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)
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