Comradeship in battle? Or company for dinner?

"David is struggling with loneliness. This often goes in hand with a life devoted to radical obedience and hardship. People pull back. You are uneasy to be around, and it is too threatening. It happened to Paul at the end of his life in prison (2 Timothy 4:16) and it happened to Jesus in Gethsemane….You know who your friends are when trouble strikes and life together is comradeship in battle not just company for dinner." (John Piper)

Honoring The Dead

We're often too shallow in our concept of friendship and too forgetful of the dead. Jerome on loving and honoring deceased believers:

"to me, the same religious duty applies to friends who are both present and absent, both men and women, who are now sleeping in Christ, that is, the love of souls, not of bodies." (in Thomas Scheck, trans., St. Jerome: Commentary On Isaiah [Mahwah, New Jersey: The Newman Press, 2015], p. 820, section 18:1 in the commentary)

Friendship Across Time

I've sometimes cited H. Clay Trumbull's Friendship: The Master-Passion (Birmingham, Alabama: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2005) and Carolinne White's Christian Friendship In The Fourth Century (New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002) as resources on friendship and how Christianity shaped people's views on the subject. See here for a post I wrote 16 years ago that quotes some portions of White's book.

I want to expand here on what both books suggest about how Christians (and others) of past centuries viewed friendship differently than it's often portrayed today. Contrary to what you often hear about friendship in certain circles in the modern world, including among Evangelicals, both books mentioned above provide examples of friendships maintained for many years between men and women who weren't romantically involved with each other, friendships maintained largely or entirely without the two individuals interacting face-to-face, a living Christian considering a deceased Christian he never met a friend, etc. Keep in mind that much of what you hear about friendship in modern contexts is shaped by the personal circumstances and preferences of the people discussing the subject, the nature of the culture in which they live, and other factors that can and sometimes do distort their judgment. It's helpful to get a broader view of friendship by reading about how it's been viewed by other cultures and across a larger span of time.

Just as we shouldn't start with an assumption that modern views are correct, we also shouldn't start with an assumption that earlier views are correct. But we should give those earlier views more consideration than people typically do.

The Light Of His Eternal Glory

"Indeed, it is adversity on the outside that is often the catalyst for regained fellowship with God on the inside (Ps. 119:67). In 1745 Boston pastor Benjamin Colman's daughter died, following the death of another daughter, the debilitating illness of his wife, and the death of his associate pastor. [Jonathan] Edwards wrote a moving letter to Colman with a desire that 'when you are thus deprived of the company of your temporal friends, you may have sweet communion with the Lord Jesus Christ more abundantly, and that as God has gradually been darkening this world to you, putting out one of its lights after another, so he would cause the light of his eternal glory more and more to dawn within you.'" (Dane Ortlund, Edwards On The Christian Life [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2014], 118)

Rejoice With Those Who Rejoice

Gavin Ortlund recently posted a good video about a principle in Romans 12:15 and some comments made by Richard Wurmbrand on the subject. What he discusses in the video shouldn't be our only or primary source of joy or something we're thinking about all of the time, but it is one good approach to take among others.

Thou wouldst rejoice to leave
This hated land behind,
Wert thou not chained to me
With friendship's flowery chains.

Burst them, I'll not repine.
No noble friend
Would stay his fellow-captive,
If means of flight appear.

The remembrance
Of his dear friend's freedom
Gives him freedom
In his dungeon.
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, cited in H. Clay Trumbull, Friendship: The Master Passion [Birmingham, Alabama: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2005], 374)

God's absence

1. I'm going to revisit the divine hiddenness argument. The basic idea is that many or most people don't experience God in the way they need, want, or expect. The argument operates on roughly two fronts. A typical presupposition of freewill theism is God's desires that every human being enjoy fellowship with God. Trust him. God wants everyone to be saved. 

But many human beings don't believe in God because they haven't had what they take to be a recognizable experience of God. It could be argued that there are many ways to experience God indirectly, which they fail to register, but the point is that from their viewpoint, if God exists, they should be able to experience him in a more personal, targeted fashion. They just don't recognize God at work in their lives. 

And this is a problem for freewill theism since, on the face of it, it would be easy for God to give them a recognizable experience of himself. So what's the explanation? 

One explanation is that it seems like God isn't there because, as a mater of fact, God isn't there.. Sppearance matches reality. We inhabit a godless universe. It isn't that God absents himself from people's lives, but that there is no God to experience. No one is home. You can keep knocking on the door, but the house is empty. 

Of course, a basic problem with that explanation is the abundance of evidence for God's existence. Indeed, that's one of the aggravating dimensions of the problem. Since there is so much evidence, not just for God's existence generally, but his activity in the lives of some people, why are others bereft?

Another explanation is to deny the universality of the freewill theist assumption. Maybe God doesn't reach out to every human being. Maybe it's not his desire every human being be in fellowship with himself. 

A freewill theist can also postulate postmortem evangelism, where God compensates for his absence in this life in the afterlife. Other issues aside, that has an ad hoc quality.

2. One complication is that many unbelievers say they aren't seeking God. They hate the very idea of God. They prefer a godless universe. If they though God did exist, that would put them in a state of psychological tension. 

3. There is, though, another comparatively neglected front to the issue. The problem is not God's unavailability to humans in general, unbelievers included, but God's unavailability to his own people: Christians and Jews. This is a common refrain or common complaint in the Prophets and Psalmists. So often, God is not available to us when we most need him or want his intervention.

4. That in itself requires some unpacking. In what ways to we need or want God to be available?

i) A cliche example is answer to prayer.

ii) Another cliche example is a sign from God. Not so much that we want God to solve a problem but we just want an indication that he's there, that he's still there. A confirmation that he's real. That he's there, he's aware, and he cares. That we're not totally alone. On our own in the world.

Could be very simple. An audible voice. Or a modest but unmistakable sign. 

iii) Apropos (ii), which may be the same thing or something similar, a hunger for God's "presence" or his "loving" presence in particular. What that means isn't entirely clear. It can be different from a sign. A sign is external to us. It may refer to a feeling: to be suffused with a sense of God's love.

Again, on this view, is God's felt presence in itself an experience of his love, or is the sense of divine love something over and above his felt presence?

5. This, though, goes to the larger question of how we'd like God to be available to us. How often do we feel the need to be in touch with God? Is this mainly in a crisis, or something routine?

Take Adam and Eve in the Garden, before the Fall. Did they feel they were missing something unless the Angel of the Lord appeared to them every day or every week? How long could they go without a divine visitation but be happy and content with each other, the garden, and their children to be?

6. To take a human comparison, consider a young couple riding on the crest of passion. They spend all their free time together. They can't get enough of each other. Yet that's not indefinitely sustainable. It loses its freshness.

Even people who are extremely close to each other can get on each other's nerves, or get bored with each other's constant company. Even people who are extremely close may need to have some time to themselves. They get tired of being together every minute of the day. They have to take a break. Have some time and space apart.

7. On a related note, an extended separation can intensify reunion. An extended separation can revitalize love.

8. Or you might have two brothers who were inseparable until they got married and had kids. After that, not only do they see less of each other, but the need for their mutual companionship diminishes because they now have compensatory relationships. The wife and kids provide a different kind of emotional sustenance. 

To some extent the brothers may even grow apart emotionally, not in the sense that they cease to love each other, but they're now invested in their own family. That develops a potential which was unrealized prior to marriage and kids.

If, say, the wives and kids were all killed in a traffic accident, the brothers might revert. Resume living together as bachelors. Become inseparable again. 

9. In what sense has God created us to need him emotionally? Do we naturally need to have God speak to us or appear to us every so often? Of is this mostly driven by the vicissitudes of life in a fallen world? 

Does God normally supply our emotional needs indirectly through creation? Through other people and natural blessings?

10. Of course, one problem is that in a fallen world we can't necessarily turn to each other for emotional compensations because sin puts a strain on our relationships. It makes our relationships a source of pain. Rather than filling the void of God's absence, it's another way to be hurt. 

11. I was a free range child. I used to go for long walks on my own, sometimes with my dog. It was a forested area with woods, ponds, streams, ravines, and lakes. A lot to explore.

I didn't need my parents to be available for me in the sense of having them around all the time. Rather, I needed to know that I had them to come back to. I had a home. I had security. It was (fairly) safe to explore the woods on my own. And if they weren't home when I got back, there was the confidence in knowing that they would return. Either I was waiting for them or they were waiting for me. There was no anxiety on my part.

12. There is something exhilarating about a divine Incarnation. That you're talking face-to-face with God. Looking into the eyes of God. At the same time, it might make you acutely self-conscious to be in God's presence, in such a palpable, immediate way. 

To take a comparison, boys are very uninhibited around other boys. Would it be inhibiting to be with Jesus? 

13. Because God is rarely available in ways we long for, it forces Christians to seek each other out and try to encourage one other in our joint pilgrimage. There's a bonding experience that occurs in situations of shared trust, stress, risk, vulnerability, or collaboration. There's a certain paradox when friends or Christians pool their collective helplessness. They cant do for each other what only God can do, but it can still be a maturing and sanctifying experience. 

What is Christmas?

There are standard definitions of conversion. With a focus on the before and after–especially the immediate aftermath (weeks and months following conversion). That's fine as far as it goes. 

But I'd like to discuss it from a different angle. In conversion, God brings us into his life. There are many analogies. 

Take an orphan who's adopted at 5-7. He's had a life of neglect. He knows what it's like to be lonely all the time. 

If he's adopted into a loving home, the adoptive parents take him out of the life he's know up to that point and bring him into their life. In some cases they travel to a far country to pick him up and take him back home to their home, his new home, a real home.He's suddenly exposed to all the things he instinctively longed for but didn't know existed.

Or take an adolescent boy whose home life is a hellhole. Then he's befriend by a classmate with a happy childhood. Up to this point the adolescent boy has only known the ugly side of life. Physical ugliness and especially moral ugliness. Physical and psychological abuse. 

But his friend, who sought him out, introduces him to a different side of life. Shares the goodness of his own life with the classmate. Exposes him to the joy and beauty of life.

Or take two well-adjusted teenagers who become friends. They have complementary interests. Each friend takes the other friend into his own life. Suppose one boy has an interest in science fiction novels. His friend isn't familiar with that, but enjoys it once his friend shares it with him. Suppose the other boy has an interest in a genre of music he's friend isn't familiar with, but enjoys that once his friend shares it with him. 

Another cliche is a couple to get married and make a life together. Some of these examples are like conversion. 

Which brings me to the title of the post. In Christmas Eve sermons it's typical for the preacher to say God came into our world as a child. And that's true enough.

But there's a neglected truth–in the opposite direction. At Christmas, God is coming into our world to bring us into his world. God shares his life with us. That's the meeting-point where God takes us out of our world into his world. 

Philadelphia and eros

Up until now I don't think I've said anything about the Revoice conference. That's in part because I don't care to watch the presentations. I thought Denny Burk's response was weak, for reasons I didn't understand. Now that I know he doesn't consider homosexual attraction to be a disqualification from Christian ministry, I understand why his response was weak. I'll comment on Wesley Hill's wrap-up. 

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/revoice-and-a-vocation-of-yes

He's a leader in the movement. Perhaps the intellectual leader:

...a crowd of mostly non-straight people—some four hundred strong—gathered for the first annual Revoice conference, an event aiming to help LGBTQ+ Christians thrive in their churches and families. Appearance-wise, many of the attendees wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow in Boystown or Brighton. Rainbow bracelets and body piercings abounded (one friend of mine sported rainbow-colored shoelaces to match the rainbow Ichthus pendant on his lapel). 

Flaunting homosexuality is one reason why Bible-believing churches are hostile to the Revoice philosophy. 

According to the “ex-gay” paradigm, far from being a biological or ontological identity, homosexuality is a condition. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and one of the people most responsible for transforming ex-gay experiences and testimonies into weapons in the culture war, wrote in 2002 that there “is no such thing as a gay child or a gay teen. … [Boys with a poor relationship to their fathers] have a seventy-five percent chance of becoming homosexual or bisexual.” Being gay was, in other words, a developmental disorder—and, for that reason, treatable.

i) I'm not qualified to have an informed opinion on the nature/nurture debate over the origins of homosexuality. However, Hill seems to dismiss post-natal environmental factors out of hand. 

ii) I don't know if homosexuality is generally curable. Compare it to addictive behavior. Treatment is successful for some people, but unsuccessful for others.  

iii) Likewise, the fact that some people kick the habit doesn't mean what they cease to find the addictive substance or behavior appealing. It just means they're no longer dominated by it. They can say no. .

I still recall, some time in the months leading up to my own admission that I was gay, listening to Mike Haley, an “ex-gay” speaker who then worked for Dobson’s organization, give a talk in a chapel service at Wheaton College about his conversion to Christianity. On the screen behind him were photos of his blonde, bronzed younger self from when he worked as a prostitute, emblems of his years of wandering in what he termed the “homosexual lifestyle.” Exodus International, at the time the world’s largest ex-gay organization, had described Haley this way in its promotion of his ministry: “Mike Haley was once addicted to homosexuality. Today he is a fulfilled husband and father.” When Haley concluded his talk by projecting a photo of him and his wife with their two sons, he received a standing ovation.

Does Hill believe that's sometimes the case? If so, then biological factors can't be the only explanation. 

I was never involved with ex-gay ministries myself, but I do remember asking my evangelical professors and pastors whether the outcome Haley spoke about was possible for me. I received equivocal replies. Perhaps my friends and mentors could sense my doubts about the plausibility of any clear-cut answer. On the one hand, I was frightened by the prospect of remaining single and hoped there was a way of avoiding that fate. On a Christian college campus where students joked about getting a “ring by spring,” looking ahead to adulthood without a spouse felt like peering into a long, dim corridor of loneliness. On the other hand, I knew the character of my same-sex desire: It had been inchoately there in my elementary school crushes, it had undergone no fluctuation during the storm of puberty, and now, in my early twenties, it seemed as exclusive and persistent as ever. In light of those givens, I was skeptical of the effectiveness of any therapeutic interventions.

Are "elementary school crushes" evidence that homosexuality is innate? How does Hill differentiate preadolescent gay "crushes" from straight boys who idolize alpha males? There are straight boys who view alpha males as role models. They want to be like them. They want to hang out with them. How is the evidence for that distinguishable from preadolescent homosexual attraction? Clearly it's different inasmuch as those boys grow up to be straight. So how can Hill tell his "elementary school crushes" were incipient signs of homosexuality rather than, say, nerdy young boys who wish they were jocks? 

Imagine being asked, “Have you tried this?”—where “this” always refers, by turns, to another book, another conference, another treatment center, another prayer ministry, another charismatic experience, or another counseling technique—each time you shared a story of pain and confusion with your fellow believers. Imagine that, and you will have an idea of what it felt like over the last several decades to be open about one’s homosexuality in traditional churches. Along with many other Christians who chose to acknowledge their same-sex desires in conservative Christian circles from the 1970s onward, I did try many of the suggestions my friends gave me. I saw counselors and received prayer. I read books with diagnoses of my “homosexual neurosis,” as one called it, and struggled mightily to shoehorn my childhood development into their framework, in the hope that some new level of healing might be opened up to me. 

i) It may be reasonable for some homosexuals to give up on therapy if it doesn't work for them. 

ii) Why say "same-sex desire" rather than homosexual desire? The use of "same-sex" as a synonym homosexual (or "gay:) is corrupting. Straight same-sex affection is natural, normal, and proper. Straight men with male friends. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. Brothers. Sisters. 

When "same-sex" becomes a synonym for homosexual, it acquires homosexual connotations, which corrupts the term. We know longer have a term to designate straight same-sex affection. 

Being gay in traditional churches, up until very recently, meant always having to ask whether one had prayed enough, hoped enough, hungered enough for one’s own photo with a spouse and children to project on a screen to thunderous applause.

Why the felt need to tell everybody you're homosexual in the first place? 

At a time in my life when I wondered whether it would signal defeat if I said simply, “I’m gay, and I don’t expect that to change, and I want to be celibate,” an older single friend of mine wrote a letter to me—one that I now look back on as a turning point in my thinking, illuminating an unexplored possibility:

Perhaps the real question is not how to make unfulfilled desires go away, but rather, what they teach us about the nature of our lives, what is ultimately important. … This, I suspect, is much akin to Paul’s own discussion of the thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul prayed but it did not go away. God allowed it to remain in his life that he might know the surpassing greatness of God’s grace in ALL circumstances. Likewise, unfulfilled desires point us to the only eternal source of satisfaction—God himself. … [T]hey help us identify with the true nature of the human condition of all those around us who are suffering [things] over which they have no control. It is an immediate bridge for ministry to our fellow human beings.

Reading those words was a revelation. In their wake, I began to ponder questions I hadn’t known I was allowed ask: Might there be some divine design, some strange providence, in my homosexuality? Might my sexual orientation be something God does not want to remove, knowing that its challenge keeps pulling me back towards Him in prayer? Might it even be something through which more empathy and compassion for fellow sufferers are birthed?

i) It's true that the struggle with a personal sin or weakness can be a sanctifying experience and cultivate compassion. That said, Paul doesn't indicate that his thorn in the flesh was a besetting sin. 

ii) Since, moreover, Hill rules out heterosexual marriage, he will never be in a position to find out if that has a healing affect on his condition. He makes it a choice between "celibate gay Christians" and sexually active homosexuals. But that's a false dichotomy. His body is still designed for sexual relations with a woman. Why take that option off the table? There are couples who are not in love when they marry, but come to love each other during the course of marriage. 

Asking these questions let me abandon my fevered search for some cure for my gayness and prompted me to look instead for what C. S. Lewis once called the “certain kinds of sympathy and understanding, [the] certain social role” of which only those who aren’t straight might be capable. Homosexuality, I continued to believe, is sinful insofar as it represents a thirst for acts that Scripture forbids, but I came to see that it is at the same time—like St. Paul’s thorn—an occasion for grace to become manifest.

It's one thing to give up on therapy if it doesn't work for you–another thing not to give it a try. Once again, consider addictive behavior. 

Exploring that grace was the point of the Revoice conference. It was the first theologically conservative event I’ve attended in which I felt no shame in owning up to my sexual orientation and no hesitation in declaring my sexual abstinence. At Revoice there was no pressure to obfuscate the probable fixity and exclusivity of my homosexuality through clunky euphemisms. Nor was there any stigma attached to celibacy, as though my embracing it were simply, as the ex-gay leader Andy Comiskey once wrote, “a concession to same-sex attraction.” 

Once again, why the felt-need to open up about homosexual attraction? 

The ecclesial blessing for same-sex partnerships requires one to dismantle the entire edifice of two thousand years of Christian teaching on embodiment, marriage, and celibacy—namely, that marriage is a sacred bond between one man and one woman and that sexual expression is permissible only within that covenantal relationship, whereas those who live outside that covenant are called to celibacy.

https://theotherjournal.com/2014/01/06/the-problem-of-gay-friendship/

i) Homosexuals don't need homosexual friends. Rather, they need straight friends. 

ii) Friendship isn't based on vows and covenants. Friendship is based on mutual respect, mutual understanding, mutual trust, rapport, acceptance, common values, common interests, common activities, shared risk, shared history. We choose our friends. In friendship, the essential bond is informal rather than formal. The bond can't be strengthened by vows and covenants. That's artificial. 

iii) Hill's comparison intentionally blurs the distinction between marital commitment and friendship. 

Polling Shows The Importance Of Christmas Apologetics

The Pew Research Center recently published the results of a study showing that Americans hold a significantly less Christian view of Christmas than they did as recently as a few years ago. For example:

Not only are some of the more religious aspects of Christmas less prominent in the public sphere, but there are signs that they are on the wane in Americans’ private lives and personal beliefs as well. For instance, there has been a noticeable decline in the percentage of U.S. adults who say they believe that biblical elements of the Christmas story – that Jesus was born to a virgin, for example – reflect historical events that actually occurred. And although most Americans still say they mark the occasion as a religious holiday, there has been a slight drop in recent years in the share who say they do this.

Currently, 55% of U.S. adults say they celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, including 46% who see it as more of a religious holiday than a cultural holiday and 9% who celebrate Christmas as both a religious and a cultural occasion. In 2013, 59% of Americans said they celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday, including 51% who saw it as more religious than cultural and 7% who marked the day as both a religious and a cultural holiday….

But the remaining two-thirds of the U.S. public either is not bothered by a perceived decline in religion in Christmas or does not believe that the emphasis on the religious elements of Christmas is waning.

Among the topics probed by the new survey, one of the most striking changes in recent years involves the share of Americans who say they believe the birth of Jesus occurred as depicted in the Bible. Today, 66% say they believe Jesus was born to a virgin, down from 73% in 2014. Likewise, 68% of U.S. adults now say they believe that the wise men were guided by a star and brought gifts for baby Jesus, down from 75%.

In another part of the story, they break down the survey results by age groups. While those born in 1945 or earlier have had an increase in their belief in the Biblical accounts by a few percentage points since 2014, Millennials have had a decrease by a double-digit percentage.

In 2013, in response to research like Pew's, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story in which pastors in the Pittsburgh area were interviewed about how they approach apologetic issues during the Christmas season. The pastors made various excuses for why they didn't do much to address the issues. I quoted the story and commented on it at the time.

If you're interested in doing more about the problem than individuals like those pastors want to do, here's a place to begin.

"I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints." (Jude 3)

"Strange were it that the physician, or the shoemaker, or the weaver, in short all artists, should be able each to contend correctly for his own art, but that one calling himself Christian should not be able to give a reason for his own faith; yet those things if overlooked bring only loss to men’s property, these if neglected destroy our very souls. Yet such is our wretched disposition, that we give all our care to the former, and the things which are necessary, and which are the groundwork of our salvation, as though of little worth, we despise. That it is which prevents the heathen from quickly deriding his own error. For when they, though established in a lie, use every means to conceal the shamefulness of their opinions, while we, the servants of the truth, cannot even open our mouths, how can they help condemning the great weakness of our doctrine? how can they help suspecting our religion to be fraud and folly? how shall they not blaspheme Christ as a deceiver, and a cheat, who used the folly of the many to further his fraud? And we are to blame for this blasphemy, because we will not be wakeful in arguments for godliness, but deem these things superfluous, and care only for the things of earth." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On John, 17:3-4)

Silver lining

Jonathan is one of the few truly admirable people in OT history. OT history is full of villains. And even some of those on God's side have glaring character flaws. In one respect, it's tragic that he died so young. 

But suppose an alternate history played out. Had he assumed the throne, Jonathan might have been corrupted. 

Or if he was David's righthand man, would their friendship sour? Over the long-haul, would he find it grating to play second-fiddle?

And even if that didn't happen, his sons and David's sons would be rivals to the throne. One or more of his sons would probably think David was a usurper. That Saul's lineage was the rightful lineage. I can imagine one of Jonathan's sons murdering one of David's sons to snuff out the competition. Consider the strain it would put Jonathan and David's friendship.

Or what if Jonathan was still alive when the Gibeonites demanded scapegoats to even the score for Saul's effort to extirpate the Gibeonites. Jonathan would be at the top of their hit list. Since Saul was dead, Jonathan would be the next best thing.

Presumably, David would refuse to hand over his best friend. Even so, what would Jonathan's reaction be when David delivered seven of Jonathan's nephews into the hands of the Gibeonites, to play fall guys for Saul's misdeeds? Once again, imagine the strain that would place on Jonathan and David's friendship.   

Jonathan died before the friendship had a chance to fall apart. 

One last time

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” (Lk 12:16-20).

One striking feature of human experience is that in the course of life we often find ourselves doing something for the last time. Indeed, we ultimately do everything for the last time. Take your last day of high school. Or retirement. Moving away. Your last day as a teenager. Your last day as a bachelor. Or the demolition of landmarks from your childhood. 

Doing something for the last time subdivides into prospective and retrospective viewpoints. On the one hand, there are situations where we know in advance that we're doing it for the last time. On the other hand, there are situations where we only know after the fact that we're doing it for the last time. And the former experience further subdivides into dreading the final time we do it or looking forward to the final time we have to do it. 

Doing something for the last time can make it especially significant, if you don't get another chance, yet ironically, there are many situations where we fail to appreciate the significance of that event because we didn't know at the time that this was the last time we were going to do it. It's only in hindsight that we realize it was the last time. If we knew at the time this was going to be the last chance, we might make more of the occasion. Make a mental note, to remember it better. Make the most of the final opportunity. But by the time it's behind us, it's too late for that. No going back. 

Sometimes it's a relief to do it for the final time. Sometimes it's lamentable to do it for the final time. 

Perhaps the most dramatic example of doing something for the last time is death. It can be your own death, or the death of an acquaintance. The last day you see them or speak to them. If we know they are dying, we have greater opportunity to take advantage of the remaining time. If the death is unexpected, then there's often regret at lost opportunities. 

It might be someone we're close to, or someone we only knew in passing. Suppose they die in an accident. We may regret that we were in too much of a hurry to get to know them better. 

Atheism, trust, and friendship

Atheists complain that they are distrusted. Being atheists, they think that's unfair. Sheer prejudice.

But here's the problem: it's not directly about morality. There are atheists who inconsistently believe in morality. So it's not that they can't be trusted because they are immoral or amoral–although some certainly are. And, indeed, atheists are far more likely to deny moral realism than Christians. So the odds are that they are less trustworthy in that respect.

But that's not the main thing. It's less about morality than mortality. If you think this life is all there is, then are you going to do the right thing even if that puts you at personal risk? I'm not saying you don't have brave atheists, but from the standpoint of mortality, isn't that foolhardy? 

To take a cliche example, suppose you're gentile and your best friend is Jewish. But then the Nazis come to power. You still want to be his friend. But there's now a conflict between self-interest and altruism. Are you prepared to risk your life or freedom to remain his friend?

From a secular standpoint, isn't that irrational? So that has an indirect effect on your commitment to morality. In a pinch, can your Jewish friend trust you to watch his back? Or is the price too high? In normal times, your friendship isn't costly. Indeed, your friendship is mutually agreeable. But now that friendship is politically dangerous. If this life is all there is, will you hazard your life or freedom to protect him? Or will you protect yourself? 

The acid test of friendship is taking a risk–even a grave risk–for your friends. That's a gamble. And if you can't afford to lose the bet, you can't be a real friend, you can't be a friend when it matters most. When the stakes are high, that's why he needs a friend–and that's when the stakes are too high for you to be his friend. It isn't safe to be around him. 

Homosexuals I have known

Proponents of "marriage equality" use a grab bag of arguments (if you can dignify them with the appellation of "arguments") to justify their position. They talk about alleged hate crimes against LGBT individuals. Or suicide. They ask whether you have any "close friends" who are transgender or homosexual. They equate opposition to homosexuality with "hating" homosexuals. 

Since they are appealing to autobiographical experience, I will answer them on their own terms:

I used to work a job where, as it turned out, there was a disproportionate number of homosexuals. Two of them I worked with on a daily basis. Both were lesbians.

One was short and overweight. Had a page-boy haircut. Swore like a Marine sergeant. She cultivated a classic butch-femme demeanor. 

My impression is that she probably had an unhappy childhood. May well have been an unpopular student. The tuff-girl posture was a defense mechanism to mask her sense of rejection and emotional insecurities. In fact, she was a recovering alcoholic. 

Did I hate her? No. Did getting to know her liberalize my theological views of homosexuality? No.

The sad part is that by cultivating the butch-femme pose, she gave up on finding true love in a normal relationship. Gave on finding emotional fulfillment as a wife and mother. It was a statement of despair. 

The other lesbian coworker was a radical feminist and Trotskyite. She was, however, more eligible. More physically appealing. Smart. Articulate.

She later moved in with a man. That didn't surprise me. She got tired of the pretending to be something she wasn't. Got tired of denying her natural needs.  

Moreover, she was likely aware of the fact that the clock was ticking. She was in her 20s. The eligibility window was rapidly narrowing. She had options my other coworker did not, and she exercised an option. 

Did knowing her liberalize my theological views on homosexuality? No. Why should it? It's not as if what I encountered was inconsistent with Biblical theology. 

In my observation, there are two kinds of lesbians. On the one hand there are straight women who adopt lesbianism. There can be various reasons for this. It may be a political statement: consistent feminism. It may be an emotional reaction to disappointment with men, or loss of hope. 

On the other hand, there are lesbians, like some nuns of Sant’Ambrogio, who seem to develop a compulsive sexual appetite for other women. It can be sadomasochistic. 

When I was a student in junior high and high school (back in the 70s), I remember two or three classmates who were picked on by other students.

One of them was bullied, not because he was homosexual, but because he was undersized for his age. One time some classmates locked him in a school locker. 

There was nothing swishy about his demeanor. He was targeted because he was small for his age. That made him an easy, inviting target. 

It's like the runt of the litter. In the wild, they don't survive very long. Sometimes they are cannibalized by the mother or their siblings. Or they are muscled out of the way at nursing time. So they starve. 

Another student was picked on because he was very obese. Students hated him, and he hated them in return. He was bullied, not because he was effeminate, but because he was obese. 

There was another student who was probably picked on. There are students who might as well have "loser" printed on their back. Their body language projects vulnerability and social unease. That makes them irresistible targets for bullies. 

In many public schools, the law of the jungle prevails. It's like a nature show set in the Serengeti, where a Wildebeest calf is separated from the herd, or from its mother. There are many predatory eyes scanning the savannah for an opportunity like that. Unless the calf is reunited with the herd in a few minutes, the lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, and cape hunting dogs are stalking or circling the calf. If it takes refuge in the river, the crocodiles like in wait. And it's that way in public school.   

Finally, there was another student. I originally joined Facebook, not because I'm into social networking, but because a journalism major asked me to review a draft article he'd uploaded on Facebook.

But as long as I had Facebook access, I did what a lot of other Facebook members do, which is using it to check up on old classmates. Find out what became of them. 

Turns out one of them was in a relationship with a man. That didn't surprise me. There was always something a little off about him, but I couldn't place it at the time. Now it clicked.

Back when I knew him, he was a very average kid. Likable in an inoffensive way. A bit soft, perhaps. 

When I found out, years later, that he was homosexual, did that change my view of him? According to the narrative propounded by homosexual activists and "progressive Christians," that should have had one of two effects:

i) I'm a "fundamentalist"–he's homosexual; ergo: I hate him!

ii) I used to be a "fundamentalist" until I found out my classmate was homosexual. Now I'm an open and affirming.

Sorry to disappoint you, but my discovery didn't have either affect. It didn't revolutionize my theology. Why would it? That's a non sequitur.

Rather, I feel sorry for my old classmate. It's sad that he turned out that way. Had I been a Christian at the time, had I known his inclination, perhaps I could have steered him in a better direction. I feel no personal animosity towards my old classmate. 

Despite being a closet homosexual, he's one of the students who wasn't bullied–unlike the straight students I mentioned. Why is that?

That's because homosexuals can pass for heterosexuals. When I attended public school, the homosexual students were invisible. I'd add that statistically, very few students were homosexual. 

Back in the 70s, a schoolboy wouldn't be caught dead coming out gay. In that respect, my classmate was perfectly safe. He could conceal his identity in a way that the fat student and the scrawny student could not. They had no place to hide. 

Anti-bullying policies ignore the most at-risk kids and fixate on kids who have a natural cloak of invisibility, unless they flaunt their homosexuality or gender confusion.

Conversely, anti-bullying policies turn teachers and administrators into bullies: they harras normal kids–especially boys and Christians. 

Someone will no doubt protest: "But people shouldn't have to hide their true identity!"

To which I'd say several things:

i) Homosexuality and gender confusion isn't their true identity. That's a deviation from their true identity.

ii) Christian students shouldn't have to hide their religious identity. Normal boys shouldn't have to hide their masculinity. 

iii) I don't believe in public school, anyway–especially when it becomes a hostile environment for Christians and normal boys. 

iv) I don't think kids should be bullied. But it's liberals who believe in compulsory school attendance. Liberals who want to outlaw homeschooling. Liberals who want to shut down private Christian schools.  

Liberals create conditions which, given fallen human nature, supply bullies with easy targets.

Moreover, in huge high schools in tough neighborhoods, a bullied student doesn't dare report bullies to the authorities. That would make him a "snitch." He'd be far worse off. 

For liberals, public education isn't about teaching kids marketable, vocational skills, but indoctrinating them in radical ideology.

Finally, homosexual activists taunt Christians with the question: "Do you have any close gay friends?"

i) The question is ambiguous. I can befriend someone who doesn't reciprocate. I can be a friend to someone by looking out for his best interests. An anonymous benefactor can be a friend. A good friend. 

ii) If I could go back in time, knowing then what I know now, I'd reach out to my old classmate. Make an effort to befriend him. Intervene. At that age he was more malleable, before the die was cast. Sin is habit-forming. When adolescents are entering into manhood or womanhood, that can be disorienting for some of them. That's a new experience for them. They are learning a new role. Some of them can be pulled in more than one direction. 

iii) But a close friendship is a two-way street. It's not a question of whether a Christian can be friends with a homosexual, but whether the homosexual will let him be their friend. If a homosexual makes acceptance of his lifestyle a precondition of friendship, then, by definition, a Christian can't be his friend. That's because the homosexual won't allow it. 

iv) In addition, close friendship is based on sharing some common interests and/or common values. Based on affection and respect. Natural rapport. In the nature of the case, close friendship is selective. A close friend isn't interchangeable with just anyone or everyone. 

v) Finally, friendship is a very precarious commodity among homosexuals. Homosexual relationships are notoriously brittle. A better question is not the Christian capacity for friendship, but the homosexual incapacity for forming enduring friendships.  

More Bad Consequences Of Same-Sex Marriage

Amy Hall has a good post about the effects of same-sex marriage on friendship.