By Amy Butler
Since I learned this catchy tune at the Children, Youth, and a New Kind of Christianity conference held in D.C. last week, I can’t seem to get it out of my head.
There’s a new world coming, it’s already here,
There’s a new world on its way,
There’s a new world coming, it’s already here,
Let’s begin to live that way.
While we were learning this song last Tuesday along with singer/songwriter Bryan Moyer Suderman, North Carolina was voting on whether to approve Amendment One to the state constitution.
The amendment, defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, was written and brought to a vote in an effort to ensure that gay marriage does not become legal in North Carolina. As everyone knows, citizens voted overwhelmingly to approve the amendment.
Having lived through the opinion wars surrounding marriage equality in my own locale, I know there are many people with many different opinions on the subject of homosexuality in general, not to mention the issue of marriage equality. And in North Carolina there were many, many people of faith weighing in on the issue — both for and against.
Most media coverage I saw characterized churches as standing strongly in favor of the amendment for various reasons, most relating in some way to the preservation of the “sanctity of marriage.” But the implication that all people of faith held this opinion was dead wrong; I know many vocal Baptist and other faith leaders who spoke up in opposition to Amendment One.
However, to those people of faith who voted to approve the amendment because they feel a constitutional amendment defining marriage is in some way in line with the principles of Christian faith, I want to respectfully say: you are wrong.
From a purely secular standpoint, the vote on Amendment One was an issue of civil rights. Voting to approve Amendment One sent a clear message that, at least in this case, your mother was absolutely right when she told you that life is not fair. There are some people in the state of North Carolina, for example, who can choose who they marry, and some who cannot.
From a spiritual perspective, if we are people who claim the name of Jesus Christ, there’s his example to consider. Jesus spent a lot of time bringing people who were left on the fringe, pushed to the side and organized to the outside of power back in.
To those who couldn’t even get in the door, Jesus pulled up a chair to the table and made room on the front row. Most of all, Jesus talked a lot about loving each other in radical and committed ways, ways that in their practice would change us and change the whole world.
On Wednesday, in the wake of North Carolina’s decision to approve the amendment, I was feeling a little discouraged. Still rattling around in my head, though, was the little song we’d learned the day before. It reminded me that Jesus came to help us learn how to transform our world to a place where the principles of God’s kingdom hold sway, where little-by-little life gets fairer and everybody has a shot, and where deep, committed love for each other can change the world.
Life’s not fair, it’s true, but there’s a new world coming. I still believe it. And even on the days when it doesn’t seem like it’s coming at all, I want to live like it’s already here.