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Saturday May 10, 2008
Category: FaithHere's Doug
This is a blast. Here is Doug Pascover's story:
From the ages of 10 months old until 7 years, my family lived on the South side of Chicago so the White Sox were my first religion. I became a Christian at 13 and have never been particularly good at it. I worked as a cowboy, farm-hand and construction-worker until I went to Emory University at the age of 24. While a student and for a few years after I worked at The Carter Center's Interfaith Health Program. Today I am the Executive Director of an agency that helps adults with developmental disabilities become independent, which sounds virtuous but mostly isn't. (My employees have virtuous jobs.) I am very involved in the development of State policy towards people with disabilities, mostly as a crank. I raise dogs in lieu of children, marriage being too complicated for me.I guess, considering your politics and religion focus, I can add that I am a member of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and a political independent with fairly conservative views on the size and scope of government and no interest in regulating personal behavior. I have a very difficult relationship with large, man-made institutions including both government and the church.
posted by David Kuo @ 9:35am Permalink 
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OK, Donny. I'll be happy to share my thinking, although I suspect it won't be convincing to you and we'll end up where we normally do. If by "heard from the Holy Spirit" you refer to the Pentecost, we only have one cannonized account of that so, of course, there is no diversity of opinion but I do look at the styles. Thomas was obviously had a different approach, not believing in anything he couldn't touch. Peter was with Jesus almost from the start of his ministry and yet, on the night in which Jesus was betrayed, defended him by sword (and got rebuked) after all he had been told. You also have him refusing (initially) to take on a Roman centurion as a student, after the Pentecost. We also have contention among the apostles after the pentecost over which laws gentile Christians would and would not have to follow. The pentecost has already occured but not all things are known to the Apostles and they are not of one mind, but reach a conclusion by compromise. We are their inheritors and we did not have Jesus walk with us in person as a teacher so, yes, I conclude from that that even taking the bible literally, we should expect to be uncertain and to find disagreement, even when we all follow Him faithfully.
It's all easier to see in the old testament, and maybe this is a place to expand on my biography a little. I am a sinner, have sinned, continue to sin, am often bad but I have strived most of my life to live biblically. But the bible gives a lot of direction, specifies not only law, but, as you know, there are a lot of instructions as to how a man should live and the Old Testament, as you've noted is very pro-family. Now, take this weirdo smart-ass Doug you met on David's site who struggles to live right. I happen to have the exact right sexual orientation to form a marriage in all 50 states but pretty much none of my other dispositions, temperments, patiences and appetites make me marriage material. So my struggle has been how to follow without forming a family as we're so often called to do. Then I think about Hosea who, in spite of Mosaic laws instructing very much a different outcome for a prostitute is called by God to take one as a wife. You have Elijah and Elisha, two men traveling the countryside as a sort of family (I am not implying anything homoerotic here, just suggesting that their story implies that Godly bonds of affection do not always follow one model.) You have Jesus and his disciples and Mary Magdalene, thirteen (so far as we know) unmarried men travelling around with a known prostitute. Samson, John the Baptist, even David lived lives of service to God without following the prescribed moral pattern.
So you have these laws that are clearly there and which clearly emphasize a certain way of going through life and a bible filled with misfits like me doing God's work. I consider myself conservative both politically and biblically, but I do wonder how the "social conservatives," given enough power, would treat a 40-year-old single man like me or thirteen male thirty-somethings and a reformed hooker who wandered homeless and preaching. The first conclusion I reach, which I'm certain of, is that God has a place for us all in his plan but not all in the same role. The second, which I'm less certain of, is that we can run hard up against God's plan when we try too hard to make His laws ours. The third, which I'm by no means certain of, is that even someone who knows the bible by heart in the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and can quote passages from memory can prove a point biblically and still get the message wrong. None of this is meant to say that, to use a favorite phrase of yours "anything goes" or "if it feels good do it" or "Whatever you believe is cool." It is to say that I believe there's a place for skepticism, query and contemplation in the life of a follower of Jesus, the Christ.
Just for the future, I welcome debate, discussion and questions. When I've been angry with you in the past, it was never over your questioning me. I know I don't know much and appreciate having some of the things I'm dumb about pointed out to me. Well, most of the time. There's no need to explain your challenge and I'm not real worried about my membership status in any clubs. As mentioned in my original email to David I'm not much of a joiner anyway.
Posted by: Doug | May 12, 2008 12:50 AM
Doug,
Your May 12, 2008 12:50 AM post coincides with my feelings.
I've never been into prostitutes myself and have had chances out of the country (I had one foreign friend try to set me up several times). Just maybe the apostles were able to control themselves; after all yours truly did.
Jesus, according to Biblical narratives, was conceived out of wed-lock. So are very own savior, exemplar, avatar, etc. had a single mother (granted for a brief time).
Donny,
I first came across the idea of cultural relativism doing a summer study program in Mexico (a couple of years after falling out of the Evangelical movement). I'm not a big fan of absolute cultural relativism or moral relativism. I do think some behaviors clearly work better than others.
But, my questions to absolute moralists goes something like this:
Do you think love motivates morals or just obligation?
I tend to think that our highest moral actions are a result of love and a response to it. Morals follow love. The apostle Paul says we love because we are first loved.
In some respects I think Evangelicals are right to say, "Would you like to have a personal relationship with God?" Although, the problem for a doubter like myself is the fact that God can be a complete mystery at times (i.e., impersonal). It's taken me a hell of a long time to accept that my rational mind will never capture God and some several hundred hours of Zen Buddhist meditation and study.
Evangelicals cherry pick scriptures:
Do you eat a completely kosher diet? Do you refuse to hug your wife when she's having a period? Are women forbidden from speaking in your church? Do you refuse to shop or patronize any business on the Sabbath so as much of your community can make it to church as possible?
If you answered yes to all of these then I sincerely apologize. You pass the literal test and you don't cherry pick.
Martin Luther struggled and struggled with the law and finally understood that the apostle Paul struggled with the law.
Donny,
I'm not necessarily saying anything goes. But, at the same time, just like Paul figured out - it's impossible to keep the written law. I've found love to be the most positive focus.
We are saved by grace as far as I can tell in the orthodox scheme of things. Any requisite behavior to receive that grace is completely contradictory to grace. We respond to that grace as best we can.
I applaud you for having morals! Seriously! I don't doubt that you love God. But, I believe we each come to that unconditional and absolute love in our own way.
Check this quote out from C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, 1st page of Book IV in my edition)
"In a way I quite understand why some people are put off by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F. (Royal Air Force), and an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, "I've no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I'm a religious man too. I know there's a God. I've felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who's met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!"
Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real."
Just some food for thought bro! Puleez don't taze me man!
Posted by: Brian Horan | May 12, 2008 1:43 AM
Brian, I do think there are some clear truths in the bible and I agree with Donny that the purpose of studying the bible should not be to redact it for comfort's sake. But I agree that cherry-picking is prevalent throughout the Church. Fundamentalism is not apostolic but a 19th Century innovation and the original fundamentalist texts were specifically written to highlight certain passages, by implication reducing the importance of others. I think that's normal, fair and presumably well-intended but orthodoxy is not the same as originalism, the former involving a contemporary community agreement on what the bible means and the latter being, I think, impossible in this world and at this time.
The duty I accept is to be a serious student the word and to change myself to fit the scripture, not to change the scripture to suit me.
Posted by: Doug | May 12, 2008 12:38 PM
Doug,
I think if we interpret the scriptures via the Holy Spirit of Love (i.e., Love your brother/neighbor/blogger/political adversary as yourself; and love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, and mind!) , we're actually more likely to be moral. After all Jesus said that love meets the requirements of the law.
Love is the clearest truth of all.
Seeing myself in others, even adversaries, isn't a relative thing. Actually, it's quite difficult for my shallow little ego.
Come to think of it, my ego seems like a hell of a phenomena to me.
If your following statement isn't copy-written, I'd like to use it in the future:
"We also have contention among the apostles after the Pentecost over which laws gentile Christians would and would not have to follow. The Pentecost has already occurred, but not all things are known to the apostles; and they are not of one mind.
They reach a conclusion by compromise. We are their inheritors and we did not have Jesus walk with us in person as a teacher so, yes, I conclude from that that even taking the bible literally, we should expect to be uncertain and to find disagreement, even when we all follow Him faithfully."
Posted by: Brian Horan | May 12, 2008 2:26 PM
Brian, I have no copywrites. It could be plagiarized from someone who does.
Posted by: Doug | May 12, 2008 5:57 PM
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