Religion

You Can’t Clean Yourself Up Before You Go to God

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I heard something of a radio show tonight that ties in a bit with Lars’ last post. The show was discussing a Christian response to homosexuality, and I believe both guests had struggled with same-sex attraction over the years. A woman called in to ask if they believed people could be born gay and told her painful story of being rejected by churches repeatedly. She was 66 years old now, did not want to have homosexual feelings, but was beginning to believe God made her this way.

What burned me up was when she said churches had alienated her when they learned she struggled with homosexuality. Some churches wanted her to embrace the perversion; others wanted her to clean herself up before she could come to God with them. Naturally, I believe the first group is not practicing biblical morality, but the second group? Who do they think they are?! Are they in church to do God a favor? Does the Almighty need them to do his work? Did they clean up themselves before God redeemed them?

I hate hearing of church people who reject those struggling with the ugly, public sins. It’s just as blasphemous as any play or movie you might be recruited to boycott.

But as usual when I start writing, I calm down before I’m finished. I know the church has many godly people who help anyone who comes to them through the roughest sins and struggles. And I know there are churches with many religious people, who do not know God, but think they can save themselves by doing good things and avoiding certain bad things. Of course, the second group is going to hold to whatever religious culture they have in their town and kick out the ugly sinners who can’t overcome their own faults through sheer moral courage or maybe bad luck.

Yes, it’s bad luck to overcome your faults on your own because you may begin to believe you can meet God on your terms, that you are strong enough to negotiate with him, or that he doesn’t matter in the long run (in which case, there wouldn’t be a long run). Some of us are blessed to have faults or weaknesses that encourage us to sin visibly; we may seek God sooner than those who are self-made.

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Fiction, Religion

Unconverted Rice

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NEW YORK - APRIL 25: Writer Anne Rice attends the opening night of 'Lestat' at The Palace Theatre April 25, 2006 in New York City. (Photo by Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images)

The big news in Christian popular culture today is that Anne Rice, the bestselling vampire author who announced her conversion to Christianity a couple years back, has unconverted.

The 68-year-old author wrote Wednesday on her Facebook page that she refuses to be “anti-gay … anti-feminist,” and “anti-artificial birth control.”

She adds that “In the name of … Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

There was a surge of debate about this on a Christian SF/Fantasy e-mail discussion list I subscribe to. Part of the scuttlebutt (who knows how reliable?) was that she had a bad business experience with a Christian company that planned to film her novels about Christ, and that that may have contributed to her disenchantment. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be the first time. The history of celebrity converts in my lifetime hasn’t been a happy one. And it’s not just a matter of the celebrities’ immaturity. Christian enterprises are rather notorious for their shoddy business practices and promise-breaking. Sad but true.

But if the Facebook posting really reveals her heart, it would seem she simply found the gate too narrow and the way too straight. She appears to be one of those many who want a Jesus who’ll accommodate their preferences. Being in the church involves a certain amount of doctrinal teaching and accountability, which they find offensive and intrusive.

I think of the rich young ruler from Luke 18—“When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.”

Discipleship has a cost. The cares of the world often choke out the seed that has been sown.

Let’s pray for Anne Rice.

(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Uncategorized

Movie: For All Mankind

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Hulu is offering the documentary, “For All Mankind,” a film about the 24 men who have gone to the moon in their own words and images.

And for something completely different, this movie is a Japanese staged King Lear. I wonder when I’ll have time for these.

Publishing, Religion

You don't have to be a meteorologist to know which way the wind is blowing

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Novelist Andrew Klavan, about whose work you may have read from time to time in this space, reports at City Journal that his French publisher has backed out of a deal to publish a translation of his novel Empire of Lies.

The book’s French cancellation is, I realize, a rather small cultural event. Yet it gives specific color to the recent revelations on the Daily Caller website that left-wing journalists conspired to suppress scandals that might harm Barack Obama and to the brouhaha over Breitbart’s online release of a video that resulted in a government worker’s momentarily losing her job. In both stories, one thing leaps out at me: everywhere, the Left favors fewer voices and less information, and conservatives favor more. Everywhere, the Left seeks to disappear its opposition, whereas the Right is willing to meet them head-on.

Meanwhile a federal judge has ruled that Eastern Michigan University did not violate a student’s freedom of religion when they required her to abandon her religious beliefs or be booted out of a graduate counseling program.

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward’s lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University. She was removed from the school’s counseling program last year because she refused to counsel homosexual clients.

Anybody else sense a trend?

Uncategorized

Building Men

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World’s Anthony Bradley describes his motive for teaching a class of boys the fundamentals of the faith.

A ninth-grade history teacher and I decided to create a “Men’s Bible Study” for our students because we noticed that the feminization of church was churning out a generation of “nice guys” who were not capable of leading, had no sense of why God created them to be men—other than have a family and a nice job—and were oddly passive. The ninth-grade boys would walk the halls with heads bowed and shoulders slouched as if they were carrying 80-pound weights in each hand as their bodies were carried along by an airport terminal moving sidewalk.

Authors

Playwright Mamet Rejects Liberalism

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David Mamet, “America’s most famous and successful playwright,” has rejected the political liberalism of his past, perhaps in an effort to avoid unpleasant New York cocktail parties. In the current Commentary magazine, Terry Teachout describes the playwright’s conversion as revealed in print.

Blogs, Socials

Style Guide Update: His Beneficence

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When referring to the blog, “Writing, Clear and Simple,” do not cite rmjacobsen.squarespace.com, but writingclearandsimple.com instead. When referring to the blog’s author, use “Roy Jacobsen the Magnificent” when quoting and “Roy Jacobsen the Beneficent” for all other references.

Authors, Non-fiction, Religion

Metaxas on Bonhoeffer: Extended Interview

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This is remarkable. At about the 15 minute mark, author Eric Metaxas talks about how focused the Nazis were on race. Their corrupt view of purity and polluted ideas about the Jews became woven into almost every German, Christian and non. Bonhoeffer among a few others argued against the Nazis racism in part because he had seen racial division in the United States.

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A side order of pictures

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Photobucket works for me tonight, so I can share some photos from Nordic Fest in Decorah, Iowa.

Here’s an eager crowd learning all about Vikings from the Skjaldborg guys.

Decorah 1

Here’s the Vikings extracting much-needed sustenance from pork chops, the national cuisine of Iowa.

Decorah 2

And here’s my friend, under my own awning, showing off the mail shirt he’s making.

Decorah 3

The big thing that kept occupying my mind all weekend (and my friend got pretty sick of hearing about it too) was the fact that when I attended Luther College, which is also in Decorah, it was forty blankety-blank years ago. Forty years.

When I consider that fact, I’m not surprised by how much has changed. I’m amazed anything remains the same. The fact that some of the same buildings yet stand in Decorah, and that a few of them even serve the functions they did back in my time, seems somehow against nature. When I think that forty years have passed, I imagine that the very hills should have been brought low, and the river should have o’erflowed its banks and found a fresh course. Everybody should have flying cars, and we should all be taking our sustenance in tablet form.

Well, that last part did sort of come true. I do not lack for pills in my diet in this strange old world.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture