Pregnant Through Rape-What Should We Think?

I wasn't sure if I was going to "go here".  But I don't know how I can't.

“...even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something God intended to happen.”  So said Richard Mourdock in a debate for the Senate.  He lost.

"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."  So said Todd Akin to a reporter in his run for the Senate.  He lost.

I don't know how to express my anger at what they said.  I am so disgusted.  Yet at the same time, I believe these gentlemen are being honest about their feelings and their positions on the question of abortion.  I don't admire them for that.  I expect honesty from those people that would seek votes.  I know, how naive am I?  But I expect it.  And they received the results that I would expect for making comments like that, they lost.

Consider their words.  First, Mr. Mourdock: God intends for a life to begin in rape, even the "horrible situation" of rape.  So, God intends the rape, God intends the rapist, God intends the attack, God intends the life of the woman to be shredded, God intends all of that.  The abstract phrase says something like "God authors evil".  But this puts the intention of God for the most horrible crime to happen to my wife or my daughter?

I am a pastor and I tell you no God I believe in works that way.

Now, Mr Akin.  Legitimate rape?  And the female body has ways to try and shut the whole process down?  What are you talking about?  The victim committing suicide?  Or maybe a d & c?  I read that and I come away with the twisted perception that Mr. Akin is putting the responsibility for the pregnancy and the rape back on the woman.  It was somehow "legitimate", she can "fix it". 

I am a man and I tell you that "no" means "no".  The moment the man ignores that, the crime has begun-inside marriage, outside marriage, wherever.  And, insult to injury, the woman is raped and she is responsible for birth control too?  Really?  Can such ignorance really exist?

You want a better perspective?  You want a more pastoral perspective?  Andrew Solomon spoke extensively about the children born to women who have been raped in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR's program "Fresh Air" as part of a discussion of his book "Far From the Tree".  You can find the interview at http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/.  I heard the interview on Nov. 12.  

As a member of my church, I am called upon to take time for my neighbor, to pray for my neighbor, to serve my neighbor.  Andrew Solomon gives insight on what that is like far more

What Do You Remember from School?

I went to a Christian High School out on the west coast.  (Pacific Northwest, so West Coast, not 'left coast' in California).  And something happened there at recess and lunch time and between classes that would be absolutely intolerable in any high school today.  40-75% of the student body at any given point would troop out the back doors of the school into the 'smoke hole' located in the woods behind the school to light up on cigarettes.

Grades 8-12, Christian kids, from a bunch of churches around the area, smoked, maybe up to a pack a day.  And it was okay.  And teachers who smoked had duty out there in the smoke hole.  When I graduated, grade 12, there was finally a move afoot to phase out the smoking and the smoke hole, from the incoming 8th grade class and up, year by year.

I remember my senior high trip to the capital city.  Big attraction was a smoke shop.  Turkish cigarettes were the rage, if I remember correctly.

I knew people who would get me alcohol, if I asked.  I knew who was having premarital sex.

Yah, Christian High School.

But there were a few things I wouldn't be able to tell you.  I wouldn't have been able to tell you where to get drugs.  I could not have told you who in our class might be the one who would bring a gun to school to shoot someone with.  That wasn't even in our focus.  There was low-level bullying, especially if you didn't smell like cigarettes...

And the strange thing is that our church Youth Groups-Young People Societies-did a pretty good job "churching" us.  There wasn't the decimation of young people that seems to occur all too often somewhere between the latter stages of high school and college.  There was some, of course, but not so bad.

So now, here we are a generation later.  More stuff, more availability of stuff, more tempting stuff, more needs for the church to do something in the lives of young people.  1 Corinthians 13, translated just before, the choice of so many weddings, is the bible's voice to the question of Love.  It is also the Scripture for Youth Sunday next week.

How does the culture of young people today stand against those verses?  More focus on that this week.

1 Corinthians 13: A translation for my youth

If I talk using really big and complicated words, or if I am talking in some weird religious "angel-speak", but I don't have love, I'm no different than your cel phone going off in the middle of class-noisy, disruptive, and not at all helpful.

If I prophecy-that is speak God's word about now and the future; if I figured out ALL God's mysteries; if God gave me the ability to know EVERYTHING; if my faith was so strong that I could knock a mountain over with a feather, BUT I don't have love, I am nothing-zero, nada, empty, done.

If I give away everything that I have to help poor people, if I let myself get killed because of what I say I believe in, but I don't have love, I get NOTHING out of it.

To be a loving person is to do the following:
  Love is to Put up with all the crap dished out by other people.
        Love is Not only acting good toward other people, but thinking good about them too.
               Love is Not to be jealous of other people.
                      Love is Not to go "me first", ever.
               Love is Not behaving like some show off, know-it-all.
         Love is Not being full of yourself.
  Love is Not getting in someone else's face.
        Love is Not simply trying to get everything for yourself.
               Love is Not easily p****d...er...ticked off.
        Love does NOT keep score of the bad things that are done by others.

Love does NOT think it is cool when others do bad things, like dissing other people, like bullying other people, get the picture?
           Rather, Love knows that the TRUTH of the thing is cool-no matter the cost.

Love puts up with everything.
            Love believes everything.
                        Love hopes for everything.
                                      Love patiently lives through everything.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Love CAN'T fail-EVER.
     Remember the stuff about prophecies?  That is going to be eliminated.
                   Fancy words and weird religious angel-speak?  It is going to stop.
     Knowledge about everything?  It is also going to be eliminated.

Right now, we only have part of the story.  So, like, when someone prophecies and such, we only get part of the story.

But when love is made perfect, SNAP, we get the whole story, perfect and complete,
       and the part we got right now will be eliminated.

Another way to think about the love being made complete:
When I was a baby,
                 I talked baby talk-goo goo gah gah
                            I thought like a baby-in my head-goo goo gah gah
                 I figured things out like a baby.
But when I grew up, I ditched all the baby-stuff.  Does that make sense?

Let me try another one:
When the love is only in part, it is like trying to look into the bathroom mirror by the light of a small candle when the power has gone out, trying to pick out your reflection to do makeup or shave or whatever in the dim light.
BUT, when we get the lights back-when the love is complete-everything is clear.

                  It is like I said before, right now I only know a part of the story,
 but THEN I will know everything just like everything about me is going to be known.

        So right now we got three things, faith, hope, and love,
                       But LOVE is by far the greatest of the three.

What if UFO's look like airplanes?

I was walking home in the evening and I thought I was in an episode of the X-Files.  There was a light overhead, very bright, headed right toward me.  Then the light banked and the blinking lights of the wings, the full outline of the aircraft became evident, then the sound of the engines...

Okay, so it wasn't a UFO...or was it?  Here is my conspiracy.  If aliens were coming to spy on us and they could not by some cloaking technology keep us from seeing them, why not make their spaceships look like airplanes?  Makes sense, doesn't it? 

Works for the government, doesn't it?  Making the UFO's look like airplanes?

Okay Pastor...UFO's?  Do I believe in this stuff?  Well, supernatural is stock in trade for me.  Jesus, God, Holy Spirit...see where I am going?

Really?  Jesus and UFO's in the same sentence?  Well, have you read the first few chapters of Ezekiel?

So consider this:  Do you believe that angels walk among us?  The bible talks about people entertaining angels unawares.  How about something even cooler?  Angel-stuff, God-stuff walking around among us...even in us?

There is this thing we believe, that God so loved the world, that He sent His Son to dwell among us.  The promise continues, that after Jesus returned to the Heavenly Father, we were not left alone, but the Spirit of God, which came down upon Jesus at His baptism, comes down on each of us.

So next time you see an airplane...is it an airplane?  Or is there a UFO inside?  Or the next time you find yourself reaching beyond yourself to do for someone else.  Is that you?  Or is the Holy Spirit inside?