I support gay rights. Let me explain to you why:
I've dedicated a lot, a lot, a lot of prayer to this issue. And you know what? I might be wrong. I've been wrong before. It's bound to happen again and again. But I strongly believe, based on past experience, that when I'm wrong, God is pretty quick in sending me a passage or a friend or a book or a blog or a message of some sort and letting me know. So until that happens, I will remain convinced. I trust God completely, and part of that means trusting my own instinct in recognizing when He is trying to tell me something. As a Christian, it's still relatively taboo to openly support homosexuality and, to be perfectly honest, I understand why. As a confused Christian, I can totally understand how fellow Christians would be confused, or unsure, or insecure regarding their stance on this topic. I can absolutely understand how Christians can be totally, completely convinced that homosexuality is God's modern-day plague on Earth.
My view on the matter is this, though. After praying and praying and praying, God sent me these two verses. I say "sent" because I received them both through my verse of the day email. (To tell you the truth, I think that God talks to me a lot this way. Either that, or their publisher knows exactly what I need to hear and is probably stalking me.)
Matthew 22:37-39:
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
And Romans 13:9-10
The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Upon seeing both of these, my mind immediately jumped to homosexuality. Marriage is one of the things that I crave most in this world. If I am to love my neighbor as myself, how could I possibly try to deny them love and marriage? I would never, ever say to myself, "Molly, you can't get married." (Okay, maybe if Christ led me towards a life of single-hood, but that's beside the point). So what right do I have to say, "Neighbor, you can't get married."
Since concreting this decision, I have had doubts, it's true. And I've thought about and prayed about these doubts a lot. And, like I said, I may be wrong. But so far, my doubts have primarily centered around "What if I am wrong and I have to admit I am wrong and that will embarrass me!" Not one of my doubts has been "What if I am wrong to love my neighbor as myself?"
You're right, this is an extremely hot topic and one that, even within and amongst Christians, is debatable. I've gone back and forth about what to say or how to respond, and it's terribly difficult to say anything without it becoming a cyclical argument or discussion.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I thought I would share what Joel and I believe and just see what happens...
We believe 100% in the Bible as God's breathed Word: His commands, desires, instructions and encouragement for believers. This means that we believe when the Bible says, "XYZ," we accept it as truth, including that the Bible says homosexuality is a sin.
HOWEVER, just saying that homosexuality is a sin and leaving it so barren, hopeless and dark is not what the Bible teaches us about love, grace, mercy, salvation and redemption. In fact, stating that homosexuality (or anything else, really: selfishness, pride, hatred, etc.) is sinful and running away from it fast and far is what I believe the exact opposite of the Bible.
So yes, homosexuality is a sin, and therefore I choose not to celebrate it in our culture by advocating for the change of legislation and gay marriage. I choose not to do this because to me, that is not love: to encourage others to stay in their sin and not speak truth to them (in absolute love and kindness) is not what the Bible calls Christians to do.
I think Tim Keller has an amazing perspective on this topic, and articulates himself much better than I can. Here is a quote from an interview on homosexuality:
"What sends you to Hell is self-righteousness – thinking that you can be your own savior and lord. What sends you to heaven is getting a connection with Christ because you realize you’re a sinner and you need intervention from outside. That’s why it is very misleading actually to say, even to say, ‘Homosexuality is a sin.' Yes, of course homosexuality is a sin because greed is a sin, because all kinds of things are sins. But what most Christians mean when they say that and certainly what non-Christians think they hear when they hear that is ‘If you’re gay, you are going to Hell for being gay’. It’s just not true. Absolutely not true."
So to me, it is clear: homosexuality (and SO many other things- I cannot stress that enough) is a sin, so we do not say this is an acceptable lifestyle, regardless of physiological, biological or chemical conditions one may say is the reason for this type of practice, because as Christians we have a desire to see others know and love Christ, to be redeemed, not to encourage their depravity.
We wholeheartedly believe in having loving, caring friendships with non-Christians, including the gay community. To "love others as we love ourselves" is certainly not limited to other Christians, but the hurting world as a whole. Jesus loved and spent time with some of the most depraved individuals around: thieves, murderers, prostitutes and other various sinners. His ministry was not isolated to his believing followers. I think when the Bible speaks of loving others as we would ourselves, it means that we should have a care and a desire to protect the poor, the desolate, the hurting, the widowed, the undesirables.
I hope that this makes sense! Truly, my intention is not to be argumentative or divisive, but to share what we believe.