In the Lord's Shadow

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!’ . . . Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him And let him see My salvation.”

Psalm 91.1-2, 14-16

Sometimes, we try to make Scripture say something not intended by the text, and at other times, we miss what the text is saying altogether. Seemingly, this passage out of Psalm 91 indicates God’s care is so complete, nothing bad will ever happen to the believer. Is that, in fact, what the psalmist declared?

The psalm begins with the psalmist’s affirmation of trust, and closes with the Lord’s promise to deliver. First, let’s look at what the psalmist said. He spoke of dwelling “in the shelter of the Most High,” and abiding “in the shadow of the Almighty. Now, both of these words, dwell and abide, mean to take up residence. As long as we consciously live with the protective care of the Lord, we will be living within his shadow.

Living in God’s shadow can mean two things, both equally true. First, to live within the Lord’s shadow means we are protected from the heat of the heat of the sun. The psalmist meant that in a symbolical way. Heat quite clearly is the oppressive things of life capable of draining away all our energy and strength. To live within God’s shadow, then, is to have one’s strength renewed daily.

The second implication of dwelling within God’s shadow is closeness or intimacy. How can one be distant from God and be in his shadow. So, if we are within the Lord’s shadow, we are close to him and sharing an intimate relationship with him. To be intimate with God requires us to be faithful and holy. We cannot go our own reckless way or trust in ourselves or some other source of comfort while at the same time being close to God.

Now, for followers of Jesus, we understand we are never outside of God’s protective care. A problem develops when we consciously choose to ignore God. We doubt the Lord, or ignore his leadership and, as a result, suffer the consequences of our foolish choices. Even then, he does not desert us; he is always faithful.

The psalmist also declared he would say to the Lord, “my refuge and my fortress, My god, in whom I trust.” Here again, the writer of the psalm underscores the choice each of us can make: we can choose to trust in the Lord. God does not force us to trust him, but, by His Gentle Spirit, he woos us and draws us to himself. He allows us to fail so we might see how limited our own knowledge is. Failure is sometimes the best classroom for learning trust.

Dwelling in the shelter and shadow of the Lord is the context for understanding the Lord’s care. All of the triumphs and victories and the strength and confidence one gains through the Lord is predicated upon dwelling and abiding. Apart from dwelling and abiding in the shelter and shadow of the Lord, no triumphs and victories are experienced, and strength and confidence are replace with fear and weakness.

Now, what happens when we fail? How are we to understand our experience of unexpected events so filled with pain and hurt we think we will never recover? Let’s put things into perspective. First, our failures. We fail because we choose to go our own way. When we disobey God, we will suffer the consequences. Even then, the Lord does not desert us. Remember the words of Paul: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” All things include our mistakes as well as our successes. So, even when we fail to trust in the Lord, he still delivers us.

Second, what about all those things in life we would rather not have to go through. These things are known as tests and trials. Paul helps us again: “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” Whatever we experience is what others have gone through as well.

How do we go through these commonly shared situations? We remember the faithfulness of God. First of all, as difficult and as distasteful as an experience might be, God never allows us to face something too great for us to bear or beyond our strength. Since our strength comes from the Lord through his Holy Spirit, nothing is too much for us to bear. We must also remember God provides the way through the test. Escape is not a good translation of the word Paul used; “way through” is much closer to the meaning of the Greek word. How can we endure something if we escape? Endure means to steadfastly endure. We have the strength we need by the Spirit so we will be able to endure anything life throws at us.

Let’s go back to Psalm 91. In verse 14, the psalmist declared, “"Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name.” Because of our love for the Lord, and because we know his name, the will deliver us and set us securely on high. When does the Lord deliver us? When we need to be delivered. The psalmist was saying God delivers us in our time of distress and need; Paul said the Lord rescues us by giving us the strength to go through our trial and endure.

What we fail to remember sometimes is God is never taken by surprise by what happens to us. He is never so busy elsewhere he is unable to be with us in our time of greatest need. He is with us in our present, with us throughout our journey, and already at the end of any difficult circumstance we might face. He will, as the psalmist declared, always ready to rescue and honor us. He is able to do so because he is always with us.

Will bad things happen in our lives? Yes they will. Can these terrible events overcome us? No they cannot. God has a plan for each of us and will see the plan through to its conclusion. He will sustain us in or battles and give us the victory; he will rescue us in times of danger and honor us with his love; he will give us life, and give it abundantly. He will never fail us.

Happiness Is

I was watching Fox News one morning and listened to the reporter tell of Aarhus, Denmark, the happiest city in the world. Denmark is considered the happiest country in the world. When I googled happiest city in the world, other places showed up as #1, including Rio de Janerio (rated #1 by Forbes magazine).

From what I can find, Aarhus’ rating of #1 was made by National Geographic. NG based its rating on the studies of Dan Buettner, a contributor to National Geographic and author of Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way. In his book, Buettner presents the findings of his examination into one of the crucial factors in human longevity, happiness, and what makes people happy.

Here are some quotes from the NG online article “Secrets of the Happiest Places on Earth,” by Ford Cochran, an interview with Buettner. “Worldwide, happiness equates very strongly with equality–mostly status equality, but the countries that have a very short ladder between the richest and the poorest people are a lot happier than those where a few people make a lot of money and a few people don't make much money. . . We know that trust is hugely correlated with happiness, places where people are trustworthy and you can trust the government, low corruption. Also tolerance. . . We know worldwide that religious people are happier than non-religious people.”

Blogger Nicholas Kontis noted the following on the website Tripatini. “The Danes indeed have richness in life. You don't have to lock your doors. Free health care, good schools, diverse places of worship, bars, cafes, social clubs, forests, and never far from the sea. Transportation mostly by bike. And very few lawyers. as business is settled with a handshake. And your word holds valid in this city of 300,000 people.”

Several things come to mind in considering the “happiest place on earth.” First of all, places are not happy and cannot make a person truly happy. No one, by moving to Aarhus or Rio, will be transformed magically from a sad, frustrated person to a happy, fulfilled individual. Happiness doesn’t work that way.

I read once about a pastor who asked all prospective brides and grooms if they could be happy if they were unable to marry their prospective mate. Those who said they could not be were advised to think seriously about getting married. You see, we cannot expect someone else (or somewhere else, for that matter) to be responsible for our personal happiness. We first must find happiness within ourselves. Only then will we be able to add to someone else’s well-being.

In Hebrew and Greek, two of the words typically translated blessed in the OT and the NT actually mean “to be happy or content.” Almost always, these words are found in contexts in which the contentment one experiences is a result of obeying God in some manner. I will paraphrase Psalm 1.1: “Content is the man who refuses to make his decisions and live his life according to the beliefs of cynical, unbelieving secularists. He instead finds his greatest pleasure in meditating on the Law of the Lord.” People are happy only by being in a proper relationship with God.

Further, I wonder how many people in places like Aarhus, Denmark, would be as happy if they suddenly lost all their creature comforts. Things can no more make one happy than a place can. We might find physical and emotional comfort in things, but we cannot find true contentment. Why? Consider what Paul told the Corinthians. “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our physical body is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the tings which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not see are eternal.”

Even physical health and well-being are not the source of true contentment. Our physical body and our physical creature comforts are all temporary. They will wear out, sooner or later. What God gives, though, cannot be taken away. The salvation we enjoy is ours through grace and is rooted in the timelessness of God himself. We cannot and should not ask God for anything more. Being his child is enough. Whatever he chooses for us is sufficient.

Actually, the happiest place on earth should be the church. The congregation of believers should be overflowing with gladness and joy. We should described today as the disciples were described in Acts 15.32: “And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.”

How happy are you?

The Believer and His View of Time

A light year is 6 trillion miles; this is the distance light travels in a vacuum in one Julian year. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has a diameter of 100,000 light years, a thickness of 1,000 light years, and contains between 100-400 billion stars. The oldest known star in the Milky Way is said to be 13 billion years old. The universe is immensely large and, some say, possibly infinite in volume (I would argue only God is infinite). The region visible from Earth (the observable universe) is a sphere with a radius of about 46 billion light years (thus, a diameter of 92 billion light years). The most precise estimate scientists give for the age of universe is 13 billion years.

For the average person, understanding time and distance in terms of billions of miles and years essentially is impossible. Yet, we can observe two things from the above information. One, we understand, or try to understand, our universe in terms of distance. Two, we also attempt to comprehend the universe in terms of time. Now, distance is absolute. A mile is a mile and a kilometer is a kilometer (a km is .6 of a mile - a 10k race is 6 miles). If one was able to travel anywhere in the universe, distance would always be computed in terms of miles or kilometers (the universally preferred standard of measurement).

Time is another matter altogether. An earth day, 24 hours, is not the same as a day on Jupiter. A day is the amount of time it takes for a planet to spin around once. A day on Jupiter is much shorter than a day on Earth. The giant planet's day is only about ten hours long, less, than half as long as an Earth day. So, depending on where one might be in the Universe, time, in terms of days and years, would be on a different order than time on earth. While seconds, minutes and hours are constants, days and years are not unless we have a frame of reference for computing them. Hence, an earth year.

So, to speak of a light year as the distance light travels in one year is a highly relative concept. Ironically, we have no other way of computing the speed of light than to speak in terms of the distance light travels in one of our years. Regardless of the time, though, light does travel over distances and does so at an incredibly swift pace. Yet, days and years are relative to where you are; distance is not.

Time is an important concept for human beings. We order our lives on the basis of 24 hour days, 7-day weeks and 365-day years. We compute our ages in terms of earth years. We have no other frame of reference with which to do so. We are limited by time. We live at a certain pace, second by second, minute by minute, day by day and year by year. We are not able to leap ahead or go back. We are stuck in the moment. Our time limitation has many consequences. One is our inability to change the past; another is being unable to either see or determine the future.

For believers, though, time should be a little less consequential than for non-believers. Based on the teachings of Scripture, when one believes on the Lord Jesus, he is saved and will never perish. Time for followers of Jesus, then, should be viewed from an entirely different perspective. Salvation in Jesus means our essential being goes on living in eternity, even though our physical body dies. Indeed, as Christians, we believe we have already begun to experience eternal life, even while locked in time.

Paul spoke often of the meaningless of time for the followers of Jesus. He told the Corinthians, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Look at his treatment of time. The body is decaying: the erosive result of time. Any and all affliction is momentary: over time, our situations, conditions and circumstances change or come to an end. Day by day, though, we, in our inner being, are being made new. Thus, we are being set free from the restrictions of time.

That such a truth exists should determine our view of time. We should not orient ourselves to time (the things which are seen and passing away), but have an eternal perspective, perceiving what is unseen, and, thus, timeless and eternal. In one sense, we must deal with the consequences of time on a daily basis; we are wearing away. In another sense, though, we can respond to those time-induced “facts” by seeing them from God’s perspective: they are temporary. We are new everyday; we are, in our essential being, not bound any longer by time.

While we are still locked in time, God is not. He sees the beginning of all things, their progress and their conclusion as one reality. Since he is not bound by and locked in time, time has no meaning for God. If we can grasp this truth, we ourselves will be freed from the prison of time. Even though we must live in time, we are no longer bound by time. Even though we are growing older, weaker and more limited with each passing day, yet, deep within, we are being made new with each passing day.

God is both outside our Universe and inside of it. He is present among us, yet, unaffected by time. He is “I Am,” the Ever-Present-One. Through the Son, God came and lived among us. Through his Spirit, he has always been present in creation. He is free to move in and out of time. For God, the distance from outside our Universe, with its diameter of 92 billion light years, is not even a second. He is in heaven and among us all at once. He indeed is Lord of the Universe and all that exists within it and beyond it.

So, we can sing with David, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their host. . . . The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance. The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; from His dwelling place He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth.” (Psalm 33.6, 11-14) He is in control and we are never outside his care.

The Shroud of Turin, Fact or Fiction? Part 1

The Shroud of Turin, the supposed burial wrapping of Jesus. Fact or fiction? For a number of years, the claims made about the shroud have troubled me. I am not a mystical person and am not drawn to nor interested in either Catholic or Evangelical mysticism or claims for the miraculous. Neither has much to offer the average believer in his daily walk.

Back to the shroud. As I considered the claims about the shroud, and studied photographs of it, my doubts grew. Over time, my questions about this relic coalesced into two groups: the biblical descriptions of Jesus’ burial and the image on the shroud itself.

First, an investigation of the biblical accounts of the burial of Jesus must be undertaken. We must consider the descriptions of Jesus’ burial garments, the manner of Jesus’ burial and the visit to the tomb by Peter and the other disciple.

What do we learn from the statements about the material in which Jesus was buried? Two words are used by the writers of the Gospel accounts to describe Jesus burial garments. In describing the burial clothes, Matthew, Mark and Luke used the Greek word sindôn, meaning “linen cloth” (used for clothing or for burial; cf. Mk. 14.51-52). John used the word othonion, meaning “linen cloth or wrapping.”

Now, one significant modification in this pattern is found in Luke’s account of Peter’s post-resurrection visit to the tomb. Luke said Peter, upon arriving at the tomb, stooped, looked into the tomb and saw the linen wrappings only. Interestingly, the word Luke used here for linen wrappings is the word othonion, not sindôn, which he had used in describing the linen material with which Joseph had wrapped the body of Jesus prior to the burial. Obviously, Luke understood othonion and sindôn to be synonyms. Thus, John’s us of othonion appears to be neither odd nor in conflict with the Synoptics.

As to how the linen material (othonion or sindôn) was used to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, in each of the Gospels, the Lord’s body is said to have been wrapped or bound in linen cloth. Three Greek words, translated bind or wrap, are used by the Gospel writers. Mark used the word eneileô meaning “to wrap in.” Matthew and Luke used the word entulissô, meaning “wrap in, fold or roll up.” John’s choice was deô, meaning “to bind or tie” (the word also can mean imprison). The linen material was not draped over Jesus’ body; his body was wrapped in this material. As we will see later in this article, the material was wrapped around his body in the same manner as a robe or cloak would be wrapped. In other words, Jesus was dressed for burial.

Equally significant are the descriptions of the disciples visit to the tomb and the statements about how the burial garments were found. The othonion, according to John, was “lying there.” The face-cloth was lying apart from the othonion, being folded up (entulissô). The face-cloth, translation of the word soudarion, was also one of the burial garments Peter saw. Lazarus was wearing a soudarion when Jesus called him from the tomb. The account of Jesus’ and Lazarus’s burial and resurrections show a face-cloth was a normal item used in Jewish burials, remaining on the body after burial.

The Shroud of Turin has no evidence of a face-cloth. The explanation given is the soudarion was removed before burial, so, it was found folded and lying to one side. One source stated the fact the face-cloth was lying to one side “point[s] to a short temporal use of the cloth and eliminate[s] the possibility of its contact with the body after burial. Jewish tradition demands that if the face of a dead person was in any way disfigured, it should be covered with a cloth to avoid people seeing this unpleasant sight. This would certainly have been the case with Jesus, whose face was covered in blood (my italics) from the injuries produced by the crown of thorns and swollen from falling and being struck. It seems that the sudarium was first used before the dead body was taken down from the cross and discarded when it was buried.”

If such is the case, why was the soudarion in the tomb at all? Why was it not discarded, being covered with blood, and thus unclean? Lazarus had his soudarion on when he emerged from his tomb, and he had been buried for approximately the same number of days as Jesus would be in the tomb. Why had Lazarus’s face-cloth not been taken off at burial? Jesus’ face-cloth’s being found in the tomb along with the linen burial garments, the description of Lazarus emerging from his tomb with his face covered by a soudarion and the absence of any trace of a face-cloth on the shroud raise serious questions about the shroud as Jesus’ burial garment and even the historicity of the shroud.

The Shroud of Turin, Fact or Fiction? Part 2

One further issue needs to be considered. In John 19.28-42, the writer described the burial preparations of Jesus body as according to the burial custom of the Jews (This ritual practice is called tahara, from a Hebrew word meaning to be clean or pure). The burial ritual of the Jews is very precise. In the online edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia, the following is found. “R. Benjamin, in his ‘Binyamin Ze'eb’ (responsum No. 204, ed. Venice, 1539), records the testament of R. Eliezer ha-Levi ordering that his body should be cleansed carefully, including the ears and the fingers, and that his nails should be pared and his hair combed, that he may go to his rest as he was wont to go to the synagogue on Sabbath (my italics) eve. In ancient times the hair was cut, but now it is only washed and combed. The nails are not cut, but are cleansed with a special kind of pin.”

Further, “in Biblical times persons, especially of high rank, were arrayed at burial in the garments, ornaments, and weapons which they had worn in life (I Sam. xxviii. 14; Isa. xiv. 11; Ezek. xxxii. 27). To be buried without garments was considered a disgrace. (Italics not in original) . . . since funeral expenses became common extravagances and an object of alarm to the relatives, R. Gamaliel II (lived late 1st cent. to mid-2d cent.) set the example by the order he gave for his own funeral, and thus introduced the custom of burying the dead in simple linen garments.”

On the Shroud, one sees the hair of Jesus had not been cut, blood was still upon his body, and analysis has shown dirt was on his feet and his nose had run and left dried residue on his face. The washing of the body before burial had to do with the deep concern by the Jews for ritual purity. The reason Jesus’ body was not left on the Cross on Passover was so the land itself would not be polluted (cf. Mk. 15.42; Lk. 23.54; Jo. 19.42), thus compromising the integrity of Passover. If Jesus had been buried unwashed, not only would the tomb and land have been polluted, but the very words of John would be proven to be false. We must either accept the witness of John, or the traditions surrounding the shroud. Only one can be true. Either Jesus was buried according to Jewish burial customs (Jo. 19.40) or he was not.

What can we infer from the accounts of the inspired writers of Scripture (as well as Jewish burial traditions)? Without question, the body of Jesus was wrapped tightly in a linen burial garment. His body was not loosely covered or placed inside of a kind of burial bag. The words used in the biblical texts describing the burial of Jesus leave no doubt as to the wrapping, or binding, of the body of Jesus in a linen garment. The loose wrapping implied by the Shroud of Turin is not consistent with the biblical descriptions. His body would have been washed clean of all dirt, blood and other bodily fluids. Finally, the words used by the Bible writers and the facts of Jewish tradition point out a person was buried clothed. The image on the Shroud of Turin, naked under the shroud, covered with dirt, blood and bodily fluids, does not fit the biblical description.

Having seen the conflicts between shroud claims and the biblical account of the burial of Jesus, we need to turn to the image on the shroud itself. What must be pointed out is the actual historicity of the shroud is not being questioned in this article. Whether the shroud is 2,000 years old, or 500, is not the issue. The question being raised is whether or not the shroud is the actual burial garment of Jesus.

What does the shroud show us? First of all, the image on the shroud is of a tall man supposedly exhibiting wounds similar to those suffered by Jesus. Ironically, these bloody wounds are the most damning evidence against the claim for the shroud as Jesus’ burial clothes. As pointed out above, no blood would have been on Jesus body when he was buried since his burial was according to Jewish custom.

If the blood had not been washed off, though, would it have had the appearance of the blood stains on the shroud? According to experts, residue of human sweat can be found on the shroud. No doubt, in the heat of the day, Jesus would have sweated profusely. With the crown of thorns on his head, Jesus would have had blood running down his face. That blood, mixed with sweat, would have appeared in streamlets all over his face, not in a few, thick globs on his forehead, as on the shroud.

Further, Jesus died somewhere close to three o’clock in the afternoon. Most likely, the wounds on his head would have stopped flowing due to coagulation. After such an extended period on the Cross, Jesus would have been close to if not dehydrated by the time he died (John 19.28-29). He would have ceased perspiring and so the sweat and blood on his body would have dried and cracked, leaving only a scabby residue. If his body had not been washed prior to his burial, the blood on his body would have been flaking off and what remained would not have had the appearance of running blood.

Such is not the case on the Shroud of Turin. The blood stains on the image of the body appear to be from fresh, wet blood, not dry, cracked, scabby blood. We also would expect the blood on Jesus’ face to be in streams, running down his face, onto his chin and down his neck. Additionally, the blood stains on the wrist show the blood flowing almost horizontally, not in a downward pattern. How could the blood on his wrist have flowed in the manner shown on the shroud with Jesus’ arms extended outwardly with his wrists nailed to the crossbeam of the Cross? And, with the back of his wrist against the crossbeam, why is the blood stain so distinct and not smeared?

We could go on. For instance, why does the face look so much like the Medieval paintings of Jesus and less like a Palestinian man? We need not go further, though. The Shroud of Turin, whatever it is, is not the burial garment of Jesus. What significance would the shroud have even if it could be proven to be the linen material in which Jesus was buried? Could the shroud save? Forgive sins? Heal the sick? Fix broken lives? Mend fractured marriages? The answer is, none of the above. We need no historical relic to experience God’s grace. God’s love, mercy, forgiveness and grace are all dispensed in response to personal trust in the Savior, not in his burial clothes.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, (my italics) to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1.16). What else is necessary?

My Brother versus My Beliefs

LifeLineLive, the online entertainment news service of USAToday, reported the following. “Anne Hathaway, . . . says in the new British GQ that her family left the Catholic Church over its intolerant views on homosexuality. Anne grew up wanting to become a nun but shunned Catholicism when she learned her older brother, Michael, was gay. ‘The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out,’ she tells the magazine. ‘Why should I support an organization that has a limited view of my beloved brother?’ But the Episcopal church plan didn't really work out for her either. ‘So I'm ... nothing,’ she said. ‘I'm a work in progress.’”

While Ms. Hathaway’s decision may appear on the surface to be principled, when one looks more deeply at her comments, several questions are raised. Let’s look first at the matter of principle itself. Which decision would have shown the deepest commitment to principle: to leave the church or to stay? Being a Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant, implies a commitment to a biblically-based belief system, i.e. a catholic or protestant theology. Traditional Christianity, from both the catholic and protestant point of view, assumes biblical truth, the basis for its theology, to be immutable and eternal.

In Ms. Hathaway’s world, commitment to a human being and his sexual behavior trumps commitment to universal truth. At some point in life, though, for any of a variety of reasons, we all become sexually inactive. What happens to our fundamental identity if we can no longer perform in either a heterosexual or homosexual manner? Do we cease being who we are? If we are defined by sexual behavior, then to not engage in that behavior must have some impact on our basic identity. Ms. Hathaway replaced eternal truth with changeable behavior as the center of her moral universe.

On the other hand, the biblical view of a person’s identity has nothing to do with performance. First, we are human beings, made in the image of God. Second, we are either male or female, the only two categories of human identity having any real significance. Race, ethnicity, sexual preference, nationality, etc. are all human constructs. We have given meaning and value to these categories. But, we must ask, in what sense does race matter, or ethnicity, or national origin, or sexual preference or social category. The only way these groupings matter is related to how we perceive them.

No category, other than sexual identification, can be shown to have any universally demonstrable, unchangeable impact. One’s race or skin color determines nothing about a person. Those Asians who perform well in mathematics do not do so because they are Asian any more than the success in athletics by some African-Americans is because they are African-American. Human effort, regardless of race, determines success.

What is known, though, is a range of differences does exist between males and females. From the most basic biological and physical design to the way brains process information, male and female human beings differ in perceivable, quantifiable ways. Attempts to prove environmental factors are the basis of these differences has failed and failed miserably. For reasons having nothing to do with child-rearing practices, on the whole, little girls prefer dolls and little boys prefer trucks.

So, Ms. Hathaway has chosen to jettison conviction about eternal truth in favor of beliefs about temporary behavior (historically, humans have understood and reacted to homosexual behavior in a variety of ways). Of course, other statements by Ms. Hathaway tell us the real story. She turned her back on an organization, not a belief-system. Proof of the this are her comments about her choosing to affiliate with the Episcopal Church. That choice did not work out, the article stated, so Ms. Hathaway declared, “So I'm ... nothing, . . . I'm a work in progress.’” Obviously, Ms. Hathaway and those like her have trouble committing to anything requiring real conviction. To maintain one’s convictions as a believer in Jesus just may require a break with family. Jesus himself said as much.

One final thing many fail to see: commitment to another person does not require approval of their decisions or behavior. Many times, we must be honest with those we love and tell them their actions are both wrong and destructive. Further, our disagreement or disapproval of the actions of a loved-one does not mean we must end our relationship with them. Regardless of how the world of Anne Hathaways perceives the ethical stands taken by the Catholic Church and other Christian groups, these convictional positions are not a rejection of people, but of behavior.

Love for a person demands unyielding loyalty. We must be loyal in all things to Christ; only them will we truly be able to be loyal to those we love. Likewise, to be loyal to Christ demands we be loyal to his people, the church. We do not turn our back on Christ over temporary issues.