Bathrooms and Wedding Cakes

You’ve heard about Job, the only gentile guy who has his own book in the Old Testament. He’s the one people talk about when they say “She has the patience of Job.” Job got the reputation of having a lot of patience because he went through a lot of suffering and loss without ever renouncing his faith in God. The story begins with a kind of wager between God and Satan: God tells Satan to check out his “blameless and upright” servant Job, Satan says he bets he can get Job to renounce his faith, and God grants him limited ability to try. After losing his children, all of his live stock, and everything else except his wife, Job is left sitting in the ash heap trying to make sense of all that has happened. Oh, yeah, he also has boils all over his body, head to toe, and has been scratching them like crazy; so you can imagine how he looks. We could argue about whether he demonstrates much patience, but he clearly retains his faith and does not denounce God throughout the ordeal.

While Job is sitting in the ash heap, three of his friends show up to console and comfort him; their names are Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Upon seeing their wealthy, powerful friend reduced to this broken, boil-covered, grieving mess, they barely recognize him. For the first seven days, the friends don’t speak at all; they just sit there with Job, keeping him company. So far, so good. After Job finally breaks the silence, one of them starts to speak, and the situation goes south from there. Because it’s assumed by all present that Job’s condition has been inflicted by God, the three of them, in turn, attempt to defend God’s actions, explain why these things have happened to Job, and persuade Job to repent so that all of his troubles will go away.

Eliphaz speaks first, reminding Job the things which have happened to him don’t happen to people who are as good as he is reputed to be; therefore, it’s obvious he’s been hiding something, and the best thing he can do is ‘fess up and the sooner the better because that’s the only way out of his situation. Next, Bildad takes his turn, pretty much echoing what Eliphaz has said. Finally, Zophar adds his agreement that Job’s distress is God’s judgment for unknown wrong doings and adds that Job is lucky he didn’t get even worse (which would have been . . . ??). The conversation is much longer, of course, covering about 39 chapters; but this is the essence. What these three are doing is expounding traditional wisdom, which is that those who do right prosper and those who do wrong suffer the consequences of their wrong doing. There are no exceptions. Period. And they affirm that principle to be true because they speak on behalf of God.

Well, the best part of the story happens when God shows up again in the last chapter. If these guys had been speaking the truth, what should happen at the end is God should thank them and demand repentance from Job. What really happens, however, is the exact opposite. God says to Eliphaz, I’m mad at you and your two friends because “you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.” Take that, you three!!! He then orders them to make a burnt sacrifice and plead with Job to pray for them because Job’s prayer is the only thing that will get them off the hook, and God reiterates that everything they’ve been saying is pure bologna. Well, that’s an interesting turn: the guys who thought they were speaking the mind of God are wrong and the guy who didn’t know what the heck was going on but trusted God through it all anyway is right.

You’re probably wondering about now what the point of this little story is. I know I would be. Have you ever noticed when a social issue comes up for public discussion, the people who speak first and the people who speak loudest are a certain group of Christians? I have. They enter the conversation for the sole purpose of telling us what God thinks about it–a lot like Job’s buddies. They speak with authority and confidence because that’s how they’ve been trained to think and to speak. They’re not open to considering any variation on their preconceived conclusions; therefore, they don’t really want to have a conversation, only to inform the rest of us who are not as privy as they are to what God thinks. I say again, I am a Christian, so my critique of the state of Christianity comes from one who has no intention of leaving but would like very much to see a change of attitude.

Here is a partial list of issues about which the Bible says nothing: the right to bear arms, abortion, public restrooms, same-sex marriage, wedding cakes, who should be president, and gender identity. I’m not saying we can’t have opinions on these issues, only that we should leave the Bible out of it because they’re not in there. You can cherry pick a verse or two to try to make God support what you believe, but you’re just going to end up looking silly.

One current subject the Bible does mention is homosexuality. This subject comes up a mere six times, and the passages most often referenced are Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13. Although both verses straight-up call homosexuality an abomination, the same passages also order that those who commit this “abomination” should be put to death. Surrounding verses say people should not have sex with animals (I’ve always wondered who has to be told this, but I don’t think I want to know), people shouldn’t have sex with close relatives (also not necessary to mention), a man shouldn’t have sex with a woman during her period, we should not go to fortune tellers, people who dishonor their parents should be put to death, people who commit adultery should be put to death, a man who sleeps with both his wife and his mother-in-law should be burned to death, people should follow all the rules regarding eating meat from burnt sacrifices, farmers should not harvest their entire crop but should leave some around the edges for poor people to pick, one should not hate any of one’s relatives, no one should hold grudges, everyone should love their neighbors as themselves, animals owners should prevent cross breeding, planters should not sow two kinds of seed in the same field, no one should wear garments made of two different materials, people should not have sex with slaves, no one should not eat the fruit of the trees they plant until the trees are at least five years old, people should not get tattoos, and a lot more stuff. These days, we don’t execute anyone for adultery, disobedience to parents, or homosexuality; we plant as many kinds of seed in our fields as we want and don’t leave any of the harvest for poor people; we wear garments made of mixed fibers; we do hold grudges; we do get tattoos; we don’t love our neighbors as ourselves. But dammit, those gay people are an abomination because God said so in Leviticus! Every other rule in the whole passage is deemed culturally specific, but that ONE is for all time.

Again, I respect other people’s opinions. I just don’t respect people who–like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar–think they have a monopoly on knowing the mind of God or who act on their opinions by showing hatred and intolerance toward other human beings. No one has a monopoly on knowing what God thinks! I have a great deal more respect for people like Job who admit they don’t understand everything and realize we’re all just muddling our way through trying to figure things out while we hold steadfastly to whatever anchors us in a confusing world.

And here’s another thing about God’s spokespeople: they like to say things like “Fight the good fight!” and “God is on our side!” and “God hates _____________ [fill in the blank].” If the fight is not founded on clear principle, it’s NOT a good fight! And who said God’s on your side? Can you prove that? I don’t want God on my side because I don’t always know what the heck I’m doing. My understanding of the Christian faith is that I’m supposed to be on God’s side, not vice versa. And how do you know what God hates? What makes you right all the time? And if I really am on God’s side, I will do my best to follow the example set by Jesus: I’ll love my fellow human beings, I’ll try to help those who need help, I’ll humbly attempt to set a positive example for others to follow. I won’t waste my time shouting about bathrooms and wedding cakes. I’ll make my own choices and form my own opinions regarding social issues, but I won’t pretend to have the ear of God or to have a monopoly on speaking God’s mind on those subjects. If I have a point to make, I’ll make my point without dragging God into something on which God has been silent.

Things didn’t end well for the three guys who thought they knew exactly what God thought about everything, so they’re probably not the best example to follow. I wonder what would happen if God showed up in real life as in parables and declared who’s right and who’s wrong. I bet some people would be surprised. To paraphrase Jesus’ words, all you really need to know is this: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Just loving our neighbors–all of them!–would solve most of our problems, so why aren’t we doing that instead of shouting about bathrooms and wedding cakes?