Mate, I was recently hammered by a meeting of church pastors and I happened to mention that I support proposed changes in the law changes to give more rights to people living in civil unions.
Is it right to deny a couple something simple as the right to the superannuation of their partner when one of them dies? This suggestion was loudly booed (I never suggested that the church do this).
Then an angry pastor fired a question to me:
How can I justify calling myself a Christian and support those changes to civil unions?
Well….I shouldn’t have answered. Jesus was asked 183 questions and he only directly answered 3 (usually ignoring, answering with another question or reframing answers)…
When I got home I saw an invitation to a friends wedding. Now, they are a Christian couple and they are going to be spending about $60,000 on their wedding.
What really gets me is that no-one has or will ask them:
How can you justify calling yourself a Christian and spend that much on your wedding?
I am not trying to create a moral equivalence thing here, it is just interesting that the authenticity of my faith was called into question don’t you think?
11 responses so far ↓
1 urbanmonk // Nov 19, 2006 at 9:23 am
We view everything through our own cultural lense dont we
2 Jon Owen // Nov 19, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Yeah, it is easy to do this, but I grew up in the same cultural petri dish they did and have some radically different conclusions.
3 hamo // Nov 20, 2006 at 12:29 am
absolutely
a funny world we live in aint it
and always puzzling trying to work out what is appropriate - thank God we are led by the spirit - most of the time
4 mel // Nov 23, 2006 at 8:11 pm
I have read your blogs for the past couple months and found them intriguing.. but never felt the need to comment any of the entries but this one… because I experienced the exact same thing just recently. And i struggled because I am more sensitive than most people are and I took the question personally and asked God for directions. How can I call myself Christian and not agree with the majority of them in certain issues. Then during my Bible study, I was led to the passage Romans 14… “… blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves”.
I am grateful God is more open-minded than most of us are. I think to certain extent, that quote that goes along the line “there’s no right or wrong. there’s only opinion” is right.
5 Jon Owen // Nov 24, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Thanks for the wonderful encouragement Mel, really came at the right time for me!
6 Darryl // Nov 24, 2006 at 7:07 pm
Mate keep speaking it out. I agree entirely with you on why we ignore the overspending on weddings. Getting booed by pastors is part of the course when we try to follow the One who was crucified by the church leaders of the time
7 jenn // Nov 27, 2006 at 11:28 am
Excellent point!!
8 bec // Nov 27, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Jon,
sorry I haven’t looked @ your blog for a while - you’ve been busy!!
I agree with you re: the civil union issue - in fact, I have heard via the grapevine several times that people at the top of several conservative Christian lobby groups have changed their tune, and support civil unions (though not marriage). I have to then ask, why aren’t they doing anything about this stance? Is it cynical of me to question whether it’s to do with their support base?
The “angry pastor” was way out of line. Such questions are not conducive to community building, engagement, or anything else positive - they’re simply self-righteous, judgmental rhetoric.
My fiance and I are getting married in February. We have a budget of a few thousand, and even that makes me feel guilty when I work out how many school fees that would pay for in the Solomon Islands or Vanuatu, where I’ve just been. I’m amazed by the number of people who tell me they did their wedding “on a very tight budget”, and it turns out they spent over $20K!! There’s more than a few Christian bloggers that have posted on their weddings, and I have long been tempted to ask them how they can spend as much as they obviously did, and then bang on about how Christians don’t do enough for the poor (but I haven’t, because I don’t think cyberspace is the appropriate place to have such discussions).
Sorry for the rant - I agree with you. So often Christians live according to a ‘thin’ set of rules rather than a ‘thick’ moral framework.
9 Jon Owen // Nov 28, 2006 at 6:49 pm
You are spot on about civil unions, Stephen Fielding suggested that people should be allowed to access one anothers super if they have lived together all of their lives.
Here is another point that many overlook: Due to the law, a gay couple can claim two lots of Government Welfare because their union is not recognised, yet many gay couples ar more than willing to forfeit this to be recognised legally.
In this age of economic retionalism that argument alone should be enough to get this one through!
10 bec // Nov 29, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Jon,
I think it’s really cool that some of the conservative Christians are starting to see the distinction between the human rights issues and the Christian moral issues - ie. the distinction between legal recognition of a relationship, and church recognition of a relationship.
What saddens me, however, is that they came to this point AFTER they ran the most hideous campaign, akin to a witch hunt more than anything else - ie. getting hundreds (thousands?) of people on the lawn of parliament house when parliament was passing the amendments to the Marriage Act. It’s a shame that (a) Christians were, as usual, reactive rather than proactive; and (b) they’re not applying half as much enthusiasm and pressure now that they’re seeing things slightly differently. Yet again, Christian lobby groups mobilised Christians who live according to a thin set of moral rules rather than a more sophisticated, nuanced moral framework.
The whole welfare thing is incredibly ironic. For me this is so much beyond a moral issue…it’s about basic human rights, about the right of two human beings to self-determination, to make decisions about their sexuality, their finances, etc. I just don’t see how the church can oppose gay couples having the same rights as straight de facto couples.
11 Jon Owen // Nov 30, 2006 at 9:16 pm
You and me both Bec, you and me both. Even my father agrees on this point and he is the most conservative of Christians.
I find that people get very defensive about this stuff, like we are asking them to compromise their faith or something.
There is no such thing at stake is there?
Yet those who try and draw this connection for cheap political gain should be ashamed of themselves.
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