Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional

On the side of Love

Posted by XT on December 9th, 2009 in New Jersey, Progressive Faith, US News


For those of you who don’t share my religious views, this post will be largely academic for you. But I hope that those who do share my religious views will take a moment to seriously consider the points I intend to raise.

I grew up in a very conservative Christian household. We not only went to both Sunday School and church on Sundays, but also to prayer meetings on Sunday and Wednesday nights, discipleship training (where we were taught how to participate and lead church services) and Vacation Bible School (cookies!). By the time I was twelve, I had probably read and memorized more Bible verses than anyone not in seminary training.

Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration…

But I understand that Christians cannot simply leave their beliefs at the door when they enter the public realm. They cannot forget what they believe is right and wrong. And there are five passages in the Bible that very clearly set Christianity against homosexuality. I’m will return to that in a moment, but I have a more important question to ask.

What is the coin of the Kingdom of Heaven? I would argue that it is love. It is for the sake of love that Jesus was sent. It is for the sake of love that Jesus allowed himself to be captured, tortured, and killed. It was for the sake of love that Jesus returned to provide a redemptive path for all mankind. And when Jesus’ death was imminent, he gave his followers a new Commandment – one that included all of the others within it and yet superseded and extended it to reaches that they had never considered: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34).

I’m not claiming that Jesus was directly addressing gay love. I’m claiming that he was addressing love, without qualification. All love is from God. Just as mercy and justice come from God, so does love. Where love is present, so is God.

So how can a faith built on the belief in a love so transcending, powerful, and all-encompassing as to surpass all human understanding target a group of humans who love each other? How can we hold fast to the title of God’s people on Earth and not show unfathomable love to those around us?

Look, Christians have used their faith as a reason to embrace (literally) and offer forgiveness to murderers. We regularly go into jails and orphanages and offer our poor reflection of God’s love to those who have been cast off by the world. How can we then turn our love away from anyone standing in our midst and asking us for an opportunity to bring their own love into the daylight?

When Jesus was accused of casting out demons through the power of Beelzebub, he replied that it was impossible to do so. “A house divided,” he said (centuries before Abe Lincoln), “cannot stand against itself.” When his disciples returned to him and told them that they prevented a man from casting out demons in Jesus’ name because he was not one of the twelve, Jesus castigated them and said that anyone who did good in his name was part of him.

So how can the love of our gay brethren not be from God Himself. It must be. I believe the very fact that gay people love each other is proof enough of this. From where else but God would such love come – love which is strong enough to stand though it seems at times that all the powers of the world are allied against it?

Now if I may return to the bald pronouncement of homosexuality as sin…so what? Adultery is far and away a much more dangerous sin to the institution of marriage and to Christian families. In fact, no marriage or relationship of any kind is safe from the temptation of adultery. Yet Christians are not trying to save the world from such a thing. Nor is greed illegal. Nor gluttony. Nor the taking of God’s name in vain.

So why do we single out this sin? If it is a sin (and, I’ll be honest, I don’t think it is – see the above explanation); then we should approach it as we approach all other sins. We should allow the world to do as it will – after all, our Savior promised that the world would not follow Him – and we should steadfastly and without faltering continue to offer our love and support for those who suffer from it. We should not seek to ban sin simply because it is sin, because that is a fool’s errand and Christians are not called into foolishness to be mocked by the world.

Someone tell me how one soul can be saved from being gay by not allowing gay people to be married! It simply cannot happen! There have been gay people throughout the entire history of marriage that trapped them on the outside of civilization. If not allowing gay people to marry would stop homosexuality, you have to think it would have happened by now. Right now, Uganda is trying to pass laws that would allow for the immediate execution of gay people, and that will serve to do the work of Satan – casting loving people into a fearful existence and elevating ordinary folk to the status of monstrous murderers. Should we try to out-evil evil? If so, banning marriage is not enough – we should strive to make Uganda look like pikers on vacation.

God forbid it should be so. We are not here to be the gatekeepers of the Kingdom of God, but to serve as signposts for it. Let Christians stand up on the side of love, because that is where God would find us.

“They shall know we are Christians by our love…” not by our politically oppressive mobilization.

Sphere: Related Content

  • http://www.britneybennett.com Britney Bennett

    Why do these few verses about homosexuality in the Bible get so much attention? Why not the rest of Leviticus, like the part that says you need to kill your child if he curses you? Or the part that says your neighbor should die if he works on the Sabbath? Or the part that says you have to forgive your enemies and turn the other cheek when you are wronged?

    Believe it all, or believe it none. You can't pick and choose just because you're uncomfortable with homosexuality.

  • Bill S.

    Good post. I think the church needs to rethink and accept GLBT persons too. For 1,700 years people read the Bible as endorsing slavery. There are passages that say this fairly explicitly. However, starting in the 1700's a significant number of Christians began to seriously question slavery, in spite of a literal reading of Scripture. Chrisitans did this because their own experience and observation led them to see that slavery was not “Christian” for many reasons. These two views were contradictory and had to be reconciled.

    I think in this era we are doing recognizing a similar thing about gays: recognizing that rejecting gays and their relationships is not compatiblbe with the overwhelming message of Jesus. Thus, a long term Christian tradition was updated based on our experience and God-given ability to reason.

    We “interpret” or explain away many parts of the Bible (like the Leviticus passages cited by Britney Bennett's post), so why are we such literalists about homesexuality? Personally, I think God is okay with me playing football (touching pigskin!), and wearing my no-press khakis (mixed fibers in one garment!).

  • Bill S.

    Good post. I think the church needs to rethink and accept GLBT persons too. For 1,700 years people read the Bible as endorsing slavery. There are passages that say this fairly explicitly. However, starting in the 1700's a significant number of Christians began to seriously question slavery, in spite of a literal reading of Scripture. Chrisitans did this because their own experience and observation led them to see that slavery was not “Christian” for many reasons. These two views were contradictory and had to be reconciled.

    I think in this era we are doing recognizing a similar thing about gays: recognizing that rejecting gays and their relationships is not compatiblbe with the overwhelming message of Jesus. Thus, a long term Christian tradition was updated based on our experience and God-given ability to reason.

    We “interpret” or explain away many parts of the Bible (like the Leviticus passages cited by Britney Bennett's post), so why are we such literalists about homesexuality? Personally, I think God is okay with me playing football (touching pigskin!), and wearing my no-press khakis (mixed fibers in one garment!).

« »

Array