Anne Rice and faith in Jesus Christ

A while ago I became a "fan" of Anne Rice on facebook.  Around that time I found that she was expressing thoughts, as well as questions, about faith in Jesus and how to reconcile ideas held by Christian churches and what she felt about these ideas.  On Wednesday (July 28), just in case you haven't yet read it elsewhere, she said this on facebook: 

Anne Rice As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of ...Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

There have been several of her posts that resonate with how I feel, but I cannot stop being a Christian.  In ways that she supports feminism, gay rights, and all the others in her list, I understand. 

In the last few years, I have found it hard to continue being a church-goer, when I know that others around me don't share my views.  I find it difficult to remain silent as I hear others bash Obama-voters, health-care for all, and who think all women should submit to all men. 

As far as where I identify with faith in Christ, I certainly believe that God has had an order in my life, the full scope of which I never expected.  I don't know what else will be unveiled, yet I believe that there has to be a plan, or like I said, an order, to all that I've lived.  I believe that Jesus died, rose again, and showed us immeasurable love through his sacrifice.  I want to share in that life of love, and I choose to be a follower of Christ. 

Anne Rice is a thoughtful writer, a talented individual, and I respect her statement to stand with Christ, while not standing with Christians.  I believe that she's a leader in this, and I know many who identify with her.  I know I do. 

Gay Bill Offends Souder's "Moral Views" | News | Advocate.com

Gay Bill Offends Souder's "Moral Views" | News | Advocate.com

Being from Indiana, I have to express my offense at Mr. Mark Souder's recent revelatory behavior. In addition, as recently as last November, Souder declared that as a Christian, he objected to the bill to benefit Domestic Partners.

How is it that "Christians" like Souder cannot see how abhorrent his discrimination is, as well as his self-righteous attitude, thinking he's being persecuted if he spouts that selfsame discriminatory speech. I just don't get it.

Now we have found out that he's doin' the nasty with someone other than his wife. Well, it doesn't fly. At least he's ashamed enough to step down from his legislative position, so that he can stop being such a hypocrite.

Forgiveness

I just watched a segment on the Today Show, and it was about forgiveness. A divorced woman, Victoria Rosner, who'd been left by her husband while she was pregnant, and later she allowed this man back into the life of her son. At the time, this father had been diagnosed with cancer, and was asking to be involved with his young son. Victoria tells her story in the New York Times. Victoria details the anguish she felt, but in the end, she allowed the dad to be involved and participate in their son's life, even though there was pain involved. She allowed forgiveness to prevail.

My question is this: Why does it seem so difficult to forgive? And what negatives or positives go hand in hand with forgiving? How does this apply to situations of mixed-orientation marriage?

First: Why is it difficult to forgive?

When a spouse comes out, it hurts us, really causing heartache and trouble in our lives, and we have legitimate gripes. Many of us know how heartbreaking it is to realize life can't go forward the way we planned it. We are at risk of loosing our family, our status, our incomes, not to mention the loves of our lives. It feels like we'll never get over it - after all, we've been wronged. When that someone is one we've loved and trusted, it aches in physical and emotional ways. All these things can give us justification to hold on to how we've been wronged.

Often, gay people live double lives. For the straight spouse, this might be the most devastating realization of all. Whether this is known for a long time or a short time, it damages trust and feels like nothing is real, or has been real. The details of the actions of the gay spouse cause real damage to the spouse, the family/children, and often in financial ways. Ongoing problems are often the most difficult to forgive.

Many of us, as church-attending, faithful Christians, have grown up and matured to think and believe that being gay is a sin. This belief is as much cultural as it is religious. However, professional organizations have drawn the conclusion that being gay is NOT a mental disorder, nor is it something that can change through various therapy, prayer, or any kind of effort. If we look honestly at those who are gay, we have to know that they didn't choose their sexual orientation, that they cannot be other than who they are, and it is impossible to hold it against them. (I often say that the Bible is a book to guide our lives, but it is not a sex manual.)

Positives/Negatives

One reaction is to hold it all inside. Many straight spouses go into the closet when a gay spouse comes out. (Read Amity Pierce Buxton's, "The Other Side of the Closet.") It can be isolating to live alone with this truth: My spouse is gay! What am I going to do?

Bitterness can consume us. We can talk up the situation with friends, re-hashing how bad the actions were on the part of the "wronger." Sometimes it might feel great to make ourselves the center of attention, joking at the actions of someone who behaved poorly. At church, for example, how easy it would be to point to the actions of someone who walked away, turned their back, or acted selfishly? And, it can be, in a strange way, comforting to have sympathy from others.

But what happens, and how would that feel when the friends take off, and you have to live with no one but yourself to re-hash? Which member of our families would be better off if we behave that way? What good would be served? Does it really pump your ego to frame the "ex" in a bad light? Will it help make him or her a better person? Ask yourself: Will it make ME a better person? Would it be worth the brief inflation of your own ego? I'd say, "no."

The right thing to do...

Victoria Rosner had to decide whether to allow her young son to connect with his father, after he behaved badly and had had no part in his life for the first two years of the boy's life. She consulted with many people in her circle of acquaintances:

I queried friends, relations, professionals: What would you do? The responses were mixed. A friend said: “How could you let him back after what he did? He doesn’t deserve to know his son.” My mother said, “How can you refuse what might turn out to be a last wish?” And my therapist just said, “You’ll know the right thing to do.”

She knew the right thing to do, and she permitted the father and son to be part of each others' lives. Sadly, the father passed away, and there was even more to deal with: how a pre-schooler deals with loosing his Daddy. Sad, all the way around.

For so many straight spouses, you have been "done wrong." Perhaps you always knew something was amiss. Perhaps you even knew before you were married that your spouse was same-sex-attracted. But so often, one doesn't know, and things happen that are damaging to the relationship - you have every right to leave the marriage. Then again, maybe it's just that the gay spouse needs to leave the marriage, even though they have never engaged in relations or a relationship outside the marriage. In any case, you are the recipient of negative feelings, and you need to forgive him or her of the real, damaging, hurtful wrongs done to you. I understand how you feel.

I get a lot of questions because I have forgiven my ex-husband. In a way, I didn't even have to forgive him because I chose to understand. Even so, I decided early on to NOT hold it against him that our marriage was to end. I decided early on to NOT implicate him as responsible, because he did not choose to be gay. So, I forgave him for what? For being honest? Or for not telling me sooner? Yes, for all that, and more, which I had to give up: an intact family, a life-partner, status at church and in our community. Income. His company day-to-day. ALL that changed, and I forgave him.

I now benefit from a free conscience and relief of not carrying with me the heaviness of being a victim. I benefit by being able to hold my head up and talk openly about my situation, but without vengeance. I benefit with an ongoing, healthy relationship with my ex, and I don't blame him for our break-up. With forgiveness I can go forward, hoping that I've done the best I can with a difficult situation. I think forgiveness is worth that kind of living. I recommend it.

more on Ted Haggard: Why and How Christians need to change.

Here's an article brought to my attention by Miles. Thanks, Miles!

Carried on the Huffingon Post:
January 31, 2009
Some Sympathy for Ted Haggard

by Michael Shermer

I just watched the HBO documentary film, The Trials of Ted Haggard, produced by Alexandra Pelosi (which the media seem curiously intent on identifying not as a filmmaker but as the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House). The film is a follow-up to her 2007 film Friends of God, in which Haggard was prominently featured just before his downfall from revelations that he had homosexual relations with a male prostitute, with whom he also did methamphetamine. And all this happened right in the middle of the political debate about gay marriage, in which Haggard condemned homosexuality as an abomination and gay marriage as a sin that should never be legalized.

Now, I enjoy roasting a hypocrite as much as the next person, and I sat down to watch Pelosi's film sharpening my typing fingers in preparation for slicing this evangelical hypocrite to pieces, especially after just watching him on Larry King Live, in which he failed to apologize to gays for condemning the very "lifestyle choice" he also presumably made. (In his Christian worldview homosexuality is a choice--a bad choice, a sinful choice, but a choice nonetheless). But I came away feeling some compassion for Ted Haggard, sympathy for the devil as it were. I don't know if Pelosi intended her film to have this effect--I suspect not from her off-camera comments in the film as she follows the fallen preacher around Phoenix selling insurance door-to-door and bumming rooms off friends at which his family can live. But given what we know about the power of belief, and the fact that this man devoted his entire life and essence to being an Evangelical Christian and all that stands for--which is a lot when you are the titular head of the 30 million-strong National Association of Evangelicals--what a striking conflict his life has been (and by all accounts still is).

By now, most of us know that homosexuality is not a "choice," any more than heterosexuality is a choice. Asking a gay person "When did you choose to become gay?" makes about as much sense as asking a straight person "When did you choose to become straight?" The answer is the same: "Uh? I didn't choose. I've always felt this way." Right, and all the evidence from biology, psychology, and behavior genetics (twin studies) points to the fact that most people are born straight, some people are born gay, and some are even born bisexual, and that's just the way it is. In a large population (and six billion members of a large mammalian species certainly counts) with considerable variation in most characteristics, it is inevitable that even something as seemingly straightforward (if you'll pardon the pun) as sexuality will likely show variations on that central theme.

To find peace and happiness in life you have to be true to yourself, and herein lies Pastor Ted's conflict: Being true to himself meant being in absolute conflict with his religion, which was, at the time, not just his faith but his livelihood and the only means he had of supporting his family. As Upton Sinclair observed: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."

The only resolution for Haggard was to live a secret life, and when that secret was revealed there was no way for him to peacefully resolve his conflict. And from what was shown in the film and in his public interviews of late, that conflict is still not resolved for the simple reason that if you are gay or bi you cannot simply choose to feel differently, even if you are given such bizarre diagnoses as these suggested by his Christian counselors: "heterosexual with homosexual attachments" and "heterosexual with complications." Haggard's response was refreshingly honest: "I wasn't sure what that meant."

Me neither Ted, because it's a bullshit diagnosis by people who don't understand the psychology of sexuality because their religion is driving the science, and that's a recipe for quackery. Yes, you can choose (or at least try to choose) not to act on your feelings (don't go to gay bars, don't watch gay porn, etc.), but short of a Clockwork Orange scenario of extreme behavior modification protocols (and even this is unlikely to do the trick), Ted Haggard cannot and never will be able to square the circle of his sexual essence with his religion. Something has to go, and that something is his religion, or at least his religion's attitudes about homosexuality.

Christianity needs to change its beliefs about homosexuality and to quit condemning those--even those in its own flock--to a life of guilt, self-loathing, and conflict. Not only does Ted Haggard need to publicly apologize to the gay and lesbian community for condemning them, his Colorado Springs New Life Church--and Christianity in general--needs to apologize to Ted Haggard for ruining his life, not only by exiling him from his home, community and friends, but by forcing him to live a lie. The data are in: homosexuality is not a choice. Christianity needs to follow the data instead of forcing the data to fit its religious dogmas.

In the film you can hear the guilt in Ted Haggard's voice and see the self-loathing in his face. Ted Haggard is a broken man, broken not by his biology but by his religion. You cannot "fix" people's biology, but you can change their religion, and it's time for Ted Haggard to give up on his religion--and perhaps religion altogether. Short of that, perhaps one of the most charismatic religious movers and shakers of our time can change his religion from within by standing up to his fellow Evangelical leaders and saying to them (and to everyone else) something like this:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I was wrong. When I preached that homosexuality is a sin, I was wrong. When I proclaimed from the pulpit that being gay is an abomination, I was wrong. When I dissembled and pronounced that I 'hate the sin but lover the sinner', I was wrong. I say this not because I was a hypocrite in denouncing the acts that I myself was committing, but because our beliefs about and actions toward homosexuals is un-Christian. I make no excuses for my actions or pronouncements, but I will remind you that I was mirroring what was taught to me by my Evangelical mentors, whose beliefs about gays led them to comb the scriptures for passages that best suit their prejudices--much like the slave-owning Christians of centuries past justified with holy writ their abominable beliefs and actions toward their fellow humans by treating them as chattel. My mentors were wrong. My teachers were wrong. The church is wrong and I am wrong. Homosexuality is no more a choice than heterosexuality is a choice. People are born with their sexuality, and so to condemn a person to a life of guilt and shame over something they have no control, is to do violence to the very nature of human nature and to contradict truth and deny reality. So, in the words of the great Anglican defender of the faith and champion of religious tolerance, Oliver Cromwell: 'I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.'"

Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com), a monthly columnist for Scientific American, an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University, and the author of Why People Believe Weird Things and The Mind of the Market.

Listen to your gay family member

http://www.prayersforbobby.com/

"Prayers for Bobby," - the trailer just made me cry. As families all across this country experience someone they know being gay, we all know that it often brings division because of long-held church beliefs.


Variety describes the the role played by Sigourney Weaver:

In her first telepic role, Weaver will star as Mary Griffith, a devout Christian who winds up becoming an advocate for gay and lesbian youths after her son is driven into a deep depression by his family's disapproval and attempts to "cure" him of his sexual orientation.

"Prayers for Bobby," is made from the book, published in 1995, and tells a true story. It recounts a mother's journey before and after her gay son commits suicide, because he is gay and feels there is no hope. Bobby died many years ago, back in the 80s, and still families refuse to listen.

I ask myself why people won't listen, won't pay attention to the first person accounts of the gay/lesbian young people who are trying to tell their parents they are gay and that they cannot be straight. With all the pain in the telling, and with so much loss for the Griffith family, it is my hope that watchers will see something to help them understand.

"Prayers for Bobby," premiers Saturday January 24th 9pm/8c, Only On Lifetime Television

Questions about the "gay lifestyle"

Someone wrote me and said this: There is a lot of things in the gay community that are prevalent, like pornography and multiple partners. Why is that, if it is okay? these are the questions I have.

Regarding porn, if truth be told, there are many people who accept and view porn, both gay and straight alike. I don't believe our access to this is a selling point, but I'm stating that it's there and people view it. And straight people have no monopoly on multiple partners - just watch Friends re-runs. While the media shows some parts of gay life, and while some of it is valid, not ALL of it is. I have some opinions about this, and part of the problem is because of the churches in general.

First, I think that sexual orientation is somehow pre-determined. Whether it is birth order, hormonal, genetic, or some outside environmental cause, I think some people are wired differently in regards to their sexual feelings. Because I believe in a divine spark of life at conception, then of course that would mean that God makes all of us. Hence some of us are "made" gay, while others are "made" straight.

When early, non-sexual attractions are realized as youngsters, most people are rewarded for boy-girl crushes. "Do you have a girlfriend?" is asked of a little kindergarten boy. "Are you married?" we jokingly ask little elementary-age girls. Gay people, however, are shamed - and as one gets older, the shame is enlarged so that it becomes worse. Ridicule is painful and most people avoid it, and in church we preach that homosexuality is the worst of the worst of humanity. It is sickness! It is sin!

When we, as Christians, tell people that their sin is unforgivable and damning, gay people eventually lose hope for their own salvation. It seems to be unattainable, unreachable, and they, themselves become the "untouchables" to all normal folk. We tell them they must change to become heterosexual, and while it may be possible for an extremely small few, I don't think it is possible for most gay people. Those gay people finally turn from God and from the churches. Without hope, without moral role models, then you have all the "stuff" that goes with it - and depravity sinks lower and lower.

Another extremely important point: NOT ALL GAYS TURN FROM THE CHURCH! Many, many, many are still hanging in there. They are solid family people, whether or not they are partnered or married. Many are ministers, music leaders, and Bible teachers. They love God, love the church, love everything about serving God and the church. They are NO different than other people in any ways that really count!

I had a pastor recently liken this to a dog who returns to a cruel master, and still licks his master's hand. He said this is like people who are kicked and misrepresented within the church, but they stay and serve and love the very churches that vilify them.

I believe it is so important that those who are gay and are religious to walk openly and show their families, those around them, their co-workers, and their communities that there is a difference in how people live their lives, and to show that sexual orientation does NOT pre-determine behavior. In the same way it is my opinion that we ALL should live our faith with integrity - gay or straight.

One book I read, "The Velvet Rage," went into details about how the mental condition of gay men develops. I recommend it often. The psychologist that wrote doesn't claim to be a Christian, but has evaluated many of his patients, and I think he's got good things to say.

In answer to those who ask about the Bible and what it says, I must refer them to sources that helped me view things differently. I formerly looked in Leviticus and saw only "abomination." In Romans, I saw, "turned them over to reprobate minds." What I didn't take into consideration was the fact that we have changed how we view eating shrimp, opening stores on Sundays, slavery and birth control. I think now it is time we re-evaluated our use of the Bible as a sex manual. For readers who wish to learn more, please read HERE and HERE.

Keith Olberman on Prop 8

So many times I find that someone else says what I mean in ways better than I do. Here is an expample of that, and, rightly so. Keith Olberman is a professional communicator. While I'm not that, I do have some things I want to say to go along with this.

Earlier this year my former husband officially and publicly came "out" as a gay man. I had gone through the shock of that nearly 4 years previously, gone through the pain, heartache, sadness, and grief. Gone through the near-loss of faith in Christ, gone through dealing with so many, many questions. Fortunately, although I still experience many normal emotions of dealing with all this, I proudly stand with him as someone who loves and affirms the relationships of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender individuals. And if it means anything, I want to post this video statement by Mr. Olberman.

Words with deeds/A good Samaritan