The Hastings Ruling

Happy Birthday, America. It's truly a privilege to live here, in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." As I posted on FB the other day, the more I travel, the harder it is to refrain from spontaneously clapping whenever I hear them sing "...the land of the freeeeeeee....." It's an honor and a privilege to be an American!!

So because it's the Fourth of July, there's not a lot on TV. I was watching Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and they reported on the recent Supreme Court ruling regarding Hastings College of the Law and the Christian Legal Society. Hastings had denied public funding to the Christian Legal Society because CLS required its members to take a vow abstaining from sex outside of heterosexual marriage. The Supreme Court ruled that requiring this vow amounts to discrimination, and that entities receiving public funds don't have the right to discriminate. Even based on your religious beliefs.

So here's my thought: I agree with the Supreme Court ruling in principle. I happen to believe that all Americans are entitled to equal rights under the law, even if they're Americans with whom I don't agree (my friend Alan and his ex David are busy buying up properties in a rural New York neighborhood because they don't want students living in their neighborhood. When he told me about it, I told him I thought he couldn't discriminate against students, and he admitted there was a bit of a NIMBY attitude in the town. When I came home, it struck me that their buying up properties to prevent students is, in principle, no different than people buying up (or selling off) properties to prevent blacks or gays or Muslims from living near them. Where we finally came to agreement is that it's not the people or the group that's undesirable, it's the behaviors they exhibit.).

So even when Americans exhibit behaviors with which I don't agree, I believe that as Americans, they are still entitled to equal rights under the law. It gets a little sticky here because that means that vile and evil people like Klansmen, pedophiles, and homophobes all get equal protection under the law. Remembering the fundamental Christian principles which under gird our nation, I have to be reminded that it's not my place to judge their behavior, but rather to reach out to them in love and show them the love of Christ. That's not always easy to do, but that's the cost of discipleship -- that's the weight of the cross we have to pick up daily.

Regarding the Hastings matter, how I see it is that if the CLS wants to receive public funds, then it cannot discriminate against students. If its belief that anything other than heterosexual marriage is counter to its religious tenets, then I wonder if it's allowed to put forth the REASONS that led it to its beliefs: in other words, belief in the primacy of the family unit as seen through the traditional Judeo-Christian worldview. Would it be acceptable to not prohibit all sex outside heterosexual marriage, but instead to teach or state WHY they believe that only sex inside heterosexual marriage is valid, and to have the goal of the organization be a gathering of people who share the same beliefs? That way they don't expressly prohibit people who don't share their ideas, and they have an opportunity to share those ideas when they come into question.

More fundamentally, I think that we Christians need to examine our belief sets. Not to say that "the world" is always or even often correct, but if we are discriminating against non-believers, if we are unwilling to allow them access to activities made available to believers, then we have two options:
1) make our exclusively Christian, for-believers-only activities funded exclusively by Christian believers; or
2) consider our exclusively Christian, for-believers-only activities and examine them for ways to make them not only inclusive, but vehicles through which we can share the love of Christ.

In general, it seems to me that we spend too much time condemning others and not enough time loving, sharing with and teaching them. I think Jesus addressed this issue many times, when he told the people that those who were without sin should cast the first stone, when he told them to take the log out of their own eyes before they took the speck out of their neighbor's eyes, and when he told people that the GREATEST law was to love the Lord with all your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength, and the next was loving your neighbor as yourself because all the laws and the prophets hinged on that.

I think that would be a good place for Christians to start. I think that would be a good place for the CLS to start -- loving God with totality of heart, soul, mind and strength, then attempting to put yourself in the place of that person you don't want around. Try walking a mile in their shoes. Try seeing how they feel.

I'm working on a sermon for next month, and here's something I got from another preacher. It's NOT original, but it's a great illustration. The preacher says:

"God's grace is the same,

- for the tongue pierced teenager and for their parents
- for the former gang member and the kids in rural America
- for the murderer on death row and for the judge who sentenced the criminal
- for the PhD as well as for the redneck
- for the girl with the questionable reputation and the person everyone admires
- for the boy who spent more time in the Principal's office than in class and the Valedictorian
- for the person who wears Nike® shoes and the person who wears Keds ®
- for the "jock" and for the "nerd"
- for the person who has refined "social graces" and those who do not
- for those who are democrat and those who are republican
- the members of the ACLU and the Christian Coalition

(I'm adding here:
- for people I like and for people I don't;
- for people who think like me and for people who don't;
- for you and for me.)

We have the same problem (sin), the same means of salvation (grace through faith) and for those who respond, the same eternal destiny (Heaven), the same Spirit within, the same calling for life (do all for His glory). The earthly distinctions are abolished."

C'mon people. We need to learn to meet one another where we are, and to get along. If we are Christian, we need to carry the love of Christ, The Great Physician, the Living Water, and the Bread of Life, to a sick and weary world that is parched and starving for The Truth.