Focus On The Family & The LGBT Community: Can A Bridge Be Built?

The following are excerpts from two Huffington Post articles, the first from October 16th and a response from November 2nd:

1) "Focus on the Family, the former evangelical powerhouse of the Religious Right that was known for its vitriolic campaigns against gay rights, same-sex marriage and abortion -- its founder James Dobson once compared gay-marriage advocates to Hitler -- is taking a sharp turn away from culture war-style politics and widening its goals to include everything from immigration reform to decreasing poverty and increasing adoptions and foster care opportunities, its top leader said in an interview with The Huffington Post.

"It's fair to say we have concentrated on some things that have distracted from the main thing, which is the Gospel of Christ," said Jim Daly, the president and CEO of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based organization and host of its "Focus on the Family" radio program, which reaches about 2 million people weekly across 1,000 stations.

Daly, who in a book that comes out Tuesday tells conservative evangelicals to be "careful to not create a 'super sin' out of homosexuality," said in the interview that he has worked behind the scenes to broaden the organization's appeal since taking the reins of its flagship radio show two and a half years ago from the outspoken Dobson. Daly likened the changes to a generational shift in priorities and style. In ReFocus: Living a Life that Reflects God's Heart, Daly writes that while he still believes homosexuality, same-sex marriage and abortion are sinful and immoral, Christian conservatives need to realize they "may not win many battles" and should "not [be] engaging to win" but to "reflect God's glory."

The softening may reflect a response to a shifting religious and political landscape in the U.S. Daly admitted that when it comes to gay rights and same-sex marriage, young Americans, including evangelicals, have increasingly said they support both. A Pew survey released last week showed that for the first time, less than half the nation is Protestant and one in five Americans has no religion. Among those who have no religion, who tend to be younger, the survey found that they believe churches are too concerned with money, power and politics. At the same time, those with no religion said churches play a positive role in caring for the poor.

"When you are in the culture of doing good deeds, taking care of the poor, taking care of the widow, the orphan, not as a means to something else but because this is what true religion should be doing, even the nonbeliever would say, 'Look at that," said Daly, 51. "There is a certain respect that comes from that."

Read More Of This Article @ Huffington Post

2) From Justin Lee - gaychristian.net

"Dear Jim,

You recently told The Huffington Post that you wanted to take Focus on the Family in a different direction -- away from making "a 'super-sin' out of homosexuality" and similar distractions from the good deeds that "true religion should be doing."

I'm thrilled to hear that. I truly am. See, I'm a passionate evangelical who grew up with Focus on the Family. You could say that I was one of your biggest fans. I wrote a piece for Breakaway, your magazine for boys; owned many tapes of Adventures in Odyssey, your radio drama series; and learned about puberty from Focus founder James Dobson's book Preparing for Adolescence.

But there was one thing that none of that prepared me for. When I hit puberty, I didn't develop attractions for girls like my friends did. My attractions were for guys.

For years, I refused to call myself "gay." ("I'm not gay; I'm a Christian!") I'd heard Dr. Dobson talk about sexual confusion in adolescence, so I assumed this was just a phase I had to wait out. Over time, I prayed more and more fervently for God's intervention. It got to the point that I was crying myself to sleep, night after night, begging for God to take away my same-sex attractions and give me opposite-sex ones.

My attractions never changed. God didn't change them. My faith didn't change them. Prayer didn't change them. Nor did therapy, time, or dating girls. Focus on the Family sent me materials about "ex-gay" ministries. Those didn't change my feelings either.

Through all of this, I remained celibate. I kept believing I would become straight someday, if I just kept trusting God. Eventually, though, I had to face the fact that it might not, and that even if I never dated or had sex or kissed anyone, I would always be, well, gay.

And that one realization is what changed my whole life.

Because, you see, the message that my pastors and parents and Christian friends were getting from Focus on the Family was that gay people chose to be gay -- or that, at the very least, we'd been exposed to some kind of abuse or trauma that had made us gay -- and that if we wanted to become straight, it was just a matter of trusting Jesus. By now, I'm sure you've heard enough stories to know that it doesn't work that way. But I still remember the letters Focus sent out to homes across America endorsing that idea -- letters endorsed by Dr. Dobson and "homosexuality and gender" specialist John Paulk, who was repeatedly held up as an example of how a gay man can successfully become straight until he was photographed in a gay bar.

Those letters hurt me. They hurt Christian kids all across this nation. Not only did we read them and feel like something was horribly wrong with us; our families and churches read them and trusted what they heard from Focus over what we told them about our own experiences. So many of us -- me included -- were kicked out of our churches and Christian groups simply for admitting that we were gay. And let me tell you, when your whole life is wrapped up in the church, and the Christian community you so love turns its back on you, it can be devastating. I became suicidal. Thankfully, I never followed through on those feelings. I know some who did."

Read More Of This Letter @ Huffington Post

Why I'm Wearing A Poppy This Year

Three days ago I participated in a small gesture which only takes 2 to 3 seconds and which hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of Canadians participate in each year. I placed a few coins in a box, took a red and black poppy from it, and pinned it to the lapel of my coat.

Yesterday while riding the transit system a man in his 50's made a point to thank me for wearing it. Was he a veteran? Was his father? Was he just patriotic? I'll never know. I gave him a kindly nod as we got off the bus.

When you read the title of this blog, perhaps your first question was "Why wouldn't you wear a poppy?"

I haven't worn a poppy on my jacket for a few years now, and there are a few reasons/thoughts/questions that I've had for not doing so:

• Are we glorifying war each November 11th when we pay homage to those who have fought in our country's name? 
• Are war veterans any more heroic than our peacekeepers?
• Has Canada steered away from peacekeeping to fighting in wars?
• Are we teaching our children that those who fight are somehow more honourable?

These and others are loaded questions for sure. This year, however, I have come to a couple of different conclusions. Firstly, I've realized that my all-or-nothing approach to poppy-wearing probably has to do with being bi-polar (the either-or nature of the illness). For several years I chose not to wear one.  If I take a broader, more inclusive approach, I can see that I can honour those who have died for Canada's (and others) freedom as well as being committed to peacekeeping.

I also must realize that the vast majority of people who honour our veterans, and the veterans themselves - of WWII, Korea, Afghanistan, etc), are not glorifying war. They know first-hand that war and strife are hell, and they want peace just as much as I do, if not more.

I continue to have the attitude that we must always work tirelessly for peace, here at home and abroad. That is what Canada is known for. In a column in today's Waterloo Region Record, conflict-intervention trainer Matthew Bailey-Dick talks about the Suez Canal crisis of 1956, when France, Britain, and Israel "lurched toward an all-out war against Egypt over who controlled the Canal." The UN Security Council convened its first emergency session of the General Assembly, acknowledging that it "had failed to maintain international  peace and security."

Canada stepped up to the plate.

"Future prime minister Lester Pearson, then Canada’s minister of external affairs, led the Canadian delegation as the assembly met late into the night of Nov. 3. Based on earlier meetings with other international diplomats, Pearson decided that the UN was prepared for a daring proposal.

In the early hours of Nov. 4, Pearson stood before the general assembly and presented resolution A-3290, which called for the establishment of “an international peace and police force” that could intervene in the Suez conflict, thereby creating space for a political solution.

The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of Pearson’s resolution, and this set the stage for the United Nations Emergency Force — the UN’s first peacekeeping force, which was deployed in the following days. For his tireless diplomatic efforts, Pearson received Canada’s first Nobel Peace Prize."

So, on this Remembrance Day 2012, I want to honour those who have died for freedom, while remaining committed to the Canadian value of looking for peaceful solutions in global conflicts.

Lest I Forget.

Mark Andrew Alward

It's Hallowe'en 2012! How Will We Dress Jesus Up This Year!?

Jesus - aka. Son of God, Messiah, Jewish Rabbi,
Radical Liberator, Radical Feminist, Wise Teacher 

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

~ Clive Staples Lewis, Mere Christianity, 1952

It was a full 60 years ago that these words first appeared in print after a series of BBC radio talks between 1942 and 1944 by the man who would go on to write about Aslan, Lucy, and Mr. Tumnus. I believe that I still have Mere Christianity in my possession.  I also believe that someone has tried to use these words against me as I argue for a Christianity or spirituality that does not lead to featuring a Jesus who claims to be Lord and Saviour of all mankind. My answer to them: Is this all you can come up with? Really? A poached egg, devil, or a lunatic? These may be the only choices that Lewis saw for Jesus, but many scholars from his time and on to today believe there are many other possibilities when it comes to identifying who and what Jesus actually was.

I don't collect a lot of clutter, but yesterday I came upon an issue of Maclean's magazine from March 31st, 2008, with its main cover being a face of Jesus and the title "Jesus Has An Identity Crisis." I found it quite interesting and it only re-enforced my view that over the course of 2,000 years we have shaped Jesus - who had already been shaped by Biblical writers and church orthodoxy - into our own preferred images. For 20 some-odd years I had blindly taken what the Christian scriptures said word-for-word, with little use for historical accuracy or how the Bible was constructed. After all, I didn't need to! As the old hymn says,

"Trust and obey, for there's no other way,
"To be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey."

This is okay if blind faith works for you, but if it doesn't, the question of who Jesus was gets a lot murkier - and more interesting. A few ideas of who Jesus might have been:

1. A rabbi with a new approach to Jewish law who was hijacked and "Christified."
2. A teacher of great insight
3. Someone who said less than 1/5th of what we read in Scriptures (according to The Jesus Seminar, a popular and controversial group of Jesus scholars).  Jesus did not refer to himself in an exalted way ("I am the way, the truth and the life," for example), about the church’s hierarchy, and about an apocalyptic end to the world. Instead it was more about how to establish the kingdom of God on earth.
4. According to author Rex Weyler, who draws on what some scholars have defined as the oldest versions of three “collections”: the Gospels of Mark and Thomas, and the Q sayings, Jesus speaks of seeking his kingdom within yourself, forgiving others, and loving your enemies.
5. Human prophet
6. Political revolutionary
7. Radical feminist
8. Radical liberator
9. Much of the supernaturalism surrounding Jesus was fabricated. For example, modern historians sweep a lot of conservative biblical belief away: there was no virgin birth (it is only found in 2 Gospels, and St. Paul, with his earlier writings, had no time for it); There were no wise men, no choir of angels – all were retroactively applied by his followers.

"After his death, it took more than three centuries of often violent contention, suppression, and historical contingency before answers emerged that still define mainline Christianity: Jesus was the Messiah, the son of God and the Virgin Mary, both fully divine and fully human; crucified for our sins, he rose from the dead and will come again to judge humanity. That legacy still dominates Western responses to Jesus today.”

And here we've just talked about Jesus; we haven't even touched upon Christ, a whole other topic.

For a long time, a vast expanse of Christians sitting in their pews were happy to be spoon-fed what the Bible and their pastor/priest was telling them about Jesus. For many, that is simply not good enough anymore. There is a heightened curiosity - no, need - to do their homework and to answer for themselves the question that the New Testament has Jesus himself posing to us: "Who do you say that I am?" Here's what I can come up with this afternoon off the top of my head:

• I'm not even sure that Jesus actually lived, but I'm going to go with the belief that he did.
• Jesus was born to two fully human Jewish parents with brothers and sisters.
• Jesus was not perfect.
• Titles such as The Son of God, Messiah, King of Kings, and Redeemer were placed onto Jesus by his followers either while he was still alive or well after he had died. I still find it curious that we give him theses titles even though he always seemed to deflect praise when people tried to heap it upon him.
• Jesus did not see himself as dying for the sins of the world. 
• Jesus, I like to think, was a humble teacher who said things to groups of people that made them stand up and take notice (i.e. love your enemies).
• Jesus was a Christ. I understand that to mean that he had the divine spark within him, just as we each can have the divine spark within us. This quality was not unique to Jesus, though it may have stood out to those around him. The language that "the kingdom of God is within you" is antiquated for us, but that may have been Jesus' essential message.

Many people still find a lot of value in being followers of Jesus. I am currently on a journey to discover anew who or what I think Jesus was. But he will not again be the person that makes me acceptable to God or who saves me from a doomed eternity. There are oh so many other intriguing options than for me having to throw myself at the feet of a man who we know so verifiably little about.

Mark Andrew Alward

The Democratic Rot In Canadian Politics

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Here's an interesting article on the state of Canadian politics for my fellow Canadians as well as readers south of the border:

by Michael Den Tandt

Is Canadian democracy sick? Anyone who watches Question Period daily would have to say it is. Democracy is on the canvas, laid low by the one-two punch of abusive prorogations and omnibus bills. The cretinous din of what passes for debate today in the House of Commons is a constant reminder that this is so.  (There are exceptions: more on that later).

Can the problems be fixed? Again, the consensus is yes. There’s no shortage of proposed remedies, geared to restoring Canadian Westminster-style democracy, or even improving it beyond what the fathers of Confederation imagined. Some are complex: Others are straightforward, and could be inserted into any party’s policy kit.

But do the parties want reform? Here, we enter trickier territory.

Conservative MPs would like to have more sway within the Harper government. In unguarded moments some will grouse aloud (but off the record) about the whippersnappers in the PMO, barely out of short pants. Cabinet ministers can’t much like the fact that, through the Privy Council, this PMO wields influence directly on the senior bureaucracy. Ministers today are spokesmen and women for the government – not decision makers.

There’s nothing cabinet ministers can do about this though without losing their jobs, or worse. Former minister Helena Guergis serves as an abject lesson. The prime minister will stand by most ministers through thick and thin, despite their mistakes: That appears to be the main benefit, for them, of ceding power. But if and when a minister gets ditched, it’s all the way and for good, with no hope of redemption. So, forget about seeking reform from within this government.

Read Full Article @ The National Post

Laying Aside The Drama On A Perfect Autumn Day

4:00pm - Victoria Park, Kitchener, Ontario
Music: Bonnie Raitt - Slipstream, Joni Mitchell - Blue

It has been a glorious afternoon. It is 4pm and for the last almost-three hours I have been planted on this park bench in Victoria Park, with the great clocktower in sight and a couple kids kicking a ball around. Earlier, policemen on the horseback unity paraded around the open field. I'm almost 60 pages into a book I've never fully read through.

It is often very hard to truly enjoy the simple, good things in life around you when you are ill or when you have a lot of drama in your life.

There is a difference between illness and drama; sometimes they are inter-linked , sometimes they are not. In any case, I've seen both in my life. And when illness or drama is around, it's hard to enjoy the little things. I've written a lot about illness, so I think I'll pass on that today. For these illnesses we often need therapy and medications.

But then there are dramas, like patterns or relationships that we've fallen into for months or years, and they prevent us from being in the present moment. And we miss a lot.

We miss a lot when we're obsessed with thinking "does she like me or doesn't she like me" (for God's sake man, get it over with and either ask her or plant a kiss on her good and hard and get it over with). We miss a lot when we spend 15 minutes in the morning wondering whether "that sweater makes me look fat."  We miss a helluva lot when we wonder if what we said to our friend the night before was appropriate or not.

Drama, drama, and....wait for it....

More drama!

Today I am able to look around the open, spacious park, and a gust of wind will come up and blow golden fallen leaves across the pathway in ways that the leaves will never be blown again, and with a gust that will never again be blown quite the same way in quite the same place.

I look at the tree closest to me (pictured) and its rustic coloured leaves make me want to cherish it because I'll only see this once a year; I am comforted to now they'll be back next year.

I want to be as fully present as I can right now  here on this bench, in this park, on this perfect day.

Show Loving-Kindness. All The Rest Is Just Commentary.

8:10pm
Kitchener, Ontario
Music: Whitehorse - The Fate of the World Depends on this Kiss (2012)

Lately I've been wondering about something. For such a long time I have done a whole lot of reading about God. Who or what is God? What is his or her nature? How does God act? Who does God love? What pleases God? What makes God angry? Some people say that we unequivocally can find all of these answers in The Bible, but if you have respect for the billions of people in the world who are not Christians, it isn't that easy. They have their own texts as well. The Qu'ran, the Bhagavad Gita, and then we have the teachings of the Buddha. We also have humanists and atheists, who do not believe in a God at all.

I still find the study of God interesting, and recently announced that I was going to explore once again who I thought the person of Jesus was, by reading both conservative and liberal Christian authors; I have slowly begun this exploration.

But I wonder if it really matters. And there's no rush.

For one, there's no stopwatch as some may say. There's no threat that I must hold the right beliefs by the time I die or else I am doomed to some kind of eternal damnation. To me, this is a scare tactic - albeit a powerful one - that has been conjured up by church authorities to keep people in line, and is also a projection of parental control.

It all is quite exhausting, talk of denominations and why a United Church is now non-denominational, or how we can get young people more interested in God and church. Is a person saved upon baptism, or when she believes in her head or heart that Jesus is Saviour? Is God One or Triune? Are people born evil or good?

Blah blah blah.

And when leaders such as Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or Stephen Harper name-drop the big "G" these days, it's almost as yawn-inducing as when rappers used to do it at the Grammys.

I'm not saying that religion is completely irrelevant, but most of it is.

What if we filtered all the religions down to what they have in common and leave it at that?

• Islam - No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. ~ Sunnah
• Hinduism - This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you. ~ Mahabharata 5, 1517
• Judaism -  What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary. ~ Talmud, Shabbat 3id
• Christianity - All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. ~ Matthew 7:1
• Buddhism - Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. ~ Udana-Varga 5,1
• Confucianism - Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state. ~ Analects 12:2
• Unitarianism - We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person ~Principle 1

I am tempted to look into humanism and actually will do some exploration in that direction as well. However, I do still believe in something divine when I see the beauty of nature or a drop-dead gorgeous woman.

But other than that, how about we just treat each other with loving-kindness? As the Jews say, all the rest is just commentary.

Impermanence: We Are Part Of The Natural Scheme Of Things

Victoria Park. Kitchener, Ontario.  October 8, 2012

"Impermanence is the goodness of reality. Just as the four seasons are in continual flux, winter changing to spring to summer to autumn; just as day becomes night, light becoming dark becoming light again - in the same way, everything is constantly evolving. Impermanence is the essence of everything. It is babies becoming children, then teenagers, then adults, then old people, and somewhere along the way dropping dead. Impermanence is meeting and parting. It's falling in love and falling out of love. Impermanence is bittersweet, like buying a new shirt and yeas later finding it as a part of a patchwork quilt.

People have no respect for impermanence. We take no delight in it; in fact, we despair of it. We regard it as pain. We try to resist it by making things that will last - forever, we say - things that we don't have to wash, things that we don't have to iron. Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things."

~ Pema Chödrön,  When Things Fall Apart

My first reaction to this is that even though I know what Pema is saying here is true, I hate it. I just wish everything was perfect (according to me), and that it would stay that way. I wish that I would be in the perfect job with a well-functioning car and 2. 5 kids (maybe), in an eco-friendly home in a small village on the outskirts of a city. And above all, I wish that I was in a relationship with someone who was predictable enough that I didn't have to worry about "falling out of love" and that the relationship just came easy.

But, damn it, that's not the way that life works, and Chödrön knows it. Life is more like living in San Francisco where you are bound to feel tremors every once in awhile (if not a full-fledged earthquake) than it is living here in Southern Ontario where the ground is pretty firm.  Another analogy is the sea. Living life is more like drifting in the middle of the sea with all it's waves cascading up and down than it is about the children nonchalantly building sandcastles on the sand.

I still hate it. I still fight against it. But damn it it's true. And I would do well to learn how to accept it.  It doesn't mean I must now live a miserable life; it just means that I live in the rhythm of life rather than fighting against it.

Can we count on anything to last with a worldview such as this? Two truths come to mind:

1) I am loved.

2) I always have the choice to love others and to love life.

Beyond that, I'll try to learn to lay back and be carried by the waves.

Mark Andrew Alward