by Liz Ivkovich
“What is my posture before God and reality?” I receive the Center for Action and Contemplation’s daily reflections and that was the question just a few weeks ago. I’ve been challenged recently by Andrew for not living up to my contributor role here on the blog. I also felt convicted by the Onion article he posted. I’m pretty good at biting my tongue in the internet, especially because I love my Christian friends who have more orthodox views than I do and I hate the idea of offending them.
Then I read “When Elijah saw how things were he ran for dear life…” And I see myself as Elijah running away from Jezebel in fear, right after seeing God perform a miracle. Maybe in running I’m committing a greater sin than offending some of my friends, I’m biting my tongue in fear instead of speaking words of love.
“What is my posture before God and reality?” The reality of the world is the problem for me with homosexuality and Christianity. It’s a really cut and dry issue in a lot of faith communities; including the Roman Catholic Tradition that I have professed and the Born Again traditions I was raised in. The thing for me in 2009 is that a cut and dry stance on human sexuality based on as Walter Wink says, a culturally (Western Christian sub-culture) developed sexual ethic from Scripture doesn’t reflect the reality of my experience; my experience as a friend to people who are gay.
Once a woman I admire and respect said to me “Who would ever choose to be gay? Why would anyone want to choose that suffering?” As I thought about that it made sense. Maybe a few people, but out of all the entire LGBT population, especially the Christian LGBT population, I can’t imagine every single one of them is in rebellion against culture, enjoys being outcast, typecasted, stereotyped and judged.
If I’m facing the reality of the people, the names and faces of those that are my friends, I feel like I can’t run away from the way things are with a black and white stance, and that is what many of us as Christians are doing. Seems like a lot of people with cut and dry stances on homosexuality only have one acquaintance who is gay, or they might have had several experiences to reflect on, but very limited interpersonal interaction. Another friend that I love and respect once said “I have no problem telling my gay friend [singular] that I believe he is sinning.”
That, to me, is the great luxury that well-resourced, educated heterosexual Christians have and use. We can sit, comfortably displaced from the pain, anxiety and hurt of being gay and condemn or debate the Biblical merits of varying levels of pro-gay or anti-gay theology. It doesn’t seem much different than when people in a Bible study debate whether or not you should give a buck to someone who is begging. It’s interesting and important to use our logic and reason and apply those to today’s issues, but at some point we have to come out of the tower of our minds and face reality. People are hurting, people are starving, and people are gay.
I didn’t blog for the Synchroblog because I realized that I don’t know enough yet to debate Biblical theology around homosexuality. Then I heard “What is my posture before God and reality?” I don’t think this conversation should stay at the level of theology because that posture is one of running away from the way things are. It should find a starting point in Scripture but not be disconnected from the reality of the world, and the hope that we have of finding Jesus in the places where people are neglected, forgotten, or abused.
Thanks for the thoughts Liz. With respect to orthodox Christians and offence- Paul says in 1 Cor 13 that love takes no offence. It seems that my fellow orthodox doctrinal-basis signing, creed reciting, John-Piper-loving Christians don’t pay particular heed to that injunction. So keep talking!
I think I am coming to the conclusion that in the 21st Century we will be called to deepen this conversation a great deal and to do it by advocating with our own lives a sexual ethic that transcends the avoiding of transgression.
Jesus calls us to a radical discipleship- with our body, our mind, our heart and our soul enjoined for that pilgrimage. So it seems that we can break new ground where we can be faithful to his testimony that sexual intercourse is a covenantal practice that takes place inside marriage and welcome a diversity of people into the church who live outside of marriages. But it will take communities who are going to follow that call to live radically in grace together.
Or in other words, hopefully less abstract, your friend is not wrong to (lovingly) tell their gay friend (and we can’t blame her because she doesn’t have a big social circle!) that they are sinning but are they:
a) In the context of a relationship where that moves someone closer to God (even if it is a tough challenge)
b) Willing to take the same prophetic stand against their Christian friends who are addicted to consumerism or patriotism or any of the other “private” idolatries that we tend not to name?
Thanks Kevin for your comment, I appreciate the disagreement and several of your points, including that about offense. We’ll all do better to not take offense and live in radical grace relationships to each other.
Think standards and grace can co-exist. The only answer for the human condition is Jesus. Sin is our condition. For some its the homosexual lifestyle w/ urges so intense that a person just caves in an accepts it as normal. Though that’s the truth with a multitude of sins even in the sexual sins category.
If I am to believe scripture I am to believe that knowing Christ is life changing, and that sometimes sin is hard to shake off….we become new creatures in Christ and can overcome. Be it the drunk, murder, adulterer, the theif, the homosexual….all of us were defined by something before Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (New Living Translation)
9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
There is hope for anyone stuck in sin.