Love the sinner, even (especially?) when he’s gay
Author: rich | Filed under: interesting, questionsHave you heard the saying, “Hate the sin, love the sinner?” It’s a rather popular cliche among conservative/evangelical Christians, especially in reference to homosexuality. Unfortunately, we’re often better at the hate part than the love part.
Last week, an excellent op-ed piece appeared on USAToday.com by 26-year-old Jonathan Merritt titled “An evangelical’s plea: ‘Love the sinner.’” It’s worth clicking through to read the whole thing. But here are some highlights:
Most people know Jesus was amazingly compassionate toward marginalized sinners. Prostitutes, drunks and, worst of all, tax collectors they were some of Jesus’ closest friends. And while the religious aristocracy of Jesus’ day was finding new ways to express sin-hate, Jesus was busy loving every sinner he could find.
The contrast between 21st century Christianity and the Jesus of the Bible is stark. This Jesus the compassionate, loving, “friend of sinners” is difficult to reconcile with an often disconnected, insular, us-vs.-them Christianity.
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The most robust description of love in all of Scripture comes from 1 Corinthians 13, which says, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.” If Christians’ language were marked by these characteristics humility, kindness and grace it would ease tensions and open up avenues for dialogue. It is time for evangelical Christians to reform our rhetoric.
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And it doesn’t end with dialogue. Let us not forget that love is not only a noun, but also a verb. Love is an action. Our assertions that we love our neighbors must be accompanied by visible expressions of that love. Therefore, we need to begin looking for ways to affirm, rather than undermine, our claims to love our gay neighbors.
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Now is the time for those who bear the name of Jesus Christ to stop merely talking about love and start showing love to our gay and lesbian neighbors. It must be concrete and tangible. It must move beyond cheap rhetoric. We cannot pick and choose which neighbors we will love. We must love them all.
I found the article to be refreshing and right on the nose. And it has me thinking…
What are some things that I can be doing, as a follower of Jesus, to love my neighbors who are gay? Anyone want to help me answer that? (Scroll on down to leave a comment…)
Thanks for this, Rich. I love my gay friends by having them to dinner, going out to lunch with them and embracing them after my sermon each Sunday. I just love them, I guess. No strategies. To me, when Love (capitalized on purpose) lives in us, Love loves through us. My gay friends know that I love them, that Love loves them, and that I leave judgement to One higher than I…whose name is Love.
Great thoughts Rich! I blogged on a similar concern on my old blog a while ago. Here is the link if interested: http://noapologyforfaith.blogspot.com/2007/12/can-homosexuals-be-christians.html
My further thoughts — how we deal with people who do not profess belief and those we do should be different. When we quote scripture as a reason to not partake in a particular action or lifestyle, this has zero relevance to those who do not embrace scripture as having relevant truth for them.
We need to get out of the Holy Spirits job, convicting sinners, and get into the commandment Christ said was among the two greatest, love our neighbors — and that shouldn’t just be the neighbors we like.
I believe that we should not worry about how we treat people, because we are supposed to treat everyone the same. Only treat people according to your interactions with them and not what is perceived to be wrong with them. It is when we start to and extra titles to a person that we tend to go astray. We refer to people as my gay neighbor, which indicates that their sexually orientation is the most important part of their life. I have friends who are gay, but they are my friends who happen to be gay. And I treat them only as my friends.
Thanks, guys!
Sounds like you all resonate with what the article’s saying… that we’re to love all of our neighbors, regardless of their sexual orientation or anything else.
It’s unfortunate that the church (which would include me) hasn’t consistently done this. One recent study of younger people’s perceptions of Christians showed that 91% of them think we’re “anti-homosexual.” Yikes. I’d like to think that if we did a better job of loving all our neighbors this percentage would be much, much lower.
BTW, that’s from Kinnaman & Lyons’ book unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters. That’s the Amazon.com link. You can also visit http://www.unChristian.com.
Great question, Rich. Jesus continually loved people yet maintained a solid stance on sin. My comment got rather lengthy, and I decided to make it a post. Please read my response to your question at http://prayeramedic.com/2009/04/is-it-ok-to-be-gay/
Rich,
You got me back on blogs…Dan encouraged me to check this out…
Great thought-provoking question!! I enjoy hanging out with my gay friends like i do all my other friends…all my gay friends are non-Christian. I play games with them, watch movies, meet up for coffee, talk about life and be real with them…they don’t have a plague! They are no different than ALL the other people we interact with daily. I hope that you are able to get some great suggestions!
God Bless!
Hey Rich, just wondering if you had a chance to view my post, I’d love to hear your comments. I’m not sure if you already had commented but it somehow got blocked by the spam filter? Please let me know if you already left a comment, I will search Akismet.
I’d read it but hadn’t posted a comment until just now. I wasn’t spending quite as much time in blog-world for a couple days there.
Very interesting read, I think their would be a lot of mixed opinions on this. Love the theme that you are using, what is it?
Welcome to the blog, Anika! The theme is called ImpreZZ. There’s a link to the designer’s website in the footer.