Why the church should welcome LGBTQ Christians

I was recently asked why I am a welcoming pastor.

I enjoyed writing up my reflections, and so I thought I would share them here.

Why am I a welcoming pastor to LGBTQ Christians, advocating for full inclusion in the church?

It is a fair question. After all, there are no specific texts that say “same gender sexual relationships are fine” and there are texts in Leviticus, Romans, and Timothy, (with the Romans text being most convicting and most explicit), that seem to condemn homosexuality, sometimes in very stark terms (abomination, and suggesting that the proper punishment for two men having sex together is the death penalty). My negative argument here is simple- these texts refer not to committed partnerships, but to idol worship and pagan religious festivities, as well as the age inappropriate relationships practiced in ancient Greece, as well as the simple point that it would be evil to punish gay sex with death, which suggests we might wonder whether these particular texts should be guiding our decision making on the issue. But that is a negative argument.

So to offer the positive case-

my Biblical hermeneutic has never been to examine the Bible for rules and then try to follow them. I don't think that's how Jesus read the Bible, how Paul read the Bible, how the gospel writers read the Bible, and I don't think it is how the church should read the Bible. Rather, I believe Jesus had a pattern of looking for God's vision, and then describing the ethics, values, and stories that come from that kingdom center. (this is basically the model you can find in Kingdom Ethics by Glen Stassen).

And the kingdom center that I see at the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to love our neighbor as ourselves, to care for the least of these, and to invite the children of God to come to Christ. The reason I am a welcoming pastor to gay and lesbian Christians is because I believe Jesus Christ, my lord and savior, commands me always, every day, and in every way, to care more about these central values-the value of people.

Just as Jesus welcomed the woman at the well (John 4), Zaccheus in the sycamore tree (Luke 19), the woman with a flow of blood (Mark 5), the disciples who were tax collectors (Matthew 9:9-13), the Syro-Phonecian woman (Mark 7:25-30), and many others, just as he told stories of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), and the wedding banquet (Luke 14:15-24), just as Peter discovered with Cornelius that God shows no partiality (Acts 10), and just as Paul encouraged the people to remember that God has torn down the dividing walls between people (Ephesians 2:14), I think that we are called to read the Bible and remember that if the rules we proclaim do not cohere with the Gospel message, well, we have heard it said, but Jesus says unto us... (Matthew 5)

I think the text is clear-Jesus fought the Pharisees because they were too caught up in their rules to pay attention to the greatest commandment. On the one hand, there was a community of strictly law abiding people, who knew what God wanted from them, and what everyone else was supposed to do, and made sure everyone knew about it. They prayed with gratitude that they knew the path to salvation (Luke 18:11), and that they were on the narrow way of following God's rules. On the other hand, there was a man who ate with tax collectors and sinners (Luke 7:34), who broke the rules every day. He let unclean women wash his feet (Luke 7:36-50), he let his disciples eat grain on the Sabbath, he had the temerity to suggest that the law was created for humankind, and not the other way around (Mark 2:23-27)! He called the Pharisees white washed tombs, warning them that they were building walls between the least of these and God (Matthew 23), that they were neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23), because they could not look beyond the tithing of herbs to the gospel call to love our neighbors and our enemies, to open the walls and let the rif-raf come in.

So that's what we are called to do. So what does it mean to follow the Biblical commandment to Love our neighbors and our enemies more than we love rules and laws?

I don't think it means ignoring rules and laws. I believe in sin! Theft is bad, murder is wrong, racism and sexism are endemic and opposed to the kingdom of God. But the core aspect that binds these sins together and leaves out LGBT Christians is that these sins cause harm to children of God. The flow directly from the greatest commandment, God's vision of loving God, neighbors and enemies. In a similar way, I believe in obedience. There are lots of commandments that are worth following just because the Bible says so. I follow the Bible's teaching on not swearing oaths, footwashing, and choose to give at least 10% of my income because it is good to practice obedience.

But if the rules and laws we interpret from the Bible contradict one of central messages of Jesus Christ then we cannot in good conscience follow those rules.

So, does the Church's historic condemnation of same-sex relationships block people from seeing Jesus, from loving neighbor and enemy, from welcoming the least of these?

Well, I believe it does. It hurts gay and lesbian people around the world.

The prohibition against LGBTQ sexuality has had significant consequences-increased suicide rates for LGBTQ teens. Sham marriages broken later in life. People feeling like part of who they are is unwelcome in the church. People coerced into lives of celibacy or hidden sexuality, unable to share their intimate partners with the world, or ask for support in times of grief or trouble. Countless children who have had to hide who they were from their parents, or who have been rejected by their families and their churches, cast out 'for their own good'. It’s led gay people to be paralleled with pedophiles and other sexual offenders, caused Christians to parade outside gay funerals with signs reading ‘God hates fags', and caused gay people to be imprisoned and even murdered for the act of love.

The acts of Christians against gay and lesbian people through history have completely failed to demonstrate the love of God in Christ. Christian love means that we should care much more about the state of people's hearts than how closely they hew to the rules that we have set for them. And I believe that to twist the word 'love' into something that allows us to deny people communion, marriage, and salvation itself, let alone the kind of harassment and violence that so many gay and lesbian children face because we think they might be sinning is far from the gospel. I know too many strong, happy, and healthy same sex couples to ask my brothers and sisters in Christ to break up their marriages in order to join the church.

Second, the Church's condemnation of gay and lesbians blocks our ability to invite people into the church. Our focus on 'the rules' around human sexuality has left the church splintered and weakened in it's proclamation. When asked what it means to be Christian, over 80% of young people between 19-26 both inside and outside of the church defined it as being 'anti-homosexual'. That is a disgrace. If we are known more for condemning than for loving, both inside the church and out, then that is a sign that we have done something very wrong. We should return to our real task, which is to go and make disciples. The heart of the gospel is this: “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” If that eternal truth is being obscured, and if our ministry is being clouded because we believe homosexuality is a sin, then as Paul says “we have no such custom” (1 Corinthians 11:16). The people we are called to offer the gospel to are more important than the rules.

And finally, because I care about my own relationship with God, I worry about using power incorrectly. I believe the primary sin Jesus identified in the Pharisees was that they blocked the way to God unnecessarily for other people. They abused the power and authority that they had been given.

In our modern world, I don't want to be on the side of the Pharisees. There are people beaten and wounded in the streets, who are asking for love, for welcome, for inclusion, for justice, for the chance to function as normal members of society and the church. And it is only the Samaritans-the atheists, the liberal secularists, the politicians, who have been willing to pull over and enter into real conversation and undergo real conversion.

In the Bible I read about Christ defending the least of these, and critiquing the social system of first century Judaism that left the sick and the poor ritually unclean and unable to access God.

And I worry when I see the 96% of the population that is straight imposing high hurdles on gay and lesbian people before allowing them access to the divine. There is an old saying- “In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.” (Anatole France). Well, that's not the way God's law works. Jesus healed on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-6), and quoted affirmingly the story of David feeding his men the bread that had been consecrated (Mark 2:23-27), and following in his footsteps, Paul was willing to eat meat sacrificed to idols (1 Corinthians 8) and abandon circumcision, the most sacred rite of Judaism (Galatians 5-an aside-I notice I am circumcised, despite this direct command of Paul. I wonder when we changed our minds on that). One of the primary tasks that Jesus came for was to tear down the walls people built up around God that made it hard for people to get in. It is one thing for gay and lesbian people to decide that marrying the people they love is sinful. It is a treacherous step for me to decide on their behalf how to read the text, when it is not a question that affects me directly. I have met many Christians in same sex relationships who demonstrate the gifts of the spirit, who practice powerful ministry, who proclaim God's resurrection promise. I do not want to risk my soul plucking twigs out of the eyes of those LGBTQ brothers and sisters when I should be working on the log in my own.

So I guess, in the end, I acknowledge there are a few scattered texts that may suggest people should not have sex with other people of the same gender. But the core of the law of God is clear. We are the church, called to witness to the poor and the broken-hearted, to heal the sick and proclaim peace to the nations. And the poor and broken-hearted have come to our doors, asking to be let in, testifying that they have been saved, and demonstrating the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. When Jesus of Nazareth asks me on the judgment day, what did you do for the least of these? I want to be able to say, I welcomed them, and visited them, and let them in. And that is why I am a welcoming pastor.

http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=232&name=DLFE-334.pdf

http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/homeless-and-runaway-youth.aspx

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html

http://www.godhatesfags.com/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/21/world/africa/uganda-anti-gay-bill/

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140121/anti-gay-violence-mars-run-sochi-olympics

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/etc/antigay.html

https://www.barna.org/barna-update/teens-nextgen/94-a-new-generation-expresses-its-skepticism-and-frustration-with-christianity#.UuF33BDnaM8

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-10-10-christians-young_N.htm