Friday, May 2, 2014

The Problems in the Church II

OK, I probably wore you out with the previous blog.  That is why I have title this one - II

There are problems, plural.  But if you take a close look at what we have come though in my lifetime, then there has to be hope.

I have the feeling that Rachael is no longer crying for her children - in our nation.

I was privilege to help implement the integration of blacks in to the USAF and we did it with no real problems, but if you would have asked me a year previously, I would have doubted it.  I had spent 30 days taking care of the Morning Report for an all-black unit that was attached to our base and when I got back to my barracks in the evening, the rants began.  But the unit, from their Captain down to the newest recruit, each man respected me and I would have been less than a man to have not respected them.

Such was not the case during my college years in Atlanta, GA, at the time when the Supreme Court issued their ruling in Brown vs. the Board of Education, literally commanding the States to end their discrimination practices when it came to education.  I will never forget the attitudes of co-workers at my part-time job, all Southern ladies, I had thought, but given the tone and the language of their responses, they might have been Southerners, but they certainly was not ladies.

After graduation, I began work as an employment consultant and would discover that all of our records were coded so as to tell us the race or the sexual preferences of each candidate - and that was in California.  We were ordered to delete the codes, but I would discover that if I presented the experience and potential, properly, it was not difficult to place people with a real interest of working, regardless of their race or sexual preference.

Things have improved in that area except that for reasons unknown to most of us, most black people seem to prefer their own race when it comes to religion.  Having attended many of their churches, I still prefer them when it comes to an enthusiastic response to the word of God, but I am careful where I express such thoughts.

Then, there is the church and our gay brothers and sisters.  It amazes me.  I have a number of gay friends and in fact, attended gay churches before moving to this area.  I do have some problems with some of them with regard to certain scriptures, but when it came to fellowship, I have more trouble with churches following a faith that is foreign to me.

Very interesting, as I paused after the last paragraph, my TV was turned to watch James Robinson and I heard him tell his audience, "I won't give up on a marriage between a man and a woman" and I suppose he is saying, he will never support so-called "gay" marriages. Sounds good, but I have known several same-sex married couples and find that they are really concerned about one another and I have known gays who were not married and there were several reasons for their lack of interest in a marriage.  It all reminds me of my early days in church where some of the ladies were busy talking about marrying off their sons and daughters even before they had become of age.  I know of two of such marriages in which the husband brutalized his wife as his father had brutalized his mother and another where the wife became the most promiscuous woman in the area.  One of the children is still serving life in prison for murdering a friend.

Marriage ought not to be a community affair.  Certainly a celebration is in order but other than that, the two do not need the counsel or endorsement of others who are not intimately involved with their lives, to become successful. That ought to be policy and the commitment of the church.

Regarding scripture, in the older testament, the comments regarding homosexuality came at a time when the nation of Israel was in the process of formation.  The need for people was their most urgent issue and certainly to endorse same-sex marriages would not be appropriate.

Sometimes I wonder how many of the Biblical apologists ever look beyond the words they see in print.  And speaking of marriages, how many of our religious counselors have the knowledge to deal with lives that are not obliged to live by religious tenets?

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