Stimulation Vs. Sensitivity

Louder music.  Starbucks Doubleshot.  Movies in 3-D.  Finer exquisite tastes.Faster Food.  On Demand.  Comfort Control.  More efficient cars.  Unlimited Texting.  Twitter.  Blaring Radios.  Super-Size.  Stronger Perfume.  Eccentric Clothing.  Premium Channels.  IPOD Touch.  GPS.  Pay-Per-View.  Red Box.  Open All Night.  Buy-One-Get-One-Free.

I define stimulation as a foreign substance which excites our daily life, drawing us into a surreal/fantasy-like experience.  We live in a world of constant stimulation.  Every movie we watch is inciting new desires and evoking past emotions that slowly make there way through our central nervous system.  Angry, Passionate, Funny, Lonely, or Romantic music tend to catch us up into something unforeseen.  Entertainment, food, and luxurious living are constantly stimulating our lives to no end.  For many reality and fantasy grow harder to tell apart.

The problem is the after effects of too much stimulation, namely addiction, depression, and dullness.  Just like the cocaine addict no longer is satisfied with “boring” marijuana but looks for a better high; so too do we continually look for a new and great high in terms of movies, music, food, television, cars, fashion, and video games.

I read an article recently about the film Avatar.  After people saw Avatar they went into a depression because the movie was so “fantastic” and ecstatic that they were no longer satisfied with their “boring” life.  It is hard to return to reality after such a high.

Henri Nouwen also talks about the stimulation of words in our culture in his book “The Way of the Heart.”  Words are thrown around so much and used so cheaply that “the main function of the word, which is communication, is no longer realized.  The word no longer communicates, no longer fosters communion, no longer creates community, and therefore no longer gives life.”  Words mean nothing when we crave something bigger and better.

Now here is how it works- the more stimulation we get, the more we will need thereafter to sustain the same euphoric sensations.  A porn addict will need something more than pictures after awhile.  A movie addict will need a flat screen 3-D blue ray player soon.  A video gamer will need to latest video game.

Now here is the problem- the more one is stimulated, the less sensitive the persons heart becomes.  A life in God is fueled by living with a sensitive heart before the Lord, and here is the key, IN REALITY (which is in opposition to much stimulation).

A sensitive heart causes one to mourn over injustice and pain that is common in our world today.  A sensitive heart can also rejoice at the beauty found in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The heart given to stimulation will be virtually unmoved by the atrocities at large in the world- nor will they possess a heart of wonder before the Lord. Finding comfort in entertainment, food, sex, drug, or vanity, they shun the solace found in communion with God.

But we stimulate our lives for a reason.  It is mostly because of the pain, loneliness, or anger we feel when we do not.  In fear of feeling that swirl of emotions we seek to distract ourselves and incite new emotions to replace the negative ones we would be accustomed to.  The sensitive heart feels and experiences both the sorrows and joys of life.

In closing, the pathway to a vibrant prayer life in God is a sensitive heart that feels no matter what the cost.  Do you want to learn how to both rejoice and lament with the God who both rejoices and laments?  Take away that which is stimulating and thus numbing your life.  God is inviting you to be sensitive again.

The Prodigal Son Pt. 6- Love Lets Go

Have you ever loved something or someone so dearly that you could swear that you would never ever let it go and always wanted to keep him/her/or it close to your heart forever? Or has something so close to you ever been torn away from you; leaving you feeling at such a loss, flooded with pain? I am convinced that the Father of the Prodigal Son went through all of these emotions as His son was getting ready to leave. I am sure He wanted to stand in front of the door, take the keys of the car, or take away his inheritance and say “You’re not going!” But He didn’t. Actually scripture doesn’t say anything about it one way or another- leading me to believe that rather than manipulating the circumstances to keep His son from leaving, He instead watched Him go, being fully connected to the pain and heartbreak.

You see when something or someone we love threatens to leave usually our first response is one out of self preservation and self defense. Whether it be begging, manipulating, demanding, warning, controlling, or despising, they are all tools to try to bring about our own desired end. But the question of love usually isn’t one to do with nearness but rather “Do you love me enough to let me go?” And the answer from the Father of the Prodigal Son is a sorrowful “yes.”

Because love is dignified by choice, the Father had to bestow the freedom of choice upon his son. In short, forced love is not love at all and the Father would rather feel the emptiness and pain of lost love than to bring his son into humiliation and subjection to himself by coercive means. Love lets go. And by letting go, it opens itself to the unknowable future which can be quite scary. Would this be the last time He would see His son? Would His son ever come home? No answer and He did not know. But He still bestowed freedom to His children.

Is there something or someone in your life that you claim to “love” but it looks more like bondage, manipulation, and neediness than freedom, giving, and joy? Remember that love always sets free and gives the dignity of choice rather than relinquishing both freedom and will. I encourage you to open yourself to the mystery of the future though it may be painful because we will never experience love from another if we don’t allow that other to choose.

The Prodigal Son Pt.4- The Fatted Calf

Celebrating is not really celebrating if a feast isn’t involved.  Are not most of your fondest memories of your family and friends taking place around a dinner table telling stories; enjoying one another and mom’s cooking?  The same has been true for most every culture on earth throughout history.  The same is also true for the Father’s celebration over his estranged child.  He tells his servants to kill the fatted calf.  A goat would feed anywhere from 5-7 people- but a calf is a different story and a fatted calf at that.  A fatted calf would anywhere from 150 to 200 people!  Thats like renting out an entire restaurant and filling it with people…  A huge celebration for the whole village!

Because sin does not only effect our relationship with God but also our relationship with and among our communities, the celebration of one returning home from a life of sin isn’t primarily a  private party but a communal celebration including the entire town.  Sin at its core divides, separates, and alienates loved ones from each other- Sin is Anti-love.  When we are saved from sin we are saved from it’s effects also, which is separation, estrangement, and isolation.  This is why the bible stresses the importance of God’s family.  Salvation is not a renewed personal relationship with God alone, but with the entire family.  In short, Salvation is being saved from sin into a family- where God is the Father and the church is our brothers and sisters.

Do you let other people celebrate over you?  Do you allow others to enjoy and by enjoying, love you?  Most of us have been too hurt to trust another to love us- But the Great Shepherd is calling us again to trust Him and open ourselves to others to enjoy and be enjoyed in His flock.  Would you let others enjoy you?  Would you take time to enjoy things about yourself?  Remember, every time you make your way back to the Father’s house, all of the families in heaven are rejoicing over you (Luke 15:7).

Prodigal Son Pt. 3- The Running Father

“And he ran and embraced his son, and kissed him” Luke 15:20

Here we see the Father of the prodigal son running down the road to find his estranged son.  When this story was told by Jesus to first century hearers they would have been shocked by this statement; a patriarch (or respectable father of a community) does not gird himself, pulling up his garments, and run.  But this is what the father did when he left his place of honor to go to his shameful son.  The father became worthless to bestow honor on his son that was deserving of little just as Jesus became poor to make those who are poor very rich.

Does the God you call Jesus leave His lofty place of honor and run to you in your weakness?  Does He run full speed to show mercy when your heart is seemingly filled with lust, anger, greed, and hate?  Is He willing to crucify His reputation to give dignity to you?  Or does the one you pray to mostly stand back while you are struggling, being mostly apathetic?  Or is He mostly angry at you when you are too weak to say “no” to temptations?  This is not the God of the bible-  The God of the bible runs undignified to give value to the broken prodigals and wayward children who aren’t deserving.  Lift up your eyes, He is running to you now.

C.S. Lewis on Marriage

Those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy. The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion’s own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do.
And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry. But what, it may be asked, is the use of keeping two people together if they are no longer in love? There are several sound, social reasons; to provide a home for their children, to protect the woman (who has probably sacrificed or damaged her own career by getting married) from being dropped whenever the man is tired of her. But there is also another reason of which I am very sure…
No one in his senses would deny that being in love is far better than either common sensuality or cold self-centredness. But, as I said before, “the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs.” Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last, but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called “being in love” usually does not last… But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from “being in love” — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be “in love” with someone else. “Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.
People get from books and plays and the cinema that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on “being in love” for ever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change — not realising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last… The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place dies away when you really go to live there. Does this mean it would be better not to live in the beautiful place? By no means. If you go through with it, the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. What is more, it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction…
This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go — let it die away — go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow — and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned person for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them.

C.S. Lewis
Book 3 Chapter 6, “Christian Marriage”
Mere Christianity

The Prodigal Son Pt. 2

In the story of the prodigal son we see clearly how, when fear enters into a relationship, the human heart will respond in one of two ways; namely rejection or rebellion.  The prodigal son manifested the fear of his own heart in rebellion.  For whatever reason (scripture does not say) he had enough of his father’s house and decided to leave.  The older brother, however, decided to stay at the house and help his dad.

When the younger brother came home from his life of sex and fun yet full of regret the father came out to tell the older brother; let’s listen to his heart of rejection:

“Listen!  For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends”

From this passage we can deduce a couple of things; first is the way that the older son viewed himself and second is how he viewed his father.  From his own mouth he exclaims how he has been “working like a slave” for his father.  The work that was being done was not a heart of love for his father but an orphaned heart seeking for some sort of affirmation (we will expound on this later).  He viewed himself as bending over backwards for a father who was hard to please.

If the son viewed himself as a slave then his father must assume the role of the slave master; one who is harsh and does not give gifts.  This is evidenced by the older brothers view of the father’s house- namely a house without celebrating.  When we perceive the father’s house as a celebrationless house our only option thereafter is an orphaned heart and feeling like a slave.  But when we see the father’s house as one of immense celebration where the hearts of his children are adored and nurtured, it is easy to run alongside the father to pick up the broken and hurting brothers who have sold themselves for lesser pleasures.

Do you see your Father in heaven celebrating over you?  Is the Father’s house a place where your very life is commemorated and deeply cherished?  Do you give the Father time each day to sing over you and wash you?  I encourage you today- accept the place of honor that He has given you at His table and dine with Him.  Don’t only let Him celebrate your existence but also join in and participate in the celebration over your life; this is as simple as agreeing with His thoughts and feelings toward you.  Even Paul had to be “persuaded” by the love of God (Romans 8:38-39); what makes us think that we will “get it” all of a sudden?  Take time today and everyday to let Him adore you.  Then we will begin to believe the words that the Father said to the older brother are true for us:  “My son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” God Bless.

Mystery Vs. Question

“The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens.  It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head.  And it is his head that splits.”- G.K. Chesterton Orthodoxy

In our culture today we have a dilemma of needing to know the answer.  This poses a problem when considering the difference between Mystery and Question.  A question is a linguistic expression used to obtain information, thus the primary purpose of a question is to retrieve data.  However, the function of a mystery is quite different than that of a question.  Where a question leaves the inquiring mind chaffed until an answer is conjured, a mystery invokes wonder and arouses an enjoyable curiosity at the unveiling of the ineffable.

Would not we think it odd that, when sitting down to watch a movie, a friend demands to know the ending before even beginning the previews?  This is the fallacy of replacing Mystery for Question.  The goal of mystery is to unfold in an intrinsic way that which insights wonder in the heart of humanity, while Question is primarily logical and is motivated by the need for propositions and facts.  Where questions seek to understand and by understand seek to control; mystery invokes worship.

There are questions in the world that must be answered.  But there are mysteries that, rather than rationalizing them into fixed answers, beckon us to awe, wonder, worship, and expectancy.  For where there is an absence of mystery, there is an absence of true life.

A letter on Biblical Worldviews

This is a letter I wrote to someone who was curious about the Greek vs. Hebrew worldview.  I have edited it only slightly because I wanted to keep the feel of it as a personal letter.

Dear Sara

I am so glad that you are taking interest in Theology…  Just remember that it isnt about sounding more smart (which Im sure you know) but about loving God with all of your heart, MIND, soul, and strength.  So **high five** for your awesomeness in actually caring what you believe.

Okay I will try to be as simple as possible. A Greek worldview takes philosophy from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and tries to put Yahweh, the God Israel in that box. Greeks saw change as evil and so they focused on a God that didn’t change ever. Greek thinking also teaches that since God is unknowable, we have to define God by what He isn’t rather than what He is…. Like immutable, incomprehensible, impassible, immovable, immaterial… It also defines God in complete absolutes like omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. But the Hebrew worldview defines God not by what He isn’t but by who He is… Like Merciful, compassionate, Just, Love, Slow to anger…. It defines God in relation to man while the Greek defines God in abstraction and absent from human history. So God becoming Man isn’t a stretch to Hebrews like it is for Greek thinkers… they would not ask the question “How can God who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient be in a body like ours?” That was never a concern for Hebrews- Jesus being fully man and fully God is possible because God is defined by Love, Compassion, and Justice….. The problem with Greek thinking isnt that it just messes us up here at Christology but because touches every part of our theology from Anthropology (Study of Man) to Pneumatology (Study of the Holy Spirit), from Soterology (Study of Salvation) to ecclesiology (Study of the church).

Greeks teach a dualism between the “supernatural” (a completely unbiblical term) and the natural. Meaning that the supernatural is better than the natural… which is what the Gnostic’ heresy was all about. Matter is evil and the spiritual is good. Having a human body is less than perfect, so how can God become human and remain perfect? (This was the Docetism Heresy that Christ was not fully man but only part man) So Greeks would say that the planet is evil but going away to heaven is good…. do you see where this leads?

Salvation in Greek thinking is leaving earth behind and absolutely never having a body again, but the Hebrews saw the renewal of all things (Isaiah 40-66) and the resurrection of the body was of massive importance (1 Cor 15, Daniel 12:3, Isaiah 25-26). For example before Socrates committed suicide he said  “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please, don’t forget to pay the debt” which means that death is the cure, freeing ones soul from the body. He saw his real self as his soul and his body a mere shell that was momentarily holding it captive.

Man being made into God’s image is only by his cognition and ability to reason (since Greeks loved wisdom). But the bible shows painstakingly that it is in and within our relationships that the image of God is truly and most readily seen… in our fervent love for one another- Mostly in a relationship between man and woman. But But But- Greeks see marriage as mostly evil… This is why celibacy is huge in the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Abstaining from pleasure is huge to a Greek worldview- no sex, no food, no pleasure…. Origen emasculated himself (one of the church father’s who was one of the first to synthesize Greek thought into the Christian Religion). But Hebrews love pleasure and give God thanks for sex, food, and yes, even wine! God gave us all things for us to enjoy with thanksgiving (Paul tell Timothy)!

In Greek thought, man comes to know God by attaching “attributes” to him apart from experience or relationship. How can you experience God’s transcendence or impassibility? You can’t. Or have you heard the nonsense about worshiping God not for what He has done for you but for who He is? That is absolutely wrong. The only way you can know who God is is by what He has done for you. Every song sung in worship to God in the bible is from His past saving acts (Like Creation, Covenant, Exodus, Conquest, End of Exile, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Judgment, Day of the Lord). The only way you can know someone is to have a history of knowing them in relationship (which is how Israel knew her God). You cannot experience His omniscience in relationship but you can His love and kindness.

Now for Calvinism (which is dominated by intense Greek thinking). (BTW John Calvin said that because God could not feel pain (impassible) in his deity, he had to become human so that he could partake in pain in his humanity…. but where one is unable to feel pain and to suffer, they are by necessity unable to love. So Calvin’s God was mostly apathetic and loveless). Calvinism holds that God is omnipotent (which means he has all power). But what happens when you give someone the ability to choose (freewill)? You are giving them some form of limited power in their choice. If you give humans any power, it takes power away from God. You see where this is going? So if God is to remain omnipotent, then humans cannot have freewill. And one thing about free will is, when you give it, you can’t take it back. When God gave freewill he gave it forever. The God of Calvinism creates humans who live without choices of their own but everything is predetermined for them. Humans don’t really love God because they don’t have the ability to choose to or not to love Him (where there is no choice, there is no love). Do you see how horrible this is? People who are raised Calvinist live in fear that God did not chose them for salvation (I have met like 5 or 6 that are scared to death of God for this reason) but chose them for Hell. So much for God desiring all to be saved…

There is so much more to be said about this but time and space limit me. Here is a teaching on it that is quite amazing. The guy is british and funny too. There are two parts.

http://www.richardliantonio.com/richardliantonio.com/Resources_files/01%20De-Greecing%20the%20Church%20Part%201%201.mp3

http://www.richardliantonio.com/richardliantonio.com/Resources_files/2-01%20De-Greecing%20the%20Church%20Part%202%201.mp3

I will get to the other questions later… this one just got me excited.

Greg Boyd on Patriotism

I am thankful to live in a country that acknowledges people have rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and that empowers citizens to influence how they are governed. I know how rare such freedom has been throughout history, and how costly it has been to acquire and protect. I’m also proud of many other ideals America stands for, such as the principle that all people are created equal (though, we’re obviously still in the process of living up to this one). So, I see no problem with an American Christian being patriotic.

At the same time, followers of Jesus need to be very careful. History shows us how easy it is for Christians to forget that the Kingdom Jesus came to establish is “not of this world” (John 18:36, TNIV). And it’s to His Kingdom we are to pledge our sole allegiance.

Throughout history we find Christians buying the age-old pagan lie that God uniquely favors their country, and their national enemies are God’s enemies. Believing that lie, patriotic Christians have tragically followed the orders of earthly rulers and marched into battle “for God and country,” rather than following the example of Jesus—who gave His life for the people who persecuted Him.

Ironically, in some cases the “enemies” Christians have slaughtered have been other patriotic Christians who happened to be born in other countries, or other parts of the same country. Few things have done more to discredit Christianity than the patriotic zeal with which Christians have participated in violence.

“Whoever claims to live in him,” John teaches us, “must live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6). When we compromise our commitment to living and loving like Jesus, we’ve crossed the line between healthy and idolatrous patriotism. Jesus and Paul repeatedly command us to love, bless, pray for and do good to our enemies, and to never retaliate or resort to violence. It’s healthy to patriotically appreciate the positive aspects of our country and our form of government. But we’re putting that patriotism in front of God the moment our allegiance to our country motivates us to kill our enemies rather than to die for them. And anything in our lives that comes before God is idolatry.

The danger of idolatrous patriotism is not just about how we compromise our love for enemies. If we become too invested in our nation, we can forget our real citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 1:27) and our job is to live as ambassadors of Christ ( 2 Corinthians 5:20). Rather than manifesting the distinctive values of the Kingdom of God, we can begin to assume the ideals of our culture are Kingdom values.

I appreciate that America recognizes my rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but there is nothing distinctly Kingdom about these rights. They’re nowhere to be found in the Bible. To the contrary, as a follower of Jesus I’m called to surrender my rights to life, liberty and happiness, and instead submit to the will of God. These rights are noble on a political level, but they can get in the way of my call to seek first the Kingdom. I’m grateful America extends these rights to people, for most countries throughout history have not. But my sole allegiance is to the heavenly Kingdom that calls me to surrender my rights. If I get too concerned with an earthly country that frees me to pursue my rights, my healthy patriotism becomes idolatrous. I’ve put my country’s ideals before God.

Along similar lines, history consistently shows when we forget we’re “foreigners” and “exiles” in this world, we can begin to associate our preferred form of government or politics too closely with the Kingdom of God. Here, too, it’s crucial we follow the example of Jesus.

Despite the fact that He lived in an age when plenty of political and nationalistic issues were being hotly debated, Jesus never displayed the slightest interest in such matters. He didn’t come to bring us a “new and improved” version of the Kingdom of the world. He came to inaugurate a Kingdom that is “not of this world.” It’s a Kingdom that is no more Israeli than it is Palestinian; no more American than it is Iraqi; and no more socialist than it is democratic. Instead, it’s a Kingdom that encompasses people from every nation and political persuasion, for it puts on display the “one new humanity” Jesus died to create (Ephesians 2:15). In this Kingdom, Paul declares, there is no longer any Jew or Greek (Galatians 3:27-29). In our Kingdom, all national, tribal, ethnic, gender, social and economic distinctions are insignificant.

So over the Fourth of July weekend—and all year—be appreciative of your country. Be patriotic. But make sure your patriotism pales in comparison to your sacrifice, commitment and allegiance to the Kingdom of God.

Gregory a. Boyd is the author of The Myth of a Christian Religion and The Myth of a Christian Nation (both Zondervan). He’s the founder and pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN. This article originally appeared in RELEVANT.

N.T. Wright on Homosexuality

Here is what N.T. Wright said about Homosexuality in a magazine article about the recent Anglican/Episcopal split… Any thoughts?  BTW his rant about justice over against ethics is a cut at Walter Bruegemann’s “Justice vs. Holiness” polemic in his Introduction to the Old Testament where he claims that Justice and Holiness at times are set at odds in the bible and one ultimately has to “win out” in the end.  Click here to read more about it.

Here is NT Wright-

That wider tradition always was counter-cultural as well as counter-intuitive. Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).
Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined, as the shrill leader in yesterday’s Times suggests, to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behaviour outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.
The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.
Such a novel usage would also raise the further question of identity. It is a very recent innovation to consider sexual preferences as a marker of “identity” parallel to, say, being male or female, English or African, rich or poor. Within the “gay community” much postmodern reflection has turned away from “identity” as a modernist fiction. We simply “construct” ourselves from day to day.
We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel.