the tindog coffeehouse

I’ve been angry and bitter all week. Disgusted, really. As the Supreme Court heard arguments in a couple of highly controversial cases involving same-sex marriage, people all over the country showed their support for gay marriage on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. But it wasn’t just non-Christians turning their profile pics red, it was many Christians as well. And that’s what pissed me off.

I know that we Christians aren’t always going to agree on everything, but the fact that so many Christians not only support same-sex marriage but endorse it just doesn’t make sense to me. How on earth can you read the Bible, claim that you believe what it says, and yet not find anything reprehensible about homosexuality, particularly when the Bible is extraordinarily clear in its opposition to it?

So I’ve spent the week fuming at my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, angry that they’ve chosen political correctness over biblical truth, and despondant over what that means for the future of the Church. If we choose to no longer identify sin as sin, then the gospel means nothing.

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I was baptized the summer before my 9th-grade year. At a Wednesday night Bible study my best friend’s dad asked me if would accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I said yes. He led me in a prayer and then told me I needed to get baptized, so that’s what I did. That Sunday at the end of the worship service, I walked to the front and told a deacon what my friend’s dad said, and the next week I got dunked.

That was it, I thought. I’m a Christian now. But I was plagued by doubts for years. I was raised in church my whole life. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in Sunday school at Oakwood Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, learning about Noah’s Ark from a silver-haired old lady and singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children”. Yet I had no idea what it really meant to be a Christian. I thought it was kinda like being Jewish; if your parents were Christian and if you believed in God, then that meant you were a Christian, too. I never doubted God’s existence or that Jesus died for my sins and rose again on the third day, but no one ever explained that that’s only Step 1.

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Sunday is the premiere of The Bible on the History Channel, and it looks amazing. Described as a “10-hour docudrama”, the miniseries from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey recreates the biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation in stunning high definition. Which sounds awesome. But here’s my question: What if it’s not historically accurate?

From the previews, it looks pretty accurate. I mean, Jesus doesn’t have blue eyes, so that’s a plus. But it’s the little things, like the Magi visiting Jesus in the manger when he was a baby (which didn’t actually happen until he was 2-3 years old) or Moses’ lack of a speech impediment. Do those things matter?

Or am I just being picky?

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So the world is supposed to end on Friday, which kinda sucks. But I suppose it works out well for the folks who still haven’t done their Christmas shopping yet. I’d hate to know that I spent my last days on Earth browsing the clearance aisle at Walmart trying to find just the right sausage and cheese gift set for that special loved one.

Of course, the Mayans really didn’t say the world would end on December 21, 2012. It’s just the end of a Mayan “b’ak’tun” or long count cycle that began 7,885 years ago. But the way people have been freaking out lately, you’d think the world really was coming to an end.

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Five years ago I wrote a blog post about whether a presidential candidate’s faith should be considered when voting. I said that it should because his faith (along with his personal beliefs and convictions) is an indicator of how he would govern.

In the post I specifically addressed Mitt Romney and explained that I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him because of his Mormon religious beliefs, beliefs that are out of line with Christianity. But my opinion was largely irrelevant. By the time of the Republican primary in Texas, John McCain had already secured the GOP nomination, and my disagreement with Romney was a moot point.

That is, until now.

Five years later Romney is the nominee, and I have to ask myself if anything has changed. No, I still vehemently disagree with Mormonism, but I don’t exactly agree with much of the Democratic platform either. Which leaves me in a quandary. Do I vote for Romney because I disagree with Obama’s beliefs, or do I vote for Obama because I disagree with Romney’s beliefs? Or do I stay home and watch reruns of Seinfeld?

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“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

– Matthew 11:28-30

It’s been a tough week. As I mentioned previously, not only did my kids start school last week, so did my wife, beginning her arduous journey through nursing school. With three different people in three different schools, we’ve had to make a lot of adjustments to stay on top of everything. Chaos, it seems, is the new normal.

With so many demands of our time and energy, it’s all just seems so overwhelming, not just physically but emotionally as well. All four of us are exhausted, and it’s only been one week. Surely, it has to get easier.

Right?

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