Friday, October 1, 2010

David Keller: too many Christians practice "selective outrage" on "family values"

It was just a comment at another blog, but I think he says this so well:

"... No one wants to comment on divorced clergy. I’ll bet there’s not one among us, lay or clergy, who are still married, who couldn’t have gotten a divorce at some point in our marriages, but somehow WORKED at dealing with whatever the problem was. My anecdotal experience is that very few of my divorced friends and acquaintances divorced over bona fide abuse, alcoholism etc. We all have crap in our lives. The issue is the commitment to marriage and then dealing with the crap. And clergy in general and bishops in particular should be setting the example. In an instant gratification society, most people don’t want to do that, and they don’t want to complain about divorced clergy, because they want to make sure that door is always open for them as well. I was at Minneapolis [2003 Episcopal Church General Convention that accepted consecration of an actively homosexual bishop] and can attest there was a fire storm from the right which has resulted in where we are today—the destruction of the Episcopal Church. That same passion does not exist for other Biblical principles, which makes me believe many on the right are very selective with their outrage. Since most of us will never engage in a homosexual act it is easy to point fingers at that sin. Yet we apparently want to keep the door open to our own potential heterosexual sin, so we just take divorce with a big yawn. This, to me, is a big example of not pointing out the speck in someone else’s eye, until you are willing to deal with your own crap. And one other point—I am not an absolutist on divorce, and I believe through God’s Grace we are all capable of receiving forgiveness. But no wonder the world thinks we are hypocrites. And when they think that they won’t listen the the message—the Good News of Jesus Christ."

1 comment:

The Archer of the Forest said...

I'm convinced that terms like "social justice" and "family values" are just buzzword catch phrases that mask something else, usually a particular agenda of some sort or another. They are classic emotive terms that are impossible to argue against. "How can you be AGAINST [insert catch phrase of choice here]?"