Just in case you are one of those incredibly wonderful people who has been living on a remote island without technology lately or who has the metaphorical equivalent of their head in the sand, there is a pretty massive culture war going on regarding homosexuality and its place in our society.
It all started about 30 years ago but the Gettysburg was just recently won when the Supreme Court finally decided to allow homosexuals to marry. This means that if you are an evangelical, conservative, Republican, Fox News watching, straight, middle class white American your side lost the battle.
And like most sides who lose major battles, it has made that demographic angry, resentful, bitter but most of all desperate. Also, like most wars, the two sides have wanted to do anything possible to win. The so called “bible believing” Christians have shown themselves more than willing to tell lies (a violation of one of the 10 commandments) to gossip and slander (repeatedly forbidden throughout Scripture) to ignore certain parts of Scripture and to sin in their anger. More than that the sun has now set about 100 times since the Supreme Court’s decision and they are still angry.
They feel justified in all this because, as they put it, “we need to take a stand for the Lord and not let ‘them’ win.” This apparently justifies violating all of God’s commandments in order to get others to follow one prohibition repeated only about 4 times in the Bible.
Their go to text has been Romans 1 where the Apostle Paul seems to be the most ardent about homosexuality. Not surprisingly, even my non Christian friends who have never opened a Bible in their lives can give me a rough outline of it.
The premise drawn from Romans 1 (and I would encourage you to actually go read it here) is that if we allow homosexual behavior to become “normalized” then God will destroy us, and probably enjoy doing it.
The desired result is that us good, Bible believing (or ignoring) Christians should boycott the goods of any company who disagrees with us. We should gossip and slander anybody who is not on our side. We should excommunicate those Christians who believe differently than us and, of course, we should not vote for politicians who seem to be even wavering on the issue.
Interestingly, none of these are biblical practices. Actually, I have done some research lately and found the idea of boycott is not even mentioned in Scripture. Never in Scripture are we commanded not to make cakes, process paperwork, bank with or buy goods from people who sin differently than us. In fact Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 addresses those who are refusing to buy meat from idolaters. He tells them to go ahead and purchase and eat freely, even if the owner of the shop sacrificed the meat to idols. Some Christians today would have burned all copies of 1st Corinthians for that one suggestion.
Those Christians, of course, have never read Romans 2 or 3 or 4 or all the way until chapter 12. I don’t even think they have read to the end of chapter 1 where Paul describes “them” as, “Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters,[f] insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” There are 17 adjectives there and to my count 13 of them describe conservative Christianity”
More than that, this list ends a long tyrant against “them.” In the NRSV translation there are over 20 instances of “them” and “their” between Romans 1:18 and Romans 1:32. Clearly this passage is not about “us.” That is, until we reach Romans 2:1 where Paul suddenly swaps the pronoun on the poor Roman Christians by declaring, “Therefore YOU are without excuse.”
It is one the most shocking turns in all of Scripture. Anybody reading this for the first time would be completely caught off guard by Paul suddenly turning on us after decrying all the “thems.”
Paul goes onto explain that we are actually the hateful, insolent, slandering gossips who are under the wrath of God and then concludes in Romans 3:23, “all have sinned and fallen short of giving God the glory that God is due” (my translation).
But don’t worry because in Romans the answers to God’s wrath is not destruction or punishment or even discipline. It is love. While we were yet weak, unable to save ourselves, completely cut off from God and experiencing the consequences of our idolatry, Jesus died for us. (see Romans 5:6-8).
Then we hit Romans 12 where the letter comes full circle. Just as all of our minds were darkened when we worshiped the creation over the creator, Paul now explains that our minds can be enlightened, renewed, restored. So Paul pleads with the Romans and with us to offer ourselves (not “them” selves but “our” selves) as living sacrifices so that God can renew our hearts and minds. Then Paul spends 3 chapters talking about what a mind renewed by the grace of God looks like.
A mind renewed looks like love without hypocrisy. It looks like owing nothing to anybody except love to everybody. It looks like showing hospitality to strangers (i.e. those who are not “us”, i.e. those who sin differently than “us).
It looks like blessing those who persecute us, blessing them without cursing. It looks like feeding our enemies (maybe even making cakes for their weddings) and clothing the naked. It looks like submitting ourselves to everybody, especially authorities and even those who misuse their authority.
If you want to “stand up” for Jesus in these bizarre and changing times, the best way to do that is not boycotting, slandering, gossiping or returning evil for evil but to live your life by the precepts of Romans 12-15. When we bake cakes for those who sin differently than us we are showering the love of God down upon the heads of those who have not yet received and accepted grace. When we enter into polite conversation with them at grocery stores we are showing them an engaging God who is seeking the lost. Heck, we might even try letting them use our buildings. What better way to start a conversation with them! We don’t do any of this in the hopes that “they” will become “us” but that all of us may become more like Christ.
So please stand up for Jesus. Do not be ashamed. Do not back down from loving everybody. Do not shy away from embracing those different than you. Do not stop trying to love without hypocrisy, (which is a Greek word meaning hyper judgmental). Do not stop showing honor and service to everybody you meet.
Or at the very least please stop re-posting all those ridiculous and hurtful articles, memes and posts. You have to start somewhere after all.
Go-Before Grace 