It really makes me sad... or Am I the only one thinking this? (I ask myself that question A LOT!)

I'll be honest, I am a little nervous to post this... I am afraid that someone, or someones, will take it the wrong way, not read it and try to see my heart and just... well... pre-condemn... but not posting was getting to me too...

So I was in a church last night and everyone was getting very fired up about Proposition 8... I live in CA and Prop 8 is referred to as the "Marriage Protection Act". It is an initiative to have the state constitution amended to include a clause that would define marriage in the state as "between a man and a woman". Now I have no problem with the state defining marriage this way. It is the only way that I believe marriage should be. Period. However, the church's stand on the issue is what makes me very sad (I was honestly fighting to not release this emotion during the meeting as my eyes welled up...). I am still a little emotional about it, so this may come off as an incoherent rant, but I felt compelled to try...

It seems to me that there is just a lot wrong with this whole thing. Don't get me wrong, I am against unions between anything that isn't "one man and one woman" for many reasons, and I am certainly against making it socially acceptable, or in having my (potential) children hearing in school that marriage comes in many forms and they are all "good and beautiful" or whatever will be taught, but this is just as much about the church as it is about the Proposition...

I don't even really know how to start it off. To me it just seems too crazy... The first thing that hit me I guess was this thought... "I have been going to this church and others off and on for a long, LONG time and this is just about the most fired up I have seen people/leadership in a church get, and for this? Really? Not that it shouldn't cause some emotion, but of all the terrible things going on in the world, children starving, Christians being martyred, governments oppressing people, etc., this, THIS is what is going to push a church(es) into such a widespread, all encompassing, fired up, fasting, praying, protesting, spending machine?! Really? (Did I mention that I drove into this church onto uneven ground for the 4th straight week as they are re-doing their seemingly good parking lot by completely tearing it out... granted I am not completely certain of the circumstances of the re-do but... ...sigh...) It makes me sad. There are millions, probably billions of dollars being spent on various things surrounding this Proposition including conferences, speakers, airfare to and from, flyers, commercials, salaries, time off work (if we are talking "gross" economy, and why not?), yard signs, bumperstickers, etc. The amount of actual social change that could be made globally with this kind of an effort astonishes me. And it is all being spent to tell people in essence to get out and vote the way that they already are going to vote anyway. (It reminds me of the recent national conventions where the candidates stood up in front of thousands of people that were already going to vote for them, to encourage them and convince them that they should in fact vote for the person that they are already voting for.) It seems like a colossal waste to me. How many thousands of children/families could be shown the love of Jesus with a hot meal... for an entire year?! I think of those commercials for the agencies advertising that you can feed and clothe a child for under $1 a day... (The most recent I saw, just last night in fact, was for $24 a month...) Think of just the plane ticket sales to travel to a prayer conference for 100,000 people... You do the math... I even read one source that said that just the campaigning for both sides would total over $30 million. Just the campaign funds! I wonder what God thinks of it all...

It also makes me wonder if the church had been doing its job, perhaps this Proposition (not to mention others) wouldn't need proposing. Here is the deal, I believe that Christianity not only makes sense, but that it works and that Jesus is the ONLY way. It is one of the only things that I have found that does make sense. So if the church had been out loving hurting and confused people, showing them the light, showing them Jesus, then maybe the church and what it stands for would have more sway, would be more powerful in the realm not only of politics, but society as a whole. If the church was out showing people, and loving people, and demonstrating to people, true love, God's love, then they just might not feel as strong a need to go looking for love in the places they do. I don't think of homosexuals as evil, they are people just like the rest of us that want to both love and be loved. And let's be honest, with the way that society and even the church treats marriage these days, what is being defended? What about all the vows, taken before God, VOWS, that have been broken? Really? This Proposition is the thing that is going to awaken the church from its slumber and get "organized and mobilized"?

And on that point, part of me wonders if good could come if the Prop. doesn't pass (not that I will vote against it, or that I think anyone should), part of me thinks it could be better for the church if it doesn't pass. Too many times I have seen the church get behind something like this and once it is voted on, and they get their way, the issue is swept away and forgotten again. The ISSUE here isn't going anywhere, and there will still be people living, actually LIVING, the same way whether the proposition passes or not. The issue won't leave, the sin won't be expunged by simply voting a phrase into a state's constitution... The work will not be over, in fact we could probably say that the Proposition itself likely will give no change TOWARDS Jesus in anyone's heart... In fact, perhaps it will push some away from the church, away from people that could show them Jesus... Yet another ...sigh...

A problem that I have with the idea of the previous paragraph is that I worry that there are churches that do not feed enough spiritual "meat" to their congregations for the congregants to understand the implications of the Proposition not passing. In other words, I worry that churches may not have built up enough faith in their congregations to withstand such a Proposition failing to pass after all the effort and prayers and fasting and faith put into it passing. There could literally be people whose faith would be shaken enough to not know what to do with themselves, or with God, if the loud public prayers not only of themselves, but of so many others, don't seem to come to any avail. I could picture a lot of "Why would God allow this to happen?" perhaps in a extreme case being followed by, "Who is this God? Is He real? Doesn't He care about what is going on? Etc." It is a scary thought, but I had it... I live for a God that has already decided history, and has a plan for it all. Not to say that I shouldn't live my life the way that He has called me to, or that we shouldn't vote because God has already decided, etc. but to say that He is in control, and will be EVEN IF the Prop. doesn't pass and some unions will be termed "marriages" that are not between one man and one woman.

While, once again, I am generally opposed to the actions involved in marital unions that are not one man and one woman, I wonder what kind of a message the church is sending with hitting so hard on this Prop.? What are the people looking for that want to be "married"? And what is the Proposition trying to stop? Let's face it, the behavior is not the issue in the Prop. The sin is not the issue in the Prop. The actions/lifestyle are happening and will continue to happen basically unchanged regardless of any phrase in the state's constitution. So homosexuality itself is not even really being defended by the Prop.'s opponents, that isn't the question. The question is the rights of "married" couples and who gets to be called "married". A legality. Again, not the actions, or commitments, or lifestyle. So what do people that are opposed to the Prop. think of the church? Remember, they are not in the church, they are in the world. Their motives would appear to be to love the person that they love and join in a binding commitment to that person and to have their loving commitment recognized publicly. They would see the church and proponents of the Prop. as opposed to their rights, and why would anyone want to oppose rights (in their eyes)? It doesn't make the church look too good. I might even say that it could push the people looking for the Prop. to fail further away from wanting anything to do with the church, and everything the church stands for... I wonder how Jesus would have handled it? I don't know that the Prop. would have been an issue with Him in and of itself. He would have opposed the sin, and I would say that the legal contract of "marriage" is not the sin, or the title "marriage", it is more of a symptom of the sin, so stopping the "marriage" doesn't really accomplish much besides giving some people more reason to dislike those that voted for the Prop. and consequently, the church. Imagine someone having been shot and an infection spreading to their arm because the bullet was never removed. A doctor comes in and amputates the arm, but leaves the bullet in. What did he really accomplish? How would you think of that doctor? Do you see what I am getting at? Again, I am not saying don't get out and vote, but I am saying that it probably shouldn't be the only thing we do, and it shouldn't be the most public, the thing that the church is known for... (On a very related side-note, "domestic partnerships" are already legal in CA. Basically this is "marriage" without being called that WORD... But it is a legally binding commitment between 2 people affording many rights and has requirements including that it must be between 2 people that do not have other "domestic partners" and are of the same sex or one of them is over the age of 62.)

To think of it, I am fairly bothered even by the fact that the church even feels that it needs to keep pounding into its congregation the way that it should vote. Shouldn't the church be giving a sufficient foundation to those that attend for them to already have the info on how to vote? They should know! They shouldn't have to be reminded on "how" to vote, even if some may have to be reminded "when" to vote. Does the church not have enough faith in its congregation, and by association then, in itself, to know that they will know the right choice?

I guess after all this, I am just not really sure what to think... And I really don't think I can keep going (not because I am done, but because it wears me out...) At some point, my disappointment in "the church" at large seeped in, and it became apparent that the real issue isn't necessarily the stance on Prop 8, but that is more of a symptom of where things are at, a sign of what is going on and one that seemed to work to allow voice to other concerns that are touched by this issue... Basically, you could probably replace "Proposition 8" with any number of superficial hot-button issues of the time. This happens to be a current one... I do at times have a hard time understanding what "the church" is doing these days... Must be time for some more prayer...


At the risk of sounding a little... at the risk of going against my reputation... I am listening to Brooke Fraser at the moment... I have once again found myself with a weakness for a girl and her piano...