Many of you who have read my posts know me as a Gay Texas Attorney, a father of two (there really are three) sons by adoption (with the grandmother still in Arkansas we are having some serious issues on this one now), and perhaps as a 6th Generation Southern Democrat. I also have a Master of Divinity from a Southern Baptist Seminary and pursued doctoral work in systematic theology until the cost of adoption bade me flee back from grace to law, having once before moved from law to grace.
I know this truth to be self-evident. There is more grace in American Law than in American Religion, and more Law in American Religion than Grace. All of us are seeing some of this all about us now.
My Law cards read Othniel, J.D., M.Div., as a warning to people that I preach, because as every lawyer in America knows, no one is more willing to lie under oath than a preacher testifying as a character Othniel's diary witness in a criminal trial. I was taught in Seminary that people knew preachers lie from the pulpit, and understand that falling asleep in the pew is the way most folk protect themselves from it. And I once had a juror tell me he knew not to trust me as lawyer but when testimony (proving up legal fees) disclosed I was also a preacher every one on the jury knew not a word I said could be believed.
Yet I remain a part of the Church, the Bride of Christ, who of course is God and Husband of Us All.
I repeat, I believe and affirm that Jesus Christ, of whom the Church is the Bride, is God and Husband of us all.
Modern Christians seem to proclaim the Book of Revelation in order to create vast financial empires by falsely assuming there is a god who might tell someone "You are Left Behind." nb, please there is no book of Revelations in the New Testament, the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine is however, sometimes referred to by the singular Revelation. Revelation 19:7 (NASB)
"Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready." This mystery has been part of the theology of Christianity since its inception. Had I finished my doctoral work, I would have written on third century Alexandrian Eschatology, including Origen of Alexandria, who in his Commentary on Canticles (most know this as the Song of Solomon) marveled that "Let Him Kiss me with the Kisses of His Mouth" (Canticles 1:2) applied to his own relationship with Christ and was a prayer by which he might ask of God knowledge and understanding. But then Origen tended to wander about universes known and unknown (much as those who read my posts know I do), and eventually got in to a lot of trouble for proclaiming that if the work of Christ and the Church was the reconciliation of all things to God, the Devil himself ought be accorded salvation - a universalism somewhat ahead of its time, and alas, ahead of ours.
Some of us Gay guys understand a little more than other people the mystery of having Jesus as a husband. For my friends of other faiths, and those who embrace faith not, please know you are all my equal, and understand that for me Christianity provides the matrix by which I approach the infinite. At this time and place however, I think it is important to show the rest of America that some of us queer boys can preach too, claim the language of faith, and assert our right to having been created in the Image of God, and our place in the rainbow of God's Creation. Thanks be for Reverend Jesse Jackson, who long ago included people like me in his Rainbow, and whom I have loved and respected ever since. The tears on this Man of God's Face last Tuesday are one of the principal images which have given to me the grace to heal the wounds I felt as a Gay Man and know I too belong in the New America, because even before Obama, Reverend Jackson included me.
To the extent the Religious Right considers at all the "Bride of Christ" question (the only actual reference in the Bible which impels the question of Gay Marriage), it is deferred eschatalogically to the afterlife or eschaton and never accepted in any way as realized in the here and now.
ok - defer it, and sing with them, "When we all Get to Heaven, What a Day of Rejoicing that will be".
Then Wink.
Pax, perhaps even a hope of a new Pax Americanum, be with you all.
Amen
UPDATE: I should have made clear I am no longer a Southern Baptist, and went to that seminary long ago when the culture wars were first beginning with a right wing power grab that excluded moderate and liberal Baptists from the communion. I can however still speak their language and thought some might appreciate knowing how to confront them in that form. I seem to offended more people than I ever thought possible, and I apologize for that, but I do feel I belong here and in America and have no intention ever of excluding anyone from either community, or forcing any one to change.