Big, important, and as yet unanswered questions

Disclaimer: Long post below. I claim no responsibility for time lost reading this post. If you are cooking something, finish it first before you read this. It's long. Real long. Unexpectedly long. But hopefully thought-provoking. Read at your own risk.


A conversation came up the other day (after the previously blogged fashion show which was actually tons of fun) between Tiara, myself, and another of our close friends. Like most really deep conversations, it wasn't planned, and we have no idea how our line of discourse led us there, but somehow we ended up talking about homosexuality and why it is (or isn't) wrong in the context of biblical morality. I'll make this clear first and foremost, I don't think it's right. My understanding of the scriptures and the character and purposes of God has led me to the strong conviction that God didn't design us for homosexual relationship, and that such relationships really skew the image of God in human beings. I should also make it clear that I don't see homosexuality as a different kind of sin, or somehow any more or less evil than any other sin. Just like sins of selfishness, envy, anger, gluttony, unforgiveness, murder, theft, etc., homosexuality, or, for that matter, unhealthy heterosexual relationships, portray God and His children in a false light. God created each of us to be essentially like Him, to reflect His image in a unique way that can't be found in anyone or anything else. While we're here on the earth, He desires to use us to show Himself to other people incarnationally, as the adopted brothers and sisters of Christ. Any sinful action, petty or felonious, not only affects one's own ability to hear, see, feel, and understand God, but has tremendous impact on other people too. This is especially true for those with whom one has a close relationship. If this relationship is founded on truth and love, and is centered on God and directed by the Holy Spirit, God can work through our mistakes and redeem our relationships in spite of our shortcomings. But if a relationship is founded on something other than the truth of God, whether it's a homosexual relationship or an abusive relationship or a relationship of manipulation, deception, etc., it will have extremely limited potential to reflect the image and character of God. In such a situation, it is the very foundation of that relationship that must be redeemed and replaced with truth before it can bear good fruit.

So that's my ideological perspective on the situation. In the conversation, we didn't all have the same opinion on that. For whatever reason, the bible isn't entirely clear on WHY homosexuality is a sin. And unfortunately, a large portion of the church has been content with a "because the bible says so" explanation, which I think falls tragically short of what God really wants for us. He doesn't want us to simply accept His rules because they're the rules; He wants us to know Him, to understand Him, to embrace the truth because we have seen it to be true, to reject lies because we see them to be lies. He wants us to come to Him with questions of why. He's our Father, not some autocratic dictator, and He wants our love as well as our obedience. And I believe that when we come to Him with these questions, and ask them with an open heart and an open mind, He has promised to answer. I believe this is part of what Jesus suggests in Matthew 7 when He says "Ask, and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you." It's part of what God speaks to Israel through Jeremiah in chapter 29, saying "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

So here's what I'm asking, and hoping to receive.

How do I explain this to someone I love who is struggling with homosexuality, without coming across as judgemental or condemning or holier-than-thou? I know that a part of loving someone is talking to them about things they are doing that hurt themselves and others. But in this, where is the balance between the cold, hard truth and compassion? How do I communicate to that person, "I love you unconditionally, and that will never, ever change, under any circumstances. But I think you are hurting yourself by doing this." Largely because of the way the church has dealt with homosexuality, along with what I see as the natural human defense mechanism, the "I think you are hurting yourself" comes across as judgemental, even when spoken in love, and the "I love you unconditionally" gets lost in the fray. I think part of the answer that God has been showing me revolves around the necessity of deep, loving, transparent relationships with people, both Christian and non-Christian. For example, if I walk up to someone I know from a class whom I know to be homosexual, and start talking to them about how I think what they are doing is wrong and hurtful, that person will probably not receive me very well. Even if I express to them clearly and repeatedly that I am doing this out of compassion and love, and I just want to see them take hold of the best God has for them, my words are probably falling on deaf ears. I don't have much credibility with someone I barely know. I haven't spent time with that person, invested in that person, shared my life with that person, made myself vulnerable to that person. In short, I haven't been Christ to that person. I've been a prophet and a judge, but not a brother or a friend or a servant. And honestly, even in my group of friends at school, there are only a few people with whom I feel like my relationship is close enough and strong enough to bring confrontation like that. To me, the key, as Paul points out numerous times, is that the relationship itself is the most important thing, because it represents the unity of the Body of Christ. If the relationship isn't deep enough to withstand such a confrontation, I should probably wait. Not only because I risk alienating that person, but because that probably indicates that I am not close enough to really see what is going on in his/her life. I've probably taken an incomplete picture and filled in the blanks with assumptions. But if that person has let me in and allowed me to see who he/she really is, and I've done the same in return, I will be able to see and understand what is really going on, and I will know how to approach him/her in a way that won't offend or insult. If I know that the bonds between us are deep and strong and rooted in real love, I have the responsibility to confront issues of sin. And in doing so, I know I'm not risking the unity of our relationship, because I know that the other person knows I really love him/her, and that anything I say is out of that love rather than judgement or self-righteousness.

I think this is true on the level of group to group relationships as well. Right now, there is very little room for constructive dialogue between the church and the homosexual community, because there is not much mutual respect. The church sees homosexuals as liberal lust-driven perverts who want to corrupt their children and destroy their cities. The homosexual community sees the church as a group of fire-breathing, judgemental, right-wing conservative bigots whose preferred method of confrontation involves pitchforks and hangman's nooses, or at least picket signs and streetcorner sermons. Both groups have formed these images based on a small sample of the other, and love and value for their shared human-ness has disappeared from the equation. Now, the church tends to automatically discount the questions and points of view of homosexuals. Homosexuals similarly brush off most anything the church says because it's presumed to be judging or self-righteous. The only way to break down these walls is to prove that they aren't based on truth. If Christians realized that their first duty was loving people, not fixing them, then we would see more success in building relationships with homosexuals. If we looked at them as people who need love rather than problems who need solutions, we would see that we aren't really very different. If we really got to know people, and let them really know us, we would find that there is amazing ability to help each other get through our struggles and come out on top. We have to realize and accept that it will be a two way deal; we need them as much as they need us.

So here's a few questions for which I don't yet have many answers. When (not if) same-sex marriage/civil unions become more widespread in the US and the world, how should the church respond? If two men/two women who are legally married to each other become Christians and start getting involved in the church, should they be forced to split up? Can the church maintain it's moral integrity and still allow them to be together? If they are required to split up, should that include legal divorce/termination of their civil union? Legally, would churches who required such couples to split up risk losing non-profit status on the grounds of discrimination? How should the church approach people who are born hermaphrodites, and are not clearly one gender or the other? Should these people be denied the option of marriage? Should they be forced to "choose" to be treated as either male or female, or is it better to encourage them (and ourselves) to embrace the way that God created them? What about those who are transgendered? If someone who has had a sex change becomes a Christian and wants to marry, what should the church do? If someone was born physically male, and had surgery to become female, is it acceptable for them to marry a man, despite having been born male, or a woman, despite their current physical status?

When it comes down to it, I guess this is just a whole lot more complicated than most Christians think it is. We would like it to be a simple black or white, true or false, right or wrong, good or evil equation, but it just isn't that easy. And we would like it if there was a clear, explicit scriptural instruction for each of these situations, but there isn't. Maybe it's just a matter of simply loving people the way God has loved us. If that were simply black or white, good or evil, every one of us would fall on the evil/black side, and I gotta say I'm glad that's not the case. I'm glad Jesus loves a bunch of people who haven't done a single thing to earn it, who fall squarely in the gray area, and loves them enough to get tortured and killed so they have a shot at realizing who they really are.

This has been a bajillion times longer than I intended. If you made it this far, it's probably either because you think I'm a crazy liberal relativist who may not even be saved, or because these questions/potential answers have made you think. If you're in the second group, please post your thoughts. I don't by any means think that I have all the answers, or that the ones I have written here are bulletproof. Poke holes in these thoughts, pick them apart, dissect them. God speaks through constructive dialogue, and I wouldn't mind hearing what He has to say here.