Jay Bakker has guts

I am surely no fan of Jim Bakker but his son Jay is another matter. Jay is a Christian who started his own punk ministry. He risked it all to embrace gays in his church. I am in the middle of his story in Sundance channel but his risking everything for gays, when he has no actual ties that I know of to us, is breathtaking. It is what Christianity should be about. His sermon in a Gospel church where he states his new stance is both gutsy and close to heartbreaking. The stony silence is deafening.

This is important to avoid confusion with the James Baker of Florida 2000.

I wonder if he ever listened to Bill Hicks, because what he has to say and what Bill discussed are very similar.

In all seriousness. Tammy Faye was ministering to AIDS patients back in the 1980's, even before many "progressive" Christian ministers.

Not to mention the short-lived but brilliant talk show she shared with Jm J. Bullock.

and Tammy Faye looked ghastly in this series. She evidenly has colon cancer and isn't doing well at all.

I've also been enjoying that series on Sundance.

My son met him and has been to his church in Atlanta and really likes his message. In fact, he designed the "Religion Kills" t-shirt and "Equal Rights are a Moral Issue" bumpersticker for them.

Both the message and design are A's.

I'm not a Christian (or LGBT for that matter), but I went to go check him out a few years ago after a lot of my friends around Atlanta told me "You've got to hear this guy". I went down to the Masquerade one night (a local rock/dance club here, where he held services for a few years), and I was astonished at what I heard. Jay Bakker actually "gets" Jesus, and Jesus' message of love and charity. I walked out of there with the profoundest respect for the man.

Is his stance that homosexual love is the same and as valid as hetrosexual love? Or is he equating them to sinners with the caveate that everyone is a sinner?

I understand that even if he is doing the latter it is an improvement. But its still a bit of a rationalization rather than a true acceptance. IMO.

I was pretty amazed by that sermon in all honesty.

How does he get around the OT and NT refs to it?

That the OT verses are refering to rituals rather than sex. Abonination more often than not refered to how to comport once during a ritual.

The NT though is more easily undone. The word thought to refer to homosexual behaviour actually translates to male prostitute. The ancient greek word for homosexual is very different than the text the bible sites.

That the prohibition in leviticus about "male who lies with another male as if with a woman" (nothing about females) is nothing but a rejetion to pagan practice at the time rather than about the homosexual act itself. So much so that there isn't much said in the oral law since homosexuality was not said to be much of an issue until recent modern period.

The Talmudic discussion of the matter makes no substantive changes and continues the prohibition. It deals with the question of minors, duress and various forms of the homosexual act. In the subsequent codes, the matter is briefly mentioned with the same conclusions. There is very little material in the responsa literature which deals with homosexuality, as it does not seem to have been a major issue.

Only now you have the Central Conference of American Rabbis writing responsa about the organization consistently supporting civil rights and civil liberties for all people, especially for those whom these rights and liberties have been withheld, and since homosexuals have been in our society long endured discrimination therefore the movement chose to encourage legislation which decriminalizes homosexual acts between consenting adults, and prohibits discrimination against them as persons.

The two words used in the NT are "malakos," which tranlates to "weak" or "soft"and is elsewhere clearly applied to heterosexuals, and "arsenokoitai," which may refer to male prostitutes serving either gender. The latter is a very rare word, and while the lack of context makes it difficult to pin it down exactly, there is enough context to know it doesn't mean "homosexual."

There is, by the way, no Greek word for "homosexual." "Philandros" (lover of men) or "androphilia" (love of men) are not as specific in Greek as their translations would be in English.

paiderasste

to a "boy-lover," (cf. pais)and (a) does not indicate primary orientation (most "boy-lovers" had, and were expected to have, heterosexual marriages), and (b)does not take account of relationships such as Alexander's and Hephaistion's, say, which continued till both parties were into their thirties and one of them was dead.

And lesbians just didn't come into the linguistic picture at all.

about a month ago, and was totally surprised at what he had to say.

HE IS A TRUE CHRISTIAN!!

I would love to hear one of his sermon's in person.

http://www.q-notes.com/editorial/editorsnote_070205.html

“I want all people to know God loves them just the way they are. That’s my message and my mother’s. Hopefully I’m going in and telling people who feel hopeless and tell them this is not the last stop. I just wanna’ love poeple and I want to teach grace and compassion. The church needs that again.

“I want to help Christians stop hurting each other. I have many gay friends who are like family and I’m tired of seeing them hurt by the church. The church has been hostile for all of us. It has to stop.”

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0109&article=010932b

Reviews
Beyond Tears and Mascara
by Bob Massey

Book Review: Son of a Preacher Man by Jay Bakker. (HarperSanFrancisco: 2000).


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Unsurprisingly, Bakker self-medicated. He got body art. He acquired a taste for punk rock and hip hop. In a sense, Bakker embodies the demographic model that advertisers, politicians, pundits, and other sociological inquisitors have constructed as proof of his generation's dissolution. He would have cause for much cynicism (even though we know from the book blurb that this is a redemption story). Few would be shocked if he leveled some of that cynicism at his parents' carnivalesque ministry.

However, Bakker's obvious affection for his folks here softens and humanizes their freakish media image until Jim and Tammy Faye become just two more beset, dysfunctional, yet oddly touching and familiar American parents. Jim Bakker's obsessive dream to build a theme-park retreat for evangelicals becomes the story of just another workaholic but well-intentioned father. They start to make sense to the rest of us.

Bakker's strongest indictments are leveled at Jerry Falwell, Paul and Jan Crouch, Pat Robertson, and other high-profile ministers. These fellow evangelists, Bakker alleges, either contributed to the downfall of his father or refused the son's pleadings for help in obtaining a reduction of the elder Bakker's 45-year sentence. "The fact that this was being done in the name of Christ made it worse. No wonder people hate Christians the way they do or think that Christianity is screwed up, when they see us destroying each other." Ironically (or maybe not), it is only Jimmy Swaggart who supports the younger Bakker's call.


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0612/15/lkl.01.html

KING: You, for example, in your church would you marry gays?

JAY BAKKER: If the laws passed, yes.

KING: You favor there being a law, though?

JAY BAKKER: Yes, I do. I think they deserve equal rights just as much as anybody else does. And I think it's -- it's such a big social issue right now, it's something that really needs to be looked at and I think passed.

just fills out who he is a little bit.

I only was able to watch some of the episodes (5) so I don't know how it all turns out for him. I had heard bits and pieces of him lately as he came to NC for a few things. I am impressed with the courage he showed for a group to which he apparently has no ties at all.

Who could've guessed? Oral's son is a chip off the old block, Graham's boy is a serious waste of oxygen. But Jay just might redeem his family's name, and then some. Good on him.

I have seen a couple of things about him and I caught just a small bit of his interview with Larry King.

Interesting isn't he? I don't know enough to say much but he seems to have taken all the good that has been left behind by the evangelicals and made himself a real Christian following, at least that is what it seems. AND he believes in equal rights! That is something I could get behind. Pretty impressive to this old cynic.

I am not a fan of organized religion and stopped calling myself a Christian a while back when it started to go very sour but this seems to be a good trend.

I will make a point of watching something about him now. I remember his parents show. My brother and I used to watch it, he in Houston and me here and then we would chuckle over the phone about it. Kinda sad how we all became so alienated by all that.

and thus I finished the series. I must say I remain pretty impressed. Jay surely has found his own place in the world and his church is filling a niche.