My night in San Francisco... on the radio that is

Your Church:  Welcoming or Rejecting?

 

So, last night my participation in the radio panel out in San Francisco expanded from the original half hour to will over an hour. What a privilege, to be able to try to reach people with the message about the church’s need for compassion and sensitivity toward those whose lives have suffered the devastation of divorce.  The panel consisted of a San Francisco Pastor, a Court Mediator, A Christian Therapist for the first half hour, and then I came in a half hour in and the Therapist had to sign off.  If you didn't get to hear it, it is available as a podcast linked here on the blog.  

KFAX Interview on Craig Roberts Life Line

Click on the link for the January 15th show.

However, I’d like to address a couple of things that came up.

  The first was raised by the pastor. His theology of divorce is that if married couples lived 100% committed to Christ, there would be a 0% divorce rate, and so the main thing couples need to do is to humbly get right with Christ.  Secondly, he believes the scriptures teach that divorce isn't really allowed, except as a last resort in cases of adultery or abandonment, and that after you are divorced, you are to remain unmarried the rest of your life unless you reconcile.  This raises all sorts of things, including why my book is needed. 

  This pastor seemed a relatively kind fellow, and to have good intentions and probably has a good church and ministry out there, I don’t know.  But he clearly doesn't understand how the very things he says creates barriers between himself and Christians caught in the garbage of divorce….even though he says there is forgiveness in Christ and that divorced people would be welcome at his church without judgment. The way he stated the part about fully committed to Christ solving marriage problems implies right off the bat that if you are divorced, then you are not as good a Christian as he and the other Christians are who are still married.  The logic is sadly faulty.  A few illustrations will show you why.  If Christians were 100% committed, there would be no gossip in the church, either.  Nor would there be church splits.  Nor would there be the kind of pride that permits one Christian to look down upon another who thinks differently.  If you read Proverbs 6:16-19, or Romans 1:29-30 you will discover that God hates these things, too….but many Christians with the pastor’s attitude choose to focus on God’s hatred of divorce and neglect these areas.  They draw distinctions, because as we have all seen, people who are prideful, people who gossip, people who have stirred up church troubles can still end up being leaders in their churches….but not the divorced.  Because whether it is directly said or not, divorced Christians are often treated as second class Christians, while any other shortcomings are forgiven and forgotten.  Fortunately for us, God doesn't operate that way, just some of His people.

  Secondly, the “biblical” perspective he gave is certainly one of the interpretations of the Bible’s teachings about divorce.  But it is not the ONLY one.  In fact, as a conservative commentary I was reading just yesterday pointed out, from the earliest days of the Reformation, a great many Protestants have understood the scriptures to allow remarriage….yet this individual does not.  It sounds like he represents the only biblical position, yet his view flies in the face of some pretty heavy weight biblical scholars, from Augustine to Erasmus, Luther and more. 

  I’ll put together a blog later that can show you the various biblical interpretations on the topic, there are four.  If you are divorced, you become very sensitized to which view people at your church believe, and whether or not they realize there is more than one way to understand those scriptures.  And if you aren't divorced, you need to know how you present your interpretation makes a difference, and that there ARE other CHRISTIAN points of view.  So, enjoy the podcast if you listen to it.  I was honored to be part of the broadcast, and grateful for the opportunity given to me by Craig Roberts and the Lifeline program. 

TL:dr  Review of the broadcast shows how little things can reflect lack of understanding for divorced, intentional or not, thus driving them away from Christ and the church.

Monopoly, technology and divorce?

Top Hat Anyone?

 So have you voted yet?  Maybe you haven’t heard.  Parker Brothers, makers of the game Monopoly are planning on changing out one of the tokens you move around the board….apparently for something more up to date (maybe a cell phone??).  Anyway, apparently they want our opinion.  I don’t know about you, but I always preferred the dog or the top hat….I mean, who wants to be a thimble?  Lots of folks I know have lots of memories associated with the board game Monopoly…..some of whom only remember a bunch of fights!  You gotta admit, foreclosing on your kid sister because they spent the night at your Boardwalk hotel doesn't go over really well when she’s only 8. 

But I remember lots of good times playing lots of games together as kids.  Inside we played Monopoly, Sorry, checkers, canasta and put together jigsaw puzzles, just to name a few.  Of course, we played with lots of other things, too….horses and soldiers and the like.  We had fun, fights, winners, losers and challenges for a rematch. 

Educator and Parenting specialist, Stephen Glenn, once pointed out some of the things that have shifted and been lost in our society by how we handle children these days.  He talked about the difference in organized sports for kids, where they are told by adults what all the rules are and how to play, and contrasted it to the days of backyard baseball or stickball where the kids have to negotiate out the rules amongst themselves.  His concern is that kids aren't learning the art of working out their own solutions through negotiation and compromise.  I remember doing that kind of thing.  In our “ball field,” the ditch was represented the first base foul line, the maple sapling out in the middle was second base, and we stepped off whatever we thought was fair for the pitcher’s mound.  Today, of course, everything is already laid out, creativity and compromise are not necessary.

So the other day, I was at a local restaurant that is a “wifi hotspot,” where I saw a college couple sitting close together, each with a small laptop or ipad, earplugs in their ears typing away.  I interrupted long enough to say to the young man, “Please tell me you aren't emailing each other.”  He laughed, put his earplugs back in and went back to whatever he was doing.  But it all has me wondering.  Are we becoming a society of people who have relationships with technology, and none with living people?  Or of relationships over the internet, but none that require personal and face to face involvement?  Have we become too used to the video games with their established rules, secret codes that can help you get around the rules, and interactions with either a machine or perhaps people we will never meet?  Even the social media is at a distance.  Have you ever noticed that a text or email without vocal intonations and facial expressions can lead to misinterpretations?  Or how the Facebook pages create and discard “friends” casually without any personal commitment or cost?

Why do I bother to bring this up?  Because I suspect one of these days somebody will do a doctoral dissertation, or get federal funding to research the ways our lack of personal interaction and negotiations as children has contributed to a rising divorce rate.  We are becoming skilled at all sorts of things, but not at the kind of daily human interaction that is necessary for a good marriage.  I think there was something of value in sitting with friends to decide whether or not your sister has to reroll the die that fell on the floor.  Or to have to work out together who actually stepped on home plate first and whether the player’s elbow should be called a foul in basketball or was purely accidental.  I like lots of things about the opportunities all the changes are creating, such as connecting across a greater geographic area so quickly.  But I also am saddened and concerned about some of the price we may be paying because of the relationship and life skills we are neglecting along the way.  Not saying what it is, but do believe it is worth thinking about.  Just my opinion.  Oh, and I think they should get rid of the race car….I never did very well when I had that piece anyway!

TL:DR  Technology has value but don't let it cause you to loose important human contact. 

To Those on the East Coast Who Survived Hurricane Sandy

A Tribute and a Prayer for Hurricane Sandy Survivors

So have been awful tied up of late, and haven’t written as much.  But wanted to add some comments to all the discussions about Hurricane Sandy.  First, I’d like to say that we should never underestimate the power of God…….the power of the hurricane was minimal in comparison…..especially the power to help those people in the midst of such devastation.  Help to give them peace in the storm, hope in the loss and courage for the future……and to use His people to be His hands and feet providing for material needs and emotional support.  I encourage each of us, as we did this morning in church, to be praying for those folks, and praying to discern what God might be asking of each of us to help.  I am thankful that the U.S. is a place where, when these kinds of things happen, our government actively seeks to help, and our people pour out their hearts and resources to make the needed difference.  Many of those people on the coast have a long and difficult road ahead of them.

I thought this morning of Matthew 7:24-27, where it talks about the difference between people who build their lives on doing God’s word and those who hear it but don’t do it.  Remember the story?  One is like a house built on a rock that withstands the storms, the other is built on sand and washes away in the flood.  We have just seen graphic images of that parable.  I was especially struck by those island homes on the beaches that were so devastated…..in one case, I heard about a beach, road and parking lot all washed away right up to somebody’s beach house! 

In times like what those folks are experiencing, one feels like they have lost so much of life, and often evaluates what really is important in life.  We hear it when people say things like, “Well, our house is gone, and our possessions are gone, but, thank God, we are all alive and well.”  (And, the same kind of evaluations take place when one goes through the devastation of divorce, too, by the way.)  In those evaluations, God often can speak in a way He cannot at other times in our lives.  Or, more accurately, we listen in a way we don’t always listen.  Anyway, having had times in my life without power and when roads were a mess due to various kinds of storms, I know the struggle they are facing is great….especially with food, water and transportation also shut down in so many ways. 

Having a number of friends on the coast from my college days, and having spent a fair amount of time in Manhattan and the Bronx, it is hard for those of us at a distance to see the kind of destruction that has come your way.  Especially after you have already gone through the disaster of 9/11/2001.  Our prayers are with you Easterners, that God’s mercy will safeguard you and yours, and help will get through soon .  And our prayers include that you will experience an incredible moment with God through these hard times.