Tom's Northwest Passages

A 2015 Christmas Thank You from Tom and Michele Johnson This was the year of the anniversary - our fiftieth - and we celebrated all year. The official date was March 26th, but we didn’t let that narrow window of time stop us from enjoying the whole year with each other, our family, and you.  So, thanks to the people we love, who have included us in their love for a wonderful 2015, esp. to our children: Jason, Amy, & Sarah, their spouses (Helen, Peter, & Matt), and our three grandkids (Nina, Nathaniel & Sam). I guess you all meant it when you said to us last Jan, 1, “ Happy New Year!! ” It was indeed. Thanks to friends at St. Augustine’s and St. Stephen’s Episcopal churches, and at Oak Harbor Lutheran Church with whom we prayed, sang, planned, studied, retreated, ate, and talked. Thanks to all the people with whom we got older, grieved the loss of friends, read books, and shared coffee, beer, meals, a second annual (may there be a third, Go Seahawks)

My View of Gay/Lesbian Marriage First, a little context. I was asked to write this essay by good Christian friends, people I love and respect, who do not understand my support for gay marriage. How can a Christian who takes the Bible seriously, as they and I do, hold this viewpoint? Well, here is a personal account, not a logical argument, for how I came to hold my outlook on this issue. I have come to the views I currently hold on gay and lesbian marriage, on the basis of a long period of reflection on biblical texts (authoritative for Christians), reason (what seems logical or rational to me in the light of evidence), and my experience with friends and relatives who are gay or lesbian. All these factors shape my understanding of homosexuality and gay marriage. I never believed that homosexuality itself was wrong, immoral, or unethical. But I did believe, at one time, that the practice of it was wrong for Christians. It seemed to me that certain passages in the New Testamen