself can miss the mark. God is always working for our salvation. That’s the whole point behind the Incarnation. And salvation does not mean some future disembodied existence akin to Plato’s Happy Philosophers as many seem to imagine. Christ has come to rescue us. Now. As embodied spiritual beings. From all that oppresses us.

And that always involves a spectrum. God is not a distant figure wagging his finger sternly at us when we step off the straight and narrow. Wherever we find ourselves, Christ is always there with us — even when we do not acknowledge him. So when we’re in the ditch, Christ is there and he always says the same thing. Well, here we are. And from where we are now, this is the first step out. Life is a constant continuum of movement toward God and true existence and away from God toward non-existence.

As a teen parent twice over, I’ve been a parent practically my entire life. All but one of my children are now adults and my granddaughter is older than I care to face. Most parents wish good for their children. Let’s say a child was spiraling out of control. It could be anything. Alcoholism. Drugs. Gambling. Eating disorder. Whatever the cause, you could see it as their parent but nothing you tried helped stop the spiral. How desperate would you be?

But then your child develops a relationship with another person. That person stops the spiral. They rescue your child. And together things get steadily better. Perhaps they even have a child together. As a parent, do you obsess over their marital status or lack thereof? Or do you love the person who helped save your child? Do you consider the relationship evil or good?

Why would a God who loves us all and is working to rescue us be any less of a loving parent?

By the time my wife and I met, I would say my sexual experiences and relationships had ranged from unhealthy to evil. I can’t remember ever being the sort of “innocent” many people seem to have in mind when talking about children. But I was … vulnerable and in some ways broken. And those built on each other. Some preyed on my vulnerability and in other cases I tended to gravitate toward other broken people. I can safely say that my relationship with my wife is the first one I would describe as unequivocally good — well before we were married. She saved me. And she helped save my older son. I don’t know where either of us would be today without her. And she was not without her own past, so I hope there was at least something of a mutual aspect.

My wife was a lapsed Catholic and I despised Christianity when we met, so Christianity wasn’t in our consciousness at all. But I still believe Christ was with us even when we did not see or acknowledge him. And our relationship was both good and given to us for our salvation. Of course it missed the mark. We not only couldn’t see the target, we weren’t even aware a target existed. But our relationship was good from the beginning. Nothing will ever convince me otherwise.

I’m reminded of something a speaker did when my younger son was in our church’s youth group (and I was a volunteer youth leader). It was one of those weekend events focusing to a significant degree on sex. At one point she did an illustration where sheets of colored tissue paper were glued together on a white poster poster. When they were peeled off, there were many colored pieces left behind. She related that to what happens when you have sex as though it was a bad thing.

Of course, that’s not what happens when you have sex with someone. That’s what happens when you build a relationship — sexual or non-sexual — with another human being. We are relational beings and when you invest in someone else, you leave your mark on them and they leave theirs on you.

And though it can be perverted in unhealthy and evil ways, that’s fundamentally a good thing. Pause and think for a minute of all the people who have helped shape the person you are today. Sex is just another potential facet in those relationships.

An informed, consensual, healthy sexual relationship that strengthens and reinforces our humanity and is not destructive to ourselves or others will always be good even when it misses the mark. Trying to make the two mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy.

I should write something on the utterly absurd notion dominating the right that government can’t create jobs — that government jobs are somehow not “real” jobs or a substantial agent in our economy. But in the meantime, Krugman does a good job of exposing it for the flat-earth thinking that it is.

‘But are we ready to become a country in which “Nice country you got here. Shame if something were to happen to it” becomes a winning political argument?‘ Indeed, it seems absurd to reward blackmail and, in a political sense, terrorism. The GOP has already demonstrated it’s perfectly willing to point the economic gun at this country’s head and I don’t see any sign that they aren’t willing to pull that trigger.

I loved the Foundation Trilogy. (And the Robot novels. And End of Eternity. And so on and so on.) So it’s no surprise I enjoyed Krugman’s foreword to a new printing of it.

Think of the 45 million Americans who either will or won’t receive health care based on who wins on November 6. And since it’s my kids who you will be throwing under the bus, I’ll be happy to kick you in the nuts if you make the wrong choice.

Romney. 100% wrong on the 47% Enjoy Jay Smooth’s take.

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Death by Ideology. Yes. Romney’s and Ryan’s plan for health care in America involves killing tens of thousands of people a year in order to give tax cuts to a handful of the wealthiest Americans. And these are the people and the agenda for whom “pro-life” Americans are supposed to vote? Seriously?

IBM ignores the law on H1-B visas. No real surprise in the US today. Of course, this is the vision for America of Romney specifically and the GOP in general. Strangely, a lot of people they fully intend to screw will vote for them. Is it a manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome?

Mitt’s “small business start-up” line referencing Bain Capital is so utterly absurd it amazes me that anyone can listen to him spout it with a straight face.

Ah, reminiscent of the days when bosses would take employees from the company town to the polls to vote under direct threat about how to vote. Is there any doubt what sort of America Romney seeks to recreate?

Arthur Brooks created a stir with his claim in 2006 that conservatives were more generous in their giving than liberals. Finally, his assertions and data have been examined to see if they hold up. The results? Not so much. I ran into this post first. But I strongly recommend people read the actual paper. There were a number of other interesting results in it, not least the impact partisanship has on giving. A study like this can’t really examine motives, nor can it determine how much of the “charitable giving” actually benefits those in need. But conservative giving is more likely to go toward religious causes, especially to their own congregation. That sort of giving is more subject to social pressure. (I do find it interesting that Utah was the conservative outlier, which might suggest that the LDS church remains better able to exert that sort of pressure.) More of that giving also falls into the category of “intangible religious benefit” rather than direct aid to those in need. Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if liberals in the US were more likely to give charitably to the “arts” which also offer “intangible” benefits. Of course, I was also struck by the uniformly low levels of charitable giving as a percentage of income in the US. Jesus was right. Wealth tends to have a negative effect on us.

The Romney jobs plan? When you sort through the lies, Krugman seems to nail it. “To summarize, then, the true Romney plan is to create an economic boom through the sheer power of Mr. Romney’s personal awesomeness.”

Pflugerville ISD is extending insurance benefits to domestic partners. Somewhat surprisingly it appears we’re the first school district in Texas to do so. My youngest is currently a sophomore at PHS and she’s the fourth child we’ve raised in this district. It’s an excellent school district and I’m proud of them for taking the lead on this. Employees currently pay the premiums for their family members, and that continues in this expanded policy. It just provides a mechanism for domestic partners to purchase health insurance. Of course, this is Texas and we all know Jesus is against extending health insurance coverage to the wrong sorts of people. It will be framed (actually I’ve already heard it so framed) as an “attack on traditional marriage.” It’s hard to tell what definition people have in mind, but last I checked we already provide such benefits to divorced and remarried couples, so I think that ship has long since sailed. And the same people who rail against this also tend to rant against a government provided single payer health insurance system (basically Medicare for everyone) which would obviate the need for policies like this. Heck, they are even against the much more limited “Obamacare” reform, which essentially implements the Republican proposals from the last thirty years. In our reality, this is a perfectly reasonable action and it extends the number of people who have meaningful access to our healthcare system. Hopefully more school districts across the state will follow PISD’s lead.

What’s the source of the projected budget deficits? A number of factors are involved, but moving forward the primary contributor is the Bush era tax cuts.

Voucher denial indeed. Apparently this Orwellian newspeak approach actually works among the GOP true believers. Go figure. But the principle of “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” applies, though in this case it’s more “sh*t stinks, whatever you call it.”

Gotta love the bald-faced dishonesty of a man like Ryan. This column dissects one of his latest statements. It would “take him too long to go through all the math” about his plan because, quite simply, what he proposes is arithmetically impossible. But details like that are unimportant to a flimflam man.

Given that there’s not a chance in hell I will ever vote for RomneyRyan, I’m pretty uninterested in the debates and have no plans to watch any of them. But Robert Reich’s comments are interesting. Am I surprised Romney lied convincingly? Perhaps by the ‘convincingly’ part, but lying is official GOP policy these days. The more outlandish, the better. So no, I’m not surprised. Just business as usual. As Romney’s sick joke illustrates. Also read the full column version.

I am a Rock. In some ways my childhood and my life.

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I hope Robert Reich is right, but I’m not certain. I think there’s a significant swath of our country that really is that racist and will otherwise vote for people who want to do things to them that are contrary to their own self-interest. Their hate and other irrational forces override even that basic element. In order for people to vote and make a decisions from a perspective of rational self-interest (which I consider a vastly lower threshold than a perspective of love) they have to be able to perceive reality as something close to what it actually is. And I’m not seeing that in our country today.

Mitt Romney — the confidence fairy!

Jay Smooth on the tale of the two tapes — Romney’s and Obama’s from four years ago. Yep, they do tell very different stories as they reveal the character of the two men.

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And what’s the polite way to say we think Mitt’s a bit weird?

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The secret video of remarks by Romney at a fundraiser didn’t really reveal anything new to anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention. The grotesque meme that half our country consists of grifters and deadbeats has been circulating on the right for quite some time now. But perhaps having it exposed in such a public manner will finally begin to purify the putrid mess. This is the true face of the modern GOP. And the meme if completely wrong, of course. Yes, at this particular moment in time, about half our country does not pay any federal income tax. I’ve discussed this particular bit of lying with statistics in the past, but Mark Thoma does an excellent job of stepping through all the facts, not just a select few. Those not paying income tax right now are overwhelmingly students and the elderly. And those are groups who either will pay federal income tax in the future or who have paid them over the course of their lives. Most of the rest of the current bump is a direct result of the Great Recession itself. When you’re out of a job or have dropped into the bottom quintile by taking a job with much lower pay, you don’t tend to pay income tax. Moreover, federal income tax is just one tax out of many and is designed to be the least regressive. Federal payroll taxes are paid by everyone with wage income. State and local taxes and fees are paid by everyone. And consumption taxes like sales, gasoline, and excise taxes tend to be a much larger share of the tax burden on the poor. I will also point out that since our country now has the least class mobility of any industrialized nation, if you’re born poor, the odds are you will remain poor your entire life. As a friend of mine pointed out at work, we actually have a model of “supply-side economics” taken to its logical extreme. It was called feudalism. Krugman has a few words as well.

An excerpt from Romney’s speech receiving less attention than others — his 95% comment. The article explores just how extraordinarily out of touch Ann and Mitt Romney are from the reality of living in this country. They actually seem to believe their own delusional statements. As a teen parent in one of the poorest counties in our country, and with parents who, at least at that time, didn’t have much either, I certainly relied on the fragments of our porous safety net to keep from plunging even lower than we did. (And we’re talking not always having electricity or running water or enough food version of near bottom. Fortunately, at the worst, we did always have family who had homes, so actual homelessness was never an imminent danger.) I got lucky. Simple as that. Sure, I’ve worked hard. And I’m pretty intelligent. But mostly? Pure luck. I live in a country that is overall wealthy (though the gap has grown substantially since those days). I’m a white male from a family that is highly educated, even if they haven’t always had money. And all of that matters. And then at a number of key points in my life, I was simply in the right place at the right time and got a chance to show what I could do. Mitt succeeded on his own? If he had been born into a barely literate, dirt poor family in the Ozarks that would be a believable story. As it is? Not so much. But apparently he and his wife believe it.

An excellent article exploring the question of whether or not Romney can get a majority.

Of course the three-tier health care LaVonne Neff proposes would work. So would many others. And all better than what we do now.

So it sounds like at least some Republicans (Rand Paul in this case) actually believe in the fantasy world they inhabit and are shocked when thinks like facts, this time on the plummeting levels of government employment under President Obama, contradict their delusions. Of course, I tend to believe that people who can’t tell fact from fantasy are poor candidates for actually governing our country. Unfortunately, it seems to many of our citizens prefer fantasy to reality and elect leaders who reflect their fantasies back to them. And there’s apparently a video of Rand Paul’s reaction if anyone wants to see it.

Yes, Romney thinks we’re stupid. It’s an open question at this point whether or not he’s right — or at least right about enough voting Americans to win the election.

Obstruct and Exploit. Yep. If we reward people who refuse to actually govern, then we will entrench that behavior.

The federal government is an insurance company with an army. Yep. A pretty accurate description. I happen to work for the billing/accounts receivable bit of that government, but overall? Yep, that’s about it.

Here’s a shocker. The Census Bureau reports the income gap between the top fifth of Americans and the rest of the country grew sharply in 2011.

The iPhone Stimulus. The magical belief that a dollar spent in our economy by the government is somehow different in nature than a dollar spent by a business or individual is one of the stranger ones out there.

The Truth About Dishonesty.

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Rosie Ruiz Republicans. Again, I can’t really think of anything to add.

The Luck of the Draw. “Spirituality consists in how you deal with what you’ve been dealt.” People who learn something of my life are often shocked by my experiences. Heck, even my own wife is sometimes surprised and doesn’t really understand how I’m as sane as I am. Like most people, I can’t really imagine a life other than the one I’ve had. But I suppose it has strayed from what most people would consider a “normal” life. Yet it is fundamentally my life. And anything I can call spirituality necessarily operates within its context. So this post by Fr. Stephen resonates deeply with me.

Read to the bottom of the post. It was good to see someone else mention Nixon’s health care reform proposal. Yes, the ACA is essentially Romney’s health reform plan implemented at the national level. And yes, Romney’s plan was the natural extension of the Republican 1993 health reform bill. And yes, that bill in turn developed from the work of conservative politicians and think tanks in the 80s. But before all of that, the roots of the entire constellation of the GOP health care reform proposals over the past four decades (until Obama had the unmitigated gall to agree with them in 2009) can be found in Nixon’s proposal. It failed because of Democratic opposition. Senator Ted Kennedy and most Democrats wanted essentially Medicare for everyone. (I still think that was and is the superior solution, but at this point that’s water under the bridge.) Some of my early childhood memories include Watergate on TV. I remember going to see All the President’s Men with my mother when I was ten or eleven. It’s somewhat strange that we would wax nostalgic for a president like Tricky Dick today. But it does help illustrate how utterly insane the current version of the GOP has become.

The metaphor of a house fire is a good one in this instance. It’s better, at least, than much of the claptrap that passes for journalism today.

I haven’t watched the video of President Clinton’s speech, but I did want to highlight a line from the text — one that reflects something I’ve said repeatedly. “People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets.  What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic.” The math involved is not even particularly difficult. The GOP has become brazen in its lies and magical thinking. It’s time for them to pay the price. If you reward people for lying, they will continue to lie to you.

Cleaning up the Economy. Yup. We’ve needed and still need more debt relief, more capital infusion to stop the shedding of government jobs at the state and local level which has formed the real drag on our economy (each such job lost has multiplying ripple effects in an already weak economy), and similar measures, but we have cleared the worst and are on the right track.

Linus Torvalds delivers a smackdown like no other. A collection of some of his better ones. Read and enjoy!

I don’t watch the party conventions. I don’t listen to much political speech. I prefer to get the proposals and policies and dig into them. And I may skim the printed version of a major speech. But I heard so much buzz about Michelle Obama’s speech, I decided to check it out for myself. All I can say is, damn. She was good. See for yourself.

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Ryan a Catholic? Perhaps. But not a very good one.

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And that intrigued me. So I found Sister Simone’s “Nuns on the Bus” kick-off. Paul Ryan ticked her off when he claimed his budget reflected Catholic social doctrine. In some way, I think I’m Christian in no small part because of the influence nuns have had on my life at different junctures. And not a one of them ever cared that I wasn’t Catholic — or maybe even Christian — when I encountered them.

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And this was the final stop of the Nuns on the Bus.

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And then I discovered Sr. Simone had been on The Colbert Report. Enjoy!

Saving Serious Ryan. Since most people won’t read the report and, as far as I can tell, apparently can’t handle basic mathematics, gaming the system “works.”

Galt, Gold, and God. Personally, I think all the arrogant, pretentious GOP “leaders” like Ryan desperately need a “Trading Places” experience. Strip them of wealth, reputation, connections, and every other support system, throw them out on the streets, and then see what they think of America’s social safety net. I doubt any of them would do as well as Dan Akroyd did. They have eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear.

Voucherizing Medicare. It’s really a matter of whether or not the American people are as collectively stupid as the GOP obviously believes we are. Guess we’ll see.

Republicans: We Won’t Build That. I can’t even think of a comment to add. It’s sad, really.

LaVonne Neff looks at four countries that already meet the Republican Party’s stated “goals” for a health care system (since they still lack anything that could even loosely be called a plan). Of course, pretty much every developed nation except the US already manages to provide quality, cost-effective health care to all its citizens, so it’s not very difficult to find examples. And her reference at the end of this post is priceless. And deadly accurate.

RomneyRyanomics: A Bad Deal for the Working Class. As he notes in the article, their economic plan basically involves slashing the programs on which the middle class depends and raising middle class taxes in order to pay for massive tax cuts to the wealthy. I find it hard to believe that’s actually what most Americans want, but then people rarely act in rational ways. And when we do, it’s often not actually because it’s rational. We’re much better at rationalizing a decision, which is not the same thing at all.

Krugman on the five themes expressed during the RNC. They all share a common element. Not that I bother watching political conventions either.

Robert Reich isn’t even covering Macroeconomics 101 in this post. His points are so basic that those who don’t already know them simply have no idea how an economy functions. Now I wouldn’t put people like Romney in that category. I imagine he does understand. He just doesn’t care. His goal seems to be to win power so he can further enrich himself and his peers while reducing or eliminating any financial obligation they still have to the country and society that provided the framework and support that allowed them to acquire that wealth in the first place.

Medicare Killers. Yep. Basically, they are doubling down on their belief that the American public is too stupid to tell their *ss from a hole in the ground. Sadly, they might be right.

Gluten and MSG “hidden” in foods.

I’m still enjoying “Now, I’m the One’s That’s Cool!” Truth be told, my childhood and high school experience was more … complicated … than the stereotype. RPG player and gamemaster. Beat Space Invaders when that cost quarters. (And anyone remember the Mattel handheld football game) Straight A student who competed in things like math contests. Actor. Football player. Tended to flirt. Teen parent. And things I don’t write about. I had a foot in a lot of different worlds, but didn’t wholly belong to any. In a lot of ways, that’s still true.

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Of course, if you don’t really understand mathematics, which it seems is true of far too many Americans today, I suppose it’s easy to be deceived by statements like Romney’s.

Mr. Ryan isn’t a serious man — he just plays one on TV. That’s a great line and perfectly accurate. Ryan is an empty suit who, for some bizarre reason, many people want to treat as some sort of credible, intelligent policy wonk. He’s not. He’s a flim-flam man. And anyone who can do basic arithmetic ought to be able to see that for themselves.

Another look at the GOP health care plan for America. (Mostly, it boils down to if you aren’t rich, as far as they are concerned you can go die.)

Of course, it’s been obvious that the GOP doesn’t want an electorate capable of critical thought, since such an electorate could see through their lies. The con man needs a mark. But it is interesting to see them enshrine that educational “goal” in their party platform here in Texas.

Understanding the ACA Medicare “cuts”. The real problem is that we have one party that does the normal political exaggeration and slanting, but within those parameters largely still speaks the truth while the other party simply blatantly lies. And the lies are often being presented to people as if they were simply a different opinion rather than a blatant falsehood.

If there’s anyone out there who still takes Niall Ferguson seriously, you should check this out. Of course, I guess people really don’t grasp that there are different kinds of wrong. Niall is deliberately misrepresenting facts in order to mislead people. Unfortunately, that’s become the norm in the GOP today.

And this represents an accurate portrayal of the actual math in Ryan’s plan. If those are the results you actually want to see happen in America, then fine, vote for him. But it’s despicable to have destructive goals like that and then try to mislead people that you are proposing something different. At least in this instance, the USCCB wasn’t fooled — not that Ryan gives a flip what his Bishops have to say. So much for being a devout Catholic.

The Romney-Ryan Economic Plan.

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18. If ‘love is long-suffering and kind’ (1 Cor. 13:4), a man who is fainthearted in the face of his afflictions and who therefore behaves wickedly towards those who have offended him, and stops loving them, surely lapses from the purpose of divine providence.

Indeed. Yet love is hard, especially toward those who are afflicting you. Of course, I’ve often seen people confuse love with allowing others to abuse you when there are other options. That’s not love. If you study the ancient Christian martyrs, you’ll encounter many places where, if they had an available option, they act to escape. In no small part, it was out of love for their persecutors. These were not people who feared death, but they also did not seek it. They loved life. Moreover, they did not want another human being bearing the burden of the evil of murder. So we do not allow others to abuse us. But we should not respond in like manner when they do. I can’t claim to have such restraint, sadly. But that’s not a reason to stop trying.

17.  The aim of divine providence is to unite by means of true faith and spiritual love those separated in various ways by vice. Indeed, the Savior endured His sufferings so that ‘He should gather together into one the scattered children of God’ (John 11: 52). Thus, he who does not resolutely bear trouble, endure affliction, and patiently sustain hardship, has strayed from the path of divine love and from the purpose of providence.

On the one hand, I lived so much of my early life on the edge of crisis that most of the time I’m pretty good at getting through rough times. I can compartmentalize and focus on what needs to be done immediately. But I’m not sure that bear, endure, or patience describe me much at all.

I do want to note the distinction he makes in the article about modern wheat being more likely to trigger celiac disease. That does not mean older wheat is somehow safe for celiacs to eat. The autoimmune disease doesn’t work that way. Once triggered, any gliadin based gluten will trigger an autoimmune response. But we have so many more with celiac disease today because the disease is now triggered much more often than it was even as recently as the 1950s.

I also like the way he stresses the fact that gluten-free processed food is still bad for you. Do I indulge at times? Sure. And it shows in my weight gain over the past three years as I’ve come to terms with this disease and struggled to adapt to an entirely different way of eating. Too many people today seem to assume that simply removing gluten by replacing foods with gluten-free junk food is all you need to do. It isn’t.

My wife actually forwarded me the above article and even though she doesn’t have active celiac disease, she’s now considering going gluten-free herself. She already has auto-immune issues and, since her husband and two younger children do have active celiac disease, it’s not really a stretch for her. She would just have to stop eating gluten when she goes out to eat. Pretty much everything in our house and every meal is already gluten free.

Thoughts from anyone? Should those without a diagnosed problem with gluten but with other potentially related health issues consider going gluten free? Heck, should everyone start avoiding FrankenWheat?

I like the terms coined in this post. YOYO (You’re On Your Own) economics vs. WITT (We’re In This Together) economics. It does indeed form a stark difference. I would also call Paul Ryan’s approach the “I’ve got mine; screw you” attitude. I also want to take a moment to note that the USCCB has sharply rebuked Ryan (one of their own), though not by name, for his budget — the budget resolution the House passed. I’ve been critical of the USCCB in the past for often appearing to pick from a select few issues for their public statements and actions while ignoring others that seem equally contrary (at least to my eyes) to Catholic doctrine and practice. I remain disturbed that they still have not (at least that I can find) issued a public statement denouncing Texas’ recent execution of a man with an IQ of 61.

“Paul Ryan’s love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades.” Tom Morello speaks. “Don’t mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta “rage” in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.”

Whose plan destroys Medicare? Frankly, if you need to read the post to answer that question, you either aren’t paying attention (and you really should since this will have major implications for you and for everyone you love) or you’re an idiot. I can’t think of a nice way to say it. I’ve been told I don’t suffer fools easily, but things have reached the point where I’m not even inclined to try.

Essentially, the health care “policy” of Romney, Ryan, and the GOP in general looks like this. In what fantasy universe does anyone consider these social darwinists “pro-life”? Their policy proposals are specifically designed to kill people — the ones like Ken they consider “undeserving”. Maybe we need to return to Christian emperors. At least some of them accomplished a lot of good. If we’ve degenerated to the point where there is any credible chance that RomneyRyan could be elected, then we’ve proven what all the naysayers at the founding of our country right. Mob rule doesn’t work, in part, because mobs can’t think coherently.

Yes, even assuming he’s telling the truth instead of blatantly lying, Romney’s alleged 13% effective federal tax rate is shameful. Of course, he’s running on Ryan’s plan to effectively reduce his tax rate to near 0%. Self-interest? (And not the enlightened sort.)

15.  A soul’s motivation is rightly ordered when its desiring power is subordinated to self-control, when its incensive power rejects hatred and cleaves to love, and when its power of intelligence, through prayer and spiritual contemplation, advances towards God.

Without self-control, we are ruled by the passions flowing from our disordered nous. We tend to lash out when provoked; it’s not easy to embrace love. And ultimately, we need to know God.

14.  Evil is not to be imputed to the essence of created beings, but to their erroneous and mindless motivation.

This is an important point. There is a mystery to evil as the nature of creation is good. As such it can even be difficult to describe evil as a separate thing. Rather it is more the perversion of something. God did not create evil, but in the very freedom instilled in the essence of his creation, God created the space that allows evil to exist. Ironically, evil rules, dominates, and destroys us in ways that God never would. We truly suffer evil. And God suffers with us both as the lover of creation and, through Christ, by joining us within our suffering.

Given that two of my kids and I have celiac disease, it’s worrisome when people start to think of “gluten free” as some sort of fad if it means they won’t take us seriously. We do appreciate it when restaurants take the time and care to provide safe food and make it easier to order. We tend to go to a relatively small list of places that have proven to us they are safe.

When we go to a party or other event by an organization, friends, or family we tend to bring food we know is safe, check in advance if safe options will be available (which usually requires a fairly extensive set of questions), or even eat beforehand and just have a beverage of some sort at the event. We try not to impose, but at the same time we have to know at all times exactly what we are eating before we eat it. We have no “tolerance” or room for error.

However, unlike someone with a severe food allergy (like a peanut allergy), we won’t immediately react nor will we tend to react in highly visible ways. Unlike an allergy, though, when an immune response is triggered, the antibodies and inflammation can linger for weeks from a single exposure. So we are particular vulnerable to those who think, for whatever reason, that it’s okay to lie to us or hide something from us. Fortunately, that’s not a common occurrence today, but if a backlash against those on a special diet grows, it could become more common.

And that worries me. All posts like the one in the Times tend to make a comment about celiac disease before proceeding on with their rant. But celiac disease is not only more common than many such writers seem to understand, it also doesn’t have any visible markers. There’s no way to look at someone with celiac disease and tell that they have it. It’s a largely invisible disease.

And that’s without even discussing the increasing numbers of people who are being medically diagnosed (not by WebMD) with non-celiac gluten intolerance or sensitivity. They may have more tolerance for exposure and cross-contamination than those of us with celiac disease and the consequences of exposure may not be as severe as the celiac autoimmune response, but they still have a real, if not thoroughly understood medical condition. They don’t deserve to be ridiculed or dismissed either.

My advice to those hosting dinners, parties, or events? Decide up front whether you care about the dietary restrictions, voluntary or otherwise, of those you are inviting before you invite them. And be clear about whether or not you are willing or interested in special diet requests or needs. If you aren’t, that’s fine. If if you just aren’t sure how to handle such needs, just be up front about it. If someone actually cares, we’re always prepared to discuss it. Perhaps we can cook and bring something safe so we can blend in to some extent. But if you find such things a bother or imposition don’t be surprised if we decide we would rather not attend.

“In the hands of Christ, bread always becomes His body: all things become what they truly are.” Fr. Stephen knocks another one out of the park.

Richard Beck take a good look at the theology of Dark Knight Rises. Well worth a read.

At one point in Hope Springs Tommy Lee Jones’ character expresses his fear of first telling Meryl Streep’s character he loved her. He thought that would send her running. She could have had anyone she wanted. Why would she want him? I think that’s something many men experience. I always thought my wife was out of my league and never have understood why she chose me and stuck with me through some pretty awful times. I’m not sure she’s ever really understood why I told her Dirty Dancing and, in particular She’s Like the Wind, captured my feelings. I still sometimes think I’m a fool to believe I have anything she needs. I see who I am in the mirror. And I had so much pain when she met me. Almost a quarter of a decade later, though, and she still believes in me. She see something different when she looks at me than I see when I look at myself. I don’t know where I would be today if I hadn’t met her, but I’m certain it would be a much darker place.

She’s Like the Wind

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Pluralism and the Various Christian Gods 1
• Pluralism and the Various Christian Gods 2

I ended my last post with the question I often hear posed by other Christians to each other and sometimes even to me. What about the fate of those in groups who believe things about God that are wrong? That group could and probably does include all of us, after all. That question seems to flow from the odd obsession within at least parts of modern Christianity about whether or not this or that group or this or that individual is “saved.” I can’t really discern the source of that obsession. I could speculate, but it would be pure speculation. I understood immediately the old Romanian monk I once saw in a video who said (in subtitles) something like, “All will be saved and I alone will be damned.” I don’t understand most of my fellow American Christians on this topic at all.

I do think it has something to do with the way so much of Christianity has externalized salvation and damnation as something done to humanity by God rather than something that (at least when it comes to “damnation“) to a large degree we collectively do to ourselves. Do we turn to Jesus of Nazareth, follow him, receive healing, and find our life, our only life, in God? Or do we turn away toward death and dehumanize ourselves?

“We are saved together, but we are damned alone” is a truism of the Christian faith. In one of his podcasts, Fr. John touches on this inescapable nature of Christianity. It’s a podcast worth pausing for ten minutes and absorbing, especially if you’ve externalized salvation and damnation as something done to you rather than with you.

I still find The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis one of the best illustrations of this principle at work. I think it’s important that anyone reading this understand something of my spiritual situation when I was eleven and twelve years old. (I don’t remember exactly when I read the Narnia series for the first time, but it was one of those years.) I was living inside the loop in the Montrose area of Houston. I was then attending a Catholic school, St. Anne’s, after having attending many different public and private school in various parts of the country. I was not Catholic, though I guess I would say I identified as Christian, having been baptized some years earlier. I sometimes attended youth group activities at South Main Baptist Church. I also have distinct and vivid memories of receiving communion at an Episcopal Church, though I don’t recall which one. However, I also remember attending Hindu and Jewish ceremonies. My parents hosted a number of different events, including a past life regression seminar that also imprinted itself on my memory, and we hung out with a lot of different interesting people.

On my own, I was also practicing transcendental meditation nightly. (Sadly, I never managed to levitate, though I did learn some really good relaxation techniques that continue to serve me well.) My parents also ran a small publishing company and a small press bookstore. I helped out at the bookstore and there were books on palmistry, numerology, and runes among other things. I absorbed them and became pretty good at them. My mother had starting reading tarot when I was much younger and it had always fascinated me, so I also learned tarot reading (a practice I continued though increasingly sporadically until my early thirties). I also dabbled in astrology, mostly out of curiosity, but even modern astrology gave me some insight into the way the ancient mind regarded the heavens.

So it was in that context I read the Narnia series. I caught some of the Christian allusions, of course, but not all of them. I did, however, love the series — especially Aslan. Later in life, as I truly encountered Jesus again, I think I recognized him most because he resembled Aslan in the ways that mattered. First, consider the plight of the dwarves.

Aslan raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs’ knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand. But it wasn’t much use. They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly. They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable. One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he got a bit of an old turnip and a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf. And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said “Ugh! Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a donkey’s been at! Never thought we’d come to this.” But very soon every Dwarf began suspecting that every other Dwarf had found something nicer than he had, and they started grabbing and snatching, and went on to quarreling, till in a few minutes there was a free fight and all the good food was smeared on their faces and clothes or trodden under foot. But when at last they sat down to nurse their black eyes and their bleeding noses, they all said:

“Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”

“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”

Damnation is not something Jesus inflicts on us. We do it to ourselves. I never really found this vision described in Christianity until I stumbled across Orthodoxy. I imagine it persists in other places as well, but not the ones I traveled. And yet it corresponds precisely with the ancient Orthodox perspective. We can stand in paradise in the unveiled presence of the God who is everywhere present and filling all things and we perceive it as torment instead. God does not hate some of us and love others. He loves us all. But some of us cannot stand to be loved. And most particularly, when we fail to love, we turn ourselves into creatures who cannot bear to receive love — especially the fire of God’s unveiled love.

And then there is the case of Emeth, the Calormene warrior, who has sought Tash his whole life. In his one words, he says:

“For always since I was a boy I have served Tash and my great desire was to know more of him, if it might be, to look upon his face. But the name of Aslan was hateful to me.”

Jewel, at one point in the book, describes Emeth in the following way.

“By the Lion’s Mane, I almost love this young warrior, Calormene though he be. He is worthy of a better god than Tash.”

And indeed he is. Emeth describes his encounter with Aslan.

“But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”

Of course, if pushed too hard there a variety of ways the metaphor can collapse. Nevertheless, there is a truth in that scene so deep that it imprinted itself on the soul of even that young preteen exposed to so many different things. I almost despaired of finding a modern Christianity that actually taught the above before I stumbled onto Orthodoxy. (Actually, Catholicism is returning to that same belief after a medieval detour. I’ve now read their Catechism. But that was not immediately clear to me since older views linger among Catholics on the street.)

So it’s from that perspective I can on the one hand say that Calvinism describes a God I consider unworthy of worship, much less love, and at the same time freely acknowledge and point to Calvinists whom I believe are some of the best Christians I know. (Hopefully nobody is using me as a measure, since they are easily better Christians than me. I’m still trying to figure out what that even means.) I feel no tension between those statements. From my framework, they can both easily be true.

It’s in a similar vein I find myself bemused by the current Christian debate contrasting belief and behavior or actions. Both sides of the debate seem to fall into the same trap — treating them as somehow different. They aren’t. It’s impossible for us to act in any given moment in any way that does not express and expose our true belief about reality. We act out of our beliefs and our actions in turn shape the way we see the world. It’s a process of continual reinforcing feedback. Now it’s possible to desire to believe something different than we actually do. It’s also very common for us to express beliefs different from the ones we actually hold (and which manifest in our actions) either because we think that’s what we should believe or because it’s what we want others to think we believe. It’s also certainly possible for us to regret our actions and wish to change accordingly. But in the moment, when I speak or act, I am expressing the beliefs I actually hold at that moment in time. We all understand the father pleading to Jesus for his son, “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.”

I will note that the more I experience and get to know this strange God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, the more incredulous I become that his love could not eventually warm even the coldest and most twisted heart. Like St. Isaac the Syrian, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and others, I find I’m unwilling to assert that the dwarves have no hope. It may be that they don’t. And if true, it breaks my heart. But in the Resurrection, Christ has broken the bonds of death. It’s no longer the nature of man to die. And don’t we say that where there’s life, there’s hope?

I find it horribly sad that so many Christian sects today will not pray for the dead. Almost as sad as their refusal to accept the prayers of those who are alive in Christ, though they presently sleep in the body. I’m not sure I really understand the reality they perceive, but it’s clearly different from the one I see. But then, too often today the Resurrection is presented as little more than an afterthought, not the very substance of our faith.

And that concludes this brief three part look into the way at least one modern pluralist handles our Christian pluralism. I’m not sure how many people might find it helpful or interesting, but perhaps some will. Let me know if there was any point on which you think I might not have expressed myself clearly.

Peace.

13.  Whether or not a nature endowed with intelligence and intellect is to exist eternally depends on the will of the Creator whose every creation is good; but whether such a nature is good or bad depends on its own will.

First, we are contingent beings. We have no natural immortality. Thus our existence is not part of our nature in the sense that it is something we control. When Christ broke the chains of death he did so for all humanity. However, our acts for good or ill do depend on our will. In that sense we form part of our nature.

But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)

I can’t claim to have really followed the Chick-Fil-A debacle. I’m not the sort who pays a lot of attention to boycotts or their opposite. And, given that much of my family has celiac disease, we don’t really frequent any sort of fast food establishment. Nevertheless, I have a twitter account and I read quite a few blogs, so I naturally heard some of the back and forth. Throughout it all the expert in the Jewish law’s question to Jesus has been running through my mind. Clearly, from his earlier answer, the man understood that Jesus was teaching that we could only love God to the extent that we are willing to love our neighbor as ourselves. It wasn’t a love God first and then as a secondary command love others. Rather, it was one command intertwined and inseparable.

Almost everyone, Christian or not, has heard about Jesus’ parable in response. We even have “Good Samaritan” laws named after it. And over the years, I’ve heard a lot of discussion about that parable. Much of it has been good and highlighted important aspects about human interactions. But I think most of what I’ve heard over the years has missed one of the key aspects of the parable.

As a response to the lawyer’s question, the parable of the Good Samaritan reads to me like a sharp rebuke. Jesus is telling the lawyer that he’s asking the wrong question for the wrong reasons. When we ask, “Who is my neighbor?” we are all in truth asking who we don’t have to love. And we are doing so by trying to group people into categories. And in response to that question, Jesus tells a story of a man who encounters a stranger who needs him — a stranger who in other circumstances probably would have despised and avoided the Samaritan — and who without hesitation or condition meets the needs of that stranger.

Whenever we ask “Who is my neighbor?” we have already stepped away from the way of life onto the way of death. The question itself indicates we want the escape clause. We want to know who we are allowed to hate. Oh, we dress it up and rationalize it in all sorts of ways; some of them are even pretty convincing.

Jesus will have none of it, though.

So who are really trying to fool? Ourselves? Are we simply attempting to justify our refusal to follow Jesus, the one we often falsely call “Lord“?

This incident is just one of many, of course. We see it every time Christians other Muslims. (Has anyone ever gotten one of those fear-mongering emails about Muslims trying to turn America into an Islamic state under sharia law from anyone other than a Christian?) We see it when a white church refuses to allow the scheduled wedding of a black couple on its premises. And we see it in this most recent dust-up, which has never really been about fast food chicken nuggets and sandwiches.

Jesus tells us in the parable the question we should instead be asking:

Who will be my neighbor today?

Out of those I know, those I will meet, or the strangers whose paths will cross mine, who will need me today? Who can I serve? Who can I help, even if only by my presence and support? Who will I be given the opportunity to love today?

Because ultimately it’s not about groups. It’s not about categories. It’s not even about generic statements that we should somehow abstractly love everyone (though that’s better than abstractly hating them, I suppose). Instead it’s about loving the individual human beings, each beloved by God, who need our love today. And the moment we ask who we have to love and who we don’t, we’ve turned our backs on Jesus. It’s really as simple and as hard as that.

And please don’t misunderstand me. I understand how hard it is. There are individuals I struggle not to hate, much less love. And there are groups (like the modern nativistic, racist GOP element) I want to other as a group, to make into a group I’m excused from loving. Like everyone else, I want to love those who love me and hate those who hate me. Christianity is hard. If anyone ever told you it was easy, they lied. But in the long run, it’s much harder, or at least more destructive, to hate.

Richard Beck has a follow-up to an earlier post in which evidence seems to show that evangelicalism is actually structured to allowed people to perceive themselves as more loving when in reality, even on a self-assessment, according to specific criteria members of that group actually aren’t more loving at all.

Fred Rogers really had it right, I think. Won’t you be my neighbor?

Click here to view the embedded video.

7.  Divinity and divine realities are in some respects knowable  and in some respects unknowable. They are knowable in the contemplation of what appertains to God’s essence and unknowable as regards that essence itself.

This text touches on the distinction between what is also called the essence and energies of Gods. The actual essence of God is unknowable to us. We know God through his activities or energies. Those energies are no less God, but they are active as opposed to being. Every description we have of God at some level describes an activity of God, not the essence of God. In many ways, that’s also true of the way we know each other. We do not know the essence of another human being; we know them by their activities, by their words, and by association with them. It’s a concept that sounds esoteric, but is really so fundamental to our nature that it can be hard to accurately describe it in language.

Even with that caveat, they have some intriguing options not found at the typical Mexican restaurant. I had their Abuelita’s Meatloaf and it was quite good. It’s probably not a place we’ll go frequently, but the food and experience were both good. And I didn’t seem to have any reactions, so as long as you make your selections carefully, it’s possible for someone with celiac disease to eat safely.