I'm Going To Beat You with Your Bible (Prop. 8)

October 16, 2008 | Category: Nearer, My God, to thee

When I started at Loyola, I thought I knew what "The Bible said".

After all, I was a baptized & confirmed Episcopalian who'd been to Sunday School all my life, volunteered for every kind of committee, and attended over a dozen retreats. I'd even made one regrettable attempt at singing in the choir (which I've promised to never, ever try to do again.)

That made me an expert, right?

Yeah, not so much.

First day of one of my required Theology classes and the teacher, a Jesuit, started writing things on the board. "Marriage is for the weak." "Lobsters are evil." "Be a good slave."

He picked a student, and asked him: "What do all these statements have in common?"

The kid, being quick, said: "They are all in the Bible?"

The teacher nodded.

We all looked at the board and at each other. You just knew after that, it was going to be an interesting class.

And it was.

According to the teacher, "The Bible says..." is a lot like saying "The encyclopedia says..." To attempt to live by the values of it, you must actually know the books, their authors, their contexts, their base languages.

And you must be willing to make very difficult choices.

Because the Bible? Is not a cohesive document. It is a kaleidoscope whose many interpretations have, in turn, launched many faiths and religious ideologies over the centuries.

A guy named A.J. Jacobs recently wrote a (very funny) book about his attempt to live the Bible as literally as possible, and it highlights quite well why people must be interpretive.

So, with that pretty exhaustive preface, I submit to you that, by and large? California has nothing to do with me. I live in Illinois, have no say about how they run things over there other than to choose not to join them.

But man howdy, you wouldn't know it to see my email inbox.

As a radical, Bible-loving Christian, I have been informed, ordered, told, instructed, exhorted, and shamed into registering my support of Proposition 8; which would ban Same-Sex Marriage.

Despite the fact that I am NOT a Californian and have no vote, I feel like it's time to take a position.

Because of that teacher, long ago, I could probably sit and debate - from Genesis through Corinthians - God's idea of marriage as represented in the Bible. But because of that same teacher - I learned an even more important lesson.

I can't speak for God.

I can only speak for myself.

The Bible is contradictory and baffling collection, and I must choose how to understand it and define my faith. That is my responsibility, and gift - Free Will.

So here it is:
I am a radical, Bible-loving Christian woman and I believe that any two people who love each other worth a lifetime should never have the right to get married taken away from them - no matter what race, religion, or gender.

God is love. Anyone who says different is just trying sell me something.

/Thus endeth the soapbox.

(P.S. Dad Gone Mad says it much better than me. Of course, he's more liberal with the F-bomb, too.)

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