A Gift to be Given

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.