Abortion is murder?

A law was passed in New York, "safeguarding rights laid out in Roe v. Wade and other court rulings, including a provision permitting late-term abortions when a woman's health is endangered". I believe this is a good thing. I believe this is NOT about "murdering babies".

I am Christian, from an Evangelical background, and I know many of my friends will have a knee-jerk reaction to this. So, please, friends, consider this.

I am a woman. I had two miscarriages, causing me deep emotional pain as well as physical pain. I am now 5 months pregnant and I thank God every day that my baby is alive and healthy so far. My point is, I know how it feels to have a baby grow inside of me.

I cannot believe, not for one second, that any woman would carry a baby in her womb for so long and then suddenly, out of the blue, decide to get rid of it for reasons of convenience. Serious health complications can and do arise later in pregnancy that leave a (heartbroken) woman no other choice but to abort. It's not only her life that can be in danger, it can be a fetus that is not viable. An acquaintance of mine found out during a second-term ultrasound scan that her baby's brain had failed to develop. We are not even talking about a brain problem that would result in severe physical or learning disabilities, but about an issue that would make the baby unable to survive once it is born. The lady had to abort. What else could she do?

Someone on Facebook shared a story about a fetus with an undeveloped heart which was detected late in the pregnancy. The mother was past 24 weeks, carrying a dying baby.

Babies can and do die in the womb for various reasons. What happens when a human dies? The body starts decaying. What happens if dead tissue starts decaying inside a person's (the mother's) body? You die of septic shock. So it is necessary to abort the dead fetus.

Those are the cases that make allowing late-term abortions necessary. I will not rejoice over abortions, but I am aware that in some cases, there is no other choice.

Salah: prayer.

On Friday, Salah Abdeslam, one of the terrorists responsible for the Paris attacks, was arrested in Brussels. He had been on the run for several months.

When I heard he had been captured, I felt relief - relief that a dangerous individual is now in the hands of the police, and is no longer a threat. My heart goes out to all those who have lost loved ones in the attacks. I am glad that justice will be done and that Salah will be held accountable for what he did.

However, I have no urge for violent retaliation towards him. First, because I don't want to sink down to hatred and violence. Then, because I have that crazy notion that he is not all that different from me: Salah Abdeslam is a human being.

It reminds me of the post about Hitler  holding a little girl's hand that floated around the internet a while ago. Here is an extract:

"Yeah. It’s fucking scary [the picture]. It really is. Do you know why?

It’s because you’re seeing that he wasn’t, in fact, a monster. You’re seeing in this picture that he was a man. He was a man, and that’s really the saddest part of it all.

[...] The number one mistake anyone could ever make in history is making the assumption that only inhuman monsters are capable of doing terrible things.

Stop dehumanizing Hitler just so you can reassure yourself that “normal” humans aren’t capable of doing bad things."

This is true of Hitler, and this is true of Salah Abdeslam. Evil is part of human nature. I am not saying it's a good thing at all - I am appalled and scared at the evil I see in human beings (including in myself). I am just saying that we should face up to this: as human beings, we are all capable of terrible evil. And sometimes, there are reasons why people fall into evil.

Before I go any further, let me be 100% clear: I do not condone terrorism and violence, and I grieve at destroyed lives. I do not seek excuses for those who engage in such acts. I am; however, willing to try and understand why they do.

If I had been born a second- or third-generation Muslim immigrant, torn between two cultures; if to most white people I had never been anything but "the Arab", or even the "fucking Arab", if I had been denied job opportunities on that ground alone... if I had felt despised and rejected by the society in which I lived, and then someone had come along and told me, "Come, sister, you will be respected and valued with us. You will be part of something great. You will be a hero. Others will no understand why you do it, but you will accomplish something great for God." Would I have believed it? Would I have been caught up in the lie and violence? I hope not, but maybe I would have. I do not ask that we excuse them, only that we understand why young people become violent radicals - and be willing to change our own behaviour so we don't become part of the problem too.

I also believe that all humans can change if they decide to do so. No one has to remain a monster. More than that, I believe that in Jesus, the opportunity is given to everyone to turn themselves around ("repent") and receive God's transforming love. In fact, this is why I am strongly against the death penalty: when you kill someone, you rob them of the chance to change and become a better person, forever.

Salah was supposed to blow himself up but backed out. It could be self-preservation kicking in, it could be something else. He may have had second thoughts about killing other people. In any case, I am glad he did not blow himself up. He is apparently cooperating with the police, so I hope this will help further dismantle the terrorist network he was a part of. I also hope he will feel genuine remorse for his actions.
 
You see, when I heard Salah Abdeslam had been arrested, the first thing that popped into my head was to pray for him. Pray for a fair trial, pray that he won't become the number one scapegoat of a much larger problem. And pray that the grace of God may touch his heart and transform it for good, somehow.

In Arabic, Salah means "prayer". And so I pray that this young man's life may be radically changed and become a true prayer - a testimony of a changed life.

Losing my religion

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but I don't really do religion. 

As far as I can tell, religion is a "system" to get you into God's good books.

It can be rituals, sacraments, and ceremonies. Christen or baptize your baby to ensure he'll go to heaven - or be baptized yourself in order to validate your faith. Say a mass for a dead person to shorten their time in purgatory. Have your marriage sanctified by a minister to make it valid. Don't get me wrong here - I know symbols are important reminders, and that as humans, rituals help us through the various stages of life, but they can never replace deeper realities, nor make us acceptable to God.

For some, religion is a set of rules to abide to. One side of that coin is pride: because I follow those rules to the letters, I am a better person than others, and surely God loves me more. I become judgemental of anyone who doesn't follow those rules - and I end up rejecting certain categories of people. The other side of the coin is a huge burden of guilt, because no one is perfect. No one can strictly adhere to any moral standard. We all slip up, and when it happens, we feel crushed: surely now God no longer loves me. I am worthless.

It can be praying, singing, fasting, reading a holy book. It can be charity work. At the end of the day, though, it's fundamentally flawed: religions are trying to get God to do something. Magic uses the same premises: you can somehow manipulate the surnatural to your own ends. But if there is a God, surely he is no puppet. You cannot manipulate God into doing what you want through prayer or fasting or good works.

When you get to the bottom of things, religions are man-made. I do not think they are inherently good. Human beings need to take responsibilities for their own actions, and maybe atheism helps in that one cannot use religion as an excuse for being bigoted or intolerant when one is an atheist. 

Even the apostle Paul didn't put any value in religion:
 
If others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!
I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.
I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.  Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage. - Philippians 3: 4-8

It's worth noting that the Greek word politely translated as "garbage" or "rubbish" in most English versions actually means "dung" or "excrement", and may have been as offensive as the English word "shit".

So basically... the Apostle Paul says religion is shit.

You see, faith is very different from religion. Deep faith is about relationship, not about religion. I believe God is a person we can somehow relate to. I could not love or respect a God who has to be placated through rituals and sacrifices and self-loathing. But that is not the God I believe in. I believe in a God who got his hands dirty. I believe he made himself man. He went through what we go through and made himself approachable. I would even go as far as to say that God learnt from this experience - now he knows what human life is like, because he's lived it. To me, that is an immense comfort, because it means he is not a far-off judge wagging his finger at me. He knows what I'm going through. He understands. He suffers alongside us. That, to me, is what makes him worthy of my love and devotion.

I believe in a God who loves us. No ifs or buts. God doesn't say, "I'll love you if you go to church" or "I'll love you if you fast for 40 days" or "I'll love you if you quit smoking" or "I'll love you when you're perfect". God's love is not conditional. We don't need to deserve his love: he's already given it to us. I believe in a God who came to live and die for us. That's pretty big love! And he didn't do it because we loved him... he did it because he loves us. 

 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. [...]We love each other because he loved us first. - 1 John 4: 10, 19

Coming out - and standing against evil

Today, I wish to share with you something I have been wrestling with for a long, long time, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

Last September, I explained how I had become a Christian. Of course, understanding who Jesus is and what he did for us is just the beginning. Most churches spend time teaching believers what it means to live as a Christian. And a subject Evangelical churches like to cover is sexual ethics, which brings me to the main point of my post. I was taught early on that according to the Bible, homosexual behaviour is sin. Verses from Leviticus, Romans and 1 Corinthians are often used to back this up, as well as the general idea that God created humans male and female to enjoy a complementary relationship, and that human marriage reflects the relationship between Jesus and the church. So I took it all on board, which was easy enough since it didn't apply to me - after all, I am straight, right?

As it happens, the university I attended the following year seemingly had a significant proportion of people who identified as gay. As a consequence, I decided to investigate the matter further in order to understand them better. In my opinion, before trying to share the good news of God's love for humankind, one has to put oneself in the other person's shoes and have empathy with their plight, whatever it may be. I read Striving for Gender Identity, a book that adheres to the traditional view, but attempts to explain the underlying causes of homosexuality. In short, the book presents homosexuality as failure to identify with one's gender, and a resulting attraction for what is a mystery to one - one's own gender (whereas in heterosexual attraction, the appeal resides in the fact that the opposite sex is somewhat of a mystery). The book also claimed that homosexuality could be cured by first reconciling the person with his or her gender. Again, from an outsider's perspective, I thought that made very good sense, and so I began to see homosexuals as people who suffered from a psychological condition. In any case, people I ought to treat with kindness. It's also around that time that I began to realise no one chooses to be gay, not any more than I chose to be straight.

Years passed, and I met a variety of people, including people who identify as gay. They were real people, with their life stories and emotions. They were faces and smiles and tears; people I could relate to. I also met Christians who didn't consider homosexuality as a sin. This puzzled me somewhat, and I started reading up more about it. Over the years, I read many well-thought out arguments that claimed homosexuality was not necessarily a sin according to the Bible. I heard the voice of Christians who said this is an area where we ought to agree to disagree. I also read stories of people who were badly emotionally damaged by so-called "gay cures".

Then, last year, Christian singer Vicki Beeching came out. I knew her because she led worship at Spring Harvest one of the years I went. She is a committed Christian who loves God deeply. What moved me to my core was her honest recount of the suffering she went through, how hard she tried "not to be gay", and how she pleaded with God, in tears, to free her from her homosexuality. And he didn't. 

I couldn't help but think, "Hang on, if God loves us so much he actually died for us, why would he let his child beg him to deliver her from her own sin, and not free her from it?" Unless it wasn't a sin at all. 

Two days ago, Tony Campolo, a prominent evangelical speaker, spoke out in favour of gay marriage. He is one of a growing number.
 
So where do I stand now? I will give you my 100% honest answer. I do not know. I do not know whether homosexuality is a sin or not. I have read countless arguements for both sides and they make good sense - on both sides. So I am sitting on the fence. But maybe that is not the point.

Maybe I wasn't called to make a judgement on this. Maybe as Christians, we are called to love and welcome everyone just as they are, just as they stand, as Jesus did. Maybe, just maybe it's better to "err on the side of compassion", as Christian blogger Benjamin Corey puts it. 

What I do know, though, is that Jesus calls us to speak out against oppression and the dehumanization of people. In some countries, homosexuality is punishable by death, and, horrendously enough, this has been supported by Western Christians. In the US, homosexuals have been denied access to services on the basis of their sexual orientation. That, I believe, is wrong. That, I believe, is sinful. 

And so this is my coming out. I am an ally.

I may not be certain of what I believe on the issue, but I am an ally. I choose not to discriminiate against gays. I choose to support them in their plight. I do not believe there is a "gay agenda" trying to throw our society into chaos. I believe there are human beings who need the same thing I do - love and acceptance. I believe there are couples in love who simply want the right to live together, the right to visit their life partner in hospital, or inherit from him should the worst happen. Gays do not choose to be attracted to someone of the same sex. No one wakes up one morning thinking, "Hey, I think I'm gonna try this gay thing". Their sexual orientation more often than not sets them up for bullying, discrimination, or worse. 

Moreover, I think there are far more serious issues facing our world today, such as child trafficking or the exploitation of people by big corporations in order to make profit. 

Franklin Graham, the son of famous evangelist Billy Graham, very recently deplored the "moral decay" that he ascribes to the gay agenda, and has decided to move his money out of a bank that used a homosexual couple in their advertising. He says, 

"Let’s just stop doing business with those who promote sin and stand against Almighty God’s laws and His standards. Maybe if enough of us do this, it will get their attention."

Why, Mr Graham, I wholeheartedly agree. I hope, therefore, that you do not buy anything from big corporations (Monsanto or Nestlé, for instance) who make profit by exploiting human beings (who are bearers of the image of God) and destroying God's creation (that he gave us stewardship of). I hope you and your organisation put your money in banks that invest in ethical businesses, not in said human-exploiting corporations. I hope you strive to buy fair-traded coffee and chocolate to ensure no child has been enslaved to produce what you consume. Do use your power as a consumer to stand against evil. But do it thoroughly, and about the issues that really matter. You are strangely silent on blatant social injustice. People are enslaved and exploited so we, Westerners, can keep enjoying all our little luxuries. That, in my opinion, is a far more serious "moral decay" that people like you conveniently ignore.

As for me, I'll always try my best to be an ally to those who suffer. I will choose compassion over judgement.

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Further reading on the issue of homosexuality and Christianity: Matthew Vines' book God and the Gay Christian;  blog series by Preston Sprinkle and Jeff Cook "Discussing Homosexuality: a Better Way".

Cast the first stone

I wrote this poem a few years ago and it feels quite fitting today, relating to a situation I won't get into because it's personal.

"Cast the first stone

Cast the first stone, why don't you?

Cast the stone on the adulteress who's crouching in the dust
never mind the nameless man who was with her

Cast the stone on the drug addict who's shaking all over
never mind the one who first sold him powdered dreams
Cast the stone on the loser who cannot pull his life together
never mind that he never had any hope to stand upon

Cast the stone on the lost child looking for boundaries
Cast the stone on the lost soul looking for purpose.

Cast the first stone, why don't you?

Cast the stone of your judgement
Cast the stone of your fears
Cast the stones of your own shortcomings and insecurities.

Cast the first stone, why don't you?

Condemn with your righteous hearts
Cast your cursing stones upon the sinner.

Have you forgotten?
You'll be buried under the stones you've thrown
They will be the monument on your grave

Because Jesus said:

He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. (John 8:7)

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Luke 6:37 and Matthew 7:2)

Have you forgotten?
It was the tax collector
the sinner
the outcast
who went home forgiven
not the religious man boasting about his own spirituality.
(Luke 18:9-14).

Because Jesus said:

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. (Mark 2:17)"