That Mystery Floating Alongside

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  “The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated and pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping water with the elusive, silent play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a gasp I saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad livid back immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow. One hand, awash, clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was complete but for the head. A headless corpse! The cigar dropped out of my gaping mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss quite audible in the absolute stillness of all things under heaven. At that I suppose he raised up his face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship’s side. But even then I could only barely make out down there the shape of his black-haired head. Howev...

circle of life?

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I saw this in the Baptist Press today:

"NAVAJO NATION OVERRIDES VETO -- The Navajo Nation's tribal government voted 62-14 June 3 to override President Joe Shirley Jr.'s veto of a ban on "gay marriage." The vote means that "gay marriage" is now illegal on the largest American Indian reservation. Shirley had vetoed the ban in May, saying it was unnecessary."In the traditional Navajo ways, gay marriage is a big 'no, no,'" Navajo delegate Kenneth Maryboy, who voted for the ban, told the Associated Press. "It all boils down to the circle of life. We were put on the earth to produce offspring.""

This event is notable for the Dine', but I could not help but notice the animistic comment at the end, referring to the "circle of life." President Joe Shirley graduated from Rehoboth School (a boarding school founded by the Christian Reformed Church--from which I also graduated) and may be a Christian. I don't know if Kenneth Maryboy is a Christian, but his comment certainly is not.

The reference to the "circle of life" is actually comment that assumes there is no God, that the universe is all that ever was, all that is and all that ever will be. The comment assumes that life is responsible for itself. The traditional Dine' (Navajo) belief is they are here on earth to maintain the hozo (peace of the universe). To say that gay marriage is a "no, no" in Navajo tradition is to imply that traditional Navajo belief itself is threatened. The hozo is threatened if the nozhoni (beautiful ones) act in a way that is improper.

But is that what the Bible teaches? Yes, we are on earth to produce offspring, but it does not start there nor does it end there. God put us on earth to bring glory to Himself and while here, one of our responsibilities is to full the earth and subdue it. How desperately proper theology must be engaged! If gay marriage is wrong, it is because homosexuality is against God, and a system that does not recognize Him is in danger to doing the very thing it hates! Romans 1:18ff

The fact that gay marriage is considered any the Navajo (or any other person for that matter) is a give-away that their current system of belief is a system that fails.

Hakuna matata won't cure it, either.

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