Homosexuality as sin

For the last several years, homosexuality has become a major discussion topic. The most outstanding event was the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that homosexuals could marry with all the full legal implications of the term. Now there is a furor over a children’s TV show. Generally, the outrage is being described as coming from religious conservatives. That group would indeed be outraged, since male homosexuality is explicitly defined as sinful in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament we have the destruction of Sodom [from whence comes the term sodomy] and Gomorrah, and in the new Paul’s castigations of it.

In the context of the Bible, it is quite understandable that it would be considered sinful. First of all it contravenes the divine injunction to be fruitful and multiply. Fecundity was important in those times, it continued the father’s lineage, provided help in survival, and provided assistance in old age, which in those times was not nearly as old as now.

The biblical attitudes are still very strong among many people today. This comment from Ally’s (Who Moved My Truth?) post on the kids’ show is probably representative:

…the Almighty God has condemned certain people and their actions on the basis of the aforementioned basis. Sodomy is a damnable action. False religions are subject to eternal wrath. Everyone on the face of the planet is defined by either "male" or "female". All mankind is "one blood" (Acts 17:26). There is one way only to eternal salvation: faith in Jesus in Christ and His redeeming work on the cross.

Can one question the wisdom of the all-wise? May we never stop defining others according to the truth of God's Word.

I have a lot of trouble with this comment. Its absolute self-righteousness is the same sort of thinking that leads to persecution of others that are not like ourselves. In addition, it has the epistemic hubris to think that this is the absolutely known will of God.

In an earlier post in October, Ally had this so say (she said it so well, I’d rather quote it than try it myself):

… while all sins may be the same in God's eyes - I can't speak for Him, so I'll have to go with that - the consequences of our actions are drastically different. (I still hold with the idea that a murderer is a bit more of a sinner than, say, Martha Stewart....

What makes no sense to me - it never has - is that homosexuality is a private sin. We all have them....gluttony, lying to ourselves and others, moments of selfishness, etc. If you define homosexuality as a sin - and again, that is IF - it is a private sin that is between that individual and God. What is so horrific about it?...

To suggest that is worse than lying or fraudulent behavior, which can damage many people, seems ridiculous. Call homosexuality a sin....I really don't care. We all take part in "sins" every day, so he who is without sin can start collecting soda cans to whale in my direction. In the meantime, the rest of us better starting checking out that plank sticking out of our cornea - and leave everyone else to their own splinters.

Finally, Ally said this about the kids’ show:

I guess it goes back to my original argument - stop defining people by their sexual preference, gender, race, religious association, etc., and define them by who they are as people. It does not matter if the family is same-sex or opposite-sex, as long as they are good family. The more we draw attention to it, the less we notice the positive aspects, and the more hate grows. Let it be "no big deal," and people will have less concern.

Ally’s point about being a good family is very well stated. I know of a family that consists of two lesbians raising a straight daughter. I also know of a heterosexual family that engaged in continual mental, emotional, and occasional physical abuse of the children. Tell me which is more sinful. Is homosexuality an unforgivable sin? I was under the impression that the only unforgivable sins were presumptive sin and suicide. (in the first assuming forgiveness prior to doing something knowingly sinful, and in the second being unable to seek forgiveness once dead)

The next question to be asked, is it the homosexuality, per se, or other concomitant behaviors and consequences that create or exacerbate the sinfulness. The bible states an absolute prohibition against adultery, and depending on where one reads, condemns non-marital sex, or quietly condones it. The strictures on virginity of the woman have to do with property rights in the Old Testament. Actually there are some public health benefits from chastity and fidelity in Biblical times—it prevented the spread of STDs. Gay relationships seem to be generally less stable than heterosexual ones, though there are some that last a long time. Already there are gay divorces after the recent legalization of gay marriage. Being married doesn’t appear to create additional stability.

From a cultural standpoint, the flaunting of homosexuality or the related transgender and bisexual behaviors, is like waving a flag in front of a bull. It is rather like Mario Savio at Berkeley in 1964 when he defined free speech as being able to say the F… word through a bull horn in public. It is an in-your-face type of behavior that has its sole purpose to offend. To what purpose? Quiet homosexuals are often persecuted when found out, and the persecution is the worse for the image the flaunters create.

Regardless of the cultural aspects, is it reasonable to absolutely condemn homosexuality on religious grounds? To simply quote the Bible on the issue is to close all discussion. I do not consider the Bible inerrant, nor divinely dictated, divinely inspired, yes. It is a record of Judeo-Christian relationships with God and their working out. Other than statements condemning homosexual behavior, there is nothing to provide understanding of why they are sinful.

It crosses my mind that just as there are good and bad forms of heterosexual activity, so there may be, at the least, neutral and bad forms of homosexual activity. Part of it has to do with the source of the homosexuality. If it is genetic, or inborn, is there a moral stigma to be attached? Some would say with the practice of it, yes. But if the biblical literalists follow Jesus teachings, even if it were not physically practiced, the thought would be of equal weight as sin. This would condemn someone to perpetual sin for something that was not their fault. And yes, I have seen a science news article that estimates that about 15% of homosexuals are genetically determined.

But that accounts for only a small part of the homosexual community. I have seen people claim that it is an acquired or learned behavior. If so, what goes into the acquisition or learning? Is it behavior that is of itself bad? Is it the result of bad experiences from growing up that create an animosity, fear, or hatred of the opposite sex? And if it is learned, can it be unlearned? There are now research reports that many experiences can create changes in the hardwiring of the brain even at a late age. Things learned during the powerful emotional surges of puberty are especially resistant to alteration, except by equivalent counter-experiences.

Even if it is a learned behavior, how does one attach a moral stigma to it? What are the premises that lead to its condemnation? One certainly can’t condemn it from a utilitarian viewpoint, as long as the relationships are not harmful to the persons involved. To condemn it from a deontological view requires something other than a Biblical proscription. It would appear to me that as long as the relationship is voluntary, non-exploitive, and loving, there should be no condemnation. Just as we prosecute spousal abuse, so abusive homosexual relationships can be subject to prosecution. The motives and the external results determine the morality of the relationship.

I am going to avoid the whole issue of homosexual marriage. I addressed it to a great degree in another post, and there has been a lot of excellent discussion on it in other blogs. Basically I did an end-run on it, similar to the way I have dealt with theodicy, and established starting rules that avoid the problem.

Just as a truth in blogging measure, I am definitely heterosexual, and am indifferent to other people’s sexual orientation. If they are gay or lesbian, so what? I am concerned with what kind of people they are and how I get along with them. I don’t feel threatened by gay men, in fact my wife and I can still get chuckle out of the time a gay waiter tried to hit on me when she and I were out to dinner one evening.

So what do I think God does about homosexuality? Since I don’t have an all-powerful God, He doesn’t have control over a person’s sexuality. He can look at the kind of person they are and go from there. I see complete parallels between homosexual and heterosexual relationships, the only differences being the sexes involved and the potential for children. To condemn homosexual relationships for their sterility is to also condemn sterile heterosexual relationships as well, so the only possible moral stigma unique to homosexuality would be the orientation itself. Evil is condemned, but not until it acts and has consequences. I think the same would be true for homosexuality. Only if it has bad consequences could it be condemned. The criteria should be the same as for any other bad behavior.

But if homosexuality is not sinful per se, must we approve of it? No, a lack of sinfulness does not force approval. It does not mean that it has to be accepted either. It must be tolerated—it is not illegal, nor immoral. Acceptance and approval are personal issues, and, though more serious or deeper seated, can be considered similar in nature to matters of taste. From a personal standpoint we cannot persecute without committing sin ourselves, but we are not required to accept or approve either.

The worst approach is to consider it a sin or a sickness with its implied forceful proscriptions. It is a difference, and one that is not conducive to procreation. I think research should be done as to its origins, and for those who wish to become heterosexual, counseling and help provided, with research on the most effective ways to accomplish it. But I do not consider condemning those who would remain homosexual. It is their life and that may be the best they can do with it.

On being called to serve God

There is a young man, the son of my wife’s best friend, who became involved with Campus Crusade. He spent one summer in Virginia Beach handing out tracts, and working, and now thinks he wants to go to Turkey as a “missionary”, which after looking at the web sites he gave his mom to explain it, amounts to handing out tracts to college kids in Istanbul. When asked about his faith, the stock reply is, “God is awesome.” This young man believes he has a calling. I seriously doubt it.

When asked to help with the homeless in the local area, he refused. He only seems to see that going to Turkey is the thing to do. I actually feel sorry for him, because he does not understand belief or have any intellectual support of his belief. He has blindly accepted some feel-good slogans and now blindly follows this idea that he has been given. From reading the website material, we feel that he has been recruited to be essentially “grunt labor” for the organization, not to be a missionary in the more usual sense of going where there is no belief. He does not want to train as a minister, instead opting to go to graduate school to major in a course of study that he only achieved C’s in as an undergrad. He seems to not be connected to the reality he is about to face. When he faces a genuine hardship due to his acquired faith, will he be able to weather it without cracking or losing his faith? I seriously doubt it. Having been brainwashed one way, he is open to the same in a different direction.

In contrast, let us look at others who are called. I know something of both Roman Catholics and Lutherans. Other mainline protestant faiths are similar. One of the things that always impresses me about Roman Catholic religious is their realism about the world and what they are doing in it. It impressed me, when my son took religion at a parochial high school. The teachings were not just given to learn, they had to be applied to the real world and acquire meaning in those terms. The commitment to the religious life in the Roman Catholic church has to be strong. RC religious give up the opportunity to have families, and most of the material things we all think we need and enjoy. To make such a commitment requires a full intellectual and emotional integration towards the goal.

Protestant ministers make their commitment in terms of the amount of study they must pursue in order to become ministers. They also are carefully screened throughout their training. In addition to the technical aspects of their training they also must dig deeply into the meaning of the scriptures and have a broad intellectual as well as emotional understanding.

There are other kinds of calling, and when they are genuine there is an ability to state why one is doing it. My wife feels called to help the homeless, it is her personal mission. She also wants to help provide religious-supported help to the unfortunate in this country. She can tell you what she wants to do, why she wants to do it, and how she expects to get it done. My calling is these Sunday messages on religious topics. They have the purpose of showing that there is room for religious thought in the most scientifically-grounded people. I am one of those, and I also believe in God. I think the benefits of my belief are such that I want others like me to share them. And so I write to show how I now think about those things that I once considered worthless, and how I have not given up any of my scientific and logically constructed beliefs to do so.

Serving God is not just going to church every Sunday, saying a rote set of prayers everyday, and contributing some amount of money. Though those who serve do those things, true service is doing something personal that advances good works in a realistic way. There is a lady in our church who has physical difficulties and lives in a retirement home. She always does part of the laundry when we host the homeless and when possible prepares a meal during the week. There are others that do much more in our church, but all are serving to the best of their ability, and that is all that can be asked.

Some Musings on God and Belief

For the first time since I started, I have not been able to find a topic for my Sunday (sometimes Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday) post on religion. I have harvested all my previous writings for what I wish to share at the moment, and there were no outstanding scriptural considerations this week. In thinking about what to post, I realized I had a number of scattered thoughts, but nothing coherent. So that is what I will post.

From non-belief to belief in God

One of the things I was thinking about tonight was the process of going from non-belief to belief in God. Some people describe it as a sudden AH HA type incident. Sometimes they describe it as suddenly providing a missing piece, not so much of puzzle, but rather within themselves. I was reading Jeff Miller’s (The Curt Jester, of MS Forgery fame) description of his arrival at belief after years of atheism, and he noted that he spent a lot of time reading everything he could find on religion and religious belief. It was like he was looking for something but wasn’t sure what, other than that it was religious.

I have done much the same in my life. When I was in my late teens and early twenties in college, I started seriously questioning religious belief and its basis. When I discussed this with the assistant priest of the Episcopal church I was attending, he gave me a book on Christian Apologetics to read. He didn’t realize it, but from his standpoint it was a big mistake. I found in print that the entire justification of belief in the Bible rested on the Bible’s statements of its authority. [The mistake was in trying to logically justify that which must be assumed.] I saw it as a merry-go-round or in more neutral terms, begging the question. It didn’t take much more, and I was a confirmed atheist. I thought that science had all the answers, and for forty or so years continued to think so. However, during that time I read widely in all the religions of the world except Hindu. I had the most interest in Zen for a while, and still have a strong identity with the tiger Koan.

A man is chased by a tiger. He comes to a cliff. He jumps off and grabs a bush growing out of the cliff. As he is hanging there, with the tiger pacing above, a black mouse and a white mouse start eating the roots of the bush. He looks a branch and sees a large, beautiful strawberry growing there. He grabs it and eats it. How delicious!

A-th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks. That is the nature of Zen. Honi soit, qui mal y pense.

After I married, we attended church regularly. I was not so arrogant in my belief that I considered myself to be absolutely correct, and I believed that it was easier to go from belief to non-belief than to go the other way. If I were wrong and encouraged my sons in my beliefs, I would be double-damned, and they would be damned. What I first found was that the ideas frequently were interesting when the scriptures were discussed from the pulpit. In fact I scandalized my wife by trying to take notes. [I never did ask, “Then why do they call them ‘Lessons’ if I’m not supposed to learn?”]

When we moved to Ohio, and changed churches, I then found that not only were the sermons interesting, but I had a feeling of sanctuary in the Sanctuary. For one hour a week, I could simply be, with no demands on me, and no need to be or do anything other than not act rudely. I stood when all did, kneeled when all did, etc. I did not participate in any way like praying, singing, or reciting. I did not participate in communion, considering that with my beliefs at that time, it would be a mockery to do so. That continued for some years. But as I listened, I realized that regardless of whether one believed in God or not, much of what Jesus taught made good sense in its own right. Not in a literal sense, but in the allegorical sense it was given originally.

I then started sensing a conflict in myself. I saw belief in God and religious practice as negating the science that I so strongly believed in. It was like giving up a part of myself. I posted on that feeling with the story of the wonderful fur coat. Finally, I decided to make the existence of God a working hypothesis. This was a psychological trick on myself as it were, since I reassured myself that anything that negated the hypothesis would then allow the discarding of the belief in God. What has occurred is that I have found that my belief structure in God does not conflict with my belief structure about the physical world. In effect the working hypothesis has become an accepted hypothesis.

So rather than a sudden Ah Ha moment, I just slowly moved into a belief. Now that I have that belief, it provides me with the satisfaction of my particular religious cravings.

What does God do?

This question is almost like asking, “What is the point in believing in God?” Given that I don’t believe God can mess with Nature, he is not out there punishing us with floods and tsunamis, or helping us with rain when we need it or sunsets to inspire us. I think what he is doing is helping those of us who need and ask for His help, but in ways that only involve human interaction. I don’t think God puts his finger in our brains and drops in answers or gratuitous advice. He is more interested in our doing as much as we can on our own, but he can provide awareness of choices in ourselves and others.

I have watched some problems get solved, and the solution is so different from what I would have conceived that I have a hard time thinking it came about by chance. I think if we are relaxed and allow our thoughts to be open, we receive suggestions on what might be better courses of action. We are always free to ignore the advice, and in fact there may be no grudge on God’s part, if we do. What happens is that the consequences provide the lesson.

I do not believe in a judgmental God. When we ignore the good and do the bad, the consequences and our own consciences are more than sufficient to punish. For those who desire evil, they eventually get their own pay-off, they spend eternity truly alone, with only the memory of their sins for company, and those from the viewpoint of the victim.

I envision God and the souls in Heaven acting as our advisors and guardians when we let them.

Possible changes to my theology:

In an email I sent to the Big Hominid, I mentioned that I thought God might be the accumulation of good souls over the millennia. And that given that as the mechanism for a good moral agent, one could also argue that the same might occur for an evil moral agent, i.e. the Devil. However, in reading my post on the Devil and why I did not think he existed, I was again convinced by my own arguments that the Devil may not exist as a separate entity.

But, then, from whence comes our feelings of evil and our bad behaviors? I have seen in myself what almost seems like a separate bad agent encouraging really evil thought. Upon closer examination, however, it is not separate, but rather an aggregation of the bad thought passed on to me during my upbringing, and other bad behavior and thought of my own over my life. It is almost as if our brains can accumulate such things into a separate personality. When it becomes overt, one gets the situations in “Three Faces of Eve”, and “Sybil”, where distinct personalities are expressed in the same physical body. The clinical term is dissociation. (This makes a very strong moral point, that we are responsible for our bad behavior—the Devil did NOT make us do it.)

Ah ha! then says the militant atheist or agnostic, then the good is not God, but simply the good side of us accumulated as a personality. A reasonable thought, but I don’t think it is true. Such an approach does not account for or leave a place for the existence of a soul. I have posted on what I consider the nature and source of the soul before, and it is from my considerations of the soul and extensive anecdotal material relating to it, that I created my asymmetrical concept of a Heaven and God with no equivalent Hell and Devil.

A thought that continues this is, that evil is inherently self-destructive. Since it always has as its goal, something ultimately destructive, eventually it must consume itself when nothing else is left to consume.

Having written all this, I will not make any significant changes in my theology at present.

Mission:

In thinking about all this, I started thinking about Paul, the Epistle writer. Paul struggled with trying to put what he saw as the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross into terms that the people of his day could understand. In the process he of necessity had to make interpretations and constructions to fill in the gaps. Though I do not consider myself the equal of Paul in any way, I realized that I am trying to do the same for myself and any who stay with me during these efforts. I am trying to make sense of the desire for religion, the belief in God, and the refusal to negate the findings of science which I have studied all my life. In the process I share what I am doing and try to give meaning in terms of modern understanding to these beliefs.

In the process, I am hoping that there are those who have had the same kinds of struggles I have had, seeing so much of religious belief not make sense in light of modern discovery, and “throwing the baby out with the bath water” denying any religious belief on those grounds, and that they will rethink their total denial of God and belief. This is not an attempt at “conversion”, but simply a presentation of a way to look at things that allows a belief in God without negating that which is strongly demonstrated by science. The choice to believe or not is always there; sometimes we need to remember there is the choice without sacrificing accepted belief about the physical world.

[I have not put the links into my post this time. Everything can be found in Bill’s Religious Archives for those interested, and maybe other things of interest as well.]

For what started as having little to say, this turned out rather big.

Death and Funerals

Today we attended the funeral of a well-respected member of our church. The choir sang, and there were scripture selections and other selected hymns, a eulogy by his eldest daughter, and a eulogistic sermon by the pastor. The overall approach was a classic Christian one that the person’s soul will go to heaven through his Baptism and union with Jesus whose death redeemed all believers to go to heaven.

This is a reassuring message to believers. They are comforted with the idea that eventually they will see their loved ones again, when they die. Because of its reassurance, many atheists will accuse Christians of believing falsehoods because they are comforting, not because they believe they are true. When I once posted a comment to another blog on the belief that my son’s soul did indeed visit me and my God daughter, some so-intellectually-sophisticated person told me it was simply my own wishful thinking due to missing him so much. [I would want him to experience the same thing to prove himself wrong, but the horror that would have to precede it makes me incapable of wishing such.]

For myself, I believe that we have souls, and that we will go to heaven through being as good a person as we can and God’s grace to forgive the rest. I do not attach any particular belief burden to achieving heaven. I don’t think doctrine is as important as right living.

But since we have a belief that comforts us in the sense that we have not permanently lost the loved one, why do we have funerals? primarily because we are still alive, and in such state experience a grief and loss at the death of a friend or loved one, for which we need comforting. Funerals are for the living.

Once the deceased is deceased, he or she no longer experiences anything important to us, at least within our knowledge. The trappings of a funeral will have no impact on them. Therefore the funeral of necessity must be for the survivors. Funerals are a formalized way of saying, “Good Bye,” of marking a place in our existence at which a shift occurs; we must continue without the deceased.

Funerals allow everyone who was positively affected by the deceased and who loved him/her to come together to share their past joy and to comfort one another. It is a time of being thankful for the deceased’s existence, as a way of lessening the pain of the loss. Generally, the funeral is preceded by a viewing the day before at the funeral home. This is a very specific acknowledgement of the death, where as many as possible, some not able to be at the funeral itself, come, pass by the body in a casket, and express condolences with the family.

Viewings and the final viewing before the funeral when the casket is closed permanently, can have some interesting moments. At my son’s viewing, his friends put all sorts of things in for him, in the manner of savages preparing a body for the afterlife, cigarettes, a lighter, a deck of cards, a small basketball. We had memory boards for writing messages or comments, and some of those were definitely interesting. We had pictures showing his life, and those are a common occurrence at viewings. It is as if there is finally a summation of ones life, and the most important things are shown as the essence of the person. Again, it is for the benefit of the living not the deceased.

In an odd way the appearance of the person’s face and body in the casket can be helpful in assisting the separation. Despite all the undertaker’s art, people who were fully alive in life bear only vague resemblance to themselves in a casket. The parishioner today looked little in the face like he did in life, with his ready smile and almost impish gleam in his eye. My son looked very little like himself, in the casket his firm mouth splayed out and his lean face fattened. It is helpful, in that it underscores that this is all that remains, and it is not what once was. That this physical object is not the person I loved, that person is gone forever, except in memory.

The burial is brief. It is the final departing, and has as its emphasis the return of the material body to the earth and the soul to Heaven. Today had as an added feature an honor guard from Wright Patterson AFB, to honor a former fighter pilot. I must say the military knows how to do funeral rituals right, just the right amount of sadness and precision. The playing of “Taps” after the 21 gun salute (three shots from seven rifles) reminds us of all besides the person today who have honorably defended our country, even to death. [The flyover had to be cancelled because the ceiling was too low.] But then again, who has had to bury more people than the military? They have had lots of practice.

Like all good Lutherans, we went back to the church and ate. Again, it is one more thing for the living, a taking up of life by eating and visiting with one another. It is affirming that we will continue to go on living, despite our losses and grief.

Death is faced in many ways. When we are living, we create jokes as we age, laughing at the possibility of infirmity, recognizing it as an aberrant form of existence. When in danger, we often simply ignore death and its possibility and act, bringing ourselves and/or others to safety. Sometimes when pushed beyond our internal limits and strengths, we may actually seek death, seeing it as a preference over life. And almost all of us are afraid not so much of death but of dying. Death appears as nothing, a final stop. It is the process of getting there that is scary. It is almost always painful in one way or another, either physically or emotionally both for the living and the dying. It is at funerals when death has won that we admit its power, and then continue onward, fighting it as before, knowing we shall all eventually succumb.

The Three wise men

This story about the early childhood of Jesus appears only in Matthew 2:1-12. I had not intended to deal with the early years of Jesus so soon in my studies, but events sometimes dictate changes. Consider these comments first attempts at a discussion of this story and not necessarily definitive of my views.

The Gospel Story (New International Version. For this purpose the particular translation is not important):

Matthew Chapter 2
1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from east came to Jerusalem
2 and asked, “Where is the one who had been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 when he had called together all the people’s chief priests ad teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born.
5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’ “
7 Then Hero called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.
8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.
10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they open their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

It is very tempting to all but dismiss this as a nice invention, especially with v. 2 specifically stating “King of the Jews” and the star moving and guiding them to Bethlehem. (But if Joseph was from Galilee, and Jesus was 2 years old, why were they still in Bethlehem?) But Fr. Matthew Kowalski, the SoDakMonk, had some commentary in his blog that is germane here. [I quote it completely]

We Three Kings.....indeed!
I never thought much about the historical accuracy of the Magi until a few years back when I chanced upon a copy of a slightly wacko fundamentalist tract masquerading as a book: The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel - Found! The author, one Steven Collins of Sioux Falls, is not considered a scholar on the subject, and has no reputation outside of some fundamentalist circles. Most of the book is pure speculation, if harmless enough. But the author did take the time to do some basic research on the ancient Parthian empire, and put together some interesting facts that lead to a reasonable conclusion: the magi could have been diplomats from the Emperor of Parthia. Here are some widely known historical facts:
1. Parthians ruled the empire east of the Roman provinces in Asia from about 250 BC to AD 250.
2. The Parthians considered themselves the successors of the post-Alexandrian Seleucid Empire, and therefore claimed Syria and Palestine as rightfully theirs.
3. The Parthians twice invaded Syria/Palestine in the 100 years before Jesus, sacking Antioch but not harming any Jewish cities.
4. Parthia was located in the region where the northern tribes are thought to have settled after the exile.
5. The Parthian emperor used the title "The King of Kings".
6. There was very likely an Israelite influence in the Parthian imperial court, which would include familiarity with the messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.
7. Roman custom discouraged using the name of enemies in one's home. The Parthian Empire would often be referred to simply as "the east". If the gospel writers wished to keep their documents non-controversial to Roman authorities, Parthian visitors would simply be described as from the east.
The historical facts I listed earlier can easily be verified with encyclopedias or history books, and they show a high probability that the Parthians had a political interest in Judea and the nearby regions. Once we grant that, we've established that someone who had the ability to send visitors, also had a motive to send them. The historical-critical method of scripture study, so common at large universities today, would likely dismiss the Magi story as a legend because it seems improbable. Travel over long distances was uncommon in the ancient world, except by merchants who had a financial incentive, or soldiers/government reps who also did it for a living. But when we are studying the life of a particular individual, who is remembered precisely because his life was extraordinary, dealing in probabilities is not the best way to analyze it.
If the Parthian Emperor considered Judea to be rightfully a province of his, it is not at all unlikely that he would send gifts at the birth of someone to the local nobility. If scholars in his court connected the messianic prophecies to the unique arrangement of the planets at that time, it would not be unusual for him to send diplomats, probably with an armed guard, to spread some money around among any locals who had a claim to Davidic ancestry. Notice the gospels don't give us details such as whether the magi visited only Jesus or others as well. Gold, frankincense and myrrh were all valuable commodities at the time, but the gospels don't tell us if the gifts were large quantities or just token amounts. In any case, it's likely only a government could afford to give such gifts.
We do know that King Herod was a ruthless man, but the gospels show him treating the magi very tactfully. He doesn't pressure them or make threats. This suggests they were on an official diplomatic mission from a political power strong enough to ensure them protection. Parthia was the only such nation at the time. I don't really recommend Collins' book on the lost tribes. Much of it is unrelated to the magi and very speculative. But in this particular area, Collins has managed to dig up some very interesting facts that make the magi story more credible against the background of the times. If this topic is interesting to you, do a Google search on the words magi and Parthia, and you will find more articles that flesh out this theory.

I did this and found the following three of interest:

A Christmas Anticipation Who Were the Magi? - Chuck Missler
A good, general historical background on who the Magi were and where they came from and some possible reasons both for their journey and Herod’s various reactions

The Visit of the Magi, A Christmas Oratorio about the cold war between Parthia and Rome
A rather fanciful libretto for an oratorio about the visit of the wise men and the politics behind it. It is most interesting for its different motivation of the magi, to buy a king to oppose Herod as opposed to worshipping a just born king.

Ancient Journey
The most scholarly of the three articles. Contains multiple interpretations of the story.

Based on Fr. Matthew’s information, it is quite possible that there was at one time in the recent past, relative to Jesus’ life, a visitation of some sort of emissaries, that came to the attention of the Matthew Gospel writer, and not to the other evangelists. Since Matthew’s thinking was centered on Jesus, he would naturally put them in, looking for Jesus specifically. Matthew’s astronomy is off, as well as some issues over the translation, but still we have the story of emissaries of a King paying tribute to Jesus, the child.

Without going into a lot of detail here, I suspect that the gifts themselves were symbolic rather than real, that Matthew created them to illustrate his point that Jesus was more important than these most precious of material goods. Of course there is also the image of either wise men or kings worshipping a poor, carpenter’s baby. It is a precursor of the image of Christ the King, or the King of Kings.

In our modern skepticism, what might we make of the visit of the Magi? Whether it was really Jesus, or just someone they felt must have been born, the search of the Magi for a king is similar to what many of us go through life wanting--something external to provide a reason and goal for our lives--someone to whom we can defer. The Matthewan symbolism of the goodness of the baby being worshipped by wisdom and power gives a reaffirmation of the belief that Jesus is Lord of All.

At present I think the more abstract symbolism of Jesus representing values being considered powerful over both Wisdom (Science) in the magi, or Power (politics & government) as in kings, is the more useful here. Knowledge and power are neutral in themselves. It is the values by which they are used that are important.

Trinity

Bill Vallicella has an interesting discussion of the nature of the Trinity (three parts, so far,1,2,3) in his blog. It also ties in with his earlier discussions of Incarnation.