When I was a younger man, a good friend and sister in Christ asked me to help encourage her brother and introduce him to church. I went along to become his friend. This man was going to Art School at the time. I noticed that he was soft spoken and mild mannered. I also noticed that he liked certain kinds of magazines. It did not really bother me then, and I did not really find it odd that he liked these magazines. I just thought that Cleo must appeal to the artsy folks. One evening, I stayed over at his place, and while we chatted until late into the night, he made a couple of passes at me. I politely declined his offer for sex. I continued being his friend, and stayed over his place several times more after that. I invited him to attend church with me, which he often politely declined. Later, we lost contact with each other because I moved out of that city.

Much later, another friend of mine, a brother in Christ, confessed to me that he had been really lonely of late. He recently broke off a relationship with a girl and became vulnerable and needy. He found solace in the friendship and arms of his roommate, another male. He felt distressed and guilty, but tried as he might, he could not break off his relationship with this man. He found himself drawn to him. He was distraught. He thought he ought to refrain from taking communion in church. We had long discussions about this. In the discussions I asked him to consider if he felt compelled by Christ’s love, and acknowledged his need for His forgiveness, grace and mercy. I urged him to reconsider not taking communion as I said to him that communion is not for people who felt they were clean or qualified by the uprightness of their lives, but for those who are unclean and required Christ’s blood to cover him or her. We continued to be close to each other, often going to have meals together and hanging out together. He continued to struggle with his same-sex relationship and although I gave him whatever Christian fellowship he needed, he eventually dropped out of church altogether and we lost contact when I again moved out of that city…

Some years later, at an evangelical college, in a writing class, the instructor put up my paper on an overhead projector as an example of a style of writing he was teaching. The class ripped my paper apart not because it was a bad paper but because of its contents. I had advocated that the church’s duty was to love its neighbor — and who is her neighbor? The homosexual community, I had written. I just didn’t get their strong reaction and opposition to my opinion. The class became so agitated because somehow my views threatened their sense of balance in their world. It probably disturbed them. It was something they probably did not want to hear, nor know about. Why do we tear into a group of people so much? Why do we return their need for love and affirmation with so much rejection and condemnation? Why can’t we learn from our Lord Jesus and speak those life re-affirming words, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more”. Is it because we, like that other group, have to retreat silently because if we hadn’t done so, we would have advocated casting the stones to condemn, ostracize and kill?

I still don’t know what the fuss is.



UPDATE: But what does it really mean to love my gay neighbor? Here in this post I explore the ramification of such a commitment.

When Milton Friedman advocated that the only purpose for a business organization is to maximize the wealth of its shareholders, he was arguing that the firm must take care only of profits as its ultimate purpose. Even if there were other non financial agendas that the firm seeks to accomplish, such as charity and contribution to the social welfare of the community, as long as these decisions were made to ultimately maximize the returns on the shareholders’ investment, the firm has fulfilled its purpose as a social instituion. Such a view of the business organization seems decidedly un-Christian, and so many Christians advocate an opposing view, called the Stakeholder view of the Business.

According to the stakeholder view, there is a fiduciary duty that the firm owes to its diverse stakeholder groups. Stakeholder theorists argue that maximizing profits for shareholders is not the primary purpose of the business, since such a focus will make the organization morally deficient as a social institution. Since businesses are social organizations, they are moral agents and therefore their actions, and decisions have moral implications. Part of the moral responsibilities of these organizations have to do with looking after the social well being of the communities where it functions, the people who impact the organizations and vice versa, its clients, its vendors or suppliers and so on. Therefore, leaders of such organizations have a duty to look at all the facets and agendas of the various groups of stakeholders in its decision making and activities.

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During lunch today, I chatted with my wife, and discussed with her some of the things I posted about last night. I shared with her about some of the things I was thinking about regarding the place of the church family in the process of healing of individuals. My wife took out the book that she is currently reading and read me a passage that I thought was just so apt to what I have been thinking that I’d like to quote it here (incidentally, while I went back to the office, my wife decided to type it up for me in the computer, so that saved me having to re-type it):

This book is a call to connect, to work with people as they struggle to kill their bad urges and pour into them what is most alive within us to help them arouse their good urges.

We’ve thought about a variety of concepts that hopefully can stir us and better equip us to connect:

• The Trinity, the eternally connecting community, a pattern for our relationships.
• The gospel, God’s provision of forgiveness form sin, a future of perfect community, and the freedom to connect more deeply with God, others and ourselves.
• The New Covenant, that wonderful arrangement established by God through which he actually plants the urge to be good within our hearts. We no longer need to merely exhort people to do what’s right or work on people to fix what’s wrong; now we can connect with them to release what’s good.
• God wants us to mortify the flesh, the source of all those bad urges that try to convince us we’d be better off yielding to them, and he helps us destroy our bad urges by arranging for us tso spend time in the desert, to walk in impenetrable darkness, to encounter unexplained difficulties, and to face the damage our selfishness causes others.
• The glory given to us by Christ, empowering us to reveal the Father’s heart as we enter the battle for someone’s soul, develop a vision for what they could become, and release the energy of Christ within us by pouring our own deepest selves into others an so arousing their urges to do good…

…[o]n many occasions, however, something different from healing power comes out of us. When children disappoint us, when friends worry us, when spouses keep their distance, we back away from meaningful engagement. Often we do little more than moralize or, if things seem too complicated, we suggest professional help.

In many interactions with people, we build our cities by looking good, fitting in, impressing someone, or veiling impatience or boredom with social courtesy. Or we busily light a few fires: arguing a point, feeling defensive, or enjoying someone’s agreement too much. Sometimes we whitewash flimsy walls, reminding ourselves that our lives will probably be spared significant tragedy because we deserve certain blessings, we take our faith quite seriously, and we’re rather vital to God’s purposes. Most often we dig our wells, doing whatever it takes to feel the way we want to fell or, if that’s not possible, arranging to feel at least a bit better…

…[t]here is a wonderful energy in each our hearts, placed so deeply in us by the Holy Spirit that no failure or heart break can dislodge it. Our spirit are alive with the actual life of Christ.

The quote is from Connecting-, by Larry Crabb. In this book, Crabb calls for a different kind of community in our churches, one that seeks to heal each other from within, and to partake in the gift of healing from God as we live in community, connecting with one another through the life giving Spirit of God who has been shed abroad in our hearts. My wife thinks it is a powerful book. From what I’ve seen I’d agree with her.