Homosexuality & A Change Of Direction
When I posted the personal “Homosexuality: A Personal Reflection” on Monday, I could not have anticipated the wave of support, encouragement and honesty that would follow in the comments and emails. Thank you all so much for making this such a positive step for me to make. I know it has been difficult for some, especially those who know and love me and don’t want me to suffer anything for it. I want to honour them for standing behind me in spite of these concerns.
Without taking away from the wonderful responses I received, in a post where I share something so very personal, the majority of the responses were thanking me and encouraging me for my honesty and vulnerability. As a result (and understandably), the comments did not get to involved in engaging the finer details of the issue. So, while I don’t want this to become the over riding theme of my blog, I thought it might be helpful to flesh this out a bit.
I want to start by saying that sexual orientation is an incredibly complex area that cannot be easily narrowed to formulaic understandings. Therefore, while my experience might mirror or parallel that others, as there are underlying similarities for people who experience this reality, every individual comes to it differently. Therefore, while I can help to give general understanding, I cannot and will not speak for everyone who live with same-sex attraction. That being said, many of you commented or emailed sharing that one of the biggest challenges you face is simply an inability to understand. In fairness, how could someone understand something so foreign to them. So I hope I can give you glimpse into this sphere.
Even saying that people “come to it” reveals my belief that, at least for some, it is a reality people arrive at as a result of something. I am not going to go so far as to say this is true of all cases, as that would be arrogant and presumptious of me. However, I do believe that, for many people, it is a resulting reality due to some spiritual/emotional/etc dynamic, albeit very diffent dynamics for different people. But I am getting off track.
One of the areas I wanted to address was brought up by my friend Stuart in the comment section. He shared his frustration with the hostility he has experienced from the homosexuality community as he has attempted to reach out to them. This is a common experience for many Christians and something that really needs to be addressed.
We must first start by trying to understand the perspective of the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered (GLBT) community in respect to the church. For far too long we have treated them with utter contempt, ignorance and even hatred for centuries, all the while justifying our stance in the name if Jesus. They can no more dissociate from that history than we can from the responsibility we have in making things right. To dismiss that as the mistake of others is to ignore the systemic connection between our current religious cultures, freedoms and presuppositions and those who have gone before us in the church.
When we recognize this, it is not hard to understand why we are so often met with such anamosity. while this does not excuse their mistakes or excesses, we add insult to injury by using their emotional response as justification for further mistreatment or abandonment of missional outreach. These are, in part, the fruit of the seeds we have planted as the church, and therefore realities in reaching out to the GLBT community that we will have to learn to work through.
What will it take to genuinely connect with these people? For one, we will have to learn that starting on the premise of the moral and Biblical indictment of homosexuality (which is often our default position, for fear we might compromise) is a useless and ignorant foundation. I am not suggesting that we turn a blind eye to sin, but rather that we recogize the dual mutuality we share with them- first and foremost, that we are all made in the image of God, which comes with the respect that is thus due; second, that we are all sinners, in need of Christ’s grace.
This will likely mean that we will need to intentionally create space for relationship that begins, at least at first, with a commitment to understand, which includes a commitment not to attempt to use it for conversion, debate, etc. Will we stand the risk of give the wrong impression about where we stand on the issue? I doubt it, but even if we do, who cares? Jesus didn’t seem to concern Himself with the gossip-mongering moralizers who questioned the company He kept, so why should we? That said, we will have to be willing to face the judgment of our fellow Christians as an inevitability.
What suggestions do you have on how we can move forward? Tangibly, what must the church do to owns our part, not only in our failure towards the GLBT community, but in our responsibility to move towards reconciliation, relationship and love?
I hope to do another post in the near future about the issue of my response to the Scriptures surrounding homosexuality.
