60-Second Stretch

Just learned that Tony Jones (apparently one of the “New Christians” and a known voice in the youth ministry community), has confirmed how he has changed his views on same sex marriage, in a Same Sex Marriage Blogalogue with Rod Dreher:

"I now believe that GLBTQ [people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, queer] can live lives in accord with biblical Christianity (at least as much as any of us can!) and that their monogamy can and should be sanctioned and blessed by church and state."

How is this even possible? How much of Scripture must be ignored to endorse anything other than the original model created by God Himself in Genesis?

"Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.' ...So the Lord God ... made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man...This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one...they felt no shame" (Gen 2: 18-25, NLT).

Am I missing something? Is there some obscure passage of Scripture that endorses "GLBTQ" unions as appropriate and thus overwrites this original design?

I realize that there are many other passages of Scripture that would also need to be “re-interpreted” in order to wipe the shame from these aberrant practices, but for the sake of simplicity, let's just answer this ONE question first: How do you deal with the issue of God's plainly revealed design? Did He change His mind? Is there some way to modify the Hebrew so that it is inclusive and gender-neutral concerning Adam and Eve? Seriously...what gives?

This kind of public proclamation is irresponsible at best. Think about it...

Well, after 15 years of marriage and 4 kids, Phyllis and I are finally at a place in our lives where we are actually able to have regular weekly date nights. For us, that night is Sunday. We drop all 4 kids off at Awanas (just a half mile from the house) and then it's two hours of "us time." This typically means dinner and shopping/browsing. And even though we are now living in a small town, we are trying to mix it up each week.

This week we ate at a New York style pizzeria called Divinos on the extreme north end of town where all the new stuff is going up. We've heard good things about the food and there's a connection between the owner of the pizzeria and a couple other biz partners we've connected to in town. I had a sausage and spinach roll (sort of like a calzone). Quite yummy.

After dinner, Phyllis and I decided to take a walk next door to Season's Harvest, a new "frou-frou" grocery store in the same plaza. The store is gorgeous, carries a really unique variety of products and has a very friendly and helpful staff. Oh, and there's this huge variety of global cheeses. Yeah, I know. I am easily amused. Anyway, I've never met a cheese I didn't like, so I was pleasantly surprised when the employee offered to let me sample ANY of the cheeses! Here's what I tried:


Blueberry Fayre
Take some creamy White Stilton (straight from Long Clawson Dairy in England), throw in some whole blueberries and you have a cheese that basically tastes like a blue-cheese cheesecake. Amazing.

Tine Ekte Gjetost
This Scandanavian goat cheese has a sweet, caramel flavor that you have to taste to believe.

The cheese was wonderful (if you are a cheese lover). But we would NEVER had known or even really noticed had the Season's Harvest employee not been willing to do whatever it took to make sure we had a pleasant and memorable experience in the store. Reminds me of the mantra that Scott McKain has drilled into my brain through his book (All Business is Show Business) and blog: If you want customers to become loyal fans, create Ultimate Customer Experiences for them.

Season's Harvest gave us a UCE. We were so impressed that we've decided it might actually be very cool to have one of those fancy wine and cheese affairs--sans the wine..at least for us (maybe we could drink some exotic juices instead). And when we get ready to throw our shin-dig, we will be paying a visit to the friendly, knowledgable folks at Season's Harvest. Besides, they've already offered to put together a variety tray of any cheese we want...even if they have to make special orders from around the globe!