Unfettered Blather

Today is Halloween, or at least that is what 95% of Americans will recognize this day as.

However, many of my fellow Christians will refuse to celebrate this day and hold “Fall Festivals” right around this holiday. Most of those Fall Festivals will be centered around children dressed in costumes playing games and getting lots of free candy.

Oh wait….

Christmas is held at what was once a pagan holiday and the Christmas Tree was taken from a pagan symbol and still sees use in most homes around the Holiday. We seem to have no problem with Christmas yet Halloween is an issue? Look, a long time ago I studied cults for my law enforcement specialty. While that didn’t pan out like I hoped I learned all kinds of things about Halloween. I also know from my time working at a jail that adults do indeed embrace the original intentions of Halloween in many ways. For kids though, this is all just fun and games.

Kids should be allowed to be kids. I hate this holiday and much of what it represents, but to my children it is just a chance to indulge in some fantasy and get free candy. Most people who participate do it all in fun. I like that we have this innocent, almost pure, version of Halloween. I feel like the Fall Festivals or refusal of acknowledgement only makes things worse. We are to live in this world and not be of it. We are to be all things to all men yet remain pure and holy (Ok, I personally don’t do so hot on the last part) We can celebrate this holiday without embracing it’s darker side. To be quite honest, a lot of what we do on this holiday looks like self-righteous posturing and does a disservice to the kids.

Perhaps an uninspired title for such a broad and human topic, but simplification is the point of my thoughts.

Human behavior towards sexuality is easily one of the biggest areas of social reaction and behavior we can observe on any given day. We hear jokes about it, see billboards, overhear people in lunch lines and watch television programs filled with sexual references, some in the form of advertising, others based in personal concern, needs for guidance or curiosity. Sex literally fills our world in ways most people simply fail to appreciate on a basic level. The Zoey 411 post in the very blog is an example of how sex creates issues to multiple planes of discussion.

Human beings are driven by the fundamentals, sex is one of those but the issue unlike many others is charged with prequalifiers and long-standing debates.

I’ve been a Christian all my life and like most have had my faith challenged and aside from being raised in the faith, I came to my own individual conclusions on why I believe. Faith without conviction is meaningless, I discovered, reasearched and discussed until I realized what I felt was the correct path in believing. Being in the greater Christian community I’ve come to observe the behavior and reactions to sexuality from multiple standpoints. My family has been involved in some activities most diehards of the faith would consider quite scandalous. My cousin became pregnant out of wedlock, my one uncle has issues with pornography. All of this and the reactions from my family has helped me to understand and reconcile the human and the spiritual being.

That being said, I’ve taken a great interest in the opposing viewpoints on sex, sex education and the nearly constant sale of sex to consumers and teens because of it’s (to them) still mysterious allure.

Sex to me is combination of passion, biological drives and a expression of love between two people. Honestly, neither side of the debates on sex really have it right or understand the issue to me. Given sex has been around since the beginning of time, I’m a tad surprised we haven’t come to a great appreciation or understanding of it as an integral and complex system. Sex is akin to politics, even if someone gets close to consensus, there is usually some issue that causes the common ground to be cast aside.

I think the wider Christian community needs to take a deep breath and calm down about sex as a whole. I’ve seen the various approaches and heard many stories. My great uncle told me one where he was threatened as a child to have his mouth washed with soap for saying the word “pregnant” in front of company. This type of behavior (even in the past) does little to convince people we are not a religion of prudes who shame even appropriate acts of sexuality. My grandmother is still uneasy by the way women these days display their pregnancies . Is a child not a blessing of God? Apparently some cannot see past the act of physical contact used to create said blessing.

Innocence is a term that has far too much importance and is often as misunderstood as the word meek. I believe small children are innocent in such matters, I know in my teens that innocence was long gone. What many fail to appreciate is a healthy dose of reality burns the widely held vision of innocence away at a certain point. To many, innocent means naive. What makes a Christian strong is not being unaware of the dark side of the world, but knowing what makes their faith strong and why they should not give in whenever the urge captures them. Trust me the urge will capture you. I was given tools to work with by my family, fear and abuse of shame were not among them.

Can someone care to explain to me the dread over “the talk” with your teens? I grew up with a Catholic mother who grew up in the closed door system to sex. She never needed to have the talk with me, by the time I was a teen I knew what the essentials were. Afterall, having sex isn’t rocket science. This self-enforced sense of discomfort is growing rather trite with me and plays to a host of personal conflicts that often have nothing to do with the issue at hand. Most parents aren’t ready for their young adults to have sex, the kids were ready a long time ago, they’ve just been wandering in the dark due to mom and dad’s discomfort.

Did Jesus not talk to prostitutes to save them? Once more, he could identify them as such. I don’t believe this was because he had access to a higher power, Jesus was in the world but not of it afterall. Jesus knew a prostitute when he saw one. That is not the innocence so many people preach and seek.

This culture if filled with sex, its is rather tiring and lazy way to sell ideas and products this way. Still we will never be able to shelter ourselves from it because in the end we become sexual creatures as a certain stage in our life and there is a universal understanding advertisers can tap in to. The simple fact is, sex sells because everybody past puberty gets the joke or innuendo.

What we are left with is teaching our children responsibility to themselves, their faith and their community instead of fear. Too many Christians are afraid of this topic. We frankly fear teen pregnancy for all the wrong reasons. The responsibility aspect knows no faith or creed either, this is common sense.

I know of adult men who refuse too glance at women in bikinis because it is not chaste. I love and appreciate the female form, but to always associate sexuality with lust constantly is simply silly and I find that to be absurd. To appreciate is not leering. I don’t look at the female body as a “temptation” but a thing of beauty to be appreciated. Appreciation is a world away from lust.

Sex is not “bad” , it never was and never will be. We are not going to raise balanced and capable people if we keep sending these conflicting messages. If we do not teach from a position of strength we will never create strong people with the ability to make wise decisions. Sex in culture peaks and falls, but a quick glance at history reveals people in the past were never as pure as many seem to think, people are the same and always will be and we need a healthy dose of pragmatism when we talk about sex. Sex is as ancient as man (for obvious reasons) and someday maybe we will come to appreciate it, respect it and deal with it in ways that will solve more problems than they create. Frankly at this point as Christians, I think we’re doing a pretty poor job.

Does a Christian third party candidate open the door for a Clinton victory? I don’t really care, but go read the Anchoress’ post anyway because it’s good stuff.

I used to admire Dr. James Dobson. He was willing to go against conventional wisdom and politically correct driven “pop science”. Unfortunately, Dr. Dobson can’t simply stick to his specialty, which is psychiatry or psychology, hell I don’t know all those head-shrinkers look alike to me.

Regardless, the falling out of my opinion with Dr. Dobson happened when I discovered that Focus on the Family was responsible for campaigning in a number of states (like, all of them I think but I’m too lazy to Google it right now) that decided to voted and passed gay marriage bans. This is a bit of a slap in the face for me and my “I support state rights and believe gay marriage is a state level issue”. I am a Christian and a non-supporter of gay marriage, but I do stop short of making it illegal. Hey, as long as they aren’t forcing Christian ministers to perform wedding ceremonies under threat of lawsuit I don’t care. I also think that it is our duty as Christians to reach out to sinners, following the example that Jesus set, and not to force people to march to the beat of our drummer. At its core, Christianity is about choice. Putting our morality into law seems to go against what Christianity is about. The campaign by Focus on the Family to pass gay marriage bans does not seem very Christ-like.

That sets the stage for this latest nonsense. First of all, I don’t personally know Guiliani, Thompson, McCain, Romney, etc. any better than I know Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and so on. One thing I can honestly say about ANY of the current candidates is that they all have at least one agenda, value, or belief that goes contrary to mine. Guiliani and I disagree on abortion, Clinton and I disagree on healthcare, Obama and I disagree on the war, Edwards and I disagree on the reasonable price of a haircut. I have no problem with a third party candidate, but I have to ask “What purpose does it serve?”. If the purpose is because we don’t have a single candidate that I can find vote worthy than that’s great. If it’s because a candidate is not “Christian enough” then that is silly. What you have to ask yourself is what is more important, the country or your principles?

My principles are incredibly important to me, and I want a candidate who more or less mirrors them. I think that’s true of most Americans. However, when I step into the voting booth to cast my ballot, I don’t vote for what I think is best for me, but who is best for the country. Right now, I couldn’t tell ya’. My favorite Republican is still in the race, but my favorite Democrat has done everything they can to self-destruct, so the run off I was hoping for is no longer going to happen. Oh well, at least they did it during the primaries. I digress, the point is that even though I might disagree with a candidates values, that doesn’t make them the wrong choice. In the real world I may have to work for a boss who is not a Christian or have subordinates who are not Christians. Should we insist that the people over us, below us, and around us share the same values? I praise Focus on the Family in not using suicide bombers but regardless we cannot have that same “convert or else” mentality. This is what gets Christians compared to Muslims in the media, and while I still see a world of difference our message cannot be the same even if our methods are more legal than brutal. Do I want to have a Christian as a president? Of course I do! Will I vote for someone that Dr. Dobson claims is “not Christian enough”? Absolutely, especially if Dobson is determined to take over for Falwell, in which case his opposition to a candidate may become their best endorsement.

Despite the common misconception that Christians are all the same, the reality is that they are an incredibly diverse group of people. The challenge then for companies trying to sell to that particular religious demographic is that you’re trying to please a group of people who sometimes have wildly different interpretations of fundamental values.

The concept of violence, for instance, can be very touchy. Some Christians are almost pacifistic in their beliefs, aschewing violence in all but the most dire of circumstances. Some of these Christians may still beleive strongly in self-defense, but will not advocate the use of pre-emptive violence at all. So making a first-person shooter for a Christian audience is nearly impossible because you’d have to make it so totally non-offensive that making it fun would be near impossible. You can’t just go around blasting demons because some other Christian group will be offended that you mentioned demons, even if they are the bad guys.

In other words you can’t please them all. Yet every game ever made always takes this approach of trying to please the entire Christian demographic. That’s like making a game that tries to please everyone in America, offend no one, and is still fun. You’re hitting such a diverse strata of the demographic that it is going to be impossible. This is why you can’t make a fun Christian game.

I’ve read the press releases for the Left Behind game and to say I feel underwhelmed would be inadequate. Sadly, the assumption the game developers are making is that people like me are going to buy the game. Maybe so we can support the concept of Christian games? Not likely. I’m not really for supporting something just because it claims to be a “Christian” game. Though they’ve proposed some intriguing concepts for Left Behind and have suggested some themes and features that will offend someone, I still see it as an extension of trying to shoehorn Christian concepts and values into a game. Worse, it’s really more about leveraging the name recognition of a book and video series then it is about promoting Christian values. Not that there is anything wrong with using licensed materials, aside from the fact such games usually stink like a skunk, but that it’s an attempt to push marketing as “Christian Values”.

In essence they think their audience is stupid. Also they are trying for mass-market appeal but I think the secular market will either be turned off to the concept or simply not get the source material.

Maybe I am being too harsh and simply not giving it a chance. Perhaps I am being too cynical. Let me put this from a purely secular standpoint then. In terms of a market perspective the targetted demographic is too diverse to nail down and the mass market will either be apathetic or openly resistant to adopting the product. I seriously doubt the game is going to sell well enough to turn a decent profit.

I welcome being proven wrong, I really do. I just don’t think the people developing the game are honest enough or understand the game market well enough to pull this off.

Back in my freshman year of college my next door neighbor Jesse was, like myself, in a long distance relationship. This was 1992 back when not everyone had an e-mail account, cell phones that charged something like by the second or some such, instant messenger wasn’t even conceived, and just having internet access was extremely uncommon. So what you had to do was either pick up a phone and call long distance, taking out a loan in advance for the charges, or show up in person. Jesse did not have a car.

Now, I am a Christian and Jesse was not. When Jesse’s girlfriend visited I was often subjected to various noises that resulted from their sexual activities. I, on the other hand, waited until marriage despite having dated my future wife for four years. Our values on the subject were night and day. That said, I thought he was a pretty nice guy and I liked his girlfriend well enough.

As it turns out Jesse’s girlfriend was attending a college that was on my way home. I didn’t visit home very often, though I went back at least once every six weeks. (I tried to visit once a month but wasn’t the best about it) On one of my forays home after finding out where Jesse’s girlfriend went to college, I thought about offering him a ride. Except I had this little moral conundrum.

See, I was a pretty new Christian and wasn’t really raised in a church setting. There is a long involved story there, but the short version is I was real rough around the edges. I have never been what most people would consider typical of a Christian. Still, I was very serious about making my life better and trying to follow the teachings of the Bible. If I gave Jesse a ride, he and his girlfriend would no doubt have sex and I would be facilitating that activity. At this point you may roll your eyes and groan.

I struggled with this for awhile and finally decided to offer him a ride. The solution, as I saw it, was simple. The Bible teaches us how to live a healthy and moral life, but it also teaches that your sin is between you and God. I was not encouraging Jesse to do anything wrong, but I also have to be willing to let him choose to do the right thing. Yes I know he is going to choose to do something that I saw as wrong, but it’s still his choice. By not offering a ride based on a moral decision, I was trying to enforce my morality on him, even if it would never have been known to him. In the end I did offer to give him a ride and he got to spend a rare opportunity with his girlfriend.

Believe it or not, I am about to tie this into gay marriage and a lie I told the other day. By outright banning gay marriage we are enforcing our morality on others. We are not giving them the choice to chose their own morality. I believe we can legislate morality and we do it all the time in this country. At some point though we have to be willing to let people make their own choices. That line has to be drawn somewhere and I don’t believe it should be drawn at a point where only consenting adults are involved and no illegal activity takes place.

The lie I made the other day was about state’s rights concerning gay marriage when I said I believed they had the right to ban gay marriage. I wasn’t exactly lying, but not telling the whole truth either. I understand there is no real “right to privacy” as most people understand it. At the state level they can very well decide who can and can’t marry. I support their right to do so. I just don’t agree with it. I don’t support gay marriage, it does not fit into any definition of “marriage” as I know it. That does not mean it should be illegal.

You cannot force morality on someone and expect them to be happy about it. You can’t tell people who their romantic partner should be. No one has that right. If you want others to come to your point of view, then live your values. I have severe reservations about a group of people protesting homosexuals marrying when said group is actively engaging in theft, fraud, fornication, adultery, and divorce.

I’ve been married for 12 years to the same woman. We did not have sex before marriage and neither of us have had an affair. We’ve had our ups and downs, but overall we’ve had a very happy and fruitful marriage. As far as I am concerned, that is the best testament that my moral code works. That it is not outdated or irrelevant based on a highly successful relationship. I’m not perfect and I screw up all the time, but I also live my values as best I can. The very depth of hypocrisy is trying to force a moral code on someone that you don’t follow yourself.

Before Christians start protesting gay marriage, lets start fixing the marriages in our churches. Let’s get the branch out of our eye before we start trying to remove the twig in our neighbor’s eye.