Week 18- A picture that makes you feel...

Feel what? Nostalgic? Ecstatic? Frisky?

All the above...

Love my family.

Week 17- Something I want to be remembered for.

One day late. Sorry.

I want to empower people. I want to take the downtrodden, oppressed, ostracized, and disenfranchised and remind them that Jesus loves them while giving them some of the tools they need to become the person God has created them to be. I want to fight power structures. I want to open the eyes of my students (whatever form that takes) of the freedom and life that is only found in Christ. I want my life to be an example of the gospel-- the truth that Jesus is king and Caesar is not. I want to live in a way that says I do not obey Pharaoh anymore. I want to walk by the Spirit-- to hear the words of Jesus, see what his eyes would see, and dream his thoughts.

That is who I am learning to be. That is how I want to be remembered.

This week's article.

A Case for Pacifism

Stories are the frame by which we make sense of our lives. Stories are the truth that give meaning to events and allow humankind to interpret our experience. I ask you, by what story are you living?

A professor told us the tale of a small boy in Sunday school, learning about the cross of Jesus for the first time. As the Romans began to nail him to the cross, the 9-year-old stood up and cried, “If Roy Rogers was there he would’ve showed them who’s boss! He would’ve stopped them from killing Jesus!”

This is the American story. The good guys come in with guns blazing, fighting valiantly to victory in the name of justice. But should this be our story?

The story of the people of God is different. For Israel, even when it came time to make war, their story said that they depended on God for their victory. Ultimately they were a bunch of “wandering Arameans” who could do nothing unless empowered by YHWH.

In Genesis 4, the result of humankind’s disobedience is revealed dramatically in a story of brother killing brother in the context of worship. No longer able to live in unhindered relationship with God, we work out our frustration in violence. By chapter 6, God is “grieved to his heart” that the earth is “full of violence.” From the beginning and continuing until now, violence is the quintessential human problem.

Is not the cross the ultimate commentary on this? God sent us his son and confronted with our own inadequacies, the best we could come up with was to kill Him.

But we are called to follow the path of Christ. This means when we are slapped to turn another cheek. We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

Does that mean Jesus has asked us to simply stand by and watch the world go to ruin?

No! Jesus calls us not to “passivism” but to seek out creative ways to promote peace—i.e. non-violent resistance. To turn the other cheek is to confront your attacker with the reality of their wrong. They are demeaning a person equal to them in the eyes of God. By turning the other cheek, you remind them of your dignity—that your hand will not be your advocate, but YHWH himself. This is the life Jesus lived. It was at his weakest moment, when he inhaled his last breath, that the Roman Centurion realized, “Surely this man was a son of God.”

As Paul encouraged us, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” We must actively seek ways to promote peace. That is our highest, most counter-cultural call. As it is written, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

What is your story? Who is your advocate? Will you depend on the might of Pharaoh or the faithfulness of your God and Redeemer?

I will not trust in chariots, but I trust in the name of YHWH my God, knowing that though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.

I am committed to a life of non-violence. What if I am attacked? My kingdom is not of this world. But if I forsake all in order to live the life to which he has called me, then I will receive 100 times more in the life to come—but I must not expect to live this life without persecution. When I confess that Jesus is Lord, I say that I will do things His way. Ultimately that must include adopting a story of dependence on God and a commitment to non-violence.

Veronica Pistone

Contributing Columnist

On a lighter note I am making myself wear scarves. This is my attempt to be girly. More scarves, less t-shirts. So far so good. Totes M'gotes.

Week 16- Some things I want to do in the next 5 years

-Graduate
-Grad school
-Get a masters
-Maybe start on a doctorate
-Meet someone
-Maybe, get married. Maybe.
-Live overseas
-Get experience preaching
-Go to Paris, Israel, and/or Hawaii


... but mostly, I figure I want to keep doing the things I'm doing now. It's a pretty good life.

Week 15- A moment that changed your life.

One time, about ten years ago, someone said, "Come, follow me."

So I left everything and followed him.

Rocking the Bison Hill Boat

So this week, I put an article in the student newspaper-- something I've been doing regularly now because Disch and I split a column called "Bursting the Bubble." Anyway, it's been making some pretty big waves over here, so I thought I'd post it in case anyone else wanted to read it and join the conversation. Furthermore, I'd like to say that before I submitted this article, I had no idea that the trustees were going to be on campus this week. So there's probably a large group of SBC deacons who have it out for me now. Oh well.

Why I am a Christian who Supports Same-Sex Marriage

I begin this brief treatise with a presupposition: marriage does not belong to the church. Allow me to explain. Marriage is a rite of the church in the literal sense—in Civ we all learned that marriage is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. However, historically people outside the church have gotten married all the time. Even today, if two Satanists currently living in sin decide to go down to the courthouse and get hitched, I would be hard pressed to find a good Evangelical looking to stop them.

Historically, marriage has been more about economics than anything else. Farmer needs a business partner, girl needs an income, their parents do some exchanging of money and boom! A love story made in heaven. In fact, it is the changes which heterosexuals made to marriage that have caused homosexual marriage to become an issue.

That brings me to my second presupposition: marriage is no longer about sex or bearing children. In fairness, for me, marriage is about sex because I have made the decision to abstain until then. But for society at large, sex has been removed from marriage by the prevalence of birth control and changing social standards. I don’t know anyone who would argue that because a child is born outside of wedlock he is any less entitled to both parents’ resources and love. But historically, that is a ridiculous argument. In fact, a major part of getting married, historically, was about determining which offspring should legitimately inherit the manor.

Instead, we have decided that marriage is about love and personal fulfillment. That means if someone does not ever want to get married then that is their choice. Or if a couple wants to get married and never have kids, that is also their choice. And (outside of the evangelical context) if a couple chooses to live together and have a family without ever getting married, that is an option. Single mothers or fathers are not looked down upon and divorce is no longer as stigmatized as it once was.

Socially speaking, we should not be surprised that homosexuals are demanding the right to marriage. After all, weren’t we the ones who decided it was about being happy? If the only real requirement to marriage is being in love, why do we get to choose which in love people get to get married?

Third presupposition: marriage is about inheritance, property rights, and plenty of other things I never think about. Did you know that it is more expensive to live as a homosexual than as a heterosexual? This is because rules about employment benefits, insurance, etc. apply only to immediate family. And if you are not allowed to get married, then you can never become immediate family. Imagine, if I got married today to someone with great life insurance, and he died in 3 weeks, I would get all of the benefits of that life insurance policy. If someone has been in a relationship with someone of the same gender for 67 years and dies, the other partner receives nothing because they are not technically immediate family. Being a homosexual makes wills and assigning next of kin for medical purposes more difficult, if you want to include your partner. Really, legally and financially if you are not a heterosexual, your life is just going to be more complicated.

There are many more things I could mention. But I will end with this: I do believe that homosexuality is a sin and the bible is very clear about that. But, I have come to decide that as an American, it is not my job to legislate the bible. I do not see my choice to vote in favor of gay marriage as voting for sin, but rather choosing not to vote against sin for the greater value in voting for equality. Above all things, I believe that it does not love homosexuals to take away their civil liberties. If we are going to legislate based on sexual sin, then anyone who has had sex outside of marriage should not be allowed to get married. Anyone who uses pornography should not be allowed to get married. Anyone who has ever been divorced or cheated or lusted (which Jesus said is the same as adultery) should not be allowed to get married.

What should we do instead? Instead of dictating to the world who can and can’t get married, I believe that the church should glorify God with their own marriages. The evangelical community has a divorce rate slightly higher than that of the rest of the world. Perhaps, if we allowed everyone to get married and then really sought to glorify God with our marriages, we would be salty and illuminating and the world would say, “Oh hey, Christian marriages work really well. Maybe there’s something to that.”

I believe that being a defender of marriage has little to do with how I vote, but instead how I live my life as an example to the world of the identity of my Savior.

Veronica Pistone

Contributing Columnist

Thoughts?

Week 14- Favorite Mashup

I actually really like mashups... and I've heard a lot of really great ones that I really like... but for the life of me this is the only one I can remember. So, enjoy.