A bunch of Christians should have looked around them a few decades (or centuries) ago and said "Hey, we see a group of people who are marginalized. They're afraid, they're misunderstood, they're feared and ostracized and discriminated against. It isn't right that they should be treated like this. We should help them." And then the Christians should have approached these other people and shown kindness to them. Not bullshit pretend-to-be-their-friend-so-they'll-listen-to-your-sales-pitch kindness, but the sort of kindness Jesus showed. The kind where the other person believes that you sincerely care about them, where you give of yourself freely and unconditionally. The kind where you stand up for them against adversity, and also sit down with them in fellowship. The kind where you spend a lot of time listening and not much time talking, where you don't pretend to understand the other person - their thoughts, feelings and motivations - until you've earned that understanding through long years of intimacy. The kind where you don't judge.
Some of these Christians - the ones who were politically motivated - should have organized rallies and wrote letters to raise awareness about the mistreatment of this other group. Some who were leaders should have organized charities and ministries to help those among them who were struggling emotionally or physically. Some should have organized support groups including both Christians and members of this other group, and many should have just hung out together.
Few Christians should have dwelled on whether what these people were doing was right, or whether membership in Christianity and this other group are mutually exclusive. None should have preached to them about their sin. None should have resisted the fight for their recognition and rights. None should have opened their mouths against these people as a group before first knowing and loving them as individuals. None should have shamed them, or excluded them, or seen their choices or their lifestyle before their humanity. This other group I'm talking about is homosexuals, but the same thing applies to any other group that faces bigotry.
I've gone from "being gay is wrong" to "being gay is not wrong" to "who cares whether it's wrong or not". Seriously, why does it matter? Why should a person's lifestyle and the question of it's sinfulness have any effect on the way we interact with them? If Christians want to concern themselves with society's acceptance of homosexuals, they should be fighting against discrimination and bigotry, not perpetrating it, regardless of their personal views (or even God views, if you're so confident that you know what they are) about it's rightness or wrongness. It's as if Christians feel that their first responsibility in relating to "sinners" is to make it clear to them and anyone else who might be watching that they disapprove of their "sin", and their second responsibility is to show God's love, so long as it doesn't interfere with the first. What nonsense! Love people first, and then if you really feel led to make them aware of their sin, you'll have the opportunity sooner or later. (And this way you'll actually know what you're talking about, and they might even be inclined to listen to you.) But remember that our responsibility in the world is not to convict people of their sins. That's the Spirit's job. We're here to show love - without restrictions, without conditions, and without concern for what the upright and the uptight will think.
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"Back when Jack Rosenthal ran the New York Times editorial page (1986-1992), he barred his editorialists from using the words "should" and "must." As he explained to George magazine's Timothy Noah in 1999, the two imperial directives tended to produce weak editorials that argued by assertion, and he preferred persuasive editorials supported by logic.
Besides, Rosenthal told Noah, should-and-must editorials made it sound as if the Times' message to readers was, "You must, by God, because we said so, and we're the fucking New York Times."" – from Slate.com
As I read your most recent post, I notice a lot of 'should' and not a lot of argument. This is not to say that I disagree with you; I am not commenting on your position at all. I intend my critique from a purely rhetorical standpoint. Your post contains a lot of assertions, but not a lot of arguments, and as a result, I do not think that someone approaching the issue from the opposite standpoint will find your post particularly compelling.
That said, I like reading the things you say because you write passionately, and (to understate things) you do not kowtow to orthodoxy simply because it is popular. Today, as I read your post, I had two untutored, visceral reactions. First, I wondered why you lumped all the Christians together, as if there is a voice that speaks for all of them, as if all Christians have embraced the same theology. It seems unfair to me. Some Christians have been dis-graceful. Some Christians have not. (Some Christians had roast beef. Some Christians had none. And one little Christian went 'whee whee whee whee' all the way home.) It's not accurate or fair to act as if every Christian has made the same mistakes.
Second, and more importantly, I worry that you might be slipping toward judging 'church people.' I get the sense that the love that you are willing to offer to homosexuals is not as readily available to the very religious, the politically conservative Christians who populate many churches. I find it really tough to love the people around me, and truthfully, I do not know many homosexuals. The people I struggle most to love are the very religious, and these I know where to find. I find myself wishing I could turn over some tables, scream, "you give ten percent of your dill and cumin, but ignore the weightier matters of the law!" With Homer, I cry out "Show me who to smite and they shall be smoten!" I want to carry out God's righteous wrath. I want to judge the small-minded, people who write worship choruses, organize political action groups, and get really involved in religion. And God, for some reason, has told me to love them. It makes it a lot easier when I realize that I am one of them. I have my religious peccadilloes, and my affiliations (usually, it seems to liberal/intellectual hoity-toitery). I take some things for granted because they fit with my predispositions, and I have my soapboxes… I am really just as backward and benighted as the next Pharisee; I am just one more sinner in desperate need of salvation. "Here is a trustworthy saying worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst." I am the worst of sinners. It is just the truth. If I am honest, then I must be humble.
"Save all those, Oh Lord, who have no one to pray for them, and all who refuse to pray. I do not pray for them out of pride, O Lord, for I myself am the most loathsome creature of all." ~ Dostoevesky
I decided to write this post with more "should" than arguement because I assumed (rightly or wrongly) that my logic would be clear to those to whom the post was directed. Essentially, I believe that Christians ought to do the sorts of things that Jesus did and taught, and I trust that most of my Christian readers would agree. The unwritten arguement behind this post is simply that showing genuine love to people we see as sinners is more Jesus-like than marginalizing and demonizing them, and thus we ought to love them.
If I were trying to support this arguement I could go on at great length about Jesus' attutudes, practices and teachings, but my hope is that those who disagree with my conclusions (the "should"s in this post) would go back to their Bibles and (re)think this issue through for themselves.
My assumption is that if Christians think critically about their attitudes towards homosexuals (and others) they will conclude that they've acted wrongly, and that they should be capable of reaching this conclusion without me guiding them every step of the way. But again, I may be mistaken.
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