How should I respond as a Christian and as a father raising four children to the dramatic shift in attitudes towards marriage occurring in our culture? Another far more well-known father, who also proclaims himself to be Christian, announced a little over a week ago his support federal recognition of same-sex unions as equivalent to marriage (i.e., "Gay marriage"). President Obama's announcement suggests the broad acceptance of this idea as clearly as any national poll. The fact that there is such broad acceptance means that a large proportion of Christians, regardless of denomination, must consider same-sex marriage as acceptable. But doesn't the Bible speak so clearly against homosexuality as a sin? Am I promoting prejudice and bigotry by rejecting same-sex unions as immoral and teaching my children so? Surely, there is no way that I can avoid teaching my children about marriage because their views on this matter will be shaped with or without my influence.

As I meditate on these questions, I remember how far short of the Christian ideal of marriage I stood in my early adulthood. For much of my teen years, I wholeheartedly accepted tenets that are counter to traditional Christian morals including 1) that marriage was not a sacred union that should precede sex, and 2) that there was nothing wrong or immoral with homosexuality. Indeed, I thought myself bi-sexual even while I lived with a women for nearly five years outside of wedlock and had a son by her. Even more to my shame, I was addicted to pornography the entire time that I was in that relationship. It is with absolute sincerity that I thank God for 14 years free of my pornography addiction. Nonetheless,  the consequences of those behaviors remain in the form of an estranged former girlfriend and an indifferent adult child. Thus, I reject placing judgment for I am certainly not the one to cast the first stone. My motivation for thinking this issue through is that I am also the father of four beautiful children, three of them teenage boys, and it is my responsibility to instruct them in what is right both by my words and my actions.

This brings me back to Obama's pronouncement of approval for gay marriage. His words punctuate a very significant juncture in American popular culture. For he is regarded as the chief representative of the United States, and his official vocal acceptance will signal to many nations that the US now views such unions as a fundamental right to be respected by all free nations. As justification for his so-called shift in opinion, he cites the many brave gay men and women who serve our country, some of which have died defending it. Clearly, as he reasons, the heroism and self-sacrifice of such individuals cannot be justly recognized while denying them the right to marry whom they would choose, even if that means redefining marriage as it has always been understood in our country. So, he presents his argument for same-sex marriage using the language of the civil rights movement. A tried and true strategy that has been very successful over the past three decades in eroding our nations confidence in the immorality of such unions.

As an American, and a civilian who never served in the military, I acknowledge the great sacrifice of our service men and women. It is Memorial Day as I write this and I am glad to remember the sublime service of those in the armed forces. I also think that it must be true that many brave soldiers, who also happen to be homosexual, have and are laying down the great sacrifice to protect our nation and its people. That being said, the fact that our troops deserve honor and respect does not mean that I should support altering marriage to enshrine what I believe God has spoken of as evil. Should I also say that because many adulterers served and died in the military, marriage should be redefined to allow adultery?

Before I go farther, let me clarify that I am not a conservative evangelical trying to point out a sliver through log lenses. As I said above, I claim no special right to judge, for it is true that I now am arguing againbst what I once would have applauded. However, I do so because God's grace through Christ freed me and renewed me. It opened my heart to God's  truth which I learned from and lived out with other believers. My love for God, and my hatred for the destruction of the sin, compels me to speak against the lies of our age that  destroy so many families. By faith I understand homosexuality to be a sin, but one no better or worse than other more popular sexual sins such as adultery, lust, and fornication.  This truth is testified to by three witnesses, God's Holy Word (both Old and New Testament; see footnote); the Apostolic Tradition of the Church starting from Peter, John, James, and Paul; and the Holy Spirit who has granted the grace of wisdom and purity to my marriage, and led me to write this essay.  If you read on, understand that I  write this because I believe that many other evangelical Christian fathers are struggling with this issue right now. The stance we take now during our generation, and our justification for that stance, is a very imporant for the sake of our children and grand-children.

There are two major topics that I have had to think through while considering what to teach my children on this issue. The first is the gay marriage movement's association use of civil rights arguments, and the second is the fact that many Christians today support gay marriage. With respect to the first topic, I think that one of the reasons why  the "gay marriage is a civil rights"  argument has been so successful is that it preempts discussion of personal morality by focusing on the question of personal liberty. The assumption underlying this argument is something like "regardless of the morality of homosexuality (and how dare we judge such a thing anyways?) individuals are entitled to live as they desire so long as it does not harm others." A similar assumption seems to have been behind a great many events which, in my opinion, have led to the moral confusion prevalent today - regardless of the morality of [pornography, divorce, fornication, and adultery]  (and how dare we judge such a thing anyways?) individuals are entitled to live as they desire so long as it does not harm others. The civil rights argument, once so noble for its purpose in righting the injustice of racial prejudice, now causes personal liberty to trump morality, and moral judgments rooted in faith to become bigotry.


With respect to the second topic, I know from experience that Christians have done a great deal to promote the gay marriage cause. This has been a sin of commission by the liberal Christian church (to which Obama has belonged to in the past), and one of omission by current day evangelicals at all levels of service. In the former case, I once got into a discussion on this topic with a group of young University of Washington students traveling on a transit bus on I-5 to the University District. At one point in the trip a young man pointed to the large Episcopalian church at the top of Capital Hill and said "I attended a wedding of two men within that church just a short time ago." His point was that, if one of the largest Christian churches in Seattle approved of gay marriage, than clearly, there must be some support for such unions in the Bible and apostolic tradition. It must be ok, right? I have found the latter case (the sin of omission) remarkably prevalent in the evangelical communities that our family has visited and served in over the years. In my experience, the topic simply is not spoken about in church or from the pulpit. It might get mentioned at small groups outside of church or men's retreats, but I have not heard a unified voice on this issue, nor outspoken concern at the aggressive promotion of the gay lifestyle in popular media, nor a reasoned discussion of how the evangelical Christian community should respond. Many voices are silent during what little discussion I have been present for. Often, I suspect, out of respect for a family member, friend, acquaintance, or church attendee  who is living a homosexual lifestyle.

I think that it is very important to get back to the basics and untangle the current confusion. Morality should trump liberty for a person who confesses Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. This is because the model for living the Christian life is Jesus Christ, who chose to suffer and die in obedience to the Father. Indeed, as a Christian I am given the honor of following Christ's example and sacrificing my selfish and sinful will to become a "slave to righteousness" (Romans 6:18). Homosexuality, whenever mentioned in the Bible, is identified as an issue of purity. If I am a Christian, then the virtue of purity is something that I have the privileged of seeking to obtain because I am no longer a slave to sin. Since, I have captured a glimpse of the "breadth and length and height and depth" of Christ's love (Ephesians 3:18), I want to hold to God's standard of sexual purity. Whatever my own actions in the past, God's standard is clear from the Bible -  sex is sacred and is intended to occur within the lasting, God ordained, covenant of marriage. Marriage between a man and women is sanctioned at least twice in the Bible (by God in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2) and Christ during his ministry (Mark 10)). Nowhere in the Bible or Christian tradition is homosexuality sanctioned, much less same-sex marriage .

There are many Christians, especially in the liberal camps (i.e., those who believe in a historical Jesus but not the Nicene creed because they believe the Gospel to be more tradition than truth), who now question the fundamental understanding held throughout all of Christian history that  homosexuality as immoral. After all, perhaps people are "born that way" (i.e., with an attraction to the same sex) and, if so, God must have intended it. The real issue is love, which is the highest virtue according to the Bible. Thus, if two men or two women want to commit to a long lasting love relationship, why shouldn't it be called "marriage" with all of the blessings assigned by God and man to that covenant?

This argument is directly from the devil, for  just like the arguments used by Satan to tempt Jesus while he was wandering the desert, it manipulates the Holy Scripture to put God's authority into question. The answer I have arrived at after much thought has two parts, a question and a reminder. The question to the person who thinks that homosexuality might have been willed by God is if they have ever really thought through what the homosexual lifestyle entails. As I alluded to above, I learned about the male homosexual lifestyle from first hand experience during the years that I was addicted to pornography and unsure of my own sexuality. For males, it is an extremely risky lifestyle. For example, I once spent a summer in Orlando Florida. One eventing as I walked through Lake Eola park admiring how the sunset reflected the Orlando skyline off of the peaceful waters of Lake Eoly,  I passed an outdoor auditorium. A large number of people had gathered there listening to an announcer read names. He read 10,000 names, each individual a gay man who had died for HIV/AIDS within the past year in that community.

That event occurred in the mid-1990s when anti-retroviral therapy was just barley coming to market. Objective proof of current day risks can be found in a report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention for 2012:

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM)¹ represent approximately 2% of the US population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV. In 2009, MSM accounted for 61% of all new HIV infections, and MSM with a history of injection drug use (MSM-IDU) accounted for an additional 3% of new infections. That same year, young MSM accounted for 69% of new HIV infections among persons aged 13–29 and 44% of infections among all MSM. At the end of 2009, an estimated 441,669 (56%) persons living with an HIV diagnosis in the US were MSM or MSM-IDU. (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.htm)

As insensitive as this will be for a few who read this essay, a gay lifestyle requires homosexual sex, which for males is simply unnatural and unsafe. A recent epidemiological study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22522237) states recent data on the actual risks when compared with heterosexuals:

•  "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that HIV and early syphilis rates among MSMare >40 times higher than those among heterosexuals." (MSM = men who sleep with men, i.e., homo- and bi-sexual men)

To put this in context, consider the aggressive campaign against second hand smoke that is going on currently all across the country. This campaign is based on evidence indicating a 20-30% increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease and lung cancer in those exposed to second hand smoke (CDC facts on second hand smoke). This risk increase is absolutely minuscule compared to the increased risk of HIV infection for gay and bisexual men. Moreover, the risk is increasing among gay males, not decreasing. For example, the CDC notes:

Whereas new HIV infections were relatively stable among MSM overall from 2006–2009, they increased 34% among young MSM—an increase largely due to a 48% increase among young black/African American MSM aged 13–29.

These figures only scratch the surface. Gay men are more prone to numerous other health conditions and it is completely unreasonable for a Christian who believes  Jesus' proclamation that He came to give us life abundantly  (John 10:10) to also believe that He would will such a harmful way of life. There are also those who state that legalizing gay marriage will reduce these risk figures. I invite them to live among gay men for a time and see how prevalent promiscuity is. While there have always been partners in the gay male community who take up long lasting relationships, it is by far the exception rather than the rule (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22522237:

• "Among MSM, 86% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 72% of 35- to 39-year-olds formed a new partnership during the previous year, compared with 56% of heterosexual men and 34% of women at 18-24 years, and 21% and 10%, respectively, at 35-39 years"
• "MSM were also more likely to choose partners >5 years older and were 2-3 times as likely as heterosexuals to report recent concurrent partnerships"

The acceptance of gay marriage might encourage many gay male couples to make a stronger commitment to each other, but how far can it really go?  While it appears to inevitable occurrence for our country, the benefits of accepting gay marriage do not outweigh the risks because it also means officially sanctioning the homosexual lifestyle, regardless of marital status. This can only lead to more youth exploring the gay lifestyle as popular music, television, and print media increase promotion of the lifestyle.

I said above that I have two parts to my response to the argument "gay marriage is just a love issue because gays are born that way by God's will." The second part is a reminder that a fundamental element of Christian faith is belief in original sin. Biblical support of original sin includes the story of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and verses from both the Old and New Testament such as "Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned" (Romans 5:12), "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) and "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). To be sure, original sin is a deep  theological issue, a thorough discussion of which is not possible in this blog post. However, the doctrine is both explicit in the Biblical verses mentioned above, and has been held by Christian church going back at least to St. Augustine (http://temporaryvisitors.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/original-sin/). The key point I am making is this:  if we as Christians believe in original sin, then we must also believe that God does not allow much room for the "I was born that way" argument. God's reply is this:  His Son's blood on the Cross shed so that we do not have to be enslaved by how we were born. Indeed, the writer of Hebrews puts it best when saying "For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted." (Hebrews 2:18). Knowing his verse has helped me many times  over the years to overcome temptation to return to the lost ways of my youth.

My original question was how should I respond as a Christian and as a father raising four children to the dramatic shift in attitudes towards marriage occurring in our culture? The answer to this question is not easy and I am interested to hear the opinions of other evangelical Christians (regardless of denomination and including Catholics).

Footnote: The Bible contains both explicit and implicit condemnation of homosexuality (see http://www.witnessfortheworld.org/homont.html for a more complete list):

• Explicit: 1 Cor 6:9-11, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Deut 23:17, 1 Kings 15:11-13
• Implicit: Matt 19:1-8, Romans 1:18-32, Galatians 5:19, Jude 1:4,7,19, Genesis 1:27, Genesis 6:19, Genesis 9:4-13,

Transcendence in matter, evolution, and the universal church

Paul Erbrich, a Jesuit priest and professor emeritus of natural philosophy, proposes in Creation and Evolution: A Conference with Pope Benedict XVI that "evolution as a whole is goal-oriented .... For phylogenesis is an orthogenesis, a development toward a higher level ... an ever greater emancipation from the constraints of the environment, certainly not for every species of living thing, but for the front-runners in the evolutionary crowd" (p 74) (http://t.co/vfg14jII). I think that Erbrich presents a key to integrating scientific investigation into origins with the Christian understanding of creation by a loving God. The universal church as understood in modern orthodox Christianity is a higher level of organization than natural human families; an organization that links the Triune God, his Saints living and dead, with all humanity. Christ initiated this Church during his ministry and intended it for all people. One might construct a hierarchy of transcendent organization starting from the church, passing through all living creatures, and down to the smallest known sub-atomic particle. It would be interesting to analogically link this hierarchy, if it could be developed, with the "Arrow of Complexity" hypothesis that is being explored in silico by Artificial Life researchers. One issue they have found is that transcendent organization does not seem to occur beyond what can be thought of as in silico viruses (http://t.co/xYXgsET1). Perhaps the main barrier here is that the simulations are done with Von Neumann Machines (the architecture of all commodity computers) which have known computational limitations. Such simulations might need to occur in computers with novel architectures that mimic the information exchanges occurring in the sub-atomic sphere of our our natural world before the "Arrow of Complexity" is demonstrated to a more convincing degree.

Forming the conscience

For the past two years I have been walking through what I call a "mid-life spiritual crisis." I did not recognize it as a "crisis" (a crucial stage or turning point in the course of something, Wordnet) until only a couple of months ago but, in retrospect, can trace its beginnings roughly to the 2008 US presidential election season. The major themes that resonated with me during that season were improving the health care system and expanding coverage, ending the war in Iraq, and dramatically changing our domestic energy policy in an effort to reduce our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. My support of these policies was shared by many Americans but not, unfortunately, by many of my church friends and acquaintances. While opinions certainly varied, many thought that a proposal to expand health-care coverage was really a government takeover in disguise, that the war in Iraq was God-willed, and that global warming was a farce. Many other folks simply preferred to not share their opinion or perhaps felt that the issues were too complex to take a particular position.

For all of my Christian walk I have considered myself evangelical but not fundamentalist. In other words, I believe that the Bible reveals God's truth and is sacred, but I do not hold that every word in the Holy Book is sacred truth. This is especially true with writings in the Old Testament such as the creation stories (Genesis 1 and Genesis 2), the story of the fall of mankind (Genesis 3), the entire book of Job, and a fair number of seemingly legendary accounts in the historical books. As a scientist who has studied molecular biology both academically and as an analyst in a major cancer research center, I am familiar with the mountain of evidence that supports the proposition that all physical life as we know it evolved from a common life form which, itself, was the result of pre-biotic evolution. However, I am also aware that science as we know it pre-supposes a strictly material universe and is of little or no use for exploring topics, such as faith, that transcend nature.

I will discuss in other writings the profound experience that led to me to dedicate my heart to serving Jesus Christ. The most important point I wish to emphasize is that my faith in Christ as Lord and Savior is fixed and unshakable as it has been confirmed by such an overwhelming act of grace -- by Christ's life, death, and resurrection I have been transformed from a life devoid of hope to one of intense and lasting joy. I am alive and living an abundant life because God's truth about sin and His loving desire to free the sinner and bring him/her into a new life in Christ. As awesome as this salvation is for me personally, I would also desire to grow in my understanding of God's will on contemporary issues that face us daily. When I go into a voting booth what should be my stand on health-care and war? What should I teach my children about sex outside of marriage? Is abortion ever justifiable? Should I agree as a scientist with the popular proposal that embryonic stem cell research is good? Is same-sex marriage moral?

Seeking solid Christian teaching answers to these questions and others is good because, by doing so, I am seeking to develop my conscious so that I can better discern right from wrong, the true from the false. Moreover, seeking Christian answers to these questions is my responsibility as a father, husband, and the spiritual head of our home. I have probably sat through over 500 church services in the past 12 years and I do not ever recall hearing solid biblical teaching on most of the questions mentioned above. This may be entirely appropriate since our focus as a congregations should be on glorifying the author and founder of our faith and the Bible is clear that we should avoid divisive arguments. However, what about other Christian venues such as retreats or book studies?

In general, evangelical book studies are focused on understanding spiritual truths from the Bible. This is a wonderful thing and I have done some excellent studies such as "Experiencing God" and "The Purpose Driven Life." However, these spiritual resources generally do not provide specific answers about the major questions facing our society today. Their focus tends to be on improving the personal experience of salvation. Retreats are similar. The one men's retreat that I went to that had a discussion of science and morality had, as a guest speaker, the director of the "Discovery Institute"; one of the leading organizations promoting Intelligent Design. While I have respect for the sincere motives of this organization, their stance on evolution fails to account for pre-biotic forces at work on Earth and potential pre-cursors to cellular life such as systems of self-replicating amino acids or RNA. In my opinion, their group is emblematic of the organizations that apply fundamentalist views of the Bible to scientific topics -- such groups resist truths about the natural world that have been uncovered by sincere scientific endeavor because they worship the Book as much, or more than, the Word.

Is there anyone who understands scientific truth (truth about the material world) for what it is but can also teach me the implications of Christian revealed truth. Can anyone speak authoritatively about Christianity in this day and age of relative truth? My "mid-life crisis of faith" has been a search for such a teacher who can help me mature in matters of Christian faith in the modern world. To my surprise, I have found such a teacher in the Catholic church, and especially certain writings of Pope Benedict XVI both as Pope and as Cardinal Ratzinger. For example, reading Dignitas Personae and the Declaration on the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells convinced me of the value of human life from conception to natural death and the evils of human embryonic stem cell research. Moreover, I found from recent search for teachings on the same topics on the official United Methodist, Presbyterian, and Vineyard websites that these groups either have no teaching on the topic or are completely unwilling to offend anyone by holding a teaching that is Biblically-founded. I found the same to be especially true on the topic of same-sex marriage.

How ironic that that same church that consigned Galileo to home imprisonment is now the only source I have found for well-reasoned, Christ-centered, witness on contemporary moral issues -- especially those involving science! How peculiar that this same church promotes exactly the positions that resonated so strongly with me in the 2008 election while taking a clear standing against the political and theological forms of liberalism that are currently undermining family and faith in America today. Moreover, I have learned from continued study on the church's history how little I really knew about the heritage we Christians have going back to the church of Acts. Catholic teaching has helped me to understand how the Bible can be both the inspired source of God's revealed truth while containing elements that should neither be taken literally nor thought of as divine intention. None of this completely resolves my "crisis"; I have not decided to convert to Catholicism -- I am holding such a dramatic decision out until I study the Reformation more thoroughly. However, I am grateful that in the midst of my "crisis" I am continuing to grow in my Christian faith.

Since we have the obligation to obey our conscience, we also have the great responsibility to see that it is formed in a way that reflect the true moral good - United Stated Catholic Catechism for Adults, 2006

The Christian idea of an eternal soul

I think that it is fair to say that nearly all Christians believe that each individual possesses a soul but what does that mean? If I were asked for a definition and constrained to answer on the spot I would say that a person's soul is his or her essence created by God. A soul is non-material but uniquely linked to the physical body that a person inhabits through their life on Earth. It is also destined to dwell outside of time and space in that transcendent reality we call eternity. As backing for my answer, I would refer to the Christian beliefs that all people will ultimately be judged by their creator, that the Gospels present Jesus as understanding that his sacrifice on the Cross would enable all mankind to receive forgiveness of sins that would lead to eternal life, and that Christians since the earliest times (as recorded in Acts and the Epistles) have looked forward to 'seeing' God's kingdom come in its fullness -- whether alive in new bodies glorified by God. Science cannot prove or disprove that souls exist since they are non-material therefore, belief in their existence is a matter of faith. However, if one accepts that souls exist and that my definition is satisfactory, then one might ask many other questions. One that I am contemplating right now is....

If nearly all Christians believe that a non-material soul is the real substance (essence) of the flesh and bone of human bodies, than why should a great number of Christians reject the possibility that Jesus' essence inhabits the consecrated bread and wine served at communion? Consider that it is a material reality that a human being's physical life begins at its conception and, from that time, the human is developing and changing. First to a viable zygote, then an fetus, then a complete human baby, and so on unto adulthood. The non-material reality that I think most Christians would agree with, is that a human being is, in actuality, an eternal soul. Is the transformation of the Eucharistic elements any more of a miracle than how, at human conception, flesh and blood takes on an essence vastly superior to the dust from which it is created -- a God-created, human soul. How profound that Christ would require all those who would follow him to "eat his flesh and drink his blood" (John 6:53). If the substance of the wine and bread is actually the Body and Blood of Christ than partaking of it is a deeply intimate unification of our souls with Christ's in both the spiritual and material realms.

What power was it that saved me

When my spirit was most broken my hope nearly extinguished I surrendered to the blind hope that there is a power in the universe willing and able to break the chains of addiction that held me. Slowly I gained confidence in this hope until it became the keystone of my new life. The universe responded to my prayer for freedom and little by little my faith became more solid. What power was it that saved me from self-destruction? What power welcomed me - a person broken by addiction and willing to harm others to satisfy my warped needs? What power turned my self-centered existence inside-out and replaced a foolish heart with one desiring wisdom. I see the face of this power that saved me in the gentle and loving actions of Jesus as described in the Gospels. He healed the broken and told them to sin no more. He sacrificed his life to restore the relationship between those separated from their maker. In his divine nature he was and is the very image of God - the power that saved me and in whom I continue to place my hope.