{"id":4951,"date":"2009-05-13T00:09:03","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T00:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html"},"modified":"2009-05-13T00:09:03","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T00:09:03","slug":"the-power-of-with-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html","title":{"rendered":"The Power of &#8220;With&#8221; 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"MarinOrange.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/MarinOrange.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt;float: left\" height=\"275\" width=\"216\" \/><\/span>Andrew Marin&#8217;s new and ground-breaking book, <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0830836268?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jescre-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0830836268\">Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation With the Gay Community<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0830836268\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: medium none  ! important;margin: 0px ! important\" border=\"0\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" \/><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em>, proposes &#8212; the terms are mine &#8212; the power of &#8220;with&#8221; vs. the power of the battle between &#8220;for&#8221; or &#8220;against.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What does it mean to use the power of &#8220;with&#8221;? What does it mean to move beyond deciding where you stand on this issue to being someone who loves gays and lesbians and someone who serves gays and lesbians? <\/p>\n<p>It will begin, as Marin points out in chp 3, in recognizing the stigma and shame attached to being gay or lesbian. Here are his words: &#8220;The GLBT community feels a constant unnamed pressure from both sides &#8212; an invisible Christian ideal that they can&#8217;t see themselves living up to, and an overt push from the gay-friendly culture to just &#8216;come out&#8217; and be OK with it.&#8221; Now notice his next words: &#8220;Neither option seems achievable to many people who have a same-sex attraction, <i>so they are left with no home and no sense of support&#8221;<\/i> (48). <\/p>\n<p>The power of &#8220;with&#8221; recognizes the social location of gays and lesbians. Andrew proposes something else, something I&#8217;ve never thought about:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<!-- Begin TwitThis (http:\/\/twitthis.com\/) --><\/p>\n<p>&lt;!&#8211;<br \/>\ndocument.write(&#039;<a href=\";\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.chuug.com\/chuug.twitthis.resources\/twitthis_grey_72x22.gif\" alt=\"TwitThis\" style=\"border:none\" \/><\/a>&#8216;);<br \/>\n\/\/&#8211;&gt;<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/End --><br \/>Never use the word &#8220;homosexual&#8221; with a gay or lesbian. Why? &#8220;Since the mainstream GLBT community has traditionally looked at the Bible as a tool of oppression, hearing the word <i>homosexual<\/i> sets off a domino effect of associations: <\/p>\n<p>homosexual = Bible = Christian = fundamentalism = anti-gay =anti-me.<\/p>\n<p><b>If the power of &#8220;with&#8221; means empathy and sympathy and the willingness to listen, what does this mean for how traditionalists talk about gays and lesbians?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I must say that Andrew&#8217;s stories in this book are amazing. The book is worth the read just for the stories. One of them was his encountering a gay pastor who treated him smugly &#8212; but Andrew was committed &#8212; for the next six months &#8212; to meet with every gay pastor and every gay church in Chicago to learn what they believed. The power of &#8220;with.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Marin&#8217;s new and ground-breaking book, Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation With the Gay Community , proposes &#8212; the terms are mine &#8212; the power of &#8220;with&#8221; vs. the power of the battle between &#8220;for&#8221; or &#8220;against.&#8221; What does it mean to use the power of &#8220;with&#8221;? What does it mean to move&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Power of &quot;With&quot; 4 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Power of &quot;With&quot; 4 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Andrew Marin&#8217;s new and ground-breaking book, Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation With the Gay Community , proposes &#8212; the terms are mine &#8212; the power of &#8220;with&#8221; vs. the power of the battle between &#8220;for&#8221; or &#8220;against.&#8221; What does it mean to use the power of &#8220;with&#8221;? What does it mean to move&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-13T00:09:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/MarinOrange.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Power of \"With\" 4 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Power of \"With\" 4 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Andrew Marin&#8217;s new and ground-breaking book, Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation With the Gay Community , proposes &#8212; the terms are mine &#8212; the power of &#8220;with&#8221; vs. the power of the battle between &#8220;for&#8221; or &#8220;against.&#8221; What does it mean to use the power of &#8220;with&#8221;? What does it mean to move&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2009-05-13T00:09:03+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/MarinOrange.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html","name":"The Power of \"With\" 4 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/MarinOrange.jpg","datePublished":"2009-05-13T00:09:03+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-13T00:09:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/MarinOrange.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/MarinOrange.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/05\/the-power-of-with-4.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Power of &#8220;With&#8221; 4"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}