I am still stunned that I have to argue why we must be kind, compassionate, and inclusive to people who are different than us and live among us in our nation and in our world. I am not saying you have to do this in your personalized gathering space. I am saying this must be done at large for our human existence to thrive and survive. That is not toxic. It is life-giving, abundant, colorful, and joyful. It is how we connect, learn, and adapt to one another in the universe that God created good and in love. It is good news to be around different people who experience life and love differently than us. It helps us experience our own lives with a different lens. We grow to love ourselves more when we experience others and learn from their distinct perspectives and lived experiences. I want to throw the word toxic away and never use it again unless I am talking about the actual toxic waste that is not associated with humans, and human needs—love, empathy, and compassion are never toxic. They can be disordered but never toxic. I used to say toxic masculinity and feminity, but I do not anymore because it has not been helpful or loving. It makes people feel like their character and worth are being attacked, not the principality they are guided by.
Because a person in seminary has asked me how I became affirming of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and still feel I am within the bounds of God’s desire for creation, I am going to be a little more theologically academic in this post. I am tired of people believing in a God who would throw Their own creation away if they don’t conform to some made-up rules, so I want to talk about our definition of “Love” culturally and how we might be able to rethink what it means to love as God loves using scripture. Since the people we are up against believe they are the authority on scripture. I would like to meet them with their own source. But also know this, not everything in scripture is loving. We can talk about that later.
I wish the Bible had been clearer that the ultimate goal of love is for humanity to be restored completely in love—with Self, God, and Neighbor. That is the Holy Trinity to me. When I wrote my Credo in seminary, I made a case that the Bible was doing that, but, like most things, when it gets lost in translation and too familiar, people forget or don’t understand what it means or says. Here is what I wrote in one of my Facebook posts a few years ago to explain how I came to that conclusion:
John 1:11, which is part of John's prologue, in Greek says this:
εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον.
NRSV translated: He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him
It is difficult to discern how profound this verse actually is without studying its original language.
Remember, Greek is an inflective language--the words are feminine, masculine, or neuter. So, look at the word τὰ ἴδια in the verse. That is the neuter plural form of ἴδιος, meaning one's own. Now look at οἱ ἴδιοι, which is the masculine plural of the same word. My professor, Dr. Wan, asked this question: Why did this verse use the plural form of the same word in two different ways?
We came up with the idea that Jesus came into all of creation (all of creation belongs to God, so a plural neuter form would make sense here), but it was not all of creation who rejected him; it was his own people who did, so a masculine plural form is used. (it is a patriarchal language; the plural of all people defaults to masculine. Boo!).
So, I applied this verse to what Paul is saying in Romans 8:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies
I said that creation is waiting for humanity's repentance. Mary's "Yes" to God represents the prophetic yes that all creation awaits. Christ represents humanity's healing and restoration. But humanity rejected him.
What is the sin of humanity?
We reject Love. And we reject Love often b/c we do not know what Love is. You cannot give or accept what you do not have or understand.
Love is unfamiliar when the world is fragmented—by design. Our systems and the people at the top who run them profit when we hate ourselves and each other. God is the tyrant we must endlessly and restlessly prove ourselves to, and we will get God confused with our leaders and treat them like the God we believe in when we disconnect from ourselves. Our needs do not matter. Only God’s (the leader’s) ways matter, and God (the leader) can never be wrong, but if the leader is wrong & foolish, God is using them through their foolishness and remains sovereign and in control. It is never a call for them to repent. It is a way to get obedience without question and for people to be as cruel as they want to those they feel are not in alignment with God (their leader) without shame or reflection. This is why many among us cannot repent. We cannot know love without repentance. The amount of love we give is directly correlated to how much we have allowed ourselves to be forgiven—from sins we commit and sins committed against us. They cannot repent b/c they do not understand it. How could God (the leader/caretaker) ever be wrong? If they are wrong, then it is an existential threat to their entire worldview. How we view God very much affects our psyche and behavior towards others. It is not our belief system that drives our behavior but our capacity to love and have compassion. Donald Trump reveals the lack of love in most of our culture—business, religion, and government. I have empathy for all of this, and it is healing, not toxic. This is why I write tirelessly. I care deeply about everyone—even the nationalist authoritarians. God desires and is crying out for their healing and redemption, too.
What is also so wild about all of this is the people who believe in this theology of being disconnected from God until we get things right also believe in human supremacy in God’s design. Stuckey writes about that in her Abortion chapter. They look at the poem in Genesis 1, a poem of God creating, and when God gets to humans, God calls it very good, not just good. So, we matter more than any other part of creation based on that, according to Stuckey and many others like her. Oy!
It is frustrating when people explain the Bible and get books published and lots of money for it when they are not theologically trained. I understand there are those who do go to seminary (SBC seminaries) who may come away with the same conclusions, but those who go to seminaries, like the one I did, that allow for questions and have professors who specialize in research, not just teaching, will typically come out a lot more well-versed in what scripture says and why. I believe going to seminary for a theologian is as essential as it is for a doctor to go to med school. Our work is to heal, not cause death! We should be taking an oath to do no harm b/c this text is well-respected and revered worldwide and allowed to be in the hands of people who are not trained. That is a good thing, but it is also a serious thing, and they need trained teachers to save them from irresponsible interpretations that will cause harm and not love to their neighbors and creation. There will be violence and absolutes whenever people believe something is sacred and without error, leaving no room to be challenged on their interpretation or that inerrancy is a later concept that was developed to justify slavery. How we interpret anything, not just the Bible, literally affects people’s lives. Beliefs do not just stay in belief form; they become a way of life and how one views the world and everything in it. And that can be a source of terror if the way of life is authoritarian and they gain control of all the systems. That is happening now.
There needs to be a historical study of the text to understand the context of why passages were written and to what audience. The Genesis poem at the beginning of the Bible is not a literal story. It is a creation poem (creating instead of violently resisting) to counter the Ancient Near East texts that told a story about creation coming from warring gods who used humans as slaves to do their will (Enuma Elish). They, the people of Israel, were victims of that text. The ultimate goal was Babylon. Our scripture is telling a different story, one where Babylon is not the desired end but the place you go when you have messed up royally. And humanity and God are in a relationship, and God sees humans as very good. This was their vision to get out of the hell they were living. It is a text making humans more important than they had been viewed before. Our scripture is a deeply human story. Now, there are different traditions of writing included in our scripture—there is a contrast between those who wrote about God in the Kosmos (Genesis 1-2:4) and God with us (Genesis 2:4-24). You may find when studying scripture, God seems more reciprocal in the traditions that wrote about God with us, not just over us.
Why are there two different creation stories side-by-side telling different stories? Having two creation accounts in a row gives us an imagination of God being in control of everything and humanity working with God in the work of creation. It is not either/or but both/and. And these aren’t the only two creation accounts—creation stories are all over scripture. Proverbs 8 is my favorite with Lady Wisdom. A feminine voice included in creation who delights in humanity.
With that said, I want to talk about Stuckey and those who endorsed her book using the verse about calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). This is the verse they are using to say people with toxic empathy are using to make them feel bad for not advocating for social justice—for anybody. She believes her extreme stance of not endorsing the behavior—can’t even be polite about it (Preston Sprinkle)—is love. And we, those who disagree with her and advocate for the people she is advocating against, are not showing love; we are being emotionally manipulated. It makes me so angry reading that statement because her book is full of emotional manipulation. And if you have ever listened to evangelical music—that is the epitome of emotional manipulation. Feeling real feelings is not a sin. We are emotional beings; it is good and necessary to feel them and process them. But manipulating emotions to create a desired end, even if it is worshipping God (A god made in their own image), is a problem. She is projecting her own issues onto those of us who disagree with her. Sh
She says we are telling them they MUST agree with us. No, we actually aren’t. We are asking for no laws to work against the people she is writing about. Her theology is in our public laws and policies. That is what we are upset about and why they are hearing from us. She can do and believe whatever she wants in her church. She is actually the one saying we can’t disagree with her, and I say that because she is putting her stances in our laws, not because she just hypothetically believes this. This is why I am taking her on with the source she says is the end all be all to our lived existence—the Bible. I am tired of arguing with people who believe we are being mean when we are just asking them to take their theology out of our laws. Living with diverse views is required of all of us. I do not protect my kids from their views. We just talk about it, and we do it with grace. Most of the time. We are human.
It is time to end this post. I will write about her chapter on “Love is Love” tomorrow, but I wanted to talk about Love and creation in a way not many hear or get to study in their churches. What I learned in seminary is far too disconnected from our houses of worship, and I would like to help bridge that gap. And I am getting to at the First Congregational Church of Norman.
When you are calling death good (Stuckey made a case for the death penalty being okay b/c you can make a scriptural case for it—even though Jesus was literally killed by the death penalty and an empire calling the death penalty good news, too) and love evil b/c you love the “wrong” people. I think you might be the one suffering from a disordered theology. Not the people with “toxic empathy.”
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