"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." That's what the priest says when marking our foreheads with ashes on Ash Wednesday. It's a fitting beginning for the forty-day penitential season that we Christians call Lent. We're called to remember that we are finite creatures -- that we were created from dust, and that we will one day return to dust.
It's not a bad thing to be reminded of our finitude, particularly in a world that is full of violence, greed, and suffering. According to the fourth-century theologian Augustine of Hippo, sin was unleashed into the world because Adam and Eve rebelled against God and ate of the forbidden fruit. They wanted to be like God, and, as a result of their pride, they forgot that they were made of dust.
But for some people, every day is already a painful reminder that they are made of dust. For these people, sin is not so much about pride, but rather the failure to have a healthy sense of self-esteem and love for oneself. As Valerie Saiving noted in her groundbreaking article from 1960 on women's sin, sin is not always about "pride" or "will-to-power." It can also be about underdevelopment and the negation of the self.
As someone who has ministered to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community for over a decade, I believe that most of my LGBT siblings don't need further reminders that we are made from dust. Indeed, many of our homophobic political and religious leaders already do an excellent job of perpetuating LGBT self-loathing and shame.
The Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum -- who once compared homosexuality with "man on dog" action -- recently told a gay man in Missouri that he did not deserve the "privilege" of marriage. Why? Because this man's marriage would not "benefit" society in the same way as opposite-sex marriages.
As a person who has been in a loving relationship with my husband Michael for over two decades, I resent the implication that my marriage has any less benefit to society than the two-day marriage of Brittney Spears, the two-month marriage of Kim Kardashian, or the three marriages of Newt Gingrich.
Similarly, LGBT youth are told from an early age that they are worthless. In the last few years, nine teenagers -- including many who were bullied for being gay or being perceived as such -- have committed suicide in a Minnesota school district that is represented by the former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. Despite the district being labeled a "suicide contagion" area, Bachmann has refused to comment about this issue and has, in fact, opposed anti-bullying efforts there.
What I believe LGBT people do need, by contrast, is the constant reminder and affirmation that we are in fact divine. That is, all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God (see Gen. 1:27). That the Word of God became flesh (see John 1:14) and, through the incarnation, affirmed the goodness of our bodies. And that we are all, in fact, children of God (see Gal. 3:26).
In my forthcoming book, From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ (Seabury, 2012), I argue that the Western church should learn from the ancient Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theōsis or deification. Rather than obsessing over a crime-based model of original sin, we should embrace a Christ-centered model of sin and grace in which we are constantly growing towards our ultimate end, which is to become divine like God.
So let us "queer" the Ash Wednesday liturgy during these forty days of Lent. Instead of only remembering that we are dust through rituals of fasting and self-denial, let us ask whether we have honored the divine within ourselves. In the short time that we have on earth before we once again return to dust, let us ask whether we have truly loved ourselves as God loves us. Have we been as gentle and kind to ourselves as we are to others? Have we encouraged ourselves to follow our deepest dreams and desires?
"Remember that you are divine, and to the divine you shall return." That is the promise of the Good News, and let us never forget that.
Follow Rev. Patrick S. Cheng, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/patrickscheng
Rev. Wil Gafney, Ph.D.: Bread, Not Chocolate: An Ash Wednesday Meditation
Lent 2012 at St. Francis of Assisi | Saint Francis of Assisi
The incarnation of Christ (John 1:14) is not the glory of the flesh or the body or the affirmation of its goodness, rather the exaltation of Jesus divinity as one coming from God the Father. It was the emphasis that He came in our own bodily form - not as a angel, a spiritual being, but as mortal man. He stooped down to our level, and humbled Himself even though He is God.
God was not glorifying the goodness of the body or of humanity rather Jesus came down to our level, to the limitations and temptations of our carnality. If He could be holy and remained sinless even with a body so prone to simple temptations, there is hope for us.
http://www.psa91.com/ashwed.htm
What the author does not do is read the "context" of these verses!
Gen. 1"27 is on speaking of the original creation before the fall of man, before we became sons of Adam after the fall in the garden...
John 1"14 is speaking about "Jesus Christ" not believers or non-believers...
Galatians is written to the "believers" (vs. 2) unto the churches of Galatia whose many members were removing themselves from the doctrinal teaching of the scriptures and following "another gospel" not consistent with the already revealed doctrine of the apostles...
If we are all children, why preach salvation to the lost? That's absurd!
"A text without a context is a pretext"
Nope. Yours is. All your prattle amounts to nothing. Theology does not meet the most basic criteria for being an academic discipline. It is an ridiculously over-elaborate construct with absolutely no foundation.
Logic dictates that before you can say anything about something you have to demonstrate conclusively that it exists in the first place. Theologians have failed to that despite millennia of effort. You scholastic departments might as well be dedicated to discussions of the Loch Ness Monster's behavior. That's how detached from reality they are.
And yes, the whole earth is holy. There is not a single stone with sand underneath that is not sacred,
Homosexulaity is identified in the bible as an unrighteous act, Romans 1v26 "
Paul said " One faith
The man that wrote this article falls into the above catagory, but which is the one that has the truth.??? Jesus also said "Your word is truth" True Christianity uses the bible as its authority.