Holy God and Mighty Comforter teach us your will that we may walk in your ways and not according the to the flesh.
John 1: 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
In the prologue to his Gospel John opens with a glorious hymn of creation and the nature of God's Word in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and in believers in Christ. In it he notes a difference between God's will birthed in the Living Word and the usual events within of birth within the created order. Children are normally born in the natural order of human will and decision. In contrast, Christ and his followers and believers are born of God.
Get this straight. Rape is an act of human will and ever since the Garden of Eden the story of scripture tells us human will starting with Adam and Eve has been getting us in trouble. Human will exerts itself again and again constantly mucking up God's order. After the disobedience of Adam and Eve, Cain kills Able, humans beget children with the sons of God, the Tower of Babel is built to ascend to the heavens and claim God's power, Sodom and Gomorrah become synonymous with rejecting God's order and the abuse of the sojourner, and on and on. Even the stars and heroes of the Chosen People and in turn Israel and Christianity are deeply flawed; Jacob who steals his brother's birthright, Moses who murders an abusive guard, David who sends forth Uriah to die in battle and so David can have Bathsheba Uriah's wife, the nation cast into exile for abusing the poor and selling judgments, Peter denies Jesus, Paul persecutes the early church. Again and again, human will causes destruction in contrast to God's blessing and grace.
If there can be any hope involving the circumstances around a rape it is because God rejects the violence and hate of the rapist and empowers so incalculable a grace that a woman is able to rise above destructive will of a man and embraces the possibility of life over against the hideousness of evil. The woman who does this does so only by God's grace and not because some politician declares rape "just another form of conception" or, more pervertedly, adds to the assault defending "father's rights" prolonging the suffering, torment, and fear of a woman. Men who rape have no rights to their offspring conceived against the will of the raped. They must not be allowed to stretch 30 seconds or 30 minutes or 30 days of assault into a lifetime of torment.
To deny the victim of rape any other option than to have the child so conceived by the force of human will diminishes where and how God's will acts. It reduces God's will only to law and human law at that because there is no law in scripture demanding such things. If God, absolutely, intends that abortion should not be tolerated among the community of faith God is amazingly silent on the issue in the midst of a world where Israel's and the church's neighbors practiced it. Nor does the ritual of jealousy mentioned in the last post make any sense.
God's will and grace cannot be commanded by congressmen or senators, not even courts and presidents. God's grace only emerges from divine love and hope reigning over and against the hate and the violence. God's grace must first heal the victim and that is, apparently, not controlled by human timetables ranging from days to years. Sometimes it is only discovered when we, as individuals, are confronted with the most horrible of realities. Sometimes its greatest expression is only found in the victims ability to forgive themselves for an irrational belief that they somehow caused or deserved their fate. No one deserves to be raped.
The good news is that birth and life in God's grace, even in such circumstances, can overcome the torment of hate and the abuse of power. Rape is, after all, about power and one man's will over against a woman's right of refusal. No one can deny that God has worked amazing acts of grace by helping women to decide for life. Some women, Christians and non-Christians, who have chosen to bear the children who were so conceived by force of will, sometimes as the victims of war. Even those children can be blessings and filled with God's grace. Consider the stories of the four women listed in Jesus genealogy, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba. They were all unexpected participants in carrying the story of salvation history forward, each less than "expected" but more than could be hoped for and central to the story of God's grace in Jesus incarnation.
Women must be left to make decisions about how to deal with the pain and suffering caused by assault and rape and conception by rape with the people they choose to involve, such as, their family, their pastor, the doctor or anyone else they so choose. People of faith must allow them the right of conscience and not seek to make into law what God did not give as law. Broken saints and healing sinners, such are the victims of rapes. I trust my sisters in Christ to struggle honestly and faithfully with God's will and their own. Sometimes the healing seems inconceivable, and the decisions horrifying but with God all things are possible.
Note: Here is an interesting article of the shift in this issue over the last 40 years. Rarely have so many in the church abandoned a belief of the faith so quickly for such distorted reasons and reasoning.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/
John 1: 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
In the prologue to his Gospel John opens with a glorious hymn of creation and the nature of God's Word in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and in believers in Christ. In it he notes a difference between God's will birthed in the Living Word and the usual events within of birth within the created order. Children are normally born in the natural order of human will and decision. In contrast, Christ and his followers and believers are born of God.
Get this straight. Rape is an act of human will and ever since the Garden of Eden the story of scripture tells us human will starting with Adam and Eve has been getting us in trouble. Human will exerts itself again and again constantly mucking up God's order. After the disobedience of Adam and Eve, Cain kills Able, humans beget children with the sons of God, the Tower of Babel is built to ascend to the heavens and claim God's power, Sodom and Gomorrah become synonymous with rejecting God's order and the abuse of the sojourner, and on and on. Even the stars and heroes of the Chosen People and in turn Israel and Christianity are deeply flawed; Jacob who steals his brother's birthright, Moses who murders an abusive guard, David who sends forth Uriah to die in battle and so David can have Bathsheba Uriah's wife, the nation cast into exile for abusing the poor and selling judgments, Peter denies Jesus, Paul persecutes the early church. Again and again, human will causes destruction in contrast to God's blessing and grace.
If there can be any hope involving the circumstances around a rape it is because God rejects the violence and hate of the rapist and empowers so incalculable a grace that a woman is able to rise above destructive will of a man and embraces the possibility of life over against the hideousness of evil. The woman who does this does so only by God's grace and not because some politician declares rape "just another form of conception" or, more pervertedly, adds to the assault defending "father's rights" prolonging the suffering, torment, and fear of a woman. Men who rape have no rights to their offspring conceived against the will of the raped. They must not be allowed to stretch 30 seconds or 30 minutes or 30 days of assault into a lifetime of torment.
To deny the victim of rape any other option than to have the child so conceived by the force of human will diminishes where and how God's will acts. It reduces God's will only to law and human law at that because there is no law in scripture demanding such things. If God, absolutely, intends that abortion should not be tolerated among the community of faith God is amazingly silent on the issue in the midst of a world where Israel's and the church's neighbors practiced it. Nor does the ritual of jealousy mentioned in the last post make any sense.
God's will and grace cannot be commanded by congressmen or senators, not even courts and presidents. God's grace only emerges from divine love and hope reigning over and against the hate and the violence. God's grace must first heal the victim and that is, apparently, not controlled by human timetables ranging from days to years. Sometimes it is only discovered when we, as individuals, are confronted with the most horrible of realities. Sometimes its greatest expression is only found in the victims ability to forgive themselves for an irrational belief that they somehow caused or deserved their fate. No one deserves to be raped.
The good news is that birth and life in God's grace, even in such circumstances, can overcome the torment of hate and the abuse of power. Rape is, after all, about power and one man's will over against a woman's right of refusal. No one can deny that God has worked amazing acts of grace by helping women to decide for life. Some women, Christians and non-Christians, who have chosen to bear the children who were so conceived by force of will, sometimes as the victims of war. Even those children can be blessings and filled with God's grace. Consider the stories of the four women listed in Jesus genealogy, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba. They were all unexpected participants in carrying the story of salvation history forward, each less than "expected" but more than could be hoped for and central to the story of God's grace in Jesus incarnation.
Women must be left to make decisions about how to deal with the pain and suffering caused by assault and rape and conception by rape with the people they choose to involve, such as, their family, their pastor, the doctor or anyone else they so choose. People of faith must allow them the right of conscience and not seek to make into law what God did not give as law. Broken saints and healing sinners, such are the victims of rapes. I trust my sisters in Christ to struggle honestly and faithfully with God's will and their own. Sometimes the healing seems inconceivable, and the decisions horrifying but with God all things are possible.
Note: Here is an interesting article of the shift in this issue over the last 40 years. Rarely have so many in the church abandoned a belief of the faith so quickly for such distorted reasons and reasoning.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/
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