How do we now respond?

I discovered the Supreme Court's ruling while waiting at the theater, checking Facebook one last time before the move started.  My newsfeed exploded with status updates, articles, and videos about gay marriage.   Controversy flowed freely.  Facebook isn't a great forum for controversy - we don't have people in front of us that force us to filter what we say.  We are disconnected from the immediate consequences of rudeness. 

The following are my thoughts as Christians seek to engage with the wider culture, with our friends, colleagues, and family on the issue of gay marriage.  This is not all there is to say.  Kevin De Young and John Piper also have some good things to say.  I encourage you to read them.

Here are four things to think about: 

1. If we express truth without love, we are a clanging symbol.  So much that is written and said is written and said without love.  Matt Walsh is a good example.  I get sucked into his articles whenever they are posted on Facebook.  While often I find myself agreeing with the ideas, I am often repulsed by the snark, the arrogance, and the distinct lack of love.  He neither reaches out to people on the other side, nor encouraged people to love their neighbor.   His raucous blather is a clanging symbol that neither exhorts nor edifies.
   
   Why should we be loving?  First, because God commands it.  Scripture does not say "love, unless someone disagrees with you" or "love, unless someone disparages you for your beliefs".   Second, while being loving will not win everyone, vitriolic writing and conversations will win no one for the Kingdom.
   
   What does love look like?  Love looks like truth spoken with patience, kindness, and without boasting.  It means speaking truth without pride, and communicating without arrogance.  It means engaging our friends and family in truth without being rude.  It means that we are not irritable with people who don't believe what we do.  It means doing these things without end.
   
   There will still be people who revile Christians for their view.  But let the reviling be because we believe in Truth.  Not because we were unloving in our conversation.
2. Reducing the experience of people with homosexual desires to simple choice is demeaning and insulting.  I'm not an expert on homosexuality, but I've done a fair amount of reading in books and articles, and talking with friends.  Homosexual desire is a complex issue.   While it is not right, it is not completely a choice, either.  People who have these desires don't wake up one morning and say "hmm... I'm not having any luck with the ladies... maybe I'll switch teams." 
   
   Why do people have homosexual desires and others not?  I'm not completely sure.  Maybe it has to do with developmental issues as a child.  Maybe its partially genetic.  Maybe it has to do with adult relationships as a child.   I'm not completely sure.  This does not excuse behavior.  We all have sinful tendencies and proclivities.  All of us have issues of sin in our lives that we fight every day.  Anger, malice, greed, and the list could go on.   We must face the fact that scripture condemns behavior, and for a reason.
   
   But we must recognize that our friends with homosexual desires have walked a long, often painful path of rejection, isolation, and misunderstanding.  Teenagers who don't have the same impulses as their friends, or men who don't experience the relational intimacy with a woman.  People who fear rejection from their family and friends for even admitting they might be gay.  Christians who fear expulsion from the Church for even admitting they might have the desires.
   
   Shame on any church that cannot engage in loving ways with believers in their congregations who wrestle with this.  Shame on any church that creates an environment where our brothers and sisters who struggle with this are afraid of being shamed and run out.
3. Arguments against gay marriage do not stand up outside of the context of scripture.  I listened to the oral arguments  of this case before the Supreme Court via podcast.  I was struck at the difficulty that the defendants had in explaining why gay marriage is not acceptable.  There were all sorts of arguments, such as it is not the marriage definition in any society at any time until 15 years ago. 
   
   One argument is that marriage is for making families.  That's true, but not everything.  Do we tell couples who can't have children that they can't get married?  Is marriage simply a production agreement between a man and a woman? Does not Song of Solomon teach us that marriage has a romantic element, completely separate from children?   Does Paul describe the model of marriage as God's way of populating the earth?  Or does he use it as a model of the relationship between Christ and the church?
   
   The bottom line is that the marriage relationship - and the sexual and emotional intimacy that goes with it - is reserved for one man and one woman.  This is how God has designed marriage.  Trying to remove that from the discussion will make it difficult, if not impossible.  And when it is removed from the discussion, we shouldn't be surprised when a secular government doesn't agree with our world view.
4. We should care about this issue because we want people to know and experience God's love. People have all sorts of reasons for opposing same-sex marriage.  Maybe it is different and weird to some.  Maybe it is repulsive to others.  But that's not why we, as Christians, should care.  We should care because our hearts break at a broken world and desire to see that ALL experience the height, depth, width, and breadth of the love of God.  We desire to see people fulfilled in a relationship with God.
   
   There is a time for protecting our churches and our families from deterioration around us by exercising proper church discipline and casting out sinners who refuse to repent and work out their salvation.  But it should only be done with heavy hearts, always ready to welcome back the repentant sinner, and seeing people restored in their relationship with God.
   
   We desire to see God glorified through people - all people - being most satisfied in Him.

These are not the only thoughts.  And these are not the only feelings.  Many are feeling frustrated, angry, or confusion.  These need to be addressed and expressed in the right way, in the right time.  But as we engage with those outside the church, let us do so in love. 

A Father/Daughter Trip to the US

Eva and I will be heading to the US for 3 weeks this summer!  We'll be in Michigan for 2 weeks and Illinois for one week.  It's a fairly quick trip, and one that will not include Alison and Gabe.   So for those three weeks, I will be responsible for Eva all by myself.  

Of course, mothers and fathers provide something unique to the parenting relationship, and this trip will allow me to showcase that which comes more naturally to me.  Some of the things I'm looking forward to are: 

• Making the hard call to, once again, go out to eat because we are tired of cheap spaghetti or peanut butter and jelly (and I can't make anything else). 
• Wearing dirty clothes because no clean ones are left, which allows us to conserve water.  NOT, as Alison might think, simply because laundry didn't get done.  
• Pushing Eva to stay up later instead of going to bed on time.  For her own growth, not because there's one more book to read, one more family member to cuddle, or one song to sing. 
• Educating her on what life used to be like in the frontier days by not giving her a bath as regularly as Alison does. 
• Allowing Eva greater freedom to pick out her dresses.  For the sake of learning independence.  Not because she may or may not be more qualified than me to mix and match her clothes.  

Of course, there are a few things Eva and I want to accomplish.  Our list includes, but is certainly not limited to: 

• pick blueberries
• walk Koda (my brother-in-law's very large dog)
• Help Aunt Liz with her twin infant girls
• Get ice cream with Grandpa
• Bake cookies with Grandma
• Visit Great Grandma in with Nana and pick fruit
• Wearing pink sandles (that's one of Eva's goals, though I'm sure she'll want me to get 
• Taking pictures of all of our experiences
• Skyping reguarly with Mommy and Gabe

So why not Alison and Gabe?  Alison would not be able to fly back to Bahrain on account of her pregnancy (she can't fly after 7 months), and Gabe because we're each taking one.  Alison will get her own mini-break:  Gabe will go into a summer camp of sorts for two weeks in the mornings, so she'll have four hours by herself every day to read, relax, get a coffee or meet a friend without little hands grabbing her or other things. 

Happy Birthday Alison!

Today, Alison turns 30, a milestone.  Happy Birthday!  In honor of her (and my) passing of any semblance of being young, hip, and cool, I would like to pay homage to Alison's wild and crazy days - when she was in high school.  Apparently she was quite the concert go-er, seeing all the big names of the christian music scene in the mid to late nineties.  She saw Supertones four times in concert.  I think I WENT to four concerts in my entire middle/high school concert career.  She knew all the music, saw all the latest music videos.

But you know what makes someone REALLY hard core?  Not just attending a concert. Not just seeing a music video.  Being IN the music video.

That's right, my friends.  Alison was IN a music video.  A Newsboys video, to be precise.  "Love, Liberty, Disco", to be precisely precise.  The video is at the bottom, and you can make her out at 3:28 - left center, about 2/3 of the way up.  A blond chic hopping up and down.  You can't see it at the real time - you actually have to pause it at 3:27 or so, and go through frame by frame (use the space bar to unpause/pause quickly).


You would think that something like this would be first date material.  But lo, Alison has kept it from me for almost 6 years.  Its as if she was waiting for a poetic moment to tell me one of the big highlights of her youth.

Third Time's a Charm

If you have come to the blog before, you probably are already aware that we are expecting our third child. That's right!  Apparently we are like gold fish.  Gold fish grow to fit the size of the tank.  If you put them in a bigger tank, they'll grow bigger (I think it's gold fish... just pick the right animal).  We are now in a bigger house, and so our family is expanding. 

The new baby is due in September, so we will not be making the trek back to the US this summer (Alison wouldn't allowed to fly in August as she'd be around 8 months).  Instead, we'll take things a bit easier in Bahrain.  We've already stayed one summer after Gabe was born, and we enjoyed the quietness that comes over Bahrain in July and August.  This summer will be particularly quiet as many Bahrainis will celebrate Ramadhan during July.  It will also be a chance to spend time with our Bahraini friends and break the fast with them over Ramadhan. 

We don't know the gender, and we haven't picked out any names.  In fact, we're a little more laid back with this one.  People ask me how far along Alison is, and I'm never sure.  I don't know the exact due date - just sometime in late September.  I'm not even concerned about getting that down because Eva was two weeks early, and Gabe 5 weeks early.  I'm sure Alison won't let me miss the event. 

I do know that the baby is currently the size of an orange.  

One advantage to our new place is that we are right next to the hospital.  Alison likes to wait until the very last minute to go to the hospital, and with Gabe, we had less than one hour between arrival at the AMH and his delivery.  I get nervous that we'll have a car birth.  Cool story.  Not something on my bucket list. 

For now, Alison is starting to show, and starting to wear her pregnancy clothes more.  We try to prep Eva and Gabe for the arrival of the new baby, which sometimes prompts Eva to say that she also has a baby in her tummy, and so does Gabe.  We'll get there. 

In The Neighborhood - NEC and AMH

It has been a while since I've consistently written, so here's a quick update.  I'm now the principal at Al Raja School, where Alison and I have been involved since we first met.  There are lots of fantastic perks, but one of them is that we have moved into the house designated for the principal - more pictures later. 

The house is in the center of Manama, which means a completely new neighborhood (actually, it's the neighborhood that Alison lived in when she first moved here, so its a bit of a homecoming for us).  Traffic is heavier, but there is lots within walking distance. 

One of my favorite landmarks is just across the street from us - the American Mission Hospital (AMH) and the National Evangelical Church (NEC).  Both of those institutions are sister institutions of Al Raja School.  All three were started by Reformed Church of America missionaries in the late 1800's or early 1900's.  Al Raja was started in 1899, the church in 1906, and the hospital in 1902.  They all leave a legacy that is respected by Bahrainis and expatriates. 

A panoramic shot of the church (center left) and the hospital (right).  Our house is on the far, far left, behind the trees.

The hospital is special to us as it is the place that both of our children were born.  When you enter the lobby of the hospital, the walls are filled with pictures of doctors and patients from across the century - including members of the royal family that were born at the hospital.  

Entrance to the hospital.  The brown structures are "mushrabiyyas", traditional Bahraini  architecture.  Most likely, they were intended to keep out the harsh, summer sun while still letting the breeze through. 

The pedestrian bridge that connects the two main hospital buildings.  Eva likes to watch the cars  from the bridge. 

The church is also special to us because we still retain a lot of friendships from there.  Alison attended the NEC when she first arrived, until I stole her away to Saar Fellowship, where we currently attend.  Beyond the personal links, there are a variety of language congregations. 

This tower with the clock has been a fixture of Manama for over a century, and is recognizable to many people. 

We are excited to continue our involvement - however small - with both of these communities, and consider it an honor to be here.