This time around, I have a guest writer! Thank you Alena for writing an outstanding letter! Please feel free to comment.
Ramblings
of an “Ignorant” Christian
C.
Alena Baker
The recent Duck Dynasty controversy
has been a crystalizing event for me. Tuning
into the news this weekend, I heard interview after interview label Phil
Robertson’s comments as “homophobic”, “stupid”, “ignorant”, “horrible”, and
“disparaging”. What the media seems
unable to grasp is that those of us with a biblical worldview see our sexuality
as a gift to be exercised in God’s way,
therefore we are- get this- responsible
for our sexual behavior, and –even more scandalous- there are standards of sexual behavior God calls
us to. It is tremendously frightening to
me that such a basic, fundamental belief is so swiftly dismissed as ludicrous-
as if no one really with it and
halfway educated could possibly subscribe to such “stupid” ideas.
The problem with the question of
homosexuality is that it isn’t a broad enough topic to explain the serious
Christian’s position. Today my personal
idea of sexual responsibility is regarded as laughable, even ancient, having been
under assault my entire life. For
clarity purposes, here it is. Sex
between husband and wife is encouraged, a treasure to be cherished. Sex outside of this is illicit. That’s it! So you see, before you even begin to discuss
same-sex marriage/ homosexuality, we’re already regarded as “out of touch” when
it comes to sexual norms.
My first sexual encounter was on my
wedding night in 1999 at age 20, and my husband and I have practiced monogamy
ever since. A deliberate choice, and against all odds given what was expected
of us from “culture”. On a few separate
occasions, I had friends laugh outright at me for this, not from cruelty, but
from the simple shock it produced. Upon
learning where I attended church, one well-meaning friend commented that she
knew someone who had grown up in a similar setting, and lamented that she was
“pressured to get married right away and begin having children.” While I held my tongue on this particular occasion,
I immediately sensed she did not grasp the full story. I was never pressured to get married right
away nor have children at a certain time, but I was expected to behave in a sexually responsible way (hetero-sexual
marital sex only), which in many cases results in – brace yourself for another
shock- younger marriages. Imagine
that. Young serious-minded people acting
like adults, pledging themselves emotionally and sexually to one another for
life in unconditional love. Sounds
awful, doesn’t it?
Now,
compare the sexually responsible scenario I just painted to the predicament I
witnessed as a public school teacher. I
taught in a violent, downtrodden neighborhood rife with poverty and drugs. I immediately noted that intact family units
were virtually unheard of. As I updated
cumulative folders I saw birth certificates with “---------“in the slot for the
father’s name or saw a multitude of siblings with several different
fathers. There was even one occasion
where a student of mine had 3 “new” siblings suddenly surface from yet another father,
none of them ever having been to school before, though they were all school
age. It was commonplace for my students
to disappear from class because they had been taken by CPS or moved back to
their parents from a foster home. Once,
we were discussing first, middle and last names and I wrote the names of my immediate
family on the board to which one girl responded with, “Oh my gosh! You all have
the same last name!” Another girl, the resident
know-it-all, raised her hand importantly to comment, “I know why your last names are the same- you and your husband are
married.” To which my entire class
issued a collective, “Oh…..” as if something new and novel had just been
revealed.
In my years of teaching I carefully
digested the plight of my dear students in a culture that gave them virtually
nothing except hardship. There were and
are MANY problems in such neighborhoods, all of which are complex to solve. BUT- I found myself imagining how different
things would be if just one of my
“outrageous” Christian ideas was embraced….sexual responsibility. Think about it. No blank birth certificates. Marriages.
Families- fathers, mothers and children bound together, providing for
each other, inseparable. And yet, Phil
Robertson and people like me are regarded as fools.
I’ve witnessed the results of adopting the
philosophy of “anything goes”. Don’t
tell me it doesn’t matter. Don’t tell me
it’s backwards, homophobic, and ignorant.
It is a standard of behavior- one that contributes to the health, wealth
and happiness of those that live by it. It
will be interesting to see what happens with Duck Dynasty. I don’t know how many of us are left out there,
but if the media continues to call us such awful names, I hope it will awaken
our passion anew. Not of out hatred or
ill-will, mind you, but out of
conviction that LOVE of the purist kind is still to be had in this world, in
the redemption of Christ and His power over sin of all kinds, not just sexual ones.
I have tasted the redemption, and its fruit is sweet. I think often of my former students, and how
sweet it might taste to them.
