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An Indifferent Universe

There is a Lutheran pastor, here in the Twin Cities, who has been railing against gays.  As it turns out, he is gay.  There is neither virtue nor vice in being gay, or in being straight, just as there being neither virtue nor vice in being male or female, tall or short, brown-skinned or pink-skinned.  We find ourselves where we are; what we are.  There is scorn for being a hypocrite, though, even if being a hypocrite is just a way to hide. 

What is worse is some of the other things the same bellicose Lutheran pastor says and believes.  When the organization of Lutherans the pastor used to belong to (he apparently opted out about nine years ago) voted to accept gay people to be pastors, and when a storm did some damage to a large Lutheran church of that synod, our hero announced that God was striking them down for their decision to accept gay and lesbian pastors. 

I am still trying to understand how granting legal marital status to gays is a threat to me, or to marriage, or to anybody.  If a Lutheran congregation wants to hire a gay or lesbian pastor, that has precisely the same importance for me as if they decided to hire a short, dark-haired male, or a tall, blond female or, for that matter, someone with six toes.  It has nothing to do with me.  However . . . if it is true that God goes around hurling lightning bolts at church steeples, that worries me!

Suddenly, my world has changed.  Lightning is not just lightning, any more.  It is a weapon of God.  Tsunamis are no longer just erratic waves created by a shift in tectonic plates:  they are God's wrath.  If Yellowstone blows its cork, again, that will not simply be uncontrollable magma bursting out:  it will be God, furious at gays, I suppose, or straight people, or maybe just at our negligance in observing the Sabbath, or in showing some small interest in alternative gods.  Suddenly, the next tornado warning means that God might be coming for me!  The world will become a very dangerous place!  A storm cellar is not safe from God!

If earthquake zones are just the consequence of tectonic plates grinding away, impartially, unthinkingly, we don't have to feel that the universe is coming for us personally, methodically, relentlessly.  We don't have to live in Iceland or Southern California unless we want to.   But if God is going to track us down, heaving lightning and lava at our churches or houses or Toyotas, we don't have a chance!  "Just as I am, without a chance. . . ."

Given a choice, I certainly prefer an indifferent universe.

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