The Prize

In 2007 Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize. The runner-up was a lady named Irena Sendler, who died on May 10, 2008. I want to tell you her story.

Sendler was a social worker in Warsaw, Poland when the Germans occupied it in 1939 and herded Jewish citizens into the infamous Warsaw Ghetto (they were later transported to concentration camps). She went in and out of the Ghetto several times a day under the guise of providing humanitarian aid, persuading Jewish parents to entrust their children to her. After smuggling the children out, she found Polish families to “adopt” them until the end of the war, or entrusted them to the protection of Catholic convents. She and her underground movement provided new names and identities to the Jewish children and only she knew their whereabouts. She was ingenious in finding ways to smuggle the children out of the Ghetto, using city sewers, underground tunnels and other routes, hiding them in boxes and suitcases. She even trained a dog to bark in the back of the car so it would stifle the cries of a scared child when they passed through a German checkpoint. Ever wary of German spies and surveillance, she wrote the names of the children, their aliases, and their adopting family on cigarette papers, and buried the papers in jars in her garden.

Eventually the German Gestapo caught her, severely tortured her, and sentenced her to death. Her humanitarian organization saved her by bribing the guards transporting her to her execution. The guards left her in the woods, unconscious and with broken arms and legs, telling superiors they had shot her. She was listed on public bulletin boards as among those who had been executed, so for the remainder of the war she lived in hiding, daring not even to attend her mother’s funeral. She continued her work for the Jewish children, able to walk only with crutches. After the war, she dug up the jars and attempted to find the children and return them to their parents; most of the parents had died at the Treblinka extermination camp. She was, however, able to return almost all of the children to extended family members.

Sendler’s story circulated after the war. In 1965 she was recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations (Oskar Schindler was also recognized thus). In 2003 she received the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest civilian decoration. In 1999 a high school teacher in Kansas encouraged four of his students to investigate her life; they created a play, Life in a Jar, that has had over 240 performances in the United States, Canada and Europe. There are plans for a movie.

In my admittedly less-than-thorough investigation, I have found no indication that Irena Sendler was a religious person. Neither was Oskar Schindler. I am reminded of what the apostle Paul writes in Romans 2:14-15, that when non-believers act righteously they are in a sense confirming the image of God in which they have been created and God’s creational predisposition towards justice.

I’m wondering how much people will remember global warming fifty years from now (do we remember the “ice age” scares of the 1970’s?). But lives of courage, nobility, love, charity, and sacrifice leave timeless imprints in the world.

Your Faith is Important

Several months ago I read a column by a Houston Chronicle writer who referred to his “partner.” I happened to know that his “partner” was his wife. I wondered if this reference reflected a new Chronicle policy to cease using the term “spouse” so as to leave it ambiguous for the reader whether the relationship was same-sex or heterosexual. This would be in keeping with the politically correct trend to prevent “discrimination” by making language neutral and “non-judgmental.” I have not seen this happen again in the Chronicle apart from this columnist, but let’s hold the thought and move on to new and interesting developments.

A recent high profile fashion show in Paris featured a designer’s new line of unisex clothing. This in and of itself is not revolutionary. Unisex clothing is proliferating. One New York magazine noted a popular trend in which men buy women’s jeans in order to wear them as tight and skinny as possible. But what intrigued me about this fashion show was the designer’s rationale for his new unisex line. He proclaimed that originally human beings had been unisex, but later “devolved” (my word) to different sexes. Thus, his line of clothing was celebrating the original uniformity of human beings.

Let’s consider one more recent incident, a forum in Colorado in which a woman continually referred to her “significant other” only to reveal after several minutes that she was referring to her dog.

What is the common thread in these three? It is the moral confusion that pervades our age, particularly what happens when the Judeo-Christian worldview which formed western civilization loses influence. As the British Christian apologist G.K. Chesterton famously said, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing. They believe in anything.” I wonder upon what basis the fashion designer makes his claim that human beings were originally unisex. I certainly understand, though, that apart from believing the Bible’s claim that human beings alone are created in God’s image, animals would seem to be equally precious to people. I think of the numerous times Dear Abby has mentioned the singular and unique pain of experiencing the death of a child, only to have a reader respond that she has no children but that her dog(s) were like her children and her pain at their loss is of the same degree. The Bible calls this kind of thinking “foolishness,” and it has nothing to do with intelligence. Many very intelligent people are fools. Wisdom, the Bible’s opposite of foolishness, emanates from a moral foundation based on something more than whims and feelings.

I am not a sky-is-falling kind of person; I’m not asking you to adopt an anxious and combative demeanor. But here is my point: What you are doing in church on Sunday is more than being encouraged and built up for personal faithful living; you are being equipped and fortified to live in the world as salt and light, witnessing to the revelation of God and upholding truth claims which often are disparaged but which mitigate against society sliding deeper into perversity and foolishness. Your faith is important. Not just for getting to heaven. Not just for being happy and fulfilled. But for taking a stand.

A Defining Issue

I wrote on June 1st and 8th about the recent decision of the California Supreme Court to strike down a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages. I expressed my deep misgivings about this decision and suggested it would have far-reaching negative social implications (see mattsoper.blogspot.com). I want to finish addressing this topic today by talking about what I see as root causes and related issues.

I see three primary causes of this escalation of pressure in Western democracies to redefine the institution of marriage. The first is the cultural battle, if you will, between those who would like society to reflect less of its Judeo-Christian heritage and those who would like it to reflect more. The former believe that religion is a corrosive and sometimes oppressive public influence and should be practiced as a private and personal lifestyle. The latter believe that religion is meant to be a public influence, even within a society committed to the separation of church and state, and that the premises upon which the constitution and the laws of society are constructed, especially those of the United States, draw heavily on its religious heritage. The former aspire to a more secular society, the latter to a more religious one.

The second primary cause is inextricably linked to the first, and it is the belief that gender differences are primarily socially constructed, are often harmful, and should be minimized. This viewpoint asserts that a child benefits as much from having two mothers or two fathers as he does from having a mother and a father, that there is little difference between the genders, that there is nothing especially significant about a mother’s presence or a father’s presence, and that they are not complementary. We see this battle being played out in the business world, the military, and throughout society.

The third primary cause is our confusion about compassion. We are becoming ever more hyper-sensitive about excluding anyone or hurting anyone’s feelings. Consider: a recent law proposed in Colorado opens all public accommodations, including restrooms, to anyone who wants to use them, male or female. The rationale is that transgendered people should be able to use the restroom they feel most comfortable using. Thus, a group of people comprising, let’s say, one half of one-percent of the population has its feelings protected despite the possible and obvious discomfort of much of the rest of the population! Consider: a Christian couple in Albuquerque who operate a photography studio politely declined, on religious grounds, to photograph a lesbian “commitment ceremony.” This is their first amendment right. They run a private business. There are other photography studios. But they were forced to appear before a New Mexico human rights commission and fined more than $6,600! The push for tolerance has become the push for acceptance has become the push for normalization.

Some protest, why single out gays and lesbians from getting married? But that’s the point; no one is being singled out! Refusing to redefine marriage simply declares that marriage will remain between one man and one woman. Many are excluded, including adult/minor couples, brother/sister couples, and polygamous unions. The same argument for allowing gay couples to marry can be used for any of these other arrangements. That’s why this is a defining issue.

Seize the Significance

I have many roles in my life (preacher, friend, son, brother, nemesis) but the ones I treasure most are my roles as husband and father. I am not exaggerating or being melodramatic when I say that I delight in being a dad to my two daughters. They, and Angela’s and my love, care, guidance and protection of them, are one of the great joys of my life.

It definitely helps that I have had a positive and strong relationship with my own father, and I realize this is a blessing not everyone has enjoyed. I am often pained by the lack of fulfillment people express in this regard. Maybe their dad wasn’t there for them, or didn’t seem to love them, or hurt them, or was indifferent towards them (and indifference is often more painful than hostility). Both men and women often carry wounds caused by painful relationships with their dads. I was inspired and touched by a recent essay by Rick Reilly, a sportswriter whose own Irish father was alcoholic and abusive (“Life of Reilly,” http://www.espn.com/, 6/5/08).

Reilly’s father was an avid golfer, a mean drunk, and an absentee dad. “More than once, he asked me, ‘What grade are you in again?’, Reilly recalls. Because of the frequent beatings and tirades when his dad got home, Reilly acknowledges that to this day, “the sound of (golf) spikes on cement sends a shot of ice through me. That was him coming up the sidewalk.” The son eventually took up golf “at least partly to understand what was so wonderful about a game that would keep a man from coming to his (four) kids’ games and piano recitals and birthday parties.”

Then one day when Reilly was in his 20’s, his father went to an AA meeting and quit drinking. Completely. Five years later, the son invited his dad to attend the Masters golf tournament with him, and they had a heart-to-heart on the road. “He told me his life story, how he drank and fought to get the attention of his own distant father, how he’d kept from us that he’d been married before, and how sorry he was to have let his family grow up while he was holding down the 19th hole with his elbows. He apologized and cried. I forgave him and cried. I never dreamed I-20 could be that emotional.”

Reilly’s father then went home and apologized to his wife and his other three children. He let them express how much he had hurt them. He wrote the family a poem about his love for them and his shame at how he had lived. All this happened late in the dad’s life, after most of the damage had been done. But he admitted his failures and found a semblance of reconciliation, blessing his wife and children by the effort of doing so.

Friends, it’s never too late to ask forgiveness or to forgive, to admit mistakes, to make the phone call, to write the note, to offer the explanation, to express the pain. There are wonderful dads and rotten dads, good kids and rotten kids. But there are few father-child relationships that are insignificant. Seize the significance.

Reilly concludes, “As I looked at him (on his deathbed) I realized that for better or worse, he’d shaped me. I think I’m a good father borne of his rotten example. I’m a storyteller out of surviving him. I’m a man with more flaws than a 1986 Yugo, but I try to own up to them, because a very good Irish tenor showed me how. And that’s what I call a very good save.”

Fatherhood is powerful. Handle it with care.

Normalization

Last week I lamented the recent decision of the California Supreme Court to strike down a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages. The decision declared that sexual orientation, like race or gender, “does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.” I suggested that this will have significant and far-reaching negative social implications. I will expound on that today.

First, it is disingenuous to equate sexual orientation with race or gender. Gender is fixed (gender-change operations notwithstanding), and race is fixed for most people, though to be sure there are many people of blended races, which leaves them some latitude for self-determination in this respect. But sexual orientation is a continuum that ranges from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, with many places (e.g., bisexuality) in between. Societies, by their mores and laws, have channeled this polymorphous human sexuality towards heterosexuality primarily through the institution of marriage (see Dennis Prager, “California Decision Will Radically Change Society,” Townhall.com, 5/20/08). By limiting marriage to one man and one woman, societies have explicitly declared that this was the most desirable and effective mechanism for social cohesion and for the bearing and nurture of children. This, of course, has excluded from participation in the institution of marriage some people with different and less common sexual orientations, including man-man, woman-woman, polygamous, and incestuous relationships (In most western societies, homosexual and lesbian couples may still enter into civil unions). This indeed reflects a preference for heterosexual behavior in these societies.

At this point we need to distinguish between “tolerance,” “acceptance,” and “normalization.” A few decades ago, gay advocates urged society to tolerate homosexual behavior. This primarily meant not to attack it or be hateful towards homosexuals. Then society was urged to accept homosexual behavior. This meant primarily not to discriminate on the basis of it. Now society is being urged to normalize it. This means to consider it equal to and equally desirable to heterosexual behavior.

This third step is huge. One can easily envision the following if same-sex marriage is normalized: “Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man’s finger – if they show only women fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now. Films that show only man-woman married couples will be regarded as ‘heterosexist’”(Prager, 5/20/08).

People who express these kinds of reservations often are labeled “homophobic,” which is an intellectually lazy charge. I have tremendous empathy for people dealing with same-sex attraction on any part of the sexual continuum. I treat gay people with dignity and kindness. To disagree is not to be phobic. I am particularly dismayed by the conservative church’s general lack of ministry to such people. But I cannot and will not consider this latest development “harmless” or “inevitable.” I will write again on this and talk about what I see as root causes and related issues.

Ancient Wisdom

A few weeks ago in a 4-3 vote, California’s Supreme Court struck down a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, saying that sexual orientation, like race or gender, “does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.” Two of the dissenting judges called this ruling an “an exercise in legal jujitsu” that will “create a constitutional right from whole cloth, defeat the people’s will and invalidate a statute otherwise immune from legislative interference.” The third dissenting justice said that while she personally supported the right to same-sex marriage, the majority should have deferred to the Legislature.

The key here is “new understanding of the meaning of marriage.” This ruling indeed declares a redefinition of marriage, which for millennia in all societies and cultures has been defined as the union of one man and one woman. Now, in their infinite “wisdom,” four judges have decided they have a better way to define it.

Dennis Prager, a Jewish commentator and author, suggests that this is a natural result of the “modern supplanting of wisdom with compassion as the supreme guide in forming society’s values and laws.” After all, why not exercise compassion and let people marry whomever they want?

Some have argued that this ruling represents nothing more than what courts did to end legal bans on interracial marriage in the mid-20th century. In that case the courts corrected a moral injustice perpetuated by the will of the majority. Isn’t this the same principle? But Prager notes a key difference in the two scenarios:

"No major religion – not Judaism, not Christianity, not Islam, not Buddhism – ever banned interracial marriage… American bans on interracial marriages were not supported by any major religious or moral system; those bans were immoral aberrations, no matter how many religious individuals may have supported them. Justices who overthrew bans on interracial marriages, therefore, had virtually every moral and religious value system since ancient times on their side. But justices who overthrow the ban on same-sex marriage have nothing other than their hubris and their notions of compassion on their side…Not a single religion or moral philosophical system – East or West – since antiquity ever defined marriage as between members of the same sex. (“California Decision Will Radically Change Society,” 5/20/08, Townhall.com)

The fact is that laws are designed to channel peoples’ behavior. Murder is against the law so that people will be channeled away from murder. These behavioral rules emanate from a value system. And the value system emanates from… what? The answer is, “ancient wisdom.” And the ancient wisdom from which our laws emanate comes primarily, though not wholly, from the Judeo-Christian religious heritage.

This ruling and others like it declares that in our modern “wisdom” we have seen a moral light that no theologians, philosophers, religions or moral systems saw before. That is why this is about far more than “extending a right” to homosexuals, who indeed should be protected from unfair discrimination. This is about a significant social change the implications of which will be massive. I will talk about those next week.

Going Back

I was in Austin most of this week attending the Austin Graduate School of Theology’s Sermon Seminar. This seminar is special in that scholars lecture on preaching from different books of the Bible (this year: Amos, Hebrews, Genesis, and Galatians) and share as many resources and suggestions as they can to help preachers. I have been surprised by the nostalgia I feel this week and have identified some of the reasons for this (the nostalgia, not my surprise).

Austin Graduate School of Theology (when I attended it was called the Institute for Christian Studies) was the school I left the Houston business world for in 1987. I came with no more specific purpose than to learn more about the Christian faith and the scriptures and to satisfy a nagging curiosity about vocational ministry that I could not seem to shake. This school, in essence, gave me both a solid foundation of Christian understanding and a concrete sense of God’s call to full-time ministry. I have stayed in touch with Austin Grad as an enthusiastic alumnus, and it is gratifying to see the school’s new spacious campus on Guadalupe near Hwy 183, far from the parking nightmares of the U.T. campus to which it so long was subject for so long.

This is also the place where I met my sweetheart, the lovely and spirited former Angela Dulaney. A friend of mine arranged for us to run into each other at a Westover Hills congregation Singles ministry gathering, and I was immediately smitten; here was this petite brunette dynamo driving an aged Camaro with a 350 V-8 engine and a 357 Magnum revolver in her closet for protection. I should have realized how symbolic that was. Suffice it to say, I never knew what hit me. We courted while both working part-time at Houston’s restaurant as I finished my Bible degree and she began work on a Master’s, and got married in the summer of 1989.

1989 was an eventful year for my family, full of pain and promise. My brother graduated from Navy flight school, my younger sister graduated from college, I graduated from I.C.S., Angela and I got married, my older sister died, my grandfather died, my brother got married, and my father got remarried. Three graduations, three weddings, and two funerals. Memories of all this washed over me as I drove from my hotel to the campus and intentionally detoured through some of the old neighborhoods.

I think it’s good to go back. Memory and nostalgia are satisfying unless they preoccupy you unhealthily. When Alex and I went to New Orleans for my father’s 80th birthday a few weekends ago, I took her on a drive around Algiers and showed her places of fondness and significance for me from my childhood. We even stopped by the house of a childhood friend and visited his 86-year old mother, reminiscing and marveling at how fast life goes by. It was wonderful.

The Bible talks a lot about the power of remembering. Life without memory is neutered. As we remember both painful and happy times, we give them layers of depth and meaning. Many years ago I became intrigued by a quotation from T.S. Elliott: “We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.” Sometimes, backwards is forwards.