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Arguing with Dining Room Tables

When an attendee at a political gathering asked Barnie Frank
why he continued to support what she called Barack Obama's
Nazi policies, Frank asked her, in return: "On what planet do you
spend most of your time?" He added: "Trying to have a conversation
with you would be like arguing with a dining room table."

Evangelical Lutherans are meeting in Minneapolis, trying
to figure out what to say and do about gay and lesbians,
especially those who want to be ordained to the clergy.
Like a lot of other people, some Lutherans want to call
homosexuality a sin. That is precisely like calling
heterosexuality a sin. It is like calling being tall, or short,
a sin. Maybe being born a Caucasian is a sin.

We must ponder these truths!

Anyway, some of the Lutheran delegates know sin when they see it,
and they know what truth is when they hear it, and they know
just exactly what God thinks about ordination in the 21st century.
Curtis Norbo, from North Dakota, explained the problem:
"We are asked to affirm a description of sexuality based on a reality
that's shaped not by Scripture buy by today's culture."

Curtis Norbo does not seem to understand that what he calls
"Scripture" is a description of sexuality based on the culture
of Jews and Christians in Palestine several thousand years ago.

I don't know why Barney Frank's comment about arguing
with a dining room table comes to mind, but it does.
St. Paul's opinions are the word of God, but whatever is said
today is influenced by the culture we live in!

It is not worth arguing about, but it is true, nonetheless,
that some of our Biblical heroes owned slaves, had a thousand
concubines, multiple wives, thought pork was sinful, that women
should be stoned for . . . well, lots of things, believed that
handkerchiefs could cure diseases, and that demons caused
epilepsy, but that Jesus could send the demons into pigs.
If we said things like that were OK, today, Barney Frank
might wonder on which planet we spent most of our time.

Culture wasn't invented in a psychology lab in 1969.

As for me and my house, we would rather know that all
of our opinions are culturally-shaped, and not the word of God.
We need, always, to examine our cultural norms,
and to ask hard questions about them; to do better when we can.

Only dining room tables never need to change their minds.

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