Scott Fillmer » california

Prop 8 Proves Homosexual Lifestyle Acceptable to God

Scott Fillmer — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:29:50 +0000

Of course this is utter ridiculousness, but, that severely flawed logic seems to be what is prevailing in our culture today. This topic, which I usually just tend to leave alone, is overpowering the news, blogs, and culture lately (and is certainly nothing new under the sun, gay’s have been trying to justify their actions for millennia, see Why is Being Gay a Sin? for a civil discussion, Does Romans 1:26 Condemn Lesbians? for the absurd justification, and then an honest “Christian Perspective”, not forgetting to throw in Anne Rice who recently “quit” Christianity on Facebook [comments in pdf,] with Mark Driscoll’s response for the Washington Post, because she didn’t want to be “anti-gay anymore”, and the countless trash talk about Proposition 8 in California).

With Proposition 8 being overturned by the California courts, this seems destined for the Supreme Court (where they probably don’t want to deal with it either). The Boston Globe did a huge photo spread called Same Sex Marriage about a week ago and the responses to that article show why this, unfortunately, is THE topic of our day for Christians and the church. This discussion really wasn’t intended to launch into whether being gay is a sin or not, but to show the absurd arguments on both sides, which lack any careful thought.

This comment below is typical when reading trash talk on the news sites, and was made by someone who used the title “I Feel Drawn Towards Christianity, But I’m Gay”, which then received very complimentary responses, with little question for the lifestyle itself, or with sound argument for or against Christians and the homosexual lifestyle, and what scripture has to say about it’s effects and consequences.

I was surprised in a few ways, one by how openly acceptable the Christian responses were to this person. Not that they were accepting of the person, that’s great, but accepting of all aspects of the persons lifestyle, with not much need for contemplation (although some did suggest the person generically seek God’s direction). The other surprise was how utterly weak the reasoning and arguments were that were used on both sides.

I am certainly no expert on this topic whatsoever, and there are many who can soundly argue, on both sides, but those seem to be few and far between. No gay person I talk to (and many Christians for that matter) can give a sound theological argument, backed and based on scripture (since this person “feels drawn to Christianity”). The majority of the arguments put forth are emotional arguments, which are impossible to argue against in a rational manner. This is the argument that was given in this particular case:

The Bible also condemns divorce, the eating of pork and shrimp, and says that men shouldn’t sit on the same chairs as women who are menstruating.

The argument seems to lack even a surface level study of scripture, but most Christians responded with nothing other than an emotional response. As with much of Scripture in our culture today, these verses are taken so much out of context for the use of the argument for a homosexual lifestyle I am surprised they were made? I am not being mean or hateful in spirit here, but seriously, if you are gay, this is your argument?

The Bible condemns the eating of pork.
We eat pork today.
Therefore, homosexuality is ok in the sight of the Lord.

There are so many things that could be addressed but at the basic level, in Mark 7:18-19 Jesus declared all foods to be clean, he didn’t declare all forms of sex to be clean. A better argument that perhaps shows a little more clearly why scripture says that the homosexual lifestyle is sinful in God’s eyes (and there are many things that are actually still seen as sinful in God’s eyes today, besides homosexuality), would be:

Point 1 on Sin:

The Bible says sin is detestable in God’s eye’s.
Therefore any continuous sinful act is not honoring to God.

Point 2 on Marriage:

The Bible defines sex outside of marriage as sin.
The Bible defines marriage as a monogamous union between a man and a woman.
Therefore any nonrepentant sexual relationship of any kind outside marriage is sin in God’s eyes.
Therefore a nonrepentant homosexual lifestyle is sin.
Therefore a nonrepentant adulterous relationship is sin.
Therefore any sexual relationship before marriage is sin.

I rarely see those “hateful” Christians everyone seems to refer to today that will acknowledge that the last three are equally sin, and equally condemned by scripture, but, that doesn’t mean that either is less or more acceptable to God as a way to live that honor’s God. I do not say that in a hateful manner but in an examination of scripture. I also recognize that many, or most, “gay Christians” will take issues with my argument above and defend it away in some manner. The statements above are all based on scripture and can all be backed theologically with sound argument.

Our culture as a whole is continually refusing to see objective truths in the Bible today. Whether we like to ignore them in our day or not, they still exist, there are still things that God says are good, and those things God says are bad, we just seem to have so much knowledge in everything that we have no knowledge in the actual truth anymore.

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LOVE > KNOWLEDGE

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:17:46 +0000

What do we strive for that lasts? Nothing that moths and rust can destroy of course. So, taking the “treasures” out of the topic for the moment, I would personally hold knowledge and love about as high as they can go but Paul (among others) tells us of the two, love is the greater. Through several different experiences this week I have been reminded that Paul teaches us to hold love over knowledge in 1 Corinthians 8:1-3). With knowledge can come what C.S. Lewis refers to in Christian Behavior as the “the greatest sin”, pride.

the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others… and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility

To me, Pride & Humility (which seem to be interchangeable), and Love are matters of the heart, but are things to keep in the proper order of importance. How? Have no idea, but at least if I keep reminding myself, I might be able to keep them in the proper order.

The photo above was a shot I took at sunset on the beach in California a few weeks ago while I was in Orange County. At the time, nothing was more important than this.

Love caught, and frozen in time.

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Confessions of a Pastor by Craig Groeschel :: Catalyst Photos

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:06:44 +0000

I wanted to post an update of the books that have made it to my read (or reading) list. I was planning on reviewing each one but just ran out of time. Over several months prior to my official start of Seminary (a topic I haven’t posted about yet, but will at some point) I tried to get back into the habit of reading, a lot. In my first two seminary classes I had a combined 8 books for eight weeks of class, so getting into the habit of reading, all the time, has been very helpful.

One of the books I am almost finished with is Craig Groeschel’s book called Confessions of a Pastor. Published back in 2006, Confessions has a great combination of self deprecating humor of his own sin with real teaching and application of God’s principles for life in general. What got me interested in reading Craig’s book wasn’t really the topic but meeting Craig and listening to him speak in Atlanta and most recently at Catalyst West Coast in Orange County California.

Here are some images of Craig speaking at Catalyst West Coast I took a week or two ago.

I haven’t made it to the end of Craig’s book yet but one of the last sections in the book, “I’m Afraid of Failure” had one of the best examples of how we condition ourselves for failure before we even begin (read the section called Failure by Numbers).

To avoid potential failure and pain, people abort their dreams. They stop trying.

Confessions of a Pastor is a great church leadership type book, glad it made it on to my “read” list.

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Orange County Airport Photos and a 50mm Lens :: SNA-MIA

Scott Fillmer — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:59:20 +0000

On my recent trip to California I decided to continue my 50mm airport series I started a while back. I generally carry all my equipment with me on the plane since a lost bag will result in a non-existent photo shoot, and a few trips ago I started trying to get the creative juices flowing by using one camera and one single fixed focal length lens (a standard 50mm) to cover each new airport.

This past week the new airport was Orange County’s John Wayne Airport (SNA). I have usually flown into LAX and since I had not been to John Wayne in a while, it was next on my photo list (ATL has long since be shot, see my post Atlanta Airport Photos and a 50mm Lens // Part 1, if that is your interest). For the extremely busy location of southern California, Orange County is a great place to fly in and out of and almost has the feel of a Midwestern Lubbock or Amarillo feel to it as far as the traffic goes. I also didn’t get harassed by security, police, FBI, or any other uncomfortable PAX in the area, wonderful.

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Pacific Coast Sunset in Orange County :: Friday Feet

Scott Fillmer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:45:24 +0000

This is hardly where I spent most of the day on Friday, but then after Catalyst West Coast was over I was so exhausted I decided to drive over to the coast to watch the sunset. I ended up down near the Balboa Peninsula on the PCH and walked out to the beach just in time. I have been in Southern Cal for 4 days, it has been cold and cloudy the whole time (after it was 100* the day before I got here) and late on Friday the skies just opened up. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I had witnessed in a long time and I will make it my Friday Feet post for this week.

For those looking for Catalyst West Coast images… I will start to post some of those when I get back. I am on my way to the airport right now, thanks to everyone at Catalyst and Mariner’s Church that made this week such a inspirational time.

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Catalyst West Coast with Hillsong United and Steve Fee Band

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:25:24 +0000

I only thought yesterday was a long day. Today was a great day and all I have time to do is just decompress a little bit. It was a non-stop packed day with Hillsong United from Sydney Australia (I am now an official fan), The Fee Band which came over from Atlanta (who sung their new song “Glory to God”), and a whole host of fantastic speakers like Guy Kawasaki, Andy Stanley, and many more.

I wish I could go through the whole day here but I can hardly keep my eyes open at this point. I did want to post a few photos of the bands. The first of Hillsong United, the second is Steve Fee. I will have to do several more posts at a later date but for now, here are a few shots from today. See more photos of the Steve Fee Band at Catalyst.

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The Longest Day as Catalyst West Coast Begins

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:51:51 +0000

I can’t quite remember a day that lasted this long since my last trip to Las Vegas when we arrived at 2am after leaving Atlanta early in the morning. Today at least I did arrive in the 3pm area but not it is 12:30am at home and I am just trying to process everything that went on today.

I did take a tour of Mariner’s Church for tomorrow’s main event. It was very great to get an early walk around and I did get to see some familiar faces from Atlanta over here in Orange County. After the labs ended today the kick-off event started with Carlos as the MC.

Below are just a few photos form the evening. The last shot is the chapel here at Mariner’s Church. At night it was transformed into this incredible flood of colors and I may do a post with just shots of this chapel, it is very beautiful.

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Catalyst West Coast with Hillsong United Band

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:16:38 +0000

Many of you may know about the great conferences put on by the Catalyst folks, well this Wednesday is the big one, Catalyst West Coast. Having been to the full multi-day conference in October (photos), I know this one is going to be a great time of learning and fellowship. I feel privileged to have been asked by Catalyst to be one of the photographers for the west coast event (along with Daley Hake on his home turf), so this week I will make my way out to Los Angeles and to Mariner’s Church for the shoot.

Look for some photos here starting around Wednesday or Thursday if I can find a wifi connection (and some time).

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From Alabama to California and Back, 4,901 Miles

Scott's Misc — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:09:26 +0000

Two weeks ago we left on our round trip journey and we are happy to be back home again. We left for California on March 16th with inventory in the car and motorcycles in tow. The trip to California would take us through Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and finally Rosmond, CA (near Mojave and Edwards AFB). We decided to have a little change of scenery on the way home by going the southern route. This took us through San Bernardino, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola. Throughout the entire trip we recognized many, many places we had been repeatedly in the bus when we were vending at the national shows. One of the things that was very different this time though was that we were staying in hotels and eating at local restaurants. Not quite as inexpensive, or predictable. I will explain this one later.

We started out from the house in Alabama very early in the morning. Our mission for the day was to make it as close to Oklahoma City as we could before stopping for the night. Scott surprised me before we even left the house with his new haircut. I was so surprised and thrilled. It took a little getting used to, but I really love it.

Arkansas was beautiful, as always.

The first night on the road I gave Scott his second harmonica. This one is in the key of G. He loved it and played it throughout the trip. Below are some other sights along I-40 between Fort Smith, Arkansas and Albuquerque, New Mexico where we stayed the second night.

Leaving Albuquerque the next morning we headed out for our first planned (fun) destination of the trip, Las Vegas, NV. We arrived at the hotel, and after freshening up we headed over to our favorite place for ribs. This little casino is a couple of blocks off the strip and is loaded with locals. Inside the casino is a micro brewery that serves only two menu entrees. There are no menus as the entrees are posted on the hostess stand as you enter. There are a total of 12 booths/tables in the entire restaurant and we made the mistake of arriving right at dinner time. The wait was ultimately 2 hours for a booth, but the ribs were fantastic as ever as well as the (free) micro-brew beer. The total for dinner for the two of us came to a whopping $10. NO, I will not give the name of this place out. It is one of our secret spots.

The next day we headed out for a bike ride and eventually ended up at the the Bellagio casino to watch the fountains for a while before heading to dinner. The fountains are really incredible to watch and the choreography is fantastic. We love to stroll this part of the strip, watch the tourists and soak in the flavor of the city.

The beauty of the fountains on the outside of the Bellagio is rivaled only by the beauty of the seasonal flower displays on the inside. Every three or four months they change the decorations throughout the casino. There is a very large vestibule just off from the main check in lobby that is completely decorated in flowers always with a central theme. We have usually been here in the fall or winter so we have seen the Christmas display several times. This time we were treated to the spring display complete with gigantic butterflies, storks and frogs. There were fountains of water pouring from an enormous watering can (actually the water was flowing into the can) and a fountain archway. The crown jewel of the display was the glass butterfly house at the back of the room that you could walk through and view all types of colorful butterflies.

We spent a few hours playing video poker and eating Panda Express Orange Chicken, two of our favorite things to do. When we left the machines for the night the jackpot had reached a pretty high number so we decided to play the same bank the next day if the jackpot had not been hit. As our luck would have it the jackpot was still in tact the next day so we played for a few more hours until a man on the other side of the machines hit the jackpot. All was not lost though, since we had played enough to earn a free buffet lunch in comps. Cool. One last photo before heading to the Mojave desert.

As we traveled to our farthest destination on this trip we talked about the business we were selling and where we wanted to go from here. We decided to start seriously looking for a larger sailboat (one that we could keep on the coast somewhere) and to sell the bikes and our current sailboat. We really love our bikes and I will never forget learning to ride my Rebel, then upgrading to the Shadow. We have decided it is time to move on to the next thing life brings our way. What a coincidence to see this traveling through the desert. Is is a sign? HA HA

We made it to Moab and spent two full days training the buyer of our business on the ins and outs of eBay and online sales. It was a whirlwind course and I wish I had recorded it all because we could really do some serious seminars on this stuff. It is amazing how much you know that you don’t know you know. Anyway, after two exhausting days we headed back toward home. We were not at all interested in seeing I-40 in reverse so we headed down the southern route down to I-10. We knew we could dip down through Houston and the coast throughout Louisiana and Mississippi.

We trekked through El Paso and decided to take a detour through Austin instead of going down to San Antonio and back up again. Our goal was to reach the famous Threadgill’s restaurant where Janis Joplin got her start in Austin by lunch, hit Brenham between lunch and dinner for a dip of the famous Blue Bell ice cream and end up close to Houston for the night. The day went perfectly. The bluebonnets were in bloom all over the place. We enjoyed a fantastic lunch and a huge scoop of Blue Bell before ending up in Beaumont for the night.

At this point I must tell you that you should be very happy that we do not have such a thing as smell-vision. Let me explain. When we arrived in Beaumont it was time to stop for the night and we started hunting a room for a reasonable price. We found several hotels and all were full. The last one we checked was the Motel 6 and they had a few rooms left. There is probably a good reason for this. We checked in and Scott noticed the unusual smell oozing out of the lobby. He didn’t mention the odor until we entered our room and I remarked “This place stinks!”. Seriously, I have never and hope to never stay in a hotel room that smells that bad again. We had to leave by about 4:30am because we couldn’t sleep anyway. A word of warning, if you are ever in Beaumont, Texas and you are tired, drive past the Motel 6 and sleep in your car at the rest area. You will be better rested, save money, and a lot less stinky. Below is the photo of the room. Can you see the smell??????

With our new plan for the future developing we were anxious to start looking at the different boat options out there and frankly we were very desperate to see the ocean, or at least the gulf. Our first glimpse of salt/brackish water came at the Trinity River Waterbird Rookery. It is a little place near the border of Texas and Louisiana, just an exit off I-10 that is oblivious to the human traffic surrounding it. We saw alligators and wild birds every where. It was a refreshing pit-stop.

We took I-10 down through New Orleans to see the remains of the damage from hurricane Katrina. We were amazed to see that there were still complete subdivisions falling apart. One of the interesting things we noticed was that in the subdivisions that were rebuilding there were travel trailers or motor homes parked in just about every driveway. The amount of damage that is still visible two years later is just incredible.

Our final destination was Pensacola to look at a few boats before heading home. We were exhausted and happy to be home, but after just a few days we are already looking forward to the next adventure.

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Time To Leave on a Road Trip // California or Bust

Scott's Misc — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:35:27 +0000

I have had others tell me through the years that things seem to happen so fast in our world. Scott and I are not only very busy in general, we tend to make ourselves available and move quite quickly when opportunity presents itself. We embrace change.

We have been working on trying to consolidate and sell our remaining Swarovski bead inventory and that portion of the business that pertains to it. After two attempts with two different prospective buyers fell through we were just beginning the process of dissecting the business and selling it in pieces when we were contacted by a third party and they offered to purchase the entire thing. We replied to the offer with the package price as well as the additional offer to deliver the merchandise in person and train the buyer, provided our expenses were paid. They accepted and cut us a check.

Whoopee!! Now, California is not one of my favorite places in the world, but Las Vegas is. So, we leave on Sunday, March 16 for Las Vegas, Nevada en route to the Mojave desert where we will drop off the beads and supplies, do some training, and pick up the remaining $$.$$. We are taking the bikes so we can ride in Vegas, up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, and any other place we end up. Our route home has not been determined yet so stay tuned.