So I’m technically a Lutheran. I say technically because I was baptized in a Lutheran church when I was an infant, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ and a follower of His church, but I’m not particularly devoted to any denomination. When I do go to church, it’s to a Lutheran church, though. I’m not a good Christian, in the sense that I don’t go to church very often, I don’t tithe, I don’t love God perfectly. I’m a foul sinner who will spend my life trying to be a good person, but always knowing that I’ll never be perfect, but that God loves me anyway. Just like everybody else.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is meeting this week, and one of the topics they’re debating is whether to allow individual congregations to decide if they want to allow homosexuals in committed relationships to be pastors of their church.

First off, I admire the church’s strategy on this: if there’s going to be a change in policy (and again, it hasn’t yet been voted on), let the change happen at the individual congregational level. Push the decision down to the people who are directly affected by it. It’s a very republican way of handling things. Having said that, I would hope that the individual congregations that face this decision reject it.

If the church has decided that homosexuality is a sin, then it must be treated like any other sin. The best analogy I’ve been able to come up with is this: would a pastor who shoplifts and doesn’t renounce shoplifting and acknowledges that he will openly continue to shoplift and expect "tolerance" for his shoplifting keep his job for very long?

My conclusion: I doubt it.

So is homosexuality a sin or isn’t it? That’s really where the rubber meets the road. I don’t expect my pastor to be superhuman. He or she is a human, just like me. What I DO expect is for my pastor to denounce sin in every form, set a clear standard for appropriate behavior, do his best to live by it, and if he fails, as we all do, to ask God for forgiveness and recommit himself to a life free from sin. A pastor cannot simultaneously denounce sin and unapologetically and continuously engage in behavior that his own theology understand to be sinful.

One of the arguments that religious homosexuals make is that there are two New Testament commandments that must be followed. First, love God. Second, love your neighbor as yourself. They say if you do that, you’re good to go. But what does it mean to "love God?" Theologically, it seems to mean living a righteous life. How do you lead a righteous life? By following God’s word. And how do you know God’s word? It’s in the Bible. And the Bible is pretty clear about this stuff. Male homosexuality, female homosexuality, pederasty, adultery, incest, even effeminacy, it’s all sin.

I’m aware that this all puts an extraordinary burden on homosexuals of faith who want to be part of a church and a community. I would never, ever presume to say that someone can’t be part of a church because of any kind of sin. But if there’s not a common, objective understanding of morality among members of a church, and especially among the church’s leaders, then I’m really at a loss to explain what the purpose of the church is.

The framers of the Constitution sought to provide a framework in which the natural rights of the people–those rights which are granted to us by our Creator–would be respected and defended by the government.  But there was profound concern among the writers and even pre-revolutionary thinkers about whether or not people were sufficiently moral to effectively govern themselves.

The founders felt that a free country that respected individual rights could only survive and thrive if its citizens strived to live moral lives and accept their individual responsibilities.  Thomas Paine spoke out in favor of revolution because he believed that Americans had a moral advantage over Europeans, and were therefore ready for self-government.  Many years after the war, John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  George Washington believed that anybody who would subvert "the great pillars of human happiness", religion and morality, had no claim to patriotism.

So from the very birth of the country, the religious and moral strength of Americans was understood to be central to its success.  Or more specifically, that strength was central the success of the Constitutional Republic that they designed.  They didn’t necessarily say that people must be moral or religious.  They just suggested that if we wanted freedom, we couldn’t be a bunch of degenerate materialists who went around undermining faith and morality and spouting psychobabble nonsense in an attempt to excuse whatever questionable behavior people chose to engage in.  A country like that would descend into some kind of chaotic, fractured mob that empowers corrupt, populist masters to arbitrarily enforce whatever anthropocentric "values" are popular at the time.  Which is cool, if that’s your thing.

But it wasn’t the founders’ thing, and it wasn’t the country’s thing for the first 140 years or so.  The belief was that the best way to maintain a virtuous people was to select virtuous leaders who believed in natural rights and who would hold each other accountable for failings.  Leaders who didn’t seek public office out of personal ambition or personal gain.  Jefferson believed that the best Americans would form a "natural aristocracy" and that the best among us would consider it a duty to seek public office.  These people would believe in our fundamental founding principles and strive to uphold a shared moral code.  The founders also believed in the idea of schools teaching religion and morality as a means to producing good citizens.

The progressives have sought to change that.  They’ve introduced ideas and programs that assume for the government responsibilities that should lie with individuals.  Psychology has weakened the idea of personal responsibility and objective morality.  Morality has become a personal choice.  Whatever feels good is right.  If everybody has a moral code all their own, then there really aren’t any moral standards or expectations to hold people to.  If your behavior and beliefs are not your responsibility, and are instead a genetic condition or a function of you family life or your place in the socio-economic strata, how can anybody claim anything you do is wrong? 

And if there is no right and wrong, how can anybody define what our individual responsibilities as Americans ought to be?  For that matter, what does it mean to be an American?

The founders put a lot of faith in American people to control our own destiny by following their lead.  It is every individual in every generation’s responsibility to read what the founders wrote and understand what they were trying to achieve.  They themselves stood on the shoulders of the Greeks and Roman Republicans, who were the first to experiment with representative governments.  They studied the ancient philosophers, they understood the perils of living under an oppressive oligarchy, they didn’t just make it up as they went along.  They knew they were making history, they knew that it was risky, but they believed that the character and morality of the American people would allow us to continue to accept the responsibility which we have inherited.  We’re expected to, in turn, stand on their shoulders to continue their great experiment.

America is unique among all nations in this.  The people have rights, and are solely responsible for defending those rights.  The American idea is under attack from all directions.  We have to constantly defend it. The responsibility is yours.  Educate yourself.  Understand our purpose.  And stand up to the progressives and shout NO!

Here’s a great learning opportunity, kids.  It’s a great chance to learn about how NOT to behave as a high-profile grown-up.

Over Father’s Day Weekend, the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, a Republican, told his staff and apparently his wife that he was going hiking all alone in the wilderness.  Just to get some “me” time, I guess.  It turns out that he flew to Argentina to meet a woman he’d been having an affair with.

I’m not sure how someone comes to the conclusion that something this bizarre is a good idea, and then actually executes that idea.  You’re a governor.  You’re a potential 2012 presidential candidate.  You tell everybody you’re going hiking, but you actually drive your car to the airport and fly to Buenos Aires.  You’re missing for 4 days.  You come back and say you were just down there for a drive.  But it’s clearly a load of bull, so the next day you admit an affair.  You lied to the people who work for you.  You lied to your wife and kids.  You undermined your party.  You undermined your values.  You undermined your country.  YOU.  CANNOT.  DO.  THIS.

But it’s done.  I hope everybody can learn something meaningful from the idiocy that’s been revealed here.