Are you gay affirming?
20 Aug
“Are you gay affirming?” I believe this is the question for the church in the year of our Lord, 2011.
To their credit most churches have moved beyond the gay bashing & homophobic tendencies of previous generations, but it seems we’ve stalled out. By that I mean, we haven’t made the move from gay accepting to gay affirming.
Gay accepting invites people to come as they are but demands that they change. It views homosexuality as a sin that any truly godly person will eventually move beyond (or die trying).
Gay affirming sees no sin, demands no change and actually celebrates gay individuals and couples.
The terms themselves “accepting vs. affirming” may seem like splitting hairs but the descriptions above show the gulf between the two.
In the meantime church leaders continue to be quite flabbergasted by gay couples who attend their church, ask to meet with the leadership team, are told that the church is “gay accepting” – which when asked to clarify reveals the description above – at which point the couple storms out of the meeting never to return. “Why did they have to be so rude? Didn’t they understand that we accept them?” the leader bemoans. Of course if we put ourselves in their shoes for a moment we see the hypocrisy of it all.
Imagine that the year is 1970 and you and your spouse are a bi-racial couple. You’ve been visiting a local church for a few weeks and, knowing the controversy your union sometimes makes, you schedule a meeting with the elders of the church just to make sure everything is on the up and up. You arrive to smiles and small talk until finally the real question comes up: how do they feel about your marriage and are they willing to not only accept, but encourage and celebrate your union? Now the smiles are gone as you’re told in carefully chosen words that while you’re certainly free to attend the church, because after all they’re a very progressive and welcoming bunch, a marriage like yours isn’t well, God’s “best” because it’s clear in the Scriptures that God didn’t intend the co-mingling of races. However, they quickly add, everyone at the church is working through their own “issues” and so you’re welcome to come and do the same.”
That’s not a welcome – it’s a slap in the face.
You see, it’s one thing for a pastor to stand before her congregation and say, “We’re a church that’s called to love people just like Jesus would – that means all people – regardless of color, gender, or sexual orientation.” This is a statement that causes the faithful to rise to their feet in thunderous applause (e.g. Bill Hybels this week).
The bigger, and I would argue more courageous step, is for an evangelical pastor to stand before his congregation and say, “I want to extend a personal invitation to every gay, bisexual & transgender person in our city – we love and accept you as you are and we demand no change in your sexual orientation to become not only a valued member at our church, but a leader as well. We also reject any interpretation of scripture or understanding of God that views a person’s sexual orientation as sin. We are not only gay accepting – we are gay affirming.”
Right now we’re content to pat ourselves on the back for being gay accepting. In reality that takes little courage and doesn’t make anyone blink an eye (accept maybe the stodgiest of oldtimers).
In the name of love and justice, it’s time for me – for us – to come out of the closet and announce that we are gay affirming.
Interesting question Brett. I think we need to step back and ask a different question though. Is scripture gay affirming?
While I agree the church has treated gays extremely poorly which was certainly the wrong approach, I don’t think Chirst would affirm the behavior of the church or the behavior of the homosexual.
Not gay bashing, just my point of view.
i see new testement scripture as totally gay affirming, i can see why churches take the gay accepting position – and for many it is the only honest position they can take without a profound change in theology. i couldntjoin a church with views like that but not sure building barriers against them is helpfull. churches id be more pissed off with are ones that are gay affirming in theology but err quitely in case they upset anybody! think the church i go to only one in the city to have significant reconisable presence on our city’s pride march!
Brett,
“Gay affirming sees no sin, demands no change and actually celebrates gay individuals and couples.”
Where in the scriptures is this?
Hey Steve, Thanks for chiming in. You make a good point about churches that are quietly gay affirming – I certainly hope for more openness in the future on the part of the church.
Hey Baker and Billy, my response to your questions ended up being quite long, so I ended up writing a new post on the topic (http://bretttilford.com/2011/08/homosexuality-what-about-the-scriptures/). I hope this offers some clarity. Thank you guys for sensitively disagreeing – I know this can be an incendiary topic.
Hey Brett, I’ve read this and your most recent post regarding Scripture. I agree with both you and Baker in that the response of Christians to, not just the idea of homosexuality, but individuals within the LGBT community has often been pretty terrible. I’ve had people tell me, “Yeah, I don’t really like Christians because I’m gay…” and then awkwardly trail off because they don’t want to be rude.
But I would say that I don’t see an apples to apples parallel between something like bi-racial marriage and homosexuality, although certainly you’re right in saying both have been (and still are) divisive. Yes, there are likely parallels in the way churches have handled those issues, but to me there’s a fundamental difference between color and kind–black/white versus male/female.
To ignore it is to ignore physical design as well as emotional design. I think there’s a beauty that’s present in the complementarian understanding of heterosexual marriage that could never exist in the same way within a homosexual marriage. I don’t mean to say the love is lesser–that same sex couples somehow have a cheapened version of love–only that it circumvents design. That’s not a political argument, or even a moral argument. I suppose it’s closer to teleological. I believe it to be evident from Scripture but I also believe it to be evident from both nature and human nature.
As always, I appreciate your thoughtfulness on these issues.
Matt
Hey Matt,
Good to hear from you. I think you make a good point about design and the complementary nature of the sexes. I’m not exactly sure where you’re going with it (maybe that “marriage” continues to be defined as 1 male and 1 female while a “civil union” or some other arrangement that has the legal benefits of marriage is enacted for same sex couples) but either way I appreciate you chiming in sir.
-Brett
Hey Brett, thanks for the response. I was using the point about design to express why I believe God intends marriage to be one man and one woman. But to your point–I don’t think that’s a political argument because we’re (thankfully) not in a theocracy. I affirm the right of homosexual couples to marry. Making it illegal doesn’t make people un-gay. I don’t think it’s a good thing for society since it’s not really a sustainable family structure for more than one generation, but I also don’t see how it can be opposed on any secular political grounds or what real benefit is to be gained from obstructing it.
Brett, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I feel so blessed when Christians who have no personal reason to question the Church’s traditional stance on this topic, still take the time and effort to engage it head on with an open mind and desire to understand rather than condemn.
@Matthew, I used to get similarly frustrated when I’d hear people compare the gay civil rights issue to racial issues. Here’s a blog post I read recently that I thought shed some good light on why that comparison is often made: http://desjardi11.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/jesus-the-bible-and-homosexuality/
We can take heart in that God is not ambiguous on this issue. It can be logically concluded through scripture and the discernment that comes from the Spirit of God that God is not gay affirming. While gay bashing, homophobia, unfairness, etc are all prevalent realities and none of us reading this blog want to see those things persist and bring confusion to the Body and to the world again we can take heart that God is not confused on this issue and we shouldn’t be either.
Hi Kyle,
I agree that God is not ambiguous on this issue.
I’m assuming we are reading the same Bible and there is only 1 Holy Spirit, my logical conclusion through scripture and the discernment that comes from the Spirit of God, is that God actually has nothing against people who are attracted to the same sex.
I think that accepting means to agree with, which means that you need to ‘accept’ the way they are. There isn’t a process of accepting to affirming a homosexual. Your idea of inviting “people to come as they are but demands that they change” just proves that you have not accepted them for the way they are. The bible says many things that are claimed to be sins. Such as calling someone foolish is punishable by no entry to heaven. To this most people say, no that is a extreme way of interpreting the bible. Well to that I say, then why do people go out of their way to cause violence in the name of their lord? Why not claim everyone is a sinner and move on from there? It is stupid in of itself to judge one person in the first place, when the bible says specifically not to do that. So leave homosexuals alone, and focus on your own life. YOU SINNER! lol jkjk
but seriously
Hey Jonathan,
Thanks for chiming in, but I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood me completely. I’m critiquing the view that welcomes the GLBTQ community “as they are” but then turns around and demands that they change. You may need to give this a quick re-read!
Cheers,
Brett
excellent post, brett. i had similar thoughts that same week (wcagls) entitled, ‘anti-gay.’ http://mjkimpan.com/2011/08/24/anti-gay/
i fear often times when our leaders and churches believe they’re making progress, we often fail to live up to the call for truth, justice and love. in other words, human decency. may we develop the strength to do so.