Here’s my deal: I believe that God is more about love than he is about rules. Sometimes I let that come across as an anything goes, do what you want, God wouldn’t send you to hell philosophy. I don’t know if that’s true or not. In fact it’s the not knowing that’s the key for me on this. I don’t believe that we CAN know how God will handle those people that don’t know “what would Jesus do.”  I’m at odds (not necessarily AGAINST) “In vs Out” theology – the idea that some people are in, some people are out, and that we can use scripture to figure this out.  It doesn’t pan out for me.

We have at least two responses to this “In vs Out” concept:

The first is commendable: pursuing the “truth” of the matter – delve into scripture, find the things that we should do and those that we shouldn’t do.  The pursuit shows a deep level of love by those people that believe in God to find out more about him. Further, we assume this shows a great deal of love for others because we say we want to help them know God and get “in.” We use the Bible as a starting point, believing it is at least a mostly accurate recounting of history and fact about God. The church has come to call this pursuit “theology” and grants great privileges to those versed in it. Theologians have great respect for longing after the truth for the truth shall set us free.

But the fact that we have called it commendable does not mean that its findings are “truth.” in this case I’m thinking about truth as the way that God wanted things to be in both the world and how we relate to each other.  The truth here reflects our role as Jesus followers.  I’m not convinced that this is how we should be spending our time on this matter.

We’re a curious species and the pursuit of knowledge has become the modern representation of that curiosity. We assume, falsely, that there is nothing that we cannot “know.” We don’t even entertain the idea that there are somethings that we SHOULD NOT know.  I argue that this very matter is something that we will not know and probably SHOULD NOT know.

Instead, it should be completely irrelevant.

The second response then is simply to realize the irrelevance of the question “Is this person ‘in’ or ‘out’?”  It consistently leads to questions and debate about nit-picky issues that are of no relevance to Jesus. You are and will always be loved by God – there are no degrees to this love, no chances to level up.  You simply are.  And so, we need to simply love.  Simply build relationships.  Simply go to the short man’s house for tea.

What does it matter if this person is in, or out, or used to be in, or was out but thought about getting in later?  How does it change how I act towards them.  Yes, I want them to know God, but I don’t want them to know man made God – I want them to know all loving God.  How do I do that?  Simply by loving them myself – by simply being in a meaningful relationship with them.  Nothing more.  The rest – the guilt that’s associated with not helping someone get in, the thinking of people as projects, the endless pursuit of something we cannot and should not know – is nothing but a distraction in the periphery of what real life and love really is.

I hope that we can humble ourselves, realize that our role is not to be judge, jury, or excommunicator.  Our role is to be lovers, and friends.  To do justly.  To love mercy.  To walk Humbly with God.

On the particular day, Matt O’Neil was speaking during the “Blind Spot” series – and focused on the blind spot of “not learning.” When we started, I really had no idea where that was going – but I stayed tuned in.

It turned out to be incredible.

He began by talking about Cornelius: a Roman Soldier, a devout gentile who had conversations with God. To those of us who believe that there is a God who wants to have conversation with us, this seems completely reasonable. To a first century Jew like Peter, a ROMAN SOLDIER GENTILE is exactly the type of person that God would NOT want to talk to. It was completely earth shattering that this would be the case.

At about the same time that we see Cornelius get introduced, we flash to Peter who has a vision of God telling him to eat non-kosher food that good jews had been told for thousands of years to avoid – to never eat under threat of random penalties. Instead God says this:

What I have cleansed, you must not call “unclean”

This was earth-shattering.

Even more earth-shattering…. Cornelius wants to be baptized. As unclean of a man as a gentile, Roman soldier was, Cornelius felt as though it was right for him to be baptized.

This seemingly innocent “conversion” is a turning point in annuls of history and most of us miss it’s significance. What God has made clean, we must NOT call “unclean.”

The question was asked of Peter: “Is there any reason why this man should NOT be baptized?”

We haphazardly declare that people of various faiths, or histories, or criminal backgrounds, or sexual orientations are not clean, are not “ready” for God because they’re hanging on to some “unclean” aspect of their lives. But these are based on OUR standards. WE call them unclean. God calls them beloved and perfect children.

God asked us to unlearn the rule book several times. Jesus said to love him and love each other and we’re covered. But we in our modern mindsets we are driven by data and rules and a concreteness that form the antitheses of loving relationships. In trying to follow the first of the two updated rules that Jesus gave us, we constantly break the second.

Peter was challenged by God to unlearn the rule book. He did it. Now we reinforce it. We have communities of people that seem to thrive on rules because of the tangibility that it provides. The more we follow the rules, the more we think we can gauge the likelihood of us escaping hell. We monitor ourselves relative to each other in much the same way that when running from a bear, we don’t need to be the fastest, we just can’t be the slowest.

Nothing that God has made is unclean.

I have written in my Moleskine that “This is THE profound truth that so many of us in the church miss.” What I found to be completely telling after letting this profound truth sink in was the thought that God did not make the church.

Man made the church.

The church can therefore be unclean. It almost certainly is.

We treat so many people as if they’re second class members of God’s family because they don’t have it together according to our standards.

We made the standards.

It may be that I’m a heretic. I’ve asked myself several times in the past two weeks how it can be that with the rise and fall of so many devoted church communities we have missed this profound truth? Perhaps I’m spewing theological garbage.

But I can’t resolve that the Jesus who befriended criminals on the cross, ate with tax collectors, willingly touched all kinds of lawfully “unclean” folks without any preconceptions or further requirements, would want us to do anything different than to love.

Love. Plain. Simple.

It so easy to see the rules and think that God has burdened us with following them rather than to live in the freedom that He has granted to us from worrying about them.

Our love validates. Our love embraces. Our love is all-encompassing.

Why? Why on earth would God do this? Why would he love criminals and cheaters and the corrupt and the greedy? Why does this make sense to Him?

In the final exclamation point on this incredible message, Matt finished his prayer with thanks to God that “There is NO why.”

His love simply is.

• Desmond Too
• Desmond Tutu
• Desmond Tutu Too

After hearing him speak, I cannot help but imagine that my connection with him runs much deeper – asking some of the same spiritual questions and thinking some of the same spiritual thoughts.  This is not to place myself in, around, or near the same league as Desmond Tutu but, rather, to say that where his heart and soul and mind have already travelled I dream of going.

Tutus experiences with life during Apartheid in South Africa have certainly contributed to his perspective on the planet.  I have to admit that, prior to this interview, I had no real understanding about Apartheid other than to know it was a bad thing.  It is certainly on my radar now.  If you are like me in this regard, in short Apartheid was Church-sanctioned, politically-enforced white-supremacy – it literally translates as “apartness”.

From the interview:

When the Dutch Colonial Afrikaner Nationalist Party came to power in South African in 1948, it decreed white supremacy in perpetuity, codifying the policy of apartheid, which literally translates as “apartness.” Comprehensive separation and brutalization of the 80 percent majority population of non-whites became the law of the land.

Desmond Tutu grew up, like other black children, in a ghetto township marked by deprivation unlike the towns in which white children lived. He stresses that his childhood was not devoid of joy. Children adapt; he played with his friends. But there were many moments which he traces as early stirrings of his sense of injustice, experiences that reminded him and others, as he says, of their second-, third-, fourth-class citizenship, though they did not even have citizenship.

Tutu says that we are created for goodness – a concept I deeply believe in.  In the face of these injustices, his soul stirred with a general sense of awe, wonder, and hope that is completely encompassed in what has become a motto of his, that “God is in control.”  Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism?  Obviously, in the face of brutality and inequality it is comforting to think that “this, too, shall pass” and we’ll be reunited with our creator.  This is escapism, is it not? Tutu’s claim of almighty control, though, is more deeply rooted in a belief that the God of the hear and now has our best interests in mind.

He speaks of the first time he as able to vote and compares that experience with the general apathy of the west.  For westerners, voting is sometimes a chore, a duty, a responsibility that is sometimes done begrudgingly.  When Tippett asked Tutu to relay his feelings about the first vote that he had ever cast, he response was in the form of a quesiton:

“How do you describe falling in love?”

Tippett also asked him about his feelings about homosexuality – Desmond Tutu is well known in his church for holding very liberal, relatively speaking when it comes to such topics.  His response, at the time didn’t fully hit me – because I relate so closely to the views that Tutu holds, perhaps I simply assumed we were on the same page.  What I have since realized is that he’s is so much further through the book than I am, it’s incredible!

From the transcript:

Well, you know, there are, yes, many in Africa in the Anglican Church who hold views that I wouldn’t hold my self over this. And I’ve of ten said what a shame. I mean, really, what a disgrace that the church of God in the face of so much suffer ing in the world, in the face of conflict, of corruption, of all of the awful things, what is our obsession? Our obsession is not minister ing to a world that is aching. Our obsession is about sexual orientation. I’m sure, I mean, the Lord of this church look ing down at us must weep and say, “Just what did I do wrong now?”

Just what did I do wrong now?  What an incredible question to imagine God asking – not that the world is somehow unholy or not a part of the church – but that “God’s people” seemingly couldn’t care less about the suffering and aching and pain all around us and are more interesting in debating the relatively sin-liness of various social issues.

How can we who say that we’re children of God be so off base?  How could we have so clearly missed the point?

There’s something else that Desmond Tutu said . . . God is bigger than Christianity . . . that’s coming next.

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come in kicking down the door

This lyric is from a Sara Groves song – When the Saints.  Every time I hear it, it blows my heart to smithereens, and without fail, I’ll get something in my eye.  Without fail.

The song itself, if you’ve not heard it is pretty unassuming – essentially, Sara says she wants to walk in with the Saints, mentions a few Bible characters for comparison and off she goes singing again.

Then this happens:

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

I see the young missionary and the angry spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear

I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sister standing by the dying man’s side

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come in kicking down the door

I see the man of sorrows and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

In all seriousness, that one lyric does it for me.  I’m sure there are lots of reasons why but, for whatever reason, I really connect with the spirit of this thought.  I think about being a guy and about all of the baggage that comes along with that – teenage years of hormone-induced lust and the residual hormone-hangover that most of us experience throughout our twenties.  I think of pornography and how what can start as an innocent curiosity and what gets regarded too often as a rite of passage is, in fact, a mind-bogglingly large profit sector with complex revenue streams and profit sharing.  It is big business that, like all big businesses, are about making money.

It makes me wonder what portion of mouse-clicks support things like sexual trafficking. There has to be some fringe sites and systems that take advantage of men’s addictions. It makes me wonder how many of these girls get into the porn industry because they feel like they have no other options. It makes me wonder how many abductions result in forced sexual slavery – I know the numbers are staggering.

And then I think about us men having our lusts transformed into compassion, motivating us to turn off the computer and figuratively or literally busting down doors with an appetite for restoration, an appetite for rescue.

To me, this is incredibly moving imagery that speaks to me more strongly than I could even attempt to write about here. I’ve written before on this blog about how restoration speaks deeply to my soul and this may be, for me, the ultimate display of restoration.

Here’s the song on Lala.com so you can listen for yourself: http://lala.com/zZu8I

It may equate me with the “Grinch” but Christmas does not do much for me.  In past posts, I’ve alluded to my problems with doing for the sake of doing, free from any rationale.  You may recall my thoughts on church, for example.  This is a quite honest representation of who I am as I person: I need to see the rationale before getting behind something.  There has to be a strategy or a purpose.

To be even more specific, it’s not enough to simply have rationale – it’s not an “as long as you can justify it, I’m in” scenario – obviously, the justification and rationale have to align with my beliefs and morals and personality.

It is at this level that Christmas begins to fall apart for me.

Christmas has become the perpetual out-do-myself game.  It’s on a grand scale so we may not even realize it, but for so many of us, this year has to be bigger than last.  Better parties, blingier gifts, nicer decorations, 1000 more bulbs. I wonder if we haven’t made Christmas into a milestone, some point of reference to gauge our progress (read: net worth) year over year.  Last year I was able to spend $X so this year, if I’ve had a successful year, it stands to reason that I should be able to spend $X + $Y.  If not, we’ve obviously not worked hard enough, long enough, made a big enough impression on the men “upstairs” (either literally or figuratively).  Certainly we give gifts away because it’s what culture and baby Jesus would have us to do, but I wonder if we don’t give in a spirit of self-measurement.

It’s not hard to imagine.  We get a card from someone that’s not on our list and some primal guilty panic sets in.  What is the drive behind it?  Fear that the we’ll “owe” the sender something that will strike the cosmic balance in their favor?  Do we honestly think that the forgotten ones are sitting with a Santa Claus style checklist, cross-referencing every piece of festive fan mail that arrives at their doorstep?  Just because we do it ourselves, doesn’t mean everyone does

My argument is that this is reflective of the yearly benchmark that we’ve set for ourselves.  More cards out mean more friends this year over last.  More gifts out means more expendable income this year over last.  Net growth is what we’re really after when we venture out into the wilds that are our bliss acquisition depots (a.k.a. shopping malls).

It’s important to be self-aware and introspective.  I don’t want to devalue those things.  What is off, however, is our tendency to measure worth in financial or material terms.  Sure, we’re constantly bombarded with financial news.  It’s strange to go through a day without encountering a stock ticker or at least some reference to which direction the DOW has been headed lately.  It’s understandable for us to measure ourselves by the tools that we have around us – in much the same way that I still find temperatures in Fahrenheit or distances in miles to be confusing at times.

In previous posts, I’m clear about my position that Christians have ruined the church.  Something similar is true for Christmas.  I don’t want to put this all on the church – only to say that this season has been ruined for me.

The beauty has been the rediscovery.

We haven’t completely disengaged from the season.  There are things that still have value and purpose.  But becoming indebted to financial institutions is not my idea of a good time.  And Christmas is still a milestone for us.  But instead of measuring the ways that we’ve made more money in the past year, or met new people that need to read the latest installment of the Smith saga and receive a picture of us sitting under our tree, we’re able to figure out ways that we can give.  We know we’re not “wealthy” when you compare our checkbooks to those of our neighbors, but it’s a beautiful thing to not be in want.  It’s an amazing place to be.

It frees you to be able to mobilize resources, no matter how meager, to help somebody that’s in need.  So instead of buying stuff, and wrapping it in stuff and packing that in stuff, we’ve been able to give.  Maybe it’s a house up the street or maybe it’s children in a country halfway around the world.  We’ve participated in programs like World Vision and local programs designed to help children and their families nearby.  The year we’re helping build wells in Malawi (http://www.equitas.cc).

And, if you’re busy buying Christmas gifts this year – don’t worry, I’m not at all saying that you’re efforts are in vain and stupid and a waste of resources that could otherwise be used to feed the poor.  There IS great value in gift giving – that’s the way that many, many people express their love.  I’m simply saying that, for my wife and I, we’ve chosen to reroute the resources we have to other things.

So, you’re not getting anything from us this year…. again.  Honestly, it’s not that we don’t like you  We like you very much.

Merry Christmas

I can’t say that I’ve been wrestling with prayer – that would be an overstatement.  Rather, prayer has always been perplexing to me and continues to be one of my biggest issues and questions.  Lately, as others around me have been wrestling with prayer, I’ve been processing through some of the same questions and concerns.

The dominating understanding of prayer in terms of pop-culture seems to be asking for something from God – maybe asking for a healing or a miracle or a raise or a new car or for a particular candidate to not become the next president of the United States.

For Jesus-followers, the Bible says that:

I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.

or

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Mark 11:25 (NLT and NIV respectively)

Now, while I can tell you stories about praying for a million dollars and a big house and a fast car and how I have none of those things, I’d rather complicate the matter by talking about friends who have prayed long and hard for physical healings and deliverance from sicknesses.  They pray with all the faith in the world.  And nothing changes.  Their loved ones continue downhill.

Religion usually gives one of two very easy answers for this: 1) you didn’t pray hard, long, faithfully enough or 2) it wasn’t in the will of God.

These aren’t good enough for me.  This says that God rewards the people who are faithful, the people who’ve got it all figured out and the rest of us who are still struggling – well, it sucks to be us.  This says that once you reach a certain point, only then will God hear your prayers.

And this from a God who “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and and the unrighteous?”

It’s not a good enough answer for me.

My reset here has been to starting thinking about prayer as more than just making an ask.  It’s talking.  It’s a conversation: a two-way flow of words, thoughts, wishes, intentions, feelings, concerns, questions, and  answers. I’ve understood this for a long time but it’s felt very one-sided.  Almost as if I trusted God was listening but never really heard much from Him. This is more experiential than anything else.  I don’t know where this “casual” approach to prayer came from or is referenced in the bible.  Then again, I don’t know how it become so holier-than-thou and elitist either.

I’ve WANTED to hear a voice.  I rarely ever have.

I used to think I had to do something special to get God to listen to me.  I know that’s not true either.  He listens to all of us. He probably gets annoyed at all the bickering and back-biting and ill-will wishes via the prayer line, but I really do believe he listens.

So, my biggest questions now revolve around the answers.

I don’t expect that I’ll hear an audible voice much.  I’m not ruling it out and I’m not convinced that I HAVEN’T on one or two occasions heard something “real” but I’m not counting on hearing words.

This whole prayer business raises lists of other questions, not the least of which are major, major challenges like “the will of God,” or WOG.  The WOG is thrown around so haphazardly and inserts itself as a matter of convenience, ignorance, or indifference.

Why didn’t I get into that school?  Not in the WOG.

Why is the sky blue?  Well son, it’s the WOG.

How will we know the right thing to do?  The WOG will work itself out.

Perhaps this is the next thing to talk about.

There are some core issues surrounding prayer that I still don’t know if I can answer.  Example: How does God decide “who” to listen to?  Bruce Almighty shows us the chaos that follows a blanket yes to all.

I think the central premise of prayer is off.  Prayer can be a very selfish endeavor.  God bless ME.  God forgive ME.  God heal MY friend.  And it’s hard to approach without this selfishness.  We’re interested in self-preservation.

Perhaps it’s fear.  Do we come to God more afraid of hell and suffering than with love and awe?  Is it the “he holds our fate in the palm of his hand” mentality?  We only have limited face-time with the big man upstairs so we should make all our big asks now.

And at the end of the day, I don’t have an answer.  Maybe putting all the big asks on the table is the right thing to do.  I have a hard time processing prayer and I’m sure I will for a long, long time.  I don’t need to understand the mechanics of it, but it sure would be nice for me to have some rationale behind it.

Paul says to pray without ceasing.  That to me does, in fact, make sense.  I do feel pretty online at most times during the day, and in those moments when I encounter something notable, I’ve got no problem being thankful or making an ask for it.

And perhaps I’ve not asked with the right faith, believing that I’ve received something.  Or perhaps I’ve already received everything and don’t know what to do with it all.

Frightening when you consider it.  “O mighty smiter, spare me your wrath for one more day.”

This is the first of what I’m sure will be a long series of rambling but honest posts about how my views of God, faith, purpose and life have changed in the past few years and I’ve meandering along the journey.

Up first… God

Here are the basics.  God created the heavens and earth and everything in it.  In fact THIS is one of his core characteristics – creating a creation that can in turn create – trees beget trees, people beget people, bacteria beget bacteria.  You get the picture.

After he created people, some stuff happened and ever since He’s been trying to get our attention… more about this to come.

First for the confusion – the Old Testament.  We see a lot of things happen in the OT.  God leads his people from captivity under an evil regime to freedom, provides a ram instead of a son for a sacrifice, etc, etc.  At the same time, he calls for the annihilation of entire people groups.  It’s odd.  I’m not going to lie.  I can’t rationalize it away.  All I know is that it was very different to hear of a God that wanted to infiltrate human space and time to connect with His creation.  He did that first through tabernacles and temples and tablets (aka, the ten commandments + ark of the covenant combo)

Now, it is true that God COULD assume the role of senile old man hurling happenstance lightning bolts towards the planet.  But we are given glimpses into the character of God through a guy named Jesus – who also happens to be the last means by which God has chosen to connect with us.  To attempt to understand the modus operandi of Jesus is to do the same with the modus operandi of God.

Jesus was a man of ultimate love and compassion, a defender of the weak, an opponent to the stagnant and fallacious status quo.  He lived out what the prophets had said hundreds of years before:

Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.
Amos 5:23-24

So, who puts the “right” in “righteous”? Again, if we look at what we know about Jesus . . .

He stood up for the woman that was supposed to be stoned and said . . . “Wait a minute.  If there is someone here who has never broken the law and sinned . . . then go ahead a throw the stone.”  He told the story of the son who squandered the fathers wealth on sex, drugs, and arabian music, and emphasized that the father RAN to greet the “wayward” son before he even made it back home.  The father never even asked for an apology.  The son was welcomed home no questions asked.  This kind of love is what we see in Jesus.  What angered him the most was emptiness and shallowness and selfishness.  Those leaders who were supposed to be examples of “what was right” were in fact exactly what was wrong.  They were the ones that were stoning instead of bridging gaps.  They were the ones who were building themselves up instead of building others up.  They were the ones that were going through the motions with no concern for connecting with God.

We have this image of God as being a white haired anal-retentive pissed-off judge who finds some perverse joy in banishing the evil to hell.  But we have no basis for this except for our own imagined fears, shortcomings, and misgivings.  Everything we see about Jesus says that what He thinks about judgement and what we think about judgement are two different things.

All that to say, my first step had to be realizing that God is not “out to get me” and waiting to strike me down.  He wants me to love and feel compassion and do what’s right more than he wants me not to dislike, not to be ignorant, and no do what’s wrong.  This is a major difference, though not always obvious on the first pass.

But THIS God, who is not angry with me, but wants to connect with me, forms the basis of a completely new understanding of what I thought I believed.

…I’ve decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn’t only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the fall; but I would devote not one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth.  No, not one.

A funny thing happens when you come to know the freedom that being in touch with Jesus offers: you can potentially be overrun with guilt.  There is a checklist that may seem to descend from the sky (though, I now realize this checklist comes from somewhere very different) that outlines each of the many things that you have to do if you are to truly experience and relate to God.  You have to pray, and read your Bible, and confess your transgressions, and do a good deed everyday, and study, and sing, and reflect.

Herein lies one of the problems with Christianity as it is expressed in 2009.  There is so much to do that we miss the great intention behind it all:

Cease striving and know that I am God.
Psalm 46:10 (NASB)

Yes: a life being lived modeled after the way that Jesus lived his will involve self-improvement.  It is a good thing to read scripture in order to understand the way that people thought and processed things in and out of connection with God; to take the good, and the bad, and the confusing and incorporate these things into our own lives.  It is good to spend time in prayer.  Relationships are the means by which real change takes place and a relationship with God is no different.  Doing good is good.  Confession is good.

But when the redeemer becomes taskmaster, when guilt overpowers freedom, a core component of the whole system is jeopardized.  God’s intention has never been “Keep ‘em occupied so they don’t have time to bother me.”  Instead, God’s intention is that as much as is humanly possible we live in a type of union with Him.  Not performing for him.  Not doing his bidding and returning to the bell-tower a la Quasimodo.  Just being confident in His love, in the security of His relationship with you.

Manning finishes up this thought-process with this:

What would I actually do if I had to do it all over again?  Heeding John’s counsel, I would simply do the next thing in love.

As a person of faith, I struggled for a long time with wanting to look the part which involved doing all the things that were expected.  I know I’m not alone in this.  I saw certain things as bad and (*gasp*) unholy.

We can “do” ourselves in.  Don’t misread what I’m saying – I know that “belief” and “action” are as integral to each other as breathing is to life.  But preoccupation with the irrelevant minutiae of our spiritual lives is counterproductive to living like Jesus lived.

So, may you live with the confidence that Jesus is in the processing of reinvigorating your soul with life; that during this process, there are people that He wants you to meet and interact with, things that He wants you to do that bring just a little bit of heaven to earth; that he never intended for you to become preoccupied with the endless pursuit of self-improvement; and that He wants you to stop your striving, and know He is God.

Yes, I’m aware these are philosophical questions that may or may not have an easy answer.

Let me start with the latter.

What does it mean to be human?

I approach this answer following a history in traditional Christian theology and that certainly colors my perspective but not in the scary “turn-or-burn” sort of Christianity.  I know that not everyone will approach this question with any sort of Christian worldview to which I say “Fantastic!”  I think truth can be gathered from a lot of perspectives so please share them with me.

Now, my first notion is that humans exist and have a character modeled after that of God.  Despite what you may have heard, God is more about relationships than stand-off-ishness.  He is more interested in interaction with us than damning us to hell.  The earliest poems (e.g. Genesis) that discuss God’s first interactions with humans also point out that it was not good for humans to be alone.  Relationships are the basis for life.

My slant is that to be human is to be engaged in and value relationships.

Secondly, I would say that the self-actualized human being is also interested in improving humanity.  Part of this can be seen in wanting the best for self.  It is not that far of a jump to go from wanting best for self to wanting best for all.  Christians would say that this involves restoration (putting things back the way they were meant to be) or bringing heaven to earth (by acting how Jesus would act).  But even without a Christian approach to life, this is still true for many people.  Given the question is it “better” to be selfish or to be selfless, most people would likely choose the latter as the most admirable character trait.

Mature human beings are interested in making life better.

Finally, purpose.  Long story short we have purposeful actions often backed up with rationale.  That’s pretty uniquely human.

Obviously there are many other things that we’re not delving into here . . . humans should be logical, self-aware, capable of dreaming dreams, engaged in culture, etc, etc.

Thoughts or philosophies on any part of life must first be framed by these core perceptions about humanity.

So, what about human rights?