Out-Reach

So I was sitting in the section of the Rice Memorial Center where all the GLBT magazines sit neatly in their racks, and the cover of OutSmart caught my eye. I ended up reading an article, a letter addressed to Joel Osteen, that I found really interesting -- here are some excerpts:

"Silence can say harsh things. Joel Osteen's refusal to speak an opinion on God and homosexuality has ruffled either side of the issue -- those who say it's a sin and those who believe it's not. A man who reaches more than 40,000 people at Lakewood each week and another 200 million television viewers worldwide should take a stand on one of today's most pressing societal issues."

"Mr. Osteen...expect a group of at least two dozen gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders, along with their families and supportive church leaders, to visit Lakewood on Mother's Day. Lakewood is the first of six megachurches that The American Family Outing will attend through Father's Day hoping to address family, faith, and sexual orientation in friendly sit-down conversations with members of those congregations."

The article went on to discuss the AFO's initiative to start dialogues with large Christian communities to reconcile the belief and cultural differences between the two groups.

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This irony in this article is staggering. Who is supposed to be reaching out to whom?

It is humbling to realize that the gay community, or some organizations within it, are reaching out in love and reconciliation to the very body of Christ that is supposed to have lovingly and sacrificially brought that gospel to them. It's about as paradoxical as Gentiles reaching out to the Jews through whom God revealed Himself and His word and His Son. God has a funny way of flipping peoples' roles.

Here are my basic thoughts on the issue:

-- Pursuing homosexuality is a sin. It's no worse a sin than any other, and no better.

-- Homosexuality is made more controversial than other sins for three reasons: one, it's often seen as a natural, inherent part of a person's identity, and two, people are often very proud, defensive, and indignant about homosexuality in a way you wouldn't see with other sins, and three, it doesn't have the immediate apparent destructive consequences of some other sins, for example, murder or stealing.

-- It's not the best argument to say that homosexuality must be controllable, or must be a sinful choice, because God says it's wrong in the Bible. People are born with a sin nature, a natural inclination to sin. People who are born with bad tempers are naturally predisposed to wrath; people who are horny are predisposed to sexual sin and lust. By this reasoning, I do think people can be born with homosexual temperaments.

I often forget that our relationship with God is always grace first. I think gays often get the message that they have to change themselves before they can enter God's house and worship Him with His family. It's really the other way around. God's grace enables and necessitates transformation, not for gays, but for everyone. I think liberal Christianity often plays down the fact that sin, including homosexual sin, brings death. The grace of Jesus Christ is the only means for that -- we need to tell each other that! Doesn't that provide a great answer to the question of whether to be zealous for God's standards or whether to be loving and accepting? I think when people get stuck hard on the question of love versus justice, they are forgetting in part the magnitude and transformative nature of God's grace.

We are very hypocritical. I found myself glancing around the RMC every few minutes to see if anyone I knew were walking by watching me read OutSmart. I wondered if people would think I was gay, and then I wondered why in the world that should bother me, when we all profess to be redeemed sinners. I think many of my friends suffer from the same self-consciousness.

It looks like in this case, the AFO has their priorities in order, and it is humbling. People making themselves right isn't God's game, for defiant homosexuals or for self-righteous Christians. God's Kingdom is about encouraging each other to pursue God, and letting everything else follow from His grace and redemption. And after we remove the plank from our own eyes, God still wants us to help others get their splinters out.