“Love the sinner but hate the sin” as been an evangelical mantra for generations. Preachers point to Jesus as an example of living this out. Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, both of whom were the lowest of sinners in his culture.
When it comes to the issue of homosexuality I question if this is true. One senior Salvation Army officer said to me back in 2002 that in many ways the evangelical church, including many Salvationists (officers and soldiers) treat homosexuals as the modern lepers. I agreed then and still do so. Jerry Falwell blaming homosexuals for the 9-11 attacks is an example of how homosexuals are viewed as the escape goats for society’s problems. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in tossing his evangelical rage far and wide has proclaimed homosexuality to be “abhorrent, immoral, detestable…and a crime against nature.”
Dr. James Kennedy, another major evangelical leader, has stated about gays in the military, “would you want your son, daughter, or grandchild sharing a shower, foxhole, or blood with a homosexual?” Dr. Kennedy’s statement along with Moore, Falwell’s and hundreds of other evangelical leaders are similar to the racist statements made about Jews, African Americans, Latinos, Italians, etc. Such fear mongering statements were unacceptable back in the past about ethnic groups, they are unacceptable today.
Loving the sinner but not the sin is not practiced by the evangelical church when it comes to gays. Family Research Council’s posture and admonition against church-gay community dialogue is outrageous and shameful. The Family Research Council has more to do with resisting dialogue and acceptance of gays in society than with building of strong families. Their definition of family is narrow, a married man and woman with children who all go to church every Sunday.
Gays are all around us. We marginalize them and those within the church live in fear of being discovered. While at Asbury College four guys I knew were gay, three of whom were Salvationists. One of the four was in the elementary education program and when it became known to the administration he was gay he was not allowed to do his student-teacher practicum. He was thereby shamefully forced to transfer to a secular school.
The evangelical church by enlarge talk of gays as if they have some sort of contagious disease that can be cured once and for all with the conversation prescription. Such a view is naive and is out of keeping with research that indicates for many gay men and women there may be a genetic and a biochemical basis. Regardless of what Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council claims, such research and evidence is not questionable science. Dobson and his friends at the Family Research Council are like the Church during the 1400s in denying that the world was round. They clung to their understanding of the Bible rather than wondering if their interpretation of various passages was sound. Eventually when ships traveled around the world the evidence was so solid that they changed their interpretation.
According to the Barna group 91% of non-Christians between the ages of 16-30 believe that Christians are “anti-homosexuals” and are confused as their meanness towards homosexuals is out of keeping what non-Christians understand about the teachings of Jesus. I agree with these young non-Christians. Fortunately for the church a rapidly growing number of the Christians in the same age group are coming to the same conclusion.
Reflective Wanderings - Reflections on various topics that arise out of my personal, life and professional experiences. There are also are some family related news, travels and pictures.
3 comments:
This is all something that I have been re-examining myself lately. Good post.
Interesting post - much of what you stated is accurate. However one needs to be careful when generalizing the evangelical church position on homosexuality.
By and large your statements are based on individual or narrow focused sections within the evangelical church. You are using the term "evangelical church" awfully loose. Just because there are those within the evangelical church who make certain statements, does not mean it is reflective of "the evangelical church." That's for another blog post.
Such statements contribute to a growing "church-ophobic" element within society. Much of your statements would be accurate in the context of perhaps fifteen or more years ago.
You have failed to mention the current deep soul searching, those that are looking at scripture with honest intention and the forthright honest discussion now taking place within the evangelical church (at least here in Canada.
Using the term "love the sinner but hate the sin" when it comes to the gay individual in of itself can be deemed by some segments of the church as being judgemental and shallow in its application.
Personally I find it abhorrent with the public stand that the late Jerry Falwell,the Alabama Chief Justice and James Kennedy have made. To treat homosexuals as modern day lepers is equally abhorrent for me (including those who are officers in the SA).
As Christians we need to be comfortable in embracing those who are gay and are in community with us within the church. This is something I have seen over the years - stretching back to our years in Brampton and even to the two years at the Salvation Army Training College and then in our years of ministry as pastors / corps officers - both within and without the church.
It is wrong to marginalize and to even discount those who are gay and are in healthy same sex relationships. It is certainly something I recognize.
Yes, love the gay sinner, just as we reach out and love the heterosexual sinner. There should be no distinction. Sin no matter the person is sin.
I also think one needs to be more reflective when it comes to comments on the evangelical church's stand on the family and marriage. In reality, it's the government's responsibility to define marriage and sanctioning marriage. It really is a constitutional issue.
We need to be comfortable with the biblical boundaries placed around the definition of family within the church. Principles and truth does not change based on the flavour of the day.
As far as I am concerned, I would rather have the government be responsible for performing marriages. The church should be a place people go to have it blessed within the context of their faith.
This was a most enjoyable discussion. Thanks!
Stephen….though there are exceptions within the American Evangelical scene, by enlarge most of the evangelical leadership is strongly anti-gay. Those who brought California’s Proposition 8 into being, promoting and funding it were from the evangelical community. In Virginia, those who pushed legislators to design the in defense of marriage legislation were leaders in the evangelical community….the same has happened in other states. Such actions are efforts to keep the church’s standard and definitions of marriage entrenched as the law of the land.
Not renting a room or apartment to a gay person is illegal. When a church going person has an apartment or a room that can be rented, vacancies are posted on church bulletin boards and word spreads via word of mouth rather than advertising in the local newspaper. Anti-gay feelings is a factor behind the existence of this informal network.
On the whole there is little deep soul searching taking place in the United States. Such soul searching is taking place in the mainline churches and in the African American churches. Outside the Westerner Territory, few Salvationists and Officers in American are willing to discuss the topic privately let alone openly.
Any evangelical leader who speaks about undertaking any soul searching on the issue is ostracized. Speaking engagments and publication of books will cease to exist.
While I cannot speak definitively as I am twelve years removed from the scene, I would not be surprised to find Canadian evangelicals well ahead of their American counter-parts. In the early 90s the Canadian evangelical church’s views and posture was broader and more understanding than where the current American evangelical church is today.
I concur that marriage is primarily a governmental function. It is the one contract that between individuals that deeply involves the government in entering into it as well as dissolving the contract. The government needs to have a process and definition that encompassed the breadth of the cultures within its society. That said, I would not wish to see the church or other religions from withdrawing from conducting weddings on behalf of the government.
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