Atlanta Pride Parade 2006
June 26, 2006
Sarah and I spent the afternoon today braving the forecasted thunderstorms, and in downtown Atlanta for the Pride Parade of 2006. An amazingly ‘colorful’ event - you can see someone’s photos here [where I found the above photo]. It was encouraging to see a variety of church groups there with floats in the parade; of coruse the Metropolitan Community Church was there, but also some other groups including many Episcopal churches and a Baptist church represented. Hopefully someday PCUSA churches will feel more comfortable in a parade like this: this helps, but we’re so not there yet. We lasted about an hour and a half before the storm came downtown (literally) and we experienced lightning popping and cracking directly in front of us (I think I saw one touch down 50ft or so in front of me), 4-6 standing water on some parts of sidewalks and thunder that rumbled for 10-20sec. It was quite the storm.
Posted in Sexuality
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
June 26th, 2006 at 3:42 am
Looks like it was fun despite the rain! Nice to see so many smiling faces and people enjoying themselves!
June 26th, 2006 at 8:39 am
robyn and i were talking about the storm..the sad thing is, how long is it gonna take for some minister to come out and proclaim that the weather was God’s judgment?
mark
June 26th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Bro. So much for the domesticated/bland blog. Did Zirschky inspire you to spice it up?
June 26th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
I can’t get with this man…how can one support something so against everything God stands for?
Honestly, it is sad to see a young Christian buying into such a worldly, evil philosophy.
Now go ahead and (intolerantly) blast me for being intolerant. My type is not wanted here?
June 26th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Opposition to homosexuality isn’t “everything that God stands for.” Support for it isn’t everything that God stands for, either. As God was revealed to us in Jesus, God stands for a lot of different things…love, justice, faithfulness, righteousness, healing, just to name a few. But scripture tells us that when the religious leaders saw Jesus hanging out with sinners, drunkards, and prostitutes, they asked how one can support something so against everything that God stands for, too. The great thing about God is that God isn’t static…God changes and adjusts. If God didn’t, then God wouldn’t have been sorry for creating humankind (as God was in Genesis), or we would still be saying “an eye for an eye” instead of “turn the other cheek.” If everything that God stood for always remained the same, then only Jews, not Gentiles, would be a part of God’s covenant. But most of all, if God never grew or adjusted or changed, then there would have been no need for Jesus. We don’t go around quoting “slaves obey your masters” anymore, we don’t kill people who wear two kinds or fabric in their clothing, and we don’t stone people who get divorces. So can’t we just agree that the Levitical and Deuteronomical laws were written in a specific time for a specific people for specific reasons, rather than picking and choosing the ones we like (to condemn the people we don’t) and leaving out the ones that don’t support out religio-political viewpoints? I mean, Jesus came to set us free from judgment under the law…so why are we still so intent on judging others by it?
June 26th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Hmmm…I’ll have to wholeheartedly disagree with your statement that “God isn’t static…God changes and adjusts.” Jesus is God, right (or has that changed too)? “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Heb 13:8) Listen, your argument of a changing God, when played out to its final note, gives mankind no hope. I read a very different story in the Bible - one of hope, forgiveness, and redemption (yes, even for homosexuals).
Arguments like this inevitably end with “don’t judge me, judge yourself”. Is there no room for correction? Reproof? Admonition? Can’t those all be construed as “judging others”?
Listen, the slippery slope of a changing God erodes the foundation of Christianity (memo to me…that seems like a good tactic for Satan!) and ultimately will harm those who are influenced by that philosophy. After all, what is a man to believe if all is up for debate and rests in the hands of a pliable, uncertain God?
June 26th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
I’m glad you enjoyed the parade (despite incredibly stormy weather). I had the pleasure of attending the NYC Pride Parade last summer. It was a FULL day event (it went for over 10 hours!!). I too was pleased to see the overwhelming amount of support of many many many churches.
June 26th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
I’m not saying, “Don’t judge me, judge yourself.” I’m saying, “God will judge both me and you.” Leave it up to God. There is absolutely room for correction, reproof, and admonition, when all of those things work towards the nourishment of faith and the growth of the believer. Judgment does not do that. Judgment is final, at least in the terms used by scripture to speak of God’s judgment. I don’t want you or any other person to have the final word over me. I want God to, and Christ has promised us that that is the case.
I think Jesus Christ can be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, but still grow and evolve in that sameness. There are too many examples throughout scripture for me to think otherwise. Why does a changing and evolving God have to mean that there is no hope for mankind or that God evolves out of hope, forgiveness, and redemption? What I see throughout scripture is God continually changing the scope of his kingdom…it is constantly getting bigger. Started out with Abraham, and somehow we are now a part of it. If God was static in terms of covenant, that could never have happened. At one point, lepers were outcast and unclean. Yet Jesus bucked conventional thought and law to heal them and make them whole. How does that kind of change and evolution of God in any way diminish hope, forgiveness, and redemption? When I follow the argument of a changing and evolving God to its final note, I find GREAT HOPE, because that means there can still be room for ME in God’s kingdom, regardless of how many times I fall short of the glory of God.
How does any of this erode the foundation of Christianity? You didn’t explain, and I would love to hear (not being sarcastic, being serious). Please go into more depth. Thanks for the conversation.
June 27th, 2006 at 9:29 am
Perhaps it isn’t that God has changed but that our understanding and perception of God is what’s changed.
Using those examples from Scripture, there was a time when they could only see God in part, and they wrote from that perspective: liberator, law-giver, judge.
But then came Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. We only know what we know about God by Jesus, as Jesus is the full and primary revelation of God. I don’t think it’s that God changed. I think it’s that when God reveals himself more fully, our own concepts of God are what changes.
There are many implications to having a God who grows and changes. If God changes or evolves or whatever you want to say, then that means God does not exists in perfection, because why would a perfect God change into something other? Both modes of God, as he existed prior to the change and then after the change, cannot be perfect, or there would have been no need for this change. A perfect God cannot change or even be in need of changing.
If God is growing and dynamic, evolving and changing, how can we worship him? There’s just too much room for human invention in this concept of a changing God. The question for me becomes, is God changing (my answer - no), is our concept of God changing (through God’s own revelation), or are WE changing the god of our own invention in order to suit our own agendas and desires? Sadly, I think the latter happens far more than people realize.
Further, the very idea of a God who changes or evolves is an anthropomorphic conception of God, making him too human and not enough divine. We as humans grow and change in many areas, including our relationship with God. To say that God is also growing and changing is simply taking a human trait and putting it on God, as if God, like humanity, NEEDS to grow and change.
Lastly, how do you grow and evolve in sameness (especially when everything you quote after that is your belief of how God has changed, clearly demonstrating a lack of understanding of this “sameness”)? That seems to be more of a statement that tries to placate the Hebrews passage, as if you agree with it, but really is a complete disregard of that verse in order to keep your own concept of a changing God. It doesn’t really make sense.
Remember, with the covenant and the lepers and all that, God has not changed. God has been the same. In those old testament times, the people did not have the full revelation of God because Jesus had not yet come. They were working with the bits and pieces they did have, as God had revealed to them; thematically, these bits and pieces are much the same (covenant, justice, love for neighbor, etc) as what Jesus taught.
My own belief about the homosexuality debate is not that God has changed his beliefs and therefore we should hop onto his ever-changing bandwagon. Instead, as I’ve tried to lay out here, it’s just that our perception of God has changed as we continue to understand the revealed God in Jesus even more. God does yearn for all to come to him, to know him, to be in relationship with him, and he loves all his creation, including homosexuals.
June 27th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Here’s what I meant by God changing within sameness. We can say that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever in that God is eternally gracious, forgiving, justifying, redeeming, creating, etc. God’s characteristics do not change. However, God keeps finding new ways to live out those characteristics. God finds new ways to forgive, redeem, heal, and create.
Still, no one is explaining to me how we reconcile their notion of an eternally static God with the fact that, especially in the Hebrew scriptures, God grows, learns, and changes. I hate to prooftext, and I’m not trying to do that here, but there are a couple of texts that I feel illustrate this really well. Exodus 32:14, “the Lord changed his mind” about destroying the people after the golden calf incident, and Jeremiah 26:19, “the Lord changed his mind” about the destruction that would be brought on the people after King Hezekiah put Micah to death. I go back to the one I mentioned earlier in Genesis, “the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart,” so God plans to destroy all creation, but changes his mind again when Noah finds favor in his eyes. If God always holds the same thoughts and opinions, why does God give Israel over to the Assyrians? What I see through this is God’s covenant remaining the same, but God finding new ways to be faithful within the scope of that covenant.
If “a perfect God cannot change or even be in need of changing,” then why Jesus? Why did God change, taking on human form, in order to redeem? Shouldn’t God have just remained the static God up in heaven that we have come to rely on and just redeem creation from afar? No, because God saw the need for something more. God saw the need to redeem in a new way. The dynamic nature of God isn’t a threat to God’s divinity or perfection, it’s a testimony to it. We live our lives in the presence of a God who has the power to change present circumstances, a God on the move, a God who is alive.
As far as anthropomorphism, yeah, we ALL apply human traits to God. We say God is love, God is powerful, God is a shepherd, God is all-knowing…aren’t those all human concepts? We do the best with what we’ve got, and our language isn’t even remotely capable of capturing who God is. We apply what we know. So yeah, I am being anthropomorphic, but so are you and everyone else. It’s all we’re able to do.
We don’t worship God only because God is perfect. We worship God because God created us and loved us enough to change, taking on human form, died for us, and rose again so that we can all live in him. Worship is giving God praise and glory because God is God, static or dynamic, changing or the same, God is God.
June 27th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Adam: I don’t tell you enough how grateful for your support I am (and have been in the past). I think it’s brave of you to support those of us on the queer side of things–esp. given your theological circles. I am always amazed by the shallow thinking around this issue and the manner in which ‚Äúheterosexuals‚Äù read themselves right into the text‚Ķwith no thought for the text, and I am always stunned by the degree of arrogance required to argue that the Bible is ‚Äútheirs‚Äù to read. Thanks, Adam, for questing and voicing support on your side of things‚Ķit makes a difference, and I am certainly grateful for you.
June 28th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Open theism or open deception?
Jesus warmly and lovingly welcomed(s) tax gatherers, prostitutes, heterosexuals, etc.(anyone who fits into the category of sinner) who, after contact with the living God were changed by Him. He was not changed by His contact with them, but His love, grace, mercy, and compassion brought about repentance (humility that causes a recognition of sin and a turning away from sin to God). Where is the room for boasting or pride in light of Jesus?
June 29th, 2006 at 10:27 am
>>>>>>I am always stunned by the degree of arrogance required to argue that the Bible is “theirs” to read.
I’ve never seen anybody argue that the Bible is “theirs”. Never. Not once. Perhaps you’re confused by the fact that they support their arguments with actual Scripture? If citing Scripture is what makes it “theirs”, then you’re welcome to do the same (but you folks never do).
June 29th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Many people forget that while Jesus did hang out with tax collectors and sinners He never partook or condoned sin. In fact He told the woman caught in adultry to “go and sin no more”. In this current weird culture Jesus would have been called “intolerant”, “judgemental”, etc.
“Leave it to God”, Is that why the Jesus says “you will know them by their fruit”? judgement seems to be wrongly applied to a more accurate term called “discernment”.
June 30th, 2006 at 1:31 am
Malachi 3:6
“For I am the Lord, I change not”
July 1st, 2006 at 2:38 am
Yeah, if you look at the rest of Malachi chapter 3, you will see that that verse stands in the larger context of God not changing within God’s covenant relationship with “the sons of Jacob.” That is exactly what I was talking about when I talked about God changing. God’s attributes don’t change, God just finds new ways to live out those attributes. God finds new ways to be faithful within the eternal-ness of God’s covenant. You didn’t even quote all of verse 3, which expounds on what the part you DID quote means. Proof texting is never helpful.
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:04 pm
“I am the same yesterday today and forever.”
I think one misunderstands the “change His mind” part. We forget that God is multi-diminsional and we are three diminsional. So it might appear as “changing His mind” inour diminsion but in God’s infinitie diminsion isn’t the case. Our limited understanding of infinity clouds the Truth with regard to God’s un-changing nature. “Before the foundation of the world I knew you.”
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:07 pm
It is people who try to change the understanding of God to fit their own preconceived ideas not God changing. When I see homosexuality being looked at in a more positive light I see man trying to change something that doesn’t fit their paradigm to their own devises. When one reads Romans 1, 1 Cor 6, etc. one has to change the Truth to obtain a positive view of homosexuality. I just don’t understand this.