God and invisibility

Of all of God's attributes, His "invisibility" should be seldom mentioned if ever. Christians act in faith of a God who is real. They trust that the good God is neither passive nor silent, and they pray accordingly. To say that God is invisible is to focus on the ways in which He seems...well, unreal: unseen by eyes, unheard by ears, unfelt by fingers. This focus on lack of evidence can't be beneficial or encouraging, especially for believers who have difficulty maintaining consistent confidence in Him.

God may be "invisible", but Christians see Him through His actions and His promises. Why should they proclaim the fact that He doesn't project His form physically for gawkers?

what "bromance" signifies about culture

Undeniably, language changes, and as it does it exposes the intangible trends and forces that shape culture. Specifically, the onset of the lighthearted word "bromance" (I apologize upfront for any misunderstandings or misinterpretations about the word's meaning) is symptomatic of ongoing shifts in attitudes about a range of topics:

• community. The first cultural clue of any word is that it exists at all, implying that the word 1) serves a distinct purpose and/or expresses a unique concept, 2) differs from other words and concepts sufficiently to facilitate clear usage. In the case of "bromance", the caring and mutually beneficial male relationship it denotes must be significantly peculiar to people for them to need or appreciate the word. Thus, the notion of a normal human community, or at least one composed of men, doesn't include the support, loyalty, and commitment defined by "bromance". For years, sociological observers have commented on the progressively isolated and impersonal nature of cultures such as the USA's. In a different culture with a stronger sense of community, bromances would be too common to merit a specific label, due to a communal expectation of relational closeness.
  
• homosexuality. Having just linked characteristics of bromance to community, let me hasten to emphasize that my impression of "bromance" does not include homosexual desire. If it did, then people wouldn't be applying it exclusively to heterosexuals. Nevertheless, the formation of the word, clearly a portmanteau of "bro" and "romance", reveals the droll intention behind it; it's designed to indicate a blurring of the distinction between male friendship ("bros") and passionate desire for someone ("romance"), as in "those two heterosexual men have a curiously...intense relationship, i.e., bromance". The mere possibility of this wordplay could be related to several trends: 1) greater awareness of homosexuality (actual romance between men), else people wouldn't think to compare it to other kinds of male relationships, which are much more prevalent; 2) greater acceptance of homosexuality, else people would be hesitant to use jokey words like "bromance" that hint at it in mainstream media; 3) greater identification with homosexuality, else there could be none of the supposed emotional "confusion" or "middle ground" that the word conveys (if heterosexuals and homosexuals were viewed as fundamentally dissimilar then someone couldn't be between the two states).
  
• love. The essential assumption behind bromance is that differences in love are differences in degree rather than in kind. The trend is to increasingly view love as a continuum, with romance toward one end, the friendship of "bros" some distance away in the other direction, and bromance presumably in-between. This perspective perhaps makes sense when one presumes that love is equivalent to overall attraction and overall attraction is inextricably tied to sex. In other words, someone stipulates that love is no more and no less than the battle of basic drives answering basic questions (in an encounter, should I fight or flee or submit or dominate or cooperate or procreate or nurture?). But the complexity of how people feel, think, and act discredits a simplistic one-dimensional scale of love. Frankly, people can appreciate and help and communicate with others without there being a shadowy undercurrent of desire for the recipient. Even people performing purely secular charity work wouldn't argue that they're so motivated. Indeed, part of what distinguishes virtuous charity from other giving is that its targets are often unlovely. Moreover, one kind of love is the ability to appreciate something just for the sake of acknowledging its excellence (and here, I'm borrowing from C.S. Lewis still more than usual, this time The Four Loves). Men can appreciate each other's strengths and weaknesses without there being "more to it" than that. And this should be obvious, but not all physical contact, whether a handshake or the dreaded full-body hug, is necessarily sexual, no matter how obscurely considered (when a reader thinks that David and Jonathon were lovers because they were close, that reflects more on the reader's frame of mind than theirs). As a word that typifies a regrettable trend of losing the intricate disparities of love within human relationships, particularly men's, the humorous word "bromance" is weightier than it seems.
  

reconciling redemptive suffering and heaven

Not to be disrespectful or critical, but how can Christianity contain both 1) the viewpoint that intense suffering can be purposeful and cleansing and 2) the viewpoint that heaven has no suffering? I'll restate it in a different manner. If there are two hypothetical Christians of sturdy faith, the first of which is targeted by extended woe and pain (e.g., debilitating chronic disease) and the second of which dies at the age of thirty after a fairly smooth life, how is this set of outcomes fair?

Both Christians go to heaven, and once there experience no more suffering evermore. Thus, their faith is equally valid "in the end" (indeed, it's only by mercy that either of them are justified). Why should the first "suffer for redemption" before being with the Savior, but not the second?

I'm not questioning the spiritual value of suffering, particularly when it's temporary. What I'm questioning is the manifest inequality of the distribution of suffering. If it's purifying and necessary (a point that I'm not sure I concede), then why do some Christians receive so much more "purification" than others, only for all of them to inherit heaven? Moreover, what of the cases of the most devoted followers enduring afflictions as their less zealous brothers backslide without visible consequences?

God the ever-present

It may be a trifling thing, but as worshipers who claim that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, does it make sense for Christians to speak of God "being present here", as if that's worthy of comment? Let's be humbly honest on this. We can't invoke God. God is everywhere, and God does what is perfect. In fact, God inhabits and accepts us solely through God reaching out to us first to enable reconciliation.

God didn't vanish when the temple was destroyed.

the "agnostic" household

On the Web, I've read the phrase "raised in an agnostic household". Some time later, I started pondering what it could possibly mean.

• The less-likely option is that it refers to a household in which the authority figures actively taught agnosticism. Instead of nightly prayers, there were recitations of standards of proof. The question "Why are we here?" was answered with "Nobody knows, since nobody can prove anything sufficiently conclusive". And the Christmastime inquiry, as to how and why the songs describe an infant as a King, elicited the reply "the infant may or may not have been a king, and in any case we can never know for certain". Perhaps some households do this, but I'm skeptical. To put it mildly, the young have a tendency to want their answers to be unequivocal.
  
• The more-likely option is that the authority figures of an "agnostic" household weren't so much agnostic as they were religiously apathetic. They didn't discuss religion. If anything, they were careful to ensure no ideas were "enforced" on impressionable minds. They were neither for nor against any ideas about God. Rather, they kept their Sundays busy by worshiping different gods altogether, like leisure and entertainment.

I implore everyone: call households atheistic or apathetic when those terms fit. Don't try to claim that a household was "agnostic" if it truly wasn't. Agnostics, have the decency to represent your upbringing accurately.

the role of tradition

Traditions in Christianity should neither be rejected nor embraced. Traditions should be held, examined, and either kept or dropped based on value. Some are more timeless than others. Discern in accordance with a couple guidelines:

• A historical and cultural context molded each Christian tradition just as surely as such contexts molded the behavior of people in the Bible (to convince you of this, study the biblical occurrences of polygamy or slavery). A tradition may no longer be helpful within one's own context.
• Prudently avoid the overly "progressive" assumption that, by definition, the past is outdated and its inhabitants are more primitive. Remember that they were people who lived, not merely names. Listen to them, although the result of this "conversation" could be flat disagreement. Consider the possibility that they might have been correct about ____ .
  

odd ethical confluence

One ethical trend is an upswing in the opinion that heterosexual marriage is a meaningless legal distinction. "If a man and a woman are in a long-term, caring relationship, why should they go through an archaic marriage ritual or otherwise try to 'forcefully ensnare' one another in a way that lessens his or her personal freedom, flexibility, independence?"

On the other hand, a second ethical trend is an upswing in the opinion that homosexual marriage must be equivalent to heterosexual marriage in the eyes of the legal system and society at large. "If homosexuals are in a long-term, caring relationship, why shouldn't they go through the beautiful ritual of marriage and publicly acknowledge their strong personal bond rather than continue to be treated as independent individuals?"

Does marriage matter or not? The greater likelihood of a heterosexual couple having a family (surely that can't be denied?) points to their marriages being more important. But that would be too logical.

A peculiar joint expression of these two trends is a heterosexual couple who claims to forgo marriage until homosexual couples can also marry. Or the already-married will stop wearing their rings. What a protest! That'll show 'em! Show your support for marriage by not doing it!