Working with Our Hands

I've had 3 separate people tell me this week that I should write more often. Not on this blog, specifically, just writing in general. So I'm starting here. I've got a ton of ideas, so I just have to pick one.

Let's go with one that's been on my mind a lot: 1 Thess 4:11-12. I'll quote it here:

"...and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."

This is a verse that comes up in the article I linked to in "Living the Life," and it's one I've been thinking about a lot lately. It's a verse that I think is particularly relevant in America today, because for all we like to proclaim (loudly) that we're being pushed out of the public sphere, we're really not. Yes, non-Christians are becoming more numerous and vocal, but to say that they're taking over is like a teenager literally believing that the playground equipment has shrunken since she was a child. Christians, in this country, still have POWER. Yet because we have power, and because we have always had it, we seem to think that we're entitled to it. "America is a Christian country!" we shout. We'll do whatever it takes to keep it that way.

BUT
It seems to me that increasingly, "whatever it takes" is meaning standing on corners with offensive signs, legislating other people's morality, shaming those we don't agree with, and generally making nuisances of ourselves. We think, "I'm doing God's work." Are we? Are we minding our own business? Are we working with our hands?

Take, for example, the abortion question. This is one place where I don't tend to side with the liberals and feminists - I DO think it should be illegal, and I DO think that it's not a question of religion or morality, but one of human rights. HOWEVER, I would argue that we've lost that one already. It was illegal, there was a court case, now it's legal. Now we're trying to make it illegal again. The truth is, the government is not a good or a permanent solution. If we change it away, it will change back again, and the larger problem is still not being dealt with. In the meantime, we're making fools of ourselves at best, and at worst we're being unbearably cruel. The truth is, people don't just wake up one day and decide to get an abortion. It's not a decision that is made lightly. The truth is, women wouldn't be getting abortions if they didn't have enough problems already. So what do we do? Do we picket outside abortion clinics? Do we harass women and doctors? Do we spend money, energy, and eternities of time trying to change laws? Do we lie to women to get them to conform?

OR

Do we do what we can to help people get the help that they need? If we want to stop abortions, we need to make KEEPING a baby a reasonable choice for someone. We should be working with our hands - not to shame someone, but to give them hope. Not to stop death, but to encourage life. That means baby bottle drives, volunteering at pregnancy counseling centers, being helpful and available to women in your congregation, adopting kids all over the damn place. If we must take it to government, maybe we should switch to focus to paid maternity leave, higher wages, and other things that make it easier for people to afford children. Before we ban abortion, we should make sure that there are actual, reasonable alternatives. The church is meant to be a place of giving and helping.

I was really touched by a story in Gabe Lyon’s book The NEXT Christians. Gabe and his wife, Rebekah, have a child named Cade who suffers from Down syndrome. It’s no secret that somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 percent of pre-diagnosed Down syndrome babies have been aborted since Roe vs. Wade. Saddened by this reality, instead of making signs and militantly picketing abortion clinics in protest, the traditional route of conservative Christians, the Lyons family created a booklet called Understanding the Down Syndrome Diagnosis. The booklets addressed the concerns of parents-to-be, pointed them to resources for help, including the phone numbers of parents who had raised Down syndrome children, and displayed beautiful photos of loving families with Down syndrome children who were enjoying quite normal lives. They then got volunteers to distribute the booklets into every ob-gyn’s and geneticist’s office in metro Atlanta and got doctors committed to be thoughtful in how they delivered the Down syndrome diagnosis and to offer these booklets as part of the process. While it’d be difficult to measure the effectiveness of such an endeavor, most anyone would understand that such a tool would at least likely cause a frightened young woman in a doctor’s office to pause longer before making such an important decision. --James Hein

Another battle we need to acknowledge that we've lost is gay marriage. For this, I tend to fall on the side of the liberals and say, legalize it! Yes, it's a sin; No, it's not any of my business. My religion should not dictate your freedoms. I consider that if I want to get a blood transfusion or celebrate my birthday (both "sins" of the Jehovah's Witness religion); if I want to eat a cheeseburger (Jewish sin), I ought to have that right, because I'm not Jehovah's Witness or Jewish. By protecting your religious freedom, I am protecting mine. I honestly can't think of a good non-religious reason to ban gay marriage. I've seen articles that try to do it, but they were all pretty terrible. In terms of the religious argument, though, that's an argument to be had amongst Christians, not in the public forum (<-- PS. If you follow NONE of the other links, follow these two. This guy sums up everything I would have to say on the subject, and they're just wonderful summations. Seriously, read them). Legalizing gay marriage will NOT destroy marriages and families in America, because they are already destroyed. It makes us come off as tremendous hypocrites. Forcing people to conform to your morality will not save any souls - it'll make people bitter about Christianity in general, for one thing, and for another, God doesn't give a crap if you follow his commandments without faith. Do we think that we'll change people's actions and then move on to their hearts? The amount of hatred leveled at homosexuals has meant that 1 in 3 - 1 in 3 - of them attempt suicide. It's kinda hard to convert the dead, don't you think?

SO

Rather than hating and shaming homosexuals, rather than wielding the tremendous power of Christian political conservatism against them, what should we do? First, we should be working to convert - actually convert - as many people as we can. Second, we should be working to prepare, support, and fix as many of our own Christian heterosexual marriages as we can. As my mother's marriage falls apart, I can see how much her church has failed her and my step-dad in this respect. They both reached out to the church for support and guidance and got jack squat in return. Maybe they just have a crappy church. But if we, as Christians, want to support and protect marriage and families, we should support and protect marriage and families. Third, we need to own our own sin. We can't pretend that we're any less sinful than the homosexual. We can't pretend that laziness, worry, and self-absorption aren't "lifestyle sins." Jesus chose to hang with tax collectors and sinners, rather than the pharisees. It's not because either group was less sinful, but one group owned their sin, while the other tried to deny it.  He was trying to tell us that no one is unsaveable.

"Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutination." Charlotte Bronte

One thing we need to do is acknowledge what we're actually doing. We say we want to save babies, but all we're really interested in is controlling people. We say we want to save marriage, but all we're really interested in is controlling people. We're trying to shift the blame and the responsibility from ourselves, from society, onto the people who need our help.  I call bullshit.

I have more to say on this verse (not that this is, in any way, even remotely, an exegesis, just that the verse sparked a bunch of thoughts), but I'll save it for another post.
Sorry again for all the links - they're not necessary to the understanding of my points, but useful for further research, if you're into it.