Coming Out: Queer People and the Kingdom of God

natejlee / March 31, 2014 / 6 Comments / Church, Jesus, Justice, Sexuality

The first time anyone came out to me, I was a junior in college. Up until that point, I didn’t have any close friends who I knew were queer (the word I’ll be using most to talk about folks who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, or trans (LGBTQ)), and like many of my Christian peers, I had already succumbed to the dangerous act of forming opinions without any actual experiences to back them up. So when my friend came out to me, my theology proved rather useless. I may have known what I was supposed to believe in that moment, but I didn’t know what to do or say; no one had ever told me that a listening ear and a big warm hug could mean the world in such situations.

As a straight person, I will never be able to fathom the weight of such an act. How sacred it is when we remove our masks. I loved my friend before they came out to me and I love them now several years after the fact. That love does not change nor does it necessitate change. Love does not love for a desired outcome; it does not love with agenda. Love just loves. I hope I am never convinced otherwise.

And a month after my first coming out conversation, another friend came out to me. I don’t know why there was a sudden spike in the number of coming out conversations in my life (did I change my hairstyle?), but I started to wonder if God was trying to show me something of himself. Soon, I was convinced that love without understanding was a tree without roots. I could not claim to love my queer friends with any kind of integrity if I did not work to first understand queer identity, for to talk about homosexuality as an abstract idea was easy; to be about queer people, to join them, listen to them, submit to them, and to accept their anger and apologize for it in word and deed—well, that took some courage.

The Love I see exhibited by Jesus is a love that joins. In response to his love, I joined a queer organization on campus at Cal. There, I heard story after painful story about people who had been hurt by the church, and I learned to sit with them in that pain without trying to justify it or separate myself from those who, for better or worse, also claimed the name “Christian.” Most people there welcomed me and I became friends with a lot of awesome folks. Others, once they found out I was a Christian, weren’t as thrilled. And I don’t blame them; if I were gay, I probably wouldn’t trust Christians either. It turns out that building bridges between the queer and Christian communities isn’t really about building at all; it’s about deconstructing assumptions and experiences, about apologizing and undoing a lot of ugliness and hurt.
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This past week, there has been a firestorm of opinion regarding Richard Stearns, President of World Vision, and his decision and subsequent undecision to employ people in same-sex relationships. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me that Stearns would allow same-sex relationships citing “Christian unity” and “not caving to some kind of pressure” and then reverse his decision two days later. Either the Holy Spirit changed its mind or Christians are some of the biggest bullies in the world. Tell me, what is the greater “disaster”? That World Vision is allowing gay and lesbian employees or that the Assemblies of God denomination encouraged its members to withdraw all their donations from World Vision? I agree—cutting off financial support for over 2000 children in the third world is probably the most Christ-like way to prove a point. Rachel Held Evans writes in a very insightful piece:

Stearns said that some people, satisfied with the reversal, have called World Vision headquarters to ask, “Can I have my child back?” as though needy children are expendable bargaining chips in the culture war against gay and lesbian people.

Maybe other folks have already removed the planks from their eyes. Maybe their conscience is clear enough for them to systematically oppress queer people, but I am enraged at the Christian community’s response to these events. When these things happen, I am ashamed to call myself a Christian. (Perhaps Evangelical Christian would be more precise, but we nonetheless claim the same name, “Christian.” It seems like every day I am finding new reasons to resent American Evangelicalism.)

This is my honest assessment: We, the Church, have failed. We are nearly incapable of the love Jesus spoke of and we look nothing like the God we follow. We are self-centered, exclusive, ignorant, arrogant, and concerned more with being correct than being compassionate. We have failed. Our failure is not a result of *almost* allowing gay people to participate in the Kingdom; our failure is our inability to love anyone who is different than us (that is, both queer people and other Christians). So today I lament and grieve not for Stearns’ decisions, but for a church in civil war, a complete vortex of humility, a fearful people unable to have any semblance of constructive dialogue.

A gay person in World Vision will not corrupt World Vision nor will it harm the witness of the Church in the world; we’re already doing a hell of a job at that. World Vision is doing good work for children globally and regardless of their employment practices, I believe in the fruit of their work. Likewise, a gay person on a church’s staff will not bring the wrath of God upon that church. Trust me. I have been an unrepentant sinner in Christian organizations too. I did not invite God’s judgment upon Intervarsity or First Chinese Baptist Church (at least I hope I didn’t) for my unrepentant pride, lust, or greed. The reality is that there are queer people in all of our churches and fellowships—surprise! You probably just don’t know about them. They are hiding, afraid, ashamed, suicidal, depressed, and they have spent years hearing their pastors and friends convince them that they are rebellious sinners, incapable of being loved by the God who made them.

The Jesus I know is not like this. The Jesus I know sought out folks like this. He made sure that everyone knew that they were invited to the Party, especially those whose invitations were ripped up by the spiritual elite (Luke 14:13). If you cannot fathom heaven with gay people in it, then you have already missed the whole point of why the Party was thrown in the first place. The truth is, we were all invited from the get go. There are just some of us who are too proud to rsvp when we see that the “sinners” we have separated ourselves from are on the guest list too.

Call me what you want, a universalist, a relativist… Am I compromising Scripture to fit my own personal perception of the world? I’m not too arrogant to admit that this just might be the case. But if that’s the case, then I believe Jesus compromised Scripture in order to love people too. Because the people he loved—the bleeding woman (Lev 15:9; Luke 8:43), lepers (Lev 13:8; Matt 8:3), prostitutes (Lev 19:29; Luke 7:39), and adulterers (Lev 20:10; John 8:4)—were condemned by Scripture too. And Jesus was chastised by religious leaders for his unbiblical associations with these folks. So did Jesus compromise Scriptural integrity by loving these people? Was he affirming the paralytic lifestyle? Did he support the adulterous agenda? Or was that not the point at all? Maybe those questions never even crossed the mind of a Messiah too busy loving people to throw them into simplistic categories. And look, even if Jesus labeled these people as “sinners” according to Levitical Law, it didn’t stop him from loving them, touching them, joining them, eating with them, or fighting for their dignity, respect, and social restoration. Perhaps to Jesus, loving sinners was not a compromise of Scripture, but rather the fulcrum on which it all balanced. So while the religious elite were stuck on “sinner,” Jesus was chillin where he always seems to be chillin—with folks on the margins, those who, thanks to religious folks insistent upon using Scripture to create margins in the first place, forgot that they were made in the image of a perfect God who doesn’t make mistakes. We’ve seen what happens to those who stand for radical, biblical inclusion, be it Jesus or the homie Stearns: they get crucified. Often by their own, often by those who have profited from exclusion.

“You want to know what’s really Biblical?” Jesus asks. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. That’s all the Biblical you need to know.” (Luke 22:37-40)

The reality is, it doesn’t really matter what you believe about queer people, whether they’re “sinners” or not. Love them anyway. Join them anyway. Listen to them anyway. Fight for them anyway. Do you believe homosexuality is a sin? Love queer people anyway. Join them anyway. Listen to them anyway. Fight for them anyway. In the end, it doesn’t matter what you believe or feel about queer people. It matters whether you love them as yourself. And love is an action; love still loves often in spite of belief. In fact, that is a very courageous type of love. It might not change the recipient of that love, but it just might change you.

To all of my friends who identify as LGBTQ:
I am so, so sorry. I am sorry for the ways we as the church have hurt you, shamed you, and pushed you away. I am sorry for my continued ignorance, prejudice, and homophobia. I am sorry for my fear. I cannot erase scars or undo the hurt that has been done, but I commit to fighting for and with you. To do such is in line with the Jesus I know, the Jesus who loved all of us: queer, straight, male, female, and everything in between. I don’t blame you if you have run away from a church that has left deep wounds, but I pray that you would not run from the God who looks nothing like his followers, whose love is real and powerful enough to redeem even the most painful of circumstances.

To all of my friends who identify as Christian:
I love you and I lament for us all. Can we admit that we are sinners too? Can we entertain the idea that perhaps the vitriolic rhetoric surrounding the “gay debate” is more political than it is biblical? Are we capable of the revolutionary act of saying “I’m sorry”? Can we stop using words like “homosexual lifestyle” and “gay agenda”? For we too were enemies of God; we do not deserve any place in his Kingdom and yet he has hammered every last one of our sins on Calvary’s cross—we know this. But it is not only your sins or my sins he has nailed on the cross; he has conquered Sin Itself. He has broken down the dividing wall of hostility (Eph 2:14), cursed the fig leaves we have hidden behind in our shame (Mark 11:12), and he is ushering in his Shalom restoration. And yet we continue to build imaginary walls to keep others, just as sinful as we are, out of His embrace. Perhaps the implications of God’s love are too great and terrible for us to bear. This is the Gospel, the Good News of God’s vulgar grace:

It is Jesus who saves us, not we ourselves. He dies for us while we are still sinners, not after we have managed to get our act under control. He is lifted up to draw all unto himself, not just those who are willing to break their appointments with the compromises of their lives. His reconciliation of all things in heaven and earth is a fact, conditional upon nothing but his own free choice – on nothing but his totally one-sided act of dropping dead on the cross… Jesus came to raise the dead. Not to reform the reformable, not to improve the improvable. – Robert Farrar Capon

We, as the Church, have failed. It is we who are in need of greatest repentance. We are no more noble, no more righteous than the folks we continue to call rebellious sinners. We are all rebellious sinners. We are all in need of a Savior who still knows our names despite all the shit we have done in his. This is the Gospel I will give my life for. This is the Good News for which we are all desperate, the story of a God who continues to call us home, the One whose love we are insistent on watering down because it is too disgustingly inclusive for our liking. He is throwing a Party for Younger Brothers and Older Brothers alike (Luke 11:15-32). There will be dancing, 90’s R&B, and a gigantic banquet with pho and an open bar, all paid in full. Everyone is invited. Everyone.

And if you feel your stomach sinking at the sight of sinners on the guest list, then I’m sorry. This might not be the Party for you. But the invitations have already been sent out. The seats have already been assigned. CEOs will sit next to homeless people, conservative Evangelicals will sit next to queer folks, and lions will lay with lambs (Isaiah 11:6). If we’re incapable of loving our enemies now, then how miserable it will be to do it for eternity. Guess what? The party is and has always been for everyone. This is the Kingdom of God. It is the most frightening and beautiful thing we could imagine.

Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Brian Chew

I think a lot of churches think they can stop the Gay movement so instead of dealing with gays, they put up barricades towards that community. If they would change their mindset with the view that they arent going anywhere, then we can start applying the other parts of Scripture to this community like the Beatitudes and verses on love.

But I can see the churches fear also that somehow the churches acceptance of this community means they are condoning their commitments to homosexuality. Homosexuality is a commitment to a lifestyle which is clearly opposed Biblically. How do you witness to this community without exposing this lifestyle as a possibility to their congregations? I think the line needs to be drawn carefully but it will be drawn in a way that will require the church to be on a side.

Can someone truly love the Lord with all your heart mind and soul while rejecting an area that the Lord clearly repels in His Word? In contrast, is it ok that churches who draw this line be called bigots, haters, and unloving therefore promoting the degradation of the Church and its impact on world? I have seen horrible representations from the church in my works with the gay community, but I see it as isolated many a times from radical departures of God’s intended stance. But I have also seen incredible acts of charity and support from the church to directly care for this community.

What worries me is that the media has now caused Christians to start doubting our mission. I believe the reason is this. Media dictates and educates. Isolated cases become newsworthy and are exposed at a higher rate towards the audience especially when it is out of the norm. Media is a conflict of interest. News should not be funded by commercial entities as a for profit institution. When we allow money to be the motivator for newsworthiness, stories that capture the audience longer, and expose higher ad revenues tamper with the stories that are covered. When Oscar Pistorius is the main news while conflicts in Egypt and Ukraine have become less interesting you have to stop and say why is this as women and children are being executed by their governments?

The church has been “advertised” as the enemy to this loving community but is this accurate? The gay lifestyle has no negatives in the media. It is glamorous and light heartedly pleasant and even admired. But the reality is there is a lot of pain in this community. One can say there is pain in every community. There is even pain in the institution of marriage between and man and wife. The end result of a painful marriage has over half of married people divorcing. But let me ask this question, do people get married so that they can get divorce? The answer is no. The intention of marriage is a commitment till death do us part, through think and thin. The gay lifestyle has a “closet” full of issues. You do not need me to list them as everyone is familiar(psychologically, physically, emotionally). So do I want to enter into something that is destructive? Ill throw in marriage between and a man and woman into that equation for those young people out there who take this decision lightly.

If we say yes to the sinner and no to the sin(and lets not pretend it is not one, unless we say the Word of God really isnt His Word), what if this community says no…this is a package deal that is not willing to separate? I am gay and want to allow my lifestyle to be ok and still come to your church. Then someone has to budge in order to cooperate. Should it be the church or should it be this community? I am predicting a court case that will involve gay couples suing a particular denomination for discrimination for not allowing them to attend their church openly.

Yes we are all sinners therefore we are all lumped together in the saving grace of Jesus. But if someone chooses to take that sin as a lifestyle, is that truly repentant which is a requirement for salvation? This is the distinction. Yes we all screw up and sin, but it is the relationship with Christ that His grace and patience allows us to continue working on that sin to desire holiness. This is not what the gay community is about. It is about take me as I am but…..I will not be a new creation.

The gay community’s comparisons to women’s suffrage and civil rights are very much an illusion. The qualifying factor would be this question, are gay people born that way as women are born women or as an African American were born African American? If they are, then this would be a definite qualified and logical comparison. Science says otherwise and psychiatry reinforces this but the studies are only “advertised” IF it qualifies the newsworthy appetites of the “possibility”.

Jesus ate with everyone, but once they left the table with Him, they did not walk out the same person. If a pimp walked into our sanctuary searching for the relationship with his creator would he not walk out with a transformation away from his lifestyle? Or should we allow him to come in and do as he pleases and look for clients within our congregation? What about a pedophile? I know some may be reading this and asking, “is he comparing a pimp and a pedophile to a person of same sex attraction? The insinuation would be that the former are social negatives being compared to a social ….norm? Then I become the hater, the bigot…. But what if I am just mentioning people who promote sex outside of a relationship of commitment…to the opposite sex? Why is homosexuality now looked at in such positive light? If the church draws that line and tells the pimp or pedophile, he is not welcome here, is the church the wolf or the shepherd?

I love my gay friends. I truly do. I would give my life for some of them and that says a lot when I have children that I love also. But I will not lie to them nor pretend to them and they ask the same of me. They tell me they are just trying to be true and so should you. If ultimate truth comes from the Creator, then He makes the rules as Creator. I bow down to Him and do not compromise my loyalty. Even if I disagree, because He loves us that much, He allows His creations to take creator type stances.
- natejlee
  
  Brian, thanks for your thoughtful response. this topic can get tricky, so im very grateful that at no point while reading your response did i feel defensive (because I am apt to do so…). I hope we can keep the conversation going.
  
  I don’t think I’ll be able to respond to all your points but I have a few thoughts. As I mention in the post, I think there are limitations to the conversation simply because we are straight men and we therefore cannot speak outside of what remains abstract for us, which is, I think, somewhat of the barrier for me in these kinds of conversations; I am not satisfied with the theological in absolute terms (where for some people, those are the only terms).
  
  I agree with your thoughts in the first paragraph—LGBTQ folks have been around the whole time; it’s time for us to own that, to stop living in a moralistic dream world, and to find the best ways to love them.
  
  From my perspective, however, there are nuances in language to be acknowledged if we are to even have helpful dialogue. When we say “homosexuality” what do we mean? There is a difference between orientation (who someone is attracted to) and behavior (how someone acts on such attraction), yet we often use one word “homosexuality” for both. Someone’s orientation is not a choice. So if a gay person (orientation), even if he chooses to remain celibate his whole life (behavior), is going to hell simply because he is attracted to other men (orientation), then God is not only cruel; he is flat out evil. I cannot
  believe that orientation is a choice and no one who is LGBTQ has ever told me that their orientation was a choice; I know mine wasn’t. So to suggest that LGBTQ people have made “commitments to homosexuality” is not completely true. If it were, then they could potentially “uncommit” to it, or to become straight
  in other words. LGBTQ people can’t become straight anymore than you or I can become gay, which isn’t possible. Trust me, I’ve tried. (Jk).
  
  Behavior, on the other hand, is the other complex side of things. There are some people who believe that a committed, faithful, same-sex relationship is still within the bounds of biblical relationship. I assume that you don’t believe this, but there are folks who recognize the validity of such relationships. (These are usually called “Side B Christians”). Regardless, if we’re talking about
  behavior (which I assume you are), which people DO have choice over, then I believe different churches will naturally come to different conclusions—that’s fine with me for the most part. But 99% of churches out there have yet to separate the “behavior” conversation from the “orientation” conversation—they’re completely
  different things. Until we can nuance our discourse on the issue, we continue
  in our ignorance.
  
  Likewise, when we say “homosexual lifestyle,” what are we referring to? There is certainly no such thing as a “heterosexual lifestyle” because Nate Lee’s lifestyle and Brian Chew’s lifestyle are different even though we are both heterosexual. There are tons of straight people living sexually promiscuous lives; that does not legitimate a thing called the “heterosexual lifestyle.” So
  a “homosexual lifestyle,” which often conjures up a very particular set of images—parades, nudity, sexual promiscuity, etc—simply doesn’t exist. There are bible believing, churchgoing, Jesus following people who were, by no choice of their
  own, born attracted to people of the same gender as them. I happen to believe that their gayness will not exclude them from heaven any more than my straightness will get me in.
  
  So your question, “can someone truly love the Lord while rejecting an area that the Lord clearly repels?” needs clarification. If someone was born gay, there is no conscious “rejection” in the first place. They were born that way. Whether or not they ACT on their orientation is a different conversation altogether. But it’s just frustrating because there are so many other “areas that the Lord clearly repels,” things like saving up
  your resources (Luke 12:13), divorce (Matt 19), not giving to the poor (Isaiah 58), etc. that never get mentioned. That’s not to trivialize the seriousness of any of those things, only to say that we commune with “rebellious sinners” every Sunday and don’t think twice about it.
  
  I agree with you though that the media continues to obfuscate the issue withtheir sensationalism, which makes it even more important that we engage in thoughtful dialogue that happens outside the media’s scope. It’s our job as Christians to educate ourselves on the issue, to hear people’s stories that don’t get presented in media, and to do our due diligence with thoughtful folks from both sides of the debate.
  
  I don’t expect all churches to become “gay affirming churches.” My post has nothing to do with that really. My views are obvious, but I don’t mind that there will always be churches whose stance is to not allow same-sex relationships or whatever. My post is mostly about churches being able to disagree on the issue and still
  have respect for one another, to lay down their need to be theologically correct and to move their focus on loving people (LGBTQ people and other Christians), which I think we can both agree on.
  
  Lastly, I can’t speak for Jesus, but I don’t know if his mission was to turn sinners into morally upright citizens… the “go and sin no more” argument falls flat with me. I don’t think Jesus ate with sinners to convince them to stop sinning.
  Absolutely some of them changed their lives after their encounters with Jesus—Zaccheus, woman at the well, etc—but they were transformed not because Jesus ministered to them about their sin. They were transformed because of his radical acceptance of them in the face of religious exclusion. The Prodigal Son is welcomed home
  without condition; we would like to think that he became a famous evangelist after his encounter with the Father, but the story ends before we find out what happens. I wonder if his “life transformation” wasn’t as important a point as
  the Father’s love that came without stipulation of who the son would become after the party.
  
  Either way, I appreciate your thoughts Brian and I’m glad we can have (virtual) conversation even if we don’t see eye to eye on every point. I still respect where you’re coming from and I hope that we can continue living out our commitments not to heterosexuality but to Jesus who brings us together. Thanks as always for sharing your thoughts!
  - Brian Chew
    
    Wow time flies doesnt it? Has it really been 2 years since this post and also since we had lunch? Well i often have a to do list and this topic is still in my pile. Maybe we need to get together again soon. Like i said before, im a big fan of your mind and would love to catch up. Let me know
    - Jesse Wagner
      
      Hey Brian and Nate! Thank you so much for this discourse. As a Christ-follower who struggles with same sex attraction, I can’t begin to tell you how encouraged I am by seeing brothers of mine who do not struggle with their orientation hashing out these very real issues that the church is dealing with/struggling to deal with when it comes to homosexuality.
      
      There’s so much I’d like to say (and I’m much more a fan of the face to face – but unless either of you currently live in Taiwan I don’t see that happening anytime soon, hah!) as a way of offering some experiential feedback, and after reading your post, Nate, and your response, Brian, I think I see two areas I want to park on briefly that I hope will encourage us all to keep pursuing this crazy call to speak the truth in love. 🙂 (Eph. 4:15)
      
      The first topic I’d like to weigh in on is on the definition of sin and of love. As a man who has struggled most of my remembered life (don’t actually remember my orientation at birth to age 4, then again I’m also not sure anyone brought the topic up at that point- hehehe) with an attraction to other men, sin and love have played almost parallel roles in my life- and in all our lives for that matter- regardless of sexual orientation or whatever other part of our identity we’ve seen sin take it’s [deadly] toll on us. As we all know, and as Paul has made very clear time and again in his God-breathed letters to the churches, sin’s effect on man has hit us a double blow- both as an erosive force against humanity since the fall, and as a personal attack against our identity [since birth] as men and women created to reflect our Amazing, Perfect, Holy God. Regardless of how we want to define it, and if someday they do in fact unearth the ‘gay gene’ (which from my study, I agree with Brian, does not currently exist in Science and is still refuted by many highly educated medical professionals as queer when it comes to diagnosis of the homosexual orientation.) it doesn’t really matter. The sin issue doesn’t change- for any of us. According to the reality of who God created us to be and who Adam and Even as the Father and Mother of humanity chose to to cash in our perfectly reflective chips for was a losing hand-ACROSS ALL HUMANITY. As cliche as it sounds- we’re all dealing with a much more grave gene- the sin gene. I think we all agree on this point, but I also think it serves as a much better foundation for where we need to find some common ground in this issue of divide between the church and the gay community (and all of us in between :P)
      
      Thankfully, Love has also been at work in humanity since BEFORE the fall. (I don’t believe God would create and set apart a particular part of his creation had he not found a particular love for it.) Even better news for us, after the fall, Love’s pursuit of restoring us back to our original reflection of Perfection didn’t stop- and as we all know and agree, was satisfied at the Cross and restored in the power of the resurrection. The serious issue here- which I think Brian was tapping into a bit in his response to your original post, Nate, is that we have slowly been duped by Satan in recent years to think we somehow hold the right to re-define or adjust the definition of Love so it can fit the desires of our hearts. I believe this is a scary, slippery slope of a very well crafted lie by our friend the Wolf in sheep’s clothing- for the church, but also SO MUCH SO for those on the wide spectrum of homosexuality. Salvation and our eternal identity (either with Christ or apart from him) has been so muddied and vaporized (literally) into almost more of a fanciful, abstract idea than a real reality. I heard someone say recently that heaven and the spiritual realm are actually so much more real than the ‘reality’ we currently find ourselves in. This is hard to grasp, but to get back to the point- the connection here is that we as people have lost focus on the reality of who we are and where we are all headed. It’s quite sobering to look around a subway train and allow yourself to face the reality of where you can almost certainly guarantee half or more of the other riders would be headed should there be an unexpected accident and we all perish. This, just like calling out homosexuality for what it is, isn’t judgement. Rather, I think it’s Love in one of it’s truest forms.
      
      Did Jesus sit with sinners? OF COURSE. But did he condone or overlook their sin? NOT ONCE in scripture do we find that example. He loved completely and did not shirk away from speaking out truth while doing it- and that is what I believe made for such an unavoidable transformation in the hearts of those who experienced this perfect example of doing both at once. Loving without truth is not loving. It’s selfishness. If we claim to love our brothers and want to put such a high priority on this call (which I agree with you Nate, is our second highest calling as followers of Christ) we HAVE to put down our own pride and realize that when we ‘Love’ without truth present, we’re not loving, we’re selfishly steering the lost down a horrific path of confusion and eventual condemnation- having made this counterfeit definition of love nothing more than that- a counterfeit- an idol. As a man who has struggled deeply for YEARS with my sexual orientation- this misunderstood definition of love (which actually extends out further into what even heterosexual oriented persons buy into as what love really is) as left deep woundings and scars of confusion and hurt because of what I have come to believe is the only way to receive and give love (based on how it makes me and the other person feel rather than what is TRUE in the situation- gives some clout to the ideal of ‘tough love’- since loving without letting emotion muddy truth is a mighty task in itself- Exhibit A: the Cross)
      
      Loving with truth and THROUGH the journey of other sinners being transformed by that Love-filled Truth is also Love at it’s truest form- or maybe the word we’ve come to know that carries that meaning more holistically is GRACE.
      
      I said I had two points I wanted to address- so I’ll wrap up with this last thought:
      
      We’ve fallen victim to many of the Enemy’s attacks over the course of humanity- some which have had far reaching, consequential blows to our identity. Regardless of who we are and what we struggle with, I think the reality of our situation is that we need to get back to a place of rediscovering our TRUE identity as men and women. If we claim Christ, our identity needs to be in him- and again, regardless of what the struggle is, until we can all come to that place of laying down EVERY idol that we have constructed or been handed as a means of compensation for the real God-shaped hole we all need filled in us, the church will never function as it was designed to by the Designer. Let’s get back to an Acts 2 type of church; one that Loves in word and deed, and fights hard for Truth and Love to be present in our midst as we gather together, not to focus on what separates us, but what unites us- the Cross, our need for restoration and sanctification in our identity as men and women, and a renewed focus on the reality of where all humanity is headed- the most pressing issue- the destination of our eternal home.
      
      Thanks again brothers for wrestling with this very tough issue. It’s an amazing blessing and encouragement to me to see other brothers stepping up to the front lines to fight along side those of us who have felt too ashamed or cast aside to call out for help from you as we face this battle. Please keep fighting for the Truth to be proclaimed in the only effective way it can be- through Love.
  - Tom
    
    I reckon people use the term “gay lifestyle” mainly because more specific wording like “having gay sex”, which gets to the heart of the Biblical concern, just seems too blunt.
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