Gay Pride, Tolerance, and Hate Speech: Are Christians Caught Between Extremes?

It wasn't that long ago when only a few notorious cities in the U.S. held Gay Pride festivals and parades. The gay and lesbian community was underground; the parade was a way of shaking the collective fists at the rest of the nation, who were scandalized and outraged that "Sodom and Gomorrah" would dare to show their faces in apple-pie America.

But these days, gay has gone mainstream. TV shows regularly feature gay themes and portray gay characters in a positive light; our cultural lexicon has a host of words like "out-ed" and "bi-curious." Even small, Midwestern cities have open celebrations where the local GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, & transgender] movers and shakers attempt to unite the gay and straight communities in a celebration of identity and diversity. While the majority of participants belong to the GLBT community, there are plenty in the straight community who attend these events because it's something fabulous to do on a summer weekend.

Many churches in cities large and small are increasingly "gay friendly" or "gay affirming." The Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America (ELCA) don't quite fall under the "gay friendly" aegis; the decision to accept and support gay pastors met with controversy, and there are many churches that have left the ELCA for this reason. But there is, indeed, a move among denominations and church leaders across the country to endorse or at least be more accepting and tolerant of the GLBT subculture. And if there are scriptures that are less than accepting or tolerant of the gay lifestyle, they are either underplayed, reinterpreted, or ignored altogether for the sake of relationship.

There is also the extreme typified by the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and their controversial pastor, Fred Phelps, whose many anti-gay protest demonstrations have been covered by major media. Their website is www.godhatesfags.com, and they have as much hate of the GLBT community as the GLBT community has pride. Alongside the Phelps clan are various conservative Christian pundits and politicians who blame gay America for anything from hurricanes to terrorist attacks. And if there are scriptures that show Jesus loving the sinful or showing mercy to the lost, they are either underplayed, reinterpreted, or ignored altogether for the sake of being right.

And so we see two extremes in churches: grace without the truth of God's word, and truth without the grace of God's love. Neither position is biblical; Jesus came full of grace and truth. (1 John 1:14) The Bible clearly defines homosexual behavior as sin, but it does not impute to it a worse punishment than other sins. All sin is an abomination.

Yet Jesus ate with sinners, didn't He? Didn't Jesus demonstrate His own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, He died for us? (Romans 5:8) Shouldn't we have compassion on those who are lost to sin? When does compassion end and truth kick in?

The answer is that compassion starts with truth, so it never ends. Jesus never sidestepped sin; He never minimized or overemphasized it. He dealt with it, whether it was with the Pharisee or the beggar or the adulteress. Just as our biggest problem is miniscule to God, so also our tiniest sin is intolerable to Him, and so He sent His Son to solve the sin problem, for He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Jesus sees all humans as equally sinful, whether it is a homosexual, a heterosexual womanizer, a sports figure engaged in dog fighting, a politician lying under oath, a teenager who lies to his parents, Billy Graham, or the Pope.

There are two reactions to sin. You can repent (Greek: metanoeo "change the mind") and adapt yourself to the truth, or you can justify yourself (Greek: dikaioo "render righteous or such as he ought to be") and adapt the truth to your lifestyle. The former relies upon the mercy of God, the latter upon self-improvement or self-salvation. Self-salvation is the origin of religion and the way of Cain, that works can accomplish righteousness. Mercy requires atonement and is dependent upon God, which is why Abel's blood sacrifice was accepted and Cain's fruit offering was rejected.

Where mercy requires humility, self-salvation increases pride. We live in an "I'm okay, you're okay" society where the standards are set by men, not God; we don't like feeling guilty and will do almost anything to get rid of guilt. Except repent. We'd rather acclimate the truth to fit our lifestyle than damage our pride by swallowing it. This means we brush sin under the carpet and pretend that it doesn't matter, or we redefine sin so that we can openly embrace that which we want to do in the flesh. In either case, our pride ends up supplanting God as the source of truth.

Religious pride, or self-righteousness, is a way humans attempt to synthesize the truth and sin. It is an appearance of righteousness, rather than a true righteousness. We attempt a compromise with a God who is holy; in our pride, we attempt to negotiate with God, as if anything less than complete and total truth would have any merit with Him.

But "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (James 4:6 and 2 Peter 5:5) He treated the sinful with compassion in truth, but He was quite harsh with the proud. Jesus opposed the religious establishment of His day --the Pharisees and Sadducees -- because they were proud. Religious pride is not Christ-like; it is one of the ugliest things in the world, for it lacks the realization of our own sin before God.

The answer is not "love the sinner, hate the sin." It is "Who is the source of truth?" Humans are not the source of truth; our opinions of what constitute right and wrong are irrelevant. If a husband and wife both agree to bring a third party into their bed, this is not justified merely because they've decided it will fulfill them. God decided what sex is and what the parameters of morality are regarding sex. God said, "Keep the marriage bed holy." We follow God on His terms, not ours.

To be a Christ follower is to follow Christ in all things, whether or not we agree with Him. We do not have the right to countermand God, and neither do we have the perogative to be self-righteous. The answer is neither to redefine sin, nor to stand on our own righteousnesses, which are "filthy rags," (Isaiah 64:6) but to put our pride to death in response to His finished work, to allow the Spirit to crucify the flesh. The crucified cannot act in any other way but compassion, because they are also acutely aware of the truth. Grace and truth only come through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)

"This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." (1 John:5-10)

Uncovering Tolerance and Compassion--An Answer to “Hiding Out with Tolerance and Compassion”, in the Huffington Post

Many people think that tolerance and compassion are ideals that should be embodied.  I would agree, but only after we define the terms.  Tolerance has come to mean “embrace”, “affirm”, “agree”, “support”, and “defend”.  However, when we tolerate something, are we really embracing, affirming, agreeing, supporting, and defending something?  Synonyms for the word ‘tolerance’ include patience, sufferance, and forbearance. 

One definition for the word “tolerance” is “the allowable deviation from a standard”.  When the word tolerance is used today, which definition are people using?  I find it interesting that many, who use the word in the first sense, will not allow it to be applied to certain things.  In other words, they simply will not tolerate some things.  

In a recent article in the Huffington Post entitled, “Hiding Out with Tolerance and Compassion”, the author, Viashali, says as much.  “Tolerance and compassion are not merely intellectual states of mind. They are meant to be embodied, shared, dare I say it, lived! Tolerance and compassion are divine forms of intelligence that invite us to require more of ourselves.”  “Aren't right and wrong subjective forms of wisdom -- different degrees of the same thing? When I say that, I'm not talking about right and wrong in serial killing, wife beating or child molesting. I'm talking about right and wrong in how one subjectively experiences reality.”

It would seem that the author looks at tolerance and compassion as synonymous with right and wrong as subjective forms of wisdom.  Yet, she is not willing to embrace tolerance when it comes to serial killers, spousal abusers, and pedophiles.  What about their subjective view of reality?  Where is the tolerance, the embracing, the agreement, and the affirmation of murder, brutality, and sexual abuse?  

What she leaves unsaid (but implied) is this…‘Right and wrong are subjective as long as they agree with my view of right and wrong.  As soon as something comes up that I find reprehensible, then it is objectively wrong!’

Right and wrong are mutually exclusive and therefore cannot be different degrees of the same thing.  I find it interesting that she had to make an exception to things like serial killing, wife beating, and child molesting when she spoke of right and wrong as “subjective forms of wisdom…different degrees of the same thing”.  If that definition cannot be applied across the board, then it cannot be applied to any part of the spectrum of right and wrong. 

She goes on to say, “When Albert Einstein was alive, hardly anyone agreed with where he was going in his understanding of time, matter and energy. Imagine Einstein being stifled because Clara Bow or Errol Flynn did not endorse his view of reality!”  

Did you notice that she defines reality as a subjective experience, yet idolizes Einstein for championing objective reality?  Reality is not subjective…it simply is what it is…we can either line up with it as Galileo did, or we can reject it, like those who opposed Galileo did.

She is a person filled with contradictory ideals.  She looks at reality as something to be subjectively experienced and defined, at right and wrong as different degrees of the same thing, and yet, tolerance as right and intolerance as wrong.

I wonder if she would agree that tolerance and intolerance are different degrees of the same thing.

I wonder if she is willing to live in a world that is actually tolerant by her definition. 

I wonder if she tolerates the intolerant. 

I wonder if she realizes that she has been duped by the subtleties of dialectical thought. 

She asks the following question, “Whatever happened to agreeing to disagree?” 

The whole idea of “agree to disagree” is actually ignorance.  What is the point to doing such a thing?  If you and I are in obvious disagreement, we really don’t need to come to an agreement about the fact that we disagree.  It is a given.  When someone is saying, “We just need to agree to disagree”, it is a way of saying “Shut Up!  You can’t tell me I’m wrong, but I don’t have the intellectual argument to defend my position!”

After reading her entire article in the Huffington Post, I did not see her mention “compassion” at all.  Yes, she alluded to it, but she equated tolerance, affirmation, and sympathy (as opposed to empathy).  I wonder if she realizes that she is touting ‘tolerance and compassion’ as “right”, and ‘intolerance and disregard’ as “wrong”.

She is entirely correct in stating, “Free will is a great gift”.  She is correct in her analogy of the need for adolescents to “fit in”.  She is correct in stating, “We live in a free country. There is no caveat that it has to be free to think only what Madonna, Lady Gaga, President Obama or Dick Cheney want you to think.”

Lastly, she is correct in stating, “There used to be a saying you rarely hear these days, "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I would defend your right to say it with my life." Wouldn't it be interesting if that idea were as popular as being politically correct.”[sic]

I may not agree with much of what she had to say in this article.  I actually disagree with most of it.  The majority of what she writes is dialectical subjective nonsense that has no practical application in society or in reality.  However, I will defend with my life her right to say it!