The Carrie Prejean Debacle

I debated whether I even wanted to revisit this sad story. I have previously blogged about Carrie Prejean, the young California beauty queen who has already been mercilessly dragged through the media mud.

The former Miss California and runner-up in the Miss Universe pageant incurred the wrath of a silly gay activist and campy pageant judge, Perez Hilton, who asked her a politically charged question about gay marriage in the final stage of the Miss Universe competition earlier this year. The incident set off a culture war skirmish as Prejean also professed to being a Christian, one who attended a rather large evangelical church in San Diego, The Rock, pastored by the well-known and outspoken Miles McPherson.

Ironically, McPherson is also known for rallying lots of youth around the gospel message. Somehow, he failed to see how troubled Miss Prejean was as he staunchly stood behind her, even giving her a platform through his church. He was joined, unfortunately, by Liberty University’s Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and the National Organization for Marriage movement’s Maggie Gallagher.

Unwittingly, the evangelical community, which was split in its opinions about Miss Prejean as more details emerged from her checkered past, propped up this young lady when she really need a come-to-Jesus meeting and some solid counsel. I feel for her.

The latest sordid details to be revealed from her failed attempt to sue the Miss California establishment for $1 million — she was eventually stripped of her title — I’d rather not discuss here. Suffice it to say she committed some grave errors of judgment that will haunt her the rest of her life. And lest the pot be calling the kettle black here, let it be known I am well aware of my own past mistakes. One doesn’t do what I do without having crossed many bridges. I love and serve a merciful God.

It is my prayer that Carrie Prejean will be guided by loving and compassionate Christians as she travels the road to restoration. She needs to take herself out of the limelight for a long season of healing. She has my prayers.

You may read a bit about the latest episode here. I link to this piece only because it also gives a much-needed sober warning to young folks who believe they are bullet-proof, despite the current stupid fad of passing around risqué or downright pornographic pictures or videos of themselves. There will be a future day of reckoning.

Postmodernism and Truth

I like this a lot. It’s a great blog post from Randy Thomas, executive vice president of Exodus International. He hat-tips Albert Mohler in it, and I am hat-tipping both of them. You’ll note I have recently given a nod to both men and their words here.

The topic Thomas and Mohler are discussing is Truth. With a capital T. Got it? I’ve written about postmodernism over the years more times than I can shake a stick at. I bow today to someone else for a change.

Thanks, gentlemen.

Voters React Against Obama Policies, Defeat Gay Marriage in Maine

Republicans gained significant and telling victories in yesterday’s elections in two key states, while Maine became the only traditional marriage holdout in New England besides Rhode Island, narrowly passing Question 1, giving gay marriage activists a stinging defeat.

With Virginia’s polls closing ahead of New Jersey’s, the lead news story of last evening was Bob McDonnell’s election as 71st governor of Virginia, where voters loudly repudiated the state’s short-lived 2008 blue swing. In a nearly 20-point rout of Democrat opponent Creigh Deeds, McDonnell led a GOP State House sweep as Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli also handily defeated their opponents in the lieutenant governor and attorney general races.

Even more stunning, however, was Republican challenger Chris Christie’s defeat of Democratic incumbent Governor Jon Corzine in New Jersey, a traditionally Democratic state that had gone heavily for Barack Obama last year, and where Obama had campaigned frenetically in recent weeks for Corzine.

More locally still in my back yard near Lynchburg, Va., a Republican challenger (Scott Garrett) pulled off a close upset victory — one that may yet be challenged — over a well-liked Democrat (Shannon Valentine), largely due to the votes of evangelical Liberty University students, a story in itself.

Exit polls showed voters were much-disenchanted with the president they helped elect last year, as they voiced their concerns over his handling of the economy and hasty push for government-controlled health care. Jobs, or rather the lack thereof, topped the list of concerns for voters.

The White House has egg on its face in a number of ways — scrambled, over-easy and hard-boiled — this morning, as Obama could not rally the voters to the same enthusiasm with which they swept him into office only a year ago.

And the president who has talked out of both sides of his mouth over gay-rights issues — nevertheless handing gays some significant yet controversial administration appointments and a new hate-crimes law — undoubtedly will face more wrath from gay activists. They will be predictably angry over Maine’s proving that we the people, when actually allowed to vote, are not ready to concede that gay marriage is inevitable.

It’s an interesting time to be an American. We have a bumpy road ahead of us.

The Broader Ramifications of Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill

For those following the debate over Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality bill, here is an excellent legal analysis coming out of Makerere University there.

I predict our State Department will soon be involved in this legal mess abroad. And lest we here in the U.S. become too absorbed with this issue, we need to remember that here at home, we have just had new hate crimes legislation signed into law, and the debate over ENDA is heating up. We have some serious issues of our own to look at.

While we are taking steps to right some wrongs of the past, let us be careful not to overstep our own bounds of conscience. Will we maintain a constitutional balance or swing the pendulum too far the other way?

And, as if that weren’t enough, today is election day. Some key issues and races are being decided today, as well as two new governor slots, one in my home state of Virginia. Vote!

The Unhappy State of Feminism

Al Mohler recently blogged about the state of feminism today, which, by women’s own admissions, has produced decidedly more unhappiness for them than the panacea of freedom and self-fulfillment the movement was purported to be. Good reading.

One Man’s Story – The Covenant

I am pleased to re-post this testimony, with JB’s permission. When I first saw this on the Ex-Gay Discussion Board (where I am Mrs. Moderator), I thought, please let this guy be real. I have no reason to doubt he is.

Now, I can already hear the groans out there from those who have tried and failed repeatedly to find whatever change God may desire to bring to them. I am well aware that formers come in all shapes and sizes. Same-sex temptation is a never-ending thing for some. The blessing that JB has found in having a covenant marriage may not be in the picture for you. But we can nevertheless celebrate with him and his bride. We can stand before our God and say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” It’s our choice.

Pray for JB and all those who, like him, are on that delightful and sometimes-scary path to wholeness and lifelong marital bliss and fidelity. Does God do this for us? Absolutely! Is JB’s experience automatically guaranteed to you, if you seek it with all your heart, mind and soul? It would be naive and cruel of me to promise you that. But just knowing there is a brother out there who had come this far ought to be a blessing to us all. What might “going forth in faith” look like for you? That’s God’s grand adventure to reveal to you.

Why would God love you any less than He does JB … or me? I have a story of my own that shouts of God’s amazing grace and incredible blessing. That’s also how I know JB is real. Bless you, brother. May you inspire many.

The Story

Last night, as I gazed at my wife of almost two months, I swear I felt almost normal. When we were preparing for marriage, I thought, how am I going to pull this one off? Now don’t get me wrong, I love my wife, always have. But SSA has always kept me from her.

Now one thing I have going in my favor is she knows about my past. Never underestimate the way this will empower your relationship. Also, if you choose to hide this from the woman you love, do not underestimate the power this will have to destroy your relationship.

I met my wife almost 12 years ago. We were engaged and almost married, but I had not at that time disclosed my attraction to men to her, and we were fighting more often than not. I think I was looking for a way out. And never let homosexuality fool you into thinking that it is anything more than an easy way out.

To make matters worse, because of my past sins, I had contracted HIV and expected death to come at any time. So, I pushed her away at any opportunity. HIV, for me, was simply one more sign from God that I was unworthy of the life I had always dreamed of. You know, the wife, two kids, house. When I was diagnosed with HIV, they said in a matter-of-fact tone, “You have five years to live, tops.”

Well — God in all his wisdom — here I am, over 20 years later, still asymptomatic, undetectable viral load, and — praise God — a beautiful wife. We pray that we can push our luck and God will bless us with children.

But back to the story…

Well, in 2001, my fiancée and I had broken up for what I thought was the last time. I went back into the gay lifestyle. Moved in with a guy, did the civil union thing in Vermont. The whole nine yards. I guess I was trying to make homosexuality as close to normal as I could.

FAIL!! That ended in a big way, and I was on my own. I determined I would not go back to an actively gay lifestyle. But I was not ready to go back to Christ.

I tried the ex-gay route, without God. If you can make this work on your own steam, my hat is off to you. I could not. For me, without God, there was no reason not to be gay. Without God, I am just another primate in the world, with no reason not to pursue the lusts of the world.

I began to have a yearning in my heart for Christ, and the only person I knew whose faith in God I trusted was my ex-fiancée. So I e-mailed her … a few times. She agreed to talk as friends, and that was all that I at the time hoped for. We have always been great friends. She is stubborn as hell, and I am stubborn as hell. She, to sound corny, challenges me and completes me.

We were married September 6 of this year, after over a decade of dancing around the subject. When we were talking marriage, I had so many fears. Would I be a good husband? Would I be able to … perform? Would I be everything she needed me to be?

Well, brothers, I can tell you this. Go forth BOLDLY in faith of God. Believe it or not. When you find the woman you love and the process begins, you will be as scared as hell. She will be preparing and fussing over every detail imaginable, and you will be oblivious.

When the big day arrives and her daddy hands her off to you, your heart will melt. When you see her in that dress — and I SWEAR this is true, there is something mystical about a wedding dress on the woman you love — you WILL get a lump in your throat. When you repeat the words that the preacher says to you, to her … you WILL feel a change inside you. At the reception, when your best man gives a toast and you join the best club in the world, my friend — the “Husband Club” — you will fell emboldened.

Now, believe it or not, even though we had been together on and off for over a decade, we had never had sex. If you are faithful to God, he will be faithful to you. Now, Mr. Moderator, I will not be graphic here, but when the reception is over and the dancing is through, it will just be the five of you in the room — you, your wife, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And if you don’t think that they aren’t in the room cheering you on, you are WRONG.

I know. I was there. And when you lie down with the woman you love, and in the covenant of marriage, NO OTHER SEX YOU HAVE EVER HAD COMPARES! No guy you have met in a stinky, smelling-of-beer bar or in a dimly lit park or anywhere else can touch this, my friend.

In the “OLD FLESH” you were nothing more than a primate, doing what primates do. Once you say you do and she says she does, you enter into a covenant, not only with her, but with God as well. And no matter what your track record with covenants may be, his is SPOTLESS!!

HE will make you BOLD! I know. He does it in my life every day (well, not every day as I work full time, I am 40 and I am tired). GO boldly in faith, my brothers. Keep this covenant.

Now, you will be tempted. The enemy will make feeble attempts to trap you. But, all you have to do is abide in your covenant. Love, Honor, Cherish HER, and HER ALONE. And the times of trial will end. Trials will end and you will feel victorious for having kept faithful. If you give in, the time of trial will also end, and you will be there with your shame. Your choice. It always has been.

Pray for us, and our hope of a child.

Please be hopeful, be faithful, do not wait. Go forth in faith, knowing that the good work God has begun in you, he will be faithful to complete.

Faithfully in Him,
JB

Hate Crimes Bill from a Former’s Viewpoint

Fellow former Randy Thomas had the following to say on his personal Facebook profile page about the newly signed hate crimes bill. Note his personal disclaimer. I appreciate what he shares here. This is re-posted with his permission.

Hate Crimes is Now Federal Law – Joe Solomnese Reacts
Randy Thomas

This is my personal facebook account and this is my personal opinion NOT the position of Exodus.

***

The following is from the HRC email blast the moment the President signed the legislation and from a Washington Blade (Gay Media) article.

From the email:

Hate crimes legislation was the first piece of creating a safe environment for LGBT people – prohibiting workplace and military discrimination are the next. When LGBT people live in fear of violence or discrimination, we cannot be who we are. And when we must hide our true selves, we cannot change hearts and minds.

Morality aside that is simply not true. Public policy doesn’t define who we truly are and passing public policy won’t change hearts and minds. If what he says is true he wouldn’t be able to have pulled down a salary of over $300,000 a year for the past several years. I doubt Dr. King made that much.

The HRC has sworn to help destroy people like myself but we change hearts and minds every day to accept that God’s redemptive love is available to all who seek Him … including those who deal with homosexuality.

I am who I am regardless of what the government defines as deserving of “protected class status.”

“This law honors our [LGBT] brothers and sisters whose lives were cut short because of hate,” Solmonese said in a statement. “Today’s signing of the first major piece of civil rights legislation to protect LGBT Americans represents a historic milestone in the inevitable march towards equality.”

Increasing justice for some people but not for all people honors no one. I don’t know of a single violent crime that isn’t hateful. Let’s honor those who are victims by remembering them with love, highlighting injustice, firing incompetent law enforcement and fighting for equal application of existing laws and community education to confront the rare true pockets of homophobia that still exist (in America.)

I also have a big issue of calling this civil rights because what the gay community has gone through is definitely valid but it is nothing like what the black community, women, the handicapped or even the religious have gone through in this country. I don’t agree with the “equality” messaging but I understand it a lot more than trying to re-contextualize the civil rights movement.

… And I will stop here .

###

Uganda Update

Thanks to all my pals/colleagues who have been speaking up on the travesty represented by Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009. A growing cohort of folks from a cross-section of the international community are realizing that, regardless of where we stand on the sinfulness of homosexual behavior, we cannot stand by and tacitly approve of a largely Christian country that has close ties to the U.S. — and receives a large chuck of AIDS money from us —sentencing its gay population to condemnation, life imprisonment or even death, in some cases.

The U.S. Embassy in Uganda, through public affairs officer Joann Lockard, had this to say yesterday:

“If adopted, a bill further criminalizing homosexuality would constitute a significant step backwards for the protection of human rights in Uganda. We urge states to take all necessary measures to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests, or detention.”

Fellow former Chad Thompson has weighed in at his Web site. He also succeeded in getting a private response from Rick and Kay Warren, whom he says “are absolutely sick over what is happening in Uganda and do not support the anti-homosexuality bill in any way.” Glad to hear that. Because the most outspoken anti-gay pastor in Uganda, Martin Ssempa, also keynoted Saddleback Church’s 2005 AIDS conference, many had been concerned about where Rick Warren stood on the Uganda problem.

Warren Throckmorton only last week started a Facebook group to bring awareness to Uganda’s gay backlash and the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009. The group is growing by leaps and bounds, with folks from all over the world joining and expressing their concerns. There are indications that the pressure is being felt in Uganda.

As noted in earlier posts here, Uganda’s is a complex culture. I believe in allowing any sovereign nation to determine its own course. But the world simply cannot stand by and allow that course to deny fellow human beings basic human rights, regardless of our individual or collective ideologies.

As Christians, we also are appalled — or should be — when those who say they share our faith speak out of both sides of their mouths, claiming to love all their countrymen in one breath, while making sweeping condemnations of one group of them and denying them redemption and mercy in another.

Please consider doing something. Preface and blanket whatever you do with prayer, always.

A Pastor’s Take on the Culture War

Thanks to Pastor Jared Wilson, a recent Southern transplant to Vermont (bless him), for giving me permission to re-post this great piece from his own blog. Hat tip to Randy Thomas for helping me find him through his blog (which is apparently under reconstruction).

While you’re at it, check out Wilson’s book, Your Jesus Is Too Safe.

For Whose Name’s Sake? Thoughts on the Culture War
Jared C. Wilson

I’ll lay my cards on the table: I’m not a big fan of the culture war.

Here are some reasons why:

1. Its expectation is foolish.
Whether you believe America was ever a “Christian nation” or not, it is theologically naive and demonstrably false to think laws or policies make anyone a Christian. You cannot create or recapture a people for Christ by “illegalizing” sin. (Which, by the way, is not to say that certain sins shouldn’t be illegal. It is only to say that, for instance, outlawing gay marriage or repealing Roe v. Wade won’t make anybody a Christian, much less make America “a Christian nation.”)

2. Its medium is moralism, not gospel.
This is similar to my point above. It makes kingdom militancy about religion, not gospel. It seeks a Christian coercion of others toward better behavior, not an incarnational sharing with others of the better Way.

3. It is theologically naive.
It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don’t know Jesus to act like they do.

4. It is often hypocritical.
It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don’t know Jesus to act like they do especially when we can’t get our own house in order. So long as large numbers of Christians continue contributing to the divorce statistics, the porn industry, and more acceptable sins like gluttony and gossip and greed, we have zero business telling the world how to act. Judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). Repent, Church!

5. It battles against flesh and blood.
We’re not supposed to do that. (Eph. 6:12)

6. Its treasure is temporary.
I am not overly concerned with the culture war because it is a battle for something that doesn’t last. Culture is temporary. I am far more interested in the transformation of peoples through the transformation of people than I am in the subduing of culture through the modification of behavior. Nobody ever got into heaven by acting better.

7. It makes idols of comfort and safety and propriety.
The culture war is largely driven by fear. We’re afraid our public schools will ruin our children, we’re afraid gay people will ruin our families. We’re afraid a Democrat will ruin our country, we’re afraid liberals will ruin our neighborhoods. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to protect our family, and safety of course is not a bad thing. But neither is it a biblical virtue. Ditto comfort. Or have you not read the New Testament? I’m just gonna put this out there, but maybe it’s God’s design for us as people and for Christians throughout all time to endure hardship, danger, persecution, and even death. Wanting not to suffer is human. Thinking we deserve not to is unChristian.

8. It has no root in Jesus’ ministry.
Jesus knew heart change didn’t come through political power, cultural pressure, or zealotry, so he was keenly disinterested in those things.

9. It mangles mission.
The culture war sets the Church above and against the world, rather than in but not of the world. It turns us into picketers and politicos. It makes us suspicious and speculative and sensationalist. It takes relationship completely out of the missional equation. It turns us from peaceful ambassadors for Christ into pontificating warriors for Christianity. It does not ask us to serve and sacrifice, which are non-negotiables for Christian mission, but to maneuver and argue.

In Romans 1:5, Paul writes:

“Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.”

A few things:

Paul says we “call” people. This is the work of gospel proclamation, carried out in both word and deed.

Paul does mention “obedience,” but this obedience is the kind that “comes from faith.” Faith comes first, then obedience. It never ever ever ever works the other way.

Lastly, and most importantly:

10. The culture war is carried out for our name’s sake, not Jesus’.
I am not a fan of gay marriage or Roe v. Wade, and even though I would vote to outlaw the former and repeal the latter, neither of those actions in themselves will make a single unbeliever say “How wonderful Christ is!”

The bitter truth is that the Christian culture war is not carried out for Jesus’ glory and renown, but for ours. It makes “Judeo-Christian values” the end-game, the treasure of our mission. And that is idolatry. Nobody was ever legally or argumentatively or even culturally convinced to believe in Jesus. But millions have been loved and served and submitted to into believing.

Dying for somebody says a whole lot more than debating them.

I choose the gospel. Come hell or high water, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.

For the glory of God.

“Not a Bit of It!”

When I read this yesterday in “My Utmost for His Highest” (ya think I could get some royalties for promoting this book so much?), it pierced me through. Not only could I see the significance of it because I have been praying so fervently for Uganda and their current cultural/church struggles in dealing with homosexuality, but I also realized anew that I must be bereft and an utter pauper before God in order to truly realize the riches of His glory through Christ Jesus. It’s a truth He has to drive home in us again and again.

How easily we allow our prejudices — and we all have them — to stand in the way of loving our fellow man, our “neighbor” in a biblical sense. We sin so so readily in thought and deed without batting an eye. I may look to the plight of others and sermonize on their cries of “Raca!” aimed at their brothers and sisters. But unless I am willing to go to the edge of the abyss in my life and stare into the blackness of my own, heart, I have no right to utter a syllable.

When I am ready and willing to weep over my own rebellion and give up, once again, my right to myself, I can come into the presence of the Holy One and reclaim my blameless and justified state that Christ’s atonement established once for all.

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Our Lord never nurses our prejudices, He mortifies them, runs clean athwart them. We imagine that God has a special interest in our particular prejudices; we are quite sure that God will never deal with us as He has to deal with other people. “God must deal with other people in a very stern way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are all right.” We have to learn – “Not a bit of it!” Instead of God being on the side of our prejudices, He is deliberately wiping them out. It is part of our moral education to have our prejudices run straight across by His providence, and to watch how He does it. God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him. There is only one thing God wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender.

When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is not a bit of the old order left, the old solemnity goes, the old attitude to things goes, and “all things are of God.” How are we going to get the life that has no lust, no self-interest, no sensitiveness to pokes, the love that is not provoked, that thinketh no evil, that is always kind? The only way is by allowing not a bit of the old life to be left; but only simple perfect trust in God, such trust that we no longer want God’s blessings, but only want Himself. Have we come to the place where God can withdraw His blessings and it does not affect our trust in Him? When once we see God at work, we will never bother our heads about things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in Heaven Whom the world cannot see.