Education

And a Little Child (Josef Miles) Shall Lead Them

or how Todd Starnes and Paul Cameron were given a lesson in love by a 9 year old boy.

This week Paul Cameron of the Family Research Council responded to President Obama’s statements in support of gay marriage. The above recording is taken from an interview on Crosstalk with Jim Schneider of VCY America (Voice of Christian Youth). Not only did Cameron assert that the President himself might be gay, but he also stated that

“the long term goal of the homosexual movement is to get every little boy to grab his ankles and every little girl to give it a try,” he added, “They will not rest until every one of our children at least gets to try, has the opportunity and maybe is forced to at least once experience homosexual acts.”

This is preposterous, inflammatory and hateful. To accuse the entirety of the homosexual community of such nonsense would be laughable if I didn’t know he was dead serious. Paul Cameron should be ashamed of himself. Please sir, you are making the rest of us look like hate-mongering, paranoid, fools.
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Next up, we have Todd Starnes, the host of Fox News & Commentary radio show who declared that the reason for the generational divide on the issue of Same Sex Marriage was the public school system. Mr Starnes took to the airwaves with this statement:

“Look at what’s happening in public schools, they’re indoctrination centers. Boys and girls are having their views formulated on gay marriage through the public school system and that’s why it’s becoming generational.”

Education is a very powerful thing. It was after all the desegregation of the schools in the south on the heels of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that signaled the beginning of the civil rights movement. I suspect that in forty years people will look back at this era in the same way we look back at the Jim Crow days of the south.

I will give credit where credit is due here. Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, said the president was “now in the 21st century” and that Republicans were “sitting very firmly, without much question, on the wrong side of history on [the issue].”

Now we come to Josef Miles. He is the boy in the sunglasses on the right hand side of this picture.

This past weekend Nine-year-old Josef and his mom were walking around the Washburn University campus in Topeka, Kan., when they saw a group of Westboro Baptist Church protesters armed with the signs you see above. This young man asked his mother if he could make his own sign. He wrote, “GOD HATES NO ONE.”

I am reminded of a conversation starter given by my good friend Nanette Irvin at Novitas Church, in which she said, “If you want to stand out on the street corner with a sign, it ought to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven.'”  Our signs should be messages of love.  1 John 4:18-21 says this:

18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Jesus also tells us that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves (there is no unless in this statement). We can disagree about whether or not we think being gay is a sin. But we cannot use that as an excuse to hate our neighbor and to bear false witness against them.

All three of these people chose to “hold up signs”, whether literal or figurative, that presented their message to the world…
Paul Cameron’s “sign” said, “All homosexuals want  your children to be gay and possibly be forced to have a homosexual experience. You should be scared.”

Todd Starnes’ “sign” said, “Your children are being indoctrinated to accept other people for who they are and this is a bad thing. You should be angry.”

Josef Miles had a sign too; An actual physical sign. It said, “GOD HATES NO ONE.”

And a little child shall lead them.

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Your Existence Gives me Hope

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So I woke up today with a strange feeling of hope; hope that the tide is shifting; hope that the conversation is taking a new shape. Hope in the face of setbacks like a female attorney who bows to the will of her client,  by wearing a burqa; a client, who if he had his way, would have prevented her from becoming an attorney in the first place and who would strip her of her freedom to practice law and even from leaving her home unaccompanied if given the opportunity. Setbacks like the state of North Carolina passing an amendment that robs fellow Americans/humans of enjoying the same privilege to marry their beloveds and not to be alone, that is why God designed marriage, remember? It is not good for us to be alone, we need someone who is a perfect fit for us.

But like I said, I am feeling hopeful today. Why?

1. The existence of Kent Krabill; Proof that God loves me.

2. The existence of my children who live and breathe and change the world with their love.

3. The existence of Novitas (aka the island of misfit toys) who continually challenge me to love more and judge less.

4. The existence of the countless new friends I am discovering daily.

5. The existence of inspiration. I finally feel like I am learning who I always was.

6. The existence of the Holy Spirit who continues to lead me into the truth and to change me.

7. The existence of the amazing Rachel Held Evans (who inspires me over and over) and her new article.

8. The existence of Justin Lee and his 30 confessions.

9. The existence of magical moments. I mean did you see Josh Hamilton hit 4 home runs in one game? Have you been to Disney World?

10. The existence of Sixty Percent and people who write such things.

11. The existence of Kathy Escobar and The Refuge, Alise Wright, Amanda Miller Garber and RISE church and Pam Hogeweide and all the other UNladylike women of the church.

12. The existence of Brian McLaren, Wade Burleson, Rob Bell, Jay Bakker, my husband and every other men who supports the UNladylike women of the church.

13. The existence of Bert & Evelyn Waggoner and the influence he had on my life and the seeds of change planted in Kent and I at the Sugarland Vineyard.

14. The existence of Derek Watson  who set in motion the tectonic plates of our lives.

15. The existence of Laurie Watson and the work she does as a sex therapist who happens to be a follower of Christ.

16. The existence of the parents I know who are trying to teach their kids to love people, all people.

17. The existence of a shift that has begun in our country and the church toward freedom, equality and acceptance.

18. The existence of people who fight for these things every day.

19. The existence of groups like Christians for Biblical Equality.

20. The existence of the Marin Foundation.

21. The existence of common ground: President Obama and Vice President Chaney both support gay marriage.

22. The existence of Matthew Vines.

23. The existence of people who refuse to stop loving or believing better of people; even the ones who disagree with them.

24. The existence of my parents and grandparents and all the people who have helped to make me who I am.

25. The existence of art, music and poetry.

26. The existence of my God who never stops loving, never stops pursuing, who will one day make EVERYTHING right, who loves all and gives everything to bring his children home to him.

27. The existence of…YOU. YOUR EXISTENCE GIVES ME HOPE

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The Will of the People

It is not the words of your enemies that you will remember, but the silence of your friends.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I have stopped being silent because I love my friends.
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“Look at the evidence,” the man on the radio said, “In every state where gay marriage has been put to a vote, it has been defeated and traditional marriage upheld. Why can’t people accept that this is the will of the people.”

I do accept that this is currently the will of the people, but I do not accept that it automatically makes it right, or kind, or fair, or loving. For crying out loud, if we accepted that, we would still have government sanctioned, legal slavery, women couldn’t vote, non landowners couldn’t vote, and other ridiculous, evil things. How about the witch trials or Nazi Germany, how about the Crusades or the inquisition? Maybe we should reinstitute the House Committee on Un American Activities or the Jim Crow Laws. Insane you say? But why? It was at one time “the will of the people.”

Last week on Modern Family they opened the show with Jay and Gloria having this conversation:

“Jay: This weekend we’re going up to Pebble Beach. I’m gonna meet a bunch of guys I played high school football with. Man, those were the good old days.
Gloria: Yeah, unless you were a woman, black, Hispanic, or gay.
Jay: But if you were a straight white football player you couldn’t have a bad day.”

I for one am going to, like Justin Lee said today on his blog, continue working to (as we have in the past) educate in order to change the hearts and minds of the people and thereby change the will of the people.

I Will Let These Women Answer For Themselves

Margaret Thatcher

Hilary Rodham Clinton

Jael – Biblical personality

Rachel – Biblical personality

Deborah – Biblical personality

Ruth – Biblical personality

Priscilla – Biblical personality

Lydia – Biblical personalit

Miraim – Biblical personality

Madeline Albright

Mary the mother of Jesus

Mary Magdeline

Jane Addams

Susan B. Anthony

Marie Antoinette

Saint Joan of Arc

Aspasia of Miletus

Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

Jane Austen

Ella Baker

Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike

Clara Barton

Florence Bascom

Simone de Beauvoir

Aphra Behn

Ruth Fulton Benedict

Shirley Temple Black

Elizabeth Blackwell

Bonnie Kathleen Blair

Rosa Bonheur

Louise Arner Boyd

Pearl S. Buck

Marie Anne de Cupis de Camargo

Rachel Carson

Catherine the Great

St. Catheri

Cleopatra

Juana Ines de la Cruz

Marie Curie

Agnes George de Mille

Emily Dickinson

Amelia Earhart

Marian Wright Edelman

Eleanor of Aquitane

Beatrix Jones Farrand

Edith Flanigen

Anne Frank

Rosalind Elsie Franklin

Betty Ford

Nancy Reagan

Betty Naomi Friedan

Elizabeth Gurney Fry

Margaret Fuller

Indira Gandhi

Sarah and Angelina Grimke

Caroline Lucretia Hersche

Judith E. Heumann

Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin

Ariel Hollinshead

Mary Phelps Jacob

Helen Keller

Billie Jean King

Aleksandra Mikhaylovna Kollontai

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Susette La Flesche Tibbles

Ruth Graham

Anne Graham Lotz

Maya Lin

Juliette Gordon Low

Anne Sullivan Macy

Wilma Mankiller

Barbara McClintock

Catherine Boothe

Catherine de Medici

Lise Meitner

Rigoberta Menchu Tum

Maria Montessori

Mother Theresa_

Baroness Murasaki

Shikibu

Florence Nightingale

Georgia O’Keeffe

Vijaya Lakshimi

Pankhurst

Rosa Parks

Eva Peron

Christine de Pizan

Pocahontas

Queen Anne

Queen Elizabeth I

Queen Isabella

Queen Victoria

Jeannette Rankin

Sally Ride

Alexandra Romanov

Eleanor Roosevelt

Sakajawea

Margaret Sanger

Sappho

Rose Schneiderman

Lucy Stone

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Russell Strong

Bertha von Suttner

Emma Tenayuca

Valentina Vladimirovna Nikolayeva Tereshko

Alexandrine Pieternella Francoise Tinne

Sojourner Truth

Harriet Tubman

Tz’u HsiYoshiko Uchida

Phyllis Wheatley

Mary Wollstonecraft

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

Rachel Held Evans

Sarah Bessey

Ann Morr – my mother

Gladys Elliott – my Grandmother

Doris Morr – my Grandmother

Beth Moore

Judge Barbara Lynn

Chief Judge Edith Jones

Justice Ginsberg

Kathy Escobar

Pam Hogeweide

Mariah Smiley – Teen founder of Drops of Love

Laurie Watson

;

This is a list of women who currently hold CEO positions at companies that rank on the most recently published Fortune1000 lists (the Fortune 2012 list). Women currently hold 3.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions and 3.9 percent of Fortune1000 CEO positions.

Fortune 1–500 (18 CEOs)

Fortune 501-1000 (21 CEOs)


And millions and millions more whose hard work, dedication, LOVE and passion change the world EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Sir, you should be ashamed.

The Day My Son Learned to Never Forget

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Today I went with my ten year old son’s class on a field trip to the Dallas Holocaust Museum and Center for Education and Tolerance. As we walked in and the docent explained the self guided tour devices we were all given my son stood and stared at the picture above.
I had decided beforehand to let him take the lead and be there right along with him to answer his questions. I thought this would enable him to take it in at his own pace and absorb the information in the way he could best handle it. I honestly wasn’t sure how he would react being that we had talked about the Holocaust in the past but never showed the kids any of the graphic and terrifying images.
Since I first heard that the fifth grade would be going on this field trip I have been thinking about my high school Government class and the three days we spent watching the documentary footage of the death camps of the Nazi’s. Much of the footage was silent and I was so disturbed by what I saw over those days that I was unable to eat or stop thinking about the people whose emaciated dead bodies I saw piled up on carts, pushed into mass graves by bulldozers and thrown into pits or onto bon fires by their fellow prisoners who were forced to do so by gun point.
So we walked, my son and I through the pictures and exhibits that had been collected in this small museum in the heart of Dallas. I watched in amazement as the 10 year old boy, who loves to talk to you about his passions and joke with his friends, became silent and went methodically through the museum listening to everything his recorded guide had to say about each item.

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After the permanent exhibits we viewed the special installation of children’s art from the camps. The pictures were beautiful, and haunting and heartbreaking. We learned that of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, 1.5 million of them were children under 15.
I was so proud of him. He didn’t try to keep up with his friends, he didn’t turn away. He just stared and listened and asked questions. Mom, are those really shoes from the people who were killed? Are those real bodies? Why did people hate the Jews? They did medical experiments on that guy? Did they really kill the kids? How could anyone do this?

How indeed?
When we look at someone different than us and decide that they are less than us,
When we judge entire peoples as cursed by God and less than human,
When we begin to believe the lie that the world would be a better place if everyone just looked like, acted like and believed like me,
When we can look in the face of a child and rather than seeing something beautiful we see something we despise,
When we believe that it doesn’t concern us when others are harmed,
When we sit silently by and do nothing because to get involved puts us in danger too,
When we look the other way,
We begin the descent toward an evil which is unspeakable and unimaginable.
We must never forget.
We must show the pictures.
We must hear the stories.
We must not turn away.
We must be upstanders.

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The quote in the picture at the beginning of this post is from Albert Einstein who once said, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
Today I encourage us all to become what the Holocaust Museum referred to as upstanders. An upstander is a person who takes action, paricularly when the easiest or most acceptable course is to do nothing.
As with all of life it boils down to love. We must love our neighbors. All our neighbors. We must stand up and be counted on the side of love whenever and however possible. Sometimes that means we must stand in the gap and repel the forces of evil even when it means placing ourselves in harm’s way.
And…like my son learned today, we must never forget.

It Does, It Must and It Will Get Better.

Last week Dan Savage the founder of the It Get’s Better Campaign lashed out at the Bible and some of the students during an anti-bullying conference at a high school in Seattle. In his statements he clearly went over the line and became that which he most despises: A bully. In his statements Mr. Savage attacked the Bible, belittled the beliefs of others and used a slur to attack the students who disagreed with his statements by simply walking out. This is a transcript of the portion of the speech in question:

“We can learn to ignore the bullshit about gay people in the Bible the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waived Bibles over their heads during the civil war and justified it.”

“If the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong, slavery, what are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100 percent.”

Afterward, Savage remarked: “You can tell the Bible guys in the hall they can come back now because I’m done beating up the Bible. It’s funny as someone who is on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-ass some people react when you push back.”

While I vehemently disagree with Mr. Savage’s attack on the students because of their protest, I do believe that he can be forgiven. He has issued an apology for the “pansy-assed” comment saying it was “insulting, it was name-calling, and it was wrong. And I apologize for saying it.” Therefore, he gets a second chance. I have certainly spoken in the heat of a moment words I wished I could retract as soon as they left my mouth. I am sure you have too.

I also disagree strongly with Mr. Savage’s view of the Bible as I read it. I do however think that some things people have used the Bible to say and do are BS. And honestly when I think of the way the church has used and in some cases still uses the Bible as an excuse or even an encouragement to bully, hate and abuse the GLBT community as a whole and individual GLBT people I can easily figure out how  Mr. Savage ended up on a stage calling bulls%#t on the whole thing. Sometimes I actually want to stand up and join Dan Savage in calling BS for the way people use the Bible for purposes which I believe were never intended. After all, this is the same Bible that says that Jesus came not into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. This is the Bible that says  people will know we are Christians by our love. Today is a day I am going to call BS. Today I call BS on Pastor Sean Harris of the Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Currently the state of North Carolina is in a battle over Amendment 1 to their state constitution which states in part:

Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.

This past Sunday was declared “Marriage Sunday” by Vote for Marriage NC, a political action committee. Their purpose for organizing the day was:

Marriage Sunday is an early voting awareness campaign focused on equipping churches and citizens to vote FOR the Marriage Protection Amendment during the 4/19-5/5 early voting window. Churches participating in Marriage Sunday are encouraged to preach a marriage themed sermon on April 29th, and encourage congregants to vote early on Monday April 30th.

This is the United States of America and this is the way we decide things here. We vote. I am for voting. The good people of North Carolina get to go to the polls and decide how they will define marriage in their state. What I am not for, what is complete BS, is the hatred and abuse that was spewed out in the name of my Lord Jesus and my God. I will not be silent. I teach my children to stand up and speak out in defense of the weak and the oppressed and today I will do the same thing.
http://www.goodasyou.org/player.swf

If you are unable to listen to the audio, here is a transcript (emphasis added):

So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,” you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.
Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting to Butch you reign her in. And you say, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.”
You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?”
Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that.“

Well, you are going to need more than a special dispensation because Jesus authorizes you to do no such thing.

In fact, I would assert that parents treating their children in this way does not prevent one person who would have grown up to be gay to suddenly become heterosexual. Just ask any number of people in the GLBT community. I bet you can find many who were treated in exactly this fashion by their parents. My guess is that not only did it not stop them from becoming gay it also made them think that God didn’t love them, didn’t come to be near them, and doesn’t offer them salvation. All I know to say is, God forgive them for they know not what they do. Forgive me for the times I know not what I do. This has nothing to do with whether or not people have the right to believe whatever they want about homosexuality. It has to do with the fact that Jesus does not give you the option to hate, bully or abuse your child or anyone else ever. You don’t have that right, Sean Harris doesn’t have that right and Dan Savage doesn’t have that right. So far Dan Savage has apologized for bullying the kids, I wonder if we will ever hear an apology from Sean Harris? I hope so. I pray that the radical love of the Jesus who died for us all grips the hearts of Harris and Savage. Today I shout at the top of my lungs that it does and it will get better. Lord, let your Kingdom come.

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Women Need Men to Achieve Equality

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slaves of all races needed and still need free people to fight with them to defeat slavery.
Blacks needed whites to stand in solidarity in order to roll back Apartheid and the Jim Crow laws.
The GLBTQI community  needs members of the heterosexual community to come along side them to find acceptance.
Jews needed Gentiles to stop the madness of Auschwitz and defeat the Third Reich.
Women need men to achieve equality in the church, in the home, in government and in the workforce.

The minority always needs at least a few members of the majority to stand in their corner and advocate on their behalf for the status quo to be challenged and for things to change.

The persecuted, the excluded, the oppressed, the enslaved, the unclean, the deformed and the sinners needed someone to tear down the wall that separated. (That is all of us)

The women, the men, the Jews, the Gentiles, the slaves, the free needed someone to tear down the dividing wall that separated them from each other.

Jesus is the obliterator of all that separated and separates us still. He came to rip it in half and to tear it down.

Today an amazing blog from J. R. Daniel Kirk a Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary came to my attention. It is called A Time to Speak. It is specifically about the issue of women in the church however the truths in it can be applied to more than just this issue.

Dear men, it is not enough to be supportive in your hearts. If your church is excluding women from service, you need to be creating opportunities to overturn that practice.
You need to speak. You need to ask.
Dear pastor, it is not enough to huddle with your buddies over beer or in your internet discussion room and talk about what a bunch of sexist bastards your fellow pastors are in your denomination.
If you are not working to change what women can do, you are promoting and sustaining the sexism that you deride in private.
If you are not opening up space in your church for women to preach and teach, you are promoting and sustaining the sexism that denies the truth of your women’s identity in Christ.
Dear seminary professor, your job is to be a change agent. Your job is to transform the way that your students, and their churches, think about and act on issues of gender.
It’s not enough to “know” that women should be able to do anything. You need to show your students, from your scripture study or theology, that this is God’s intention for the church.

This applies to all of us. If there is something you believe in, if there is an area where you know you should be speaking on behalf of the oppressed or excluded and you keep silent you are in effect promoting and sustaining that which you know is wrong. If you fail to speak up when your friend calls something or someone “gay” or you don’t come to the defense of a female coworker when she is called a bitch for being a strong leader, if you stand by when girls and women are silenced and discounted in the name of Jesus you participate and condone the very thing you disagree with in your heart. I believe this is what the Scriptures are talking about when they say a double-minded person is unstable in all their ways. When we will not stand up for our convictions we waver in our faith and become double minded.

He wraps up the post with this call to action:

We must create the kind of church that will receive not just our sons but our daughters, not just our brothers but our sisters, in the fullness of who God is making them to be, in Christ, by the Spirit.

If you believe in women’s equality, your calling is to act it out. If you’re not, don’t convince yourself that you’re being “wise” in biding your time while your sisters suffer. Wisdom is a convenient cover for fear, but not all silence is golden.

I for one have decided not to remain silent anymore. This blog is my attempt to speak into the world a message of love and acceptance, freedom and hope. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and the gates have been flung wide

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You’ve Got Personality.

Today I would like to give you a gift my lovelies. It is a gift that will help you know yourself, your spouse, your partner, your child, your friend or your bf or gf better. It is a gift that will help you to love yourself, your neighbor and your God better. It is a little personality test called Meyers-Briggs.

For my husband and I this test has been a real eye opener. Kent and I got married 2 days after my 18th birthday and have been married for almost 25 years. This simple personality test has helped us tremendously in furthering our understanding of one another and what makes us do the things we do and not do the things we don’t. It has helped me personally to be more understanding and it has helped us to look for solutions that will actually work for both of us. Knowing the information from the relationship analysis for our types has even helped to defuse potential issues.

I remember when I first saw this on our profiles:

Mine says this:

Because ENFPs live in the world of exciting possibilities, the details of everyday life are seen as trivial drudgery. They place no importance on details maintenance-type tasks, and will frequently remain oblivious to these types of concerns. When they do have to perform these tasks, they do not enjoy themselves. This is a challenging area of life for most ENFPs, and can be frustrating for ENFP‘s family members.

Kent’s says this:

ENFJs like for things to be well-organized, and work hard at maintaining structure and resolving ambiguity. They have a tendency to be fussy, especially with their home environments.

I was so excited! I finally knew why Kent and I had an argument about this every 6 months for our entire marriage. We weren’t crazy! It was all right there in black and white.
This is just a small example of how these tests have benefited us.

Another example comes from the relationship analysis for ENFPs in relationship with ENFJs:

Where these two excel in relationship is in dealing both with individual people and human affairs in general, the ENFP pften leading the way towards change, development of ideas and possibilities for improvement of conditions; the ENFJ complementing this role with strong advocacy and educative skills combined with commitment to social justice and care for the disadvantaged.

You can see how this could be helpful for us moving forward to love God and love people, all people. You can see how this helps us to use our unique giftings to be all we were meant to be. It makes sense when you see it in light of my blog and Kent’s work as an attorney and our work together as planters of Novitas Church.

I hope the following resources help you to become all you were meant to be and help you see how you were uniquely gifted to love people.

You can take a shortened FREE version here:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

You can find out your child’s type here:
http://www.personalitypage.com/cgi-local/build_pqk.cgi

You can get a type to type relationship analysis here (this costs $2 and is worth every penny)
http://www.personalitypage.com/html/type_to_type.html

Homosexuality and God: Conclusion

For the last several weeks we have been going through the passages in the scriptures that have been used to condemn gay marriage, convince gay individuals that they need to “pray away the gay”, and sadly, by some to bully LGBT persons.

It is my contention that these verses have been either misinterpreted, misunderstood or misapplied.

I set out in the beginning that I read the Bible as a library of God inspired books that together tell the story of God and humanity. It is a collection of books that contain the truth as it was seen and told from different points in history in the ways and words of the people of that time and culture. God spoke in each era in a way that the people of that time could understand and apply. I believe that God revealed himself little by little, all the while drawing humanity into a more and more reconciled and connected relationship with him. The story of God with humanity in the Scriptures begins with a beautiful poem about the beginning of our story: God and individuals. As the story develops, Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebecca and Jacob & Leah & Rachel are added along with the 12 Tribes of Israel: God and the Nation of Israel. Soon Jesus arrives on the scene and expands the story to include previously excluded or marginalized people and give them a voice and a place at the table: Gentiles, women, adulterers, drunks, tax collectors, prostitutes and all others: God and all of humanity. As it turns out God’s story has ALWAYS included ALL people and inviting them in. The blood of Christ covers all. His perfect love and sacrifice is enough for all sin for all time. As we like to say at Novitas, if you want to stand on a street corner with a big sign it should say, “Your sins are forgiven.” The forgiveness, grace, mercy and love of Jesus is big enough to include Pharisees and Homosexuals, Jews and Gentiles, Saints and Sinners.

You can read all the posts in this series at the following links:

Homosexuality and God: A Weekly Exploration
Homosexuality and God: Part 1 – Lev
Homosexuality and God: Part 2 – Genesis
Homosexuality and God: Part 3 – Jude
Homosexuality and God: Part 4 – Eunuchs Who Have Been So From Birth – Matt
Homosexuality and God: Part 5 – Romans
Homosexuality and God: Parts 6 & 7 – Pornoi, Arsenokoitai, and Malakoi – 1 Tim & 1 Cor

The War on Women is NOT limited to Republicans

In the past week alone…

  • Hilary Rosen, a DNC consultant, has insulted stay at home mothers everywhere by saying women like Ann Romney have “never worked a day” in their lives.
  • We have learned that women in the Obama White House are earning 18% less than their male counterparts while President Obama travels around the country condemning this very problem.
  • The Republican Governor of Wisconsin repealed the state’s Equal Pay law. Republican state senator Glenn Grothman, who was an enthusiastic fan of repealing the law, actually said,
    • “You could argue that money is more important for men.” and “I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”
  • John Piper , influential pastor and author, posted, “When the Titanic sank 20% of the men and 74% of the women survived. That profound virtue was not nurtured by egalitarianism.”
  • Of the 740,000 jobs lost since president Obama took office, women accounted for 683,000 of those jobs.
  • Ashley Juddhad took to the internet to decry the morbid fascination people have with women’s appearances and the glee they seem to have in picking them apart (especially other women). She wrote,
    • “Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women.”

The “war on women” is not a war waged by Democrats vs. Republicans; Men vs. Women or Christian vs Atheist. It is not a war of gender or a war of politics. It is a war of ideas.  It must be turned into a war, not on women but a war on patriarchy. According to dictionary.com:

pa·tri·arch·y [pey-tree-ahr-kee]

noun, plural pa·tri·arch·ies.

1. a form of social organization in which the father is the supreme authority in the family, clan, or tribe and descent is reckoned in the male line, with the children belonging to the father’s clan or tribe.

2. a society, community, or country based on this social organization.

As Ashley Judd so eloquently said, “Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate.” I know plenty of men who, armed with love, education and justice wage war against patriarchy. I also know all too many women who defend patriarchy even when it means the subjugation and abuse of themselves, their daughters and other women.
I know many, many patriarchalists, some of whom believe with all their hearts that it is the answer to all of societies ills and for whom if they were honest would admit that they would prefer it if we could roll the clocks back to when women occupied the private sphere and men the public. I do not doubt their sincerity, I do however disagree with them vehemently on the roles of women in the family, in society, in the workplace, in politics, in church and in every arena.