Be Straight With Me

Take a quick moment and forget how you may or may not have been raised, how you may or may not believe, how you may or may not feel. Now in this imaginary environment, let’s say you feel a call to and from something greater than and beyond yourself. Let’s say you just know in your heart there has to be a God who has something for you and that you just have to find a place to learn about Him and His plan. Let’s say you're looking for a church. Let’s say you’re a homosexual.

You may have heard a lot of big names in the Church speak out against homosexuality. You may have even heard that “God hates fags.” You want to believe that if there is a God out there, He can somehow love you. But how could He possibly love you if all of His followers abhor you? You want to love God and be loved by Him, but you’re scared that if you dare try to get involved with a church group, they’ll despise and judge you if they find out the truth.

You may or may not be really sure what the Bible says about your lifestyle. You hear plenty of opposition. You also frequently come across groups of people like yourself who seem to be making some pretty good arguments that your feelings are normal, not contradicting scripture at all. You wish you could just find a place of real people to love you and care about you no matter what your background or feelings are. Where do you go????

Now let’s look at a different scenario. You’re sitting in church on a Sunday morning, and you notice someone you’ve never seen before sitting in the back. After the service, you manage to catch them before they slip out and talk with them for a while. You convince them to come back and keep coming back as you get to know them better. At some point it comes out that they are, in fact, homosexual. How would you react????

That answer to that question can be so very important. That vast majority of people who reject the church, regardless of whether or not they reject God, do so because they felt the church or someone in the church rejected them. If a homosexual walked into your church, would he or she feel welcome? Even if they didn’t make known their sexual orientation, what would they gather from hearing various people talking (or even the sermon)? Would they hear straight, right-wing conservatives or caring men and women speaking fluently the language of Christ’s unconditional love and grace? That is, would they feel that they are in a place meant to be a family loving each other no matter what they’ve done or who they are, or a social club for people of the same orientation and political party?

Evangelicals in particular seem to have a hard time with this. In many of their churches, homosexuals and homosexuality are both spoken of as abhorrent to Christ, and no distinction is made between the sin and the sinner. The phrase “hate the sin, love the sinner” feels as though it cannot apply to them because they are made to feel as though they are the sin. Is it any wonder then that evangelical churches, percentage-wise, have far fewer homosexuals than other churches?  It's easy to be understanding and encouraging to someone struggling with doubt, anger, or even addictions to porn because, well, it's understandable; it's harder to be caring and understanding when the internal temptations and struggles are completely foreign to us.  However there is no just cause whatsoever to rob someone created in God's image of their dignity and treat them as dirt.

“All have sinned, and all fall short of the glory of God.” Even if a person’s actions are irreconcilable with scripture, can we really say that what they’ve done is any worse than the time we took the cookie from the jar when Mom wasn’t looking? Or when we teased ol’ what’s-her-face in recess? Or when we saw that person with the card-board sign standing on the side of the road with no one to love or care for them, and pretended to mess with the stereo to avoid eye-contact? No matter a person’s (or our own) past, lifestyle, orientation, political alignment, or beliefs, they are human beings created in God’s precious image and He loves them with all His heart. If He can do so, have we any excuse to put aside His language of Love?