The Gay Marriage Debate and the Homeless Neighbor

I find myself at a loss for words in discussing the gay marriage debate. While I want to respect both sides of the argument, I'm beginning to see a strong shift from ambiguity to clearly defined and polarized sides of the issue. As a follower of Jesus, I walk a fine line between wanting to see the LGBTQ community treated as equals without qualifiers or stipulations, but I also want to maintain a level of theological integrity in the message I preach. Having heated and peaceful debates with both liberals and conservatives on the issue of gay marriage, I would like to point out what I'm thinking and feeling.

I'm so frustrated with more conservative Christians who, in their naive ignorance of the deep pain we've caused, think they can simply decide how best to compromise on the issue of gay marriage. The issue becomes further complicated by the perverse intertwining of political and spiritual narratives which is so pervasive among the conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists. The distinction between political and Church doctrine become so blurred that address either aspect inspires the ire of many saints. They build mega-churches and have high-quality worship productions that could lead you to believe you were at a rock concert, but when it comes time to put head to the plow there's a lackluster performance in the follow-through. They have the righteousness concept refined to near legalism, but are completely missing the justice aspect of G-d's character. The evangelical and fundamentalist conservatives tend to be more individualistic and therefore do not conceive of salvation as something beyond the personal prayer made at the point of conversion. The question for them is, "who is your neighbor and what limit does Jesus put on loving them?"

The liberal Christians have no more satisfactory answers than their conservative siblings in the faith. Their watered-down theology lacks any sort of moral backbone that they end up rendering the Gospel nothing short of a limp noodle, useful for good feelings and tingles when the glossy messages of "love" come from the pulpit, but are wholly lacking in a message of G-d's call to live a new way. They have the concept of justice down to a well-oiled machine, yet they lack the righteousness that goes with it. These followers of Jesus run the risk of becoming like the salt without flavor, to be scattered among the ground and trampled on. The question for them is, "which do you love more, Jesus or social justice?"

When speaking to my conservative brothers and sisters on the issue of gay marriage, the best I have seen thus far is the concession that the LGBTQ community should have equal marriage rights, but they want to see  a separate legal precedent established to make this possible. In doing this, they reject the reality that doing so establishes a government-sanctioned act of discrimination and bigotry towards gays and lesbians. They also can't seem to understand that vast difference between a G-d-ordained marriage and a legal marriage. No matter how many times I try to explain that legalizing gay marriage on a federal level would not be a threat to G-d-ordained marriages, it falls back on twisted political rhetoric that somehow G-d wants us to protect legal marriage as if it were one-and-the-same with G-d's holy unions. The most foul and evil corruption in the Church is the lie that our American political establishments are the same as G-d's most holy rites.

When speaking to my liberal brothers and sisters on the issue of gay marriage, they demonize their conservative siblings for being intolerant. The "Us vs. Them" mentality begins to create a cyclical call and response. When the conservatives come down on an issue, the liberals respond by opening their arms wide with an ever-embracing message of G-d's love and a swift back-hand to the conservatives for their "backwards thinking ways". Even I can't escape their fiery message of anti-judgmentalism (which ironically reeks of judgmentalism), and for what is my crime? I only want the Gospel preached as it in the Bible. You know the parts where Jesus tells the prostitute to "go and sin no more" or of forgiving a brother seventy times seven. Again, the wicked and idolatrous political polarization happens here with liberals always trying to be the exact opposite of their conservative siblings. It's like twins who are sicking of being mixed up trying to be so different from each other that they both end up looking like freaks.

And now I turn your attention to another matter entirely, but one of both personal and social nature. On 33rd and State on any given weekday you can be sure to find a scruffy-looking man asking for change. I've seen this man on multiple occasions over the past two and half years I've been in Chicago and asked him about his life. He told me about his family and how the internal strife and some poor choices led to being kicked out. First time I saw him I gave him some money so he could use the CTA to get into a shelter (it was February). The next time I saw him I bought him some hot chocolate and (I tried to get him to eat a banana) an oatmeal cookie at Starbucks. The third time I saw him I was a little miffed because I wanted to help him, but wasn't about to just hand him my bank account if only to see him come crawling back to me for more in a couple weeks. He told me he needed money for the CTA, so this time I gave him my farecard since I was armed with a second one which I could fall back on. Not more than two days later, I saw him again at the Jimmy John's begging for some food: whining and crying that he was hungry. I watched, utterly flabbergasted as a gentleman had the gumption to say something to the effect, "Get off my street and don't come begging here no more. This is my street, I pay my taxes, now go take your begging somewhere else..." The exchange had an even more interesting dynamic seeing as how the angry gentleman was black and the scruffy beggar is white. Would this black man be so callously dismissive if the beggar had been a black man?

Every time I see this scruffy homeless man, I can't help but feel guilty because I haven't done enough to help him. Another side of me thinks that this man is just leeching off of my generosity. How do I discern what my next step should be? Should I be trying to find him a place to stay that will help him transition from homelessness to a more stable life? Would that be too much of "rich privileged white college kid saving the day" for it to be a practical solution that respects his dignity as a human being to choose? I can't seem to make sense of the complicated nature of homelessness. The fact is that what I've been doing isn't working, but not doing anything is completely against everything I believe Christ taught me to do. Over the summer, I learned about lamenting the things I cannot change, and so now I lament the fact that I cannot find a simple solution to this man's situation. There's no magic potion, no flow chart to follow in dealing with this brokenness. Worse still, there are millions like him...

Oh LORD how long, LORD?
James

Anecdotal Introduction

It's nearing the end of the academic year and most of my peers are worn out, but I'm rather pumped up. I've been itching for months to have someone come and talk about consumer justice at my chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF/IV). The night finally arrives and I'm trying not to let my feelings of excitement overwhelm my ability to listen. I knew some things about justice and how consumers could be a contributor in gross injustices with the purchases they make, but I had not heard most of the information that night. I don't even remember specific talking points from that night except that it is important to take baby steps. Fast-forward about three weeks and I'm trying implement what I had learned. I had determined that my baby step was going to be replacing my belt at a thrift store instead of buying a new one. I spent a few hours just looking for thrift stores and as it turns out there aren't a whole lot of them in Minnesota. Since I live in Chicago I take it for granted that there's a thrift store around almost every corner. In Minnesota where my parents live I had just one thrift store within a reasonable distance from their house. I went there hoping to be able to buy dress clothes for church, but if all else failed I just wanted to get a belt to replace my rusty old one. After about an hour and a half of searching through shirts, pants, shoes, and belts I came out of that store with dress pants, a dress shirt, but no belt. I felt like I had wasted my time even though I had gotten a shirt and pants there. I ended up getting my belt at Walmart.

Folks, I hear a lot of people talk about justice in terms of systemic injustices that exist across the globe in an all-encompassing nightmare we contribute to with the things we buy. If you're like me, you hear these things and are immediately moved by the shock and horror within you to find out that something you consume or a service you rely on is responsible for unethical and unjust actions. A younger me would get upset as soon as the shock and horror had passed, because there's no quick-fix to systemic injustice. Eventually that upset feeling would turn to apathy which would lead me to throw up my hands in surrender to the fact that I contribute to an injustice that harms someone else in some unseen place. While these feelings of being overwhelmed by the vastness of the injustices in our world are normal, they are not an excuse for apathy. The other feeling which I've had after learning that there is an injustice committed every time I buy something or pay for a service is resentment. I resent the fact that in order to live more justly I have to give up something I use regularly. This is also a legitimate feeling, but we need to recognize that our slight discomfort is not because we're being deprived of a necessity; we're learning to live without something we're accustomed to.

But why should justice matter? I can't give you a straight answer because I believe it is something you must be personally convicted of before you can engage in it. I'm not going to force justice down your throat. I'll point you to Isaiah 58, the book of Amos, Matthew 5-7 (Sermon on the Mount), and James 2; yet I don't believe for a second that reading a few passages of Scripture or a convincing argument about justice and righteousness is going to turn anyone to my point of view. Why? I think that, as someone coming from an evangelical ultra-conservative faith background, I see the issue of justice being a very skewed issue. No longer is about doing what is right, but rather it has become a political game. What should have been a focal point of faith in action has become a secular and liberal issue. In our minds, the issue of social justice is for liberal Christians and we have certain assumptions about Christians who are into that. This is a sad state of affairs because in searching the Scriptures with an open mind and heart, I have come to understand that God's desire for justice and righteousness is a calling for all His children. The divide between justice and righteousness are not so great, moreover they are not simply things that can be done and checked off on a list of to-dos. Justice and righteousness are synonymous words describing of lifestyle of Christ-like living in direct opposition to the broken systems of injustice and cruelty in our world.

I invite you all to laugh, cry, and struggle with me as I blog about my honest journey to living justly in this broken world.

James