Following is an excerpt from an interview with Jim Tonkowich, President of the Institute of Religion and Democracy.  Let's here what he has to say about the Church's stand on welfare and social justice:

Helen: Let's talk about social justice. That's something that's been proposed as a way to help the poor. Again, it sounds very nice when not analyzed. Everyone wants justice, but is it Christian?

Jim: The devil is in the details. People who go to the book of Isaiah and find the political platform of the Democratic party aren't playing quite fair. I think there is a certain amount of bait and switch happening. "Social Justice" has become a problematic term because it's been used so much by the left. It's their calling card term. You're right... who is not in favor of justice? It's a great idea in the abstract. "Should our society be just? Should there be economic justice?" Of course, but it depends how it's defined and the left has been defining it in socialist terms.

Peter: Yes, equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity. Pierre Trudeau was campaigning in Canada in 1968 under the banner of the "Just Society." He won on that platform, too.

Helen: The question still remains. It's fair, it's nice, but is it Christian?

Jim: Well, we must qualify it by saying what we mean by social justice. For instance, paying taxes is considered a "good thing." A recent article in the Wall Street Journal indicated that if you pay taxes, even a dime, you're part of 60% of the population. In other words, only 60% of the population pays taxes and taxation is "progressive" meaning, the more money you make, the more the IRS takes. Well, I'm not sure that's fair or just. Then many people are turning around and squawking about "tax breaks for the rich" but they are the only taxpayers. It's not justice to give tax breaks to people who are not paying taxes.

Obviously we don't want people kept at a disadvantage, we don't want a system where people are getting rich at the expense of others and there are people who will argue that the capitalist system we have works and others that will argue it doesn't.

Peter: Taxpayers can reasonably argue that the poor in North America are kept in relative comfort by their taxes; or at the expense of the rich. [see our article, ]

Jim: Yes, because the tax system has become an income re-distribution system.

Helen: Let's talk about some ideas about the rich that are in the air we breath. Some will quote Jesus saying that a camel can go through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man can get into heaven. Doesn't that mean the rich are bad?

Jim: Well, that idea is not thoroughly Biblical. You can't just pull out one verse and understand the doctrine. The Bible has stories of people who were wealthy beginning, in fact, with Abraham. Abraham was tremendously wealthy, as were Isaac and Jacob. Moses was a man of great privilege. Of course, you find Paul saying that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. It's not THE root of ALL evil - that's not a good translation. And it's the "love of money" not just "money" itself. Also, it's in 1 Timothy, where Paul specifically says to tell those who are rich in the world to be rich in good works. He specifically addresses those who are wealthy. Basically, he's saying to use your wealth wisely and be a good steward.

Helen: What about the parable where the rich man asks Jesus what to do to get to heaven and Jesus says give up all you have and follow me? Is that a judgment on all wealthy people?

Jim: No, that would be a very superficial reading of that text. That seems to be a call to Apostleship. Just as Peter was to give up his net, drop it and follow Jesus. They did it. It was the same call to that rich man. There are some who did precisely that. St. Francis was very wealthy and even took off all his clothes to give them to the poor. John Wesley made a fortune selling books and he gave it all away.

Helen: Are we all called to do that?

Jim: No, even speaking for ourselves, even speaking for myself. We American Christians need to examine our lifestyle. C. S. Lewis said you should not live up to your station in life. We should below the way we could live because, first, it would be ostentatious and, second, it allows you to give more.

Helen: So isn't that an argument for social justice?

Jim: No, social justice and redistribution of wealth are not the same, as I understand those terms. Redistribution of wealth is a state solution rather than a personal, virtuous decision.

To read the entire interview go to "http://peterandhelenevans.com/articles-JTonkowich2.html".


Peter and Helen Evans, "http://peterandhelenevans.com. This husband and wife team - freelance writers and speakers - teach a philosophical approach to conservatism, and are scheduled speakers at Blogging Man "http://www.bloggingman.org/" . They are also real estate agents in the Washington, DC area.
Jim Tonkowich is the president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy

 Wouldn't it be great not to be swamped by horrific news about Virginia Tech because nothing had happened?  Oh, there could have been a shooter threatening people. He could have been very angry. He could have had plans to take many lives, but time and time again, reports show that if just one other person had 'shown' a gun, odds are that the shooter would have backed down. Thus, nothing would have happened, no one would have been killed, no reports would have been filed and no one would have heard about it.

According to John Lott's book, More Guns Less Crime, "if national surveys are correct, 98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely need to brandish the weapon."  In media terms, 98% of the time "nothing happened." However, we don't need surveys to tell us what happens. Just think back on any of the shootings that made national television.  What happened when someone with a gun, usually the police, showed up? The shooter killed himself or gave up.  Either way, further carnage was avoided. 

It seems pretty obvious that we need more law abiding citizens legally carrying guns.  Yet, what do we hear in the media?  Predictably, Paul Helmke, Brady Campaign President, saying we need to implement more 'effective' gun control.  What he really means is further attempts to 'ban' guns altogether.  Isn't it obvious that doing that would only dis-arm those who obey the law and leave them sitting ducks for those who do not?  Isn't it obvious that the way to avoid further murders is emphatically NOT to dis-arm the victims in advance?  State after state reports a drop in violent crime when law abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed weapons. 

Undeterred by the fact that gun-accident deaths are at an all-time low, the gun-banners will remind us about "the children" who might find the gun and accidentally die.  Yes, accidents happen and it's always sad.  However, we should do the sad math and consider that more children die in bicycle accidents each year than in gun accidents, more children die in fires each year than in gun accidents, more children die each year in motor vehicle accidents than in gun accidents.  In fact, 2,900 children died in car accidents compared to only 30 under 4 years old and 170 from 5 to 14 years old who died in gun accidents during the same period.  Please look at that 5-to-14 year old statistic carefully and think of gangs in the metro areas. 14 years of age is not a baby anymore.  In other words, we are not always talking about 'innocent' children when we look at these statistics. 

Now, even if you do agree that the second amendment means you, you may be saying, "I don't want to carry a gun."  That's just fine. You're free not to carry a gun, but do not prevent other law abiding citizens from doing so if they wish to.  In fact, you will be safer because there is no way the criminal can know who has a gun.  They usually move on to easier pickings; that is, places which are 'safer' for criminals, where guns are banned entirely, such as Washington, DC. 

It's time to let adult students and teachers carry guns in the classroom.  If you are fearful of someone with a gun, you should equally be afraid of them with a pair of scissors in their hands.  If someone wants to do you harm, they will find a way. As they reveal themselves, let's remove the dangerous few from society, but let liberty and common sense prevail for the law abiding citizen.

No one wants to be faced by a murderous lunatic with a gun. But gun control laws can not prevent lunacy, and yet more gun control laws can not dis-arm law-breakers.  We the law-abiding, we the peace-loving, we the tax-paying, we the voting, we the people all want 'effective' gun control, but the only way that can happen is when We the People are in control of our own guns.

Peter and Helen Evans, "http://peterandhelenevans.com. This husband and wife team - freelance writers and speakers - teach a philosophical approach to conservatism, and are scheduled speakers at Blogging Man "http://www.bloggingman.org/" .

Why is it that, "Whenever Nature displeases us, it must be our fault for doing something that displeased Nature"? This was a question raised by John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, speaking at the Heritage Foundation on January 23, 2007 in support of his new book "Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health!" If the winter's too hot, summer's too cold, hurricane Katrina too extreme,  environmentalists always conclude that it's because we did something wrong, like atmospheric pollution, habitat destruction and/or the paving of America. Not only does this knee-jerk reaction indicate a colossal sense of self-importance, that importance lies in what we are doing wrong.

This condition is widespread among the multi-culturalists, who would never acknowledge that Western civilization is in any way superior to any other. The blame-America-first folks are closely related to the blame-mankind-first eco-freaks. The ACLU types who are more concerned for the spurious Geneva-Conventions 'rights' of terrorist detainees than they are for the safety of innocent Americans are another example this pernicious mindset.

We have taken to calling this attitude "projected self-loathing." It's principal belief could be rhetorically summarized thus. "How can 'society' (America, the West, the human race, etc) do anything right or worthwhile when 'society' is composed of worthless people like me?" This paradoxical combination of self-hatred and Narcissism has been characterized by a recovered sufferer as feeling like "the piece of crap at the center of the universe."

By projecting their self-loathing (i.e., finding their own faults in those around them, instead), they can feel morally superior without having improved themselves at all.  They can feel themselves 'elite' in comparison to the benighted 'masses' who don't even have the sense to feel guilty about valuing themselves.

John Berlau touched on the global-warming alarmists preferred explanation of the cause and meaning of "Katrina."

Revealed by the analysis of Katrina's consequences in New Orleans was that, over the last four decades, environmentalists had effectively blocked several measures that could have reduced or prevented the mess that resulted when the storm came ashore at the end of August 2005. Naturally, the left is reluctant to acknowledge that well-intentioned environmental activism combined with forty years of well-intentioned Democrat control of New Orleans contributed to the catastrophe now known as "Katrina." Their preference is to blame this "extreme" storm on "man-made global warming."

The one consistent element in these opposed explanations is that, in both cases, "it's our fault." However, the eco-freaks emphasize the human behavior they think is 'bad' (gas-guzzling, pollution, etc) as the culprit, rather than the human behavior they think is 'good' (environmental 'sensitivity'). They prefer to think that our bad behavior provoked "Nature" to send a mighty storm to punish our misdeeds rather than admit that we made the wrong choice in deciding not to raise the levees and build the floodgates that would have increased New Orleans' chances of surviving this entirely predictable category 3 hurricane. Interestingly, the private-enterprise oil installations in the gulf didn't spill a drop although they were hammered by Katrina while she was still a much stronger category 5 storm. 

There is much hard evidence to suggest that higher levees and floodgates would have done much good for New Orleans.  There is no hard evidence (and much dispute) that man's influence had anything to do with Katrina's existence or intensity.  "Global warming" has become so disputed that it's proponents now prefer to speak of human-induced "climate change" instead.  This indicates their religious fixation on the belief that "it's our fault" regardless of what's happening. 

Let us consider what happened to New Orleans an example of the self-loathing Left doing it their way.

Following is the first installment of Is It Christian, an interview with Greek Orthodox priest Father Johannes L. Jacobse.

Peter and Helen: Father Hans, a lot of people seem to believe that Karma is a sort of secular Christianity. According to Karma, we reap our "just deserts" here on earth, not in some transcendental, after-life place. Is judging a person on the fortunes of their present life a Christian approach? Is judging the World Trade Center attack as "chickens coming home to roost" within Christian doctrine?

Fr. Hans: Karma is an old idea that predates Christianity. It is deterministic: the world functions like a machine that is run by impersonal forces we can’t know or understand. If life is hard, then we did wrong in the past. If life is prosperous or we don’t suffer much, then we did right. Follow Karma and you end up thinking that 9/11 is payback for wrongs that America committed in the past. It’s just the way the world works.

But here’s the rub. The impersonal forces are the source of good and evil. Good and evil come from the same place. If this is true, we can’t hold people accountable for their evil acts. The suffering we experience from evildoers is due to our bad Karma alone.

That is why a Karma follower won’t blame the terrorists for their carnage. The real culprit is America, and the proof of our culpability is the scale and devastation of the attack.

Peter and Helen: Sounds a lot like "blame the victim" doesn't it? Inevitably, personal responsibility disappears.

Fr. Hans: Yes. The fact that a person can improve his lot in the next life shows that personal morality matters. But the personal morality is chained to how he views the world – to Karmic determinism.

The real problem with Karma is that a person is morally powerless against evil. The Karma follower believes he should refrain from doing evil even when evil assaults him. The Christian would agree with him. But, since the evil serves as a punishment for past misdeeds, a Karma follower must also resign himself to it.

Christianity however, is not deterministic. Evil entered the world after it was created and does not really belong in the world. This changes our moral outlook. We can challenge the person who commits evil acts. We don’t resign ourselves to the suffering that his evil causes.

For example, during the London Blitz, England was at the edge of catastrophic defeat after relentless pounding by the German Air Force. Our critic would argue that England's suffering was a judgment for past misdeeds. England should surrender because it faced superior Nazi forces.

Winston Churchill thought differently. He knew that England was right and Germany wrong. With great courage he inspired the English people to hold on and fight. A nearly insurmountable evil was turned back. Moral clarity, not fate, directed him.

Peter and Helen: What about the Christian teaching “you reap what you sow.” Doesn’t this sound a bit like Karma?

Fr. Hans: Yes, but Christianity and Karma mean different things by it. Bad things happen to good people. Take a child who has cancer for example. The follower of Karma cannot say that the child does not deserve to suffer because the cancer might be retribution for past sins. The Christians sees the cancer as an aberration, as something that must be defeated so the child can be healthy. The Christian view allows standards of justice that apply to an entire society – not just the individual. Not only does right and wrong apply to us individually, it applies to our neighbor as well. Conversely, when my neighbor suffers it is my responsibility to help him. The Christian has to do right because the world becomes a better place by it. Simple, everyday, moral decisions like how you treat the waitress or the person who cuts you off in traffic really matter because they change the world. Karma teaches the world cannot change and doing good things has a personal benefit only for the next life.

Peter and Helen: In other words, would you say that Christians at every moment could choose when to be good or bad, whereas those believing in the Karmic worldview are subject to fate?

Fr. Hans: Yes. Moral decisions take on a more urgent character in the Christian worldview because good acts, no matter how small, are a partial victory over the evil and suffering in the world and part of a greater struggle between good and evil. Fate and determinism are rejected.

Peter and Helen Evans, "http://peterandhelenevans.com. This husband and wife team - freelance writers and speakers - teach a philosophical approach to conservatism. They are also real estate agents in the Washington, DC area.

Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse is a Greek Orthodox priest and edits the website OrthodoxyToday.org.

This is the second installment of “Is It Christian?” an interview with Greek Orthodox priest, Father Johannes L. Jacobse.

Peter and Helen: In our last interview you said evil entered the world after it was created. This would address the speculation as to "why God allows us to suffer" about which we hear alot of bleating every time a disaster happens. Please tell us how evil entered the world and what we are supposed to do about it?

Fr Jacobse: This is a complex question but Genesis answers it. Evil entered the world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. God had planted a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden. God told them that if they ate of the tree they would die. The devil told them that if they ate of the tree they “would know good and evil and therefore become like God.”

Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree and what God said would happen did happen with cataclysmic consequences: physical death (the separation of soul and body); separation between man and woman (Adam and Eve were ashamed of their own nakedness); and interior discord (the separation of the mind and heart).

Now let’s back up for a minute. Skeptics argue that Genesis reads like fairy tale and therefore is an unreliable guide for illuminating the deeper questions about human life. Secularists believe religion has no answers to the deeper questions so they dismiss Genesis altogether.

The truth is that any question about origins, purpose, and destiny is unavoidably a religious question. Answers to these questions need to reference a higher authority, something that exists outside of the individual.

And here’s the rub. If God does not exist, religion does not disappear. Instead, man ends up creating religions of his own even though he calls them something else. Marxism is the most obvious example. Marxism is nothing less than a cosmology; a system that purports to explain how the world works and man’s role within it.

We see it elsewhere too, such as radical feminism, the secularized bureaucratic socialism of the EU, and so on. Dostoevsky said that when man ceases to believe in God, he believes in anything. Our age proves him correct.

Peter and Helen: Since evil entered the world after creation, and if God is all powerful, why doesn't He just get rid of evil?

Fr Jacobse: This is a very good question. Since evil entered the world through the hand of man rather than God, God cannot be the source of evil. The only way to get rid of evil then, is to get rid of the evil-doers. But this is something God won’t do – at least not yet.

Why? Because it violates man’s freedom. Man was created with a radical freedom. This does not mean, however, that man is free to do whatever he wants. Rather, the freedom is constrained by a commandment: to love God and neighbor. Put another way, man is free to obey or disobey God, but obedience leads to life and disobedience to death.

Again, going back to Genesis, God created man for fellowship and communion – a love freely given between man and God. If this love were not given freely, than the freedom we possess would not really be free. It would be coercion and God would be Coercer instead of Father.

It helps to understand how evil really works. In theological terms we say that evil has no ontological reality. What this means is that evil doesn’t exist except as a distortion of the good. The greater the distortion, the more radical the evil.

Think of it this way. Evil is like a cancer. Cancer subverts the good cells. It draws from the life and energy of healthy cells and twists and distorts them. Evil works the same way.

How does evil enter the world? It starts with a lie. A lie is a false picture of reality. Evil is born when man puts his hand to shaping the world in the image of the lie. He believes the lie is the truth, and refashions the world to conform to the lie.

Needless to say that evil causes great suffering in the world. This happens on an individual level, say, child abuse (abusers really believe the child enjoys the abuse) and on a corporate level like Nazism or Communism. Clear thinkers, meaning those who know the difference between truth – between reality -- and a lie are obligated to fight the evil when they confront it.

Peter and Helen: We often hear people lamenting "Haven't we evolved/progressed beyond the need for competition, violence and war?" In the Christian worldview, is it possible for us to "make the world a better place" - without war, violence and evil? What would be necessary to make such a world? We have seen the rapid progress of "human knowledge" but does "human nature" progress?

Fr Jacobse: Yes, we do hear this often but the sentiment is fundamentally naïve. If man is created with a radical freedom, then putting his hand to evil is the result of a deliberate choice. Remember, evil was not created. It has no ontological reality. Evil exists because some people misuse their freedom to distort and deconstruct what is good and true into something else.

Moral freedom is given to all men. The drug dealer chooses to deal drugs. MTV chooses to sexualize youth. The thief chooses to steal. Moral advancement is certainly possible, but the drive that ensures such progress does not exist in nature, but in the heart of man. Progress, in other words, occurs only when people exercise their freedom according to the commandment, that is, towards God and the good of his fellow man.

What is necessary to create a world with less war, crime, and the suffering that results from it? It begins with the individual. “All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing,” wrote Edmund Burke. “Acquire the spirit of peace, and a thousand around you will be saved,” wrote St. Seraphim of Sarov.

Man has a natural capacity to recognize truth. He will recognize the truth when he sees it provided he cultivates his inner orientation toward what is true -- which is to say towards God. This is the foundation of any personal and ultimately social renewal. Absent this, man is susceptible to lies and thus evil.

[Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse is a Greek Orthodox priest and edits the website OrthodoxyToday.org]

* * *

Peter and Helen Evans, "http://peterandhelenevans.com. This husband and wife team - freelance writers and speakers - teach a philosophical approach to conservatism, and are scheduled speakers at Blogging Man "http://www.bloggingman.org/" . They are also real estate agents in the Washington, DC area.

"In a fallen or broken world our lives are disordered, our emotional lives are disordered, even our sexuality is disordered.  This should not be a big surprise to anyone who understands that this is, in fact, a fallen world."  James Tonkowich, Pres. I.R.D.

Peter:  Before we get to the questions, could we start out with your background as a prelude?

Jim:  I'm currently President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.  Prior to this I was managing editor at BreakPoint for Chuck Colson; 520 words every day without fail.  I worked with some great writers.  Chuck has three staff writers who are just terrific.  Also, that included the website, Breakpoint.org and the BreakPoint Worldview Magazine.  I developed the curriculum for the Centurions Program and worked on the worldview curriculum for teenagers called Rewired.   We did a great job with that with Teen Mania.  Chuck kept me busy.

Helen:  What sort of academic credentials do you have?

Jim:  I have a BA in philosophy from Bates College in Maine, a Master of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry from Gorton Theological Seminary north of Boston.  I am also an ordained Minister of the Presbyterian Church in America.  I pastored a Church out in Silicon Valley and prior to that I was involved in youth ministry as part of FOCUS, Fellowship of Christians in Universities and Schools.  I ministered in prep schools. 

Helen:  The purpose of this interview is basically myth-busting.  We'd like to get the message out that the Christian Church does not hate homosexuals.  There are so many half truths and downright deceits.  We'd like to make clear what is Christian and what is not Christian about the Church's true stand on homosexuality.  Just about all of us have friends, acquaintances or people we deal with everyday who we'd like to read this and realize that the Church loves them.

Peter:  Let's start out with the foremost concept that intimidates people from addressing this issue.  That is Christ's admonition, "Judge not, lest ye be judged."  It would be hard to count the number of times we hear, "oh, that's so judgmental." People are afraid to condemn a behavior that they feel is immoral because they think they are breaking a commandment.   Help us to understand this concept better, please.

Jim:  Sure, I'll come at it in two different ways.  One is the natural law or common sense approach and the other is the Biblical approach.  The common sense approach is that we shouldn't judge other people.  No one - but no one - believes that is true.  When I was at college, I had one particular philosophy professor who was Jewish.  Some sophomore (whence we get the word 'sophomoric') would come in with a new concept for how morality ought to work.  Our professor would look at this 'new' view of morality and would look at the student and say, "Based on what you say, does your scheme let Hitler off the hook and, if so, is that OK with you, because it's not OK with me."  Now, we all realize the student was just trying out a scheme whereby he could justify taking drugs and premarital sex with his girlfriend, but when the question about Hitler was put to him, he realizes killing millions of people is wrong and that's judging. 

Look at poor Congressman Foley.   He got hammered by just about everyone, and rightly so.  Aren't we judging?  Even if we're only judging out of political expediency, we're nevertheless judging. 

Everybody makes judgements.  Everyone has some kind of morality.  People who have no morality - who think child molestation or cannibalism is OK - well, we put those people away.   Those are sociopaths.  So no one believes that they should never make judgements. 

Now, in regard to the Bible, the same Jesus who said "do not judge" certainly condemned the legalism of the Pharisees, certainly condemned the hypocrisy of the Sadducees.  He had plenty to say in judgment of all sorts of things.  Also, in fact, he said he would come again "in judgment."  We have, on the one hand, all sorts of things about Grace in St. Paul's letter to the Galatians, yet, at the same time, he has all sorts of rules about how Christians are to behave, and what a virtuous, good life looks like. 

Helen:  Many people will say it's all right for Jesus to judge, but not for us to judge.

Jim: But we all do judge, we judge constantly.

Peter:  Does that mean we're all sinning whenever we judge?  Or is that conclusion just a misunderstanding of what Jesus meant when he said "judge not"?

Jim:  It's a misunderstanding.  There is a difference in the meaning of the words; let's take 'condemning.'  There is a difference between making judgements and condemning people.  Let's look at the guy who shows up in places where the press can get a good picture of him.  He's standing there with a poster that says God hates fags.  Well, that's simply not true.  The final judgment is in God's hands, but we make moral judgements all the time.  There is nothing wrong with that.  In fact, there is everything right with that.

Helen:  If you were one of those who tell us not to judge, all I would have to do is grab your wallet and I bet you'd judge me very quickly.

Jim:  Of course, and rightly so.  The question is a spin off of a phrase I believe someone invented in the 60's that says "you can't legislate morality."  In fact, the only thing that you can legislate is morality.  We drive on the right side of the road.  Why?  Because we believe it is morally wrong to have chaos on the roads where people might get hurt and killed.  We believe that's morally wrong, therefore we set up traffic laws.  Something as trivial as traffic law is legislating morality.  We believe randomly killing people is a 'bad' thing.  We make all sorts of moral judgments in our legal code.  The notion that we are creating arbitrary rules just doesn't hold up. 

Peter:  You're talking about the rationalization of people who happen to object to those particular rules; they condemn the rules as just 'arbitrary.'  That's easier than actually making a reasoned argument against a particular rule.

Helen:  That's moving us to the next question.  God says to love our neighbor - we're not to hate our neighbor.  Shouldn't God be in charge of condemning or judging, not us?  And if so how can we speak out against homosexuality?

Jim:  The question is, what does it mean to love your neighbor?  Loving my neighbor means and includes looking out for the good of my neighbor.  I'm reading Jonathan Edwards' "Charity and its Fruits."  Edwards points out that love your neighbor is sort of an Old Testament way of looking at things.  What Jesus said was, "Love one another as I have loved you."  Jesus raises the stakes even higher.  To love your neighbor the way Jesus loved, means not to leave your neighbor in a dangerous or harmful position.  So, if my neighbor has a charcoal grill burning in his kitchen, I need to say something.  I'd have to say, "this is so dangerous you could burn your house down."  It's my responsibility to warn my neighbor when he's in danger.  To love means to look after other people.

Helen:  Love doesn't mean you'll turn a blind eye to any bad behavior that gives someone pleasure even though it might be bad for them, say, staying out all night drinking or doing drugs.  Love means what will be good for your soul, not hedonistic pleasures. 

Peter: And that love is not always easy. It means looking out for what's good for my neighbor when what's easier for me may be to ignore him or even agree with him. 

Helen:  We don't have to limit this to homosexual behavior.  We can talk about lying or cheating or stealing or homosexual behavior and it's all bad for us or our neighbor.  The Church does not single out homosexuality.  There are a vast number of things that are harmful to us - they are called sins. 

Jim:  Yes, there are two interesting articles that have come out recently.  One is in the Spectator written by a homosexual man who is in the theatre.  He wrote that he thought these were supposed to be the 'good times' for him -  this is supposed to be great stuff, but we're all miserable.  The other article was in the New Oxford Review in February, written by a gay man who had been in that lifestyle for 35 years.  He was also a Christian.  His story was similar in that he said he's found nothing but misery in that lifestyle. There is a high degree is drinking, drug use, suicide and domestic violence within same sex relationships and that lifestyle; not to mention the health risks run by gay men and lesbians.  The data was in a report from Canada.  The results were just horrifying.  These stories and reports say that this lifestyle is very unhealthy - both emotionally and physically.  So, love for one's neighbor means telling them about this. 

Helen:  So the Church doesn't condemn the person, but the behavior.  We can always change our behavior, whether we were born a certain way or not.  It's also interesting that you brought up a story about a man who was both gay and Christian.  He's not much different than all of us, since we're all sinners. 

Jim:  Absolutely!  That's something that needs to be brought up.  I think this is where the Church needs to do a better job.   We need to be very clear that sin is sin.  We, as human beings, want to see some sins as worse than others. 

Helen:  Such as the deepening circles of hell in Dante's Inferno?

Jim:  Well, there is something to his understanding that sin is progressive and it grow worse and worse.  I think there is something to that.  What I was getting at is that there are some people in the Church who want to condemn homosexual behavior but will wink at divorce, for instance.  Or, we go ballistic over same-sex marriage but we don't think of what we've allowed marriage to become.  We wink at divorce or marriages that don't reflect God's plan.  

God created a three-legged stool; marriage between a man and a woman, sex and children.   As long as those three things are kept together, things are great.  It seems to me the way we got here is that increasingly, the legs are disconnected from one another.  We have sex without marriage, sex without children, we have children without sex... there is technology for all this. Christians swallowed in-vitro fertilization hook, line and sinker without giving it proper reflection.  We use the term "reproductive technology" which we shouldn't.  Instead, we should talk about "procreation."  We separate child-rearing from marriage and we separate marriage from having children.  I recently attended a wedding conducted by people I know and respect and, throughout the whole ceremony, there was no mention of children.  I find that very disturbing.  When I do a wedding ceremony I always mention children and tell the couple that we expect that they will be having children.  I pray for their children during the ceremony.  Sometimes that raises eyebrows in the crowd. 

Peter:  You raised the subject of what we have allowed marriage to become and I'm wondering, why do homosexuals want it?

Jim:  Well, we have marriage over there, children over here, sex further over there; so it's a mix-and-match that makes up marriage, and who's to say it's only couples then?  What some people, like Andrew Sullivan, want to say is that homosexuals just want 'couples' marriage.  But, once you go that far, who is to say where else it could go?  We're talking about polygamy,  or why should incest be forbidden?  If marriage is anything you want it to be, then anything goes. 

Helen:  Once we change the definition of marriage, of Christianity, of any word, anything goes.  There are no definitions anymore.  C. S. Lewis has a wonderful story on this in the beginning of his book, "Mere Christianity," where he talks about how the definition of a gentlemen has changed.  Whereas, in the past it meant certain objective criteria by which to decide whether someone were, in fact, a gentlemen, now it merely means that you have a favorable opinion of a fellow.  So, when we change the definition of marriage, we can change the definition of sin. 

Peter:  Well, we're all sinners and, at least in that, we can establish solidarity with homosexuals.  We can say to them, you're getting wet from one side and we're getting wet from another; we each sin in our own way, but we're all the same in that we all sin.  And we're all the same in that we're all to try to sail as close as we can to the wind and stick to the straight and narrow, to turn away from our sins.  We all have challenges or crosses to bear.  That happens to be yours. I have my own, but we're all struggling. 

Jim:  There needs to be an understanding of the doctrine of sin.  Part of a recent church service was to recite a part of the Heidelberg Catechism that talks about our sin and makes it pretty clear that we are without hope without Christ.  "We are caught in our sins; there is no good thing in us."  The pastor said something about believing that and the woman sitting next to me said quietly, "I don't believe that."  I think she speaks for a lot of people.  I think of the old gospel chorus, "Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me."  There is a verse there, "I took Jesus for my savior, you take him too."  I get the feeling a lot of people think, "I took Jesus for my savior, what's the matter with you?"  Not understanding that you took Jesus as your savior because of grace, and not because you were such a good person to start out with.  Not because you're so smart but because God is so good.  As the Church, we need to keep that in mind.  We need to understand that everyone is saved by grace, which means we should have compassion for those around us. 

Helen:   Speaking of the woman who said she didn't believe there is nothing good in us; there is a new idea out there that we are perfect.  There is even a bumper sticker "God doesn't make junk." That implies we're perfect in every way and just have to find the way back to that perfection.  We've heard some homosexuals on TV say that God made me this way, therefore whatever I'm doing must be OK. 

Jim:  That's based on the "gay gene" project.  That's a modernist project but it's dubious science.   

Helen:  But when we hear that someone is born with a burden - I may have been born with deformed legs - that's my cross to bear and to learn to overcome it whatever way I can.

Jim:   Yes, we're born in a world of sin and we all have certain proclivities.  In a fallen or broken world our lives are disordered, our emotional lives are disordered, even our sexuality is disordered.  This should not be a big surprise to anyone who understands that this is, in fact, a fallen world. 

Helen:  There is an idea that it's a perfect world and that we just have to find that perfection. 

Jim:  Yes, there is a sort of utopianism that drives that idea.

Peter:  Even environmentalism reflects that attitude.  Everything is perfect, if only we humans just didn't mess it up.  Perfect harmony and perfect balance is the mantra. 

Jim:  Yes.  Doesn't that mean subsistence farming and dying at age 35?

Helen:  So basically do you think it's different world views?  One is that, "this is how God made me so I'm OK doing what I feel like doing" and the other is the "fallen world" where we must choose to do right and choose not to be tempted by our sinful desires.

Jim:  Yes, and even in the harmonious world view they pick and choose.  There is some evidence that alcoholism and depression may have some genetic component.  However, we don't celebrate the fact that Uncle Harry is a drunk.

We don't say, "God made him that way, Hallelujah!"  We just don't do that, we draw distinctions. 

Helen:  Let's move on to the idea that "the highest virtue is love, so what does it matter the way it's shown?"

Jim:  It's interesting... I've been reading Jonathan Edwards and I've been reading Dante.  I think they would have liked each other.  Dante's "Purgatory" is all about dis-ordered love.  From the Protestant point of view, it's the story of sanctification.  Pride is disordered love.  It's love that's not directed toward God and neighbor.  It's self-focused love that is not right, that's disordered.  Yes, it's love, but it's not loving the right things.  Similarly, Edwards recounts in the "Treatise on Religious Affections" that you might enjoy singing hymns to worship God, but that doesn't make you a Christian.  You may read the Bible and love to read the Bible, but that doesn't mean you're a Christian.  He goes through one after the other and by the time you get to the middle of this book, you say to yourself, "are there any Christians?" Or can we know that we are Christians?  Then in the last half of the book he says that true religion has to do with our affections; in particular with what we love.  So love is not the highest virtue. 

You can love NASCAR. That's nice, but it's not the highest virtue, and it's not the road to salvation.  It may not even be the road to temporal happiness.  You can love cats and we've all seen news reports of houses where there are 200 sickly cats in a two-bedroom house.  You can even love your children in a way that is destructive to them. To simply say that, "Love is the highest virtue" is, well... it's not!  Love has to have an object and what that object is makes all the difference. 

Jesus said "love your neighbor as yourself." He said "love God with all your heart, soul and strength."

Peter:  That was the greatest commandment.  He's saying, here's love, which is the greatest thing we have and so we have to direct it to the greatest thing that is, which is God.  Once you've got that connection established and you can see some light, then you're ready to love your neighbor.

Jim:  St. Paul wrote to Timothy and said that love of money is the root of all evil.  It causes all sorts of evil. So, our sin problem, in the final analysis, is not lying or cheating or stealing or homo-erotic behavior - our sin problem is that our love is disordered.  Growing in sanctification is God re-ordering what we love.  That can happen for everyone.  I mentioned the article in the New Oxford Review.  At the end of that article, the fellow points out that God never condemns men loving men.  That's ridiculous.  The problem is the homo-eroticism that goes along with it.  He points out, as a traditional Catholic, that he has a very, very close friend who is a male, but they keep their trousers on.  They have a tremendous friendship and that's the way it's really meant to be.

Peter:  I can paraphrase Michael Novak on that.  He says God created us to be his friends,  He didn't create us to build big buildings or make lots of money but He created us to love Him and to love one another in the same way.  And that friendship is another name for love, and the animating factor for all of creation.

Helen:  When we began this project, we got some letters telling us that to define Christianity is divisive.  Why can't we show the world that Christianity can accept all? What do you think about defining Christianity?

Jim:  Defining anything is divisive.  We're constantly in the process of making definitions and it's a divisive action.  It's not a wrong thing to do, we do it all the time.  One way or another you are going to define Christianity.  What I think those people are really saying is, "accept my definition of Christianity."  They're not saying you shouldn't make definitions; they are just saying make them to agree with what they want.  That's dirty pool.

Peter:  That's an attempt to appropriate the meaning of words. 

Helen:  Divisiveness has become a bad word, it's right up there next to racist.  Along that line of definitions, we saw an example of how using our own definitions is in the air anymore.  We were flipping through a rerun of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and Raymond was musing that he's not a bad guy, he doesn't go to Church and maybe he's not perfect, but on the other hand he hasn't killed anyone lately.  He's basically a nice guy, isn't that enough to be Christian? It seems like a mild example, but he's defined his Christianity; and if we accept that, who's to say how far the definition can change?   Are we indeed free to define Christianity to fit our own conscience or convenience?

Jim:  I certainly don't believe that.  God's truth does not change with the times.

Helen:  But isn't Christianity forgiving and compassionate?  Shouldn't we just accept someone who says they're not ready for the whole thing yet?

Jim:  I think we should accept those people.  Should we make them members of our Church?  No.  The words have gotten very flaky and mushy.  Tolerance and acceptance are perfect examples.  Tolerance means that while I think your ideas are completely flaky, I'll still be your friend.  We can talk together, go jogging or play tennis together.  I'll let you have your ideas and you'll let me have my ideas and we'll tolerate each other.  That's what the word means.  Increasingly, the word has come to mean that whatever you say or think is just fine with me.  That's not tolerance; that's capitulation. That's not tolerance; that's an Orwellian strategy on how to use language. 

I have friends who are homosexuals - I go out with them, but I still think their behavior is wrong.  They think my assessment of their behavior is wrong.  That's tolerating each other. 

Peter:  It's like agreeing to disagree, rather than pretending to agree with each other. 

Jim:  Or insisting that we not disagree. 

Helen:  My hairdresser is gay and he was always talking about his 'mean' family.  He said he wanted them to accept him.  I suggested that they did accept him, but just didn't agree with him.  He went on about how they dislike, not only his gay lifestyle, but how he spends his money and a number of other things.   I finally asked what acceptance would look like and he said, they would always agree with him and be happy with whatever he did.  As long as he's happy, they should be happy for him too, no matter what he did.  However, I pointed out, he couldn't do the same for them and accept them and their ideas as they were.  He was looking for a world that doesn't exist. 

Jim: As you pointed out, nobody really believes that everyone will agree with them all the time.  Someone said "your freedom ends where my nose begins." The problem is, if you come from that kind of position where everything I do is fine and everybody is fine with everything I do, there is no reason, in principle, for you to say your freedom ends where my nose begins.  Maybe sentimental, but there is no principled reason.  If I punch you in the nose, tolerance and acceptance means you think it's just great.  But it isn't just great - it's terrible and I have wronged you. 

It is difficult arguing with words that may not be useful in a post modern era, because words mean anything I want them to mean. 

Helen: That brings us to the "living Bible."  Shouldn't its interpretation change with the times?

Jim:  It seems we have a living Bible, like a 'living' Constitution.  I must relate a post-modern story.  When we were living in the Bay area, there was an article in the San Jose paper about a woman who was a lesbian, a major leader in feminist and gay rights movements, and she had a live-in boyfriend.  People said to her doesn't that make you bi-sexual?  "Absolutely not!" She said she was a lesbian with a male boyfriend.  So even the word lesbian doesn't mean anything we can understand anymore.  It means whatever she wants it to mean and tolerance means we have to say that's fine.  That makes the tower of Babel look mild. 

Peter:  I feel we're skating pretty close to the edge of a conversational cliff here and if we keep moving in that direction the sounds coming out of our mouths will just become nonsense.  With that in mind, I feel myself looking around for something solid to hang onto.  I'm glad I found religion to the extent that I have.  Whatever people say to justify their self indulgences is meaningful in that specific, narrow context, but in comparison to the capital-T truth - which is true whether anyone knows it or not - then that stuff doesn't matter.  It's how close we can come the real Truth that will save us. I don't mean to imply that we, ourselves, can attain that Truth, but I mean to say that we can orient ourselves toward that Truth. We can love it.

Jim:  Part of it is we need to understand, in the Church, that the ways of communication that worked fine in the 60's through the 90's just don't work anymore. 

Peter:  Are you talking about the dissolution of the vocabulary?

Jim:  Yes, we need to understand better.  I remember in the 70's and 80's we had all these arguments about the empty tomb and the resurrection.  That was the question everyone was asking then, so we amassed all this information to answer it.  Now, we need to know what the questions of this generation are, and we need to find ways of answering those questions that they can actually hear.  

I think there are places in the Church where that is going on, but it's a big project and it's a big study.  I notice your Orthodox cross and I've said for a long time now that, if the Liturgical Churches can get their ducks in a row, this is their moment.  I really believe that. The mega-Church movement is in large measure a baby-boom movement.   My son is 22 and he has lots of friends who are traditional Catholics.  Someone was telling me he spoke with the fellow who runs l'Abri in Rotterdam, in secular, secular Holland.  Francis Schaefer started it in Switzerland and this is one of its branch offices.  This fellow who runs l'Abri said kids in Holland are very interested in Christianity, but they don't want to worship in a refurbished warehouse with a band.  They want to go to the Cathedral!

Helen:  Some Churches have changed their worship services.  If that's OK, why not change the interpretation of the Bible?

Jim:  As long as there is nothing in the change of worship that is contrary to the Bible, then, fine.  We believe that, while the Bible was given through human beings, it was a revelation and inspired by God.  It is an unchanging revelation.  We look at the way Jesus Christ treated the Old Testament and provided for the writing of the New Testament and we accept the Bible for what it is and accept Jesus Christ for what he said.

Helen:  Let's get into the acceptance of the Old and New Testament as different books and how we treat them differently.  In fact, one of the arguments we hear about changing the Bible is, "look, no one believes in stoning anymore, but there it is in the Bible.  Why should we accept everything else it says if we don't accept stoning?"

Jim:  There is a distinction made between the moral laws in the Old Testament and the ceremonial or civil laws in the Old Testament.  We are not God's nation in the way Israel was and therefore they don't apply.  They applied in a certain place at a certain time.  While we can learn from those civil laws, they do not apply today.  The ceremonial laws don't apply because Christ was crucified.  They were the stop-gap solution to a problem that no longer existed after the resurrection of Christ.  However, we do believe in the moral laws. 

Helen:  If we take the whole Bible together, there are stonings in the Old Testament, but also a story in the new Testament where Jesus stopped a stoning. 

Jim:  What he really stopped is hypocrisy.  Here's a woman who committed adultery;  how could she have done it alone? 

Peter:  The distinction we're drawing is between a crime and its punishment.  In the old days, adultery was punished by stoning.  We still have the concept that some acts are considered crimes or sins and deserving of punishment.  It's the civil punishment that has changed, not the crime or sin.  

Jim:  Right, and you can't read the Old Testament laws the way you read mandatory minimums.  The Old Testament is descriptive, not prescriptive.   It doesn't say, if a kid won't eat his broccoli, you must absolutely positively stone him to death.  No, it's a description, not a mandate. 

Helen:  Since we're talking about offenses, a major theme in Christianity is forgiveness.  Unfortunately these days, it seems if we merely disagree with someone, we've offended them.  How do we reconcile the possibility of having to ask for forgiveness with speaking out against immoral behavior?

Jim:  Forgiveness takes seriously that we sin against God.  The egoism that says everyone is sinning against me,  the person who is offended by every little bump in the road, is thinking about himself, not God.

Helen:  For instance, Peter is wearing a lapel pin with a cross on it.  He's not deliberately trying to offend anyone, but some people have said they are offended by it.  Should he take it off? 

Jim:  The same person who says a lapel pin with a cross offends him may be dressed in a way I find thoroughly unattractive, but isn't going to change because I'm offended.  It's all very one-sided and it's tied to a victim mentality.  It just comes down to people getting away with it.

Helen:  It's more than a one on one problem.  We've seen public monuments torn down because they offended someone; and it's not only religious monuments, it's even the American flag.  Yet, we're asked to tear them down and also ask forgiveness from the Christian perspective. 

Jim:  It's because we take these things seriously.  If we're personally offending people we should probably stop it.  However, we should remember that in the instances you're talking about the Gospel is an offense, Jesus is the offense, the message is the offense.  You or I are not the offense.  I think we should take that seriously.  The early Church, certainly in the first number of centuries, is a story of Christians giving offense.  So, while I shouldn't intentionally be offensive, if my faith gives offense, then... too bad.  Jesus offended lots of people as well. 

Helen:  We often hear the phrase, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Doesn't that just mean, I have my own rules, you can have yours and let's not bother each other?  How does that work in a society where we all have to live together? 

Jim:  That's usually taken out of context.  One of the enormous problems we have within our culture is that, we're so individualistic that it is very difficult to develop an understanding of