Bridge building is not about tolerance. To tolerate something is to force yourself to embrace something you would otherwise hate. I tolerate lifting weights. I tolerate eating my vegetables. I tolerate paying my monthly rent for an apartment that I hate. We are not to tolerate one another. The Christian Church is not to tolerate members of the LGBT community, nor are gay folks to tolerate other Christians. Rather, we must, by the grace of God, love one another, and I firmly believe that Christians are to lead this effort. We are called by the God of love, who is love, to love one another; that is half of the foundation upon which all the Law stands. Jesus said that we will be known as His disciples by the love we have for one another.
Loving one another requires us to lay aside our tired and worn rhetoric. Christians must be willing to remove the phrase "love the sinner, not the sin" from their vocabulary when speaking about the gay community. LGBTs must learn to remove walls of distrust that prevent both sides of this mighty gulf of hatred from truly embracing one another. Again, Christians must lead this task. Disciples of Christ must prove themselves worth of the gay man's trust. Followers of the Way need to quiet their assumptions on the gay community so that we can listen with wholly open ears and hearts to what LGBT folks have to say about their sexuality, their spirituality, and their community. The Church must stop defining what it means to be gay in order to let the gay community speak for themselves.
As with any great and beautiful bridge, this one will take years to build. It will require willing workers on both shores to contribute their time and energy to the effort. We must be patient with each other as we make mistakes and offend people along the way. Love and patience must win over anger and brashness, for we cannot expect this bridge to be built without difficulty and setbacks. But most importantly, we cannot give up on this process. There can be no Gospel if there is no true reconciliation. Paul calls us ministers of reconciliation and Jesus commands us to love our enemies. Our Savior orders us to forgive one another 77 x 7 times, and we will most certainly exceed our quota as we work on this bridge.
So people! Do as my dearest friends have done. Listen to one another. Share stories, thoughts, and opinions. Play together; laugh and enjoy life. Push yourself to enter into realms unfamiliar and dangerous to you. Be quicker to listen than to judge. Believe that you may have been wrong about certain assumptions you have about either the gay community or the Body of Christ. Be willing to admit that you have wrongly treated people different from you. Realize that you may not know anything at all, but also be willing to walk hand in hand, gay by Christian, to discover love, peace, joy, truth, and grace.
Our Savior, the greatest bridge builder in history, has set an example for us to follow. He is the Way and the Truth, the fulfillment and embodiment of all the Scriptures. He is the Life, and in Him is joy eternal. Through Christ, we all - gay and straight - can get to the Father. Let us not deny one another this joy.
Love/Freedom,
Jimmy C.
7 comments:
thanks jimmy .... appreciate you adding your thoughts to the synchroblog conversation.
You said,
"Loving one another requires us to lay aside our tired rhetoric."
Very well said.
"To tolerate something is to force yourself to embrace something you would otherwise hate."
Exactly this. I appreciate reading your thoughts and seeing your perspective. I personally don't want to be tolerated, either. So I can't bring myself to tolerate others. I believe God calls us to something greater than that.
AND - some in the Evangelical Christian community are going to have to realize and accept that there are gay Christians who accept and embrace their orientation as a any straight person might.
One of the first things we HAVE to do is to recognize that this is not an issue of Christians and Gay people - gay people are simply too multi-faceted for that. Being an affirming gay person and being a Christian are not mutually exclusive things in the eyes of many.
I hope and pray that this is one of the first things that takes place from such a dialogue as this.
Although I 110% agree with you that the church has done a poor job, to say the least, in reaching out to the LGBT community, I think you might be being unfair to Christians who still believe, as I do, that homosexuality is not accepted by Christ as okay behavior. Before anyone rants on me let me just state I think homosexuality is a sin, yes, but no more than it is to be straight and have sex outside of marriage, or have drug addictions, or __ (fill in the blank). And I think not loving one another is just as much of a sin and Christians should feel convicted and repent of this as well. But my point is to refer to your statement about Christians accepting homosexuals and discarding the phrase "hate the sin not the sinner". I think there can be no other way than this (although I am not sure telling this to the sinner's face is the way to express love). You are correct that God commands us to love one another. This is stated over and over. However, do not forget the first commandment, which is to love the Lord above all else. And true love breeds obedience. So for those of us who do desire to bridge the gap yet believe it is wrong (and YES you can have this mind set) there is no other way to look at it. And I think you might judge a little too harshly for those of us who feel this way. I can accept the person Jimmy, I can love them, real love. But love for them stems from wanting them to have a personal, intimate relatiohship with Christ, and this is not possible with sin in the way.
Jimmy, thank you for participating in the synchroblog. And thank you for your words about "tolerating" - they are welcome words indeed.
Thirty years ago, two Christian women - one straight, one lesbian - wrote Is The Homosexual My Neighbor? The answer - one that a lot of Christians don't want to hear - is "yes, indeed." I'm so grateful to hear the message of love in your post.
If you're curious how the other side lives, and struggles, you can meet me over here. There are links to several of my "defining moment" posts in that post, including a post (admittedly lengthy) with Christian Cryder, a minister who made the effort to "bridge the gap" with me.
To the anonymous poster who's concerned about "sin" - I'd encourage you to visit here, and ask yourself who is really eligible to be casting stones. If we only loved people who were without sin, they'd be damn little love in this world.
Even if you find homosexual behavior to be a sin, it is not "the ultimate sin." As Jimmy wrote, we are all on the journey to the Father.
Again, thanks for your voice, Jimmy. If you're ever near Champaign/Urbana, you're welcome for coffee and donuts anytime.
I realize that my post seems offensive to some, and for that I apologize because if you clearly read what I wrote you might see that is not what I intended. I did say love the person! Of course love the person!!! Accept the person! Have them for dinner, go to the movies, pray with them, pray for them, etc... YES, love the person! We are not called to love those without sin because we would never be able to love anyone. Being homosexual is not the ultimate sin by any means and I never wish to suggest that. Being homosexual is not an automatic ticket to hell.
What I simply meant to suggest is that while I should and am encouraged by Jimmy to do, watch the language and attitude I have towards gays, the same should be done for those of us who do truly want to bridge the gap while still believing homosexuality is a sin. This does not mean I outcast a person or cast any stone. I truly believe with every fiber of my being that God did not intend for there to be sexual relations, contact, or desire for same sex. But I also believe He did not intend for MANY things I do. And I would ask for prayer about issues just as someone who struggles with this sin to seek out prayer. I do not think we should "tolerate" someone being gay either. Because the ultimate outcome of tolerance is acceptance (even if you hate it) and I would not someone to just tolerate my sin and never say anything to me about it. Christ calls us to love and many many times this love (as discussed many times in the Bible) means praying for one another as well as admonishing and encouraging people on their walk of faith. A Christian who believes being gay is wrong cannot simply ignore this and accept it, the opposite is called for. But this is ALWAYS to be done in love. And maybe that is the hang up here. We all have a different view of what "loving someone" means. And admittedly I am no Bible scholar but what I do know is that Christ showed ultimate love all the time. Yet he never ever sugar-costed someone else's sin or just accepted it because he did not want to 'ruffle feathers'. He did the opposite yet in an unconditional loving way. I need to do better at this, the chruch needs to do better at this. I will be the first to admit the church today has failed, I mean REALLY failed at bridging the gap. But sometimes the same group of people who cry for no stipulations from the Christian community are the ones who put impossible stipulations on us.
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